Chapter 11
I thought we were going to meet some witches,” Charlie said.
“She is a witch,” Lorenzo replied. “More or less.”
Charlie looked skeptically at the house Lorenzo had brought him to—a little white bungalow that had seen better days, with a neon pink palm reader sign in the window. “So—fortune tellers are witches?” he asked.
“In a manner of speaking.”
“What does that mean?”
Lorenzo led him to the front door, looming over him the entire time. He’d started doing that lately, at these supernatural outings—moving around Charlie like his bodyguard, always close and connected. “Shh,” he said, ringing the doorbell. “Don’t be rude.”
Charlie bit back a smile.
He tried to ignore the swell of guilt that accompanied it.
He loved going on these outings with Lorenzo and learning about all these new communities—aside from being fun, it was extraordinarily helpful.
He couldn’t quite believe it, but Wise Old Crone was still doing well; in fact, she’d been doing so well for so long now that he was actually starting to believe that he might have saved his job.
Last week’s column had even been popular enough that he’d gotten a congratulatory note from the new owners, with all the warmth and wit of something written by ChatGPT.
Ava had sent him a separate message saying that he should come into the office to meet with them, to pump up their enthusiasm, maybe even try to persuade them to invest more in the column. He’d brushed her off.
As far as he was concerned, if the column was doing well, he should just keep doing what he’d been doing: touring Brookville’s supernatural scene with Lorenzo and annoying the crap out of him the entire time.
He had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t just everything he was learning that was contributing to the column’s success; it’s that he was enjoying himself.
He just had to deal with the nagging guilt of his enormous lie. It wasn’t even that enormous; it was a small lie, really. A minor detail about his . . . true life and intentions. But a small lie, nonetheless.
He had a feeling Lorenzo wouldn’t see it that way.
He snuck a glance at Lorenzo as they waited at the door. He seemed as brooding as ever, but lately, Charlie had been wondering if that was all that was going on with him. He was so attentive on these outings, so ready to joust with Charlie. Maybe to flirt with him.
He didn’t need to go there. He didn’t even know if Lorenzo was into men.
Still, as they lingered on the doorstep, he couldn’t help but eye him, wondering if the vibe he’d been getting was only on his end.
His thoughts were interrupted when the door opened, revealing a small, stooped woman with an enormous cloud of curly black hair.
She wore plain, comfy-looking black clothes, huge, colorful jewelry at her wrists and neck, and a face full of tropical-colored makeup.
She could have been fifty or a hundred and fifty.
“Lorenzo!” she cried in a husky, ravaged voice that immediately made Charlie like her. “Thank Satan you’re here.”
“Thank Satan?” Charlie asked Lorenzo pointedly.
Lorenzo had a look of weary resignation. “Hello, Roberta.”
“And this is the human companion you mentioned? Charmed,” she said, holding a hand out to Charlie. Her long acrylic nails had Ouija symbols inked onto them.
“Nice to meet you,” he said. “Thank you for having us over.”
“Thank me? Hah!” She beckoned them inside. “Your pal here’s the one doing me a favor.”
“Is he?” Charlie asked, staring at Lorenzo. He made a mental note to ask about the phrase human companion later.
They followed Roberta through her home to the dim, black-curtained room where she conducted her business.
She offered them each a seat at a circular table with a crystal ball in the center.
The room was decorated in the occult-glam style he would’ve expected—jewels and macabre artifacts, talismans and feathers and glitter.
On the mantelpiece, in a place of pride, was a very old, very well-loved troll doll.
“I was thrilled when you called,” Roberta was saying to Lorenzo. “This is going to tide me over nicely. We should make it a regular thing!”
“I told you,” Lorenzo said firmly. “Just this once. And you have to answer Charlie’s questions.” In a faux aside, he added, “He can be quite annoying.”
“Oh shush,” Charlie told him. Turning to Roberta, he said, “So, uh, how do you two know each other?”
Roberta beat Lorenzo to the punch. “We go way back, Lorenzo and me! Of course I shouldn’t say that about a vampire, I’ll date myself.” She laughed throatily at her own joke. “And I guess I have you to thank for Lorenzo’s help tonight.”
“Help? With what?”
“Oh, vampires are fantastic conduits.”
“Conduits?”
“It’s like a—a pulley and a lever,” she explained.
“I don’t know shit about physics, but I know you rig up one of those contraptions and you can lift double, triple the weight, right?
” Charlie nodded, unsure, and she continued: “Vampires are like that for those of us with the gift. They enhance,” she said, with a meaningful waggle of her entire slight frame.
“Does it—does it hurt?” he asked. “Is it dangerous?” Lorenzo glanced at him, looking surprised and maybe even—touched?
“Not at all!” Roberta said. “It’s like, ah—when you shine light through a prism and it becomes a rainbow. Don’t hurt the prism. But you and me, we get all those gorgeous colors.”
Lorenzo was glaring at her. “Okay,” Charlie said slowly. He still felt like he was missing something—namely, why Lorenzo seemed so reluctant to help this woman. “And what—I mean—what is he going to enhance, exactly?”
“Her ability to scam people,” Lorenzo said flatly.
“Hey, whoa, hey, oh!” Roberta protested, throwing both hands in the air. “I don’t scam. I provide a service.”
“She’s a hustler.”
“Excuse you,” she snapped back. “I am a bona fide medium. I speak to the dead.”
“I’m confused,” Charlie said. “Are you—do you have magic?”
“In spades, doll,” Roberta said with a toothy smile.
“She is a very weak medium,” Lorenzo retorted. Roberta gasped, but he continued on: “And rather than use what little gift she has to make legitimate readings and communications with the dead, she—”
“I make it work,” Roberta cut him off. “Look, you think that every time someone comes in here wanting to talk to their great-aunt Patsy, she’s actually in the room with us? What kind of luck would that be? Most of the dead, they’ve moved on, they’re at peace. So I—”
“You lie,” Lorenzo said flatly. Charlie shifted, uncomfortable.
“I tell people that their beloved friends, their lovers, their pets—that they all knew in the end that they were loved,” Roberta said. “That all their arguments were settled and all their grudges gone, and that they’re at peace. That they can move on.”
“You make things up,” Lorenzo said, unimpressed.
“Not anymore.” She held her hand out to Lorenzo, but still he hesitated. To Charlie, Roberta said, “One night with this one, and with my powers enhanced, I actually can reach all of my regulars’ loved ones. I can get them real answers.”
“And you’ll use that to keep them on the hook for more appointments and more fees,” Lorenzo said, shaking his head. “More scams.”
She sat forward, quirking an eyebrow. “You want me to answer the kid’s questions or what?”
Suddenly understanding, Charlie said, “You couldn’t find any other witches for us to talk to.”
“Oh, of course not,” Roberta answered for him. “Most witches hate vampires. They’re predators, after all, and witches think they’re the most human humans.”
“You’re not a fan?”
She shrugged, making a noncommittal hand gesture. “Eh. Technically, I am a witch. Which means our deal’s still on,” she added, threateningly, to Lorenzo.
“What does that mean, technically?” Charlie asked.
“People have all different kinds of magic,” she said. “Some are your more traditional types. Some, like me, can do something else.”
“So—can all witches communicate with the, um—beyond?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “Some might have a bit of the Sight, but most can’t do it at all.”
“Can you do other magic?”
“Some.”
“Can I see?”
“Ah ah ah!” she tutted at him, offering her hand once again to Lorenzo. A wicked smile curved her lips. “Time to pay the piper.”
Lorenzo sighed and put his hand in hers. They both closed their eyes.
In the middle of the table, the crystal ball started thrumming.
Charlie looked at it, expecting it to maybe start glowing or flashing visions of the dead, but then it—it expanded.
It was as if the whole room became subsumed by the crystal, flinging them into a warped surreality, with the black cloth walls of the room becoming an endless starry night.
Across from him, Roberta and Lorenzo seemed to be sitting still, but Charlie could suddenly hear Roberta’s voice.
“Oh, fabulous!” she shouted. There was a scratching noise, like a pen on a piece of paper, but as far as Charlie could see, her lips and hands were still.
“Lemme get this down. One at a time, dolls, one at a time.”
Charlie tried to breathe normally, not sure if he couldn’t move or just didn’t want to. He felt a bit like he’d taken a Klonopin—like he was freaking out somewhere deep down, but it’d all been dampened. It was kind of like being on a lazy river in space.
And when he looked at Lorenzo, he found Lorenzo looking back at him. He felt any remaining traces of his panic melt away. Lorenzo was right there.
He wasn’t sure if Lorenzo was affected by the spell too—if being the conduit for it exempted him somehow—but he had a feeling that he was. He seemed as diffuse and disarmed as Charlie, staring back at him steadily without trying to hide or play it off. Like he’d forgotten to pretend to be grumpy.
His soft brown eyes anchored Charlie in the strange, crystalline dream. It made his chest unlatch, let air rush into his lungs. Lorenzo was here.
“Hang on, hang on,” Roberta was saying. “You’ll all get your turn. Oh sweet Satan, this is not gonna work—oh shit—”
A cloudy pressure seemed to fill the room, and then there was a horrible shrieking noise. Charlie flinched back as something—the crystal ball, he realized a moment later—exploded.
He came back to reality with his heart pounding and small but sharp pains all over his face and arms. The warped world of the crystal ball was gone, and Roberta was muttering as she poked through a heap of glass shards on the table, as if she were looking for something.
Lorenzo, though, leapt to his feet and was at Charlie’s side instantly. “Are you alright?” he demanded, pulling Charlie’s arms back from his face gently.
Lorenzo’s face was covered in small cuts and abrasions, but as Charlie watched, they started to knit back together seamlessly. “Um,” he said.
“You have injured Charlie,” Lorenzo shouted at Roberta. “How dare you!”
Charlie touched his face, which felt painfully raw, and found blood on his fingertips. And now that he was looking more closely, he could see small, shallow cuts all over his arms and the back of his hands.
“Oh don’t worry, you big lump,” Roberta said, though she was wearing a worried frown that belied her breezy tone. “Actually, y’know what, this is perfect—a great chance for me to show you my witchy woo. And vampires are great conduits for healing spells.”
She held a hand out to Lorenzo, who glared at her for a moment. Roberta’s eyebrows flew upward. “You want me to heal him or not?”
With a violent scowl, Lorenzo threw himself back into his chair and grabbed Roberta’s hand. She gestured with their clasped hands at Charlie. “You gotta touch him,” she said. “Right there, where he’s hurt.”
For the first time, it occurred to Charlie that he was bleeding in front of a vampire. But Lorenzo didn’t look crazed or blood-hungry—his eyes, when he looked at Charlie, were tentative; his touch, when he took Charlie’s tender, abraded hand in his, was gentle.
Charlie swallowed and closed his eyes.
At first he felt nothing. Then slowly a thick, pleasant heaviness settled over him, not unlike the sensation of drifting right before falling asleep. He assumed this must be what magic felt like.
After a moment, though, the feeling prickled and became more specific—became, somehow, an intangible impression of .
. . Lorenzo. It was as if, even with his eyes closed, even with the very real sensation of Lorenzo’s palm clasping his own steadily, he could also feel some shadow version of Lorenzo moving his hand, drifting his fingers over the gash on Charlie’s knuckles.
He felt a whisper of heat where this shadow Lorenzo touched him, and then a coarse, verdant sensation that felt like healing.
He shivered.
The dream Lorenzo ran his hands over Charlie’s forearms, the backs of his hands, and a small cut on his jaw, leaving heat and perfection in his wake. Charlie struggled to keep his breathing steady. “Put your hand there—near his forehead,” he dimly heard Roberta say.
Lorenzo’s fingers brushed lightly over Charlie’s temples, and in his trancelike, enchanted state, Charlie felt that warmth again, that luscious rightness.
He opened his eyes and looked at Lorenzo, the pain on his face drifting away like steam.
Lorenzo was still cradling his head in his palm.
Charlie licked his lips and put a hand on Lorenzo’s chest.
And then Charlie blinked his eyes open for real. Lorenzo was sitting across from him, their only contact his fingertips lightly touching Charlie’s forehead. The rest had been—a dream? A vision?
He had no idea, but Lorenzo didn’t meet his eye as he struggled to understand.
“There, see?” Roberta said, crossing her arms as she sat back in satisfaction. “Told you I was a real witch.”