A Witch Among Warlocks: The Complete Series Box Set

by Lidiya Foxglove

  He finally eased off. “You are not ready for what I have to say,” he said.

  “If I’m not ready, I’ll just ignore the advice,” I said. “But if you won’t tell me what it is, how can I become ready for it?”

  He chuckled. “None of it will surprise you. Your body knows what it needs to become stronger. It’s really so simple. Vampires are not complicated like warlocks. They are like animals who can survive on their own in the wild as soon as their eyes open. You simply have not opened your eyes yet, but the time will come. Sometimes, it does not come until you see the ones you love begin to fail.”

  “I need blood…,” I said. “That’s all you’re saying.”

  “You need blood right from the vein, boy. You must be well nourished to fight.”

  “So that girl…”

  “She is one of my thralls,” Ulf said. “She takes great pleasure in giving herself to me. When she has recovered from today, she will be back. Sometimes, sooner.”

  “She’s addicted to it?” I didn’t like this.

  “As you get older, you learn control. You will not hurt anyone. Their blood is power for you, and your venom is a drug to them.”

  “I can’t imagine this is a life anyone would choose,” I said. “Getting addicted to any drug can be pretty great, I’ve heard, for a little while, and then…”

  “Not ready,” Ulf said. “I told you. Eventually, you will stop concerning yourself over it. You see the humans suffer and die, and all you think is, how nice it is to take what you need and bring them a little happiness. Or maybe you don’t even care about that very much. I can’t say I think about it anymore, but we are comfortable in our routines.”

  “So you never fall in love with them?”

  “I don’t,” Ulf said. “I choose my partners among vampire society, or I did once. These days I don’t even think about such things. But everyone is different. Your sire, yes, he is my opposite in so many ways. He lives for his thrall. So, maybe…you are more like him. But the one thing Rayner and I have in common is that we take what we need, and that is the end of it. If you want to be strong, you will take what you need.”

  “Taking blood from a living person is very…intimate,” I said.

  “Oh, yes. Your thrall will crave you, and likewise.”

  “My clan drank Harris’ blood and I don’t think he craved them.”

  “He is very cold, or he lied, this Harris,” Ulf said.

  I snorted. “Either is possible.”

  “If you don’t fuck your thralls you are not really living.”

  So, drink Charlotte’s blood, or…betray her love?

  Of course, Alec and I aren’t so different, I thought. He needs her, too. I could drink Alec’s blood, but…

  I knew that would mess everything up just as badly. Alec was a demon, he couldn’t really be my thrall, and if we started to want to have sex with each other, that would just be very awkward on multiple levels.

  Charlotte was the one I wanted, the way Rayner had Lisbeth. She was the girl I wanted to taste…and fuck. Nobody else. Rayner lives for his thrall.

  I never wanted a thrall. I wanted a wife. Kids. A home. Normal stuff.

  “You’re right,” I said. “I’m not ready to hear it.”

  “I know,” Ulf said. “It takes time. That’s all. Time and pain. But what a relief it is, when you finally let go of your human life. My doors are always open for any vampire who needs a place to get on their feet.”

  I struggled not to choke on the sickening feeling of ever losing my human life, mingled with the sense that a part of me wanted it.

  It could have been good, maybe. But only if I didn’t lose Charlotte. And Charlotte would lose Firian. So it could never be and I was just going to have to pretend I was still normal for as long as I could.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Charlotte

  “I guess that’s everything,” I said, paying for some clearance socks with llamas on them while Daisy had a bag-full.

  “I do wonder if maybe I should get something to wear,” Professor McGuinness said. “Since Samuel was always so fashionable.”

  “Yeah, definitely,” Daisy said. “I mean, now that mention it you look like you dress out of a haunted mansion.”

  “I’m a necromancer,” he said.

  “Does that mean if I become a necromancer I have to dress like a funeral director too?” I asked. “I mean, talking to spirits is a totally different job. I think you could use some color. You’d look younger.”

  “And a haircut!” Daisy said. “This is all just kind of shaggy.” She waved her hand around his face. “I think you have a good face for hats.” She grabbed a wool tweed cap and tip-toed to put it on his head. “See? This Professor of Necromancy just got Necro-fancy.”

  Professor McGuinness looked confused. “I just never think about these things.”

  “We need to Queer Eye for the Straight Guy him!” I said. “Or—Straight Eye for the Queer Guy…?”

  “You are speaking my language, girl,” Daisy said. “Queer Eye is my soul mate.”

  “Have you seen the Netflix one?”

  “Netflix one?” she screamed. “No!”

  “It’s really good,” I said. “It has new guys.”

  “New guys! That feels like a betrayal.”

  “Nah, the originals just have their own lives now. You’ll like this. The new guys are as good as the old guys.”

  “But where’s my Carson?”

  “You haven’t met Jonathan yet.”

  “Okay, I’m listening.”

  “I do think we’d better make it quick, though,” Professor McGuinness interrupted. “I think we can all hear about Jonathan later. Just try to find me something that when Samuel sees me he says, ‘You’re looking well.’”

  We ended up being at the mall until it closed. We got Professor McGuinness as ready for his date with the dead to the best of our cumulative abilities.

  Daisy seemed like she was in heaven and would have to be dragged out. “If my grandmother was here there would be so much drama,” she said to me at one point as I was looking at a clearance rack. “She’s a beast to salespeople and nothing is ever right. I love how you’re just like, ‘I like these jeans!’”

  “You secretly think I’m a simpleton, don’t you?”

  She did that ‘hmm hmm hmm!’ laugh.

  Haircut, shave, a little makeup for the dark circles under his eyes plus a tiny bit of guyliner under protest, upscale leather jacket, black shirt with blue fleur-de-lys pattern, shoes that didn’t look like they had been to a shoe repair place three times already, and Professor McGuinness…

  “You’re kind of hot,” Daisy said.

  “Oh, really,” he said skeptically, rolling his eyes.

  “No, she’s right. I bet Samuel will be impressed,” I said. We must have shaved twenty years off of dour old Professor McGuinness somehow.

  “I haven’t seen him in years. I’m not trying to impress him, anyway, he is dead.”

  “This is super depressing,” Daisy said. “We just made him look beautiful for a love that can never be.”

  He turned red. “It’s not love. It’s just that I want to look on par with Samuel; I’m sure he’ll be a very handsome ghost. Let’s get going.”

  Professor McGuinness had a car, that it seemed like he barely knew how to drive, but after being passed by every angry driver in Savannah, he found a parking space from which we could enter the parallel. I saw the air shimmer as we approached and waited for the right moment, trading electric lights and traffic for candlelight and carriages.

  “Adams has a little house where I’m staying,” he said. “He’s out tonight.” He said this in a tone where I knew Adams was out with a lady, maybe his demon lady, unless he was really getting busy after leaving the confines of Merlin. “Just here…”

  When we reached the house, Montague was sitting on the steps. “What the hell? I’ve been here for two hours.”

  “The door is open—oh—”
Professor McGuinness’ eyes widened. “I forgot the vampire problem.”

  “Professor,” Montague said, standing up to get a better look. “I have to admit, you look fantastic. So that’s what you were doing.”

  “And we did all this without even having basic access to a Nordstroms or a Bloomingdales,” Daisy bragged.

  “Terribly sorry to leave you out in the cold,” Professor McGuinness said.

  “Well, at least I don’t really get cold either,” Montague said. “But I wouldn’t say no to a crackling fire and a cup of tea.”

  “Did you get your mom’s birthday present?” I asked him. He still had this distant, troubled look.

  “Yes. Earrings.”

  “Ooh, can I see?”

  “I had them shipped from the store.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “Is that a thing?”

  “Yes,” he said. “It is a thing.”

  McGuinness got a nice fire burning in the old parlor and made tea for everyone, and then it really was time to get to summoning. I think he was more nervous than I was, but I was still nervous. Samuel told me not to summon him, so I didn’t expect him to be pleased with me. But I do have a reason, I thought, clutching my wand.

  “I’ll let you begin,” Professor McGuinness said. “More practice certainly won’t harm you. You can use the fire.”

  “All right.” I looked into the flames, although this reminded me uncomfortably of summoning Alec’s pissy mom. I lifted my wand and shut my eyes, finding my concentration. It had been such a crazy week, and that made it harder to center myself, but I was getting better at the tricks. Breathe in and out…feel the magic flowing through the wand… Montague was watching me carefully, making me feel self-conscious, although he also seemed to relax by the fire. I wondered why he was lying to me, but the trouble with Montague is that a part of him was always far away from me.

  I felt kind of blocked up. I was the tiniest bit afraid to summon Samuel, maybe. I don’t know why. I guess there was a lot of hype surrounding him, and then I feared he might be mad at me.

  I also didn’t want to give my wand to Professor McGuinness. I knew I had to keep it safe, but it was mine. My wyrd wand. It was what led me here and made me special.

  I could hear Harris sneering, Is that the real reason? You’re afraid of losing your Chosen One status, eh?

  The fire started roaring high enough that Professor McGuinness had to intervene with a bit of hand waving.

  “Charlotte…?” he said. “What is troubling you?”

  I bit my lip. “Fares wyrd as she must,” I murmured. Fate didn’t leave room for a big ego. Classic fantasy novel stuff, again—power corrupts. Rings, thrones, the ‘Fortune’s Wheel’ spell in Fortune’s Fate that dealt death to your enemies but also slowly sapped your vitality stats… “I’m good,” I said. The fire calmed down.

  A moment later, a smoky form drifted out of the fire and we all took a step back as it coalesced into the slightly translucent form of Samuel Caruthers.

  Even though I had summoned the dead before, this did feel different. I had already heard Samuel’s voice in my mind, and our wands came from the same tree. Samuel was my blood. But unlike my poor mom, he wasn’t here to try and drag me into the abyss.

  He looked debonair and vaguely disappointed. “I knew you’d do it,” he said. “But I tried to tell you not to. Please, Charlotte, I am trying not to get attached. I don’t want to be a ghost.”

  “Um…sorry,” I said. “We won’t get attached. I promise. I just have a question.”

  But I had so many questions. So many!

  Samuel Caruthers looked a lot like my mom. They could have been siblings. I didn’t realize how much they looked alike from the few photos I’d seen of him. I wanted to ask him about his life, about my mom and Ina. I wanted to ask him what the heck I was supposed to do about the faeries and the Withered Lord and his friggin’ mom.

  “What is the question?” he asked.

  “Wait—uh…” Professor McGuinness stepped up now. Samuel seemed like he had just noticed him. Maybe our world was sort of translucent to him too.

  “Igor? Is that you?”

  Igor? I mean, why not.

  “Yes, it’s me. It’s been a long time.”

  “I hardly recognized you! What happened to the all-black? Are you wearing a hat?”

  “Well, the young ladies told me my look was a little musty.”

  You know what else is musty? Calling us ‘Young ladies’.

  But I behaved myself. Samuel looked happy to see an old friend.

  “I know I’ve always been a pretty…provincial warlock, compared to you, roaming the world…magazine covers… Well, what am I saying? I am very happy for you, Samuel. I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed our time together at Merlin. I never really—told you. I think when you invited me to that picnic, and then down by the creek, you were trying to signal something and I knew it even at the time but I was just too nervous to reciprocate.”

  “I knew you were,” Samuel said. “I was pretty disappointed anyway, but in hindsight, you wouldn’t have gotten the teaching job if…”

  “And damn all that,” Professor McGuinness said. “I could have been there when…maybe I could have…”

  “Picnic? Creek? Y’all were serious!” I said.

  Samuel looked grim. “I’m glad you weren’t there, Ig. It was—not a pretty scene. Why should you die with me?”

  “I think I was just a coward,” Professor McGuinness said. “The rest of you were trying to improve the world and I just wanted a cushy job.”

  “Fame and fortune never suited you,” Samuel said.

  “Well, the fortune part, I wouldn’t mind, but the fame? You’re right.”

  “We had different paths,” Samuel said. “At some point I realized I had to accept that…”

  “I am in the fight now,” Professor McGuinness said. “I promise you, Samuel, I will protect these children.”

  Samuel reached a hand out to Professor McGuinness and their fingers brushed, but Samuel seemed to be made of air.

  Well, this was getting sad. They both seemed like they regretted some decisions and would have liked to talk more and my brain was like, Oh shit, you’re not supposed to form attachments to the dead. I can’t let Samuel become a sad ghost.

  “So…you were killed by the Withered Lord?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “The Withered Lord came in the night to assassinate me. He has a bone to pick with our family, Charlotte, ever since your grandmother freed her wolves. He brought them up from childhood, but not kindly. She gave him her magic to rescue them, but he still felt like he had lost the fight, and he doesn’t lose many fights.”

  Shoot. I was really hoping there would be a twist and it wouldn’t be the Withered Lord. Not a pretty scene? He doesn’t lose many fights?

  “But he is lashing out because he knows he’s losing,” Samuel said. “That’s the good news.”

  “Cool,” I said. “So…you really think…we have a chance?”

  “Oh, yes,” Samuel said. “It must be done. It’s our best chance to earn entry to Wyrd, and that would change the magical community as we’ve known it for thousands of years, breaking the old guard and giving us—or…you—more opportunities.”

  “But we might die though?” Daisy said.

  “Well, anything worth doing can kill you,” Samuel said.

  “Do you think we’ve trained enough?” I asked.

  “You will always feel like you haven’t trained enough,” Samuel said. “But the core of magic is your will and your heart, not your age. Fares wyrd as she must, Charlotte. Everything has fallen together, not as we anticipated, but it never does. You know what you must do.”

  “But we might die, though.” I glanced at Daisy. “And my dad…”

  “Well, I can’t force you to do it,” Samuel said. “But I gave you my magic. You are the one I chose. Ina and I never had children. You are the only Caruthers, and we’re a tough lot. You can make us
all proud, and you can save Emily from that dark place. I have faith in you.”

  Do you even really know me?

  I guess I thought he would be like, You’re going to go kill the withered Lord? No way! That’s too dangerous. You need fifty years of training first!

  “Samuel?” I swallowed down my nerves. “I need to give my wand to Professor McGuinness for safekeeping. I can trust him to keep it safe, can’t I?”

  “Yes.”

  As I handed my wand to Professor McGuinness, Samuel smiled. “And you’ve passed another faery test. That wand gives you power, and surrendering that power to someone else isn’t easy to do. The faery queen will look upon this favorably. But don’t summon me again.” He bowed to me. “I will be close, but unseen. Fare well, Charlotte. Igor…”

  He drifted away, melding back into smoke, and now the fire crackled like a normal fire again. Professor McGuinness quickly rubbed his eyes. “Well…he seems at peace.”

  “He seems like he’s making the best of a sucky situation,” Daisy said. “But he shouldn’t. Like, he’s dead and that demon killed him like it was just a fun night out. I can’t wait to have his head. I mean, the demon. And if we also get to change the world?” She squeezed my shoulder. “Girl, don’t be scared, we’ve got a whole team assembling. And you’ve gotta help Alec, right?”

  “Definitely. You’re right. No one said being the Chosen One would be easy.”

  “If we can make Professor McGuinness look like a million bucks with an outfit from Stein Mart, we can do anything.”

  “Yeah, that checks out.”

  Professor McGuinness looked at the fire sadly. “I swear I will keep your wand safe and sound, Charlotte, until the time comes. I just hope you’re all right at Merlin…”