Magical Influence Book One (27 page)

Now that he was right in front of me,
I couldn't shift any further back into the couch to get away. All I
could do was stare right up into his face.

“Esme,” he tried one final
time.

“Take me with you,” my voice croaked. “I
can try to find her. If the house is safe, then take me back. I'm
sure she'll come out if she knows I'm back.”

It was a reasonable suggestion. In
fact, it was more than that, it was smart. It was also a
challenge.

I needed to see how Jacob would react
to it.

His previously broad smile
twitched into a frown for a bare second then righted
itself
. “You
can't move, not in your current state.”

“Then show me to a first aid kit and I'll
deal with my wound.”

“It will heal, you just need
rest.”

“But I'm sure if you take me to the house
my grandmother will... come out of hiding.”

“No, Esme, you have to stay here. We can't
put you in anymore danger,” Jacob stood up.

He retreated over to the fire and
stared down into it.

I locked my gaze onto his back and I
wouldn't have let anything distract me in that moment. Because it
was time for this little witch to make a decision.

Why would my grandmother be hiding in
the attic? Why wouldn't she be out in the yard waging war with the
dark side, or trundling down the street, drafting in all the other
members of the extended Sinclair family, getting them to help her
fight her war?

I knew her. I'd lived with her for a
very memorable five years, and she had made me into the witch I was
today.

She didn't hide.

She didn't run.

So why should I?

I pushed myself up. I didn't care that
my arm suddenly felt like it was going to explode. I just pushed
right through that pain until my feet rested on the floor and I
faced Jacob's back.

“Rest, don't try to move; you'll hurt
yourself,” he tried.

Something was not right here.
It was time to stop
apologizing for that fact, time to stop rationalizing it
away. It was time to find out why and to goddamn use some magic to
fix it.

Hours ago I had wasted the magic of
time slowing down; rather than use it to my advantage to figure out
a way to defeat the skeleton, I'd just let it attack me
instead.

I was done wasting my
opportunities.

As soon as I concluded that, a funny
thing occurred; magic, pure and simple, seemed to fill me up. From
my head to my toes, the dark suspicious sensations that had been
waging war within gave way to the unmistakable light of a
witch.

In reality, I had always been filled
with this light. Since I had been born, magic had always been with
me. Over the years I had simply forgotten. The sensations of
oppression, hardship, and a general moping, complaining nature had
taken over.

I stood up. It was probably the
stupidest thing I could have done, but that didn't matter; I took
the opportunity to finally rise and face this situation, and I did
not look away.

Jacob turned slowly to face me.
For the first time he did not look like the annoying, bullying
Agent I had come to know over the past several days. He
looked
...
confused. And something else. Something that I suddenly realized
had always been there. A nervous, pressured tension.

Magic. But not one I
recognized and not
one I ever intended to practice.

“What are you doing?” he moved slowly away
from the fire.

“Jacob Fairweather, you aren't telling me
the truth,” I forcefully placed my arms by my side, ignoring the
boring, burning sensation of my wound. I knew that the more I
ignored it, the more I did not let it affect me, the less hold it
would have.

“What are you talking about?”

“You know exactly what I'm talking about.
From the moment we met, you lied to me. And I think you haven't yet
told a single truth. So now I'm inviting you to start.”

He snorted
. “You're delusional. Sit back
down before you fall down.”

“Delusional? I'm feeling sharper than I
have in days. Now start spilling the beans. What exactly is going
on here? What are you, who do you work for, and why are you so god
damned keen to get your hands on my grandmother?”

He opened his mouth, probably
intending to tell me to sit back down again, but he didn't utter a
word. Instead he took a careful step backwards
. “You're ungrateful, Esme.
I've gone out of my way to keep you safe, and this is all the
thanks I get?”

“Who do you work for? What's going on
here? Why are you so keen to get into my attic?”

“I've already told you, we're the good
guys. We're here to mop up after your mistakes,” he snapped back.
There was far more emotion behind his words now, and the pressure
they came out with was unmistakable. They felt raw, unfiltered by
the facade Jacob had kept up over the past several days.

Because it had been a facade. I
was starting to
realize that good old Agent Fairweather really did have a
wealth of secrets. And I had been a damn fool to let him keep them
up until now.

I straightened my back, but instantly
my arm complained to the tune of a stabbing pain that practically
made me fall over.

Groaning, I tried to ignore it,
but glancing down, I
realized blood was now seeping out from underneath
the bandage. Black blood.

“Look what you are doing to yourself. Just
sit down already. I can't keep you safe unless you let
me.”

There was a real sense of desperation
behind his words now.

It did something to the suspicion
rising within me; it mollified it. But it did not take it away
completely.

“What the hell is going on here?” I
snapped, cheeks flushing, palms sweating, and heart racing as I
tried to keep up. I was so confused. One moment I thought Jacob was
the good guy, the next I thought he was neck deep in the dark side.
Then my beliefs would switch places again like they were playing
freaking leap frog.

There was no steady ground to stand
on.

I looked down at my feet. That was
wrong; I was standing on the floor, and it certainly wasn't
shifting about like sand.

“You know what’s going on. You’ve been
systematically undermining your existence, and now you are under
attack. You’ve been influencing yourself in all the wrong ways, and
now you’re reaping your bitter reward. Now could you please just
sit down before I have to handcuff you to the couch?”

I’ve been influencing myself in
all the wrong ways and now I am reaping the
reward
...
his words stuck in my mind. No, they burrowed in there like a
goddamned parasite. I could feel them taking up root and spreading
like fire.

I was the first to admit that I hadn’t
been the most competent influence witch over the past several
years, and yes, I’d complained way, way too much. I also
appreciated that that had meant, ironically, that I had used my own
magic to undermine myself. I had influenced myself, as Jacob had
just pointed out, in all the wrong ways.

Yet that was a remarkably perceptive
thing for simple Agent Fairweather to point out. Okay, he was
clearly magical, but that had sounded like something my grandmother
would have said.

“Esme,” he began, “you know this storm is
after you. You know you’ve made yourself weak and the dark side is
trying to take advantage of this. You brought this on yourself, you
started this. I’m just trying to help.”

I started this.

I frowned, and for the first time in
days, I started to really think about what was happening here. I
didn’t suddenly remember my grandmother’s words, and neither did I
give in to Jacob’s observations. I swept all their opinions
aside.

I thought for myself. And what I
thought was this: I hadn’t started this, Jacob had. My current
troubles had all begun two mornings ago when a certain belligerent
but troublingly good looking Agent had knocked on my front
door.

Up until then I had been fine. Yes, I
had complained, but no, I had not hated my life. I’d been muddling
through as best as I could. I had not been a virus destroying my
world; I’d just been a woman growing up, settling down, and trying
to get things right.

Other people had decided that I had
brought this storm and all its monsters upon me. It was up to me to
choose to see the situation as they did, or to make my own
story.

Everyone from my grandmother to Jacob,
to the freaking skeletons and lightning had been trying to
influence me. Especially Jacob.

With his blustery attitude and quick
jibes, he’d spent the past several days systematically undermining
my power. I couldn’t count the number of times he’d called me the
world’s worst witch.

He’d kept me small.

All I’d done in response was tell
myself to stand straighter and to glower at him more, but
unsurprisingly it had not worked. Because I’d been missing the true
power, the true magic behind influence.

The influence you have on others is a
pale shadow of that you have on yourself. Control yourself, control
your world. I finally understood that ancient and sacred adage. The
crest, in fact, of the Sinclair Family.

“Esme,” he closed the distance between us
and latched a hold of my shoulders. I instantly felt how strong his
hands were, I instantly saw how taller he was. “Esme, I’m trying to
help you fix your mistakes. I’m trying to protect you. You aren’t
strong enough to fight this on your own, and neither is your
grandmother. Now tell me how to get into your attic.”

It would have been easy as I stood
there to believe his words. To let his voice into my head. The
voice that told me I was the world’s worst witch, that this was my
fault, that I could not fix it on my own. That I was weak, so much
weaker than he was.

I had let that voice in for the past
two days. It was time to kick it out so I could hear my own
again.

I smiled. I wasn’t nice. I
wasn’t meant to be. I shrugged him off and looked up into his eyes.
Suddenly it didn’t matter that he was taller than me and physically
stronger. Opportunity
favored the prepared, not necessarily the butch.
And when it came to magic, opportunity favored those who would take
it.

“Get out of my head,” I said, no, I
commanded.

“Esme...”

“You,” I pointed at him, “are an influence
witch.”

As soon as the words were out, I knew
they were true. I understood his magic and how he had used it to
manipulate me.

He faltered. It looked as if he were
about to tell me to sit down again, then he stopped. He
straightened.

Then I fancied I saw the real Jacob
Fairweather. He wasn’t the handsome but belligerent Federal Agent.
He wasn’t the mysterious but apparently compassionate magical
creature. He was a confused but powerful witch. He practiced the
very same magic that I did, but up until now he’d been doing it a
whole lot better.

“You don’t know what you are doing,” he
said. His voice flickered. At once it was dark and ominous, and yet
at the same time it was lost. The sense of confusion poured through
it like blood from a wound.

“Don’t undermine me,” I snapped, “I know
exactly what I’m doing. I’m leaving. Presumably you are going to
try to stop me, we are going to fight, and I’m going to
win.”

It was a bolshie thing to say. Not
only was I announcing my plan, but I was making the unlikely
prediction that I would come out on top.

“You won’t win,” he replied.

The light started to leave the room.
The fire dwindled to embers and then extinguished itself in a
hiss.

The last thing I saw was the angle of
his jaw and the glint of his eyes.

“You won’t win,” he repeated.

It was a suitably creepy thing to say,
and the force of his voice as it boomed through the room seemed to
rattle my bones.

Great. It was, presumably, minutes
from midnight, but my horrendous day was not over yet. There was
one more thing I had to do. I had to defeat Agent Jacob
Fairweather. The very man my grandmother had tried to hitch me up
with. The very man who had, apparently, been manipulating this
whole situation. It was clear he was after my grandmother, and it
was clear he was going to use me to get to her.

Why, I didn’t know. Who he really was,
I didn’t know either.

But one thing I did know was that I
was a witch. And it was finally time to start acting like
one.

I ducked back, fast despite my
pounding injury.

I could hear him moving before me.
Though it was clear he was trying to be as quiet as he could be, I
felt his movements ripple forth like a stone thrown in a pond. He
disturbed the magic around him, and it buffeted and lapped against
my form.