Mathilda, SuperWitch (Mathilda's Book of Shadows #1)(76)

There was also a faerie, a boy faerie who looked like he’d seen better days. Let’s just say quite a bit of the gossamer had gone from his wings.

“Not you,” the bartender said when he saw us.

We weren’t very popular today.

Except this guy didn’t look scared of Ash, he looked scared of Aidan.

“Derek,” Aidan greeted.

“You are not here,” Derek returned, still (obviously) unwelcoming and then looked at Ash and me. “And they are definitely not here.”

Broken record anyone?

“In fact, you’re not all here, together, not in my pub,” he declared.

Derek had a posh accent, quite like Aidan’s.

Derek also had multiple what looked like bite marks on his neck and a scar around the left side of his mouth that made him look like a lopsided Joker.

Derek was freaking me out.

“I have nothing to say,” he said before anyone asked. “Look around you, mate, no one’s coming here anymore. This business is killing me. They know you’d come here.”

Aidan just stood there, watching him.

“Mate, I’m telling you, I have nothing to say,” Derek repeated.

“You got a faerie? ‘Cause if you don’t, I’ll be your faerie.”

I jumped, the little faerie man was floating right by my head, leering at me.

He looked awful, dark circles under his eyes, his little faerie shorts hanging loosely at his waist, his little faerie ribs sticking out.

Yikes.

“Yeah, I have a…” I started but whoa! He wasn’t speaking in a high-pitched faerie screech. “Hey wait, I can understand you!”

The faerie’s eyes narrowed. Then he pointed at me, threw his head back and laughed.

“Your faerie…they haven’t…?” he didn’t finish, just more laughter.

So, BecBec was holding out.

I didn’t like to be the butt of the joke, I didn’t have time to worry about BecBec and anyway, I was missing out on the Derek interrogation.

“Dude, bugger off,” I said to the faerie.

Giggle, giggle and more pointing. Then he swooped in close to my face, all scary faerie and whispered in a spooky, echo-y voice, “I’ll take care of you.”

Ick!

And.

Yikes!

“I said bugger off.”

This was not a nice faerie and he wasn’t buggering off.

Then, faster than a snap, Ash grabbed the faerie by the legs and yanked him away from my face to hold him an inch from Ash’s face.

“What did she say?” Ash asked calmly.

“I’m gone…I’m gone,” the faerie said, pushing against Ash’s hand and when Ash let him go, he flew away.

“You saw him?” I whispered. “I thought non-magical people couldn’t see?”

Ash took my elbow and pulled me away.

“What makes you think I’m not magical?” Ash whispered back.

“Well I –”

“My mother was a witch, Mathilda, which means I come from a magical line. And I believe in magic. The dark and the light.”

Hmm. Interesting.

Just then, Aidan turned and made a sharp head jerk signal to Ash and without another word, we left.

Out on the pavement, Ash asked, “You get anything?”

“Nope,” Aidan answered.

“You believe he doesn’t know anything?” (Ash)

“Nope.” (Aidan)

Ash’s mobile rang and he walked away to answer it.

“Who was that guy?” I asked Aidan after Ash walked away.

“Ex-watcher. Banished,” Aidan answered.

Ah, that explained the posh accent.

“Why was he banished?”

“He got a little addicted to the underworld.”

Yikes.

“You think he knows something, don’t you?” I asked.

“A lot of folk go there. Warlocks, exiled faeries, there was a werewolf and vampire in there just now,” Aidan explained. “Derek is a trained watcher; he sees things and hears things others might not.”

Whoa.

A werewolf and a vampire?

Holy crap.

“A bomb is a pretty powerful message… I can’t imagine no one’s been talking about it,” Aidan went on.

Ash whistled, he was about twenty feet away and he had a taxi.

Aidan turned toward him.

I guess we were leaving.

I hesitated.

Then I turned toward The Hobgoblin and went back in.

Don’t ask me why, I just did.

The werewolf man (stretch marks explained) and vampire looked up when I entered. The faerie was diving into a pint of stout.

I walked up to Derek.

“You know who I am?” I asked.

Derek just looked at me.

I turned to the werewolf man and vampire. “Do you know who I am?” I asked.

The vampire pushed his chair back, reclined further into it and stretched his legs in front of him, ready for the show.

The werewolf man shrugged.

I pulled my wand out of the back waistband of my jeans and then shoved it back in at the front, making it visible outside my t-shirt.

But I wasn’t going to use it.

I heard Aidan and Ash come in as I lifted my hand, palm up and watched as I made a small ball of shell pink form then bands of silver wrapped around it.