Mathilda, SuperWitch (Mathilda's Book of Shadows #1)(102)

“These aren’t threats, Mathilda; I’m saying it like it is. You have a couple of days to wrap up whatever it is your cooking up or I intervene, got me?”

I felt, at the look on his face and tone of his voice, that even though he was a big, arrogant, domineering, traitorous bastard, the best thing to do was give up on the bravado and agree.

So I nodded.

He gave me that clotted cream look again.

Man, I hated it when he did that.

Just as much as I loved it.

“And you best not let Seymour redeem any more of your vouchers or I’m ending this détente. Is that clear?”

Ack!

Détente?

This was détente?

I was screwed when it came down to war.

As in, literally.

Er, hmm.

And, mm.

I shook myself.

“Crystal.” I nodded again so he’d understand that I definitely understood and wasn’t actually thinking what I was thinking or what I couldn’t quit thinking.

Yikes!

“Fuck,” he swore, obviously the mind-meld letting him know where my thoughts had wandered and he wrapped his hand around my neck and pulled my head toward him for another shorter but no-less-hotter kiss.

Then he was gone.

I needed to get cracking or I was in some serious trouble.

Or, should I say, more serious trouble.

Ack!

Concentrate:

End the mind-meld.

Get Althea’s magic back.

And then home.

Or I “suffer” the consequences.

Ack!

6 October

Found it!

Of course, it was in the black magic books.

“Appropriating Magic”

Icky, dark, horrible magic that was, in practice, actually slicing the magic away from the soul of a witch.

Not nice.

You would not believe some of the bits that went into the ceremony.

I mean, exactly how would one go about gathering “excrement of yale”?

I mean, what the f**k is a “yale”?

Here goes:

Origins: from the Burning Times.

Covens would perform a ceremony to shroud an accused witch’s powers in hopes of saving her from the trials that she faced which, most of the time, led to death anyway. The trials were nonsense, the witch hunters wouldn’t have known what they were looking for if it bit them on the ass.

Which it could do if some magic leaked out of a witch under torture.

Once known as “black”, but now referred to with the politically correct, “dark” witches took the shrouding ceremony a bit further. After lots of not-so-nice experimentation, they’d hit on the formula.

By the way, this dark ceremony was borne from witches besotted by men who wished to be warlocks. The witches turned to the darkness in order to hold these men and empower them. Together, they’d trap a witch, usually a young, frail or old one and strip her magic to convey it onto the new warlock.

This magic was eventually absorbed back into nature as men couldn’t hold magic very long.

The same ceremony, with a few more icky components that included the blood drawn from live animals and more excrement and some bits of organs and the like, could be used to strip an oracle of her sight.

It was unheard of for a coven to carve the magic from one of their members.

So, Agatha Darling’s vile act was unprecedented.

There, I found it.

Now, I had to counteract it.

10 October

It was all planned.

I think I knew what I was doing.

Althea had to take us to Agatha’s alter and we would have to perform the antidote ceremony there.

Ack!

I was scared shitless.

It took a powerful coven to pull Althea’s power and sight away. We were having a hard time gathering all the ingredients and implements. How we were going to muster the power, I had no earthly clue.

Thank the goddess that Lucy had begun Wicca instruction under Fay. The Honeycutt Coven hadn’t taken on the training of a pure adult Tenderfoot since Fay’s mother talked Mavis’s mother into taking her in over 150 years ago (both were now retired in Spain).

But for Fay’s Mama, there was a catch, all Irish people had a little bit of magic so you kinda weren’t allowed to turn them away.

Lucy was super lucky to be taken on.

(Yay! Glad she asked. Glad Mavis agreed.)

As tradition dictated, as Fay’s magic was the youngest, she started Lucy’s training.

Even at Tenderfoot, when she didn’t have a wand or a spark, we were still gonna have to use Lucy, feminine power was better than nothing at all.

So that meant we needed Josie too.

And Gabriel, for protection.

(Who, by the way, was expensive. Dratted mercenary vampire was sucking the lifeblood (read: savings for those Me&Ro earrings) out of me, no pun intended.)

We’d needed the whole posse if we had the slightest chance to succeed.

29 October

The time was right and we finally had our shit together.

We had all the ingredients and the implements for the antidote ceremony. Not to get back Althea’s sight (too gross to even contemplate and some of the items were illegal to own, even by Wiccan Law) but to get back her magic.

But even more importantly we had Josie’s fiancée visa.

Su, Viv, Josie and Lucy had also managed to send about a dozen boxes of Josie, Rory and my stuff to The States without being caught.