Mathilda, SuperWitch (27 page)

“Why do I have to go first? You go first.” (Me)

“You’re The Chosen One.” (Su)

“Yes, so if something’s up there, you can act as my human shield.” (Me)

“Nice.” (Su)

“Kidding.” (Me)

“No you weren’t.” (Su)

“Yes I was.” (Me)

“No –” (Su)

“Sh!” (Me)

We both stared up the stairs.

“Okay, I’ll go first. Wand ready?” (Me, looking to my sister)

Su nodded.

Up I went, stair by creaky-ass stair.

I don’t know why I went so slowly, the stairs were so damn loud if there was anyone up there they could hear me coming, no sweat.

What we saw at the top was what we’d feared.

Old lady down.

“Shit.” (Su)

She was sprawled on the floor, all two hundred pounds of her, just one foot on the bed.

I felt for a pulse but then realized I didn’t know how to feel for a pulse.

Su pushed me out of the way and felt for one then she leaned down and put her ear to the old lady’s mouth.

“Pulse is strong and she’s breathing okay,” she declared.

Su lifted up one of her eyelids.

“Euw,” I said.

Then the old lady burped.

Not a pleasant sound.

And an even worse smell.

“She’s drunk,” Su said, getting out of her crouch position.

Blam! Blam! Blam!

Ack!

Gunshots – right through the window.

Ack!

Su and I dove for cover.

“Crap, crap, crap,” said Su.

“Josie and Lucy are out there!” I said.

“Crap, crap, crap,” repeated Su.

“Who’s shooting at us?” I asked.

“I don’t know! How should I know?” Su shouted.

Okay, calm down, Matty, calm down.

What would Ash do?

Not a good question as Ash wouldn’t be there in the first place.

“Su…” I hesitated, still thinking.

“Uh… yeah, I’m here. Where’m I gonna go?”

“You, me, protection spell.” I was making those jerky hand motions the Navy Seals do in the movies, like I was guiding a plane in for landing. Soon I was going to be using words like “click” and “vector”. “We grab the old woman and we hightail it to the car.”

Su stared at me like I’d grown another head.

Then she stated, “Okay, sorry to tell you this, Miss Prodigy, but magic deflecting bullets, not… gonna… happen.”

“Yes, but how about an invisibility glamour?” I asked.

“How about, we leave the bitty behind, get our asses to the Mini and get the fuck out of here?” Su shot back.

“They might be after her.”

“Why?”

“She’s an oracle. She can tell the future, the gods talk to her, why else? Do we want the bad guys to have her? I don’t think so!”

* * * * *

Okay, so, Su + me x Scary Situation = Disaster.

* * * * *

“This is what we do,” I declared, “get Althea down the stairs. I’ll go to the window and throw some magic out there to freak them out while you conjure an invisibility glamour and we can hope and pray that Josie and Lucy are okay.” And not dead, lying in pools of their own blood, victims of my stupidity.

“I still don’t see why we can’t leave the old bitty behind,” Su bitched.

“We need to take her.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Let’s just call it intuition.”

Su grumbled, I grabbed Althea under her armpits and, giving in, Su grabbed her feet.

* * * * *

Ever go down a flight of stairs carrying something heavy and wearing flip-flops?

You know the soft
“flip… flop”
sound that flip-flops make when you’re casually walking down the street?

Well, when you walk down the stairs carrying something heavy, they make more of a
“FLIP!… FLOP!”
sound – slapping against the soles of your feet, loud enough to wake the dead.

And let the bad guys know exactly where you are.

So this is how it went:

FLIP! FLOP! FLIP! FLOP!

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

(Dust and broken mortar flying hither and yon as bullets slam into the stone outside of house by stairwell.)

FLIP! FLOP! FLIP! FLOP!

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

(More dust, more debris – you get the picture.)

“Crap, crap, crap!” Su shouted when we’d finally made it to the bottom of the stairs. She dumped Althea unceremoniously on the floor.

“Careful!” I shouted.

“She’s lived for two hundred and three years! This is not gonna hurt her!” Su shouted back.

“Just get the invisibility spell ready!”

Su tore through the cottage, grabbing magickal supplies, tossing herbs this way, seeds that way, wrapping feathers with pentagrams and swinging them around, rubbing oil on her temples, my temples, Althea’s temples.

Then she started muttering to herself, mutters turned to rhymes, rhymes turned to chanting.

I did my own bit, threw some magical blobs. There were some explosions, some loud noises, rustling, crackles. The baddies went to investigate.

Then we grabbed Althea and off we went.

* * * * *

Flip-flops – as you may or may not know – have no traction.

They have a smooth sole.

Not exactly the proper footwear to utilize when traversing a wet lawn, carrying a two hundred and three year old, two hundred pound, drunken oracle, under an invisibility glamour that depends on your partner’s magical concentration.

Slip – Slide…

Crash!

And Su, Althea and I went down, ten feet from the Mini.

“We’re dead,” Su said as the glamour disappeared.

And indeed, it seemed we were as the baddies turned and aimed.

Then,
vroom, vroom!
the Mini started up in a thunder of revving engine and surged forward, zooming toward the men.

The men stared at the Mini in shock (which, to their eyes, was uninhabited due to the protection spell Su and I had put on Josie and Lucy). They scattered and ran for their lives as the Mini chased them around the glade.

It then turned, came swooshing, fish-tailing and vrooming back and skidded to a halt close to us.

Get in!” shouted Lucy, throwing open the door.

We managed to shove Althea into the back (she must have been seriously liquored up to go through all that without waking) and I took the wheel from Josie a split second before the guns starting blazing again.

Four women in a Mini was okay (barely).

Five of them, too much.

Way too much.

Miraculously, the bullets missed my Mini which escaped the scene without a scratch.

* * * * *

Needless to say, our arrival home was not heralded with streamers streaming and champagne corks popping.

In fact, this is what happened:

I caught sight of the Lush Jag in my rearview mirror somewhere in Gloucestershire.

Althea had awoken and was kinda pissed off that she’d been kidnapped.

(Understatement.)

And more pissed off that she was squished in the back between Josie and Su.

The Lush Jag kept its distance the entire way home.

A controlled distance.

But I got the impression it was a barely controlled distance.

When we stopped the car in The Gables, my posse and I sat transfixed watching as Ash slowly unfolded himself from the driver’s seat of the Jag.

And then, after we got out of the Mini, they deserted me, without a word and without remorse, guiding the teetering Althea into The Gables.

Ash stood, hip resting against the Jag, arms crossed on his chest.

I stood my ground, feeling (somewhat) safe with the Mini between us.

After I realized I was going to lose the staring contest, I gave a bit of a wave and said a (damn it all) feeble, “Hey.”

“What the fuck did you think you were doing?”

Er, okay, so it was good to know that Ash
was
mad and I had not misjudged the situation.

“Well, I –”

“
If you ever even
think
of doing something so fantastically idiotic again, when you get back, I’ll find you, drag you somewhere very remote and chain you somewhere very uncomfortable. Do you understand me?”

So… damn… bossy!

And, I’ll add,
threatening.

Me… no…
likey!

“Don’t talk to me like I’m a child!” I stamped my foot, yes, like a child but can you imagine the adrenalin going through my body? Someone shot at me! I couldn’t be responsible for my own stupidity at that point. And therefore, being really stupid, I charged around the Mini toward Ash. “I’m fine, they’re fine, everything is fine!”

“Stop,” he said in a voice that would normally have stopped me but just then, it didn’t, “You come any nearer to me, Mathilda, I won’t be responsible for what I do.”

I finally stopped, crossed my arms on my chest and leaned my torso back.

Then I taunted, “Yeah? What? Are you gonna spank me?”

Bad idea.

He pushed away from the Jag and came toward me.

“Don’t tempt me,” he warned.

I started toward him again.

“I’m a thirty-four year old woman, Ash, with responsibilities.”

We stopped, barely a foot apart, Ash’s face thunderous.

“
And you took one of those responsibilities into danger today, Mathilda. You nearly got your Spellbound killed and your sister and your friend
and
yourself. Have you lost your mind?”

“Of course not!”

“You could have fooled me.”

“Listen, Ash –”

“Don’t do it again.”

“Try and stop me.”

We were head-to-head by then, him standing angrily over me and me standing belligerently under him.

Another staring contest.

“You’re so damn bossy,” I said because I couldn’t take it anymore.

“I’m quite serious, Mathilda, you do that again and I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

Then he walked away.

Ack!

* * * * *

And then:

A couple of strong cups of coffee later, I stood in the Plush Parlor talking to Althea with Ash standing (very close) behind me, wearing his broody face.

“Why am I here?” Althea asked.

“We came to your cottage to talk to you then men started shooting at you. We had to get you to a safe place,” I said.

“They weren’t shooting at me, fool, they were shooting at you.” (Althea)

Fool?

Nice.

“Well, even if they were shooting at me, they didn’t seem to care who in the house they hit, including you.” (Me)

She grumbled but she did it uttering no distinct words.

“And, until we know what’s happening, you’re safer here.” (Me)

Ash’s hand settled on the small of my back, his fingers curling into the waistband of my jeans.

“He thinks it’s not such a good idea, having a member of the Edwards Coven staying at The Gables.” (Althea)

“You’re right, I don’t.” (Ash)

She cackled. Honestly, I swear to the goddess, she
cackled
.

“The Wilding Men. Always been spare of word, abundant of honesty. Bodes well for you, lass.” (Althea)

“Not when you’re asking if your butt looks big in a pair of jeans, it doesn’t.” (Me)

She cackled, again.

The cackles were loopy and I guessed it definitely was a cottage where she cooked kids in pies, not the other sort.

“Do you know where Agatha Darling is?” (Ash)

Humph. Butting in on my interrogation.

“No.” (Althea)

“Do you know who made that wand for her?” (Me)

“She got her wand in a ceremony, just as you did.” (Althea)

“Not the magical one, the one that plugs into the wall and shoots out electricity.” (Me)

Her eyes widened for a brief moment before she smacked her lips together and said, “I need a drink.”

“I do too.”