Mathilda, SuperWitch (Mathilda's Book of Shadows #1)(20)

A tingle ran up my back when I saw the men – not a good tingle and not a good sign.

Aidan pulled me up to him hard and I slammed against his body (mm – slamming against men’s bodies a lot lately… not bad but would prefer to do it when not on run or in middle of apparent life threatening situation).

“Go,” he whispered in my ear, “go back to The Gables. Now!” Then he pushed me backward and I went flying, stumbled on my cloak and fell on my ass.

As I was scrambling to get my limbs in order, I saw Aidan charge ahead, duck down and hit one of the men in the stomach on a running tackle. I watched the guy going up, flying over Aidan and landing on his back while I got to my feet.

Holy cow.

Then BecBec whizzed in front of me, scaring the bejeezus out of me so I fell back down on my ass.

“BecBec!” I cried.

She stopped, her wings shuddering, and she looked me up and down as if assessing if I was all right, and then whizzed away faster than I ever saw her whiz before, charging one of the other men.

No way was BecBec gonna be able to take that man.

Damn.

I got to my feet again, pulled out my wand to help as BecBec’s whiz became a blur and she disappeared in a rocket of pistachio green pixie dust. The man she was charging came up short, like he’d hit an invisible branch and stumbled backward as she circled him for another pass.

Aidan was grappling with another man while the one he tackled had regained his feet and was charging me.

Ack!

I had to do something.

And fast.

So I pulled out my wand and shouted, “Freeze!” and zapped the man coming at me.

Hot pink pixie dust flew out of my wand and slammed him with great velocity right in the gut.

Except it didn’t freeze him, instead, it seemed sort of to shatter and fly off in bits and hit dozens of faeries that were flying toward him and froze them instead.

“Shit!” I shouted as he carried on toward me.

I tried again.

“Freeze!”

Zap.

Pixie Dust.

Nothing.

It had worked on Lulubelle!

So I tried again.

“Freeze!”

Zap.

Pixie Dust.

Zip.

And again!

“Freeze, dammit!”

Zap.

Pixie Dust.

Nada.

There were faeries frozen in mid-air everywhere and the rest were avoiding him, me and my wayward spells.

Shit.

He lunged at me; I ducked, slipped, lost control, fell and rolled under him accidentally taking him down with me.

We wrestled. He seemed huge. He definitely was strong.

I kept hold of my wand and fought as hard as I could and under my breath chanted:

I call the powers of nature, the might of the sea,

Protect all things good and magical in these woods.

As I will, so mote it be.

Over and over again I said it, getting louder and louder as I tried to find an opening to kick the big lout in the balls.

“Shut up, witch!” he hissed at me, his breath smelling of peppermint.

I’m sorry but a bad guy should not have good breath. I don’t know who to complain to about this but I just don’t think it’s fair. They should be balding, heavy, poorly dressed and smelly. This should be a rule.

Anyway.

I ignored him (obviously) and carried on chanting, struggling and holding on to my wand.

Then we rolled, rolled again, I managed to get up and I ran with him after me until he tackled me. We rolled again and then I slammed up against something hard.

“Oof,” I wheezed.

And then I got my chance, a clear shot and I used every bit of leverage and strength I had and kicked him right between the legs.

He went down on his knees and a branch came swinging round as if taken by a huge force of wind and it broadsided him, slamming him completely to the ground.

“Fucking witch.” I heard him groan as I looked up at my tree (which was, by the way, the something hard I slammed up against and the branch that hit the baddie belonged to it).

I gave my tree a thumbs up and gestured with my wand (which was safe and sound) and turned to the bad guy.

“Stupid dickhead,” I said. (I know, I should be classier but the guy had me rolling around in the wet leaves in the woods in the middle of the night in the middle of winter for goddess’s sake. Not to mention I was wearing my very cool new tweedy hipster slacks that I got from Jigsaw which were probably now ruined. Jerk.)

The trees were all acting pissed off, the wind was blowing fiercely, I could hear the sea smashing against the cliffs and the faeries were in what looked like the battle of their little faerie lives dropping acorns and shit on the baddies and whizzing around them in flashes of salmony-orange, lemon yellow and pistachio green. And the trees were swinging their branches in scary wide arcs.

It would have been very cool if it wasn’t so f**king scary.

Aidan was still struggling with the other guy in what looked like a not-as-amusing-because-it’s-real rendition of the Hugh Grant and Colin Firth fight in Bridget Jones’ Diary (except, of course, Aidan looked hot while struggling, mainly because Aidan was hot and he’d look it doing anything, the other guy just looked silly).

It was my turn to charge and I was gearing up for it, still chanting my little ditty to whip the trees into a frenzy, when a tree caught the baddie that Aidan was struggling with and sent him flying into another tree.