Magical Influence Book One (21 page)

Creatures were swarming through my
house. Flashes that I could just see from the lightning playing its
way through the clouds above. Faces, contorted into disgust, fear,
and hatred. The whip of a tail, the flap of a wing. It seemed that
hell had opened up all of its fury and dumped it in my big old
house.

Why had this happen to me? I'd always
been a good witch, I'd always looked after my grandmother. I didn't
deserve this.

Or maybe I did. I had spent the past
several months complaining about everything I could, undermining,
as my granny had put it, everything I stood upon.

So despite my grandmother's annoying
meddling, I could see her point. It was time to change everything I
hated about myself, take charge, and find my natural power
within.

In doing so, I would strengthen
my
defenses,
and this barrage of the dark side would be overcome.

I had a car, my grandmother had
already seen to that, and a job too, and as for man, I was quite
certain I could live without one. So that just
left
...
becoming powerful.

As I thought and planned, my body did
what it had to, and soon enough I had made it down the drainpipe
and was standing on real, solid ground, even though it was very,
very soggy.

For a moment I just stood there, a
smile of victory spreading my lips. I had actually done it. I’d
climbed down the side of my house in a ferocious magical storm.
That was certainly something to brag about at the next family
reunion.

And then I heard a growl behind me. A
particularly loud and nasty one.

I turned slowly, ever so slowly, like
a pig on a rotisserie ready to be roasted and eaten.

In my mind, the most horrible of
creatures would be behind me. Perhaps a troll, three meters tall,
teeth dripping with blood. Perhaps a demon, its black wings spread
out so wide they blocked off all light from the heavens.

What I saw
... was a gnome. Yes, a gnome.
Not a garden gnome, one of the live ones. It was barely
one-and-a-half feet tall, and it had a characteristic pointy blue
hat on.

I heard Jacob land beside me.
He had turned to see what I was staring at, and the brute
laughed
.
“When I saw you turn like that, I figured you were facing a monster
or something. Is that a garden gnome?”

I brought a hand up, quick and
sharp, hoping to cut off his insult before he could get us into any
more trouble
. “Don't move a muscle.”

“You serious? It's a
gnome
,” he shoved past me.

That would be when the gnome reacted.
It might have only been one-and-a-half feet tall, but gnomes had a
distinct advantage. Anger. Devastating anger.

“Quick, throw your teddy bear at it,”
Jacob jokingly suggested from my side before he pushed past me,
pulled down on his tie, and headed for the garden path.

He didn't get very far.

The gnome turned around and launched
itself at him, ran up his back, wrapped its arms around his head
and head-butted him.

It all happened so fast.

Even though the wind was loud and the
lightning louder, I heard the crack of that creature nutting
Jacob.

Jacob spluttered, stumbled backwards,
brought his hands up, and tried to pull the gnome off.

I stood there, surprised, just a
little amused, and quite a bit concerned. Yet soon I pushed myself
into action. Despite the fact I was wearing a Santa Claus sweater
and holding onto my teddy, I had to do something; I was the witch
trying to find her power, after all.

I flung myself forward, and even
though Jacob was a great deal taller than me, I tried to reach up
to grab the gnome. It kept on head-butting him, and Jacob, in his
desperation to pull it off, was stumbling around, always dancing
just out of my reach.

I had to think of something quickly,
because despite how annoying Jacob was, I really didn't want him to
end up with any lasting brain damage because he had mistakenly
insulted a gnome.

I also knew I couldn't pull it off
him; I couldn’t reach it, and I wasn’t that strong anyway. I had to
look for something to help me.

I was starting to come to terms with
the fact that I was never going to be a witch like my grandmother.
The kind of witch who could practice both influence magic and the
other, raw, more powerful kind. You wouldn't see me walking through
walls any time soon.

I had to settle into what I had
and what I could do, and I had to
maximize it.

So to get a gnome off Jacob's head, I
had to practice influence. I had to manipulate the context, alter
the variables involved until the situation resolved itself. Minimal
effort for maximal gain.

Standing on the spot and staring
around myself, I looked for something that would make Jacob
powerful. I knew he was more than capable of pulling the gnome off
his head himself, he just needed a hand to get his strength back.
And then I saw it. His gun. He’d dropped it, presumably in surprise
when a gnome had run up his back and started head-butting him in
the face.

I scuttled over to it, picked it up,
and then saw an overturned fence post. It was broken, and had two
pointy ends. I snatched it up.

I ran over to Jacob and chucked the
gun and the fence post at his feet. Then I closed my eyes and let
off a silent prayer. A quick, mumbled spell.

To the uninitiated, what I had just
done would have seemed useless. No, beyond useless. Rather than
hand Jacob the gun, I had thrown it at his feet, and to top it all
off, I'd added a broken fence post, as if that would do anything
other than offer an opportunity to trip.

Despite appearances, what I had
just
practiced was magic.

To Jacob presumably there was nothing
more powerful and nothing that could offer more security than a
gun. As for the broken fence post, it offered several pointy, rough
edges, that would presumably put one in mind of something pointy,
rough, and tough. Like a pointy, rough, and tough man more than
capable of besting a gnome.

Okay, I was very much clutching at
straws here, but it would have to do.

And, low and behold, seconds
later, Jacob finally succeeded in wrapping his hands around the
gnome and pulling it off. With a hearty, thumping cry he chucked it
into the black berry bush several
meters away.

Then he looked at me, blood
dripping down from a deep gash in his head
. “Why did you just stand
there?”

“I didn't,” I pointed down at the gun and
the broken fence post. “I cast a spell, I was the only reason you
managed to get it off.”

Jacob looked at me slowly and
very aggressively
. “You're out of your mind.” He poked the fence post with
the toe of his boot, reached down, grabbed the gun, and turned from
me.

“Just because you don't understand
influence magic, doesn't mean you should dismiss it. That thing was
winning before I intervened,” I raised my voice as Jacob strode
ahead.

I understood, I really did, how
pathetic my little intervention must have looked. Chucking a gun
and a fence post at his feet? It must have seemed like I was more
than mad. But I wasn't
.... This was honestly how my magic worked. It
wasn't about lights, explosions, and fireballs. It was about
reminding people of what they could do, about reminding situations
of what they could become. It involved a lot of junk and
incantations, but I knew it was the most powerful way of altering
the universe.

If Jacob didn't understand that, so be
it, but I was confident that my intervention had been the
difference between him finally claiming victory over that gnome and
crumpling into a ball of brain injury.

As Jacob strode ahead, I clutched
tight onto my teddy.

Neither of us got very far. Something
swung out of a tree. And it swung right at me. At first I didn't
understand what it was, then just before it hit me I saw the
snaking grab of a tentacle. It wrapped itself around my stomach,
squeezed the face of my knitted Santa Claus, and began to pull me
towards the bushes.

Before I was crushed or sent slamming
into the fence, Jacob opened fire, and somehow his aim was true,
and he shot right through the tentacles. There was a scream from
the tree, and the creature dwindled into a hiss of
smoke.

Frantic, I batted the remaining
tentacles off me and took several steps back, shaking in
fear.

“That
is how you save somebody,” Jacob
looked down at me pointedly, then he turned away and headed for the
garden path.

That was
one
way to save somebody, I felt like
replying, but he was too far out of earshot, and I really doubted
he wanted to listen.

There were probably only 10 or
so
meters
separating us from the garden gate. I was confident that once we
were on the street outside our current situation would improve
measurably. We just had to make it that far.

And somehow, clutching onto my
teddy,
practicing what magic I could, we did.

I had no idea why. From the sounds of
the storm and concentrated evil lurking behind every bush and tree,
I was more than sure we would have been assailed at every
step.

Yet we weren't. Between Jacob's
bluster, his gun, and his general aggressiveness, and my own magic
of course, we made it.

Right to the garden gate.

We, however, did not get to open
it.

Just as Jacob leaned over to kick it
open, ignoring the latch, and obviously not caring that it would
take more than I could afford to replace it, something rushed out
at him.

White and glistening. Bone. The bone
was attached to a skeleton, and the skeleton was attached to a
sword.

This time I did react, and no, it
wasn't to lean down, grab up a fence post, and chuck it at his
feet. I threw myself at Jacob, grabbed him, and pushed him out of
the way. Except I didn't do it in time.

I heard the blade slash down, and I
felt it as it sliced through my arm.

Blood splattered
everywhere.

Yet I didn't scream. Pain filled me,
spiking through my arm with a ferocity I had never felt. Yet I held
onto the anguish and fright, and I didn't let it out.

Though blackness was curling in at the
edges of my vision, I was aware of the fact that the skeleton
turned, brought it’s sword up again, and lashed out once
more.

Jacob was still on the ground
underneath me, and I was an easy, easy target.

But I wasn't down yet.

Before the panic could get to me,
before the sight of that sword glinting in a non-existent light
could speak to the primal side of my brain and leave it with the
conclusion that death was seconds away, I did something.
Instinctual. I reached for my teddy. It had fallen in the mud after
I had been attacked. Now it was the only thing within my grasp. So
I clutched it up.

I didn't roll away, I didn't try to
kick at the skeleton’s feet, and I didn't scream at Jacob to do
something. I just reached for my teddy and I held it
there.

A funny thing happened when I
did.

The skeleton brought its sword down in
a stabbing motion, probably intending to skewer me right through
the heart.

Though its move was strong, and I
could see the concentrated power of its blow, it glanced off. As
soon as the sword came into contact with my teddy, a magical
barrier appeared, and the skeleton was blasted back.

Yes,
that
is the power of a teddy bear. Or, more
likely, that is the power that comes when one surrounds themselves
with objects they have spent a lifetime empowering.

Though I was a witch, and I understood
magic, I was just a little bloody surprised. I didn't have time to
look down at my teddy before Jacob pulled me to my feet, reached
over to the garden fence, pushed it open, and tugged us out onto
the street.

It happened too fast, and as the pain
ate into my arm, I didn't have the attention left over to keep up
with what was going on. But before I knew it, I was out of the yard
and standing on the pavement beyond.

It was warm out here. It was light
too; though there were thick clouds above, they no longer covered
the sun like they had in my yard. Though there was a wind, it was a
slight breeze with the occasional gust. And though I heard thunder,
it was far, far off behind the city in the rolling hills
beyond.

In short, it was completely
different weather, despite the fact we had barely moved half
a
meter.
More than that, as I glanced over Jacob's shoulder and beyond my
garden gate, I couldn't see what I had moments before.

There was no skeleton with a sword
getting ready to jump over the picket fence to finish off the
fight. There was no gnome shaking its fist at Jacob, and there was
no tentacle monster nursing a bullet wound.