In my peripheral vision, Imani wrestled on the ground with the other guy. They rolled into a puddle as she tried to get a chokehold on him.
I tried to pull my leg free, and the Greek guy aimed his gun at my leg. “Don’t think I won’t.”
I froze. Tears wanted to come, but I held them back. This was crazy. Helplessness tried to drown me as sure as the downpour did. But I wasn’t going to let him take me somewhere.
Our gazes met as I opened myself to the flow of magic.
“You know if you throw a spell at me, it will bounce back to you? I promised to take you back alive, so whatever it is, make sure it isn’t deadly.” He smirked.
I swallowed. The gun was so black, so pointing at me. “I know what a return to sender is. I’m not stupid. Unlike you. Moron.” Maybe if I goaded him enough, he’d do something stupid without thinking, something that gave me an advantage.
His eyeballs almost popped out of their sockets as he puffed up with rage. He pointed at my leg and pulled the trigger. I screamed as the bullet burned through my leg. Seemed as if I’d made a huge error in judgement. The man laughed. “And you thought I wouldn’t do it. Yes, I promised to take you back alive, but sometimes I break my promises.”
A wave of nausea rippled through me as I gripped my calf muscle, blood seeping through my fingers, reddening the puddle beneath. Gritting my teeth and doing my best to ignore the pain, I drew on my power. I wove a spell in my mind and told it not to activate until I said the word. “You’ll never break another promise again, lacky boy. You just shot the wrong witch.”
He raised his gun, pointing it at my face.
“Now,” I whispered to the swirling magic in my belly.
My doorway formed, the base of it slicing into his upper back—an invisible guillotine—severing it from the lower half. Gruesome, I know, but I didn’t want to take any chances. I told myself it was all fake, like a TV show. It’s not real, Lily. It’s not real.
He was dead before he could scream.
Horrified at what I’d done and unable to rise because of the all-encompassing pain, I couldn’t physically help Imani, but she looked as if she had things under control. Her hair in ringlets plastered to her face, she knelt behind the guy, who was also on his knees. Her arm circled his neck as she applied the choke. His hands gripping her arm slid off and fell limply at his sides. Then his eyes closed. Imani released him, letting him drop forward, his face smashing on the ground. She pulled magical handcuffs from her inside jacket pocket and cuffed him.
Although, if he was working for RP, he’d likely be dead soon. None of them survived for questioning. We weren’t sure, but we thought they were under some kind of spell that prevented them from ever giving out information on the group. If not that, it was poison each one had taken before we could question them. In any case, it was unlikely this guy would be alive in twenty-four hours.
Once Imani locked the guy in the car, she ran to me. “Are you okay, love? Let me see that.” She gave no heed to the two pieces of bad guy on the ground. If she wasn’t going to mention it, neither was I. As she spelled my leg to stop the bleeding and pain, I slapped a no-notice spell on the Greek guy. There was no point scaring passers-by. At least there hadn’t been any for a while because of the sheeting rain.
“Can you stand? It might hurt, but I’ve contained the bleeding and hopefully most of the pain.”
“I’ll try. I don’t want to lie in this puddle all day.” I attempted a smile, but my lips didn’t want to cooperate.
Imani helped disentangle me from the dead man and stand. As soon as I was safely balanced on both legs, she looked down at him. “Wow, I’ve never seen a doorway used like that before. Effective. You can close it now.”
I cancelled the doorway—they normally disappeared a few seconds after you’d stepped out, but since it had gone through someone rather than the other way around, it hadn’t disappeared. “Hmm, yes, very effective. I didn’t want to kill him, but he had his return to sender up, and he was pointing a gun at my face. I only had one chance to save myself.”
“I know, and I think you did a good job. We do what we must, love. We do what we must.” She glanced around, maybe making sure we were safe. “The magic’s stopped in there. Why don’t we get you to the infirmary and that other thug into a cell; then I’ll contact Will and tell him what’s happening.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Imani magicked a camera to herself, took numerous shots of the deceased and the scene for evidence and the incident report. Then, casting a spell that took an enormous gush of energy, she created a dome over the dead man, making him invisible to non-witches. Once that was done, she safely sent his body to the PIB morgue—there was no one watching from the street, but who knew what little eyes watched from the various windows overlooking the laneway.
Imani pulled out her phone, pressed the screen a few times, and held it to her ear. “You guys done?” she asked, then waited. “Aha. Okay. Send B out, and we’ll take him back with us. We have a prisoner.” Will’s raised voice screeched out of the phone, and Imani held it away from her ear. When he’d finished, she put it back and said, “We’re all okay. I’ll fill you in later, but right now, I want to get Lily to the infirmary. She’s fine, but she needs her leg checked out. I’ll explain later. Okay, bye.”
“I guess we can’t just travel out of here?”
“No, and I don’t have enough power to make another dome to hide everything. We’ve caused enough of a ruckus out here for one day. You never know who’s watching.” She looked around, then back at me. Lightning flashed, but this time the thunder took longer to crash, and it wasn’t as loud.
Beren came jogging out of the surgery, and Imani and I hopped in the car—her in the driver’s seat, me next to her. Beren could watch our criminal in the back. As she drove us back to the PIB, we all dripped mercilessly on Will’s leather seats—I hoped he had leather protection on them, or we were all going to be in trouble, but then again, he could probably fix it with magic. Most things could be dealt with that way. Unfortunately there was one thing that couldn’t be. Dana’s anger.
I’d just killed someone she likely cared about.
I hadn’t just poked the piranha, I’d stabbed it with a massive stick, and I wasn’t looking forward to her reaction. A stone of dread broke the surface of my contemplation and sunk to the bottom, a weight to remind me of what was yet to come.
And I’d bet my Nikon none of it was good.
Chapter 19
Back at the PIB, Dr Finnegan spelled me to sleep, took out the bullet, and healed me. It all took about fifteen minutes, but exhaustion lingered. Now I stood in a room that looked into an interview room via a two-way mirror. It was just like being in a TV show. Imani, Liv, and I listened to the interview Will and Ma’am conducted with Dr Ezekal’s daughter as they sat opposite her across a rectangular table. I had no idea why they were interviewing her—her aura clearly showed she was a non-witch.
Imani and I shared a glance, and she shrugged. Well, if she didn’t know what was going on, I’d have to stay clueless until Ma’am and Will had finished with her.
“We’ll be recording this interview. Please state your name and date of birth for the record,” Will said.
“Miranda Anna Ezekal. I’m… I’m not sure of my birth date. I’ve always used the 24th of March, 1981, but my parents admitted that it was just an assumption.” Her meek voice was quickly swallowed by the sparsely furnished room, and I only just made out what she’d said.
Ma’am leaned forward, clasping her hands and resting them on the desk. “We’ve done our usual searches, and we couldn’t find your birth certificate. Any idea why?”
“I was adopted when I was about one-month old.” Still, shouldn’t she have a birth certificate?
“Okay, we’ll come back to that,” said Ma’am. “You’ve waived your right to a solicitor. Is that correct?”
“Yes.” She took a deep breath, then sighed, her shoulders drooping and her hea
d hanging down.
“You do realise these are serious charges—mind control and murder? You’re looking at life in prison if you’re convicted.”
She looked up at Ma’am and nodded, tears falling down her face, mascara smudged and darkening the bags under her eyes. “I’m tired. I can’t keep doing this. I didn’t want to do it in the first place, but… there was no other way.” What was she talking about? Had she paid someone to cast the spells? How could Ma’am be trying to pin this on her?
“Can you show me what you did, Miranda?” The woman widened her eyes, likely shocked at being asked to do what she was about to be tried for. “It’s okay. You can just start to do the spell. Why don’t you perform half of it, then let it unravel?”
She nodded and closed her eyes. When she opened them and took Will’s hand, familiar magic cascaded down my scalp. It was her! I employed my other sight to view her aura. And there it was—the colour indicating she was something other than a non-witch. Normally witches had a solid colour. Hers was blue with clear patches. Spots opened and closed in her aura, the colour filling the holes that appeared before emptying again. Filling, emptying, filling, emptying.
Ma’am held up her hand. “You may stop now.”
Once she stopped, the aura faded, and she looked like a plain non-witch. Imani’s eyes were wide, but Liv had no idea what was going on because she couldn’t feel or see anything. She looked at me with a questioning expression. I mouthed, “Later.” She nodded.
Ma’am stood. “Just a moment.” That was my cue to quietly meet her in the hallway. I was out there by the time she exited and shut the door behind her. She whispered, “Was that it?”
I nodded. “Definitely. But what’s going on? Is she hiding her aura? I didn’t even know it was possible, unless you have all your magic blocked, which she didn’t.”
“No. She’s a wilder. They’re extremely rare. They only happen when one parent is a witch and one a non-witch, and not in all cases, of course, or you and James would be wilders. We can’t find any evidence of her birth records, so she was likely given away by someone who didn’t go through the normal channels. Her adoptive parents probably have no idea she’s a witch, or even that witches exist. But we have more questions to ask. I’m sure you’ll know everything once this interview is done. Now I have to get back to it.” I hurried back to my room, and she returned to hers.
All I could think as I watched through the glass was, why? She didn’t seem like a bad person. Why kill all those people? Unwanted sympathy momentarily softened my hatred of what she’d done. Because her parents weren’t witches, turning twenty-four must have been a scary time. If Angelica hadn’t swooped in and educated me that day, I didn’t know what I would have done. Probably burn out a hundred coffee machines and give up photography or feel like I was going mad with all the see-through people in my pictures. Although, if James hadn’t been kidnapped, surely he would have returned home and explained.
Ma’am resumed the questioning. “So, why have you been spelling people and making them kill themselves?”
She scrunched her eyes tight, then opened them but gazed at the table, unwilling or unable to meet Ma’am’s stare. “No one made me do it. It was all my idea.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“My father. He’s getting old… too old to be operating, but other than me, it’s all he has. After Mum died ten years ago, he’s been obsessed with work. It’s the only thing that makes him happy. They adopted me when Mum couldn’t have children.” She rubbed her nose. “They saved me. I know they did.” She finally looked up at Ma’am. “And I wanted to make him happy. Without his work, he’d die. I know he would.”
“Okay, go on.”
“His skill has gone downhill, and he was making so many mistakes. I started off just wanting to make the flaws invisible to the patients and the people around them, make them happy with the way they looked. If my dad got sued and lost his licence, he’d never forgive himself. I didn’t want him to see what he’d really done. I think his eyesight isn’t all that good, and he thinks he’s doing a good job. Anyway, the spells took too much energy to maintain, and after three or four patients, I realised I couldn’t do this with hundreds of people, if it came to that. So when they’re in recovery, and I’m monitoring them, I spell them so there’s a glamour covering the faults, and I program in a desire to kill themselves in a few months to a year. I didn’t want them dying too soon after surgery, or my dad would get blamed for that too, but I guess I failed anyway.” She blinked back tears and covered her face with her hands.
But wasn’t she sorry she killed people? All her grief appeared to be for her father and what he would lose. What about all those innocents who died?
“And your father never asked you to do this?”
She dropped her hands into her lap, her eyes full of self-loathing and anger when she looked up at Ma’am. “Of course not! He’s a kind man. He and Mum took me in when no one would. And he doesn’t know what I am. What an evil person I am. Am I possessed?”
Ma’am’s poker face dropped for a second—which was enough for me to see the anguish on her face. She shook her head slowly. “No, Miranda. You’re not possessed. Although some people may say we are. You’re a witch, just like me, like Agent Blakesley here. I’m afraid that after your trial, you’ll have a long time to learn about who and what you are while you’re in jail with others of our kind. I have one other question.” Ma’am took her shrug as acquiescence. “You refused to let in other witches. How did you know they would see through the spell?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t know what they were, just that they were like me. They have fuzzy light around them that other people like my mum and dad don’t have. We hardly ever get them coming in, but I figured it would be a bad idea, just in case they could tell what I was doing. And if I was evil, surely they were too. I didn’t want to think what they might do to me if I tried to make them kill themselves, and I couldn’t do anything that left my dad’s mistakes exposed.”
“Okay. We’ll have more specific questions for you later. For now, Agent Blakesley will escort you to your holding cell.”
I hated that I felt sorry for her. Maybe if someone had been there for her, she would know she wasn’t evil, although killing all those people made her assumptions true. We waited until Will had taken her away, then we all filed into the hallway. Ma’am pinned Imani and I with her unwavering stare. “You two, in my office. Now.”
Damn. Just when I thought I was home free. You’d think I’d know better by now. Maybe I was more sloth than squirrel when it came to learning my lessons. Ma’am led the way with an impatient, no-nonsense gait.
Seated in her office, the door closed, she stared with Imani. “I’ve received your all-too-brief report on the laneway incident. Is there anything you’d like to add?”
Imani’s back remained straight, and she didn’t even flinch. “No, Ma’am.”
Ma’am’s gaze floated across the space between Imani and I until it landed on me. “I’d like to hear what happened from your point of view, dear.” Why did she say it like it was all my fault? I was an innocent recipient of unwanted kidnap and murder attempts. She looked at her watch, then back at me. “Now would be a good time. I don’t have all night.”
Argh! “Um… well… Imani and I were waiting for the agents to do their thing in the surgery, and the man who’s now in the cells tried to open Imani’s door. While that was happening, Piranha’s friend opened my door and dragged me outside. We fought for a while, and he said he was going to take me somewhere. When I wouldn’t give in easily, he shot my leg. Then he threatened to kill me, so I killed him first. He had a gun pointed at my face and a return to sender up. What else was I supposed to do?”
“You felt you had no other recourse?”
I shook my head emphatically. “No! He even said he was going to kill me. He’d already shot me, for goodness’ sake. I believed him. Not to mention the pain and shock I was in. Getting shot isn
’t exactly on my list of things to do when I’m trying to think through a difficult situation. I’m more aware than anyone of my growing body count.” If there were such things as heaven and hell, I was definitely going to be pressing B100 in that lift. I slammed my back against the chair and folded my arms.
“That’s all well and good, and I’m not bothered that you killed him, but there’s something you need to know.” Why did she sound like need to know wasn’t want to know? She held her hand up. A photo appeared in it. She leaned across the table and gave it to me. “This photo was featured on Dana’s Instagram account two weeks ago. There are no distinguishing landmarks, so it gives us no indication as to where they were, but if you thought she hated you before, I’m afraid you’re going to have to multiply that by about a thousand.”
I stared at the picture, as did Imani. She gasped. I could hardly breathe. My stomach dropped as if I were on a rollercoaster.
I’d killed Dana’s new husband.
I didn’t want to be scared, but I was. And who could blame me?
I couldn’t have picked a bigger stick to poke her with if I’d tried.
That night, Angelica, Will, and I sat around the dining-room table—Liv was still staying at Beren’s until we figured more of this tattoo thing out. We’d just finished dinner, and Will’s phone rang. “Hey, B. Yes? Okay, that’s great. Yep, first thing tomorrow. I’ll let her know. Mmhmm. Will do. Bye.” Will smiled at me. “Beren said they’ve worked out the tracking part of the spell, and they want you there first thing in the morning so they can unravel it. They’re also more confident that they can work out the confusion spell, but they still think it’s going to take a few weeks.”
After the day I’d had, I’d take that as a win. “Yay.” Will gave me a thumbs down. Okay, so my yay was a bit pathetic, but I really was happy that I wasn’t going to be tracked like a parcel anymore. “I mean it. I’m just tired.”
He put his arm around me and kissed the top of my head. “I’m just glad you’re alive. Nice work on chopping him in half.”
Witchbotched in Westerham Page 16
