Magical Influence Book One (5 page)

I started to massage my neck and
noticed how sweaty it was.

“I think I need to call my lawyer now,” I
realized as the panic started to build.

He grabbed his phone, turned it
around, and handed it to me. It was a heavy and pointed
move.

Agent Fairweather was suspicious. For
very good reasons, including a kilo of cocaine and a quip about
digging a six-foot hole in the yard.

He leaned back in his chair and
crossed his arms as he watched me intently dial the
number.

I was starting to get bleary eyes and
I could hardly breathe. Dragging my hand over my forehead, I let it
shift down until I was hiding my eyes with it.

Come on, Uncle Fred,
I told myself in my
head,
answer, answer the bloody phone.

“Hello there, Esmerelda,” he finally
picked up.

How he knew it was me,
considering I was calling not from my mobile but from Agent
Fairweather's phone, I didn't ask. It would be magic, after
all
. “I
sense you have a spot of legal trouble, my legal bones are shaking
about, and I'm very good at reading them.”

“You could say that,” I said
carefully.

Then I looked up sharply. Fairweather
was still watching me, his eyebrows fully crumpled over his eyes.
To him that would be a particularly weird way of answering the
phone. No hello, no introduction, just a random
statement.

I settled my fingers into the collar
of my blouse, and I tried not to blink too much. I asked my uncle
kindly to come down, told him a little bit of the story, and then
hung up, feeling thankfully more secure than I had before. Fred
would be a nightmare, but at least there would be a dawn after the
dark, dark night. If anyone could solve this, he could.

“I guess I will wait for him to arrive,” I
conceded in a quiet voice as I shot one more look Fairweather's
way.

His arms were still crossed, his jaw
was still locked, and he was still as hard as ever. He no longer
reminded me of a scalpel, but of a sodding great broadsword. One
that was directed straight at my throat.

Chapter 4

Uncle Fred had weaved his
particular kind of magic. While Granny’s spells included mud,
cocaine, lizard heads, and
colored jars, Fred’s involved robust arguments
that cited previous cases, precedents, and criminal law
codes.

In short, we were out of custody, and
all charges had been dropped. Somehow. I didn't want to go into the
details, because I didn't understand them. In fact, I'm fairly sure
Fairweather hadn't understood them either, but somehow, despite his
best attempts, both of his perps had walked away, scot
free.

There was something to be said of
coming from a family of witches. There was also something to be
said of coming from a family of ordinary people. Ordinary people
don't order large amounts cocaine off the Internet, dig mysterious
holes in the garden, and come to the attention of the Federal
Police.

With every good there was always a
bad; nature loves a bit of balance.

It also loves a bit of
chaos.

When I had finally gotten home, called
my boss and explained, without telling him what had happened, why I
hadn't gone to work, I had been exhausted.

Thoroughly exhausted. I grabbed a
slice of chocolate cake from the fridge, wandered upstairs, ran a
bath, and slipped into it.

So much for
practicing any
magic.

Another reason I had moved in with my
grandmother had been the possibility of learning a thing or two,
and having more time to practice.

But with work so thin on the ground,
and nobody coming in for any love potions, identity fixes, or
influence lessons, I seemed to do nothing these days but complain,
clean, and have baths.

As I lay there, opening the hot tap
for another burst of heat, I stared up at the ceiling.

I'd picked those tiles. I’d
picked the paint. I'd even picked the exact taps, and I had chosen
my
favorite
iron-claw-footed bath too.

But had I kept it together today in
the police station? Had I gathered influence around me to change
the situation? Had I used the special knowledge I had as a witch to
manipulate the context, to alter things so my desired outcome would
arise?

No. I’d simply asphyxiated myself out
of nerves, chugged down my nasty-tasting tea, and had made a
complete fool of myself in front of Fairweather. Not that that
mattered, of course, because I had no intention of ever crossing
paths with that man again.

As I closed my eyes, turning off the
tap, and settling down into the water, the last thing I wanted to
hear filtered through the closed bathroom door.

“Oh Esmerelda,” Granny called.

I winced, and I cursed under my
breath.

“What are you doing in there?”

“I'm having a bath,” I pointed out
angrily.

“Of course, I can hear that, I meant what
are you thinking? Ask yourself this, my witch, what magic are you
casting right now?”

I was in no mood to play Mary's
games considering the kind of day she had given
me
. “Look,
I'll be out of here in a couple of minutes,” I lied, fully
intending to stay for another hour or so, until I was thoroughly
pruney.

“You need to be careful,” her voice
dipped.

Just as had occurred this morning, she
got back a bit of the old authority. The power. I could hear it,
hell, I could feel it; it danced across my skin, making my hair
stand on end.

“What are you talking about?” I finally
gave up on ignoring her, and sat up straight in the bath, bringing
my knees in, and curling my arms around them.

“Remember your tarot cards. Remember The
Tower,” her voice still had that same quality to it. It was a
quality I could not ignore, no matter how hard I tried.

I frowned.

The Tower card. Precisely the kind of
card you did not want to see after a day full of trouble; it would
only bring more. It was a warning. One that told you that a
situation that had been allowed to build and build was about to
explode. Your tower was about to crumble, and you were going to
fall along with it.

But why was she mentioning it now?
Especially when all I wanted to do was eat soggy chocolate cake and
stay in the bath for hours.

She wasn't going to tell me; I
would have to ask
. “What are you talking about?” I glanced over at my
bathrobe, wondering whether I had the energy to get out, open the
door and actually have a conversation with her
face-to-face.

“I know what you're thinking. And I'm not
blind, my dear, I have seen your behavior over the past weeks and
months. You are letting something build. You feel trapped, darling,
and you want to break free. But in breaking free, and in imagining
yourself as trapped, you will have to destroy something. Fancy
building yourself a new identity?”

To an unskilled witch, my
grandmother's words would not make sense. I, however, was not
unskilled. I knew exactly what she was talking about. If you spend
a great deal of time moaning and groaning about your life,
complaining, whingeing to anyone who will listen, and dreaming
about something better, only one thing will happen. You'll lose
what you have. At first you will lose it simply because you do not
pay attention to it, but then as you allow all that negativity to
build, it will seep right into the cracks, expand, and bring
everything shattering down. Your job, your life, your marriage, it
doesn't really matter; allow concentrated negativity to build, and
you’ll lose it all.

I finally pushed myself out of the
bath, feeling the chill against my skin instantly.

“I don't know what you're talking about,”
I tried, but my voice was so low and shaky, that I couldn't have
convinced a child.

“Yes you do,” she called my bluff. “Now be
careful. You may not like the current life you have, but if you let
it break, you might not like living in the rubble.”

With that, I heard her turn and walk
away.

I stood there on my bath mat,
dripping, freezing, staring at the closed bathroom door.

She was right. Entirely right. I
couldn't blame her either. It's one thing to not like what you're
doing with yourself, it's another to spend all of your time
complaining about it and doing nothing to fix it. You can grow and
change what you currently have, or you can take a sledgehammer to
it, and leave it shattered and broken by your feet. My grandmother
was thoroughly right. Break what you've got, and you might not like
living in its remains.

Feeling shockingly uncomfortable, I
dried myself off and headed to bed.

I hoped tomorrow would be a better
day. But unless I listened to my grandmother and actively tried to
make it one, hope would be all I would get.

Chapter 5

As I headed to work that morning,
there was a distinctly unsettled feeling in my gut. It felt like a
premonition, but not something concrete; there were no images in my
mind, no sense of what would happen, just this scattered feeling of
doom.

Yes, doom. Exactly what I didn't need
in my life right now. Trouble is one thing, but doom is its far
more powerful cousin.

Shaking my head as I tried to dislodge
it, I quickly got about my morning chores, dressed, and got ready
for work.

Rather than disturbing my grandmother,
I walked out the door without saying goodbye. The first thing that
met me was a blistering, cold gust of wind.

It roared up the garden path,
scattered the branches in the oaks by the house, and blasted
against my face.

I blinked into it, bringing my arm
around and protecting my face.

If that wasn't a portent, I didn't
know what was.

Fixing my hair behind my ears, casting
a wary glance up at the dark clouds chasing across the sky, I
hesitantly walked down the path. As I did, I was acutely aware of
everything I saw, heard, and felt. A single crow was sitting on the
gate, preening itself, then every now and then straightening up,
looking alarmed, and checking over its shoulders as if a predator
were right behind it. The weeds on my lawn looked even more dead
than usual, and as I walked past one shrub, it actually fell over.
And to top it all off, there were scattered snail shells broken by
the mailbox.

Wow. Either the world was going to
end, or just mine was. Everything around me had such an ominous,
frightful edge to it, that I would be mad to ignore the
warnings.

Scratching at my arms uneasily, I
walked out the gate, and headed to my car. As I did another blast
of wind caught my skirt, blowing it against my legs. Thankfully it
was tight enough that it didn’t flare up, Marilyn Munro style, but
it suddenly made me acutely uneasy of my appearance.

I wasn’t exactly a stylish woman,
though I could look glamorous if I put some effort into it. I was
mostly functional, and that worked for me. I was a very practical
personality, so of course my choice in clothes matched this. But
occasionally, just occasionally, I would look at somebody walking
down the street in their fantastic high heels and their designer
skirt with their face delicately made up, and I would feel a
longing. Then I would look at myself, note the functional but
slightly frumpy work pants and shirt, and I would feel a little
ashamed.

As a witch, I understood exactly what
would occur in a moment like that. Doubt. Doubt about who you are
and the choices you've made. Comparison is the first symptom, and a
trusty warning sign. Suddenly find yourself comparing your life and
finding it lacking in every single category, and an identity crisis
is around the corner.

But this wasn't an identity
crisis, was it? I knew where I was in life, knew what I wanted, and
was very confident I could get it
.... Okay, so I spent most of my time
complaining about my living situation, cleaning up after my
grandmother, and attempting to have narcotics charges removed. Yet
that aside, I knew who I was.

Frowning, I ignored that sense of
doubt, and made it to my car.

The drive to work was an unpleasant
one. For no particular reason. I didn't have a horrendous car
crash, I didn't see anything nasty along the way, and the traffic
wasn't that bad.

It was just all the little things.
Things I usually ignored. Someone cutting in front of me hurt more
today than it usually would. Not managing to catch a yellow light
made me far more frustrated than it should have.

Even more portents that today would be
a thoroughly tiresome one.

By the time I made it to work, I had a
thundering headache and wanted to do nothing more than head home,
crawl into bed, pull the covers over my eyes, and forget about
everything.

I wouldn't have the
opportunity.

As soon as I sat down at my desk, my
boss ordered me up and told me to go out to buy some milk and
biscuits. They had a meeting that day, and they were fresh out of
snacks.