Magical Influence Book One (14 page)

Jacob was now standing stiffly, the
defiant look gone. Was it just me, or was his bottom lip just about
wobbling?

On account of the fact I had just
spent the whole morning expecting to die and being forced to get a
car I didn't want, and a job I couldn't do, I didn't jump in to
tell Granny to shut up. I just stood there, feeling sick and
entirely overcome.

“I, ah, need to...” Jacob said, backing
off slightly, pointing towards the door as if he had incredibly
important business elsewhere. Somewhere far, far away
probably.

My grandmother clutched a hand
onto his arm and pulled him forward. Now Jacob wasn't a small boy;
he was a very well-built man. But despite the fact he clearly
resisted, my grandmother easily tugged him along as if he were
nothing more than a rag doll
. “Let's head into the kitchen, and we’ll
talk.”

It sounded as if she wanted to start
up a negotiation. As if she would sit us down, confirm we were both
single, pull the plastic rings off a packet of bread, and a declare
us wed then and there.

Even though I wanted to head up to my
bedroom and hide under the covers, I found myself
following.

When I got into the kitchen I wasn't
all that surprised to see there was no longer a hole in the
wall.

Obviously the old house had taken well
to the magic spell my grandmother had cast when she had stuffed
that jar full of nonsense behind the plastic and planks.

It was fixed. If you could call it
that. There was certainly no longer a hole, but in its place was a
distinctly odd collection of stones, wood, and glass. It looked
like a bizarre artistic motif.

It immediately caught Jacob's
attention
.
“That was... quick.”

“I fancy myself somewhat of an artist. I
saw the hole as a blank canvas, and I worked on it all night,” my
grandmother ushered him over to a chair, then rather than ordering
me to make the tea, planted her hands on my shoulders and sat me
down next to him.

If I hadn’t been on the brink of
disaster, I'd tell Jacob to leave and beg my grandmother to stop
acting like a fool.

My head wasn't straight though, so I
let myself sit, plucked up my skirt, and surrendered to the
situation as I played with the hem.

Jacob looked itchy, nervous, and like
he wanted to kick out the French doors and run away. But for a
second he looked my way. And his brow crumpled. Was that
compassion, just a touch of it? Intermingled with the confusion and
that red touch to his cheeks that had flared ever since Granny had
asked him if he was single?

“Now I'm going to make some very special
tea,” my grandmother took a step away from the table, and as she
did, I felt something. Magic. It were as if she calling it to
herself in that moment.

I had been a witch for long enough to
know what she was doing.

She was getting ready to cast a
spell.

It took a moment, but my mind caught
up.

It wouldn't just be any spell. Because
it wouldn't just be any pot of tea she was about to
make.

Darling Grandma was about to make a
love potion.

I stood up as fast as I could,
my chair tumbling out from behind me
. “What are you doing? He doesn't want
tea. He really doesn't look like the kind of man I want to share
tea with,” I added pointedly as I ran over to her.

“Yes he does,” my grandmother
looked calmly from me to Jacob, then back to me. “I am sure he
likes
tea
.”

“He definitely does not like tea,” I
pointed emphatically at him. “And I really don't want to share any
with him.”

“Um, what's going on? I don't mind tea.
I'm not much of a coffee drinker. But there are other matters I
need to attend to,” he said as he tried to stand up.

He looked like he wanted to head out
the kitchen door, but at that exact moment a gust of wind slammed
it closed. The wind came from nowhere, and dwindled in an
instant.

“Oh my dear, what a startling wind,” my
grandmother said as she put her wrist up to her head in the classic
move of a damsel in distress. “We are just two frightened ladies in
this house. It's so big, and so run down,” she blinked her eyes
compellingly at Jacob, “I really do get so frightened in the wind.”
It was patently clear that my grandmother was trying to manipulate
Jacob, and at first I thought it wouldn't work. After all, he was
the Federal Agent who had tried to get her thrown in jail for 20
years for ridiculously, stupidly importing a kilogram of cocaine to
her front door.

But I watched him waver.

“Officer Fairweather, I mean
Agent, I mean
Jacob
,” I turned around to him, clutching my hands together as I
rubbed them quickly, “we are totally fine here. I understand if you
need to go and...” I really wanted to say “harass someone else,”
but I was trying to get him on side here.

He latched a hand on his tie,
smoothed it down with his palm, and cleared his throat. I may have
once found that move intimidating, but right now I could read
between the lines, and I could see the flicker of unease in his
gaze
. “There
are some things I need to get done.”

I was so relieved I could have
run over and hugged him. I turned back to my grandmother though, a
curling smile parting my lips
. “There will be no tea today.”

As soon as Jacob was out of the house,
I was going to grab her by the ear, drag her to a chair, and give
her a good telling off. She had spent the past five years solidly
not meddling in my life. Now she was pulling out every stop in
order to craft me a new existence to her liking. Fair enough, it
was more complicated than that; she was trying to protect me from
dark and evil and malignant magical forces. But from where I sat,
it was totally unjustified to randomly pick a man of the street and
attempt to hitch us up. Especially when that man was Agent Jacob
Fairweather, someone who had already proven to be an effective
spine in my side.

“I really don't suggest you go out in this
storm, dear,” my grandmother looked at me for all of a second, then
marched right over to Jacob. Again her demeanor had changed. Gone
was the sweet old lady, in her place stood a woman with a face
hooded in shadow, promising danger on the horizon.

Jacob no doubt noted the
change. His eyebrows lifted in a somewhat cute way, and he latched
that hand right back onto his tie
. “I'll be fine.”

My grandmother pointed out the
French doors with one gnarled finger
. “You hear that wind? By my judge, we’re
about to be in for a hurricane.”

“We are inland,” Jacob pointed out
plainly, taking a step back.

Was that real fear in his eyes? Would
he be reaching for his gun in a second? Had he finally decided the
two weird ladies in the old house were too much for him?

Clearing his throat again, he
didn't even bother to make eye contact with me before he whirled
around on his feet, yanked open the kitchen door, and headed for
the hall. My grandmother was right behind him like a shadow
though
. “The
wind is ferocious,” as soon as she said it, a gust so powerful it
shook the whole house rattled through the neighborhood.

Jacob paused. Then he practically
dashed for the door. Just as his hand closed around the handle and
he tugged it open, my grandmother got to his side again.

Looking up at him, fixing him
with the kind of gaze you didn't see this side of hell, she shook
her head
.
“It's about to rain, we’re seconds away from lightning, and the
wind will soon double in speed.”

As if on cue, a clap of thunder
roared from outside, rain started to pelt against the roof, and the
wind picked up to a tremendous, fright
ening speed.

His hand shook. I swear it did.
As he pulled the door open and faced the brunt of the weather,
maybe Jacob Fairweather, the previously competent Federal
Agent,
realized he was dealing with more than he could
handle.

But I gave him credit for one thing;
he sure was brave. Ignoring my grandmother's warnings, he mumbled
goodbye and walked right out into the ferocious, vicious
weather.

He didn't get far.

Before I could close the door, lock
it, turn to my grandmother, and tell her exactly why it was so
dangerous to bait a man like Jacob, something happened.

Yes, of course I felt it before it
did. A powerful spike drove through me, as if someone had stabbed
me through the back and the heart at the same time. Clutching a
hand to my chest, I looked up just as a strike of lightning raced
down from the sky. I swear time ground to a halt in that moment, I
swear instead of slamming towards the ground with the force and
speed lightning travelled at, it inched forward like a snail. I saw
every frame as if I were watching a series of still
pictures.

The lightning did not strike Jacob. It
struck the other oak tree by the side of our house. The last
remaining sentinel.

It really did feel like being stabbed
through the heart.

Though Jacob had already taken several
steps before the lightning strike, he had not moved on far enough;
the force of it sent him flying off his feet. In a moment of
searing light, force, and power, I crumpled onto the floor, as the
house shook around me and a fleeting vision of Jacob being thrown
clear haunted my vision.

The sound of it was so deafening that
it felt as if my hearing would give up; being replaced with nothing
more than a buzzing and ringing in my ears.

My grandmother was the first on her
feet. Of course she was. Despite her decrepit, old nature, she was
the super powerful witch here; I was just the recently-employed,
monster-truck-owning PI, and Jacob was just the Federal
Agent.

With a speed that belied her age, she
ran into the storm. Moments later she returned with a body over her
shoulders.

I still hadn't moved, and all I could
do was look up slowly, bottom lip wobbling as my dear old
grandmother walked in with a man slung over her back.

Another strike of lightning outside
produced a burst of illumination. Even though it was still
technically midday, that blasted storm had come in so low that it
might as well have been midnight.

As the lightning flashed, my
grandmother was lit up, the scene seeming far more dramatic as the
shadows under her chin and eyes grew deep.

“Close the door behind me, find any
magical statues we own, and place them in front of it. Attend to
every window, the back door, the patios. Place magical tomes in
front of them all. Do it now,” my grandmother walked past me,
carrying the comatose form of Jacob towards the lounge room. I say
comatose; it was less of a statement and more of wish. I had no
idea how close he’d been to the lightning, and considering I had
all but crumpled after the incident, I had no way of knowing if he
was injured or would ever wake up.

And then the situation caught up to
me.

Our oak tree. Our last remaining
guard. It had exploded. In a ferocious display of power, lightning
smiting it from the heavens. The last source of protection we could
rely on for the house had been destroyed.

Shaking, I forced myself to my
feet.

“Hurry,” my grandma's voice drifted back
to me through the hall.

My eyes were wide, pleading. I didn't
understand. Why should I? Everything was happening so fast. One
moment I was in the kitchen begging my grandmother not to make a
love potion for the man who had all but ruined my week. The next I
was shaking in the hallway, coming to terms with the fact that if I
didn't do everything I could to close the house off from attack,
every denizen of hell would be at my doorstep in
minutes.

I wasn’t built for this kind of
stress. I'd come to that conclusion five years ago when I had moved
in with my grandmother. I liked magic, I really did. And I also
enjoyed helping people. But I didn't have the balls, like my
grandmother, to ignore all the dark out there, and help someone,
despite the fact it would anger others.

Get to your
feet
, I
tried to convince myself.
We are running out of time.

So I got to my feet. Though I could
hardly stand, I ran over to the bookcase at the opposite end of the
hallway and started pulling books out and cramming them into my
arms.

Without bothering to place them
neatly, I skidded over to the front door, ensured it was locked,
and dumped them in front of it. Then I ran back to the bookcase,
filled my arms again, and headed to the kitchen.

In like fashion, I attended to every
possible entry into the house. It really was a big house, which
meant a lot of windows, a lot of patios, balconies, doorways, and
back entrances.

I had no idea how long it took me, but
by the time I was finished, I practically crawled into the lounge
room to find my grandmother nursing Jacob.

I looked over at him.