Werewolves & Wisteria Read Online Free PDF

stopped, staring her.
    “Good morning?” Gates asked as Lyssa continued to gape at her.
    Lyssa was still standing still as a statue, the spatula barely hanging in her hand. “You’re not a cat.”
    “No…?” Gates turned her head to the side, looking to me for help.
    “If you’re not a cat, then how is Charlie running the greenhouse?”
    We heard the light tinkle of a bell, and Charlie came padding in. He jumped up on the kitchen counter to stare at Lyssa.
    “Charlie knows how to outsource,” he said. “I hired some people. We have a very productive phone relationship, and they know not to slack off. Because somehow , I always find out who screwed up or slacked off.”
    “I can’t afford to pay employees,” Lyssa said, scooping an arm under him and putting him back on the floor. Charlie hissed at her. “Ask Annie.”
    “I’ll pay them,” Charlie said.
    “I don’t need the IRS nailing me as a money laundering operation because I’m paying people more than I’m making,” Lyssa protested.
    Charlie narrowed his eyes. “I’ll take care of that, too.”
    “Charlie…”
    “Lyssa,” I said calmly. “He’s keeping the greenhouse running. As we just discussed, we’ve got a lot of other crap going on right now, so let’s call it good enough.”
    We spent the rest of that day trying to ignore the grunts, howls, and crashes coming from the basement. I don’t know about Lyssa and Gates, but I felt bad ignoring them, even if there was nothing we could do.
    I kept waiting for Walter and Stark to throw something else at us, but Walter must have been in a bad state, too, because nothing came that day or the next. Lyssa showed me the charms she was making, and told me about how she had learned to make them.
    They were mainly composed of althaea root and small white selenite stones in cotton bags. Apparently Kendra had started using them some years earlier to ward off vampires. They had come for her a second time just before her car accident, and that was when she had taught Lyssa about them. They were strong, but very specific, because they had to be made with the names of the individuals you wished to ward off in mind.
    Lyssa needed moonlight to renew the selenite while she burned white candles circled by salt. She had also burned some bay leaves and hidden belladonna somewhere in my apartment.
    I was once again reminded of exactly how hokey the entire witchcraft thing felt.
    “It is hokey,” Charlie said, much to Lyssa’s chagrin. He flicked an ear. “A lot of the rituals aren’t even necessary, except to get into the right frame of mind. It’s like a small child that needs a stuffed animal to fall asleep. You don’t actually need the stuffed animal.”
    Lyssa narrowed her eyes at him. “If you can make this work without the full moon, then please, enlighten me.”
    “I can make it work right now if you’re willing to spike your tea with a little werewolf blood,” he said. “But no, I agree the moonlight is necessary. I was referring to your salt and candles, and the patently stupid idea that writing something on a bay leaf and burning it can do… well, anything, really.”
    His words reminded me of something Stark had said to me before his attack, and I fished my sumac pendant out of my shirt, holding it between two fingers.
    “Is this like that?” I asked.
    He flicked a feline ear. “No. That is real, and very important.”
    “Stark said—”
    “Stark has always been jealous of blood magic,” Charlie said curtly. “Most warlocks are.”
    “Blood magic?” I asked. I hadn’t realized there were names for the different types, but Charlie had told me there were different types before.
    Lyssa took a breath, but Gates got there first.
    “There are three different types. You can be born with it, you can learn it, or you can be afflicted with it,” she said. Lyssa was staring at her, impressed. “What? There’s a lot of stuff in Kendra’s notebooks. That was one of the first ones I