Mathilda, SuperWitch (20 page)

In the car was Ichabod, better known as Jeremy.

Agatha Darling’s Watcher.

Of course.

Shit.

“We’re on the roughest council estate in the region,” Aidan informed me.

“Is Darling here?” I asked.

“I’m guessing there.” He pointed at the Community Centre.

“Why here?” I asked, staring at the building and then looking around.

There were shops across from the Volvo. Not someplace you’d hang out for a latte but somewhere you could buy some fish and chips, place a bet, get a stamp or buy a bottle of booze.

There were houses and blocks of flats also surrounding the field, most of which had debris of some sort resting around it, from old bicycles and dirty mattresses to enormous amounts of cigarette ends and flapping, discarded grocery bags.

Kids were loitering outside the shops, old folks and incredibly young mothers with strollers were hanging at the bus stop.

There were people everywhere.

This wasn’t a place to take a kidnapped child.

“
On this estate, you don’t ask questions
and
you don’t answer them. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?” Aidan asked.

I just stared at him.

“No one sees anything here. They don’t hear anything… are you understanding me, Matty?”

Shit.

“I’m going in,” I announced.

“Alone? No you’re not.”

I pulled my Glamour Girl pink mobile out of my back pocket and tossed it in his lap. “Call my sisters and get their asses here.” Why hadn’t I thought of that earlier? “If she’s got Rory in there, I’m going in. Now.”

I think he said my name but I didn’t pay attention.

I heard him get out of the car and slam the other door, exposing himself to Jeremy.

I couldn’t worry about Aidan; I just walked to the front doors of the Centre and went in.

The whole time I was walking, I told myself, “I am Glamour Girl. I have mint green toenails and no one will fuck with a woman with mint green toenails. Especially when she’s The Chosen One. And if they try, I’ll kick their ass.”

At least it sounded good in my head.

The inside of the place couldn’t have been more different from the outside. A small entry opened to a huge room that had a stage at the far end and a kitchenette to the side. There was local art on the walls, posters promoting events and classes, kids drawings from a competition, photos of the queen and her court from a fair.

There was some kind of club going on, kids dancing in rows to KC and the Sunshine Band while a gravel-voiced, punk-haired woman shouted encouragement to them.

No Rory.

A soft-spoken woman came up to me just as Aidan caught up with me.

“Al’right?” she asked.

This is what people say in England. “Al’right?” means anything from, “Hi, how’s it going?” to “Can I help you?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, still scanning for Rory. “I think I’ve got the wrong place. I’m looking for a woman with –”

“Some men and a boy?” she asked, her eyes flicking from me to Aidan to the kids in the hall.

Ask no questions, get no lies, my foot.

The woman was petite and pretty. She had great style (fab boots) but you could tell that even though she didn’t (couldn’t) spend a fortune on her clothes, she was damn well going to make the effort anyway.

I could appreciate that.

She also looked like nothing got by her and if it tried, she’d wrestle it to the fucking ground and then, if she cared enough, she’d spit on it.

At that moment, I could appreciate that too.

This wasn’t the kind of place that kept secrets. This was the kind of place that took care of its own… in its own way.

If Darling was looking for something else, she’d made a big, fucking mistake.

I felt hope for the first time since that chill ran down my back.

“Yes, a boy, eight years old, blond, a little skinny,” I answered.

The woman sized me up then she sized Aidan up. Thank goddess she came up with the right conclusion.

“Through there,” and she pointed.

Thank Aidan… thank the goddess… thank this woman… Rory was here.

She pointed at some sliding double doors at the side of the hall. I thanked her, hurried over and started to push open the doors but before I could they slammed open against their rails.

Without taking a step, I was pulled in, almost like an enormous invisible cane had wrapped itself around my waist and yanked me through.

At the same time I heard Aidan’s surprised grunt as he was pushed back.

Then the doors slammed shut behind me without benefit of my touch or anyone else’s.

And in front of me sat Agatha Darling.

* * * * *

Too tired. Drained. Chest hurts regardless of post-orgasmic state. Must rest.

19 April

When I woke up just now, I sensed I wasn’t alone.

Not Ash, this time, (in fact, where
is
Ash?) but instead I looked across and Rory was lying there next to me fully dressed his hands folded over his chest like a dead person in their casket.

It was like he, too, sensed that I was awake because his eyes popped open, he turned his head and looked at me.

“You hungry?” he asked, apropos of nothing.

I wasn’t, I felt like shit, tired, cranky. I hadn’t seen Ash since the Orgasm (which will heretofore be referred to with a capital “O” for obvious reasons) and, just like yesterday, and the day before, there felt like there was a bleeding, painful hole where my chest used to be.

“As ever, I could eat a horse,” I lied.

He knew I was lying, I could tell by the look on his face.

“‘Kay, well, Mum is making American pancakes.”

I tried to sound thrilled. “Oh yummy!”

He jumped up and ran out of my room, I don’t know if he was scared of my lies or scared of me.

But at least his job was done. He knew I was going to live to see another day.

* * * * *

Later:

It still shits me just to think of it.

I feel like hell, Agatha Darling did a real job on me.

The stinking, hateful be-atch.

I still haven’t seen Ash.

Aidan has disappeared… again, and isn’t answering his mobile… again.

Although, considering the fact that I’m soon-to-be-married to Ash (ack!)
and
his fingers (hmm), perhaps I should have a little conversation with Aidan.

Everyone else is wandering around like zombies as if the before in all of this was a joke.

As if we hadn’t prior knowledge that Darling had turned.

Like this is all a surprise.

But, really, what in
the
fuck does she think she’s doing?

* * * * *

This is how it went down:

I was paralyzed.

Yes, The Chosen One was useless against the powers of Darling.

After the doors slammed shut behind me, she pinned my arms and legs with a swirl of forest and acid green magic. They were locked in position and I’d have fallen over like a log if she hadn’t kept me upright and hovering, my feet dangling a foot off the floor.

Yes,
hovering
.

It was humiliating.

Bitch.

My eyes could move though and I saw Rory. One of the men from that night with Aidan and the faeries in the wood was standing behind him holding him still using an arm across his throat.

Rory didn’t look very good. He looked scared; his face and eyes red, wet with tears, his lips trembling.

Man oh man.

The room was much smaller than the hall, institutional cream-slash-green painted cinder block walls, big windows with wire through them and curtains from the 70’s, clean but, against all that is the Law of Interior Design, still hanging. There were comfortable chairs and tables and it looked like a room where you’d have a knitting club. Not at all like the torture chamber it was about to become.

Darling was sitting in an armchair facing me five or six feet away. She looked refined yet spooky even in the light of a beautiful spring day.

Another man was behind her. Again I remembered him from that night with Aidan in the woods mainly because he was the one who I’d kicked in the balls.

He was smirking at me.

Ack!

There was another man, off to my left but I didn’t get to take much of him in as once I’d had a look at the lay of the land, she blasted me.

* * * * *

In the movies, they wait to give the hero time to get his bearings. Usually the baddies babble on and on which gives the hero time. Time to think of a plan and, even, an extra moment for him to put it into action.

Definitely time to get in a one-liner.

Harrison Ford doesn’t have thirteen guys jumping him all at once… no.

He gets in, the baddie jabbers away and Harrison has time to assess the situation, more time to pull out his firearm or unsheathe his knives or whatever then he’s good to go.

And, when the enemy fires on him, they miss.

And, if they don’t miss, they hit him where it just glances off. It hurts, of course, and he utters something like, “Yeesh…” and then he’s off again, shooting the bad guys like ducks in a barrel.

* * * * *

In real life, I’m sad to say, it doesn’t work that way.

* * * * *

I also find it somewhat distressing to report that Agatha Darling has two wands. And what comes out of Agatha Darling’s second wand is not charming, sweet-colored pixie dust. Nor is it not-so-charming acid and forest green swirls of magic.

Oh no.

With her second wand pointed straight at my chest, she blasted me with lightning.

Pure, scorching, white-bright lightning.

And it hurt like hell.

* * * * *

I didn’t say “Yeesh…” I exclaimed, “
Arrrrgh, holy shit, fuck!
”

I was Mel Gibson getting tortured by the little Asian dude in
Lethal Weapon
,
except without the water.

And that was when I could talk at all.

* * * * *

She didn’t need to hold me paralyzed after the lightning died. I fell to my hands and knees, gagging and trying my damnedest not to spew my sun-dried-tomato-laden lunch on the ground.

Her power, from holding me to blasting me, was awesome.

Awesome.

I’d never seen anything of the like, not from Mavis or Gran or all of us put together.

I was in Trouble, with a capital T.

Shit and damn it all to hell.

“Now, Mathilda, we have to talk,” she said, her voice posh to the nth degree.

I feared r’s rolling.

I feared ee-ahs included in such words as “here”.

I feared that fuckity, fuck, fucking lightning.

I struggled to get up. I didn’t go for the wand tucked in my waistband because I couldn’t. I barely had the strength to pull myself up to rest on my knees. I was panting, my eyes were unfocused and the pain in my chest was excruciating.

I took the deepest breath I could once I got myself upright and asked, “About what?”

I looked at Rory who looked worse than before, probably not an easy thing to watch, someone getting struck by lightning.

He looked utterly terrified.

Darling continued, “I wanted a chance to explain to you about
tradition
. About the
right
way to do things and the
wrong
way to do things.”

Uh, what?

As in, excuse me?

She’d lost me.

I couldn’t help myself anymore, I looked away from her to Rory and asked, “You okay?”

Blast!

Again, she hit me with the lightning.

Up in the air and back I went, slamming against the sliding doors, the bolt holding me suspended up there for what seemed like forever.

I heard Aidan on the other side, banging, shouting my name, the doors rattling but they didn’t move.

I slithered down when she was done, on all fours again, gagging and this time I was crying and slobbering too. It hurt like hell, the pain was so intense, I thought my arms that were holding me up were going to give way, I was trembling so badly.

“Do not interrupt when I’m speaking,” she warned.