by Willow Mason
“The game’s afoot,” I told Porangi, settling him in the back seat before I followed Lucinda. Given the small population of Fernwood Gully, it was a balancing act between being an obvious tail—since not many other vehicles were on the road—or running the risk of lagging so far behind we’d lose her.
“You can drop farther back,” Beezley said with another cautious glance over the dash. “She’s headed for the highway.”
State Highway One ran along the coast of the South Island of New Zealand, connecting Fernwood Gully to all the other seaside towns. Once a person ventured as far up as Kaikoura, they were uniformly nice.
“What other covens operate along the coast?” Beezley asked me—a fine question but one I struggled to answer.
“Trevor said his mob of misfits are farther inland, so it rules them out.” Trevor was my black magic instructor, not that he imparted much wisdom to me. There were so few occasions where it was applicable for good, I often felt like I had no magic powers at all.
“Didn’t Delia mention another group?”
“The ones who tried to rob the Taniwha bones? Yeah.” I wriggled in the seat, trying to pull my phone out of my jeans and instead sending it flying into the footwell.
“Keep your eyes on the road!” Beezley yelled as I stretched my fingers out to snag it.
“Yeah, alright. There’s no need to yell.” I raised it level with the steering wheel and flicked through the contacts.
“No texting and driving!”
“Unless you want to take over one of those tasks, hold the judgement for a moment, will ya?” I gave a cry of success when my thumb hit upon Delia’s name in the list of contacts and shouted out a quick message, “Where’s the mermaid bone coven you were talking about?”
“Will she even understand that gibberish?”
“Okay, Boomer. Not everyone needs perfect grammar to understand a simple request.”
I would have expounded on my argument, but the windshield filled with blue light. I couldn’t keep my eyes open because of the glare and I would have slammed on the brakes, except I didn’t need to.
The car floated a metre above the road. We weren’t going anywhere.
Chapter Seven
I tried to open my car door, but the light reacted like a thin, spongy substance. The door opened a crack but even using all my strength, I couldn’t move it farther.
“Get us down,” Beezley ordered in a panicked voice. He put his paws on the dash, staring into the light as if it would reveal its secrets if he just looked hard enough.
“Don’t worry.” I pointed to the road ahead where Lucinda was calmly striding towards us. “This appears to be friendly-ish fire.”
The elderly woman gave a jerk of her wrist and the car thumped down, suspension squeaking in protest. Porangi barked and ran from one side of the back seat to the other, working himself into a frenzy. I tried to grab hold, to comfort him, but he escaped my outstretched hand.
Lucinda rolled down all the windows, even as Beezley furiously jabbed his nose against the button on his side. “What’d you think you’re doing?”
“We’re following someone we have reason to believe knows the whereabouts of a lost mermaid.” In my head, the phrase had sounded confident and witty. Unfortunately, my shaking voice turned it into a chorus of frogs.
“You can turn around and go straight back home,” Lucinda said. “I don’t need anyone’s help.”
“I’d love to follow your orders but I’m working for Glynda and she won’t be impressed if we let you carry on alone.”
“Excuse me if I’m not worried about what impresses our supreme.”
“Think of your own neck, then.” I put my hands on the window frame, leaning out imploringly. “From what you said, there could be black magic practitioners where you’re headed. No matter how strong your magic is, against someone with those powers you’ll be helpless. Use me.”
Lucinda took a step back, folding her arms while her chin jutted upwards. Against Porangi’s barking, I could barely hear her say, “Okay, fine. But I’m going in first.”
“Be my guest,” Beezley said, relief coating his voice like honey. “And, if we’re taking two cars anyway, is there any chance I could switch to yours?”
Judging from the set of her shoulders as she walked away, the answer was a firm no.
My phone vibrated as Lucinda took off, her wheels squealing on the highway. A message from Delia. “The Briary, midway between Cheviot and Kaikoura.”
“At least if she tries to shake us off, we have somewhere else to check.” Not that it was likely. The highway went straight through with the only other route so far inland it would take five or six times longer.
“You could’ve just asked her back at Brianna’s house.”
Yeah, if I’d thought of it. “So could you.”
Sullen silence descended for the remainder of the journey, broken by an occasional spate of enthusiastic yaps from Porangi. The sky darkened, turned a riotous cacophony of reds, pinks, oranges, and yellows, then faded to dull blue-black.
The waves crashed on the shore on one side, brief flashes of sea spume dancing in the weak moonlight and the steep face of a mountain enclosed us on the other, making me feel free and claustrophobic at the same time. What would usually be green and comforting foliage turned grim and menacing in the dim light.
With my focus on the white stripes of the centre line, the rest of the world faded into the background. We could be heading into something dangerous. Probably were. Instead of easing into the long drive my muscles tightened, ready for fight or flight.
“She’s turning,” Beezley said, stating the obvious as I could easily pick out Lucinda’s flashing indicator on the road ahead.
I eased the car closer to her tail, fearful of her pulling a fast one now we were this close to our destination. Although the speed signs guided us to fifty kilometres an hour, the car showed ten, then fifteen below that.
“She’s looking for a specific address.” I matched my pace to hers, feeling the car crawl after such a long time on the open highway.
Porangi howled in the backseat, causing my flesh to break out in goosebumps. “Me, too, buddy,” I told him as I shifted down a gear.
Lucinda turned onto the main road, lit up with streetlights to ease the gloom. Shop windows were painted in reds and greens to match the season with fake snow dusted everywhere. It would be another six months before we got our chance at the real thing.
“Isn’t that her?” Beezley asked, practically crawling onto the dashboard in his eagerness to grab a better look. “Over by the department store.”
Brianna stood in the brightest spot on the street, her legs encased in sequined pants in a dark crimson that caught the lights as she turned, sending a thousand reflections beaming into the night.
“I guess she forgot how to dress her legs well,” Beezley said in mock-horror, making me giggle. “Everything about her outfit clashes.”
The car in front of me pulled to the side and Lucinda jumped out and ran to her daughter, leaving the engine running. I parked behind her, my stomach in knots as my mind picked over the scene.
It should have been exciting, happy, joyous. Instead, dread still coursed through my bloodstream and my skin turned clammy.
“She doesn’t appear to be kidnapped.”
Captain obvious was right. Nothing about this situation matched what I’d prepared myself for. Although that should have been a relief, it wasn’t. My nerves were tingling, screaming that something was off-kilter.
But I wouldn’t find out what by lurking in the car. “Let’s go see the happy reunion up close and personal,” I said, jumping out and watching in bemusement as Porangi sped past me, his little legs eating up the footpath.
When he reached the mermaid—although I could hardly call her that now—the chihuahua threw himself into the middle of the embrace, jumping up with his tongue sticking out, as though the pair were giant ice creams and he desperately wanted a lick.
“I guess their mother-daughter bond is stronger than I gave them credit for,” I whispered to Beezley as we walked closer. “Considering she didn’t appear to have ever visited her house.”
“Blood ties are always strong. You should have seen—”
“Bri!”
My head jerked up at the loud shout, confused and startled as Delia sprinted around a corner farther up the street and ran towards her friend. Her clear wings rustled from her speed. “Are they here yet?”
We drew level with the group, and I cleared my throat when Lucinda didn’t release her grip on her daughter. After another squeeze, the two separated.
“It’s a trap.” I backpedalled a few steps, but it was too late.
Another figure stepped out of the department store door, though the building must have shut hours ago. He smiled down the road at me, waving.
A man I recognised, though I didn’t know his name. He’d attempted to assault me at a witch’s house months ago, then placed a bag over my head in an empty hotel, preparing to do something terrible, though my magic ensured he never got the chance.
“Welcome,” he called out, spreading his arms wide.
Both Beezley and I tried to take another step back, the safety of the car only a few metres away, but our feet were frozen. Literally. I stared down at the great blocks of ice, wondering how to break free.
Even as I struggled to move, flinging my arms and hips around with desperate abandon, my eyes stayed fixed to the man. He stopped a foot away from me, wiping his thumb over his lower lip as though he’d just spied something delicious.
“Now here’s a bit of irony for you.” He reached out a finger, touching it to the tip of my nose.
I jerked away, then spat at him. The only reaction was a smile.
“Careful,” Beezley said in a low growl.
At first, I thought he was talking to the man, but his eyes were fixed on my hands. They glowed with crimson light. Black magic wanted to come to my rescue.
But I couldn’t let it free without knowing what damage it would cause. The last time I’d used it recklessly, spontaneously, an entire lodge had fallen down around our ears.
“Back off,” I muttered, feeling the song of the spells quieten as if I’d turned down the volume on their speaker.
The man stood, watching everything with a smirking grin. “That’s right. Put your toys away. You don’t want to hurt the very people you’ve been trying to save.”
He gestured to Brianna, Delia, and Lucinda. The three of them stared back at him, not with fear but with gratitude.
They’d played on our help and led us straight into trouble. My magic surged again as I stared at the actors who’d fooled us into coming to this deadbeat town.
“As I was saying, irony. You thought you were rescuing someone who’d been kidnapped.” The man leaned in close, his breath warm and foetid against my cheek. “And all the time, they were helping me kidnap you.”
He blew a cloud of magic dust into my eyes and the entire world went dark.
Chapter Eight
A sliver of light was the first thing I focused on when the world came back. It ran along the wall, just a smidgeon below the ceiling, and had a pattern across it. After a few minutes of blinking and squinting until my vision came into focus, I realised the pattern was iron bars.
I sat up and my head throbbed as if someone had whacked it with a sledgehammer. With a tentative inspection, I didn’t think it was the case, but that didn’t make the pain recede one iota.
“Beezley?”
There was a small groan from a darkened corner, and I crawled towards it as fast as my pulsing headache would allow. During the three-metre journey, I had to stop twice as the pain caused me to gag.
“What happened to us?”
I squinted at the French bulldog, my eyes scanning his length for any signs of disability. He lay flat on his back, his right legs splayed to the side and his left poking straight into the air. If I’d caught him this way on another day, I would have taken a snap and posted it online.
My phone. I slipped a hand into my jeans pocket although I could already tell it was missing. As were the car keys. The spare twenty I always kept folded into my tiniest pocket was still there—for all the good it did us.
“Oh, my head.” Beezley fought to get on his feet, rolling over successfully on the third try. He staggered upright, shaking his head and immediately wincing with regret. “All I remember from last night was finding the mermaid who isn’t, then a man blowing a spray of dust into my eyes.
“That explains why my eyes are so scratchy.” I slumped against the wall and examined the room—no, the cell. There was a lot of space, with four metres along each side, but nothing of interest inside it. On the wall opposite the window was a door and along the far wall was another one. They were made of some metal, probably iron judging from the rust creeping out from the corners.
They might be unlocked but I didn’t hold much hope of it. I decided to stay put for another few minutes to see if my head would calm down rather than launch to my feet to give the handles a try.
Beezley stumbled along each wall, pacing out the cell. His eyes were much brighter by the time he came back to me, his tail giving a quick wag. “Brianna and her mother were in on this.”
“At least we brought them together. I wonder if restoring her legs was the deal for our capture.”
“Miserable witches,” Beezley growled. “I think we should stick to human-only cases from now on.”
He nudged me and I pulled him into my lap, hugging him close. Until that moment, I hadn’t understood how cold it was in the cell, but his warmth made me crave for more. A breeze blew through the gap covered in bars. Nobody had bothered to fill them in with glass.
“What’s that on your neck?” Beezley asked, nudging his wet nose under my chin.
A thick chain was hanging around it. The weight was too much to be a straight necklace, but I couldn’t feel any restraints. “Maybe someone thought I deserved a piece of jewellery.”
“Then that someone should have their head read. It’s ugly.”
My fingers didn’t like the touch of it, either. The metal used had a greasy feel, and I wiped my hands on my jeans to rid them of the touch. “How are we going to get out of here?”
“Do we even know where here is?” Beezley asked, his face drooping mournfully. “The last thing I remember is it being dark and close to midnight. Given there’s now light in the sky, we could have been driven miles away.”
I pushed him out of my lap and stood up, using the wall as a support. “How about I lift you up to the window and you tell me what you see? I can’t imagine anyone enticing us to The Briary if they were just going to transport us somewhere else.”
Of course, right then and there, I couldn’t conceive of someone doing anything that involved forethought and effort. My brains and my body were both coming up zero on that score. Lifting a dog above my head seemed like an unconquerable feat.
But I rallied and managed. A snapshot view of Beezley’s puckered hole was my reward until I had the good sense to turn my head away. “What’d you see?”
“It could be the same town. There’s a park bench opposite me with a heap of tinsel hanging off it and the lampposts are those fancy iron ones.”
The replica Victorian posts were a building craze that arose at the same time gated communities caught on and failed as fast as the developer’s bridge loans.
“Is there anyone walking around up there?”
“A car drove by but that’s about it. It’s morning but it must be too early for most people.”
“Do you want to try screaming for help, anyway?”
There was a long pause—long enough that I looked at him and saw an expression of dismay on his face.
“Just a small shout?”
“Help us! We’re dying in here!” Beezley wriggled as soon as the words were out of his mouth and I set him back on the floor, my aching arms immediately giving me thanks.
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“Well, if that doesn’t bring a hero to our rescue, I don’t know what will.”
Beezley trotted to the far wall, sniffing along the base of the door. “There’s no need to be aggravating. If there’s no one out there to hear us, me shouting louder or a better choice of phrase isn’t going to make a difference. Can you give this handle a tug?”
I tested both doors, finding neither of them unlocked. The one on the sidewall had a metal door covering a peephole with the knob on our side. I pulled it down, hoping there might be another prisoner in the next cell, but it was empty.
If we pulled a Count of Monte Cristo, we’d still have no one to talk to.
“Can’t you…?” Beezley nodded at my hands and danced a few steps to the side. “Just this once?”
“We don’t even know who’s holding us captive. If I break us out of here by exploding the place around our ears, we could both get severely hurt. Surely, we should wait until we find out what the other alternative is before trying that?”
“Coward.” Beezley trotted over to the main door and scratched beneath it. “We were fine the last time your magic exploded a building. All your excuses won’t change that fact.”
We had been fine but the thought of what could have happened made my toes curl and my heartbeat go double time. The crack of the lodge as it broke in two reappeared as a phantom echo in my ears.
The man who caused me to react that way was the same man who imprisoned me and Beezley now. That thought also caused my stomach muscles to tighten and bile to rise in my throat.
Perhaps I could just send out a little…?
I bore down, reaching for the spells that sung inside me, asking them to emerge and help me in my current task.
“What are you doing?” Beezley asked with a barking laugh. “You look like you’re trying to dig a hole with your mind.”
“The power’s not there!”
“What?”
I held my hand out. There was no crimson light swirling across the surface. No song rose in my belly to fill my heart with joy and buzz across the surface of my skin.
