Otherworldly Discipline: A Witch's Lesson (10 page)

He didn’t say anything, because he didn’t need to be any more certain that she was afraid of something.

“I like it on,” she said far more lightly, blushing.

“Can you sleep with it on?” he asked her.

“No,” she admitted. “But it makes things more… tolerable. Doesn’t the noises outside scare you?” She motioned outside when they both heard a crunching sound.

“Oooh,” he finally said, finally understanding. He imagined that those sounds would take some getting used to by someone more used to hearing highway noises or murmurings of the neighbors in the next door apartment. “No, but I grew up here,” he admitted. “I know what causes the sounds.”

“Which are?”

“Demons and monsters strolling about, feeding.” He shrugged.

Her eyes rounded with horror.

“Charlotte—there are so many protective talismans on the tower and the gardens that nothing can harm you.” She looked less than relaxed, still. He realized that most children have a problem imagining monsters in their closet, but it was a little harder to bring comfort when those monsters actually existed less than a kilometer away from their window. Probably nearly getting killed by one of them also brought her fears into rationality.

He closed his eyes for a moment, shaking his head. “You’re not going to sleep again, are you?”

She shook her head apologetically.

He sighed and picked up her book and put it on her bedside table. “Scoot over,” he ordered, pointing towards the other side of the bed. “
I
sleep on the right.”

“You can’t sleep with me,” Charlotte said. It was lip service, however. She was already scooting over. “You can’t even be trusted.”

“You’re not exactly my type,” he replied crisply, getting in between the covers.

“Your type’s warm-blooded!” she inferred.

“Charlotte, I promise not to ravish you during the night. You obviously need company, and I don’t have a puppy on
hand. Now you don’t have to worry about getting eaten or killed during the night. Problem solved.” Though the argument was lame in the water, she snuggled close up to him. “Just don’t tell Ashcroft about this,” he groaned reaching up to turn off the light. “Or anybody else. In fact, don’t even think about this too loudly.”

They listened to the sounds, and he identified the noises until she informed him that it wasn’t helping. “Charlotte—you’re practically on top of me, here,” he complained, realizing that his chest was being used like a pillow. He also realized that in his eight-hundred years, he had never let a girl sleep the night on him.

She didn’t respond. She had finally fallen asleep.

“This isn’t a good habit,” he realized aloud, feeling his own lids drape heavily over his eyes.

Mmm. A warm body. Soft skin… Cinnamon…
Vanilla
…
Moriarty breathed in deeply. I think I finally see the appeal in this. It sort of brings a soothing sort of connection to—

Wait—no! This is
Charlotte
!
Bad, bad, bad! What if Ashcroft
—

Moriarty’s eyes popped open at first light and he heard the thundering of a large horse’s hooves loom near. He looked down and saw Charlotte still pinned against his chest in deep sleep, but didn’t waste a second
before jumping
out of the bed and rousing her.

She grunted angrily as she woke up. “What’s wrong?”

Moriarty was looking out over the balcony, and then ran towards the door. “The master’s back,” he told her, quickly walking out of the room even as she let her head wearily rest back against the pillow.

Moriarty dressed with nervous hands. In the light of day, what had transpired over the night made him nervous. What was he thinking? Ashcroft was never going to allow Moriarty to sleep with Charlotte. And he had good reason—because history has proved time and again that Moriarty couldn’t be trusted in close proximity to women. There
were
no innocent friendships with the other sex, were there? At least there hadn’t been in the past.

Unless he was actually beginning to get more friendly; and he didn’t want to be friendly. He was a Huxian—he was supposed to live by excitement and pleasure, not by connections to others. He liked to think the only reason he worked under Ashcroft is because it normally led to adventure and riches. Besides—if he was going to start becoming friendly, as innocent as the notion seemed to be—it wasn’t best to start with the object of his master’s affections.

No, he and Charlotte were going to h
ave to resume hating each other. H
e couldn’t be burdened with Ashcroft’s jealousy or paranoia.

He hoped he had time to explain all this to Charlotte before Ashcroft came up the main stairs. Moriarty opened his door and actually gasped—a gesture that he hadn’t done in some centuries—when he bumped into Ashcroft, who was in the process of raising his hand to knock on the door.

“Jesus, Moriarty!” Ashcroft said, sounding just as startled as Moriarty. “You nearly gave me a bad heart!”

Moriarty looked down and found his hand covering his own heart, as if that would still its beating. He dropped his hand. If he was trying to bury a body, he would have dropped his shovel. “Sorry,” he replied. “Didn’t… Um. See you, obviously. Back so soon?”

“I’m two days late, actually,” Ashcroft said, narrowing his eyebrows.

“Right, right,” Moriarty grumbled, crossing his arms across his chest.

“Your… tie is undone,” Ashcroft mentioned, almost in awe. His eyes instantly darkened with suspicion. “What did you do?”

Moriarty’s cheeks blanched of all color. “What do you mean? Nothing. I’ve done absolutely nothing. I’m fine, I…” he quickly denied, flabbergasted.

“Ashcroft!” said a voice behind them. It was Charlotte, coming to the rescue as a distraction. She was in her nightgown and bare feet, but she looked actually happy to see the man. She even wrapped her arms around him, which seemed to frighten Ashcroft. The man didn’t seem to know what to do with his own arms and hands. “You’re late! I thought something horrible and cliché had happened to you!”

“Did you?” Ashcroft asked, and Moriarty could see that the man actually blushed. “Well… I… Cliché?” he asked.

“You know,” Charlotte said, pulling away from him and waving her wrist around. “Eaten by a dragon or something ridiculous. I was getting worried, actually.”

“Really?”

She shrugged. “Well, ye
s. I mean, we don’t mesh well, b
ut that doesn’t mean I want something to happen
to you.” She reached over, and without another word, started to tie Moriarty’s tie for him, getting up on her tiptoes to do it. “I mean, I would have read that crazy-boring book for nothing, for starters. That’s a horrifying prospect.” She patted Moriarty’s tie, turned towards Ashcroft to grin at him, but then turned back and tugged at Moriarty’s tie again. “Sorry—you like tie dimples. Almost forgot. You’re picky.”

Ashcroft looked her up and down, seeming little shell-shocked by his expression. “You… did your assignment? Really?” He raised a dubious eyebrow. “Who are you and what have you done with Charlotte?” and he meant it, too. Stranger things have happened in the Otherworld.

She put her hands on her hips and returned the dubious look. “I can read, you know. Why is it so surprising? Do you think I’m stupid or something?”

Ashcroft swallowed. “Well, no. I—”

“Were you looking forward to beating me?”

His brows narrowed defensively. “No, but—”

“Then quit your bitching, Ashcroft. I don’t need to be ragged on yet. I haven’t even had my coffee.” She looked at Moriarty, and then down at his vest. “You got red on you.”

Moriarty looked down, and she playfully flicked his nose. She walked away giggling, “Oldest trick in the book…”

Moriarty put his hand over his eyes until he heard Charlotte’s door close. When he looked at Ashcroft, the accusing look he
expected
to be on Ashcroft’s face
was
. “Nothing happened,” he quickly defended. “We just holed up in my room—played chess and watched movies. That’s all.”

Ashcroft’s expression only got darker. “Why was she in your room?”

“I… I was injured saving her life? Remember?” he stepped backwards. “And she was trying to be not useless.” Still, Ashcroft’s expression could heat metal. “Look, there’s no claim on her, anyway. You said so yourself that you didn’t want her in that way.”

Wrong thing to say. Moriarty even winced as he said it—it came out horribly. He watched Ashcroft close the door ominously behind him. “Nothing happened!” Moriarty assured, beginning to pant.

Moriarty had fought many battles alongside of Ashcroft over the centuries, but never against him. Moriarty didn’t think he’d fair well—Ashcroft was as good at wielding the sword as he was with wielding magic. “We didn’t even hold hands. I don’t like her in that way! She’s not my type.”

“Warm blooded is your type
,” Ashcroft growled, his word almost Charlotte’s word-from-word, taking a step forward for every step Moriarty took backwards until Moriarty was pressing his body against the far wall. Ashcroft’s thick finger poked up against his chest threateningly. “If it comes to my knowledge that you took her—if you even cause me to rouse suspicion
— I swear by God and Sunny Heaven that I will horsewhip you and toss you out of this house, be damned your years of service. Am I perfectly clear?”

Moriarty gulped and nodded. “Yes, Master. Of course,” he wheezed.

Ashcroft finally stepped back and combed his fingers through his short brown hair. “Damn it all. I’m sorry if I’m paranoid, Moriarty. But I haven’t been sleeping at night thinking about it—leaving her all alone in this place with a few sniveling servants and
you
—no offense. But you know how you are. I nearly got charred by a dragon yesterday because of it.” He showed Moriarty his coat, which had a burned-away hem. “And they’re not a challenge
regularly. But my head’s not where it should be.

“And I need to get my head on straight. There
i
s a chance that the dragons are coming through the Western Gate. They certainly were
n
o
t from the South Realm…”

Moriarty cleared his throat, trying not to seem shaken from his encounter with Ashcroft. He had to digest what Ashcroft was telling him, although normally it wouldn’t have taken him more than a blink of time to remember which wizard was most prominent around the Western Gate.  “Do you think Lachlan sent them?” He watched Ashcroft give him a wary eye, admitting the affirmative. “Damn. I hate dealing with him. He doesn’t have the common decency to
die
.”

Ashcroft agreed with a hum. “Well, good of us to keep our eyes open. When he stirs up trouble, he stirs up a lot of it. And he still has
n
o
t completely alienated himself from the Wizard’s Circl
e, to my disdain... I cannot just
go hunt him down and kill him, yet.” He turned around to the door, and then spun back, his eyebrow cocked. “So you did nothing with her?”

“No,” Moriarty promised. “And I promise you that I never will. Although—Master,” he said breezily, “I tell you—one trip to Earthside, just one, will relieve you of your ailment of her.”

“I have no ailment,” Ashcroft denied firmly.

“You lust for her, come now. You can’t tell me that you don’t,” Moriarty replied simply. “You were neigh close to throwing me out the window just now for taking something you’ve obviously claimed as your own.”

“Do
n
o
t do anything with her,” Ashcroft repeated, his voice somewhere between threatening and a plea. “Nothing. She IS my own. She’s my ward—she’s under my protection.”

Moriarty pursed his lips, looking like he wanted to argue, but was thinking better of it. “I’m not arguing with your rule, Master,” he assured. “I just think you wouldn’t be quite so… Brassy as you’ve been if you simply let me find some nice trollop for you to tup. Just to get it out of your system, as it were…”

“Completely unnecessary. There
i
s nothing in my system
that needs extracting
,” Ashcroft assured, and stomped out of the room.

“Okay, then. I’ll just get threatened for the rest of my tenure…” Moriarty muttered to himself, crunching his hands into his pockets. “She’s not good for our health, for certain,” he said, plying his back away from the wall, and kicking at the floor like he was kicking dust from his boot.
”Mine especially.”

*
*
*

Three weeks. Charlotte had now been there for three whole
weeks
. She pulled her shawl closer to her body and she looked up ruefully towards Ashcroft’s study’s window. And she knew three things for sure:

Firstly, she could only sleep about three hours a night before waking up to screaming and crunching, which she was never going to get used to.

Secondly, Ashcroft did not issue idle threats. She felt like she was constantly covering her bottom with her hands, afraid of an attack, especially when she was ‘talking over him’. It was hard to change—she talked over everybody.