Sorcerers & Sumac by A.L. Tyler

Author:A.L. Tyler [Tyler, A.L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-11-24T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

My eyes shot straight up from his unanswered handshake to the look of smug satisfaction on his face.

“Oh…so he does talk about me, then,” he said, withdrawing his hand. He waved his hand, and in a flourish of gold demons’ dust, the soda I had been about to purchase appeared in his palm. He offered it to me.

My eyes were still as large as dinner plates. “I’m not drinking that. I’m not accepting any favors, either. And I have no job vacancies for demons—already overstaffed.”

Another flourish and the drink disappeared. “So he talks about me a lot, then. You should know he’s not the most loyal creature you’ll ever encounter. But then, you’re a smart young woman, so you probably already knew.”

He was smooth like Charlie. I instantly disliked him, and I didn’t play into his game by opening my mouth. Agreeing with a demon was only the first step down the path to much more dangerous folly.

“Shall we sit?” He gestured to a table.

“No, thanks,” I said, suddenly wishing that I wasn’t a person who auto-piloted to polite pleasantries so easily. “I’ll be leaving now.”

“No.”

A shift of his eyes, and a chair zipped up behind me so fast that I lost my footing and sat down. It continued to move forward until it hit the edge of a table, pinning me in.

The student center wasn’t crowded—it was summer, after all, and it was still very early in the day—but I would have thought someone would have noticed a chair moving of its own accord.

Glancing around, I gritted my teeth. No one had even looked up.

“We’re invisible, Annie,” Stark said, taking the seat opposite me. “They can’t hear us, either, so don’t bother trying to scream. It will only annoy me.”

I opened my mouth to tell him off, but he must have thought I was up to something much more sinister, because he waved his hand and the air stopped dead in my throat. I couldn’t breathe, and I instantly started to panic. Stark only leaned back and folded his hands on the table.

“Oh, don’t fight it,” he said, analyzing me. He seemed unimpressed with what he saw, but he must have been wise, because he wasn’t about to underestimate me. “I’ll keep you alive until you start breathing again, so try to forget you need to do it. I don’t need you using your words against me, whatever you’ve been taught by your sister witches or Charlie. Just sit and listen, and nod. And don’t lie, or I’ll see to it that you regret it. Do you understand me?”

I nodded. I had never really taken notice of the constant movement of my chest as I breathed all day, but now that it was gone, the stillness was incredibly disturbing.

“Good. Now, I never took much interest in you, but Kendra kept your pictures around. I think it was her way of screening for someone who liked kids…she might have done better to keep living specimens. It’s not terribly hard to fake enthusiasm for a picture.

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