Magical Influence Book One (15 page)

He was propped up on the banana
lounge, one silk cushion behind his head while a cheery throw was
neatly tucked in around his body.

“Is he okay?” I asked through an unsteady
breath.

“If you mean that will he live? Of course
he’s going to live. He will, however, have a fantastic headache,
and his first lesson of why it is important never to ignore a
witch.”

As soon as she mentioned the
word witch, my nose crumpled up
. “Grandma, you can't say that around
him,” I really shouldn't have had to remind her of that, but maybe
the storm and the fact the house was now completely open to attack
was getting to her.

“Relax, child, he is unconscious. Plus, I
have the feeling that before this night is through, he will know of
our kind and our secret.”

I could have fallen over at that
admission. There was nothing more essential than keeping who we
were secret. To a magical creature, it was one of the most
important things they would ever do. And yet here my grandmother
was making the prediction that before this storm was over, a
Federal bloody Agent would know exactly who we were.

“You look like you have swallowed a fish.
Place you lips together, stand up straighter, push your head back,
and fix your hair. We may have found your man, but that is not the
last item on my list. In order to offer you the protection you so
desperately require, it is time to make you into a powerful
witch.”

There were a lot of things that were
wrong with what my grandmother had just said. First and foremost
was the fact she had plainly indicated that the comatose Jacob
Fairweather was my man, and that she had gotten him for me. As if
the fact she had rescued him from the storm meant that now I owned
him and we would be married before dinner. The other thing that was
wrong was that she was still trying to make me powerful. As if that
would help the situation.

My grandmother looked at me keenly,
probably aware that I was pulling apart her statement and getting
ready to argue with her. One single arch of her eyebrow told me not
to bother.

She was in a challenging mood. Why
wouldn't she be? Our last oak tree that had stood sentinel by our
house for almost 100 years was gone.

It was gone.

I had to come to terms with what that
really meant.

Again my arms and hands started
to shake softly, and I managed to find my way over to one of the
recliners. Sitting on the edge, I grabbed one of the cushions and
began to hug it tightly
. “Can we get through this?”

“For a child of magic, that is a
ridiculous question; anything is possible, we just have to find a
way to make it so.”

Technically I guess she was right. But
it wasn’t a comfort. While everything was possible, some things
were very, very unlikely. And as I looked up past my grandmother
and out through one of the windows behind, I couldn't shake the
feeling that there was just no way we could get through this
safely.

“I am going into the kitchen to make Jacob
a healing potion. Look after him. It will give you a chance to grow
accustomed to your future husband,” she added as she walked past
me, heading for the door.

I really wanted to dismiss her
statement on the basis she was demented, but as I saw her
expression, I appreciated just how serious, intelligent, and aware
she was.

But this was still mad; I wasn't going
to marry Jacob Fairweather. Hell, I’d barely had three
conversations with the man, and they’d all been uncomfortable and
accusatory.

That didn't, however, mean that
I was going to grab him up and chuck him outside. I may not have
agreed with what my grandmother had in store, but as I looked down
at Jacob, I
realized he was needlessly caught up in this situation.
Regardless of the fact that I didn't like him, that didn't mean he
deserved to be here, facing the same potential fate as my
grandmother and I.

“You should get out while you still can,”
I mumbled under my breath as that bright blue tie of his caught my
gaze.

A part of me expected him to answer,
and I had no idea why. I could see that he was lying there, very
comatose, tucked under that patchwork quilt. Yet the sense still
rose in me like a wave rushing to shore.

I crumpled my eyes half closed, took a
step back, turned, and stared out the windows.

Then I saw it.

The shadow.

The shadow pressed up against the
glass.

I screamed. A full, pitching sound
rocketed up through my throat and shook its way out of my
mouth.

It seemed that my grandmother was by
my side in an instant. The first thing she did was not pull up her
sleeves, tug open the window, clamber outside, and punch that
shadow on the nose. Instead she untied the massive velvet curtains
and tugged them closed in an instant.

We hardly ever closed those curtains,
and as they were moved clouds of dust erupted from them, travelling
across the room like avalanches.

But I hardly noticed it, and neither
did I bring my hands up to bat at it. Instead I stared at my
grandmother's back until she turned to face me.

“They are here,” was all she managed. She
stood and stared at me for several moments longer, but neither of
us seemed capable of sharing any more words. Instead she moved on,
back to the kitchen, but was not gone long. When she returned, she
had a brightly colored liquid in an old ice cream container. She
walked it over to Jacob, leaned down on her knees beside him,
grabbed at the corner of the patchwork quilt, dipped it in the
liquid, and then started to pat his brow with it.

For all intents and purposes it looked
as if she had filled up an old plastic container with food dye and
was now trying to ruin a perfectly good quilt with it.

I knew more. I also knew that
my grandmother was particularly good at potions, everything from
healing drafts to cups of love tea
– she was a renowned witch in her
field.

It didn't surprise me then that within
moments of her dabbing the liquid on, Jacob began to
stir.

He mumbled something incomprehensible
at first, then accompanied it with a low and loud groan.

The second he blinked his eyes open I
was filled at once with relief and yet fright.

Because, seriously, Jacob Fairweather
was sitting on my couch.

While both my grandmother and I were
aware of the fact he had been thrown off his feet by a nearby
strike of lightning, I doubted he'd remember that. And I'm sure the
competent Federal Agent could come up with all sorts of theories as
to why he had ended up on the sofa in the living room of the two
crazy ladies he'd been trying to get away from.

I backed off a little, clasped my
hands together, and ran my fingers over my nails.

“Young man, I did warn you not to go out
in that storm,” Granny stood up, the plastic ice cream container
still in her hand as she dipped her fingers in and sprinkled some
more potion over Jacob.

Clearly confused, he winced a
little, then it were as if his brain came back online in a flash.
He
realized
he was on the couch, no doubt looked up to ascertain that my
grandmother really was flicking colored water at him from an ice
cream container, and then his eyes sought me out, locked onto me,
and narrowed. “What the hell is going on here?” he
croaked.

“You ignored the advice of a witch,” my
grandmother finally stopped flicking liquid at him and glowered
down at him instead.

I spluttered, I choked, and I could
have chosen that exact moment to fall over and faint.

She had said it. My grandmother had
just revealed what she was to an ordinary human being.

I needn't have worried however.
Because Jacob didn't suddenly jump to his feet, look comically
surprised, and demand to see her broom and wand. He tried to push
himself up and he did sneer however
. “How the hell did I get on this couch?
And why does my head pound like this?”

“You got on that couch because I carried
you. Speaking of which, perhaps you need to lose a little weight,
young man; you are heavier than you look. And as for what happened
to you. You were walking far too close to an oak tree in a storm.
And I don't need to tell you, or perhaps I do, that oaks are the
tree that is most often struck by lightning. Young man, you were
unlucky, and right now you are resting.”

Jacob didn't immediately call
her bullshit, jump up, rush past her, and run for the door. He did
plant a hand on his head, wince his eyes closed, then blink one
open again
.
“Struck by lightning? Are you out of your mind? The house would
have been destroyed if your oak tree had been struck by
lightning.”

My grandmother straightened. It
was a sudden and chilling move
. “It hasn't been destroyed yet, but we’ll see
what happens tonight. And yes, that tree was struck by lightning.
If you care to stand and walk over to the opposite window and pull
back the curtains, you'll see what I'm talking about. You were
lucky, now rest, and while you're there, stop questioning me,” with
that Granny patted down her skirt and headed out of the
room.

Half an hour ago she had been nothing
but sweetness and light to Jacob. A sweet old dear whose only
desire had been to make him chug down a love potion and fall for
her granddaughter. Now she was this statuesque, powerful, frankly
frightening woman.

As soon as she was out of the room,
Jacob tried to get to his feet.

I say try, because he was
unsuccessful. He kind of fell back against the couch, and as I
moved to step forward to help him, he shot me with a dark, deadly
look.

“Whatever you’re planning to do here,” he
began.

I put my hands up
quickly
.
“I'm not planning to do anything. My grandmother's right; you were
standing near the oak tree when it got struck by lightning,” even
though I didn't want to, I walked over to the window that looked
out onto the side of the house, and tugged open the curtains. It
showed exactly what it should. Our yard, with the remnants of the
old oak tree blasted around it.

It was a startling sight. It honestly
did look as if God had reached down and smote the tree in all his
wonder.

Though he hadn't managed to stand
before, somehow Jacob got to his feet, and warily made his way over
to me. Though he stood an obvious two meters to my side, I turned
around to see as his face crumpled in confusion.

“Christ,” he managed.

I hope that meant he now believed our
story, and wasn't about to call his superiors and get every local
police officer to surround our house and take us to
prison.

“Hold on though, if I was so close to
lightning, why on earth can I still hear?” He brought a hand up and
tapped his ear, turning to me, that challenging look back on his
face in full fury. “A blast like that would have left me deaf,
possibly permanently. And what about the house? It doesn't look
damaged. And how about you, where were you when it
exploded?”

His barrage of questions felt a little
like machine gun fire. Even though the first thing I wanted to do
was shove him back in his chair and tell him to shut up, I didn't
get the chance.

Because I felt something. At first it
was niggling, easy to ignore, and nothing more than a transient
sensation tracing its way over my back.

Then it twisted around and burrowed in
like a parasite. Flinching, taking a step back in surprise and
pain, my eyes locked on the view outside of the window just in time
to see the shadow move up and press its way against the
glass.

First Jacob was looking at me, then
finally he glanced towards the window.

I would always remember that moment.
Because it was a defining one. Something you look back at when
you're old and grey and have the time to reminisce. The point your
life changed.

Not everyone can see magic. Hell, if
they could, more people would know about it. It's not enough that
us magical creatures simply keep our abilities and our world
secret; magic itself is persistently hard to track, hard to see,
and hard to isolate. I had spent my entire life growing accustomed
to it, but for the uninitiated, it could take years before they
could see the occult side to life.

Jacob saw it immediately.

His skin paled. Quicker than a flash.
He reached for his gun, brought it forward, and pointed it straight
at the window.

“What the hell is that?” He took a step
forward, gun still pointed right at the glass. “What is it trying
to do?”

A part of me was too surprised at
Jacob's unexpected reaction; the rest of me knew exactly what I had
to do.

Though I didn't want to near the
window for fear of the creature reaching in and plucking me out, I
jumped forward, loosened the ties of the curtains, and tugged them
close.

Even though I wasn't fighting it, even
though it was outside and I wasn't, that was one of the most
frightening things I'd ever done.