Winging It (A Wayfair Witches' Cozy Mystery #4)

by A. A. Albright

  On my wizard broom, it was a totally different experience. I could feel some odd lurches in my own body, followed by a dullness that told me my power was being affected. But my broom didn’t care how much power I had – it had enough power of its own. I caught up with Will quickly. This deep down into the Chaos Field, the magical interference finally seemed to be affecting him.

  ‘Wanda!’ He pointed, panicked, at Amelia. ‘She’s going to hit the bottom in a minute. My broom isn’t fast enough in here. I’m barely hanging on myself.’

  I nodded, said nothing, and streaked down after her. My broom flew steady and true, and I reached Amelia about five feet from the jagged, icy rocks at the bottom of the chasm. I grasped her hand in mine, just in time. We both watched in shock as her broom smashed onto the rocks. There must have been hundreds of brooms there, some totally enveloped in ice, some peeping through, as though they desperately wanted to fly free. Of course, the lost brooms weren’t quite as saddening as the piles of bones.

  I summoned every bit of strength I had, trying to heave Amelia upwards while I flew my broom away from the bottom. She grasped the shaft of my broom with one hand, while still awkwardly clutching my palm with the other. I could tell she was struggling, and try though I might, I just wasn’t strong enough to pull her fully onto my broom.

  Above us, some shards of ice fell loose from the walls of the chasm. With Amelia hanging on, I tried to fly out of their path, but a large piece smacked her clean on the head.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I screamed at her, terrified she was going to fall unconscious.

  ‘Just about,’ she replied weakly. ‘But Wanda, I don’t know how much longer I can hang on.’

  Just as we were both close to tears with the effort, Will arrived. The strained look on his face told me that he was finding every inch of flight difficult, but nevertheless he manoeuvred himself under Amelia, pulling her by the waist, and neatly setting her down in front of him.

  I was a little bit in awe, I have to say. He flew up to the closest ledge, and I followed.

  For a minute we were too out of breath to speak.

  ‘Oh, thank the stars,’ Amelia said eventually. Her voice was shaking a little, and her eyes looked slightly unfocused. ‘I thought I was a gonner when that ice smashed against my head.’ She crawled to the edge and looked over. ‘I can’t even see my poor broom anymore. I don’t understand it. It just ...’

  ‘Broke,’ Will finished her sentence, sounding just as shocked. ‘I mean, that’s a Cackle Five Thousand. Same model as mine. These brooms can withstand anything.’

  I glanced at Will’s broom. Sure enough, it was the same as Amelia’s. His, however, looked pristine. Amelia stopped looking down, and looked at Will instead. ‘What are you doing here anyway? You could have won that race.’

  He cleared his throat. ‘Nah. You would have beaten me. This way I save myself some embarrassment.’

  Unlike me, Amelia didn’t seem remotely surprised by Will’s heroic move. ‘Just like you, Berry. I still remember the time you ditched the Bayou Broom Race because you saw an alligator going after a little girl. You were almost at the finish line, and you had it in the bag.’ She grasped his hand warmly. ‘You’re a good friend, Will. And you too, Wanda. Without the two of you ...’ She shuddered. ‘Anyway, the less said, the better.’

  ‘What was with the Whizzers though?’ said Will. ‘They were all ... weird looking. And they didn’t even notice your broom falling apart.’

  Just as I was about to reply, one of those very Whizzers arrived. It was Melissa, looking out of breath and thoroughly ticked off. ‘Oh, thank goodness,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d be too late.’ She bent down to Amelia. ‘Are you all right? I saw you fall on my on-broom monitor.’

  I glanced at the wizard broom Melissa had been given. It had even more bells and whistles than my own. It was a two-seater, with panniers packed full of first-aid gear and a stretcher attached to the bottom. There was a tiny screen attached to the shaft. Even now, we could see the race progressing. Gabriel had the lead, and the Whizzers were flying above, still ignoring the fact that one of the racers had almost plunged to her death.

  ‘There’s something weird about this whole thing,’ said Melissa. ‘The race organiser gave us a little pep talk before we took off. He was that guy who announced the delays yesterday, when Mandy and Sven were sick. Seems he’s Sven the Speedster’s uncle or something. Anyway, we were given mulled wine, and there was a little speech thanking us for our bravery and all that. The whole scenario just felt ... creepy. I think the others might have been hypno-potioned. They kept scratching their ears. And then I heard a whisper, too. It sounded like someone telling me to keep my eyes on the finish line, and to ignore everything else. I shook it off, but this has vamp attack written all over it.’

  ‘So why weren’t you affected?’ Will asked. ‘You heard the whispers, so someone obviously tried to compel you. Didn’t you drink the wine?’

  Melissa looked at me. I knew full well why she would have been able to withstand a hypno-potion, not to mention being compelled. Melissa had vampire ancestry, and strong powers of her own. Vampires were amazing at convincing others to do their bidding – but it was incredibly hard for one of them to be influenced by any sort of hypnosis.

  ‘Melissa hates mulled wine,’ I lied. ‘You probably spat it out, didn’t you?’

  She gave me a grateful smile. ‘Yeah. Yeah that’s what happened. I spat it out. I tried to speak to the steward about it, but he just ran off, and the rest of the Whizzers took off too. Then I heard the starting pistol and I figured I’d better get out there in case something was going to happen. Which it did. It seemed like this was a targeted attack. Amelia, can you think of any reason someone would want to hurt you?’

  Amelia snorted. ‘Hurt me? Melissa, whoever did this ... I doubt it was personal. This is the most competitive broom race in the world. Suspicious accidents happen all the time.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Will agreed. ‘I wasn’t even going to compete this year because I hate all the nonsense that goes along with it. But Amelia, this isn’t itching powder in your robes or laxative in your drink. To find a way to break a Cackle Five Thousand at that precise time, never mind to mess with all of the Whizzers so that no one would come to your rescue. That is a big effort. And after what happened to Wanda and the other beginners yesterday, I’m starting to think there’s a lot more going on here than meets the eye.’

  I couldn’t help it. I gazed at him. Outright, unashamedly gazed. I just could not work this guy out. He was temporary head of the most nefarious coven around. He had actually made excuses to me about his father’s and his aunt’s murder sprees. And yet here he was, not only helping to save Amelia’s life, but being just as aware of the danger as I was.

  He felt me looking at him, and looked up at the opening of the chasm instead. ‘Well, whatever’s going on, we’re not going to solve it down here. Amelia, I think you’ll be safer riding with Melissa on her wizard broom.’

  Amelia looked longingly at the stretcher, then wobbled a bit. ‘Yeah, I think you might be right.’

  Melissa gave a curt nod. ‘Good. I’ll take you straight to Night and Gale. Get you seen to by someone we trust. Wanda, Will ... will you be all right getting up?’

  Will nodded. ‘I didn’t have much of a problem with the Chaos Field. I’ll be able to fly up, and Wanda will be fine on her wizard broom.’

  Melissa was clearly eager to get Amelia to hospital, so she didn’t say anymore. By the time Amelia was in the stretcher, her eyes were closing and her face had gone white. We watched them fly up, but I stayed put.

  ‘Go on,’ I told Will. ‘I’ll be right behind you.’

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘You’re up to something.’

  ‘No. Nothing at all.’ Okay, so I’m a big fat liar. Of course I was up to something. Now that I was down here, I had no intention of leaving until I’d found Facility B.

  ‘Whatever. It doesn’t matter what you’re up to
, because it’ll um ... it’ll have to wait. The thing is, I lied through my teeth to Melissa. I didn’t have an easy time with the Chaos Field. I only got through the magical interference by sheer willpower, because I was desperate to save Amelia. I think we’re going to have to travel back together.’

  ‘So why didn’t you just say that?’

  ‘Because.’ He looked me straight in the eyes. ‘I thought we should have a conversation first. An important one. There’s something I need to tell you, Wanda.’

  19. The Stranger in the Tavern

  I looked down at my gloved fingers. ‘Fine. Go ahead. But if this is about you proposing to Little Miss Perky Nose, I already know.’

  ‘What? Who told you that?’

  ‘She did. She said you were going to pop the question after the Everest Climb.’

  ‘Oh.’ He went quiet for a moment. ‘Well, yeah, that’s the way things are going. But that’s not what’s important right now. Wanda, it’s about your broom. The one I gave you.’

  I peered over the ledge. ‘You mean the one that’s currently down there, probably never to be seen again. What about it?’

  ‘I told you I bought it off a stranger in the tavern. Well, it was the truth, or at least I thought so at the time. The thing is, I know who he was now. He was one of those guys. The three who stabbed themselves with the pool cues the other day.’

  I felt my pulse begin to quicken. ‘Which one? The witch, the wizard or the weredog?’

  ‘The witch. He said his name was Jeff. Anyway, I told you that he said he found it in Nepal, in some Lost and Found. Well, now I know he must have been lying. It said on the news he worked for Plimpton’s Brooms, right? So I thought maybe he stole it from work. But that doesn’t make sense either, because the factory doesn’t produce a model like that. And that’s not all.’

  Considering that everything he was saying was incredibly revealing, I was impatient to hear more. ‘Well?’ I prompted. ‘What else, Will?’

  ‘I was drunk at the time, but now that I think back to the conversation ... Wanda, he meant you to have that broom all along. I’m sure of it.’

  I thought back to Benny and the Jeffs in the Water Bowl. Benny had spoken about a broom. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I think you might be right. Will, Jeff and his friends meant to tell me something before they died, but they never got the chance. So if there’s anything else you can remember about the conversation, I really need to know.’

  For some reason, his face was turning red. ‘Nothing important. Oh, look, like I said, I was drunk. It was the night after your first day at Berrys’ Bottlers. I’d left the chocolate and everything for you, in your locker?’

  I nodded. ‘I remember. Your aunt saw me grinning like a maniac when I found it.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, she caught up with me later that evening and had a right go at me. The coven wanted me and Mandy together, even back then, but as far as I could see they weren’t very good at making matches. My mam and dad were a coven match, and look how that turned out. At the time they didn’t even see each other, but they were arguing on the phone every other day. Anyway, me and Aunt Alice had a massive row, I went to Three Witches Brew, and that’s where I got talking to Jeff. Now that I think about it, I guess he knew who I was before we ever started talking. He said he heard I’d hired you. And I might have said ... I might have said I fancied the pants off you and wanted to get you the most amazing birthday present in the known universe so you’d see how serious I was.’ Will’s face grew redder than ever. ‘That’s when he popped off and came back with the broom. Told me the story about finding it in Nepal and said he’d only give it to me so I could give it to you. As a matter of fact, he didn’t even want money for it. I had to force some cash into his pocket. So. That’s the story of the broom.’

  I began to feel dizzy, and I didn’t think the thin air was to blame. My head was swimming, and my eyes were stinging. It was too painful to focus on the parts of the story that involved Will liking me. I knew that those feelings were long gone for him. I needed to focus on what mattered here, and that was getting inside Facility B. The mystery of this place hadn’t begun with the recent murders. It had begun much, much longer ago than that.

  ‘Okay, thanks for telling me,’ I said matter-of-factly. ‘Listen, I’ll drop you off now okay?’

  He shook his head. ‘No way. I want to know what all this is about, Wanda. This is big enough that someone has tried to kill you and Amelia. That they have killed those three guys and probably that vampire, too. And now that I know Jeff worked for Plimpton’s Brooms, I’m guessing that this has our wonderful Minister’s grubby hands all over it.’

  I fought to hide the fact that I was impressed. Most people had swallowed the lies about the recent murders. But the fact remained that I needed to do this on my own. Not so long ago, he had tattled to the Minister about me, telling her that I was investigating when she had outright barred me. Now, I was once again barred from investigating – but this time, so was my entire coven. I might have been coming up with one or two sneaky plans just then, but they were plans I was going to keep under my own crumpled hat, not just for my sake, but for everyone else’s too.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said. ‘Let’s just get back up there, so you and Mandy can live happily ever after.’

  He looked like he was about to reply with a big fat no, but his attention was caught by the one thing I hoped he wouldn’t notice. A few feet above us, something was lighting up.

  ‘What the ...?’ Will peered upwards. An enormous, dome shaped structure had appeared on the next ledge up. From this close, I could see far more than I had before. It was filled with people in white coats, some flying around on brooms, others working behind desks.

  Will looked at me. ‘You knew about this place. That’s why you were trying to get rid of me.’

  I crossed my arms. ‘I have no idea what that place is.’

  ‘Yes you do. Does the Minister own it? Is it some secret branch of Plimpton’s Brooms? Did Benny and the Jeffs and that vampire know about it? Was that why they were murdered?’

  ‘Cat in a hat!’ I exclaimed, keeping my eyes on the structure above. The dome wasn’t quite a dome, but more like three quarters of one. The rest of the operation seemed to be within the mountain itself. ‘You really are a tenacious bugger, aren’t you Will?’

  He moved closer to me. I could feel the heat from his warmth spell, travelling into my body. ‘Look, Wanda, I don’t like you and you don’t like me. That doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that Minister Plimpton is up to something, and I want to know what. I’m going up there, with or without you.’

  ‘Good luck with that. They’ll see you coming from a mile off. Unless you can manage to do an invisibility spell while flying up there. I’ll be impressed if you can.’

  ‘Your broom has a cloaking button,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Yes. My broom does.’

  ‘I could take it off you.’

  ‘You could try.’

  He sighed. ‘I’m not going to report you to the Minister, Wanda.’

  ‘You’re not going to report me again, you mean. Why are you so interested in all of this, Will? And tell me the truth.’

  ‘The truth?’ He looked at the ground. His warmth spell was making his feet melt through the ice, and a little pool of water had formed around his boots. He kicked at it, sending sprays of cold water through the air. ‘Fine. I’ll tell you what you need to know. I think Minister Plimpton is getting too big for her boots. I think her coven will soon be large enough and powerful enough to compete with the Berrys, and I can’t have that. I want dirt on her, and I think this is where I’ll find it.’

  I looked him up and down. His expression was just as unreadable as ever, and his body language told me nothing. But his words had been the first thing that rang true since we’d wound up down here together. ‘That sounds more like the Will I’ve come to know and loathe,’ I told him. ‘And you know what? I think it might be easier with
two of us. But cloaking ourselves on the broom isn’t going to cut it. We need to get inside and snoop without being seen, and that’s going to be difficult when we’re taking corners or negotiating through narrow spaces.’

  ‘Okay.’ He nodded eagerly. ‘So then, what do we do? A spell?’

  I glanced up at the ledge. The glitch was lasting longer this time, and I could still see the dome. But who knew how long it would last? ‘Yeah,’ I replied. ‘The Chaos Field doesn’t seem to have an effect on me this far down. You feel up to an invisibility spell? It’ll need to be a hybrid, mind you. We’ll have to dull our sounds, too, make it so we can hear each other but no one can hear us. Can you do that?’

  He looked unsure. ‘If memory serves, you’re far better at invisibility spells than I am. Especially those of the hybrid variety.’

  He gave me a funny smile, and the memory of when he’d bumped into invisible me when we found the Wizard’s Graveyard hit me full force.

  ‘Fine,’ I said, looking away from him. ‘I’ll do it.’ I swung my leg over my broom. ‘But only if you hurry your arse up and get on back. We need to get up there soon.’

  He left his broom on the ledge, and joined me. I thought I heard a faint swallow from him as he sat behind me, but maybe I was imagining it. Concentrating hard, I formed an incantation in my mind, and began:

  ‘Unheard and unseen to everyone’s eyes

  But we two alone shall see through the lie.’

  I took a deep breath. ‘That’s it done. Let’s go.’ I kicked off the ground. ‘Oh, and Will?’ I said as we began to fly. ‘If you double-cross me, I’ll make you suffer in painful, brutal ways.’

  ≈

  Will rested one hand on my waist as we flew. He would have had a much steadier seat if he just wrapped both of his arms around me, but I wasn’t going to suggest that.

  Even with the hyper-speed button on, we didn’t make it in time. By the time we alighted on the icy shelf, the dome had completely disappeared.