Magical Influence Book One (26 page)

Just before death, just before her
final battle, a witch could draw out the time she had left. Though
it wasn't really her; it was her magic. It were as if all the
latent potential that had lived within her suddenly leaked out as a
prelude to death.

Well I was experiencing it
now.

I forced myself to look back at the
skeleton above me. I could see its sword inching down ever so
slowly. Right towards me. The magic equivalent of bullet time was,
apparently, a legacy of the Sinclair family. Nearly every member
could recount some experience where it had happened to them. Some
kind of epic fight, some kind of noteworthy duel, you name it. Even
Vinnie had experienced it once when he had been about to lose a
high paying customer.

I had, until now, been one of the only
Sinclairs never to have had my own brush with it.

Well now it was here, and all I could
do was wonder at the beauty and magic of it.

That, however, was not what you were
meant to do. If time suddenly slowed itself down for you, the least
you could do was reward it by clocking the skeleton on the nose or
running away whilst you had the chance.

Okay, I knew enough about this
experience to know that I could not jump up and suddenly best the
skeleton with the sword; any sudden movement would set time moving
at a normal pace again.

Bullet time did not afford you the
advantage of taking down your enemy, or in the case of Vinnie,
selling you an overpriced crappy car, whilst the rest of the world
could not move. It afforded you one thing; time to
think.

For a witch like me, who relied on
influence magic, and by definition required enough time to cast and
weave and manipulate her spells, it was a godsend. And here I was
wasting it.

Immediately I stopped myself
from being amazed by the scene of the rain dropping so slowly
around me, and by the
specter of the stilled clouds above.

Instead I turned my head down and
stared at the enemy before me.

This would be my last chance. If I did
not use this last time that had been given to me, I would die. I
really didn't want that to happen.

Yet what could I do? Pluck up a rock
and chuck it at the skeleton's head? Pray to the heavens to send
down a strike of lightning to blow the guy up?

Frustration bloomed through me like
blood from a bullet wound. The immediacy and reality of my
situation was so unescapable. If I didn't find a way to defeat my
enemy, to use the magic I had to its greatest effect, there would
be no other opportunities. It was time Esme Sinclair got powerful.
If she didn't, it was time she died.

At that horrible thought, desperation
numbed my hands, and I fell back.

The sudden movement was all it took to
break through the spell. Time sped up to its normal
pace.

I saw that sword in a single, brief
moment. The glint, the way it sliced through the air on its way
down to me.

I brought my arm up.

It was instinctive.

The sword lodged into it.

It did not slice through. But it
sliced deep enough.

I fell back. Blackness surrounded me.
A scream that had been ready to erupt form my throat died as
despair darkened what remained of my consciousness.

I felt and heard the sword being
plucked back.

Yet as I waited for the final blow, it
did not come.

Lying there bleeding, the rain mixing
with every drop as it flowed from my arm, I heard a
sound.

Bullets. This time the real ones. Not
a prelude to time slowing down, but the kind that zoomed and zipped
around at speeds magic could never slow.

“Esme?”

I heard someone call me
name.

Seconds later I felt them by my
side.

I
spiraled down into the darkness that
surrounded me. But not before I felt arms around my shoulders
pulling me up.

Chapter 19

By the time I awoke, it was night.
Instinctively I knew it was only a half hour or so before 12pm.
Before the beginning of a new day.

The pain was not gone, and neither was
my injury. I was lying on a sofa, staring up at the ceiling, and as
I tried to move my good arm over to pry at my wound, a jolt of
stiffening shock rippled through me.

“I really wouldn't move,” someone
said.

It was Jacob, it had to be.

Ignoring him, I pushed myself up as
much as I could, and with my bleary eyes sought him out.

He was sitting in a chair just
opposite me. There was a roaring fire in the hearth behind him, and
he had his gun on the table just beside his legs. His arms were
crossed and his expression unreadable as he stared my
way.

I met his strange gaze for as long as
I could before finally resting back down; the pain in my arm
becoming far too much for even my belligerent mind to
handle.

“Why did you climb out the
window?”

I blinked hard at his question. What
with the searing, throbbing pain making its malignant way through
my arm and into the rest of my body, I didn't really have enough
brain power left over to listen to him.

He repeated his question. Was it just
me, or was his tone unusually cold? It went beyond the bullyish
edge he'd always showed me, to something I didn't
understand.

I placed my good hand over my eyes and
blinked my eyelashes against my fingers.

I was cold. Horrendously cold. And I
didn't even want to start on my arm. I could hardly move the
sucker.

“Esme, answer me.”

“I... wanted to go find my grandmother,” I
finally managed to push the words out.

He snorted.

Was that relief?

What the hell was going on
here?

Ignoring the pain, biting my
teeth against it, I shifted on the couch, rolling over until I
faced him
.
“What happened?”

“You foolishly climbed out the window and
you were attacked by another one of those skeletons with
swords.”

I watched him as he spoke.

This injury must have been doing funny
things with my mind, because I could have sworn the shadows pooling
under Jacob's face were darker than usual.

Being an influence witch, I could
appreciate that any mood could affect the way you saw the world.
From a cheery disposition to a black depression caused by being
stabbed by a freaking skeleton; the state of the body always
affected the thoughts you had. It was a sacred relationship a witch
like me took advantage of all the time. If someone was feeling
blue, you lightened up their house with candles and heaters and
lamps and blankets. If someone wanted to run for president, you
made them work out all day long until all their body could remember
was the feeling of strength and resilience.

“That was really, really stupid,” Jacob
acknowledged through a sigh, relaxing back in his chair.

“I guess it was,” I groaned, trying to
find a position that wouldn’t send pain spiking through my back and
torso.

“That skeleton could have killed
you.”

“Yep,” I gave a glum smile and poked at my
wound again.

There was something tied around it,
but as I pried the bandage back, I could see that that was all.
There were no potions tucked under there, no healing talismans, not
even a bit of antiseptic gel.

“You shouldn't have left like that,” he
repeated.

I got the message, loud and
clear. I seriously did. But I had a greater problem here. Flicking
my gaze up and back at Jacob as he sat there all dramatically, I
cleared my throat
. “Not to sound too demanding or anything, but do you think
you could possibly do some of that healing magic of yours on my
arm? Or if you're all spent or something, can you direct me to the
kitchen so I can make up a poultice? I'm no magic medic, but this
thing feels dark,” I frowned as I patted at it lightly. As soon as
my fingers came in contact with the bandage, I practically had to
pull them back. It felt like ice down there.

“You'll be fine, it will heal up as long
as you stop poking it.”

I looked up at him and couldn't
hide my disbelief
. “Are you pulling my leg? There's black blood seeping out
of it,” I made a face as I peered under the bandage again. It made
me sick to even look at it, let alone to think of what it was doing
to my body.

“Esme, you'll be fine,” Jacob said again,
this time with a great deal more power.

It stilled me, it really did. One
minute I was getting ready to force my point, the next I was like a
puppy cowering in the corner.

A very sharp and uncomfortable silence
spread between us, punctuated only by the crackle of the open
fire.

I glanced towards it. I usually loved
open fireplaces; there was something suitably caveman about sitting
around a naked flame and staring into the dancing mass of
heat.

I was not comfortable right now. I was
far, far from it. Which made me frown. Because I was back in the
safe house, the same damn place that had made me feel safer than I
ever had in my whole life only hours before.

Why the sudden change? The walls were
still the same, the foundations and roof presumably hadn't changed
while I'd been knocked out, so why was I now getting a far darker
feel from this place?

“We haven't had much luck tracking down
your grandmother. I know you want to help,” he put up a
hand.

I was struck by the way the firelight
played around his fingers. It made them seem longer, and the
shadows between them appeared to be far darker than reason dictated
they should be.

I swallowed.

“Esme, we really want to help you. And now
you've proved how much you want to help, by stupidly climbing out a
window and getting skewered by a sword, I'm giving you that
opportunity. We think your grandmother has gone somewhere.... We're
pretty sure she's still at your house. Do you have any secret
rooms? Anywhere she would go to be safe?”

I frowned. It was instinctive.
It wasn't at what he was saying so much as
... my lips just turning down of
their own accord. In fact, if I had let my body do what it wanted
to at that point, no doubt it would have stood me up, walked me out
of the door, and found a way back home.

Because something wasn't right here.
Maybe it was just the effects of the dark wound, maybe it was
something else.

“Esme, please. Do you think she could be
in your attic?” Jacob sat forward in his chair, his face suddenly
more animated, and I swear the fire chose that exact moment to
crackle, sending a lick of firelight forth to illuminate his
expression in full. From the wide open eyes to the sharp line of
his mouth.

I recoiled instinctively.

“Esme, what's the matter? I'm trying to
help you here. We think your grandmother might have gone into the
attic. That or there is another room in your house, something
secret. Do you know where it could be? Do you know how we could get
in there to get her out?”

I clutched at my wound. Covering it
protectively as if I didn't want any more of my fear to seep into
it, tainting it further.

“Esme, we've managed to control the evil
creatures who had amassed at you house. We just need to get your
grandmother out now. To check that she's safe.”

....My friends and family members had once
accused me of being gullible. When I'd been growing up, I'd been
the kind of witch to easily accept anyone's story, taking it on as
a fact of my world with little or no critical
assessment.

It was a stage all influence witches
go through. A necessary step in our quest to change the world
through the small details.

Yet I would also like to think that I
was now very much over that stage. The Esme of today was suitably
cynical.

The Esme of right now, however, was
totally and mind-numbingly confused.

Jacob had helped me. He'd saved me on
numerous occasions, and I would be very much dead if it hadn't been
for him. And despite the fact I'd been spending a chunk of the day
convincing myself that my grandmother had been wrong and he wasn't
my type, I couldn't deny that on some deep level I was attracted to
him.

So why was I so damn tense right now?
Why did I want to get as far away from him as I could? Why was
there this rising sense of panic within me?

And why oh why didn't I believe what
he was saying?

Maybe he sensed my hesitation,
because he got up. He waked up to me and leaned down on one knee,
right in front of the couch
. “Esme, I know you are probably confused; that
skeleton's blow was a vicious one, and I'm sure the residual magic
it left in the wound is playing havoc with your system, but trust
me,” he tried for a smile, it didn't really work though, “I've been
looking after you all day, haven't I? I saved you from that
skeleton in your house, pulled its hand off your throat. I got you
out of your yard, and I brought you here. And if it hadn't been for
me... You would have died out in the garden a couple of hours ago.
So all I'm asking is that you give me a hand now. My Agency is
determined to protect your grandmother, but you've got to help us
find her. Before it’s too late.”