Witch Cursed in Westerham

by Dionne Lister

  “There’s no better time than the present.”

  I could beg to differ, but since when did that get me anywhere? When she stood and made her doorway, I magicked my coat on and did the same, but an unwelcome thought bombarded my brain.

  We were missing something, and it was critical.

  If only I knew what it was….

  Chapter 13

  Angelica set a brisk pace, and the walk from the crowded tube station to Tower Bridge only took five minutes. On the way, we donned our no-notice spells. Sombre clouds loomed overhead, casting the river in an eerie half-light. Would that make it harder for Will and Imani to make out Shamus, even with their whizz-bang binoculars?

  We found Will first, on the footpath just before the first tower. He was standing tall, a menacing yet sexy man in his black coat looking through binoculars towards London Bridge, half a mile to the south.

  “Any luck?” Angelica asked.

  He lowered the binoculars and turned to her. “Nothing.” Despite the long day of looking at pretty much nothing, his grey eyes were bright, alert. Nothing was going to get past him. “What about you? Find anything?”

  She made a bubble of silence. “Our little friend is called Shamus Lord. James is going to get permission to interview Shamus’s brother, Byron, in jail.”

  Will’s forehead wrinkled. “That name rings a bell.”

  “That’s because you were part of Strike Force Penguin.”

  “Ah, I remember that. Byron’s a bloody nasty character.”

  “That he is,” she said. “He’s managed to wipe out a rival gang. We think that’s what the explosion at the prison was all about.”

  He looked over Angelica’s shoulder into the distance for a moment, likely thinking. Then he jerked his head towards London Bridge. “And what’s all this about?”

  Angelica’s voice was matter of fact. “I’m betting on revenge. Just like the deaths at the prison.”

  “But why now? Why do both?” Will asked.

  My hackles rose. Of course the two must be linked. Maybe that had been obvious to everyone else, but realisation took a while to dawn with me. Sometimes I was as bright as an Icelandic winter. As I pondered the question, Angelica said something to Will about going to speak to Imani, who was, apparently, at the other end of the bridge. I leaned against the railing and looked out over the muddy Thames towards London Bridge.

  What were we missing?

  Will stood next to me and raised his binoculars to watch the bridge. “What’s up? You’re unusually quiet.”

  “I know you guys are the best at what you do, but I can’t shake the feeling that we’ve missed something… something crucial.” My memory wasn’t the best part of my brain, so I had to ask, “Do you remember exactly what the message was?”

  “It was, ‘the Fair Lady must watch helplessly from afar as it all comes tumbling down. So, I have a new agent to play with. Welcome to my game, Chad. Things have never been more serious. What am I going to do next? Better look out—we’re unbeaten, powerful. We’re coming for what’s ours. Soon.”

  “I guess that bit about having a new agent to play with isn’t important. I can’t see what it would mean other than what it says. The Fair Lady must watch helplessly from afar.” The nursery rhyme played through my head. I wasn’t game to sing it because I wasn’t known for my sweet voice. London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down, London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady. But if she was the woman on London Bridge, she wouldn’t be watching it fall from afar. “Will?”

  “Yes.”

  “Some people think Tower Bridge is London Bridge, don’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  My heart raced as I considered the next question. “What if they’re actually going to make something happen to this bridge?”

  He lowered his binoculars and stared at me. His brow furrowed. “I don’t know. I don’t know which one it is. You’re right, though—it could be either one.”

  The message still trampled through my brain. What am I going to do next? Better look out—we’re unbeaten, powerful. We’re coming for what’s ours. Soon. Was that question answered in what he said afterwards? Better look out—we’re unbeaten, powerful. It’s kind of threatening, but not really, more like bragging. Why would he state the obvious? It didn’t seem like his thing. What was hiding in there?

  “Can you open your burner phone?”

  “Why?”

  “I want to type those words in and see what they look like.”

  He scrunched his face but unlocked the phone and passed it to me. I pulled up the Notes app and typed it in. Better look out—we’re unbeaten, powerful. After studying it for a couple of minutes my breath hitched. My heart raced. I jerked my head up, nausea rising in my throat. “Will look.” I handed him the phone. Read what the first letters of every word spell. Now that I’d noticed, I couldn’t unsee it. How had we missed this? “What am I going to do next?”

  “Blow up.” His eyes widened. “This isn’t a coincidence. We have to get everyone off this bridge. Now!”

  “How the hell are we going to do that? And what if I’m wrong? What if it’s London Bridge, like we originally thought? We’re going to cause panic. What if it’s for nothing? How do we explain that? Angelica will get fired for sure, and probably you too.”

  “We have to get people off both bridges, no matter the cost. Now you’ve deciphered it, I can’t believe we didn’t figure it out. Let’s get Angelica and Imani.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me along. If I was right, and this was the bridge he was going to blow up, he’d probably seen Will and Imani, and now Angelica. He had no idea who I was, but it didn’t matter—if we’d been spotted, maybe he was about to detonate everything earlier. Double, triple crap with a cherry on top.

  As we ran, I swivelled my head this way and that, looking out for him. God, there were so many people crossing the bridge, as well as cars and buses. This could be a catastrophe. Because we had our no-notice spells activated, we almost crashed into a few people—no one was getting out of our way. As we dodged around and through, my breath came fast.

  Angelica and Imani saw us when we were closing in. Imani’s eyes were wide, but Angelica had her poker face on, ready to hear the news we were obviously so desperate to tell her. We came to a puffing halt, and Will let it all come out. “He’s going to blow it up. And it could be this bridge or London Bridge. We can’t be sure. We need to evacuate.”

  My gaze zigzagged frantically along the bridge and to the footpath. He’d be unlikely to actually be on the bridge when it blew up, unless he was into drama and intended to pop away at the last minute. The rest of the message whispered in my head, We’re coming for what’s ours. The prison? Was he going to break out his brother after this? Was we his gang?

  I didn’t want to heap more on Angelica’s head, but James was at the prison. What if something happened to him? “He’s going to break his brother out. They’re after what’s theirs. That has to be the link. We have to tell James.”

  Will pressed buttons on his phone and put it to his ear. I could have kissed him for taking me seriously. “Hey, mate. Be prepared. They’re coming to break Byron out…. Yes, I’m sure. We can’t. We have our hands full here. Gotta go. Bye.” He slipped the phone back in his coat pocket. He fixed his intense stare on Angelica. “What do you want to do? It’s your call.”

  While hundreds of lives were teetering on the narrow balance beam between life and death, Angelica had to decide. There was nothing I could do. Or was there?

  I magicked my camera to myself and turned it on. “Show me where Shamus was one minute ago.” I didn’t know if my magic could be that accurate, but it was worth a shot. If this worked, we’d have the upper hand. If it didn’t…

  Pointing my camera towards the end of the bridge, nothing much had changed, but I was sure the person in the bright-green jumper hadn’t been standing there a second ago. I looked over the top of the camera to make sure. Yep, we had gone back only slightly in t
ime. Even so, it wasn’t going to be easy to spot Shamus in the crowd. But I had to try.

  I looked carefully at the still image, then panned up—what if he was watching from a window somewhere? We’d never find him. It couldn’t be helped. Just ignore that, Lily, and do what you can. As I moved slowly in a circle, I hoped like hell I’d see him.

  “Lily, what are you doing?” Will came and stood next to me.

  I lowered the camera. “Looking for him.” I checked, and the bubble of silence was still around us from before. I whispered, “It lets me go back one minute.” I didn’t want to elaborate. He should understand, unless he was a lot dumber than I’d given him credit for.

  “That’s fantastic. Let me know if you find him. In the meantime, brace yourself.”

  “Huh? Why?” I swivelled my head around quickly, expecting an attack.

  “We’ve decided how to evacuate the bridge, but it’s going to leave us tired and exposed. We’ll need you to watch over us while we’re doing it. But don’t go anywhere. Finding Shamus is going to have to take second place to saving people. We can’t wait for him to act and take us by surprise.”

  “What if you evacuate it and he stays and waits?”

  “I guess that’s where your skills come in. It will give us time to find him.”

  “But what if he leaves and comes back later, when everyone is on the bridge again? You won’t be able to keep them off it forever.”

  He put his hands on his hips. “We don’t have time for that now. We have to do the best we can right now, and that’s saving as many people as possible. If he knows we’re here, he’ll move sooner rather than later. He won’t want us to have the upper hand. Also, he can assume that once we get everyone off the bridge, we’ll keep them off it as long as we have to. His chance will be lost.”

  “Will!” Angelica’s voice was firm and insistent.

  Time was up.

  Imani and Angelica jogged towards the end of the bridge, where it met the land. Will and I followed. I created my return-to-sender spell and kept my senses open to other people’s magic. There was no time to find him in the crowd. Maybe he wasn’t even here. Fear shot an arrow of adrenaline through me nevertheless, and my heart raced. Not knowing was torture, and as someone who hated surprises, it couldn’t be worse.

  When we reached the end of the bridge, Angelica and Imani stopped and turned. They joined hands with Will, making a circle. Angelica looked at me. “We’ll have to drop our other spells when we do this, dear. Can you please protect us with a return to sender and a no notice?”

  I nodded vigorously. “Of course. Do you want them now?”

  “Yes please.”

  I concentrated on making the spells cover each person, one at a time, but because their hands were linked, the spells seemed to seep from one to the next. I instinctively knew that if they dropped hands, they’d all be vulnerable again. It was almost as if my magic told me. Not that there were voices in my head… at least, not yet. Anyway, there was nothing to be done for it. I’d have to be ready to cast individual spells if they split up.

  Angelica’s magic hummed along my scalp first, Imani’s and Will’s following quickly. The sensation started softly but gradually became more stifling, until the three entities became one powerful mass controlled by Angelica. Because I was using my magic, my other sight had kicked in unasked, and the trio were outlined by blue light, the brightest of which enveloped Angelica. Thank goodness the crowd of sightseers and Londoners going about their business couldn’t see what I could. Although, that might be one way to clear the bridge….

  Not wanting to have my back to a possible attack, I forced myself to turn around and observe my surroundings. Still no sign of Shamus. I took a deep breath against the onslaught of powerful vibrations. Then vibrations of another sort began.

  The ground rumbled. My heartrate spiked, but then I realised no new magic had come into play. This must be how they were going to clear the bridge. The rumbling grew louder, and the ground shook. A man cried, “Earthquake!”

  The bridge shuddered. People ran. Screams echoed from everywhere. Mothers picked children up and ran off the bridge. Men in suits, older people, everyone scattered and moved as fast as they could. An old lady tripped and fell. I was about to run over and help her when another woman intervened and helped her up and past me. And still the bridge shook.

  Despite the cold, sweat beaded on Angelica’s forehead as she stared at the bridge. A handful of people were still on it—evacuating from the upper levels was going to take way longer than the lower ones.

  And then new magic bombarded my scalp, pressing on it painfully. The manic energy was one I recognised from the day of the curse. It came from the other side of the bridge. I had to assume it was Shamus. We couldn’t let him blow up the bridge, for God’s sake! People were still on It, and it was Tower Bridge, a national treasure.

  There was only one answer. I had to get to Shamus, and quickly. It might have been the dumbest thing I’d ever done, but I had to try. I knew Angelica, Will, and Imani were okay—they weren’t in his line of fire. It was time to go.

  I ran.

  “Lily, no!” cried Will.

  I ignored him, focussing on getting to the other side as quickly as possible. I also kept my other sight trained on my surroundings as I sprinted—if any spell descended, I’d have a second to see it before it went off. Maybe there was a chance I could counteract it.

  The shaking halted. My friends must have stopped the earthquake now that most people were off or trying to get to land. They would have felt the other magic too. I dropped the spells protecting them because I’d need everything I had when I found Shamus.

  The frigid air scoured my throat as I sucked in breaths and forced my arms and legs to keep up the pace. I desperately looked ahead, trying to spot Shamus, but the crowd watching the bridge from the shore was so thick, it was impossible to find him.

  I’d only reached the middle of the bridge. Damn.

  His magic built. Whatever he was doing, it was happening now.

  I stopped running and looked back. Imani, Will, and Angelica were catching up. We were the only ones on this level of the bridge, but people were pouring out of the tower ahead, having come down from the upper level.

  I didn’t think it was possible, but I had to try. I planted my feet. Throwing my arms wide, I opened my portal and waited.

  Imani and Ma’am ran past me, towards the other side of the bridge, but Will stopped. “Don’t do this, Lily. It’s too dangerous.”

  I spared him a quick glance. “I have to try. And there’s no time to argue, so please don’t distract me.”

  He heavy sighed. “You’re going to be the death of me.” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what he was about to say. “Keep doing what you’re doing. I’ll protect you this time.” I gratefully dropped my return to sender as his spell enveloped me. I needed every drop of energy I could get.

  I reached my magical senses out. Shamus’s energy was building, gathering, pushing up from underneath, but until I knew what the spell was, it would be hard to counteract it. Unless…. What I proposed had to be timed to perfection. If I moved too early, he’d stop what he was doing. If I reacted too late, there would be bits of Will and me exploding into the Thames. Something to be avoided if at all possible, and I wasn’t ready to die. Not today. Not for many years to come.

  I drew magic into every vein, pore, and cell, sucked it in until I was feverish and ready to spontaneously combust. I shut my eyes and listened, felt for his magic, for the moment his spell came into being. If I caught it at the right moment, he would be too taxed to do it again, and by then, Angelica and Imani would hopefully have found him.

  I breathed in through my nose, the air thick and briny. The screaming had stopped. Sweat trickled down the sides of my face. I so wanted to rip my coat off, but this wasn’t the time. My stomach expanded as the magic fought to get out, but I held it in. I gritted my teeth and slowed the flow of power but allowed a
tiny bit more in. I was at my maximum. How much longer could I hold it?

  An electrical pulse zapped the back of my neck.

  My eyes shot open, and I said, “Encapsulate.”

  The scalding magma of power burst through me as Shamus’s spell expanded and ignited. The bridge buckled upwards, expanding with the pre-blast force. I sucked in more power and imagined it flowing over the explosion, encapsulating it.

  This was going to hurt.

  His magic was about to burst through. He must have felt my magic near his, and he shot more power into it. Searing agony engulfed my stomach as I called on even more power. I was losing control. His explosion was close to breaking free.

  No! I wouldn’t let it happen.

  I braced myself and drew more and more. The cacophony of turbulent rushing water filled my ears—the magical river racing and churning. I screamed and threw it all against the blast, a rush of magic sizzling from my fingertips. Tears from the pain streamed down my face.

  “Lily!”

  One last blow against my shield. I fell to my knees and gave everything I had to push back. His spell faltered, my magic absorbing the impact. I grunted as the fury of it crashed into my stomach and chest, flinging me upwards and off my feet, but before I could be thrown back, strong hands grabbed me and pulled me down.

  Shamus’s magic fizzled out. My knees gave way, but those strong hands held me tight, didn’t let me fall. I forced my legs to hold my weight as I reached my awareness out for any signs of Shamus’s power. Electricity sparked in the air, an echo of our battle, but that was all.

  I slowed my breathing. Dizziness engulfed my head. I swayed but stayed upright. If Shamus had anything left and tried again, I would fail. I was spent.

  I opened my eyes. Will’s fierce gaze drilled into mine, seeking reassurance that I was okay. Other than the need to cry, I was pretty sure I’d live. “I’m fine, but I have nothing left.”

  The tension around his eyes stayed, but his lips quirked up into a crooked smile. “You don’t say? Surprising since you hardly raised a sweat.” My pathetically weak fist bumped his arm. He laughed and pulled me in for a squishy hug, which didn’t last long enough. “We need to check on Angelica and Imani. I could feel lots of magic before, but there’s nothing now. I hope they caught him.” Unlike me, Will couldn’t tell people’s magic apart. “Are you okay to walk?”