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

by Ware Wilkins

  The raised voices aren’t yelling about me, though. As I listen, I can hear a whine in Abe’s tone that sends a ripple of fear down my spine. Racing into the kitchen, I find Abe on his knees, hands pressed over his ears.

  “What’s happening?” I rush to him, wanting to touch him, bring him comfort, but Benji steps in front of Abe. Several times now Benji has moved in front of me, shielding me from Abe. To see it in reverse, to see him protecting my friend from me, is a knife straight to my gut.

  “His sire is demanding he return to the pack’s home.”

  Abe starts grinding his teeth, snorting heavily through his nose as he wrestles control of himself. “Henry says the pack is under attack. There are more hunters than they can take.”

  “But if you go near Alec while he’s in the heat of battle, he might challenge you,” I say, tendrils of fear growing with strangling strength.

  “I can’t… I can’t say no,” Abe growls. “It’s whatever sire hold Henry has on me. Close enough to an alpha command that I can’t ignore it. Jesus!” He tucks into himself. We stand and watch, helpless.

  Uncle Oliver shrugs. “I don’t know a lot about pack magic, but this might kill him if he doesn’t respond.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I turn to him. “He can’t go. It’s suicidal!”

  Abe’s scrabbling to stand. His nails, growing into claws, scratch at Uncle Oliver’s pine floors, digging grooves into the soft wood. “I’m going. I’ll, I don’t know, run if Alec comes at me.” I know that’s not true, because the bloodlust of fighting will be in Abe, too. An alpha won’t run from another alpha. It feels like my heart is breaking all over again.

  “Please don’t go,” I beg.

  “You aren’t in a position to ask favors of me, Sadie.”

  “I’m not asking you a favor, I’m asking you to stay alive!”

  He shakes his head. In his decision to go, the pain of Henry’s demand seems to be ebbing. “Even if I could ignore this, I wouldn’t. You know me,” he says, rolling shoulders to loosen the tension caused by the pain. “I was a sheriff for a few years before I was a wolf. It’s in my nature to protect and serve, even if it’s for dickholes like Alec. They’re under attack and they need all the help they can get.”

  There’s no arguing that point. One of the things I’ve always found most attractive about Abe is his good heart. “Then I’ll go with you. With my magic, I can help.” And keep you out of Alec’s path.

  “No,” Benji and Uncle Oliver say at once. Benji continues. “We haven’t discussed your flagrant use of a magic that is offensive to literally every other paranormal creature in the world. Just because you got caught in your lie and it’s out now doesn’t mean we’re just going to accept your magic now. You and Ingrid are going to stay here and maybe Oliver can get through to you just how bad your decision to keep using bone magic is.”

  My fists clench. “And where will you be?”

  “I’ll make sure your boyfriend doesn’t pick a fight he can’t win with a wolf. If Henry’s putting this kind of pressure on Abe, then they’ll need help. I can fight off the hunters and keep an eye out for him.”

  We glare at each other, each challenging the other. It’s hard for me to believe he’s so angry at me that he’s essentially putting me in time out. On the other hand, Benji’s got more actual fighting experience than I do. Or so I assume, based on how cool and collected he stayed back at the apartment. “Okay.”

  Abe is moving to the door. “I gotta shift. I can’t hold it off any longer. If we’re going to go, we need to go now.”

  Benji nods. His fangs press down into his lower lip, giving him a dangerous look that is thrilling to see. “Looks like we’re walking. Let’s go.” Walking, of course, is a joke. With Abe shifted, both of them can cover ground almost as quickly as a car can, especially since they can go as the crow flies, avoiding the many twists and turns on the mountains that slow you down.

  They’re out the door. You know that awful feeling you have when you’re out on the town with your current boy or girlfriend and you run into an ex that you didn’t fully get over, and then the two of them hit it off in front of your face while you’re cringing and thinking “Oh God, why me?” There’s a lot of those feelings going on inside of me right now, compounded with a hefty dash of desperate worry.

  I do feel better that Benji will be with Abe. But they’re both rushing into a fight against formidable hunters and if either of them gets hurt while I’m being gnawed at by guilt and anxiety at Oliver’s, I don’t know what I’ll do.

  There’s an awkward silence between Ingrid, Uncle Oliver, and me. Like the jerk he is, Uncle Oliver decides to end it with, “Now, Sadie, let’s talk about all the forbidden magic you’ve been doing.”

  My chest and cheeks flame with embarrassment. Ingrid shakes her head. “I’m exhausted and I can’t really deal with her right now. May I use the guest room?”

  “Go ahead, darling. If you need a snack, help yourself to anything on the top two shelves of the refrigerator. The bottom shelves are… not safe to consume.”

  She smiles at him, pretending like I’m not there. Real mature, Ingrid. “Thanks, Oliver.”

  When she’s gone, I press my palms into my eyes. “Can you believe them?”

  “Absolutely,” Oliver replies, like I asked about the weather instead of the rift between my friends and me.

  “What?”

  “I absolutely can believe them. You’re being an enormous jackass, Sadie, and they have every right to be livid with you.”

  “But they’re all treating it like it’s some unforgivable offense! It’s not like I’m murdering anyone over here, or raising people from the dead.”

  He moves into his kitchen. “I’m fixing some tea. Want some?”

  “Coffee, please.”

  “At this hour? No way. Tea or nothing.”

  Huffing, I sink into a wooden kitchen chair, its stiff back far from comforting. “Fine. Tea.”

  He works quickly, using magic to warm the water and mixing his own blend of leaves for the tea. The cup he places in front of me is steaming and fragrant and I feel a bit of my petulant anger fade. “So you’ve been using bone magic. Let’s start with that.”

  “Look...it isn’t like I’m trying to break the rules. But it’s so much more complicated than just ‘don’t do bone magic.’ I wouldn’t practice it without reasons.”

  Instead of lighting into me, he nods. “Okay, tell me the complications.” Oliver is being unusually cool. We’ve never spoken like this before. He’s not exactly an open book or a shoulder to cry on.

  “Um, well…” I lean back and take a sip of the floral tasting tea. My nerves begin to loosen, my muscles relaxing. Tea was a better choice than coffee, but he’ll never hear me admit it. “To begin, I guess I was tired of feeling powerless. All of my clients, most of my friends have these super cool aspects that make them tough and safe. Especially after being kidnapped, my safety felt like an illusion and I felt particularly helpless.

  “Then Ingrid discovered she was pregnant, and suddenly I wasn’t the only helpless one. She and her baby were, too. So a part of me needed to step up and find a way to protect them.”

  “Why?” He’s leaned back, his legs stretched out and crossed on another chair. “Because you think it’s your fault?”

  My toes tap as I consider this. How many times have I thought that exact thing? That Ingrid’s pregnancy was my fault? Unable to answer, I nod. Yes, guilt influences my need to take care of her.

  “Did you stick an unwrapped penis in her? Did you force her to have sex with the guy? If I remember correctly, you were miffed because they’d been dating for a while before. And having consensual sex.”

  “Yeah, I get that.” I sit a little straighter. “Ingrid’s a grown woman, but--”

  “You didn’t make him come after you. He had his own agenda. There was nothing you could have done to prevent him showing up, and no way for you to know who he was. There’s no ‘but’ here. Ing
rid made a choice, and so far as I can see, she’s doing a decent job of shouldering the responsibilities that stemmed from it. Is that the only thing that motivated you to delve back into bone magic after swearing you wouldn’t?”

  “No, of course not. Abe, too. When Ms. Nickles showed me how to siphon the life force I give with spell casting, allowing me to do more magic with less juice, it dawned on me that I might be able to save Abe.”

  Uncle Oliver’s eyebrow cocks. “Save him how, exactly?”

  “You heard. He’s an alpha in a territory that’s already claimed by a wolf much older and meaner than he is. Abe is going to have to move out of town eventually, and it would be my fault. So I figured with some practice, maybe there’s something I can do--”

  “Wait, wait. Let’s go back to the fault part. How is his moving out of town your fault?”

  Pushing some hair out of my face, I frown. “Well, he’s a wolf because of me.”

  “He’s a wolf because another wolf bit him,” my uncle counters.

  “Another wolf bit him because I asked him to.”

  “To save his life.”

  I huff. “Well, yeah. But he was shot because he was with me.”

  “Why was he with you?”

  “I knew someone was in my apartment--that would’ve been David, in the process of trying to kill Benji-- and Abe was with me. He was all sheriff-y and ‘I’ll go in with you and check it out’ and instead got kidnapped and later shot.”

  “So he was on duty, as a sheriff, and investigating a potential break in.”

  My stomach coils in discomfort. “Yes.”

  “So somehow, his doing his job and getting caught in the line of fire is your fault?”

  “I--” Shit. I don’t know. Uncle Oliver is making it sound so obvious, when it’s felt everything but. He smiles gently.

  “Secondly, I’m not sure what you could do. Un-alpha him? Would he want that? Is that the same as, like, werewolf castration? Abe doesn’t seem like the type to be okay with being neutered.”

  “I don’t think neutering was on my mind.”

  Oliver’s laugh rings in the kitchen. “No. I’ve seen how you look at him. Neutering would not be beneficial to either of you.”

  We sip our tea, our conversation working its way through our minds. I’m thinking about what Uncle Oliver’s said, trying to unwind it, tear it apart, find some kind of flaw in his argument. All I’m finding, though, is all the ways I’ve been a tremendous jerkhole. “You can’t argue with the fact that I need to be stronger. With hunters and the coven after me, more power is better.”

  “Except that we made you a bat that is ridiculously strong, you have supportive friends looking out for you--you did, at least, before you screwed that up-- and not practicing would have helped you remain unnoticeable. Instead, you decided to create a giant sign that says ‘Bone Witch Here.’”

  “No one knew what I was doing until I covered our asses tonight.”

  “Sadie,” he sighs and un-props his legs from the chair, setting them on the ground and leaning his arms onto the table. “Stop lying to yourself. This isn’t about protecting your friends. This isn’t about saving anyone. In the end, this is addiction that’s persuading you, and instead of fighting it, you’re letting it work you like a puppet.”

  His words steal the breath from my lungs. I’ve been used to the magic’s nefarious voice being loud and obvious. Telling me what to do in such a way that I can dig my heels in and say “no.” But Jesus, I’ve fallen right back into it, haven’t I? I’ve been feeling so, so good about the casting. Nothing was showing, so it wasn’t hurting. I wasn’t using up too much skin, so it wasn’t hurting anyone. It would be good for me. I could be good for everyone.

  Except.

  Except I’ve been rotten. Making horrible decisions and lying to my friends. I mean, Benji even said “Don’t lie to me and we’ll be okay” and I was like “Sure” and then lied to his face right after. Isn’t this what happens with addiction? That it buries itself deep inside of you, anchoring itself on a cellular level and unless you pay attention each day, clipping it back and keeping it locked down, it spreads its roots with slow strength until some major work is needed if you’re going to clear yourself of it again. If you can clear yourself of it again.

  I think about all the sexual energy I’ve been feeling, about how I’ve allowed it to take over and make my choices for me. I shrugged off sleeping with Benji because I wanted to keep feeling good and it was easy to take advantage of his exceptionally generous and forgiving nature. With Abe, too, I’ve been letting my hormones talk instead of taking his needs and healing into consideration. But it wasn’t just hormones. It was hormones on magic, like a brain on drugs.

  “I’m a dummy,” I sigh. “I’m a dummy, and everyone is mad at me, and I’m going to have to detox all over again and it’ll suck even more than before.”

  “Well, most of that is true.”

  “Which part isn’t? That I’m a dummy?” I ask hopefully, wanting to be told that I’m only human, these are mistakes anyone could have made.

  “No, you’re stupid as hell about this. But I’m not sure you need to detox. You’ve found a way to keep it masked?”

  I choke on my tea. “Um, what?”

  Uncle Oliver’s eyes are filled with a fervent curiosity I haven’t seen in years. “How are you keeping us from smelling and feeling the magic? That’s amazing.”

  “Ms. Nickles taught me.”

  “If I’d had that when I was a necromancer, my life might be different,” he says wistfully.

  “You were that into raising the dead? That’s turbo creepy.” I scoot my chair a little further away from him.

  He doesn’t notice. “It wasn’t about raising the dead. It was about speaking with them. The things I could have learned! Think about all the ideas and answers that were buried with a body suddenly being available again. What an awesome thing,” he sighs.

  “Do the dead like being called on?”

  His reverie dwindles. “Not really. It’s a major inconvenience. And it was tough for me, too, since I’d have to find a way to pay the Ferryman again for them. Otherwise those bastards become ghosts and you do not want to be haunted just because you wanted to chat with your great grandfather or whatever.”

  The wheels in my head turn. “Wait, go back. Pay the Ferryman?”

  “Sure. They’ve already given up their bones, right? So when I called them, they were forced to cross back into our realm, and if you’re going to drag someone back, it’s only decent to pay their toll for their return. Usually with rare magic items, but sometimes you tell them a story to tell the ferryman that you think will be worth his while.”

  All those teeth in the bag in my room. “I thought that was just a story you told me.”

  He shrugs. “It’s a true story. I’ve always wanted to protect you from the dangers of the bone magic, Sadie. You’re my niece and I owed it to your father to try and keep you alive and out of harm’s way. But I also love you, kid, and didn’t want you to have the burden of potentially screwing countless harmless souls over by stealing their ticket to the afterlife.”

  The first thing I think of is Nash. My poor, young client. A newly turned wolf who was facing a deadly impaction. How much story could a seventeen year old have? Would it be interesting enough to get him passage to the afterlife? Because I used two of his molars that night, terrified and reacting on instinct, and that’s two molar’s worth of his short life story he couldn’t present to the Ferryman. “I’m going to throw up.”

  Launching out of my chair, I race to the bathroom and start heaving. Floral tea is not as good coming up as going down, the sour tang of bile coating my tongue and teeth. Moaning, I lean my head on the toilet.

  There’s a subtle knock on the door. “Sadie?” Ingrid’s soft voice is muffled.

  “Uh huh,” I manage.

  She opens the door and squats next to me, patting my hair as I let the cold porcelain of the toilet cool me off. I
don’t want to move; I’m still turning this new information over in my mind and with it comes more and more gut-turning guilt.

  “Pretty sure I’m the one who’s supposed to be throwing up,” she says. “I’ve got an excuse.” She pats her belly. “What’s yours?”

  “My excuse?” My tongue feels swollen and thick. “I’ve potentially kept who knows how many souls from going to the afterlife just so I could get my magic rocks off.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s pretty bad.”

  She reaches under his cabinet and finds a washcloth. I listen to her run some tap water on it, squeeze it out, and sit back next to me. The cold damp of the cloth is placed against the nape of my neck, and I shed a few silent tears. “Does this mean you aren’t mad at me?”

  “Nah, I’m still pissed off. You know me well enough to not lie. It’s really hurt my feelings and it will take awhile to get over. But I listened in on your conversation, and I get it a bit. It’s hard to remember to blame the addiction more than the person.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Can you stop lying on the toilet? Oliver is a single man whose house is covered in shrunken heads and other awful tidbits. I doubt he cleans the bathroom often.”

  “Now I’m going to puke again.” I lift off the toilet and shudder.

  “That’s my girl,” Ingrid mutters, pulling me into her arms. The warmth of her embrace is better than any rush a tooth could give me.

  She helps me clean up and we go back to the kitchen. Oliver’s freshened my cup of tea and poured one for Ingrid, too. “Better?”

  “As good as I can get right now. I’m going to try not to think it. Along with the rampant worrying I’m doing for Abe and Benji.”

  He kicks out my chair so I can sit, and Ingrid joins us. He shrugs. “We can wait and you can worry together.”

  “You’re not worried?”

  Uncle Oliver’s smile is dark. “No way. Benji’s at least a thousand years old. Probably more like two thousand.”

  “No way. He said he’s only a little over four hundred years old,” I argue.

  “Huh.” Oliver throws Ingrid this pitying look like can you believe this sucker?