Other witch complete s.., p.9
other witch - complete series, page 9
Ria had recently graduated from acolyte to witch, so observing a complex scrying was a good learning opportunity even if the scry was unsuccessful. Meredith is one of my best witches but so far Ria’s magic had fallen short of the brilliance of her mother’s. Never mind; I had no doubt she would find her place.
I checked the overnight logs and frowned when I saw that we’d had three calls for emergency healing, all from vampyr attacks. That was unusual. These days vampyrs have blood donors and blood bags can be delivered to their door; feeding from sentient beings is a big no-no. The Connection doesn’t like it when we eat each other. Besides, magical blood never does quite what you expect it to do; for example, feeding from a wizard would leave a vampyr higher than a kite and more violent than a griffin.
Sure enough, the first victim was a wizard, the second victim was a dryad and the third one a siren. Normally three feeds would be more than enough to leave any vampyr sated, but one that had drunk wizard’s blood would keep on attacking.
Vampyrs can stroll around in the daylight; the belief in the Common realm that they can’t stand sunlight is a complete myth. They aren’t nocturnal like fiction says, and they can move in the sun like anyone else; the only risk to them is skin cancer if they don’t use sun cream, just like the rest of us. However, they do prefer to hunt in the dark because in darkness they can phase and use shadows to move instantly from one place to another. Combining that with their incredible speed means that night is a dangerous time for the weak to stroll around – or it had been until the Connection intervened and instituted the ‘no eating each other’ rule.
Daylight or not, a rogue, wizard-addicted vampyr was on the prowl. When I checked the overnight log again, I saw that Timothy Woodman had been in charge. I clicked my tongue. Timothy was work-shy and always did the bare minimum. I fired off an email setting out the obvious link between the attacks and querying his lack of forethought in contacting the relevant authorities.
After that I hastily typed a second email, in which I anonymised the details of the victims and sent it to the local vampyr clan – their vampyr, their mess. For good measure, I cc’d it to one of the Connection’s inspectors whom I knew well. Elvira Garcia wasn’t currently local to here but she knew how to pull strings. She’d make sure that the attacking vampyr was dealt with, one way or another.
Chapter 5
I watched Henry as he practised another rune throw and frowned. The acolyte wasn’t even holding the rune stones to his heart. ‘Your heart, Henry. Why do you keep forgetting to hold the stones to your heart? How can you not know where the most important organ in your body is?’
‘Second most important,’ the teenager smirked.
Goddess, did he just make a cock joke? I gave him a glare that made his smirk falter. If he wasn’t willing to put in the time and effort then I was done with him – for today, at least. ‘Henry, your absence is required.’
He blinked. ‘What?’
I made a shooing motion. ‘Leave!’ I like teaching those who are passionate and willing to learn but teaching the various ‘Henrys’ in the coven is hard work. I can’t abide laziness or abject stupidity. If Henry was joking about his cock then he wasn’t taking his work seriously and he needed to. If he mucked up rune work someone could die – including him.
Henry gathered his stones and left.
My stomach growled. It was 2pm and lunchtime had been and gone, lost in hours of tutorials and a pile of paperwork. I was impatient for the coven council to appoint someone as a temporary Coven Mother so I could focus on my potion project. I’d already spent an inordinate number of evenings in research and I was itching to build on the theoretical work. I needed some unusual ingredients to get the potion to work and I was desperate to retrieve them and get started.
I decided to pop up to my flat for a quick sandwich then come back down to my coven office for the remaining office hours. It is rare for anyone to take me up on my open-door policy but I believe in making myself accessible. I glanced out at my window as I left and felt a sting of disappointment that Fehu had already gone. He must be a busy raven: places to go, people to see, things to do.
I took the stairs rather than the lift. I have a suite of rooms, spanning the whole second-to-the-top floor of the tower block – there has to be an advantage to being the boss. I have an open-plan lounge, dining room and kitchen, all in one gloriously large and airy space. My bedroom and bathroom are next to the living-room area, and my home office is off the dining area. I expect it’s supposed to be a guest bedroom but I don’t have enough friends to justify that. Using it as an office space is far more sensible.
I went into the black granite kitchen and made short work of building and eating a sandwich that I washed down with the fresh orange juice Oscar makes for me every day. He’s been making it for me since I was in my teens to ensure I get plenty of good vitamins. Twenty years later, and despite the fact that I am perfectly capable of making my own juice, he is still doing it. It makes me smile every morning to see a fresh glass waiting in my fridge; it is evidence that someone still cares for me.
I barely took a fifteen-minute break but that would have to do. Time is money and I needed to earn a lot. Mum’s care is paid for in advance – for the whole year – and potion ingredients are pricey. I’d been buying a lot of them and I’d need even more before my potion was finished. I could have applied for another grant, but given that the council had already ‘misplaced’ my application for a temporary Coven Mother it didn’t seem like the best idea. If I wanted to fly under the radar, it would be best not to file any more documents with the council if I could avoid it.
I left my flat and jogged down the stairs back to my coven office. My breath caught as I walked in. Sitting at my desk, in my seat, was Bastion. He looked awful, even worse than he had the day before. I ignored the twinge of conscience and glared at him. ‘Get out of my seat.’
He rose instantly. ‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist. I just didn’t want to wait with my back to a door.’ He gestured to the guest chair opposite my desk.
‘Don’t think for one second that you have any effect on my knickers,’ I harrumphed as I reclaimed my chair.
‘You changed your mind,’ Bastion said carefully. ‘Thank you.’
‘I’m not doing it for you, not for one second. I am doing it for the potion.’ And all the people it could help.
He held up his hands; I suspected it wasn’t a gesture he often made. ‘Your motivation is your own. When can we break the curse?’
I grimaced. No time like the present, I guessed. If he was going to protect me, it was in my best interests to have him fighting fit as soon as possible. At the moment, he looked like a firm push would send him sprawling. ‘Now is fine. Do you have the witch’s blood with you?’ The only way to undo a curse like this was to use the blood of the witch that had cursed him. Luckily, he’d managed to secure some.
‘Yes, it’s in a cooler with ice bags. It’s still frozen.’
‘Fine. Bring it up to my flat.’ He knew the way; he’d been there once before when he’d browbeaten me into helping him find a missing griffin. It transpired that the missing griffin was his daughter, Charlize.
Charlize seemed to have a little problem with obeying rules. She’d broken them a time or two and someone had, quite rightfully in my opinion, got pissed at her for killing the wrong person. She’d been kidnapped and I’d had to bend the rules to find her. The pay for that job had been enough to pay for Mum’s care fees for the next year, so it had been worth it even though helping Bastion had stuck in my craw. I guess that foreshadowed all that was to come, I thought grumpily. Here I was, once again helping the man I despised above all others. The Greater Good had better appreciate all my hard work.
Bastion left my office to retrieve his cooler from wherever he’d stashed it, and I headed upstairs to prepare my room and my equipment. I relaxed the wards to allow Bastion to come inside and rolled up the circular rug on the lounge floor. Underneath it is a huge white pentagram painted onto the wooden floorboards – I am always ready for a runing. I walked around the pentagram, double-checking for any flakes of paint, but it was perfect.
Next, I disappeared into my wardrobe and pulled out two fluorescent pink and purple hula hoops. Each one was made up of four hollow pieces that slotted together to form a circle. I poured salt carefully into a segment of the pink hoop then attached the next segment before filling that with salt, too. When all four segments were salt-filled and reattached, I started on the purple one. Unlike traditional salt circles that are poured on the floor, catching these with your toe doesn’t suddenly break them and expose you to a host of black magic that can invade your body and your soul. Plus, they are mess free and reusable.
Despite their clear advantages, the coven council had rejected my repeated requests to roll out the salt hoops to the rest of the UK witches. Apparently they weren’t seemly, which was a load of hogwash. My coven had started using them years ago, earning us the ridiculous moniker of the ‘hula witches’. It made us seem like we were constantly ready for a lūʻau, but who cared? Sticks and stones may break my bones but breaking a salt circle will kill me.
I filled the kettle and set it to boil then opened the sliding doors to the balcony and studied the potted plants. I selected my least favourite one, a hardy, white-flowering shrub that had survived months of neglect. I’m not green-fingered at the best of times and being consumed by my potion project meant little else had received my attention. I quickly watered the other plants, carried the small white one inside and set it down by the pentagram.
I shut all the curtains, not because the magic workings needed darkness but because I disliked the idea of prying eyes watching the proceedings – even though my rooms were on the sixth floor and a Peeping Tom was as likely as a vegetarian griffin.
There was a sharp knock on the door, and I surveyed the room one last time before opening it. Bastion was leaning against the door jamb with the cooler at his feet, as if standing was too much effort. He pushed himself upright, lifted the cooler and walked in. His gait was smooth and he didn’t stumble, but I could see the effort he was making.
I watched him dubiously; he couldn’t even protect me from so much as a sniffly cold in this state. ‘The blood?’ I asked.
He pulled out a large bag of frozen blood from the cooler. I relaxed when I saw the size of it; I’d have plenty to work with. I took it to my kitchen counter and poured freshly boiled water into a glass bowl. ‘Come and hold the blood bag upright so none of the water leaks in,’ I ordered Bastion.
He obeyed, carefully placing the blood bag into the hot water but keeping the seal clear of it. While he held the bag in place, I readied my paintbrushes. I had a decent amount of blood to work with but a lot of runes to paint, so I selected a few of the smallest brushes. Once I started runing I didn’t want to stop to clean the brushes of the inevitable clots, so having a good supply was a must. Next I pulled on gloves – only an idiot in this day and age messes about with blood without adequate protection. A host of nasty diseases and bugs can be transmitted in blood and I wasn’t taking any chances.
I busied myself with my preparations, which was preferable to speaking to Bastion, until the blood was ready to work with.
Bastion finally spoke into the silence. ‘It’s ready.’
I nodded and retrieved my wooden bloodworking bowl. Bloodwork isn’t inherently black magic any more than a knife is inherently evil; it is how you use it that matters. Today I was using bloodwork to save Bastion’s miserable life, so my soul was sparkly clean – in this, at least.
Chapter 6
I painted the last of the defence rune thurisaz and stretched my cramping fingers. Five clumpy brushes lay discarded to one side. Runes are intricate, and it had taken over an hour to paint the ones needed to break the witch’s curse.
I stood and walked around the pentagram, checking every single rune. One mistake and I wouldn’t be breaking the witch’s curse, I’d be adding to it. Satisfied, I passed one of the hula hoops to Bastion. He took it dubiously, eyeing it with visible disdain. I couldn’t resist a jibe. ‘Not manly enough to carry off pink?’ I taunted.
He met my eyes. Immediately my every instinct started to scream that he was a predator and that I was going to die. I raised my chin defiantly and held my ground by sheer strength of will, cementing my feet to the floor even though they wanted to flee.
A hint of a smile danced across Bastion’s face, there and gone in an instant. He knew full well what he was doing to me, and he was doing it on purpose. Jerk.
‘I love pink.’ He winked.
I felt myself flush. I’d walked right into that double entendre. I hastily changed the topic. ‘Lay your hoop at the top of the pentagram then stand in the centre of the pentagram. When I tell you to – and not before – step out of it and into the protective ring. Clear?’
‘Yes.’ He nodded briskly, all traces of humour gone; he wanted to be rid of the curse. He laid the hoop down as I’d directed and stood in the centre of the pentagram. No emotion showed on his face, though I had no doubt he felt uneasy – most people did. When he was inside my pentagram, I could do a whole lot of malicious things to him if I wanted to. Unfortunately, my mum had raised me right. Our powers are always used to help others – the day I raise my paintbrush to kill another will be the day I give up magic and run away to join the Other Circus, forsaking the Other realm.
I placed my hoop at the base of the pentagram and stepped into it, sat down cross-legged and summoned my magic within me. Softly, I whispered, ‘Isa,’ the runic word of power and touched the rune at the base of the pentagram at the same time. Isa can be used either to activate or to send something into stasis, depending on your potion and your intent. That is why only a few living witches attain rune mastery like I have; it is a complex, arcane art and not for the faint-hearted. It is far more common for witches to specialise in just one area of rune work, like warding or scrying or healing.
I tugged on my magic and pulled it from me, then pushed it forward so it flowed into the runes. One by one, they lit up like a string of pulsing lights.
Bastion stiffened and a low groan escaped his lips – a lesser man would have been screaming. The runes pulsed and Bastion’s head was thrown back, eyes to the ceiling. Black smoke started to pour out of his eyes and the stench of rotting death filled the room. I struggled not to gag on it, but my focus had to be on him.
I watched him intently until the last tendril of foul blackness left his eyes and swirled around the room, looking for another living entity to occupy. ‘Into the hoop – now!’ I barked.
Bastion obeyed instantly. Copying me, he stepped into the hoop and sat down. It didn’t take long for the curse to find the only other living, unprotected thing in the room. It danced towards my plant and we watched as the blackness soaked into the vibrant green shrub. In less than a minute the plant started to shrivel and die. It didn’t have Bastion’s magic reserves to help it survive for long.
Bastion had battled the curse for weeks – I’d never seen someone survive a black curse for so long – but now he was free of it. I had expected to feel bitter that his death was no longer a certainty but instead I felt lighter. I knew that Mum wouldn’t have approved of keeping the curse on him; black magic is wrong, no matter whom it is used on.
Bastion’s head slumped to his chest and he took a few deep breaths. I stood up, collected the dead plant and bagged it up to send to the cremator. The black magic was gone; it had succeeded in causing death and now it was dissipating, but I always take a belt-and-braces approach to such things.
Bastion struggled to his feet but he still looked like a faint breeze would push him over. Even so, there was something else within him now, an edge that had been missing. It was like thinking you were in a field with a castrated bull only to discover that it definitely still had its meat and two veg.
He swayed on his feet. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked reluctantly. He was in my room and it would be inconvenient if he KO’d here.
‘Ah, Amber, I didn’t know you cared.’ His voice was soft, his head still lolling against his chest.
You give an inch—he takes a mile. I folded my arms. ‘I don’t, but I have stuff to do and playing nursemaid to you isn’t on my list.’
‘I’m always willing to play doctors and nurses.’
I narrowed my eyes. ‘Well obviously, I’d be the doctor.’
He lifted his head and that faint smile of his appeared. ‘Of course you would. I have no issue being the nurse.’
I had nothing to say to that. Nothing. I changed the subject. ‘You’ll need someone to take you home.’
‘Arrangements have been made. Just give me a minute. All of that exhaustion has snapped into place. For the first time in weeks, I know that if I close my eyes I’ll be able to sleep.’
‘Not in my circle you won’t!’ I squawked. ‘At least get onto the sofa so I can clean the pentagram.’ I didn’t want the bloodwork lingering any longer than necessary.
Bastion obligingly fell to his knees and crawled out of the circle. Seeing such a strong man reduced to crawling made me feel odd. He heaved himself onto the sofa, stretched out, and passed out instantly. Damn it, he hadn’t even taken off his shoes; If he got mud on the sofa, he’d be paying for the upholstery to be cleaned.
I busied myself with the clean-up, washing the floor and the bloodwork bowl and getting everything back into its proper state. I put my hula hoops back in the cupboard then stared at the deadly griffin passed out on my sofa. After a moment’s debate, I tugged off his shoes and set them down by the front door.
