A Very British Witch Boxed Set

by Isobella Crowley

  Cliff approached the old man and grinned. “Good afternoon.”

  The man looked up quizzically and nodded. “’Ow do?”

  “Nice afternoon isn’t it?”

  The man turned around. “Aye. Not so bad.”

  Cliff strode after him. The man stopped outside a large building, opened the gate and hobbled along the path until a nurse rushed out and told him off for leaving the home without permission.

  Refusing to be disheartened, Cliff continued to prowl until he came across a younger man who was eyeing Scarlett’s car. “Good afternoon.”

  The man grunted and sidestepped him.

  “I said, good afternoon.”

  The man looked over his shoulder and barked at him, “Good afternoon.”

  “Where you heading?”

  “Look, I’m busy, okay?”

  Cliff grinned, ran along the path and jumped in front of him. “Just what is the world coming to my friend?”

  “Look, I’m—”

  “Yes, you’re busy, I know. Everyone’s the same these days. No one has time for Jesus.”

  The man tried to brush him aside. “What? Look, I don’t have time for this. I have to get to—”

  “Get to what? Your early grave, my friend?”

  The man scowled at Cliff. “No. Just get out of my way!”

  “So you’re not a believer? It seems to me that your life lacks direction.”

  “My direction is just along this footpath. I have to get to—.” He gestured towards the flat block with his head.

  Cliff grinned. “I see. You need to get home to your loved ones. Or maybe it’s a prayer meeting?”

  The man lowered his head. “Look, I’m gonna level with you, okay? You see those flats over there? I’m meant to be keeping watch. We’ve had word that a dangerous criminal lives there.”

  “So, let me get this right. You’re an undercover police officer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, knock me down with a feather. I had no idea. And are there any more of you fine boys lurking anywhere?”

  The policeman nodded and glanced at another man further along the street.

  “Just the two of you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you go on then. Don’t let me keep you any longer. You find the criminal, but remember, Jesus loves all his children.” He took out his phone. “Wait there, officer, maybe I can find for you a prayer.”

  “Some other time.”

  Cliff walked down the street to the other undercover police officer. “Hello there, friend. Tell me, do you believe in Jesus?”

  +++

  Raven had told her about the spare key to her flat, and Scarlett made quick work of finding it hidden behind the hallway fire extinguisher as she’d described. That done, she put the key in the lock and was relieved to feel it turn. The flat looked just as she’d left it the other day. After calling to mind the list that Raven had given her, she proceeded with caution. Just as before, the sunshine lit up the entire living area and she felt a strong temptation to sit down on the couch and bask in the warm light. Maybe someday she’d get to do just that with Raven the human, but for now, she had more important matters to attend to.

  Passing through the room, her attention was drawn to the table where she’d found the knife. She put her fingers over her mouth whilst she gave the situation some thought. Tim had ordered her to put the knife back. It was still in her bag. She could do it now if she wanted and no one would ever know it had been missing. And what’s more, she’d be avoiding the possibility of being caught with it.

  Tim had been strict with her, but he had her best interests at heart. If the police found the knife on her, she’d be in big trouble. She might even end up becoming a suspect herself and be thrown in prison for a crime she didn’t commit. She watched the news. She knew that it happened all the time.

  She could leave the flat, call Tim and let the police do their job, as he’d put it. She unzipped her bag and looked inside, just to check it was there.

  On the other hand, if she did that, she’d have a whole lot of explaining to do to Raven and even Cliff. In the end, it came down to a choice between listening to Tim or her friends. After wasting more time deliberating over the decision, she left the knife in her bag and continued to search for the items they needed for the spell.

  Most of the things Raven had asked for were in the bedroom. She recited the list once more and bent down to try a drawer under the bed. No luck. Nor was there any sign of the things in the wardrobe or drawers. She was just about to try a different room, when a closet, partly hidden by the wardrobe, caught her eye.

  The closet turned out to be a real Aladdin’s cave, packed full of all kinds of weird and wonderful stuff. This was definitely the place she should be looking. Bending down, she took a couple of jars from the top of the stack and placed them in her bag. Next on her list were potions. After shifting her line of sight upwards, she moved along each shelf and down to the next, until coming to a rest on the third shelf down.

  There were a few bottles of something that looked like it might be a potion, so she took one down to examine it before putting it into her bag. She tried to think of the next item on the list, but her mind drew a blank. Suddenly conscious that Cliff wouldn’t be able to hold the police off forever, she hurried her pace and took hold of as many items as she could, dropping them into her bag.

  In the end, her bag held all sorts of things. Jars, potions, packets of dry stuff, along with other things that fuelled her curiosity, such as little stuffed dolls that looked like they might be useful.

  Scarlett heaved her packed bag over her shoulder and left the flat. After checking and double checking that the door was locked, she descended one flight of stairs and left the building through the side entrance, the way she’d come in.

  By the time she’d stepped outside, making her way back along the path to the front of the building, her shoulder was in agony. No sooner had she paused to swap shoulders, than she heard voices coming from around the front, three of them. If she wasn’t mistaken, one of them was Cliff. The pounding of her footsteps rang in her ears as she struggled to the front of the building. Standing with her back to the wall, she strained to look across the road. Cliff was there, talking to two men, whom she assumed to be undercover policemen. She held her breath, trying to listen in on their conversation.

  Cliff was going on and on about Jesus, making himself out to be some kind of religious nut. Scarlett grinned. She’d had no idea he was so quick-witted or, indeed, creative. She didn’t have to listen long to get the gist of what was going on.

  They were trying to get away, but he kept stopping them, saying they were too busy and should find time to spend with Jesus. He was really convincing, too. She tried to stifle her laugh, and as she did, a crumb caught in her throat.

  She thrust her hand over her mouth, eyes bulging, cheeks aglow, desperately fighting to breathe without coughing her guts up. It was either cough or choke to death. She took a deep breath and squeaked out a cough. Cliff turned, caught her eye and nodded.

  “Okay, gentlemen,” he said to them. “You two be on your merry way now and just you remember what I told you.”

  They crossed the road, with Cliff and the policemen heading off in opposite directions. Scarlett hung her bag over her shoulder and walked in the direction that Cliff had gone, discreetly hiding her face from the policemen as she passed. By the time she arrived at the car, her hip was in agony from where the bag had thumped into her as she walked.

  As Scarlett went to throw her bag into the back seat, she received the shock of her life. A feline body jumped up onto her shoulder.

  “How did it go? Any problems?” Raven purred at her. “I took the liberty of climbing in through the window.”

  Scarlett slipped into the passenger seat. “None at all.” She glanced at Cliff. “I had Jesus on my side.”

  Raven laughed. “I never had you down for that kind of thing.”

  “Cliff spun t
hem a yarn. You should’ve heard the outrageous things he was saying.”

  Cliff turned to look at her. “I had to think on my feet and once I got started, there was no—”

  Scarlett grinned at him. “There was no stopping you. Like when you sink your teeth into someone’s neck.”

  “Yeah. Exactly like that.” He glanced in the wing mirror. “Come on, let’s get out of here. Before the poor unsuspecting souls wise up to the fact they’ve been hoodwinked.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Slater Residence, Bicester, England

  Over two hours had passed since the team were last here. Having acquired all their materials they had taken them back to Scarlett’s house to perform the priming ceremony. She had been learning about the Orante formula in order to charge a talisman. This went much further.

  Under Raven’s auspices she fumbled her way through a strange concatenation of spells from her grimoire in Latin and Hebrew, phonetically sounding out the translations scribbled under the text. It had been a long and exhausting process, but one that Raven insisted was necessary if the spell was going to work.

  As they had been finishing up Cliff had suggested they use his car in the hopes that the muted color would be more inconspicuous. If they were going to do something risky and possibly illegal, it was best to minimize their chances of drawing any kind of attention.

  The group piled into the car, bracing against the cold, carefully carrying their spelling objects in carrier bags to disguise the sacredness of what they held.

  Once they were in, Cliff glanced nervously from Scarlett to Raven. “Back to Robert’s flat?”

  Scarlett nodded. “’Round the back of Costa.”

  Cliff nodded. “Yes, I remember.” He started the car, flinching against the sound as if even being in the car was breaking some kind of rule.

  The roads were fairly quiet given the late hour. Cliff pulled around past Costa, they took a right and pulled up in a side street, just around the corner from the flat.

  Cliff moved to open his door. “Here we are.”

  Raven, who had opted to sit in Scarlett’s lap for the second drive, placed a paw on Scarlett’s hand. “Wait a minute.”

  “What is it?”

  “I just wanted to make sure everyone knows what we’re letting ourselves in for.”

  She frowned down at her. “Thought we were going to cast a spell, weren’t we?”

  Raven nodded. “Yes we are, but it’s a pretty big spell. Definitely not one for the faint-hearted.”

  Scarlett thought about the choices she’d made earlier and felt a rush of panic. “Do you not think I can do it?”

  “Well, let me explain it to you first.”

  She thought about all of Tabitha’s books she’d read and wondered what she might have misunderstood. “By all means.”

  “Okay.” Raven took a deep breath and began. “The spell is a big deal because any slight imbalance could have dire consequences.”

  Her eyes widened. “What type of consequences?”

  “The type that could take us permanently back to that time—or sooner.”

  Scarlett gaped as Raven continued.

  “Or, well, do you remember what I said about paradoxes? The whole area between here and Oxford could be sucked into a black hole of nothingness.”

  “Really?” said Scarlett, feeling the panic rise in her chest. “I should have just put the knife back! Oh my God, what have I done?”

  “Relax,” said Raven. “I’m talking worst case scenario. Didn’t mean to put you off entirely; it’s still better than putting the knife back.”

  Cliff looked between the two women before offering his thoughts. “Tell you what, I wish Tarquin was here. I for one would feel much better if he was on the case.”

  Raven shook her head. “No. Don’t think that’s a good idea. He’d put a block on this, I know he would.”

  “Maybe for a good reason,” Cliff said.

  Raven tutted and ignored him. “No, if we’re going to do this, we have to do it ourselves.”

  Scarlett placed her hand on the handle of the car door, finding her courage once more. “Right, are we ready to go then, people?”

  Raven sprung off her lap, onto the sidewalk. “Well, I’m good.”

  Cliff threw out an arm. “Hold on just a minute.”

  Raven sighed. “Oh, what is it now?”

  “How do we know they haven’t got this place under surveillance too?”

  “Oh,” Raven tilted her head to the side. “Good point… also, someone may have already reported your earlier visit.”

  Scarlett’s mind flashed up a possible scenario in which they’d gone traipsing into the flat only to be caught red-handed. It would have been kind of similar to a modern-day Guy Fawkes. She took out her phone. “I’ll just see what they’re up to.”

  It didn’t take long for her to find the information she needed. It was all over the police site as well as the news section of the local radio station. “There’s been some break-ins and they’re diverting most of their resources to find out what’s going on there.”

  Cliff smiled. “By there, you mean not this break-in? That’s a stroke of luck, isn’t it?”

  Raven led the way to McMillan’s flat. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get a move on, shall we? Before anyone sees us and starts asking questions.”

  +++

  McMillan’s Flat, Market Square, Bicester

  Vixen looked at the photos on the bed and felt her stomach turn. Raven had stolen her happiness and she was going to have her revenge, no matter what it took. A car door banged shut outside.

  Peeking through a gap in the curtains, she grinned. Raven thought she was so smart, bringing her friends with her to go snooping around his flat. But what did they have with them? Clearing the curtains as far as she dared without risking being seen, she noted what they were carrying, put the photos away and waited.

  The front door banged shut and their footsteps ascended the stairs. There was a man with them this time, someone new whose voice she didn’t recognize. When the door creaked open, she stepped into the closet, trying to listen in on their whispering.

  The bedroom door handle lowered. She held her breath, exhaling again once they decided to move on to the living room. This is their first mistake, she thought, creeping across the room to stand with her ear to the bedroom door.

  Whilst she’d managed to work out for herself that they were doing some kind of spell, she’d been unsure until this stage what the spell was for. Although, she did have her suspicions that they were trying to learn what had happened to Robert, and more specifically, to see what part she’d played in it.

  She stood with her ear to the door, listening to her own breathing, waiting for them to get started. In no time at all, the moving around and whispering stopped and the chanting started. Vixen left the confines of the bedroom to peek around the living room door.

  She grinned. They were so engrossed in what they were doing that they were totally oblivious to her presence. Anyone with half a brain would have checked the place over before starting something like this.

  The woman she’d seen snooping around the flat took center stage. She was called Scarlett, and she’d overheard her call the man Cliff. Vixen knew straight away what they were trying to do. She’d studied the spell often while she was learning witchcraft.

  It was a difficult and powerful spell with some dire consequences if it went awry. She could feel the excitement bubbling up inside her. All she had to do was come up with a few words of her own. Then, her mind flashed back to the murder. The way she’d plunged the knife into his flesh, the way his screams hid the squelch as she twisted. Killing anyone was wrong, but to do this to someone she loved in a fit of rage? She felt a shudder at the thought of seeing the scene replayed.

  It looked like this Scarlett was a witch too. Maybe she was, but from the looks of things, she wasn’t very strong. She wouldn’t be able to counteract a little meddling. Vixen took a deep breath, look
ed at the ceiling and began mumbling some incantations of her own. Much to her delight, Scarlett looked more than a little confused.

  Flustered, Scarlett turned to look at Raven. “What’s happening? I don’t get it.”

  Raven looked just as perplexed as Scarlett. “I don’t know. There must be some kind of interference.”

  Bingo.

  Cliff, the knight in shining armor, stepped forward to help out. It turned out he knew a thing or two about spells, on account of being a vampire. Vixen shook her head and gritted her teeth. What does he know about anything?

  Vixen listened with interest as he explained himself to Scarlett.

  “Well, this is my world, isn’t it? I’ve been acquainted with many witches in my time, so I’m kind of familiar with the lingo.”

  Scarlett, bless her, looked puzzled. “But I thought witches didn’t usually like vampires?”

  Cliff grinned in a way that made Vixen’s stomach twist in disgust. “That’s true, but we often end up working together. It’s just the way things are.”

  Cliff gestured for them to stand back, took out some salt and made a white circle on the living room floor. Vixen thought about the cleaner’s reaction and had to stifle a chuckle.

  “Stay inside the circle, Scarlett,” said Cliff. “It’ll protect you from the effects of the spell.”

  Scarlett stepped inside the circle.

  But Cliff wasn’t finished his lecturing. “Stay inside the circle. No matter what happens, you don’t leave its confines. Understood?”

  Scarlett nodded and they lit the candles.

  +++

  Clarke’s Quarters, Barracks, RAF Bicester

  Tim took out his phone, laid it on his wooden desk and glanced at the time. He’d wasted nearly half his day doing things for Scarlett. All he’d been able to think about was Raven and Vixen, so his regular work, the work he was paid to do, had gone by the wayside. He sighed, got to his feet and trudged to the mess hall to make a coffee.