Mathilda, SuperWitch (Mathilda's Book of Shadows #1)(46)

“Uh… ” Was this a trick question? “Yes.”

“Well, the way it is now, we know what we can do and they don’t.” She gestured to one of the men who didn’t seem bothered by her in the slightest (bewitched?). “What they don’t know will hurt them and that has always given us the upper hand.”

I was still lost and, even through all the tears and slobber, I must have looked it.

“Oh dear,” she sighed like I was the most simple creature she’d ever come across, “I see I’m going to have explain.”

Then, she looked at her watch.

What?

She had better things to do?

More people to torture?

More children to kidnap?

More weird lectures to give?

I wish I’d had the courage to say any of that but I just knelt in front of her.

The Chosen One.

Me.

On my knees.

She kept explaining. “If they don’t know what kind of powers we have, they fear them. If they fear them, we keep them… these…” She swished her wand about in a bored way again, indicating the men, “creatures, in check. You can’t go about being a witch, out in the open, and show them everything. You’ll give away our best defense.”

“Maybe if they knew, if they understood what we were about, they wouldn’t fear us so much.” I tried. “They wouldn’t –”

Blast!

Me and my mouth.

Another bolt of lightning.

More crying, more snot, more slobber.

Thankfully still no vomit.

But now, I was getting pissed.

I mean, is this all really about tradition?

Scaring the pants off Rory, panicking Josie, blasting me with f**king lightning?

Is it really just about her wanting things to stay the same?

I mean, that’s boring.

Where’s the plot in that?

Where was the foul, twisted reasoning behind the treachery? Something worthwhile, something you could sink your teeth into, something juicy.

A spurned love – that’s got passion.

She’s doing it for money – that smacks of greed.

Maybe even envy, I make a better brownie than her or something.

Something sinful, something meaty, something nasty.

This wasn’t worth lightning, for goddess’s sake!

She was going on and on, not ranting but just explaining, as if to a very small child.

Rory had gotten himself to his feet. The man behind him was sorta glazed over like he’d heard this all before. The guy behind Darling wasn’t looking too attentive either. I didn’t dare glance at the other one.

My chest hurt like nothing I’d ever known before.

I couldn’t hear Aidan behind the door anymore.

I was alone.

I knew I couldn’t go for my wand.

And I knew I didn’t have a whole lot left in me to do much without my wee twig.

But I also knew that I was The Chosen One.

And I was a Glamour Girl.

And Rory needed me and I’d vowed to keep him safe.

And even though Darling had just looked at me like I’d worn sequins to a funeral, I knew I had style.

So f**k… her.

I had to do something.

I’d screamed all girlie-pathetic in the car with Ash – no way was I going to let the side down now.

Not for something as stupid as tradition.

I mean, I could get into turkey and stuffing and pumpkin pie, all family get-together, thankful for blessings type of tradition, but this? Telling someone how to live their life because you don’t agree?

Fuck that.

So, even if here endeth my chapter in History of Great Wytch Families, I was going for it.

* * * * *

I’d seen enough movies to know how it was done.

I didn’t even bother with Darling.

Darling was another day.

In all the good movies, during the first run-in with the bad guy, the bad guy always got away.

And anyway, the bitch had lightning.

So I took whatever I had left, visualized it in my fist and ducked, rolled, came up and threw it with everything I had like a baseball straight at the dude behind Rory.

Unbelievably, it came out of my hand like the kickass sphere of magic that it was.

It wasn’t bright, white-hot lightning and it wasn’t hot pink either.

It was glowing, neon fuchsia pink-purple with gorgeous electric blue sparks flying hither and thither.

It hit him; he went back, his neck snapping his head forward, he slammed against the cinder block wall and then he went down… hard.

Ha!

“Run!” I shouted to Rory and then ducked, rolled and lobbed another one at the dude behind Darling.

At that point, the doors were kicked through and all hell broke loose.

Aidan was there, coming to my rescue!

But so was Ash!

Yee ha!

I didn’t hesitate, my third ball ‘o vengeance was lacking some of the brilliance in the electric blue department but it didn’t matter, the third guy went down too.

Ha ha!

I ducked and rolled again and missed getting hit by lightning by a hairbreadth.

“Tedious,” Darling muttered as I stood up and she tried to hit me with lightning again, ignoring the men and furniture flying about the room.

This time, though, I prayed to my tree with every fiber of my being then waved my arm across my front, visualizing a shield going up. There it went, a pink-purple forcefield with blue sparks flashed out momentarily in front of me, deflecting the bolt which veered to my left without harming me.