by Tess Lake
“Whoa,” I whispered to myself. I looked across at another old dead tree stump and before I could stop myself, I pointed my finger at it and threw another lightning bolt down from the sky. It exploded into burning fragments which were extinguished by the wind.
I had a feeling inside me that I’d had before. When I had pulled the heat out of the fire, I’d discovered that it was incredibly addictive. There had come a strong desire to do it again, even if that meant starting fires or sucking the living heat out of a human. It was only with training from Hattie Stern that I had been able to learn to control it. It felt like that with the lightning crackling above me and the storm. Every time I pointed my finger and threw a lightning bolt, I got the desire to do it again. I felt a kind of strength from it, a kind of wildness and power that I’d never experienced before. I looked across at another dead tree and waged a small internal battle with myself about whether I should hit it with a lightning bolt. Aunt Cass had said that maybe the only way to get to the other side of this was to go through it. That was the pro side. The cautious side of me was saying this was exactly like that crazy addictive power and if I started zapping trees, I’d end up zapping people and taking over the city or something. That’s how it goes with slip witches – when they turn bad, they turn really bad. Before I had realized it, I had raised my hand to the sky to pull a lightning bolt to hurl at a tree. Mattias appearing in front of me snapped me out of it. He appeared as he had when he’d died – a kindly old grandfather.
“Bella is with Tobin at the studio! He’s getting her drunk and I think something terrible is going to happen,” he said, years of acting training making his voice boom in the clearing.
Okay, a moment of pause here. Yes, some small part of my brain did recognize that if I had been calmer, or if my family had been around, or if I’d put even a minute more thought into it, I probably wouldn’t run to my car and drive to the studio. But that’s not what happened. What I had was a brain full of electricity, a storm above me giving me power, and a desperate desire to keep people safe. So I yelled at Mattias to follow me, bolted back down around to the front of the mansion, leapt into my car and went driving down the hill like a madwoman. Mattias followed me all the way. He was now sitting in the passenger seat, his face a grim mask. We made it into town in record time despite the fact that the storm was whipping itself up to a frenzy. At home it had been grumbling, crackling lightning and repeating thunder. By the time I got to the set, a strong wind was blowing, the rain was going sideways, and lightning was crackling across the sky with greater frequency.
Mattias must’ve realized that what was about to happen was incredibly dangerous.
“I have to go! I’m getting your aunt!” he shouted before vanishing. It was perhaps a little too bad he didn’t say, “Wait here,” or “Wait for me to get back.”
I made my way onto the movie set, finding that there were no guards posted. Clearly if Tobin was going to do something to Bella, he didn’t want any witnesses around. Unfortunately, Mattias hadn’t told me where Tobin and Bella were. As the storm increased in strength, I made my way over to Tobin’s trailer, pulled the door open and rushed inside, only to discover it was empty. I ran back outside into the howling wind, some part of me realizing I was behaving like a crazy person, but with the power of the storm behind me, there was no way I was going to let something bad happen to Bella. Even if she and Molly were mortal enemies.
I was standing in the rain, looking down the row of trailers, when Mattias appeared again.
“Which one is it? Where are they?” I called out over the sound of the storm.
“They’re inside,” Mattias shouted back, pointing at the main set warehouse. “But maybe you should wait—” he added, but I was in no mood to listen. I was a slip witch, and by goddess I was going to use my power. I ran over to the warehouse and found a side door that was unlocked. The moment I opened it, the wind nearly tore it off its hinges, and I cringed at the loud banging sound it made. I managed to pull it closed behind me and the sound of the storm was muffled. With all the noise outside, I was hoping that no one had heard the door bang open. Down the warehouse, I could see a pool of light in the distance. Tobin and Bella were sitting at a small table.
I crept down there with Mattias walking closely by my side. I might have the power of the storm behind me, but I had no reason to go rushing into a dangerous situation. As I got closer, I saw that they were sitting in an actual bar set that had been built. There was a bottle of brown liquid on the table between them. Bella was drinking from a glass and saying something to Tobin. Even from where I was sitting, I could see that she was drunk and/or possibly drugged. He wasn’t touching his drink at all. I crept closer, some small part of me realizing I probably should have called the sheriff. Oh well, Mattias had told Aunt Cass where I was, and in a lot of ways I’d rather have her show up than a whole heap of men with guns.
“I wanna… wanna… you know, you just want to do something amazing? Something really good?” Bella slurred and spilled half her drink down her arm.
“Whoops!” she laughed and then thudded her glass down on the table, splashing more of it.
“Have another drink,” Tobin said and smoothly filled her glass.
“I think I’ve had a bit too much, I feel weird,” Bella said. Then she picked up the glass anyway and took a drink that seemingly revived her.
“All I want to do is film. I wanna make great stuff. That’s my whole point of living,” she declared. I was pondering what I could do, perhaps throw something at Tobin, or cast a spell or wait till Aunt Cass arrived, when I felt something hard press against my back.
“This is a gun. Start walking forward,” a woman said from behind me.
My breath seemed to freeze in my lungs, and the storm outside doubled in intensity at my shock. Although I felt frozen in the spot, I managed to turn my head and saw it was none other than Lisa, the small pale girl who was Cyro’s assistant. Every time I’d seen her, she’d been a nervous, twitchy mess who was terrified of her boss. She was still twitchy and nervous but had a serious look in her eye.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said, finding it hard to get the words out.
“Tobin! Someone’s been watching you!” Lisa called out. She shoved me forward and I fell on my hands and knees into the light. By the time I got to my feet, Tobin was in front of me with a gun in his hand as well. He looked me up and down, frowning and then smiling and then frowning again. Then he grabbed me by the arm and hauled me over to where Bella was sitting. He let me go and stepped back. Lisa came to stand around behind me. The shock of having someone point a gun at me had already driven the storm crazy outside. Now that there were two of them on me, things were getting really bad. The walls of the warehouse started making a thrumming noise as the wind outside pushed and pulled at them. The entire building began to creak as though it was sitting in a hurricane. Tobin looked up at the roof just in time to see a few panels get ripped away and sucked off into the storm, revealing the raging night sky above us. That wasn’t going to stop him.
“I was going to go with drunken suicide, but this is so much better. A murder-suicide by a former classmate? It’s perfect,” Tobin said, the gun not moving an inch off me.
Mattias was standing beside Tobin, glaring at him. That dark outline that Freya had seen was growing darker by the minute.
“You don’t have to do this!” I called out, talking both to Tobin and Lisa. A few more sheets of the roof ripped off in the wind and I felt the connection to the storm grow. All I had to do was point my finger and I could hit Tobin with a lightning bolt. The only thing stopping me was that he was standing very close to Bella and me too, and also I had two guns pointed at me.
“I don’t have time to argue. We need to get this done. Lisa, shoot her right now,” he demanded and waved the gun in my direction.
“I can’t shoot her!” Lisa protested from behind me. I turned and saw that her face had gone white again and her hands were shaking, althoug
h the gun was still on me.
“Do what I say, you pathetic worm! Shoot her!” Tobin screamed.
“Don’t yell at me!” Lisa protested. Mattias moved and knocked a row of glasses off the bar. They smashed on the floor, but it wasn’t enough of a distraction to do anything.
Bella, extremely drunk and most likely drugged, looked up at me.
“Hey, Harlow, did you see Mattias?” she said before the glass fell from her hand and smashed on the floor. “I want to be like him, a great actor who’s done amazing things.”
Tobin looked between me and Lisa. His face wasn’t switching between angry and calm and happy anymore. He was just angry.
“Fine, I’ll do it myself,” he said. He turned towards Bella, pointed the gun at her and pulled the trigger. There was no way I could stop it, no way I think any witch could have stopped it, although I’m sure Aunt Cass would have given it a good try. But then there was Mattias Matterhorn, acclaimed actor, coming back for one last performance. He appeared in front of Bella and seemed to turn solid for a moment. The bullet hit him. He was dressed in his military commander outfit. It was dark blue, but even so, I saw a plume of red appear on it as he began to bleed.
“How dare you try to stop the film!” Mattias boomed.
I’m a little unclear on what happened next. Maybe there was a noise from behind me. Or maybe my magic had had about enough of being terrified. There was an enormous crack as a bolt of lightning shot down from the sky. I’m not sure if it hit Tobin or Lisa or landed somewhere in between us all. I found myself on the ground, my ears ringing, and tasting coppery blood in my mouth. I was seeing double, but I managed to get myself up off the ground in time to see Sheriff Hardy come rushing in, with Jack right behind him, and closely followed by Aunt Cass. Incredibly, Tobin was still alive. I saw Jack dive on him, pull the gun out of his hand, and hold him on the ground with all his weight.
“Harlow!” Jack called out to me. I staggered over to where Bella was. Mattias was looking down at her, playing his kindly grandfather once again.
“You okay, Bella?” I asked, or I think I did. My head was buzzing and I’m not quite sure what I said, really.
Bella was looking up at Mattias, a look of awe on her face. She reached out and took his hand in hers. I don’t know exactly how Mattias was managing to do this, but anytime a ghost touched a person, they usually were flung away. He stood there clasping her hand and smiling at her.
“You’re the reason I went into acting,” Bella said.
“You’ll do fine, kid,” Mattias said, and then he was gone. Moved on. A moment later, Aunt Cass appeared at my side and clapped me on the back.
“I knew the only way out was through,” she said to me. I didn’t get to answer because Jack ran over and picked me up in a hug that nearly squeezed the life out of me. But in truth, it was his touch that brought me back to life. The storm above us growled one more time and then began to recede as Sheriff Hardy and his men took Tobin and Lisa away.
Chapter 25
“What are these feet doing here?” Jack asked, pointing to the feet that I had put in his lap.
“Well, I notice you’ve got some idle hands, and hands and feet do go together quite well,” I said, taking a sip of white wine.
“I see,” Jack said with a laugh and then proceeded to squeeze my feet in his strong hands.
Time had passed quickly. A week had gone by, filming was complete, and no one else had died. I was sitting outside Torrent Mansion with Jack, and a little down from us, Molly was sitting with Ollie and Luce with Will, and then down from them was Aunt Cass, drinking wine and half-keeping an eye on all of us. It was part of the deal the mothers had insisted on after they’d discovered what had happened a week ago.
The mothers’ discovery that I’d rushed by myself to a warehouse in the dark to confront two people with guns had led to a conversation that had not gone well. It had gone extremely unwell, actually. Despite the fact that I had been electroshocked, they didn’t let up at all. It went on for part of that night, some of the next day and some of the day after that, until Aunt Cass finally put a stop to it and told them to let it go. Normally that would be enough to get the moms off my back, but not this time, so Aunt Cass had promised to keep an eye on us for the time being. Finally the moms had grudgingly agreed that that would be okay.
It was late Saturday afternoon and there was still a bit of a storm high above us. Aunt Cass had been right. The only way out was through, but that didn’t mean the slip witch power had disappeared immediately. It was only slowly fading day by day. I couldn’t pull lightning down from the sky anymore, but I could cause it to grumble if I got upset. Thankfully, with Jack around for the last week, that hadn’t happened much.
After Tobin and Lisa had been taken away, it had been Lisa who had cracked first, to no one’s surprise. She’d poured the entire story out in one go. She’d actually been Tobin’s assistant, and he had assigned her to Cyro to spy on him. She’d confessed that Tobin had worked with Tyson to switch out Mattias’s heart medication. When that had failed to give him a heart attack, Tobin had given Tyson some poison, which she’d slipped into Mattias’s morning tea. It came out that Tobin was in debt deep to actual gangsters, serious men who were not to be trifled with. He’d set up a huge insurance scam ensuring that the movie, if it was shut down, would net him millions. The movie itself when made would probably make him far more, but the gangsters had put a timer on when he could deliver or they were going to cut off his head. After Mattias had died and the production had continued on, Tobin had used the electrical contractor to continue sabotaging the set.
After Aunt Cass and I had stolen all of Mattias’s belongings back, it turned out that Tyson had confronted Tobin, demanding money or he would reveal everything, so Tobin had strangled him to death in Mattias’s trailer and left him there. That other half of the story had eventually come from Liberty. She did have a huge gambling problem and had fallen in with some bad people who were attempting to blackmail her. So she’d been working with her lover, Tyson, to sell off Mattias’s possessions so she could raise a hundred thousand dollars so she could pay them. She had been cut off from Mattias’s fortune and had nowhere else to go. It appeared Liberty had no idea that her lover had been involved in murdering her husband, but she was still under arrest and being investigated.
With Tobin and Lisa in custody, Cyro had managed to finish the film and then the circus departed town. All of my interview tapes and my brand-new shiny recorder had been confiscated, now under the ownership of the studio. I didn’t have to do any more writing or any more work, but I still managed to get paid as the movie people had more money than sense. It had turned out that one of the visitors to the electrical contractor, whose name was Andrew, had been another associate of Tobin’s. He had poisoned Andrew so he couldn’t spill the beans on Tobin.
Bella had left town the moment filming was done with nary a word of thanks for saving her life. She’d broken up with her boyfriend (the one I’d seen her arguing with), and Carter’s junk website was now reporting she was dating Finley Watergate.
This had not made any of us witches happy, especially Aunt Cass.
So now it was a week later and I was sitting out in front of the mansion with my cousins and our respective boyfriends, drinking wine and relaxing. The mothers were inside cooking up a storm. Ha, storm.
Because the weather was growing colder, the number of bookings at the mansion had dropped and tonight there was no one but us. That wasn’t good for business, but it was good it was only family and boyfriends.
I was sitting with my feet in Jack’s lap, enjoying my wine and thinking lovingly of the few thousand dollars that was going to be coming into my bank account courtesy of the movie studio, when we heard a car come roaring up the road towards the mansion. It was going dangerously fast. When it finally reached the entrance to our driveway, whoever was driving slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop, throwing up gravel and a huge cloud of dust. A few stones boun
ced across at us and hit the tables.
“Hey!” Aunt Cass yelled out. Two doors slammed, and a man and a woman came rushing out of the dust, heading straight for Molly and Luce.
The woman was boiling mad and her partner – I guess her husband – was trying to hold her back. It was the couple who ran the competing coffee shop, the ones that Molly and Luce had thought had stolen their coffee machine.
“You stole our coffee machine!” the woman screamed at Molly and then lunged for her.
Ollie put out a hand and shoved the woman away. Her husband then leapt forward and grabbed her.
“What are you talking about!” Molly yelled.
“Don’t lie to me! You two came to our coffee shop and you hate us because we were doing better than you! You stole it!” she screamed, trying to lunge again. By now we were all gathered around Molly and Luce. Jack had his hand out like he was directing traffic, putting his body between the woman and everyone else. So were Will and Ollie, but then so was I and so was Molly and so was Luce. Actually, come to think of it, I’m not sure who it was we thought we were protecting considering all of us were stepping into the fight. The storm above had been grumbling and groaning away, but at this sudden new burst of anxiety, the clouds darkened and there was a crackle of lightning across the sky. I could feel the magic swirling around us, no doubt influenced by four witches who didn’t like getting messed with. The woman from the coffee shop was trying to claw her way to Molly, and everyone was shouting.
It was in the midst of this chaos that everyone who was magically inclined felt a sudden pull that was stronger than anything we’d ever experienced. I looked up at the sky and for a moment saw a face in the clouds. It looked like me looking down upon us, and then a moment later it looked like Grandma. The pull came again, this time from a definite direction – inside the house, through the kitchen, down in the basement. There was a burst of magic from Aunt Cass, who waved a hand, and Jack, Will, Ollie, the woman and her husband unceremoniously crumpled to the ground, unconscious.
