Bad Impression : A Sadie Salt Novel (Sadie Salt Series Book 2)

by Ware Wilkins

  Abe, Benji, and Ingrid all cry out some version of “What in the hell” at this comment, but I can’t talk to them. I’m still frantically trying to solve the current situation.

  She cracks her knuckles. “Once in my life, I could have. Well, it is your lucky night, Sadie. Give me the bag back.”

  I hand it to her and she briefly scrounges in it, pulling out a long, sharp tooth. I recognize it as a vampire tooth. Benji hisses, but Ms. Nickles has absorbed it faster than I can even exhale in wonder. She shoves the bag back into my hands. “Sadie, know this. If you don’t help my sister, if you don’t figure out how to stop the wraiths, I will come back and tear you apart.” She says it calmly, with a slight southern lilt like she’s teasing, but I have no doubt she’s serious.

  “You don’t have to do this,” I whisper. As soon as she absorbed a bone as powerful as a vamp’s, I knew exactly what she planned to do. I’m certain I can’t stop her. More than that, I know what she’s giving me. A chance to get out of this with all my remaining skin intact.

  Apparently she thinks I’ll need every remaining, unmarked inch of flesh.

  A soft red glow forms around Ms. Nickles. It licks and plays like fire, flirting and enticing. You couldn’t pay me to touch it. Her back straightens and her hands flex out, fingers waving and stretching as she preps her spells.

  “Thank you.”

  “Whatever,” she spits, before launching herself over the railing. Ingrid screams, but Benji whooshes past me, his hands gripping the wooden railing so tightly the splintering of it echoes through the night.

  The only other noise is the soft thump as a glowing Ms. Nickles touches the ground. “Come on, fools,” she calls out to the night. “Come and play.”

  Abe pushes past me and I follow suit. Ingrid hovers in the door and when I glance over my shoulder, I can see she’s torn between the safety of the house and the desire to see the action. “Stay there,” I command. Her father said I need to protect her, so damn it, I’m going to, even if I’m watching my last connection to my past battle it out with hunters.

  Abe’s body is hot against mine as I press against the railing. All three of us are staring at the scarlet outline of a little old lady turned demonic-looking witch. We wait, her magic sizzling in the air with such pungent power my skin tightens and my nose wrinkles.

  My purple pendant is flashing now, a tiny beacon in the night. When they come, I gasp. There are just too many. Swarms of bodies dressed in dark colors come rushing from the trees, some seeming to appear in the air from nowhere. All of them look the same; weapons glinting under the parking lot’s lights, eyes dead set on Ms. Nickles. When the first few reach her, they’re there…

  And then they aren’t. Their ignition and subsequent demolition is over so quickly that I only know it happened because there are spots in my vision, caused by the searing light of their death.

  “Jesus Christ,” Abe says beside me. “My wolf wouldn’t do a damned thing against that many.”

  “Even I’d be hard pressed,” Benji admits.

  Though the numbers are stunning and frightening, the magic that’s cracking inside me delights in the challenge. The bone magic whispers its awful, addictive call, saying we could take them. We could kill them all. And think of the bones left behind!

  Shuddering, I choke down bile and watch the fight. Ms. Nickles has channeled her magic into a whip that she’s circling around her. Its eviscerating torsos and severing limbs, creating a blood-slickened chaos all the way around her.

  It seems, unbelievably, that she’s going to triumph. Not one hunter has laid so much as a hand on her. The hands that got close enough went up in flames, their weapons clattering to the pavement in smoldering chunks.

  “No, you don’t,” Abe says. When I look, I see he has Benji locked in his arms. Now, if they were human, I have no doubt that Abe would be able to hold Benji with ease. As it is, he’s struggling hard. “She won’t know who’s a hunter and who’s a friend.”

  “I’m not her friend,” Benji snarls, twisting in the giant arms wrapped tight around him. “But look.”

  We do, though it takes a second for me to see it. There are four hunters tucked into the dark of the woods. While their comrades fight, fall, and die around Ms. Nickles, they’re fumbling with some kind of silver looking bow. The arrow they use is enormous. Two people hold the bow horizontally, while it takes the strength of the remaining two to nock and pull back the enormous sheath.

  It wouldn’t have mattered, I don’t think, if Benji had made it down there. With a triumphant yell, they release the arrow. It’s flight is furiously quick, but elegant in its intention. It strikes true, piercing through the red haze, impaling Ms. Nickles.

  She stumbles to her knees.

  The hunters slow their rush, waiting for the arrow to do its job. But I catch the small smile on Ms. Nickles’s lips. The cyrillic symbols bleed out onto her skin, covering her gnarled hands and wrinkled face. Her lips are moving, muttering the final words of some spell and I feel an intense rush of self-preservation that moves me to say, “We need to run now.”

  Thank goodness no one questions me. Abe releases Benji, who easily moves to scoop up Ingrid before our eyes can track him. I grab the bag Ms. Nickles gave me and Respect. Abe and I take off down the stairs after Benji and Ingrid’s blurred figures.

  My instincts take over and I find the spell I want without thinking. Those foreign words tumble from my mouth as we run, the ecstatic release of magic flowing through me. I hope we’re sticking with the original plan, headed toward Benji’s car, because as I find the final word, I release the spell and the four of us disappear.

  I hear Benji’s curse and Abe’s howl of confusion, so I yell, “Car!” My legs are short and I’m not as fit as the two supernatural men on my best day, so I see Benji’s car doors open, like they’re magic, one, two, three, and then they all slam shut. I grab the handle nearest to me, yank the door open, and am telling Benji to “go, go, go, go” even as I spill into the back seat. The tires squeal as rubber peels and we tear out.

  I’m sure if anyone saw us, they’d have a heart attack, because it appears that Benji’s ultra posh car is driving itself. Inside, the raspy sounds of us catching our breath and the hot, humid stink of our sweat and fear keep us grounded in reality.

  “Where are we going?” I huff, cradling the bag that Ms. Nickles gave to me.

  The car takes a curve fast and I tumble into Abe’s body, knowing it by feel and smell. His strong hands grip my shoulders and not-too-gently push me off. “We’re going to Oliver’s,” Benji says. “Your old neighbor toasted most of those hunters, but if they’re following us, he’s strong enough to help.”

  “Sadie,” Ingrid’s voice rings out. It is high and strained. “Would you please make us visible again? And then kindly explain what in the hell just happened to our cranky old neighbor?”

  Heat rushes to my cheeks. The invisibility provided a small sense of protection, like “if my friends can’t see me then they can’t be mad at me.” The escalating fight about Benji and Abe had been bad enough. This is going to be one mother of a fight.

  Murmuring the words, we all slowly shift back into visibility. “Is everyone okay?” I ask.

  No one answers, but Abe and Ingrid are staring at me. Benji’s eyes keep darting to the rearview, assessing me as well.

  Abe has pushed himself against the door, his enormous body looking crowded in the back seat of Benji’s fast, sporty car. “What just happened? Start from the pendant and you better end with explaining how you just cast that spell.”

  My hands twist on the handle of Respect, seeking solace in a bat made for violence. “Well, Dr. Winston used to be a hunter. He pulled me into his office to tell me that, and to tell me he is certain other hunters are in the area, which we obviously know is true. He gave me this pendant. It’s technically a hunter’s tool, to help them know when others like them are nearby.”

  My mind tosses and tumbles, trying to decide how to explai
n Ms. Nickles. “When everything happened with David, and unleashing my magic, all of you know I struggled hard with the addiction after.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Abe said, his frown softening just a smidge.

  “Well, you were dealing with your own stuff. While you were learning to be a werewolf, I was basically detoxing from bone magic.”

  “Your magic saved our lives, Sadie.”

  I nod, feeling a bit of hope. If he understands this, then maybe my using again won’t feel like such a horrible offense. “Yes. But it also costs me a bit of life, too. Which I understood better when Ms. Nickles explained it to me.”

  Benji draws a breath that whistles through his gritted teeth. “Your neighbor was a bone witch.” It’s a statement and a question and it is fully loaded. No answer I give will be the right one for him, but I feel a reactive need to explain it away.

  “Yes, but she’s not bad. She was sent to watch me, but she could have turned me into the coven at any time. Instead she came to me and gave me books and answers to questions that no one else could answer.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that she was manipulating you for her own means?”

  My eyes narrow. “Of course, Benji. I’m not stupid.”

  “That, Sadie, remains to be seen,” Ingrid says, and this, more than Abe and Benji, is like a slap to the face. She’s looking at me with these wide, hurt eyes, and something inside of me withers.

  “I had to know. She knew of my mother. She knows where the bone magic comes from. And she knows what the coven is up to. I needed all of that.”

  “But she also had you practice magic again,” Benji argues.

  I nod. “Yes. For good reason, too. Like tonight, where her magic saved us and mine protected us. Bone magic doesn’t have to be the nasty thing you think it is.”

  “It absolutely is, Sadie. It is vile magic. I don’t care if you do something good with it. You’re taking the essence of a living thing, steal from them, and then try and make it okay because you’re ‘doing good’. Whatever the hell that means.” Benji’s face is twisted with hate. It’s so, so handsome and cold enough to make my stomach into a pit.

  Because I’m me, I fall right back into being defensive. This time, though, I don’t think I’m wrong. Being defensive about my inability to choose between Abe and Benji was silly and immature. But in this, I have good intentions and I will not let him take that from me. “Says the vampire, who needs blood to live.”

  Ingrid and Abe are swinging their gazes back and forth between Benji and me. The car feels stiflingly tight, like the walls are closing in.

  “What, then, was your goal? What was so important to you that you’d risk everything, everything that we’ve worked so hard to protect you from?”

  “I want to find a way to keep Abe here. To make it so he and Alec don’t have to fight for this territory.”

  Abe’s barking laugh makes me jump. “I don’t need that kind of help, Sadie.”

  I whip around to face him. “Oh, really? Alec’s not leaving Grimloch. Dr. Winston is giving you a buffer right now, but you are without a pack. That’s going to change you, Abe. Warp you. Your choices are either to find another pack, which means leaving the town and people you love, or fight Alec and lose.”

  “I’m doing fine without a pack.”

  In this, at least, Benji is on my side. “You’re fine now, because you’re basically a puppy. It won’t take long before not having those bonds starts to unravel you. Then we’ve got a major problem.”

  “You’re without a pack. Or nest. Whatever.” Abe points an accusing finger.

  “I’m also old enough to manage the consequences. I haven’t always been alone, either. Even I needed a few hundred years of being in a nest to have the strength to leave it.”

  Ingrid’s been mostly quiet this entire time. Now, much to my chagrin, she brings the conversation back to me. “The problem, Sadie, is twofold. One, by practicing magic, even if it was to save Abe, you’ve put my life at risk. And my baby’s. Right now, that is making me so angry it’s hard to focus.”

  You could have thrown me into an arctic ocean and it wouldn’t have chilled me as much as earning Ingrid’s anger. This isn’t some small bit of pregnant pissed-offness. It’s obvious from her quaking shoulders how hard she’s struggling to not lash out at me. She’s never, in the history of our friendship, been this upset with me. “Practicing makes it easier for me to protect you,” I reply, but it lacks conviction.

  “You know what doesn’t protect me? What doesn’t protect any of us? Lying. You’ve been lying for months to us. I don’t care if you had good intentions. That lack of trust… It’s going to take me a long time to forgive. If I can forgive it.”

  Before I can formulate a reply, Benji and Abe are nodding. “Yes,” the vampire adds. “Ingrid’s pinned it. It’s impossible to believe you had anything but your own interests at heart. And if you’ve lied about this--”

  “What else have you lied about?” Abe finishes the thought for him.

  My mouth opens and shuts. All three are joining together, blaming me, trying to shame me, and all I’ve been trying to do is make sure everyone is happy and, more importantly, safe. I think of all the times I’ve scrambled for Ingrid, trying to support her in her pregnancy. How can she be so angry with me? Or Abe, who has been on my mind since basically forever. When he got turned, I knew it was my fault. I’ve been trying so hard to help him. To make him feel more comfortable with his face. I’ve been trying to find love with him, to preserve the feelings I’ve had for so long for him and bring my fantasies of us into fruition.

  Even Benji has been on my mind. I’ve let him drink from me multiple times. I’ve tried to keep his feelings in mind, to do as he asked, which is to consider another possibility. I know I haven’t done the best job, but damn, it feels a bit personal. He walked in and Abe was in my home and maybe this quick rush of anger at me is about that. We did sleep together and while he said that didn’t have to mean something, maybe it really did.

  These toxic thoughts pulse inside me and I shut down, pushing into my seat and looking out the window. The conversation, if you can even call the three of them ganging up on me that, hovers, unfinished and crushing.

  Gravel crunches as we crawl up the driveway to Oliver’s mountain home. As soon as Benji parks, I rush out, eager to be away from them. The hurt is too much. I know that I don’t truly believe the things I’m thinking about them. Well, I mostly don’t think them. But I’m scared and coming down from the rush of magic and the adrenaline of the fight. There’s still the swirling grief of knowing Ms. Nickles is dead and I’ll never have a resource like her again. So I’m not going to stick around to be a punching bag.

  Oliver is waiting for us on the porch. His smile and easy posture fall when he sees our morose faces. “What’s happened?”

  Needing some room to breathe, I say testily “Let them explain it, since they know everything. I’m going to my old room.” Marching past him, I leave them to tell him about the fight and the hunters and the dead cats and mostly, probably, tell him how I’m a deranged bone-magic-using evil person who can’t be trusted. Because what I’d really love right now is another kick in the groin.

  My old room is how I left it. There’s something sweet about that. Uncle Oliver has never come across as a particularly sentimental person. As soon as I left his home, I’d expected him to get rid of all my things and turn the space into another storage room for all his creepy magic artifacts.

  Instead, my bed is still shoved in the corner. The dip in the center, built from years of curling my teenaged body in, is visible under the quilt that the woman who raised me had sewn. Mom. She was my mom, even if she took me away from my biological mother. It’s navy, with star patches sewn in an unorganized way across. When I sink into the sheets, the smell of dust and old incense surrounds me.

  Ingrid used to come over and, in our effort to forget about the deaths of family members, we’d light stick after stick of incense in
the room. She’d try to develop and channel her psychic powers enough that she could contact the spirit of her mom or my parents. Really, I knew she just wanted to impress her father.

  But we never contacted anyone, and instead the white ceiling has a few smoke-darkened spots from all the burned sticks. The fragrance lingers, but without any pungent sweetness. It just smells like memories.

  Lying down, I strain to listen. Not that I care what they’re saying. But as the thought stabs through me, a second admonition follows. I’m being a giant baby. Unwilling to follow through on any real introspection while still hurting, I sit back up and open the bag that Ms. Nickles gave me.

  Oh man.

  It’s like Mary Poppins’s bag. Inside it are teeth. We’re talking more teeth than I ever gave to Tee, the tooth fairy. All shapes and sizes, too. The power wafting from the open top is exhilarating. The hum of anticipation begins in my own bones, seeking the power contained in the bag. There are some of her books, too. When I pull one out and thumb through its thick, yellowed pages, I see it’s a spell book. Most of the spells I know as I read them, my memory sorting and naming the magic that Tee tucked into my brain as a part of the deal I struck with her all that time ago.

  It’s nice to have, though.

  This is, I’m sure of it, a lifetime supply of teeth for me. Even with practice and being able to slow the release of my life force, I’d be out of skin before consuming even half of what’s contained in the bag. This is a princely gift, but I know it comes with a debt. Save her sister.

  Except, without her here to answer more about the bone coven, how exactly am I supposed to do that?

  There are raised voices. Sighing, I know I need to get over myself right now and go face the music. I don’t think they’re right to be so mad at me, to so easily forget all the things I do for them, but I do get that I lied. That’s a big deal.

  Besides, I need to be in on whatever the plan is now. Obviously Ingrid and I can’t go back to the apartment. Dragging myself off the bed, I leave my things in my room and slump out to get my scolding over with.