Witch Hunt

by Morgana Best

  “I think there are some matches inside the drawer,” I said, as I checked through the dresser in my room. “Here you go.” I pulled them out and handed them to her, and then pointed to the bathroom. “We could probably use the bath.”

  Skinny rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I guess that’s not the worst idea you’ve ever had.”

  I gasped, surprised that my boss was still just as rude and sarcastic as she had always been. I shrugged it off—I supposed it was hard to break character—and then followed Skinny into the bathroom. She opened the journal and tore pages from it. One by one, she dropped them in. As she did so, she chanted quietly in a language I did not know.

  “Should I go get some salt?” I asked.

  Skinny shot me a quick glance, her eyebrows arching high up on her forehead. “Why would you do that?”

  “I’m just trying to help,” I replied, unsure what else to say.

  Skinny shook her head and sighed. “We’re burning a book of spells, not cooking dinner.”

  A wave of embarrassment swept over me.

  Skinny was still talking. “We need to make sure that the entire journal is destroyed. If any of it can be retrieved at all, there’s no guarantee that the information won’t be recovered somehow.” She threw the last pieces of the book into the bath. She then pulled out the matches and struck one, and then dropped the match into the bath. A quick flame engulfed the pages, sending licks of fire shooting upwards.

  “The smoke detectors!” I said in alarm.

  Skinny shot me a scornful look. “Has that only now occurred to you? I’ve taken care of it. It is a mundane after, after all.”

  As the blaze slowly died down, a cloud of smoke swirled around the bath before escaping up into the ceiling.

  I stepped closer to the bath and looked in to see a pile of ashes. “Are we done now?” I asked.

  “Yes, it’s finished, but don’t forget to thank me for this,” Skinny said.

  Chapter 21

  I stood in the doorway of Cordelia’s hotel room, my arms folded, leaning against the frame.

  “Skinny has to have made some sort of mistake, surely?” Cordelia said as she packed. “She sent us both here, so why is she suddenly sending me on another assignment alone?”

  I laughed. “I think you’ll be able to handle yourself, don’t you?”

  Cordelia stopped packing for a minute and turned to me. “Of course I can handle myself. I’m a good journalist, if I do say so myself.”

  “I don’t know if any of the writing we ever do can be considered journalism,” I said. “Definitely not this assignment.”

  “The dog that can see ghosts might get me a Pulitzer,” Cordelia said with a snort. She went to her bag and stuffed one last pair of pants inside, and then zipped it up. “Really, though, I’m going to miss you.”

  “It’s going to be ruff, but you’ll be fine,” I said. “Get it? Ruff? Like rough, but ruff, like a dog barking.” I burst out laughing.

  “And suddenly I’m okay with you not coming with me,” Cordelia said.

  “I’m a gold mine of dog related puns,” I said. “You’re going to miss that, for sure.”

  “I’m not. I know I’m not.”

  Cordelia shouldered her bag and slipped past me into the hall. I followed her. “It’s only three days, so try not to miss me too much,” Cordelia said.

  “I’ll try to get through it. You’ve got your plane ticket?”

  “Yes. I’m going to miss going by train,” Cordelia said as we went into the elevator.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “No, I’m not,” Cordelia said. “Don’t you have a big date?”

  “Something like that,” I didn’t know if dinner with my boyfriend and Skinny could count as a big date, but Cordelia could not know that Skinny was at the hotel.

  “Well, have fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  “Is there anything you wouldn’t do?”

  Cordelia laughed. “No,” she said.

  I waved goodbye to Cordelia and then headed downstairs. I had a few hours before dinner, and I was considering a nap or a long bath. I definitely wanted to relax. I deserved at least that after everything that had happened. When I got to the hotel room and unlocked it using the plastic keycard, I paused. Something seemed different. Surely the portal hadn’t reopened?

  I pushed the door open, and I saw what the difference was. I had not left a hundred burning candles in the hotel room, but there they were. I realised it was the scent that had given me pause, that burning fragrance from the candles. They were all thick and white, sitting on glass discs that caught the droplets of wax that rolled from the wick and down the side of each burning candle.

  I shut the door behind me. The lights were off and the curtains were drawn.

  “Hey,” I heard. I turned to see John coming from the bathroom, the place he had hidden from me.

  “How did you light all of these so fast?” I asked him.

  John laughed and came forward, taking my hands in his own. He smelt good, and his touch was strong, his hands big and rough, but somehow still gentle. “That’s the first thing that pops into your mind when you see all of this?”

  I blushed and lowered my gaze. “Sorry,” I said. I hoped I hadn’t ruined his romantic intentions.

  John put the tip of his index finger under my chin and forced me to lift my gaze. “Don’t apologise. I love the fact that you’re so practical, even in the face of ghosts and goblins. It’s one of the things I love the most, actually.”

  “You know, I’ve never come across a goblin,” I said, and I smiled. “It’s beautiful.”

  A slow red flush travelled up John’s face. “I was just thinking—you know, I don’t have to live so far away. I do so much travelling. Um, I don’t think SI7 would force me to stay in Oxfordshire.”

  I gasped, and my heart stopped beating, or so it felt. “You want to move here?”

  “Well, not to this hotel, but maybe to your town.”

  I laughed. “You know what I meant.”

  “Oh, you’re the only one who’s allowed to be annoyingly practical?” John asked.

  “Hey, you said you loved that about me.”

  “I love you for a lot of reasons.”

  I looked up at John. I saw myself reflected in his eyes, and I could tell he was telling the truth. He did love me. And I loved him.

  “I want to spend more time in Australia. I’ll have to go to the UK sometimes, but we can make it work.”

  Two hours later, we were walking hand in hand to the restaurant down beside the lobby. Skinny was already there, sitting at a small round table with two empty chairs. She had a drink in front of her. When she saw us, she rolled her eyes. “You two look entirely too happy,” she said, with obvious disgust in her voice. “I hope you’re not getting serious with each other. Marriages never work out these days.”

  I let it roll off my shoulders. Nothing Skinny could say would deflate my mood.

  “I thought it best we get together and debrief as it were,” Skinny continued. “Now that you know who I am.”

  I thought back to all of the times I could have used guidance and help. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” I asked.

  Skinny shrugged. “I was busy.”

  That answer rankled me. John must have sensed it, because he reached over and placed his hand on my arm.

  Skinny went on, oblivious to the fact that I would like nothing better than to push her out of her chair. “So it seems as though this case has wrapped up rather satisfactorily,” she said. “I’m glad Douglas and the High Witch are in that portal.”

  I thought back to the nightmarish bat creatures and the demon that had come after me from the portal world. I shuddered.

  “I hope Douglas never gets out,” John said.

  I didn’t know how I felt about that. Douglas had been a horrible man, but those things… The longer he was there, the higher the chance that one of them got him. Nevertheless, maybe it was a reap wh
at you sow situation. Douglas had brought it all on himself. And the same could be said for Julie.

  “Well, to tell you the truth, I’m rather impressed with you, Misty,” Skinny said out of the blue. “You got things right for once.”

  My mouth opened in shock. That was high praise coming from her. I was struggling to think of something to say, but couldn’t.

  “Well, the only thing left to go over is how you’re doing,” Skinny said, turning once more to business.

  I didn’t quite know what Skinny was getting at. “I’m fine,” I said.

  “You went into another dimension. At least, that’s what we think it was,” Skinny said.

  “Really, it was scary, but I’m fine.”

  Skinny nodded. “We’d still like you to speak with someone. We have a doctor on the team.”

  “A shrink?” I asked, surprised.

  “Sort of,” Skinny said. “He specialises in counselling survivors of shifter attacks. We found him that way. He’s able to handle strangeness.”

  I laughed. “I’m getting better at handling strangeness.”

  Skinny nodded and slipped a card out of her handbag hanging on the back of her chair. She slid it across the table to me. “His number,” she said. “The other thing, did you see any gold in the portal?”

  I shook my head. “No, but I was being attacked by some scary creatures at the time, so I wasn’t taking in the view.”

  John leant over to Skinny. “You people aren’t thinking of going in there, are you? For the gold?”

  Skinny shrugged, turning her steely gaze on him. “What we do costs a lot of money. We’re looking into it.”

  John shook his head. “Messing around in there would be a mistake.”

  “Looking into it doesn’t mean we’re going to do it.” Skinny raised her hand, palm outwards, to indicate that the discussion was over.

  It was just as well, because the waitress arrived with our food. I hadn’t realised just how hungry I was. Fighting the supernatural could really take it out of a person. I cut a piece of potato and ate it. As I was chewing, I looked up and saw Skinny staring at me.

  “You know, if you and John are getting serious, maybe you should just eat half of that,” Skinny said. “You’re already going to have a hard enough time finding a cute wedding dress at your size.”

  I swallowed the potato along with my anger. In a way, it was comforting to know that even if I were going to different dimensions, investigating ghosts, and almost being killed by giant bat demons, back in the real world, some things never changed.

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