Waking the Witch (The Witch of Cheyne Heath Book 1)

by W. V. Fitz-Simon

  “I don’t know,” she said, unsure if George’s new powers would allow him to discern a lie like the Queen of Secrets. “I came to in the kitchen. I didn’t know what happened.”

  Best to stay close to the truth, just in case.

  “You hurt me.” He touched the side of his face, although there was no sign of the mighty wallop she’d given him. Did his saintly powers allow him to heal?

  “You’re a murderer.”

  He wasn’t controlling her the way he was everyone else in the bar. She could run at any moment, but the sight of him filled her with such a rage, her legs wouldn’t let her flee.

  “Am I?” He sipped his martini, unperturbed by her accusation. “I suppose so. I never would have thought I was capable, but it turns out I am. God knows, he deserved it.”

  With a snap of his fingers, one of his entranced victims, a young poet—Gosha remembered the party here in the club for his first published collection—rose from his perch on one arm of a chair and moved out of the way so George could take his place and watch the poor woman being violated.

  “How did you find out?” George drained his glass and placed it on the table without taking his eyes off the scene before him. “Were you able to hear our conversation?”

  “I heard everything you said. I know all about what you did.”

  “Interesting. I wondered what people are aware of when I have them. After I let go, it doesn’t take much to twist their minds so they don’t remember a thing.”

  “You’re disgusting.”

  Her crib sheet with the spell words was in her pocket. The first three she could remember. She hadn’t dared memorize the final two for fear of what they might do. The word that brought down chaos was a final solution she would never use, but if she knew the curse, she’d use it on him now without a second thought.

  He smiled and sighed, finishing the rest of his drink in one large swig.

  “I have everything I ever wanted, no thanks to you.” He placed the glass on the nearest table. “We were supposed to be a team, you and me. You and me against the world. But you insisted on keeping your secrets.”

  “Three people are dead because of you. How could you kill your own father?”

  “Father was a sociopath.” He furrowed his brow. “He drove my mother to kill herself, whipped me until I was raw, and locked me up for days, all because he wasn’t satisfied with us. I thought he saw weakness in me, and I tried to make myself a better man for him.”

  “You made yourself exactly like him.”

  “In a way.” He nodded. “I had to make him take me seriously. If you hadn’t told me about what he was, I would never have known. Thank you for that. Now I understand how he was able to accrue so much money and control so many companies when all he ever did was spend his days in his study. He’d never have left it to me. Hell, now that I know the extent of his power, he might have been able to live forever.”

  George’s handsome face hardened into an expression of cruel glee. Any trace of the man she’d fallen in love with was gone. Had it all been a pretense? Had he been scheming all this time?

  “No matter,” he said brightly, as if talking about an inconsequential obstruction to the smooth passage of his day and not the murder of his father. “I have everything I ever wanted, including you. Where have you taken the boys?”

  “You will never see them again. I guarantee you that.”

  He smiled. “Let’s get them now.”

  A thin channel of Influence lanced out of his aura with the certainty of a beam from a flashlight and struck her with the force of water jetting from a garden hose, but nothing changed. She still had control of her body and felt no compulsion to obey him. Nestled against her chest beneath her t-shirt, the metal of the wode sump grew warmer and heavier. The power channeling through her lipstick jumped in intensity. Mrs. Dearing’s tinkering was working.

  “What was that?” George cocked his head. “That’s not how you eluded me before.”

  As if aiming a gun, he pointed a finger at her and another channel of Influence shot out of him, only to be absorbed once again by the wode sump.

  “God damn you, Gosha,” he said rising from his perch. “You’re always so obstinate.”

  He threw out a hand as if lobbing a ball at her. A much thicker, fuller channel of Influence thrust out of him, crackling around her as the wode sump absorbed it, heating it up against her skin. How much could it take before it became unstable? If the heat were an indicator of its charge, it must already be full.

  “Fuck you.” She turned and ran.

  Escaping the barroom would have been hard enough if the people George held trapped remained passive. Pushing her way through was like trying to catch the tube at rush hour, but as she waded through them, they clustered in around her. People whose children she knew, people she had shared meals with, reached out with blank faces to restrain her.

  “Get back here!” George threw more Influence at her, but the wode sump absorbed it and scorched her skin.

  She struggled to break free, trying to push her way through, but the bodies wouldn’t let her pass. Hand balled into a fist around the lipstick, she screamed with fury. The Influence flowing through it responded. A wave of force blasted out, knocking her captors back and shattering all the glass in the bar. The wode sump cooled against her skin.

  Gosha stood there, stunned, but came to her senses as George picked himself up off the floor. She bolted for the door, slamming it behind her, and placed her hands on the door frame.

  “Barzhed.”

  The spell’s keyhole opened within her and Influence flowed through into the door and frame, binding the two together. The fraction of a second it took to cast the spell stretched out for an eternity. A blissful calm suffused her entire being. She could have lived inside it forever.

  With a massive crack, the door shattered in its frame, knocking her back. George stepped through the jagged hole in the wall and threw his arm out at the front door. It slammed shut. She’d dawdled, getting lost in herself again, and wasted her opportunity to flee.

  “You’re not going anywhere!” His face was puce with fury. She’d never seen him so angry in all their years together. “You are my wife! From now on, you will behave properly. You will give me the respect I deserve.”

  He threw more Influence at her and the wode sump heated up once more.

  “But darling.” She curled her lip in a sneer of defiance. “I am. You’re getting exactly what you deserve.”

  With time, she could have figured out how to manipulate the ambient Influence into an effective weapon, but there was none. Her mother said the breaking spell required her to lay on hands, but she could point the lipstick to aim the curse. Perhaps with the extra power in the wode sump from George, she could extend the range of the breaking spell.

  She raised her arm and pointed the end of the tube at the ceiling.

  “Kattak!”

  She felt the keyhole open, but the power that flowed through was so massive, her chest hurt. Her head exploded with pain as every muscle in her body clenched. She staggered back, regretting at once casting the spell as the ceiling collapsed on George’s head, burying him in plaster, wood, and furniture from above.

  The front door held fast, no matter how hard she pulled at it.

  “Kattak!”

  The breaking spell flailed against the door, but its keyhole-shaped burst bounced off the rigid Influence that thrummed across the barrier. Perhaps she could run back to the bar and escape through the garden.

  As she turned back from the door, the shattered masonry and plaster from above exploded across the club foyer. She didn’t wait around to see if George was okay. She bounded up the staircase to the upper floor where the offices and the guest rooms were. If she could steer clear of him long enough, she could figure out how to use her mother’s spells to get out of there. At the very least, she’d have time to learn the curse and the chaos spell words.

  The upper landing stretched the entire l
ength of the building. As she reached the top, George mounted the stairs beneath her, the wood creaking under his weight.

  “Come back here!”

  He threw more power at her and the wode sump heated up again. She offered a silent prayer of gratitude to whatever might be listening for George’s mindless flailing. She ran through the nearest door and closed it behind her. If she were to bind it shut and use up all her extra Influence, she would lose her advantage. Besides, she doubted her body could take it.

  She inhaled a deep breath and forced herself to take the time to think before speaking the binding spell, even though beyond the door George raged his way down the hall toward her.

  When she spoke the word and the opening unlocked within her, she held back the violent torrent of force from the wode sump and eased it through her, sending it into the door and the wall, merging them into one. When she was satisfied with the job, she went to the window. A stone patio lay between her and the grass. Landing on it from this height would guarantee a broken limb. Even if she launched herself out of the window, she wouldn’t be able to propel herself far enough to reach the grass. The only way out was via the stairs.

  The wall and door shook. Her turbo-charged binding resisted George’s attempt to break through. She kneeled and placed her hands on the floor. With the breaking spell and the remaining power in the wode sump, she was able to guide Influence across the floor and create a sliced divide between her and the door. It wasn’t enough of a break to make the floor a hazard. The building was too old and sturdy. She’d need to make further incisions, but the power in the wode sump was almost gone.

  The wall to her left began to undulate, bowing outwards like ripples on the surface of a pond. The plaster cracked and flaked, and the wooden studs behind it splintered. She took out her crib sheet with just enough time to memorize the spell word for the curse before George broke through.

  The wooden studs in the wall gave out, shredding and bursting into the room.

  “You could have killed me.”

  He stepped across the debris.

  “I wish I had,” she spat back.

  “You always were so jealous and petty-minded.” He shook his head, disappointed. “You just can’t stand that I have real power now. I couldn’t believe how cruel you were when we came back from Liverpool. Why would you tell me your secret and then try to prevent me from claiming what was rightfully mine? I took years to get to this. I wasted so much time on you.”

  She pointed the end of her lipstick at him and spoke the curse word.

  “Rasht!”

  Time slowed as a new and different keyhole opened within her. The other openings were small and irregular, precise shapes to mold and direct the Influence that flowed through them. This was larger. Her entire chest softened and expanded to accommodate it. Hidden cavities deep within her reconfigured like a puzzle box unfurling to create a window through which she could see George’s inner workings. Arteries and veins of vital force pulsed through him. The Influence that flowed through her took on a questing yearning that shot out toward him.

  “What is that?” He caught the curse in his hand as if it had a physical form and held it before him to inspect it.

  The air round his hand shimmered and ignited into a shifting aurora of glittering blue that folded in on itself over and over again. He prodded at it with a finger, and it sparked. He flinched back, wincing.

  “It bites.”

  He wrapped his hands around it and twisted as if wringing out a sodden dishtowel.

  The curse burst into blue embers and dissipated in his grasp.

  “All these years, you had all this power. You’re such a liar. I knew you were cruel, but I never thought you capable of something so vicious. I was right to mistrust you.”

  He crossed his arms and frowned at her. She needed to make him lash out at her again if she was to steal enough of his power to finish the job on the floor.

  “We’re at an impasse, I suppose,” he said. “Somehow you’re able to resist me. Emerson said I would be able to control anyone who wasn’t like us.”

  “I didn’t tell you more about the occult because I knew you were weak.” She gambled she could push his buttons enough to launch another volley of power at her to feed the wode sump. “I thought for a moment there might be something to you when we came back from your father’s house. Turns out I was wrong. You’re nothing but a sad, bitter rich boy who didn’t get what he wanted. The boys would be ashamed.”

  “Shut up.”

  A thin beam of Influence lanced out at her. The wode sump absorbed it, but it wouldn’t be enough. The metal amulet barely heated up against her chest.

  “How are you able to resist me? Emerson promised I’d be unstoppable.”

  She sneered.

  “Emerson, Emerson, Emerson. Your sad excuse for a father figure is trying to kill you.”

  “Don’t be stupid. This is all thanks to him.”

  “He’s fattening you up like a lamb to the slaughter. He intends to steal your power for himself. He’d never have been able to take it from your father, but you’re nothing but a weak little mummy’s boy.”

  “Must you always be such a bitch?”

  He moved closer, but stopped just shy of the break in the floor. The boards beneath him creaked, but he noticed nothing amiss.

  “I’m telling the truth,” she said. “Margrave killed Cressida and used her to create another trinket like the one you used to kill your father. You’re weak and ignorant, and he’ll take you easily. At least then Edmund and Timothy won’t have to suffer the burden of a pathetic father.”

  He grabbed her by the throat and squeezed hard, cutting off the flow of blood to her head. Unable to draw breath, she couldn’t speak a word. The lipstick slipped out of her hands as she clawed at his arms and face to get him to release her.

  Without the lipstick, her second sight fled her, but the wode sump heated up, telling her he was pushing Influence at her in his rage. She kicked with every ounce of strength she had. The sharp point of her winklepicker boots connected with his inner thigh and he grunted, but his grip didn’t falter. Black spots appeared before her eyes and the roar of rushing blood filled her ears.

  Although his reach was longer than hers, he held her close, his jaw clenched in rage as he watched her suffocating. She dug her thumbs into his eyes, and her black-varnished nails drew blood.

  He released her and staggered back. She fell to her knees and flailed around to retrieve her lipstick. With the small cylinder firmly nestled in her palm, she could feel the tides of Influence swirl around her once more. She placed a hand on the floor and spoke the breaking spell, managing no more than a hoarse whisper.

  “Kattak.”

  It was enough.

  The keyhole within her opened and she pushed every last ounce of Influence from the wode sump through it, despite the pain it caused her. The floor beneath George cracked. Wood shattered like glass beneath him and he dropped.

  This time, she didn’t hesitate, didn’t even bother to see if he was still alive as she skirted around the edge of the collapse and down the stairs. The front door was still sealed, but she took an antique chair and threw it through a window to clamber out into the street and escape.

  34

  Gosha’s hand shook no matter how hard she gripped the steering wheel. Every new pair of headlights that reflected in the rearview mirror made her jump. She drove until the narrowing focus of her fear abated enough that she could take her foot off the accelerator and loosen her clutch on the wheel. She pulled into a side street and the nearest parking space, coiled up over the steering wheel, and wept.

  The tears came as a release, pent-up tension shaking out of her in wracking sobs until she was out of breath. She slumped down in the bucket seat of her tiny Mini, her body aching, and wished her mother had thought to give her a word that could offer relief.

  Despite the danger she had been in, it was glorious to make the earth shake and the building crumble. But she c
aused so much damage, tearing through the club like a blitzkrieg. If George hadn’t pulled everyone into the bar, who knows how many she might have injured? She had to be more careful. Her mother said the five spells of the rhyme were everything a witch needed, making her wonder what challenges the average witch faced in a day. Nothing like the assault of a crazed maniac like George.

  She always knew he was a regressive chauvinist at heart, and a petulant brat, but she always chalked that up to his upbringing. Despite his moods, he always seemed intent on bettering himself. It was the one thing that still endeared him to her. Either his attempts at becoming a better man were all a lie, or, when faced with the possibility of power, he had reverted to type. Whichever was true, it didn’t matter. The man she fell in love with was gone, replaced by one more handsome stranger who meant her and her family harm.

  The boys would be safe with her mother in the short term, but after she picked up Miranda, she’d have to figure something else out. Perhaps they could run away, but where would they go? Where would they be safe beyond the reaches of George and Emerson Margrave? That’s if both men survived. The odds were on Margrave. If she and the boys left the country, say they fled to Ireland, would she be out of their reach? No Polish witch hunters had followed her family to England.

  She understood now how her parents must have felt as they waited for her to regain consciousness after her mother had dealt with the witch hunter. Once they were safe in England, Gosha’s constant terror receded into dreams and nightmares, making it easier to hate her parents for pulling her away from her home than to process her true feelings. What a brat she’d been.