Anna's Hope Episode One

  Chapter 16

  Luminaria strode along the carpet, shooting Aaron a terse look whenever she passed him.

  For Aaron’s part, he sat in his chair, his chin cradled in his hand as he read his book.

  This time he wasn’t completely ignoring Anna, though. Like clockwork, every several seconds, he looked up and checked on her.

  He was waiting – they were all waiting – for Anna to lose control of her soul. For the dark wizard to make his move.

  The grand old clock above the equally grand old mantelpiece red 11:30.

  There was precisely half an hour left. Either the wizard would chicken out and be a no-show, or any second now he would start tapping on the door to her soul, violently and with a big stick in his hand.

  “Where is this pathetic wizard?” Luminaria suddenly declared as she whirled on the spot, her outstretched claws ripping the carpet.

  Aaron shot her a warning look. “That’s very expensive.”

  “And my little witch’s soul isn’t?” Luminaria shot back.

  Had Luminaria actually just said that? Because it sounded – impossibly – as if the possessed cat cared for Anna.

  “I wasn’t suggesting that,” Aaron defended himself quickly.

  “Oh yes you were. I know your type, wizard,” Luminaria snarled, “you love your books more than you love your witches.”

  It was an odd thing to say, and it made Anna blush.

  “I value human life more than anything else.” Aaron made a point of closing his book and resting it on his lap.

  “Oh yes, of course you do. I imagine you value your life quite a bit. But let’s be honest here, people like Anna don’t belong in it, do they?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Oh really?” Luminaria cackled at him. “There must be some reason you ignore her and dismiss her all the time. I mean, I’m not one to point fingers – I have made a very successful life of ignoring that silly little witch. But I have a very good reason for doing so: I’m evil. I don’t give a single hoot what people think about me, and I just love spreading ill will. For a so-called good wizard, you’re particularly rude and harsh.”

  “I have a very important job. It takes up all of my time, all of my power, and all of my attention. If I come across as rude, I apologize.” Aaron turned towards Anna.

  She blinked quickly. She always blinked quickly when he looked at her; it felt pretty weird to be noticed, especially by him. “Ah, you don’t need to apologize,” she mumbled quickly, realizing she should say something.

  “Of course he needs to apologize. He’s extremely irritating,” Luminaria pointed out harshly, “and if I were permitted to, I would magically slap him for it. But that is not the point.”

  “Do illuminate us, Luminaria,” Aaron asked patiently, “but what is the point?”

  “I may be a cat, but once upon a time I was a woman.”

  “Fascinating,” Aaron said dryly.

  “Yes it is. Because once upon a time I had empathy, though I rarely used it, of course. It did, however, enable me to acquire sound psychological skills. Primary among them, is finding out someone’s weaknesses.” Her head dipped low as she smiled. It was the kind of smile that belonged only on the face of felines and devils.

  Aaron stiffened.

  “You have a scar, my boy. Some kind of mental wound. Emotional, too, if I’m any judge. I’ve watched you, you see, and you either dismiss people or you engage with them through a facade of charm, which is another kind of dismissal. You hide behind your perfect little face and suit, so no one ever sees who you truly are.”

  Aaron didn’t move and he didn’t say anything.

  Though any minute now Anna would be attacked by a dark wizard, all her attention was focused on Aaron.

  “I wonder what your wound is?” Luminaria brought her paw up and started to play with her claws. “I wonder who wronged you? Was it that brother of yours?”

  Aaron stood up slowly. He swallowed, or at least tried to. The move stuck in his throat and he turned sharply towards the mantelpiece. He strode over to it, pretending to be interested in the fire crackling softly in the hearth.

  “Everything you do and say, or don’t do and don’t say, reveals your weakness,” Luminaria continued, taking great pleasure in psychologically unpicking Aaron.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Aaron said. His voice sounded calm and controlled, but there was a note of hesitation. And, as fantastic as it sounded, vulnerability.

  Here was one of the most powerful wizards in the world looking lost.

  Anna shifted uncomfortably on her chair. “Luminaria, maybe you should give it a rest. We should concentrate on the fact that the dark wizard—”

  “Shut up, girl. I’m having the most fun I have had in years. Now let me see if I can figure this out. It most definitely has something to do with your brother, and if I’m any judge, you’ve lost something. You have the kind of look of a man who has lost something.”

  Aaron turned his back, leaning down as he stoked the fire. There was so much rigidity about his shoulders that it looked as if he was trying to impale each log.

  “Thank you for confirming my assumption, boy. Your silence is the only evidence I need to conclude I’m on the right track. Was it a woman? Did you lose your pathetic first love to your more strapping brother? Oh that makes delicious sense. Only wizards would be pathetic enough to care about something like that.”

  “It was my mother,” Aaron answered.

  “What?” Luminaria looked confused.

  “We lost our mother.” Aaron turned around. His face was no longer controlled. He wasn’t crying though, and nor did he look furious. He looked resigned. “You are right, it is a wound. But it happened a long time ago, and I have moved on as best as I can.”

  “I’m so sorry—” Anna began.

  “And you’re right: I blame Scott. I blame him for becoming the kind of man he did. For turning to crime. For worrying her. If he hadn’t—” Aaron shook his head.

  “For turning to crime?” Anna stuttered disbelievingly.

  “When he was a teenager, he joined a dark magical gang,” Aaron explained, pushing his hands into his pockets as he turned over his shoulder and stared out the window.

  “But, I thought he was a bounty hunter?”

  “He is now. But that doesn’t cancel out his dark past.” Aaron spoke through clenched teeth.

  Anna’s mind whirled. Scott had been into the dark arts? “But how did he get your mother killed?” she asked, relenting to her curiosity before she thought through her question.

  Aaron levelled his gaze at her, and it was clear he didn’t want to talk about it.

  She stuffed both her hands over her mouth. “I am so sorry, I didn’t mean to bring that up. Please ignore me. I’m sorry,” she practically whimpered.

  “He was into the dark arts, you say?” Luminaria interrupted. “I’m beginning to like this boy more and more. I shall personally see to it that he is returned from the clutches of that dark wizard, just so he can continue to haunt your steps, Arana,” she promised cruelly.

  Aaron didn’t react. “And how are you personally going to see to that, Luminaria von Tippit? It’s almost 12, and our wizard hasn’t arrived. Where is he? There is every chance we got it wrong, and ....” He turned around, staring over his shoulder at the window again.

  “And what?” Anna prompted.

  “For all I know, Scott is dead and that wizard isn’t coming.” Aaron, for just a second, became undone. The cold, calm facade dropped completely from his face, revealing a confused, fragile man.

  She wanted to walk up to him and give him a hug, but she didn’t think he would appreciate it. Instead she ground her teeth into her lips and winced in compassion.

  She was still wearing her talisman, and without realizing it, she reached up and clutched it in her hand.

  She sneezed, the magic affecting her allergies immediately.

  This talisman was m
eant to make her more of herself, it was meant to magnify the very essence of her soul – her true destiny. Instead, it was making her allergies flare up.

  Then again, her allergies were part of her, weren’t they? As weird as it sounded, in many ways, they defined her more than any other feature. Anna was known as the witch who sneezed at her own magic.

  She felt silly as she sat there and thought that. Who wouldn’t feel silly? Aaron was defined by his power and wisdom and sense of style. Luminaria by her cruel tenacity. She hadn’t known Scott particularly long, but she could still define him as gritty, playful, and serious, all wrapped up into one confusing, clean-shaven package.

  Anna, Anna was just the allergic one. The witch who shouldn’t be practicing magic

  ....

  And yet the witch who practiced it nonetheless.

  And maybe that was what defined her. Though she had every reason to quit, she didn’t.

  “What happens if that wizard doesn’t try to attack me before midnight?” She looked up quickly, gazing between Luminaria and Aaron.

  “I don’t know. But I do know that Scott is running out of time, or he has already run out of time,” Aaron added softly.

  Anna ran her teeth over her lip. “But if we take the wizard down, it will be easy to find Scott, right?”

  “Once we eliminate that wizard or capture him, whatever spells he’s using to subdue Scott will break. If Scott is in any state to escape, he will. Even if he isn’t, it will give us a fighting chance to find him.”

  She nodded, a firm resolution building in her gut. She even patted a hand to her stomach, the first time she’d stopped rubbing her chest. “Okay then, it’s simple. We bring him to us. We fight here, now, and we end this before 12.”

  Aaron and Luminaria shared a look. If things weren’t so serious, Anna would take a picture to remind them later.

  “How are you going to bring the wizard to you, you silly witch?” Luminaria asked.

  At the same moment, Aaron talked over her. “There’s no way to bring that wizard here.”

  Anna tightened her grip on her talisman. She let her fingers wrap all the way around the plain wood. It may have only been simple and drab, nothing but string and a stump of stick, but she could feel its power.

  It reminded her of herself. She was simple and drab, but underneath it all, she was still a witch.

  She levelled her gaze at them. “I think I can bring him here.”

  “Short of slapping a target on your head and going outside to dance naked under the moon, it’s not going to work. And I’m afraid even a naked séance dance isn’t going to get that wizard’s attention. He has clearly been distracted by some other task. Maybe he’s found a way to continue without your soul, or maybe he’s concentrating on amassing a soul catcher army to come breakdown Aaron’s door. The point is, Anna, there’s absolutely nothing someone like you can do.”

  Anna let her eyes narrow on the term someone like you.

  It was a term she had heard all her life. Someone like Anna couldn’t be a witch. Well someone like Anna was.

  Someone like Anna couldn’t be a magical bounty hunter. Well someone like Anna was.

  People kept trying to make her believe she was someone she wasn’t.

  And it was time to make them stop.

  If Anna had been the kind to flick her hair and plant her hands on her hips she would have. Instead, she clasped her hands in front of her and took a deep breath. “I think maybe you should both stand back, as this could get messy.” She closed her eyes before anyone could say anything.

  She heard Aaron walk up to her, his footfall thumping along the carpet as he hurried to her side. “What are you going to do? It’s best for you to just sit down and wait.”

  She also heard Luminaria’s soft paws trot up to her side. “Just give it a rest, Anna. Sit down and wait.”

  She did neither.

  Anna closed her eyes and she concentrated.

  Not on her magic. Not on her soul.

  As weird and wonderful as it sounded, she concentrated on her allergies.

  Because what were her allergies other than an exquisite sensitivity to magic? Sure, they gave her no end of runny noses and sneezing fits, but underneath it all they meant her body was just more attuned to magic than your average practitioner.

  Anna had never thought of her allergies this way. Her whole life they had been a nuisance. Yet right now they could be the key to ending this.

  She tuned out Aaron and Luminaria’s continuing complaints. Anna instead focused on her sharp intake of breath, on the way her skin prickled around her chest, and on the intense pressure building in her sternum. Rather than give in to the allergies, she tried to follow them. Like a path. One paved with rashes and snuffly noses.

  With another deep breath, she felt the way her heart pattered and drummed in her chest. She fixed her mind’s eye on the sensation of it racing, until she felt herself running along with it.

  “Anna, you need to be careful,” she heard Aaron warn.

  Careful? She’d spent her entire life being careful. Boring too. She was the girl who stayed at home to look after the cat, the girl who stuck to lacy socks and wooly cardigans because they were safer than jeans and heels.

  She could do this.

  As she followed the sensations of her allergies – the way they reacted to the building pressure in her chest – she swore she started to feel something tapping on her head. It wasn’t an enterprising bird who’d flocked in past Luminaria’s defenses. A woodpecker hadn’t mistaken Anna’s noggin for a nice winter’s home.

  No. It was him. The wizard.

  It was the connection between them – the string that bound their souls. Or the chain, rather.

  Anna had never practiced soul magic. Soul magic was particularly hard and particularly powerful. It would be a great way of giving herself a pounding headache and an iridescent rash that would last for a week.

  And yet now as she searched out that wizard, as she tried to differentiate his soul from her own, she felt an odd kind of tingle escape over her flesh.

  It was power. One more basic than sparks and flame and crackles. One that stretched back to the dawn of time.

  You had to be taught to practice soul magic, and there were few teachers willing to do the job. It was hard, it was dangerous, and the only people who wanted to learn were particularly evil and unlikely to pay their tuition fee.

  Anna had never been taught, and yet right now she could feel herself practicing spontaneously. As she searched out that wizard’s soul, she had to learn to wrangle with the magic of destiny itself.

  She may have sneezed, her body may have been plunged into a terrible coughing fit – but she couldn’t tell. Her mind was now pushed towards her task with all the single-minded attention of a horse with blinkers.

  There.

  Finally.

  She could feel him.

  Her brow slackened and her arms hung limply by her sides. She retained only enough attention and control to keep her body standing, but she could feel herself sway.

  She latched her hands onto the wizard’s soul, and she pulled.

  At the same time, he pulled her.

  A battle of wills ensued. No, a battle of souls.

  Though she wasn’t aware of it, her talisman lit up like a flare on a moonless night. It throbbed with a bright orange-yellow glow as it hung against her chest. The wood and string were transformed, coursing with so much energy they looked like nothing but pure potential.

  Aaron and Luminaria had to duck back or be blinded.

  Come on, Anna said to herself, you can do this.

  No, you can’t. Another voice said in her mind. It was him.

  The wizard.

  Just as she heard his determined, cold tone echo in her head, she felt something.

  She also heard Aaron scream.

  Anna forced her eyes open, just in time to see black energy surge down her chest, crackle into her legs, and burst into the carpet. It ate
into the wood below, sending long, twisting dark marks over the expensive rug and floorboards.

  Before she could say or do anything, a hand descended from the black pool of twisting, writhing energy, and it latched around her suede boot.

  She had enough time to level her gaze up and stare at Aaron’s shock-filled expression, before Anna was pulled down.

  She couldn’t stop it. She couldn’t fight it. With a crackle that burst through the air like a thunderclap at close range, she was stolen from that room. From Aaron, from Luminaria – from safety.