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

by W. V. Fitz-Simon

  Norman’s eyes had the same blissed-out glaze that had possessed Miranda.

  “I’ll do it, Master.”

  Margrave pulled him close and kissed him on the forehead.

  “Bless you, my boy.”

  He laid a palm on Norman’s head in benediction. Influence flowed between them in jagged waves.

  “I give you license to fulfill all your desires. Use everything I’ve ever shown you without restraint. Surrender to your appetites. Become all you have ever wanted.”

  Tears streamed down Norman’s face.

  “Thank you, Master. I will make you proud.”

  “I am already proud of you, my boy.” He turned to the other two and became Cressida. “Take these two to the car.”

  As they ushered Miranda and George out, two docile sheep being led to the slaughter, the image of Cressida flickered back to Margrave.

  “Wait for us to leave,” he said to Norman. “Be quick about this one. The other two will give you trouble.”

  While Margrave and Norman conferred, Gosha made a break for the stairs. She had been up onto Miranda’s roof deck once before, many years ago, and remembered how to unfasten the hatch in the roof.

  Norman leaped at her, seizing her by the neck as she made it to the top of the stairs, and dragged her back down to the bottom, throwing her to the floor. He loomed over her, his expensive cologne wafting into her nostrils, a hint of a smile curling on his lips.

  “I’ve heard about witches and all the trouble you cause. This should be fun.”

  He pushed back and shrugged off his suit jacket. Gosha turned to scramble away up to the roof, but he pulled her down by the ankle and she hit her head on the stair. Innocuous in his shirt and tie, he looked like nothing more than a nice suburban boy, but as he loosened his collar, his skin darkened to a reddish-brown. His short blond hair spread down his neck and onto his face. His eyes glittered a luminous hazel green.

  He threw his head back, closed his eyes, and sighed. His back hunched and distended, his limbs elongating, distorting his shape into something monstrous like his master. The smooth, egg-like aura of Influence around him surged and roiled with the transformation.

  She darted for the door, hoping his transformation would give her time to get out into the open air, but he crossed the gap between them before she even made it to the threshold and threw her back.

  She spun up into a runner’s crouch, poised to leap in whatever direction might offer her freedom, but he was there, ready to cover all her escape routes. Had the room been larger she might have had a chance, but there was nothing between them to shield her and no room to maneuver around him.

  Beneath her t-shirt, the wode sump knocked against her chest, the intensity of its heat reminding her it held a charge large enough to do serious damage to Miranda’s house, and maybe also to Norman. She spoke the breaking spell and lashed out with everything she had, pushing all the Influence in the wode sump through the keyhole opening within her. It hurt, her insides ready to burst, but in her desperation and inexperience, she couldn’t come up with any better solution.

  In the slow-time envelope of the spell, she watched Norman jump into the air. He twisted and contorted as spell-charged Influence flooded out at him. His aura undulated around him, deflecting the blast. The cone of damage spread out past him to the front of the house, ripping up flooring and mashing it into sawdust as it stripped the walls back to the plaster. He dropped to his feet in the wreckage without a sign of damage. The wode sump was spent.

  He made a twisting gesture with one hand, and a winding helix of Influence snaked out at her. By now, she had seen enough power flowing around her to get that this wasn’t the same as one of her crude outbursts. The shape and pulse of the flow was precise and organized, but whatever effect Norman had intended never came to pass, its raw energy sucked into the wode sump. Gosha wondered if these things had ever been intended to see so much use and hoped it wouldn’t suddenly wear out on her.

  He tried again. The same winding sequence punched out at her, but with more power behind it. If she could somehow read the spell’s intent, she might be able to feign its effects to gain an edge, but she didn’t know how. What she didn’t know could fill the room.

  What she didn't know would get her killed.

  He tried another spell and then a third. Different configurations of Influence writhed outward from him, but none of them eluded the wode sump. His spells were much less potent than his master’s. Even with the infusion of power Margrave gifted him, the temperature gain of the wode sump was small, only enough to give a little extra wattage for whatever might come next. She needed to be judicious about using it up.

  Norman realized his spells weren’t getting him anywhere. He surged forward, covering the short distance between them with terrifying speed, and raked at her with his fingers, nails extended and sharpened like knives.

  Gosha flinched and covered her face.

  “Barzhed.”

  The Influence of the binding spell spread out to shield her, but Norman kept at her, punching and jabbing with fists, elbows, and whatever other parts of him he could turn into weapons. His aura condensed around him, powering each physical blow to give him greater than human strength. The wode sump took the edge off each strike and fueled the next blocking spell she barked, but the force of his strike was enough to drive her into the kitchen. There were no windows or doors to offer her escape.

  His attacks had rhythm, a pattern of thrust and recovery, as if she were his punching bag. The rhythm increased with frenzy and power as he pressed her back against the kitchen counter. He broke his rhythm to pull back and deliver a knockout punch, but before he could let loose his blow, she had a flash of inspiration. She spoke the binding spell to stop his attack and, without thinking, spoke the breaking spell before the inner keyhole closed. The two keyholes combined into a chaotic and unstructured opening, the two opposing forces fighting each other as they competed for dominance. The Influence that flowed through them took on the chaos, becoming a pulse of rolling force that shattered Norman’s aura and knocked him off his feet, stunned.

  In the aftermath, her body depleted of more than just the power of the wode sump, a deep chill spread through her. Nausea surged up from the pit of her stomach as the floor bucked and the room twisted around her. She doubted she could take more abuse from misusing the spells her mother gave her. The spell to bring down chaos leaped into her mind, sneaking out of the chill within her, but the thought of it filled her with dread. Her body shuddered as if to shake off the last vestiges of cold. The darkness and terror from the cellar with the witch hunter pressed out behind her eyeballs, the memories threatening to overcome her as they had in the darkroom, but she forced them away.

  She had one other option. The curse. Only that morning she swore she’d never use it, and now it filled her with hope instead of dread.

  “Rasht!”

  The puzzle box opened within her. Influence flowed through and calmed the agitation that remained within her after her abuse of the binding and breaking spells. The Influence of the spell became a questing sentience that pinwheeled about Norman like a flock of birds in search of food.

  Lurching around as he recovered his senses from her attack, Norman couldn’t protect himself from the curse. It dipped toward him, as if sniffing his aura, and recoiled back. The second time, it dove, penetrating his body, creating a vein of darkness that wound through him, tainting the pure and unblemished flows of Influence within him.

  A jittering slideshow of images from his past life pressed itself on her consciousness: him as a young boy in primary school sketching cartoons in the margins of an exercise book; as a teenager in an art lesson before an easel drawing a life model; as a young man, sketching sculptures in the British Museum. How could someone with so much artistic talent become the violent sorcerer before her?

  He cried out in pain as his right hand shriveled. The bones twisted, the muscles withering around them. The curse ensured he could n
ever draw again, perhaps a great loss to him, but it didn’t do her much good.

  The pain in his hand was enough to shock him back to his senses. He lashed out at her, striking her across the cheek with his withered hand before she could throw up her guard. The force of the blow threw her into the kitchen counter, bruising her ribs and knocking the breath out of her. The wet warmth of blood from a split lip smeared across her face.

  He backed the blow up with Influence. Gosha used the stolen charge from the wode sump to block his next attack, but she was now pinned, with no way of maneuvering herself to freedom.

  “Rasht!”

  She cursed him again.

  The curse rushed toward him, darting and dipping at him exactly like the other. With his wits about him this time, Norman backed off and swatted at it. His aura began to churn, thickening and hardening whenever the curse lanced at him, deflecting its probes. Through the puzzle box opening within her, she could feel the curse’s confusion and frustration. The shape of the spell word created an entity of single-minded purpose and absolute certainty, but Norman’s seething aura denied it its due. The curse tossed about with greater and greater frenzy, losing power until he reached out with his withered hand and swatted it away into nothing.

  It might have failed, but the curse gave Gosha time and room to think as it forced Norman back toward the living room. She couldn’t run from him. He’d pursue her. And after, when he had killed her, he’d go after her mother and the boys.

  The threat of him descending upon her mother’s house narrowed her thoughts, burning away weakness and fear. She cursed him again, and again, and again—consequence to herself be damned!—until a dozen snapping, probing hexes swarmed about him. His aura writhed and twisted, extruding and fraying as it tried to block the ever-shifting attack, leaving him a twitching ball of concentration as he struggled to defend himself.

  Gosha paid the cost at once. Each curse opened another puzzle box, tearing not at her physical insides, but at her psyche. Buried doubts and fears rushed to the surface, all her adult protections stripped away, leaving her emotions as raw as when she was a little girl. She felt a powerful urge to flee, to run and run until her lungs burst and her legs gave out, but she gripped the countertop. The hard, cold marble became a solid weight to anchor her and keep her grounded. She reached out behind her with her free hand, searching blindly for a weapon. Unable to turn her eyes away from the arcane skirmish before her, she rummaged through the bric-a-brac until she found the cold, heavy handle of an iron skillet.

  My weapon of choice, she thought as she wrapped both hands around the handle and swung with all her might.

  The clout landed hard, striking Norman’s skull with the crunch of bone. He collapsed to the floor.

  She hadn’t killed him. His body still pulsed with Influence. His aura still surged around him, but the protective turbulence drained away, and the curses struck, piercing into him, dark tendrils wrapping around his organs. An overwhelming barrage of images flashed into her mind. In an instant, the entirety of his life played across her awareness. She was seized by every desire, every intention, everything that made him happy, and everything that gave him grief. For an instant she understood him as no one else could.

  She blacked out.

  37

  She came to almost at once, her body just beginning its journey of collapse to the floor, and caught herself on the edge of the marble countertop. Norman was dead, his lifeless body twisted into an unrecognizable shape, all trace of Influence gone from him, and with it, the curses that had killed him. She felt sturdy again, the damage to her psyche from the abuse of her mother’s spells calloused over by the certainty of someone with lives to save.

  She stumbled across the ruined floor to get as far away from Norman’s twisted corpse as quickly as she could. Outside, the battered facade of Miranda’s house looked like it always did, a small and cozy retreat in the mews with a single light burning in the window. Whatever Norman had done to obscure the conflict between George and Margrave survived his death.

  She pushed the image of his body and the surge of all the memories the curse had stolen from him as far away as she could, locking them up in the mental safe where she kept her memories of the cellar in Poland.

  She had parked the car two streets away because she didn’t have a resident’s permit and didn’t want to get towed. Even when trying to save her best friend’s life from supernatural threat, some part of Gosha insisted on clinging to the parameters of mundane life. Her little Mini Cooper had always been her sanctuary, though, with two growing boys, it was ridiculously impractical. She slid into the driver’s seat, her hands shaking as she locked the doors. She removed the lipstick from her bra and placed it on the dashboard, and the thrum and buzz of Influence faded from her awareness, leaving a ringing in her ears.

  She slumped back into the seat, closed her eyes and rested her head. Her eyes refused to settle, flickering below the lids like they did at the end of a long shoot as her thoughts turned over. Miranda said Margrave had summoned the group for a meeting at their retreat center tomorrow night. All was not lost. She could still track them.

  Her atlas had made its way into the passenger side footwell, a Sargasso Sea of accumulated rubbish from countless drives. She riffled through its pages, stopping at a spread of the southwest of England. She had no idea where this retreat center of Margrave’s was, but it couldn’t be that far out of London.

  Her makeup bag was still on the passenger seat. Pulling up a good head of face powder on her brush, she focused on Miranda, spoke the finding spell and blew the powder over the map of England’s home counties. No puzzle-box or keyhole like the others, the finding spell created within her the shape of Miranda, giving Gosha the feeling she was somewhere close, just out of view, around a corner or in another room.

  The powder billowed off the brush like a smoke ring from a fat cigar, but the cloud ignited as it drifted over the map and burned away without revealing a thing.

  She tried it again, and again the powder burned to nothing.

  What’s happening? The spell worked an hour ago.

  She tried it again, on George this time, his presence looming over her as she cast the spell, and again the powder burned away.

  Margrave must have done something. She remembered the chaos that followed Mrs. Dearing’s attempt at scrying on him. Whatever countermeasures he had about himself to prevent others from spying on him must also encompass George and Miranda. She had to understand the finding spell better if she was to track them. She needed expert help.

  * * *

  Her mother’s house was a half-hour drive in traffic, time that could be better spent. Canterbury Gardens was five minutes away from Miranda’s even at rush hour. Gosha dumped her handbag on the chair by the front door, leaned her weight against the wall and took a deep breath. The house was quiet, her children safe under her mother’s protection. George was on his way to a fate that she wasn’t sure he deserved, despite all he’d done. And Cressida.

  Poor girl.

  A week ago, Gosha’s mother would have been the last person she would have called for help. Tonight, she was the first.

  “Are you okay?” Her mother’s voice crackled down the line. “Elsie, it’s Gosha,” she shouted away from the receiver. “Pick up the extension on the landing.”

  “It’s me, I’m here,” came Mrs. Dearing’s indomitable, upbeat chirrup.

  “Tell us what happened.”

  Gosha blurted out everything, the words tumbling out in a jumbled accounting of everything that happened in the hours since they parted. After she finished, the other end of the line was silent.

  Her mother cleared her throat.

  “You did well, Goga, very well.”

  “But what do I do now?”

  “We need to know more about this saint of the Devil and his masking spell. I’m going to set up a party line. Do as I say. Exactly as I say. Not like when you were a girl, and you thought you knew everything.”
<
br />   Oh my word. Gosha rolled her eyes. I’ll never hear the end of it.

  “Yes, Mamusha. Tell me.”

  “Find five mirrors. Doesn’t matter what size. Arrange them around the kitchen table facing you. Place a saucer in front of each and a candle in every saucer.”

  “There’s a box of candles under the kitchen sink,” chimed in Mrs. Dearing.

  “Pour milk and some form of spirit in equal measure in the saucers. Whiskey is good, rum is better.”

  “There’s a bottle of Appleton Estate left over from the Christmas party in the drinks cabinet in the living room,” said Mrs. Dearing.

  She knows my house better than I do.

  “Leave me on the line while you do it all,” said Gosha’s mother. “And don’t light the candles until I tell you.”

  “Yes, Mamusha.”

  “Good girl.”

  She put the receiver down and ran upstairs on a scavenger hunt to collect the mirrors, the rum, and the candles.

  “Everything’s ready,” she said, picking up the receiver again. Around the kitchen table she had assembled mirrors of every size: two wall mirrors—one large, one small—propped up against stacks of books, a hand mirror, George’s shaving mirror from the bathroom, and the mirror from her makeup compact. Saucers of milk and rum with a single candle balanced in the middle stood in front of each.

  “Turn off the lights,” said her mother. “All the lights in the house. Check every room.”

  “Everything’s off.”

  “Are you sure, Gosha? Check. Every electric light must be turned off.”

  Gosha sighed. If her mother had said something, she could have been doing this all along as she scoured the house for the mirrors, but she held her tongue and did as she was told.

  “Light the candles from right to left. Counter-clockwise. What’s that funny word you use, Elsie?”

  “Widdershins.”