“Yep,” Ash answered.
I may not have expected applause but I did expect something, a “well done”, a kiss on the cheek, something.
“Um… hello?” I called.
They turned to me.
First, Ash winked.
Then, Aidan grinned.
Fucking men.
* * * * *
To sum up:
“Bligh” is Jeremy as in Ichabod as in Agatha Darling’s watcher.
And Islington is too scary to record in any detail.
Islington is where one of Darling’s boys live(d?).
I didn’t get to go in, Aidan and Ash left me in the hallway.
The noises that came through the door were enough.
By the time Aidan came out with the all clear and I went in, the bad guy was hog-tied and gagged on the floor.
He didn’t look too good.
“They’re coming to get him,” Ash said as I entered.
The man grunted and strained.
Aidan nodded.
And we left.
The dirty-haired pawn shop dude had closed up shop by the time we got back. We went to a high-rise estate and, without knocking, Ash used his shoulder to break open the door.
We were greeted by the shampoo-deficient boy who was pointing a gun at us while his equally shampoo-neglecting (and also apparently conditioner-shy) girlfriend surveyed us from the sofa, a fag dangling from her mouth.
If you can believe, without hesitation, Ash walked right up to the kid and jerked the gun straight out of his hand.
Oh my goddess, I have to admit, even after my kickass display at The Hobgoblin, that scared the bejeezus out of me and I let out a little yelp.
“Don’t fuck with me, Jack,” Ash’s voice rumbled.
If Ash ever spoke to me in that tone of voice, I’d pee my pants on the spot.
(I wondered if the kid’s name was Jack or if Ash was calling him that to be scary cool. Though, he didn’t have to work too hard at being scary… or cool, for that matter.)
The kid stared at him, his expression a mixture of awe, fear and disbelief.
“You have twenty-four hours,” Ash warned.
Then we left.
I figured Jack would use his twenty-four hours wisely.
Or, at least, I hoped he would.
Aidan drove me home in my Mini while Ash followed us in a new platinum Audi TT coupe Quattro. Where the hell he got that, I don’t know, but it rocked!
The police had been Mavis’ed by the time we got back. They asked me a few questions in the Plush Parlor and after about ten minutes of polite questioning (mostly to do with my welfare, as in “Are you sure you’re all right?”) they were on their way, seemingly happy as clams.
The Witches Council wasn’t near that happy. After night fell, Aidan went to Wellington Terrace to make some calls to try and track down Ichabod and Ash retired to The Dungeons.
I was sitting outside with Su, Viv, Josie and Mom drinking martinis and giving them the low down on The Hobgoblin, Patisserie Valerie and my sexual rompus interruptus with Ash. Daphne the cat was with us, chasing bugs in the grass. BecBec was nowhere to be found.
At around eleven, we watched a witch-carrying broomstick flit across the moon. When she landed, she gave us a scroll of lilac, handmade paper wrapped in a black satin ribbon.
We gave her a martini.
The Witches Council requires the presence of: Mavis Lillian, Minerva Suki, Hanna Belle, Viviana Juliet, Mathilda Guinevere and Ursula Sadie Honeycutt as well as Althea Liza Appleton at a Council Gathering, first August, midnight, at the Avebury Circles.
The Gathering will consist of representatives from:
The Imperial Order of Elves
The Vampyre Dominion
The League of Werewolves
The Troll and Goblin Union
The Banshee Nation
The Magi
The Guild of Sorcerers & Sorceresses
The Fellowship of Wizards
The Elders of Le Société de Mathilde
The Directors of The Royal Institute of Psychical Research
The Gathering will be presided over by the Hag and the Unicorn with the Headless Horseman to adjudicate.
Kind Regards,
The Witches Council
(Endora Eccles, The Lady)
* * * * *
Headless Horseman?
Great.
23 July
I got up early to take care of donut lady and have a look at the devastation.
I had no idea what I was in for that day but I will say, at least, I was getting used to surprises.
Instead of trailing me, Ash said he’d meet me at Aidan’s at nine sharp and to keep my wand handy. A good aftereffect of my little demo at The Hobgoblin was that Ash felt a little better about me taking care of myself.
The donut lady seemed mollified after I handed her two chocolate buttercream stuffed donuts and a free Wicked Mocha (a mixture of hot cocoa and espresso poured over a square of Lindt eighty percent cocoa solid chocolate).
Once done, I headed to the bomb site.
They’d already begun to repair Marine Parade.
There were about a half dozen others looking at the hole in the road, mainly morning dog walkers.
The damage seemed small compared to how it sounded and felt. But then, Ash explained later, the bomb wasn’t meant to explode the road but instead something on it, namely me.
While I stared at it, a petite woman in a Dorothy Hamill haircut sidled over.
“Um, I’m sorry, could I just bother you a moment?” she asked me.
I looked at her and she blinked back what seemed to be tears.
“I saw it,” she whispered. “The silver dust, your silver dust, from your little stick. I saw it and it saved me.” She paused. “You saved me.”
Holy cow.
She must have been from an old Wiccan line and didn’t know it to see the magic.
Her voice caught. “I could have been…” She nodded to the hole. “I just wanted to say, thank you.” She reached out, hesitated then touched my arm briefly before she hurried away.
I watched her dragging her little Scottie dog behind her and before I could even react, someone else was talking to me.
“I know who you are.” It was a guy who looked like he’d stepped straight out of a diorama depicting Neanderthal man (except, of course, his hair was cut and his beard was trimmed and instead of animal skins, he wore a poorly-fitting Umbro t-shirt), “And I know if it wasn’t for you this wouldn’t have happened.”
Uh-oh.
He kept being a jerk. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll close up shop, take your crazy friends and go home. All the way home, if you know what I mean.”
I knew what he meant.
He got closer to me but I whipped out my wand.
“You feelin’ lucky?” I asked in my best Clint Eastwood.
He looked at my wand with scorn then over my shoulder and his face changed.
Apparently, he wasn’t feeling lucky.
I knew Ash was there before I felt the hand at the waistband of my taupe corduroy, OP surfer’s shorts. (It had been a crazed morning in the wardrobe, what does one wear when one is hunting baddies? I went with surfer’s shorts, a pale pink Miss Sixties rocker cami and a sweet pair of pink suede puma trainers with those golf footies with the little poofy balls on the back – I thought this was a good choice).
(Anyhoo.)
Neanderthal man moved on and Ash and I walked up the footpath to Marine Hill.
The last time we were in these woods, Ash was dragging me through the bomb dust to the now-lost Lush Jag.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Sure,” I lied.
He didn’t respond except to take hold of my hand and he kept hold, all the way to Aidan’s house.
The five minute walk to Aidan’s holding hands with Ash wasn’t exactly a three-course dinner with champagne or hot, heavy, panting, animal sex but it still felt nic
e.
* * * * *
We were hunting Bligh that day. Somehow Aidan got his hands on a nice Mercedes sedan and we drove back to London in not-exactly-companionable silence (I eventually gave up and listened to my iPod).
Ichabod’s flat in London was deserted. No one at his local had seen him in weeks. Aidan had a picture so we checked a few of the news agents around his flat, some cafés, a couple of takeaways and a few of his reported haunts.
Zip.
So we drove to Cambridge (this time, after a short but not-at-all successful attempt at a game of “I Spy”, I retreated again to the iPod).
No Ichabod at his Cambridge residence and after short conversations with a variety of colleagues and peers, we learned no one had seen him in awhile. We checked around again at the various places, flashing the photo.
Zilch.
Aidan took us to a pub by the river and we sat outside and watched the punters float by.
“About what I expected,” he said into his pint.
Ash was silent.
Was I crazy or did these boys seem not to know what they were doing?
“So why –?” I started.
“We’ll go out again tonight,” Ash interrupted.
(No manners.)
“Yes,” Aidan replied.
Tonight?
“Will Mathilda be safe?” Ash asked.
Excuse me?
“Will I be safe from what?” I butted in.
“We’re leaving you at The Institute tonight,” Aidan explained.
“Uh, no you’re not, I’m coming with,” I said.
I mean, I seemed to be the only one getting anywhere with my orbs ‘o magic.
“No,” Ash said.
“You’re too damn bossy, Sebastian Wilding. I’m coming with you.”
“No, Matty, you’re not,” Aidan said.
That got my attention, Aidan being bossy was new.
“I beg your pardon?”
I got two hard, inflexible stares, one blue-eyed one (Aidan), one brown-eyed one (Ash).
What... eh... ver.
* * * * *
I guess Ash didn’t feel so much better that I could take care of myself and Aidan certainly didn’t because I found myself left at The Institute, in the waiting, somewhat hesitantly welcoming arms of Dr. Ambrose Bennett and his Team of Antiquities.
“Do you have any idea what they’re up to?” I asked Dr. Bennett as we watched the Mercedes drive away.
He shivered as if that was the last thing he’d want to know. “Let’s have some sherry, my dear. It’ll help us to sleep easier.”
24 July
Let’s just say, Dr. Bennett was wrong. First, sherry sucked. Second, even after drinking the stuff, sleep would escape me, especially in that ancient bed with the curtains drawn around it. It was a bit too disturbing, although it smelled vaguely familiar (in a good way) and the sheets were absolutely sumptuous.
I’d finished recording in my Book of Shadows and was about to nod off when I heard someone come in.
I sat still, listening, ready to lob some magic but as I listened it sounded like they weren’t coming to get me. They were, it seemed, getting undressed.
One shoe dropped.
Then the other.
Ash.
The cad.
Climbing into bed with me in the middle of the night again, ha!
Not this time.
(Especially not since I didn’t come prepared to spend the night so I was wearing one of The Institute dude’s wife beater t-shirts and an old pair of pajama bottoms that were about three sizes too big.)
“Don’t even think about it,” I warned as I reared up on the bed and pulled back the curtain.
Silence.
Darkness.
“Matty?”
Aidan!
The lights flashed on.
And there he was, barefoot and wearing jeans and a tight t-shirt.
“What are you doing in my quarters?” he asked.
“Your… what?”
“My quarters, what are you…” He stopped and watched me for a moment on my knees in his bed. “Damn, Ambrose,” he muttered to himself.
Ambrose?
Then he said, “I’ll find somewhere else to sleep.”
“Wait!” I stopped him and jumped off the bed, completely forgetting my scary sleeping attire. “What did you find out tonight? Anything?”
“Only that Jeremy Bligh has apparently dropped off the face of the earth.”
“Shit.”
“You can say that again.”
“Shit.”
“Nice outfit.” He smiled, stepping back to take a good look at me.
“Shit,” I said it with real feeling that time. “Anything else?” I asked.
“Just that he may be with Darling, so much for him wanting to keep the traditional watcher-witch distance.”
Hmm.
“We forgot Jack,” I told him.
“We didn’t forget Jack. Wilding and I went back to London, tracked him down. The bomb was imported. Not a local job.”
“So Jack used his twenty-four hours wisely.”
Aidan shook his head.
“Hardly. Let’s just say Wilding can be,” Aidan pulled a hand through his hair and finished, “persuasive.”
Ack!
He grabbed me by the neck, pulled me forward and kissed my nose. “I have to go find somewhere to sleep. I’m shattered.”
“Wait!” I said again.
Aidan hesitated.
I kept talking. “I have to ask you a couple of things. I know you’re tired but… I don’t know when I’ll have time alone with you again.”
That got his attention.
* * * * *
Okay, so I was going to share some the things that kept me awake at night.
Might as well, right?
Nothing to lose, right?
Ding ding ding… wrong answer!
Believe me, ignorance, my Book of Shadows, is bliss.
* * * * *
He studied me for a bit then walked into the room, sat on the edge of the bed and looked at me.
“Shoot,” he said.
Here goes…
“Okay,” I hopped on the bed next to him and sat cross-legged, “you’re the Mathilda Expert, yes?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve read The Prophesies, yes?”
“Yes.”
“So, way back, when you were telling me who you were, you didn’t know Josie. That’s bugged me for awhile. If you know The Prophesies, why didn’t you know Josie when you met her at the plumbers?”
“I study Mathilda, not her Spellbounds.”
“So?”
“I’m interested in you, Matty, only you, not your Spellbounds. And anyway, they’re rarely named, only described. I knew there was someone in town you’d bind yourself to but I didn’t exactly care who.”
“Oh.”
Well, that explained that.
And was kinda nice.
Interested in me and only me and all that.
“Is that it?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He nodded and then made to get up.
“No,” I amended.
He sat back down with a sigh.
Oh man, was I gonna do what I thought I was gonna do?
Yeah, I was.
“Aidan.”
He looked at me and then must have seen something in my face because he looked less tired, more concerned and leaned closer. “Yes?”
“Um, Althea Appleton told me… well, uh, she told me that, uh… Ash is a traitor.”
He stared at me, all tiredness gone.
Then he pushed off the bed.
I thought, He’s going say yes, if he was going to say no he would have said no already so he’s going say yes.
Oh no. Oh no. I shouldn’t have asked.
How could I even trust Aidan to answer me? They’re at war or whatever.
“Don’t!” I shouted, “Don’t answer that! I don’
t want to know.”
“This is a bit… complicated, Matty.”
Ack!
Complicated?
He said no more.
Okay, I was getting annoyed.
Okay, no, I was getting more than annoyed.
So, more than annoyed, I started to have a tantrum. “Why do they keep everything from me? Why? I don’t get it.” I slammed my fists into the bedclothes. “I know it sounds stupid but it’s… not… fair!”
Aidan walked to the window and looked out.
I wasn’t particularly fond of this response.
Therefore, I kept with my tantrum. “I’m a grown woman! I can handle it!”
Well, I couldn’t actually. But I wasn’t going to tell him that.
“There’s a reason, Matty,” he finally said.
“Whatever it is, it’s stupid,” I declared.
“No, actually, it isn’t,” he said and I shut up. “You know the vision you had where Wilding and I were caught in the bomb?”
“Of course.”
Like I’d ever forget.
“Well, that wasn’t planted in your head, that was a real vision. That was meant to happen. You changed the future. It’s part of your powers, part of being The Chosen One.”
Whoa!
“Really?” I said to his back.
“Yes, really.” He sighed and turned to me. “If it wasn’t, Josie would be dead by now. Poisoned. That’s the point. By saving Josie, in a way, you saved the world.”
Ack!
(Yay me!)
“The Witches Council asked the Directors and Elders, who, in turn, told Wilding and me to keep quiet. They didn’t want you to think of The Prophesies as fixed. They don’t want you to know what’s prophesied just in case you need to change it.”
“So, Ash is a traitor, will I change that?”
Aidan shook his head. “Darling, Wilding isn’t a traitor.”
“You know that? For certain? Or are you just saying –”
“Yes, I know. For certain. The Prophesies state that you will marry one of us and one of us will…”
He stopped but he didn’t start again.
“What? One of you will what?” I prompted.
Pause.
“What?” I pushed.
Big sigh.
“What!?” I was getting kinda louder.
“One of us will father your children and one of us will die for you.”
What?!
“What!?” I jumped out of bed and started pacing as well as chanting. “Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap. You’re joking.” Aidan kept his place by the window and watched me while I paced. He looked serious. He didn’t speak. He wasn’t joking. “Oh shit, you’re not joking. Why did you tell me this? Why?”
Mathilda, SuperWitch Page 24
