Magical Influence Book One

  Chapter 15

  Making my way down that drainpipe was the hardest thing I had ever done. It wasn't just that the wind tugged and pulled at me, it was that with every single gust I felt hands move along with it. I swore there was a creature in the storm, or hundreds upon thousands of them, and as it roared past me, they all reached up to tug me down, down into the yard beyond.

  I managed to keep my grip on the windpipe, and just maybe with my teddy tucked under my arm, I had the reassurance I required to continue. However, more likely, it was probably the sheer annoyance of Jacob Fairweather climbing down after me, muttering to himself, continuing to insult me, despite the fact I could hardly hear him.

  What a distraction he was turning out to be.

  Though I was sure that the overgrown shrubs and trees of my yard prevented my neighbors from seeing whatever was done there, I was also certain that if any of them had looked out of their windows at that point, they would have seen me climbing down from my bedroom window with a man in a blue tie. If they could have seen through the storm, that was.

  I doubted the rain and clouds and lightning and wind were putting on the same show for everybody else in the neighborhood. No doubt just beyond my fence everything would calm down. The wind would turn into nothing more than a breeze, the clouds would part to show the sun shining through, and the lightning would dwindle to be nothing but a faraway crackling in the hills behind the town.

  The storm was after me, not the rest of the town.

  As I continued to clamber down, my hands became frigid with every blast of wind. I could hardly move my fingers anymore, and yet I managed to keep my grip, but only just.

  As I clambered down, my brain started to do some much-needed thinking. With the wind drowning out Jacob’s insults, there was nothing to distract me.

  It was time to come up with more of a solid plan. Once we were out of the yard, if we ever managed to get out, that was, I would have to... make my way on my own. Jacob had already made it clear that he was ready to ditch me. And good riddance to him, frankly. I didn't need him running around as a liability, attracting various magical creatures, and tugging me along like I was some kind of rag doll.

  Think, girl, I commanded myself.

  How was I to get through this?

  As I passed the second floor window, I caught a glimpse inside, and what I saw made me want to let go and give up.

  Creatures were swarming through my house. Flashes that I could just see from the lightning playing its way through the clouds above. Faces, contorted into disgust, fear, and hatred. The whip of a tail, the flap of a wing. It seemed that hell had opened up all of its fury and dumped it in my big old house.

  Why had this happen to me? I'd always been a good witch, I'd always looked after my grandmother. I didn't deserve this.

  Or maybe I did. I had spent the past several months complaining about everything I could, undermining, as my granny had put it, everything I stood upon.

  So despite my grandmother's annoying meddling, I could see her point. It was time to change everything I hated about myself, take charge, and find my natural power within.

  In doing so, I would strengthen my defenses, and this barrage of the dark side would be overcome.

  I had a car, my grandmother had already seen to that, and a job too, and as for man, I was quite certain I could live without one. So that just left... becoming powerful.

  As I thought and planned, my body did what it had to, and soon enough I had made it down the drainpipe and was standing on real, solid ground, even though it was very, very soggy.

  For a moment I just stood there, a smile of victory spreading my lips. I had actually done it. I’d climbed down the side of my house in a ferocious magical storm. That was certainly something to brag about at the next family reunion.

  And then I heard a growl behind me. A particularly loud and nasty one.

  I turned slowly, ever so slowly, like a pig on a rotisserie ready to be roasted and eaten.

  In my mind, the most horrible of creatures would be behind me. Perhaps a troll, three meters tall, teeth dripping with blood. Perhaps a demon, its black wings spread out so wide they blocked off all light from the heavens.

  What I saw... was a gnome. Yes, a gnome. Not a garden gnome, one of the live ones. It was barely one-and-a-half feet tall, and it had a characteristic pointy blue hat on.

  I heard Jacob land beside me. He had turned to see what I was staring at, and the brute laughed. “When I saw you turn like that, I figured you were facing a monster or something. Is that a garden gnome?”

  I brought a hand up, quick and sharp, hoping to cut off his insult before he could get us into any more trouble. “Don't move a muscle.”

  “You serious? It's a gnome,” he shoved past me.

  That would be when the gnome reacted. It might have only been one-and-a-half feet tall, but gnomes had a distinct advantage. Anger. Devastating anger.

  “Quick, throw your teddy bear at it,” Jacob jokingly suggested from my side before he pushed past me, pulled down on his tie, and headed for the garden path.

  He didn't get very far.

  The gnome turned around and launched itself at him, ran up his back, wrapped its arms around his head and head-butted him.

  It all happened so fast.

  Even though the wind was loud and the lightning louder, I heard the crack of that creature nutting Jacob.

  Jacob spluttered, stumbled backwards, brought his hands up, and tried to pull the gnome off.

  I stood there, surprised, just a little amused, and quite a bit concerned. Yet soon I pushed myself into action. Despite the fact I was wearing a Santa Claus sweater and holding onto my teddy, I had to do something; I was the witch trying to find her power, after all.

  I flung myself forward, and even though Jacob was a great deal taller than me, I tried to reach up to grab the gnome. It kept on head-butting him, and Jacob, in his desperation to pull it off, was stumbling around, always dancing just out of my reach.

  I had to think of something quickly, because despite how annoying Jacob was, I really didn't want him to end up with any lasting brain damage because he had mistakenly insulted a gnome.

  I also knew I couldn't pull it off him; I couldn’t reach it, and I wasn’t that strong anyway. I had to look for something to help me.

  I was starting to come to terms with the fact that I was never going to be a witch like my grandmother. The kind of witch who could practice both influence magic and the other, raw, more powerful kind. You wouldn't see me walking through walls any time soon.

  I had to settle into what I had and what I could do, and I had to maximize it.

  So to get a gnome off Jacob's head, I had to practice influence. I had to manipulate the context, alter the variables involved until the situation resolved itself. Minimal effort for maximal gain.

  Standing on the spot and staring around myself, I looked for something that would make Jacob powerful. I knew he was more than capable of pulling the gnome off his head himself, he just needed a hand to get his strength back. And then I saw it. His gun. He’d dropped it, presumably in surprise when a gnome had run up his back and started head-butting him in the face.

  I scuttled over to it, picked it up, and then saw an overturned fence post. It was broken, and had two pointy ends. I snatched it up.

  I ran over to Jacob and chucked the gun and the fence post at his feet. Then I closed my eyes and let off a silent prayer. A quick, mumbled spell.

  To the uninitiated, what I had just done would have seemed useless. No, beyond useless. Rather than hand Jacob the gun, I had thrown it at his feet, and to top it all off, I'd added a broken fence post, as if that would do anything other than offer an opportunity to trip.

  Despite appearances, what I had just practiced was magic.

  To Jacob presumably there was nothing more powerful and nothing that could offer more security than a gun. As for the broken fence post, it offered several pointy, rough edges, that would presumably put
one in mind of something pointy, rough, and tough. Like a pointy, rough, and tough man more than capable of besting a gnome.

  Okay, I was very much clutching at straws here, but it would have to do.

  And, low and behold, seconds later, Jacob finally succeeded in wrapping his hands around the gnome and pulling it off. With a hearty, thumping cry he chucked it into the black berry bush several meters away.

  Then he looked at me, blood dripping down from a deep gash in his head. “Why did you just stand there?”

  “I didn't,” I pointed down at the gun and the broken fence post. “I cast a spell, I was the only reason you managed to get it off.”

  Jacob looked at me slowly and very aggressively. “You're out of your mind.” He poked the fence post with the toe of his boot, reached down, grabbed the gun, and turned from me.

  “Just because you don't understand influence magic, doesn't mean you should dismiss it. That thing was winning before I intervened,” I raised my voice as Jacob strode ahead.

  I understood, I really did, how pathetic my little intervention must have looked. Chucking a gun and a fence post at his feet? It must have seemed like I was more than mad. But I wasn't.... This was honestly how my magic worked. It wasn't about lights, explosions, and fireballs. It was about reminding people of what they could do, about reminding situations of what they could become. It involved a lot of junk and incantations, but I knew it was the most powerful way of altering the universe.

  If Jacob didn't understand that, so be it, but I was confident that my intervention had been the difference between him finally claiming victory over that gnome and crumpling into a ball of brain injury.

  As Jacob strode ahead, I clutched tight onto my teddy.

  Neither of us got very far. Something swung out of a tree. And it swung right at me. At first I didn't understand what it was, then just before it hit me I saw the snaking grab of a tentacle. It wrapped itself around my stomach, squeezed the face of my knitted Santa Claus, and began to pull me towards the bushes.

  Before I was crushed or sent slamming into the fence, Jacob opened fire, and somehow his aim was true, and he shot right through the tentacles. There was a scream from the tree, and the creature dwindled into a hiss of smoke.

  Frantic, I batted the remaining tentacles off me and took several steps back, shaking in fear.

  “That is how you save somebody,” Jacob looked down at me pointedly, then he turned away and headed for the garden path.

  That was one way to save somebody, I felt like replying, but he was too far out of earshot, and I really doubted he wanted to listen.

  There were probably only 10 or so meters separating us from the garden gate. I was confident that once we were on the street outside our current situation would improve measurably. We just had to make it that far.

  And somehow, clutching onto my teddy, practicing what magic I could, we did.

  I had no idea why. From the sounds of the storm and concentrated evil lurking behind every bush and tree, I was more than sure we would have been assailed at every step.

  Yet we weren't. Between Jacob's bluster, his gun, and his general aggressiveness, and my own magic of course, we made it.

  Right to the garden gate.

  We, however, did not get to open it.

  Just as Jacob leaned over to kick it open, ignoring the latch, and obviously not caring that it would take more than I could afford to replace it, something rushed out at him.

  White and glistening. Bone. The bone was attached to a skeleton, and the skeleton was attached to a sword.

  This time I did react, and no, it wasn't to lean down, grab up a fence post, and chuck it at his feet. I threw myself at Jacob, grabbed him, and pushed him out of the way. Except I didn't do it in time.

  I heard the blade slash down, and I felt it as it sliced through my arm.

  Blood splattered everywhere.

  Yet I didn't scream. Pain filled me, spiking through my arm with a ferocity I had never felt. Yet I held onto the anguish and fright, and I didn't let it out.

  Though blackness was curling in at the edges of my vision, I was aware of the fact that the skeleton turned, brought it’s sword up again, and lashed out once more.

  Jacob was still on the ground underneath me, and I was an easy, easy target.

  But I wasn't down yet.

  Before the panic could get to me, before the sight of that sword glinting in a non-existent light could speak to the primal side of my brain and leave it with the conclusion that death was seconds away, I did something. Instinctual. I reached for my teddy. It had fallen in the mud after I had been attacked. Now it was the only thing within my grasp. So I clutched it up.

  I didn't roll away, I didn't try to kick at the skeleton’s feet, and I didn't scream at Jacob to do something. I just reached for my teddy and I held it there.

  A funny thing happened when I did.

  The skeleton brought its sword down in a stabbing motion, probably intending to skewer me right through the heart.

  Though its move was strong, and I could see the concentrated power of its blow, it glanced off. As soon as the sword came into contact with my teddy, a magical barrier appeared, and the skeleton was blasted back.

  Yes, that is the power of a teddy bear. Or, more likely, that is the power that comes when one surrounds themselves with objects they have spent a lifetime empowering.

  Though I was a witch, and I understood magic, I was just a little bloody surprised. I didn't have time to look down at my teddy before Jacob pulled me to my feet, reached over to the garden fence, pushed it open, and tugged us out onto the street.

  It happened too fast, and as the pain ate into my arm, I didn't have the attention left over to keep up with what was going on. But before I knew it, I was out of the yard and standing on the pavement beyond.

  It was warm out here. It was light too; though there were thick clouds above, they no longer covered the sun like they had in my yard. Though there was a wind, it was a slight breeze with the occasional gust. And though I heard thunder, it was far, far off behind the city in the rolling hills beyond.

  In short, it was completely different weather, despite the fact we had barely moved half a meter. More than that, as I glanced over Jacob's shoulder and beyond my garden gate, I couldn't see what I had moments before.

  There was no skeleton with a sword getting ready to jump over the picket fence to finish off the fight. There was no gnome shaking its fist at Jacob, and there was no tentacle monster nursing a bullet wound.

  It was just my yard. You couldn't hear anything, you couldn't see anything, and in short, it looked as if nothing was there.

  Jacob still had his arm around me, and his shirt was covered in blood. If it wasn't for that fact, maybe he would have doubted what had just happened. Though he took several more moments to stare into my yard, obvious surprise shifting through his expression, he took one look down at my arm, and then reached for his phone.

  He was about to call for an ambulance, wasn't he?

  I shifted around and closed my palm over his before he could open his phone. I shook my head. “Don't get anyone else involved,” I pleaded.

  He held my gaze.

  I swear that was the longest we had ever looked at each other up to that point. Before, all we'd shared were blunt, aggressive glances. Now he slowly shook his head. “You're injured.”

  I shook my own head. “Please, don't get anyone else involved.” To prove that I was okay, I pried myself from his grip and stood up, holding my arm, but not wavering on my feet.

  “I'll be fine...” I took a step back from him. “You can go now. This has nothing more to do with you.” I kept on stepping backwards.

  Jacob just stood there. His expression was unreadable. Gone was the arrogant jerk who had haunted me for the past hour. In its place was... somebody I couldn't read. Someone I suddenly understood that I didn't know at all.

  “I have a first aid kit in my car.”

  Car. As if on cue, I turn
ed around.

  There she was, my monster truck. Parked on the curb, glistening in the sun that made it through the clouds, and all but begging me to clamber inside. Suddenly I was more than thankful that my grandmother had insisted we buy the largest and most ridiculous vehicle we could find. The idea of climbing into a hatchback and zooming away from the devil himself was not nearly as comforting as hauling myself up into that truck, gunning the engine, and listening to it roar in approval.

  “So do I,” I lied. “I’ll deal with my cut myself.”

  It was time Jacob and I separated. It was time for Agent Fairweather to get out of this world while he still could. To ignore me, to forget me, and to go about the rest of his day assuming that these past several hours had been spent in a drug-fueled hallucination.

  Taking another step back from him, not being able to tear my gaze off his for some reason, I reached the driver's side door. I put a hand on it.

  His look of concern crumpled in that moment. He shifted his gaze up to the monstrosity that was my new car. “Is that yours?”

  I nodded. “My car got stolen yesterday, remember? Well this is my replacement.”

  He looked at me askance. But it didn't last. Because his gaze quickly darted down to the blood still seeping through my Santa Claus sweater. “I'm not even going to talk about the fact you replaced your hatchback with a monster truck. And I'm not going to leave you on the street bleeding. Where is your first aid kit?”

  “It's over, Jacob. We’re out of the house. You can go. Like you wanted to,” I forced myself to turn around.

  I didn't have the keys for my car, but hell, I was a witch. As soon as we had signed those papers, this car had become part of the family. It was a Sinclair vehicle now, and it had been sold to me by my cousin. So yes, that meant I didn't need a key; as soon as I reached up and tugged on the handle, it opened, and I swear it gave a purr too.

  “Hey, what are you doing? I can’t let you drive around with an injury like that. You’re going to crash into a train. Get back down here.”

  Why did people keep on telling me that this truck could take on a train? I knew enough about repetition and affirmations to realize that the more people repeated that, the more likely it would become. And frankly, I really had no intention of slamming my brand-new vehicle into an oncoming locomotive.

  I didn't get down. Instead I closed the door.

  As I laid my hands on the wheel, I almost forgot about the pain of my injury. The vantage from this car was incredible. I felt like I was in a tank. It actually brought a smile to my lips.

  As I looked out at the storm above, it seemed duller, dimmed down. In my massive black monster truck the weather no longer appeared to be able to affect me as much.

  I leaned down to turn it on. Though I didn't have any keys, I just made the motion of doing it, and the thing roared into life. Again, not something your ordinary car would do, but something a Sinclair family vehicle had no trouble in learning.

  Before I could pull out from the curb, my passenger door opened, and Agent Fairweather clambered in. He fixed me with a steely, deadly gaze. “Turn the car off.”

  Before I could react, he leaned over and went to grab at the keys from the ignition.

  Except they weren’t there.

  I watched his expression falter. He looked for them, checked my hands, then looked back at my face. “I don't get it, have you installed some kind of voice recognition?”

  I snorted at him. “No, it's magic. As if I could afford a fancy ignition.”

  With that I patted the steering wheel, and the car growled. Yes, growled. It didn't rumble, the engine didn't suddenly rev. The truck growled like it was a lion getting ready for a fight.

  “Where’s the first aid kit? Esme, where is your first aid kit?”

  Where we on first name terms now?

  “Look, Agent Fairweather, I got you out of the house, or you got me out of the house, whatever. The point is, you can leave like you wanted to. Just leave this up to me.”

  “Leave this up to you? I've seen what you can do. If a man is in trouble, you throw a broken fence picket at his feet. How exactly are you going to keep yourself safe?”

  “Are you forgetting how I got this,” I took one hand off the wheel and pointed to the deep, deep gash in my arm. My sweater was thankfully a cheery red, so the sight of blood soaking it wasn't as stark. Yet I was sure he got the picture clear and sharp.

  It got Jacob's attention, and that arrogant look on his face faltered. “Where's the first aid kit? Now please, turn the car off.”

  “I don't have time. We might appear safe now, but those things will still be after me. It's different out here in the real world, but they’ll find a way. I have to get to the rest of my family.”

  “Then I'll drive,” he nodded at the wheel.

  My eyebrows crumpled, my lips pulling thin. “You don't have to help me; I can do this on my own. Get back to your real life. Aren’t you worried you're still hallucinating? Aren’t you worried this is all some kind of drug-fuelled nightmare?”

  He ignored me. He pointed at the wheel. “Shift into the back seat.” I'll drive.

  I laughed through a cough. “Agent Fairweather, don't you want to go to the hospital to check to see what we put in your biscuits? Aren’t you suspicious about what my grandmother was flicking at you from that ice cream container?”

  “I can handcuff you, if that would help?” He crossed his arms.

  I stared at him with an open mouth. “You don't have any handcuffs. And what are you doing? Why do you want to help me so much? You already made it clear you think I'm mad, that I'm a criminal, and that you want to get away from me the first chance you can get. Well you’ve got your chance now, so go.”

  “Are you serious? Do you think I'm going to leave you alone? I've seen what you can't do. You may be a witch, but you're the worst one I've ever met. You think I'm going to leave you in this monster truck to be chased around the city by the Devil's finest? The damage will be irreparable.”

  I turned around to face him, getting ready to argue my point. Then I stopped. I leaned back. “Worst witch you've ever met?”

  His expression had been even up to that point. Now his cheek twitched. “Get out of the driver's seat.”

  “What do you mean worst witch you’ve ever met?”

  “Don't make me wrestle you into the back, because I will.”

  “Why are you so good at seeing magic? Don't you dare tell me that you are a magical creature. Don't you dare tell me that you’ve been keeping that from me,” suddenly it didn't matter that my arm was still gushing blood. It didn't matter that I was in a perilous situation and the longer I stayed on the curb arguing with Fairweather the more likely I was to be kidnapped and killed by ghosts and gnomes.

  What mattered was this growing sense of unease. I'd already noted that Jacob Fairweather didn't have normal reactions around magical creatures. Ordinary people who had no experience with the bizarre didn't pause to quip on the second landing and point out giraffes with voodoo pins. Neither did they have such extended arguments with witches when they could just as easily haul themselves to the nearest hospital to get their blood checked for hallucinogens.

  “If you’re not going to tell me where that first aid kit is soon, you're going to lose consciousness,” he said clearly, moving his lips slowly.

  “I don't care if I lose consciousness, have you been lying to me?” I pointed at him, stupidly using the same arm that was now weakened from injury and blood loss. As soon as I moved, I groaned and I blinked heavily.

  “That's it, I can't take this anymore,” Jacob leaned over to me, grabbed at my arm, and closed his palm around my injury.

  At first I tried to fidget back. “What are you doing?”

  “Hold still,” he snapped at me through clenched teeth.

  “No, what are you...” I trailed off. Not because I couldn't think of an appropriate insult to fling Jacob's way, but because my mind suddenly became hazy. It became ha
zy because my body filled with a warmth, unmistakable and impossible to ignore.

  Magic.

  It spread from the wound, up the arm, through my chest, and down into my torso. It was like popping into a bath after a cold and stressful day, or sitting down to a fantastic plate of chocolate cake in front of a warm fire. Everything that had been troubling me melted away. The fact I was being hunted became just a curiosity, the fact I still had so much to do if I wanted my life back, became nothing more than an odd thought at the edge of my consciousness.

  My eyes closed, and I fell back against the driver's seat.

  “You are such a pain in the ass,” I heard Jacob mumble.

  “You're a jerk,” I replied, automatically. But my words were mumbled, and as soon as my lips closed, I couldn't open them again.

  I succumbed to a deep, inviting, healing sleep.

  At the touch of Jacob Fairweather, the apparent ordinary Federal Agent, my wound healed itself.