Mathilda, SuperWitch (Mathilda's Book of Shadows #1)(44)

At that moment, I could appreciate that too.

This wasn’t the kind of place that kept secrets. This was the kind of place that took care of its own… in its own way.

If Darling was looking for something else, she’d made a big, f**king mistake.

I felt hope for the first time since that chill ran down my back.

“Yes, a boy, eight years old, blond, a little skinny,” I answered.

The woman sized me up then she sized Aidan up. Thank goddess she came up with the right conclusion.

“Through there,” and she pointed.

Thank Aidan… thank the goddess… thank this woman… Rory was here.

She pointed at some sliding double doors at the side of the hall. I thanked her, hurried over and started to push open the doors but before I could they slammed open against their rails.

Without taking a step, I was pulled in, almost like an enormous invisible cane had wrapped itself around my waist and yanked me through.

At the same time I heard Aidan’s surprised grunt as he was pushed back.

Then the doors slammed shut behind me without benefit of my touch or anyone else’s.

And in front of me sat Agatha Darling.

* * * * *

Too tired. Drained. Chest hurts regardless of post-orgasmic state. Must rest.

19 April

When I woke up just now, I sensed I wasn’t alone.

Not Ash, this time, (in fact, where is Ash?) but instead I looked across and Rory was lying there next to me fully dressed his hands folded over his chest like a dead person in their casket.

It was like he, too, sensed that I was awake because his eyes popped open, he turned his head and looked at me.

“You hungry?” he asked, apropos of nothing.

I wasn’t, I felt like shit, tired, cranky. I hadn’t seen Ash since the Orgasm (which will heretofore be referred to with a capital “O” for obvious reasons) and, just like yesterday, and the day before, there felt like there was a bleeding, painful hole where my chest used to be.

“As ever, I could eat a horse,” I lied.

He knew I was lying, I could tell by the look on his face.

“‘Kay, well, Mum is making American pancakes.”

I tried to sound thrilled. “Oh yummy!”

He jumped up and ran out of my room, I don’t know if he was scared of my lies or scared of me.

But at least his job was done. He knew I was going to live to see another day.

* * * * *

Later:

It still shits me just to think of it.

I feel like hell, Agatha Darling did a real job on me.

The stinking, hateful be-atch.

I still haven’t seen Ash.

Aidan has disappeared… again, and isn’t answering his mobile… again.

Although, considering the fact that I’m soon-to-be-married to Ash (ack!) and his fingers (hmm), perhaps I should have a little conversation with Aidan.

Everyone else is wandering around like zombies as if the before in all of this was a joke.

As if we hadn’t prior knowledge that Darling had turned.

Like this is all a surprise.

But, really, what in the f**k does she think she’s doing?

* * * * *

This is how it went down:

I was paralyzed.

Yes, The Chosen One was useless against the powers of Darling.

After the doors slammed shut behind me, she pinned my arms and legs with a swirl of forest and acid green magic. They were locked in position and I’d have fallen over like a log if she hadn’t kept me upright and hovering, my feet dangling a foot off the floor.

Yes, hovering.

It was humiliating.

Bitch.

My eyes could move though and I saw Rory. One of the men from that night with Aidan and the faeries in the wood was standing behind him holding him still using an arm across his throat.

Rory didn’t look very good. He looked scared; his face and eyes red, wet with tears, his lips trembling.

Man oh man.

The room was much smaller than the hall, institutional cream-slash-green painted cinder block walls, big windows with wire through them and curtains from the 70’s, clean but, against all that is the Law of Interior Design, still hanging. There were comfortable chairs and tables and it looked like a room where you’d have a knitting club. Not at all like the torture chamber it was about to become.

Darling was sitting in an armchair facing me five or six feet away. She looked refined yet spooky even in the light of a beautiful spring day.

Another man was behind her. Again I remembered him from that night with Aidan in the woods mainly because he was the one who I’d kicked in the balls.

He was smirking at me.

Ack!

There was another man, off to my left but I didn’t get to take much of him in as once I’d had a look at the lay of the land, she blasted me.

* * * * *

In the movies, they wait to give the hero time to get his bearings. Usually the baddies babble on and on which gives the hero time. Time to think of a plan and, even, an extra moment for him to put it into action.

Definitely time to get in a one-liner.

Harrison Ford doesn’t have thirteen guys jumping him all at once… no.

He gets in, the baddie jabbers away and Harrison has time to assess the situation, more time to pull out his firearm or unsheathe his knives or whatever then he’s good to go.

And, when the enemy fires on him, they miss.