I'd soon come to find there were several experiences at the pumpkin patch I didn't want to miss and it wasn't just the apple cider and donuts. I just didn't know I didn't want to miss them until I almost did, ya know?
I know. You're confused. I was too. Bear with me.
Here's the thing. I skipped along behind those two little buggers and Tricia, between those rows of that damned pumpkin patch for like forevah until we finally found suitable pumpkins for them.
Little Sophie's pumpkin coup was the hardest of all. Christ, you'd think we were shopping for friggin’ life support machines rather than a pumpkin. Sophie took choosing one to a whole new level. It had to be round, perfectly so. It had to be reallllly orange. “Cuz that's how punkins should be, Auntie Addison,” she'd reminded me in all of her six-year old wisdom. It had to be reallllly big. Big enough that she could fit three candles in the base so it would be reallllly spooky at night after it was carved. I remember smiling down at the top of her chestnut brown head and saying, “Reallllly?” and making her giggle.
Everything was reallllly something or other with Sophie. That word was synonymous for Sophie with anything needing solemn description or anything seriously cool.
When we'd finally settled on one for each of the kids, they decided I needed one too. I didn't want to tell them it would most likely rot away, sitting on my kitchen counter because I'd forget about it. Not to mention, I turned off all my lights and locked my doors come Halloween night. Trick-or-treaters are a persnickety, snobbish bunch these days. They want the big candy bars and they call you crappy names if you don't cough up the good stuff.
Shit on that. I don't need a bunch of ten year olds in Darth Vader costumes calling me cheap. I have my niece and nephew around to abuse me plenty, thanks.
Fine, I said. Auntie Addison needs a pumpkin like she needs a spiral perm, but sure, let's blow twenty bucks so I can see just how long it really does take a pumpkin to rot. It'll be like a science project.
My sister nudged me hard in the ribs and gave me the “mommy” look. The one that says I was being a mean, cranky, old auntie, spoiling all the fun—who was going to end up all alone in a nursing home someday because she wasn't nicer to her sister's demons.
I rolled my eyes and grudgingly agreed. Auntie Addison did indeed need a pumpkin.
I guess that's where the trouble all began for me.
That fucking pumpkin.
And what was under it.
I should have stuck to my guns and refused to buy one, but I honestly do love the little heathens and I sure would like someone to visit me come my twilight years if my life keeps going on the path it's on. I really am absorbed in my work and I haven't dated in well over three years.
So I picked a pumpkin.
A humdinger of one.
Joel began jumping around like he always does. He's prone to constant motion. It's as if he's had an overdose of his daily gummy worm intake and the sugar was rushing to his skinny, little legs. Thus, creating a River Dance-like effect. He makes me dizzy and my head swirls from his endless chatter.
So I didn't pay attention to all the noise he was making after I'd yanked my pumpkin up.
When I saw him pointing to the soft dirt where the pumpkin had been and realized he wasn't just jumping around for the sake of making us all bonkers, I stooped to check it out.
And there it was. A little statue on a rope imbedded in the dirt. It looked like a totem pole to me.
Joel thought it was uber cool and Sophie thought it was reallllly weird. Imagine that, eh? Very predictable my Sophie is.
So since we found this—this—er, talisman is what I'm told it is—shit's been a little crazy around here.
That brings me to why I'm writing this letter. I mean, in case I don't come back, I'm going to assume that eventually my sister will come looking for me. Damn, I hope she doesn't bring the nose pickers here to my house before you can contact her. They might get upset if Auntie Addison is dead.
I really do love them. In fact, part of the reason I'm doing this is because I love them. Well, it's not the only reason, if I'm honest. I kinda like the guy that started this whole talisman thing. No, I mean I really like him and if I don't help him, he might not come back either. I think the world won't much miss me if I end up dead trying to help him. My sister has her family and husband to keep her busy. They all have each other.
Me? I don't have much that needs me here.
But if I'm left behind after this mess is over, I'd sure miss Caleb if he ended up six-feet under. He's the guy I mentioned. Anyway, I've grown attached to him. Like seriously attached. So I hope you'll understand why I had to go with him. He fulfills something in me I didn't know was missing. I like the way he calls me Addy. He makes me smile. He makes me nuts. He makes me wish I'd spent less time at work. He made me realize there's a whole lot going on out there that I didn't know about. He made me value the here and now.
And so what if Caleb isn't your typical idea of a knight in shining armor? He's mine. At least I think I want to find out if he can be anyway.
I'm leaving this note in the event of my death and I've followed it up with a message on your service that you won't get until November first.
I was of sound body and reallllly close to sound mind when I wrote this. Please tell Tricia there's a more detailed account of the events since that day at the pumpkin patch in my top right-hand dresser drawer. Oh, and tell her I love her and I'm sorry I didn't go pumpkin picking without bitching about it for all these years.
As for you, Nathan, my legal-eagle, well, you'll know what to do after you read this.
Addison Ross
[Back to Table of Contents]
Chapter One
"I said quit being a mensch. I know you have lots of cool powers, but you'd better stop showing them off all the time.” Addison pointed to the beer that floated mid-air across her living room. “Just because I'm a mere human doesn't mean I don't know when someone is showing his ass, Caleb Marsden. Oh, and could you do the disappear, reappear thing outside? I don't know what that smell is when you do it, but it's got to be the leak of ozone.” Addison sauntered over to the spot on her couch that Caleb had grown so fond of in the past two and a half weeks and crossed her arms over her chest.
"I gotta give you credit, Addy. You took it like a real trooper.” He smiled, reaching up to link his forefinger with hers, catching the beer with his other hand. Over the course of the past couple of weeks his little gestures—like linking his finger with hers—had begun to create a total sum of heart-crashing emotions Addy didn't want to address. Their time was limited, after all.
"Yeah?” She cocked an eyebrow at him and winked, hopefully hiding the fact that her heart had lodged in the middle of her throat. “And don't you let anyone tell you that people who cry in disbelief and carry on upon meeting a werewolf—who's also a warlock I might add—shouldn't be locked up for behaving so unreasonably. The instability of some folks simply astounds me."
His chuckle was deep, resonant, and as rich as German chocolate cake. It sent little tremors of awareness up her arms. “Well, you didn't cry, but you didn't exactly believe me either."
"Oh, color me remorseful for thinking you were an asylum escapee without his pharmaceuticals. How in theee hell did I end up with you just because I did something as mundane as go pumpkin picking?” she teased with a smile.
How in the hell had she lived without him until now was more along the lines of what she was thinking, but wouldn't dream of saying. At first she'd thought it was simply loneliness for someone of the opposite sex that had left her smiling and longing for his sudden appearances each day. Or maybe it was that the circumstances surrounding Caleb's arrival were so dire, they'd made her emotions go into hyper-sensitive mode. Yet, a week after he showed up, she'd dismissed those reasons as justification for her attachment to him. They just clicked. That was all there was to it. She liked him. He made her laugh. She wanted more time to explore their relationship.
Naturally, only Addi
son could click with a guy who wasn't just a werewolf/warlock, but had a potential death sentence hanging over his head like a neon sign on a Piscataway diner. Time wasn't exactly on their side.
"Don't go blaming me, miss. If you hadn't dug the talisman up I'd still be a non-entity to you. You only made it worse by rubbing it. If you'd just left it in the ground...” He grinned, making the deep grooves on either side of his lean, rugged face deepen.
That much was true. She'd thought the little statue she'd found while pumpkin picking was unique. It looked like a little man carved out of wood. So she'd cleaned it up and set it on her kitchen counter, right alongside the pumpkin that was, as she'd promised her niece and nephew, definitely rotting. That's when all hell had broken loose and Caleb Marsden had shown up at her door with his crazy story about being half werewolf, half warlock and needing the talisman for the thirty-first of October. Halloween to be precise.
Apparently, when she'd yanked it from consecrated ground it had sent out vibes to the other world—or some such crazy nonsense—calling on Caleb. Because the talisman was his responsibility—or the bane of his existence as he'd called it—it had “contacted” him and he knew exactly where to go looking.
Addison's house.
Ding-dong, werewolf-slash-warlock who's under a death sentence, calling.
The talisman was also connected to a pretty scary demon. Said demon and Caleb were longtime nemeses, though they hadn't had reason to meet in a long time. Addison gave them that reason by digging up the talisman. If she'd left well enough alone, the threat the talisman potentially posed might still be in effect, but all would remain status quo. In light of her disturbing it, well, she'd apparently stirred shit up—overachiever that she was.
According to Caleb this demon would stop at nothing to get the talisman. But Caleb couldn't let him have it, or the world, as everyone knew it would suffer some serious mojo. Plainly speaking, digging the talisman up allowed this demon to walk on Earth for twenty-four hours on October thirty-first. Meaning, if he could get his hands on it when he turned up on Halloween, he could find unsuspecting victims and make a whole bunch of other demons while he was here on his earthly vacay.
Again, yay for her overachievements.
So Caleb was here to keep the very scary dude from getting his demonic hands on the talisman. In essence, he'd shown up looking for it at Addison's because her aura was tied to it. Or something like that.
She'd been skeptical.
For a time.
But after a very long week spent showing her he really was a werewolf/warlock, coupled with her utter terror after Caleb had shown her his disappearing, reappearing act, made inanimate objects float, and did what he called shift into a big, albeit nice looking four-legged beast, Addison was a believer. You just couldn't deny something like that when a man made a six-pack of beer soar out of your refrigerator, while sporting dog fur and canines.
"The important thing is I believe you now and I'm willing to help.” And she was. Willing to help him.
"And I told you no, Addison,” he snarled between clenched teeth, running a hand through his wavy, black, collar-length hair. His mood could change from one extreme to the next in the blink of an eye, and it might have frightened her if it wasn't so crazy sexy. It made her heart skip around in her chest and she had to hide a smile. She wasn't afraid of him when he became so adamant about leaving her out of this stand-off. She kinda dug that he was so into looking out for her. “I don't need your help to protect the talisman from getting into Volac's hands. I'm here to protect you until October thirty-first."
Right. Volac. He was the bad guy and All Hallows Eve was when the big showdown would be. It had something to do with portals and evil caa-razy shit Addison didn't completely understand. If she hadn't dug up the thing in the pumpkin patch, none of this would have ever happened.
Yet, she couldn't be sorry she had. She'd met Caleb because of it.
With a roll of her eyes, Addison planted her hands on her hips and snorted down at him. “Yeah, yeah. I know. This ghoul can lurk somewhere, watching me for two and a half weeks now but I have no recourse. Not exactly my idea of justice served, magic man. He needs a good talking to and I'm just the girl to do it."
His mood broke again and the thunder cloud that had passed over his face was replaced by another cocky smile. “You know, you could have ended up with a talisman keeper who was a lot less cool to hang out with than I am."
What a pity that would have been, eh? “There are more of you? Talisman keepers? Jesus Christ. What other evils lurk out there that I'm not aware of? I really need to read the paper more often."
Pulling her down to sit beside him on the couch, he ran a finger over her bottom lip. “Oh, you would not believe the shit that runs rampant in dimensions you'll never even know exist while you sleep tucked safely in your bed at night. Look, all we have to do is keep him from getting the talisman, get to the pumpkin patch when the portal opens and feed it to the portal. Oh, and keep you away from him. Er, him away from you. If he finds you, he'll take possession of you. You won't know what hit you. I can't let that happen. You're not leaving my side until then."
Addison turned her brown eyes on him with a narrowed gaze, pushing her shoulder length, dark hair out of her face. “So what you're saying is, I can be persuaded to do almost anything? Silly, silly man. No one can make me do what I don't want to do,” she said again for the gazillionth time since they'd met and he'd convinced her this was real.
"Addy, do you have any clue who we're dealing with here?"
"A really, bad, bad dude. I know. And again, I say, no one can make me do something I don't want to do."
Now Caleb rolled his eyes. “Addison, you have no idea the persuasive powers this demon possesses and you won't even know it's him anyway. He's not going to say, ‘Hey, how's it goin'? Seen any talismans lately?’ So could you just trust me when I tell you Volac's going to come looking? If I keep you and that damned talisman with me, and we get to the portal he opens in time, nothing bad can happen."
Poking a finger in his hard chest, she clucked her tongue. “Who the hell hides a talisman in a pumpkin patch anyway?"
"When I hid it there, smart ass, it was a church. You know, holy ground?"
Addison wrinkled her brow. A church, huh? She couldn't remember a church ever being where the pumpkin patch was.
"Yeah, a church. I hid it centuries ago. I've been around a loooong time."
"Been doin’ this talisman babysitting a long time too?"
"For what seems like forever,” he acknowledged with a grimace.
"Sucks, huh?"
"Big, fat wankers."
"Can't you give it to someone else? Take a break or something?"
"No, Addison. It doesn't work that way. Here's how it goes. In the wrong hands the talisman can become a conduit for evil. What Volac wants is for everyone to be just like him. If he gets the talisman on Halloween, it opens an even more powerful portal to evil. I hid the damned thing. You found it. Here we are. Bada-boom, baby."
"How did you get it anyway? What makes you so special you're a talisman watcher?"
"Keeper."
"Whatever. There's a story I assume?"
"I dug it up, just like you."
"Great minds and all. So if you dug it up and I dug it up, why is it that I might end up possessed and you didn't?"
"In a nutshell, I almost did, but I was saved by another werelock. He bit me to save me from possession, told me I had to hide the talisman and taught me how to use my cool new super powers.” He grinned again.
"That means you were once human too?"
"You shoulda been a brain surgeon. Your talents are wasted as a stockbroker."
Addison made a face and stuck her tongue out at him. “You were human? Do tell."
"I was. Back in the eighteen-hundreds."
"Wow. You're old."
"Indeed."
"So where does the death thing come in again? Yeah, I know. This Mr. Volac can suck m
y soul out of me, but you're immortal."
"Not if he gets that talisman. If he does, I'll revert back to my former status. A human. A human from the eighteen-hundreds is what might create the problem for me,” he said somberly.
It dawned on Addison then that he'd be hundreds of years old. It wouldn't just be arthritis plaguing him if Volac got the talisman. “Well, shit. Why the hell didn't you just dig it up, call up this Volac and throw the talisman back into the portal? God knows you had plenty of Halloweens to do it since the eighteen-hundreds."
"Because I was no longer human. A human has to dig it up."
"Does it matter who throws it into the portal? Does it have to be you?"
"As long as it isn't Volac, I think we're good."
"Think?"
"I've spent what seems like forever trying to figure out the history of this thing, but to no avail. I only have some loose generalizations to go on and very little fact.
There were a million variables to this scenario that she couldn't let herself dwell on. Who friggin’ knew shit like this really existed? “Who made up this damned game anyway?"
With a shake of his head, Caleb squeezed her arm. “If I had the answer to that, none of this would be happening. I only know what the man who saved me told me and I really didn't think fucking around to test the waters was a good idea."
Laying her head back on the support of his arm, Addison closed her eyes, finally asking the question that had haunted her since they'd met. “Do you have to leave after we do the ceremonial talisman toss? Is that like some otherworld rule?"
Resting his head on the top of hers he said, “I dunno. I've never had to defend it. I do know I don't want to leave..."
"Me,” she finished. “That's because you liiiike me,” she said smugly, sinking into his arms and slipping down his hard body to rest her head on his chest. There had been many almost moments since they'd met. Moments where she thought he might make some sort of move to let her know he was interested, but he'd always seemed rather hesitant. Now that the time was drawing near, Addison wanted to savor him. So she buried her nose in the warmth of his sweater, inhaling the odd, but pleasant scent of him.
Werecats and Werelocks (Collection) Page 10
