The Enchanted Writes Book One (8 page)

She grimaced. “What are you talking about?
I'm not going to change in a bus!”

“Transform,” he corrected her. “Yes you are.
I am going to put the pedal to the metal, or whatever that human
phrase is, and we are going to head out to the witch before she can
set the forest on fire with her fireballs.” Brick shook his head
again. “It is appalling how some people have such poor hygiene
around forest fires. You know,” he put up a finger, neither hand on
the wheel, “all it takes is an errant spark to start a forest fire,
and that forest fire can go on to destroy property and lives. This
has been a dry summer,” he emphasized.

She stared at him, her lips parting gently.
He babbled, and it was worse than the trash that usually came out
of her mouth.

He turned to her again, taking both his
hands off the wheel once more. “Go and transform,” he nodded
towards the back of the bus, “don't forget—”

“I have to grab destiny,” Henrietta finished
his sentence. They probably weren't the exact words he was going to
use, but it was the same sentiment.

Brick nodded.

He turned back, and he came good on his
promise: the warrior monk slammed his foot onto the gas pedal, and
the bus shot forward violently.

She grabbed harder onto the rail to steady
herself. Then she began to walk backwards towards the end of the
bus.

“What are you doing?” she asked herself as
she pulled the hairpin from her hair. It was sharp, and she had to
be careful not to stab her neck as she tugged at it. She held it
for a moment and gave it a jolly good staring at. “Really, girl,
what are you doing?”

“You are off to fight the witches,” Brick
called from the front of the bus, apparently possessing super
hearing.

She darted her gaze over to glare at him,
and then she clutched the hairpin tighter.

She closed her eyes.

Only several days ago she’d been a normal
sensible girl. An unlucky one, sure, but she certainly hadn't been
involved in anything as bizarre and improbable as magic and witch
hunting. Yet here she was in a speeding bus being driven by a
warrior monk towards a witch.

Henrietta let out a heavy breath, then,
glancing to the side, she brought up the hairpin. “What happens if
someone sees me transform? What happens if some kid captures it on
his mobile phone?”

“I'm driving too fast,” Brick said, a smile
in his words. “Plus, I have made some adjustments to this bus to
ensure our anonymity. Feel free to change now, Warrior Woman
Henrietta. We will be at our destination shortly.”

This is mad, she told herself.

She brought the pin up and wrote two words:
Witch Hunter.

As had happened last night, she began to
transform. The symbols appeared at her feet, the energy rushed up
her body, and then she began to float. Within about 20 seconds, her
costume had fully formed over her body and she landed on the floor,
falling over promptly and hitting her butt with a thump. She rubbed
at it, swore, and then pulled herself up. She looked down at her
outfit and shook her head. She brought a hand up and felt her mask,
even letting her fingers play over her tight, neat, sexy bun.

Henrietta Gosling had become a Witch
Hunter.

Now it was time to hunt a witch.

Henrietta never usually left town; she
wasn't one for the country. She had always been a city girl, and
she got hay fever around too much grass. But here she was, jumping
out of the bus, the tires still smoking, and walking her way
towards the National Reserve forest that backed up onto the
city.

It was still light, and would be for several
hours yet, but the cicadas were already beating their wings, and
there was a light breeze picking up and taking the edge off the
heat.

Brick hadn't been wrong about one thing: the
grass and trees were dry. Now she put her mind to it, apart from
the sudden scuds of rain that drenched her on her way to work, it
had been a dry summer.

“Perfect weather for a fire,” Brick shook
his head, “considering the low water content of the soil,” he
reached down, picked up some soil and rubbed it between his
fingers, “this forest will go up like a firecracker.”

She looked at him and then shifted her gaze
carefully towards the still-smoking tires. He followed her and
shrugged. “Don't worry about them,” he flicked his hands towards
the bus, “they will be fine.”

She nodded her head, then shook it when he
turned away.

She held onto her wand tighter as she
started to wonder what she was doing. This was a public forest, a
public reserve. Naturally, it would be full of the public. Though
Brick had managed to park somewhere far away from the usual car
park, somehow taking the bus cross-country to park it on top of a
hill, Henrietta knew they would run into people at some point.

She found herself clutching a hand on her
skirt and trying to make it longer.

Brick watched her. “You don't want to do
that. Long skirts make you trip up.” He nodded at her knowingly.
“What you have there,” he pointed closely to her skirt, “is the
perfect length for action.”

She clutched her hands into fists but didn't
say anything.

Suddenly she turned towards the forest.
She'd heard something.

It sounded like a child crying. It sent a
cold wave of nausea running through her body.

“Witches,” Brick said with a powerful
sniff.

Henrietta redoubled her grip on her
wand.

“Warrior Woman Henrietta, it is time for
work.” Brick nodded forwards, then began to walk off towards the
forest edge.

Despite the fact the ground was soft and
full of holes, she did not trip over in her stupendous heels. Once
again, she found she was walking with great ease, elegance even,
and she knew that if she wanted to, she could probably flip right
over the tree nearest to her. It was an odd but kind of awesome
sensation. It saw her looking at her hands in admiration.

“If you act somewhat like you did last
night, this should be easy,” Brick said, his statement hardly
clear.

She narrowed her eyes and turned to him,
walking right over a large rock, even though any attempt to do so
in those heels by a normal woman would see her fall on her back and
break her legs. “What are you talking about? Why don't you tell me
some real advice? Like what are the witches, and how am I meant to
fight them? What spells are the best? If I write anything in the
air, will it happen? Why don't I write ‘witch disappear?'”

Brick frowned at her, confused. “But you
were fine last night.”

She gave an angry harrumph. “I played it by
ear last night, and we barely got out of there alive. If you are
meant to be my warrior monk helper, then you tell me what I have to
do. I don't even know what a witch is.”

“Really?” He looked dumbfounded.

She wanted to hit him. He knew that she knew
nothing about this magical world, and that before yesterday, she’d
never experienced anything like this in her life.

“I thought everyone knew what witches are?”
he pointed out again.

She balled up a fist and went to hit him,
but the lithe and quick man ducked out of the way in a flash.

“Why would you punch me?” he asked, surprise
obvious.

“You are being so bloody obtuse. If you want
me to help get rid of these witches, and if you're meant to assist
me in that task, then bloody well assist me. What are witches, and
what kind of spells should I use to defeat them?”

The two of them kept walking through the
forest, and at that moment, they found the path, but they also
found something else. As Henrietta finished asking Brick what kind
of spells she should use, two surprised-looking old ladies rounded
the corner.

They stopped, and they stared.

Henrietta couldn't blame them, because she
was dressed in ways that an old lady could never approve of. What
was more, she was walking around with a man in a ridiculous leather
jacket and hat, with billowing, puffy clothes.

The two old ladies stood there, exchanging
glances and staring at Henrietta and Brick.

Brick didn’t stop; he nodded their way, gave
them an affable smile, and waved Henrietta forward.

She was horrified. Her eyes grew larger
under her mask. She wanted to clamp her hands over her face and
hide behind them, because there was no way she was going to manage
to hide behind the scraps of fabric she was wearing.

Brick looked at her and shrugged further
along the path, the move quick. It was obvious he wanted her to
hurry up.

So, cold embarrassment still wrapping around
her, Henrietta turned away from the women and ran up the path.

“Oh my god,” she mumbled when she was sure
they were out of earshot, “oh my god, I have ruined everything.
Those two ladies saw me!”

Brick shrugged. “And?”

She looked at him, her cheeks growing hotter
with every second. “They saw me in this.” She clutched a hand onto
her bodice and tapped it there.

Brick looked down at the bodice, but not
once did it seem as if his gaze was lecherous in any way; it was
cold and pointed. “Do you have a problem with the national dress of
the Witch Hunters?”

“Yes,” she said after a pointed pause. “But
isn't this meant to be secret?” she added, getting to her real
question. “Aren't people never meant to find out about me or the
witches?” She brought up her wand and waved it around. “Or
magic?”

Brick nodded. “They won't find out about the
witches, and they certainly aren't meant to find out about your
true identity. This is not because you require anonymity from the
public. It is because the witches might find out, and if the
witches find out, they will come to your house in the night and
surround you in so much flame that you can't get out.”

Her hand gave a violent twitch, and she
clutched it to her chest as she conjured that mental image.
“Sorry?”

“But as for people finding out about magic,
frankly, it's not going to happen. They will think you are a loony
running around in a costume. Plus, that is where the wand comes
in.”

She was ready to hit him, but she paused.
“What do you mean that's where my wand comes in?”

Brick pointed to it. “You are right, Warrior
Woman Henrietta – you do have the sacred task of keeping magic, the
witches, and your true identity secret, but you have several
powerful tools to assist you in that area. Also, you must remember
that no witch would ever fight in front of an ordinary human. It is
a witch's last desire to become known by humanity. They live in the
shadows, and though they come out to do damage, they do so
secretly. All magical races, I think you will find, enjoy their
anonymity from humanity.” Brick nodded sternly as he spoke, and he
had the kind of tone that suggested he was a teacher conveying his
wisdom to his attentive pupil. Except the only problem was
Henrietta was more gob smacked than attentive.

“I thought you said that the witch in the
forest is about to set it alight? That kind of sounds like the type
of behavior—” she began.

Brick brought up a hand. “You misunderstand.
Witches will certainly act to destroy both lives and property, but
they will do so from the shadows. They will only make themselves
known to their victims, and never to the general public. They are a
secretive race, and this has always made our war with them a shadow
one.”

“So what do we do then?”

“Simple, we find the witch, we fight her,
you contain her, then we go home.” Brick smiled.

“What happens if someone recognizes me? What
happens if someone comes across me while I'm fighting the witch?
What happens if someone sees my magic? Witches may be secretive,
but what happens if I make a mistake?” It was an important question
considering her track record in life. She was the one who failed at
everything, she was the girl who made every possible mistake, and
she was certainly capable of screwing this up.

Brick took a moment to think, his eyes
darting up, and his lips crumpling to the side. “Humanity is a
curious race. Even if they see magic, their tendency is to
rationalize it away.”

It wasn't a good answer. “You aren't
answering my question,” she spat back, her costume making her a
great deal stronger and more forthright than she usually was. “Am I
going to get in trouble if someone sees my magic? Am I going to be
dragged up in front of some kind of Witch-Hunter Council? Is my
wand going to be taken away from me? Is some secret and shadowy
government organization going to swoop in and kidnap me?”

Brick shrugged. “I'm not sure.”

His answer made her cheeks burn with anger.
“What do you mean you're not sure? You are meant to be my helper.
You’re a warrior monk, you were given the sacred task of helping me
hunt the witches,” she reeled off the facts she’d learned from him
last night. “So how can you not be sure? You seem to know
everything about the witches and Witch Hunters, and I don't know a
thing.”

He gave a cough, and it caught Henrietta's
attention, because it was careful.

He didn't answer her question though, so she
took a breath and got ready to steam roll on. “How many other witch
hunters are there out there? How long have we been fighting the
witches? Is there some kind of organization I now belong to?”

As she kept pumping out her questions, Brick
looked less and less sure of himself, which was an odd and unusual
expression for the warrior monk to hold.

She ground to a halt, the heels of her boots
digging into the soft and dry ground. “What aren't you telling
me?”

Brick cleared his throat, running his tongue
along his lip as he looked up into the sky. “That there kind of
haven't been Witch Hunters for a couple of hundred years,” he
managed to say.

She scrunched up her nose. “What?”