Chapter 16
I woke up with a start. A rattling snort in fact.
“Wow, you were knocked out for ages. Call yourself a witch? You have about as much magic in you as my left pinky.”
It took me a while to adjust, but soon enough I recognized the voice as belonging to my dear favorite Agent Fairweather.
My head was pounding, but the feeling slowly subsided.
Soon enough I was aware of the fact I was in a car travelling somewhere. My memories were having trouble coming back to me, but after several moments of listening to the engine roar, I realized where I was, who I was with, and what had just happened.
I sat bolt upright.
I was sitting in the passenger seat, belted in, with a jacket rolled up and lodged behind my head. As soon as I sat upright, it fell onto my lap, and out of the pocket tumbled a badge. A Federal Police badge.
I turned to him slowly.
“Don't do anything stupid. I mean, don't do anything else stupid; you've already ruined this day as it is. Just be a good girl and sit there quietly.”
Be a good girl and sit there quietly? Instead I tugged off my sweater, pulled up the sleeve of my top, and checked my arm. There was no wound. It was completely gone, not even a mark was left.
Magic like that, the likes of which was required to knit flesh without a scar... was staggering. It was also far, far beyond me. My grandmother, possibly, if she were in a powerful mood, could have done something similar. But Jacob Fairweather?
I turned to him slowly again, this time I leaned towards the window, as if I were trying to get as far away from him as I could. Because, frankly, I was. The man I had thought had been a belligerent, if arrogant but still relatively innocent Federal Agent had just surprised the hell out of me. He was obviously magical. What did he want, why was he here, and why had he pretended not to know anything about my world and witches?
“You don't have to look at me like that,” he smiled, “I'm not going to eat you. I saved your life,” he nodded down at my arm. Though he was driving, he wasn't paying any attention to the road. Yet we hadn't run over any of the cars in front of us, and neither had be ploughed into the ditch.
Definitely magical.
“Who are you?” I couldn't keep the note of hesitation from wavering through my voice. I sounded like a scared, lost, and confused child.
“You really are the worst witch in the world, aren't you?” He chuckled to himself.
I had to make a decision here. Was Jacob a threat, or was he just entirely irritating?
He was clearly, clearly more powerful than I was, and right now I needed to decide whether staying in this car with him was a good idea.
He could be taking me anywhere. Hell, he could be taking me to anyone. Though he'd seemed relatively innocent so far, what if he were working for one of my enemies, what if he'd only wandered into my life so he could gain my trust, kidnap me, and take me to some nefarious magical syndicate?
Maybe my indecision played across my face, because he crumpled his brow and shook his head. “Whatever you’re thinking, I can guarantee it is wrong. It's just the residual fear from escaping your house. And maybe a little bit of the damage left over from your wound. The slice of Necrona sword can be deadly. You are lucky I healed you when you I did.”
I clutched a hand onto where my wound should have been and I left it there. “Stop the car,” I dropped my voice low, warning him with the only thing I had left.
“Really, is that the thanks I get? I heal your wound, save you from a house invasion, and this is how you react?”
“Stop the car,” I repeated, undoing my buckle and putting my hand on the door.
“No. Do you have any idea who is after you? If I stop this car and you get out, you will last all of about 10 seconds before you're either struck by lightning or a car ploughs off the road and squashes you. Are you really that stupid, Esme Sinclair?”
“Then tell me who you are and where you're taking me. What's going on here? If you were magical from the beginning, why didn't you tell us?”
“Did you ever ask? Or did you just assume the pathetic little annoying agent didn't know anything about your world?”
I wanted to slap him, I really did. But I figured that would land me either unconscious or in handcuffs, so I settled for clutching my hands on my lap and looking at him severely. “What are you after?”
He let out a frustrated chuckle. “It’s not you, if that's what you’re worried about. Hell, I would like to be as far away from you and your brand of trouble as I can get, but I don't have that luxury. So why don’t you just sit there, try not to get yourself injured again, and get some rest?”
I was so close to slapping him now it wasn't funny. Another quip like that, and I'd lean over, pluck up the handbrake and settle my hands around his throat.
“As for where I'm taking you, it’s somewhere safe.”
“Where?” I clutched my hands tighter and tighter, and I hoped that if I put just a little bit more effort into my gaze I would start to boil his blood.
“A safe house, for witches like you who get themselves into far too much trouble than this city can handle. I'm not sure if you appreciate this, but if you just jump out of this car and try to fight your way through your attackers, you'll be putting other lives at risk, infrastructure too. So it is up to people like me to jump in when we have too,” with that he latched a hand on his tie and straightened it.
I scoffed. “Up to people like you? Who the hell are you, I thought you were just a Federal Agent?”
“Just a Federal Agent? That's more than you. You're unemployed, so I wouldn't go round picking holes in other people's jobs.”
“Unemployed? As of this morning I'm a private detective,” I settled back into the chair, glowering at him.
He sniggered. “Yes, sorry, I forgot. You can't even find a way to open your attic door, but soon someone's going to employ you to track down lost objects and people. I'm sure you'll be great at it,” he winked sarcastically.
“Are you always this rude? Is this what you do to every witch you pick up?”
He grinned. “I'm not picking you up. Do you think this is a date?”
I blushed a little. “You know what I meant. Is this the standard attitude you have around other magical creatures in trouble, or do you just enjoy acting like the playground bully around me?”
“You really don't know how to say thank you, do you? Here I am driving you to a safe house, and the only thing you can do is bicker. Well I'll be out of your hair soon, Esme Sinclair, so just try to shut up until we arrive.”
I turned back to the window. My hands were so tightly curled into fists that I felt as if my fingernails would cut my palms.
I couldn't deny that currently my situation seemed better off than it had in a long time. Despite how frustrated the man made me feel, when I was in his presence, the danger of the situation seemed dulled. And now the haunting sense of magical terror that had filled me in my house was all but gone. A quick glance through the window told me the clouds and sky were still in turmoil, but I felt... safe.
It seemed as if the worst was over. But I didn't know whether I was prepared to accept Jacob's story in full. Was he really taking me to a safe house? Did people like him exist to track down and protect witches like me so our troubles couldn't spill out and damage the city and its denizens?
“We've already sent a team in to get your grandmother back, everything should be fine and you should be back in that dump of a house of yours by tomorrow. You don't have to thank me; your look of pure indignation is enough,” he sniggered to himself again.
I turned back to rim. “Just who do you work for?”
“The Federal Government,” he looked pointedly at the badge on my lap. “You don't follow what other people are saying, do you? Your head is too full of woolly, useless magic.”
“I don't get it, why the act?” Though I still wanted to slap him, I couldn't deny that my questions burned far brighter than my fru
stration. Also, the more he goaded me, the more I realized what he was doing. He was a little bit like a troll, and everyone knows, you don't feed a troll. He could irritate and tease me all he wanted, but if I wanted him to stop, I had to start reigning in my reactions.
I sat a little straighter, jutted out my chin, and patted down on my Santa Claus's jumper. Latching a hand on my hair and straightening it, I glowered up at him. “Are you going to answer, or are you going to spend the next five minutes thinking of an appropriate insult? You might be more powerful than I am, Jacob, but that is no reason to withhold this information from me. I deserve to know.”
He looked back at the road for a moment, flicked his gaze to the storm, then turned back to me. “It's standard practice not to reveal ourselves to... lower magical forms,” his lips tugged into a grin.
I was about to react. But then I didn't. Because I was still sitting straight, my chin was still jutting out, and my hair was still sitting just right. And all of those little factors summed to make me all the stronger.
Influence magic. Jacob could say what he liked, but it was the most powerful force in all the universe, if used correctly. “You're lying,” I replied coldly. “And you're particularly bad at it. I don't think either my grandmother or myself are that much weaker than you, Agent Fairweather, we’re just different. So why don’t you cut the bullshit, and tell me the truth?”
Was it just me, or did his gaze flicker? Did the irritating bully falter for a second?
He cleared his throat, glanced back at the road, and kept his eyes locked on it is if suddenly he cared about driver safety. “I had to see what you were capable of.”
“What I was capable of?”
“Not you, your grandmother. I already know what you’re capable of: not much.”
I put up my hand. It was a very strong move. And the fact it was strong made me stronger. “What do you want with my grandmother?”
“Mary Sinclair has a reputation that proceeds her. She also has a checkered history. She has made enemies in her lifetime, I'm sure you're aware of that.”
“You haven't answered my question. What do you want with her?”
“I told you, we need to see what she is capable of,” that arrogant edge of his dropped for a second, and I got a glimpse of the man underneath. He seemed to be under a lot of pressure, and though he appeared to take a lot of joy in teasing me, I could tell it was all just an act.
“Why?”
“To recruit her,” he answered plainly.
I blinked quickly. “Recruit her? She is 95. Recruit her for what? I thought you said you were a Federal Agent?”
“I am. I just don't work for the agency you think I do.”
“Did you... did you set this up?” I receded in my chair, my head banging up against the headrest, Jacob’s badge tumbling off my lap and onto the floor.
“No. Of course we didn't. Trust me, that was all you. Your grandmother's right; you undermined your life with persistent whingeing, disinterest, and a lack of get up and go. You can't blame this on me.”
“Are you sure?” I didn't bother to lean down to grab his badge. I left it there, right by my shoe. “It sounds as if you've known what would happen for a while. And considering your abilities, it looks as if you could have stopped it at any point. So I'm going to ask you again, did you set this up? Did you wait until all those magical creatures assailed my house, just to see what my grandmother would do and how powerful she could become?”
He looked uncomfortable.
Good, because he should bloody well look uncomfortable. From where I was standing he had baited a 95-year-old woman, put my grandmother and I at risk, and had lied to us to top it all off.
Clearing his throat, he checked in his rear-view mirror, though he didn't once turn back to me. “It's a lot more complicated than that.”
“Of course it is, and of course you can't tell me why, because I'm just a stupid little witch.” I turned away from him and locked my eyes on the passenger-side window.
“You can't begin to imagine what we do. The threats that we turn away from the city, from the world.”
I ignored him, and I would continue to ignore him. I was done with Jacob Fairweather. Now that I had found out his secret, I didn't want to have anything to do with the man.
Again I was struck with how damn inappropriate it had been for my grandmother to think that Jacob, of all the possible suitors out there, would be the guy I would ultimately settle down with.
Which reminded me of one particularly uncomfortable fact. If Jacob had always been magical, and had always known that my grandmother and I were witches, what exactly had he thought when my grandmother had offered him tea? Had he known it was a love potion, had he followed the conversation?
“You're wrong about this,” he tried again.
I still would not turn to him. In fact, we spent the rest of the long car journey in silence. I stared up at the clouds, thought about my grandmother, and hoped, prayed that everything would turn out right.