Magical Influence Book One (7 page)

It whizzed right past me and lodged,
ironically, in my packet of biscuits. The same packet of biscuits
that I had hoped would make this day calm again, suddenly exploded
in a cloud of packaging and crumbs.

He didn't, however, manage to get off
another shot; Fairweather rammed into him, ploughing into his side,
and pulling him to the ground.

It all happened so fast, but in
seconds the Agent had hold of the man's gun, and for all intents
and purposes, the situation was over.

Well, this incident was, the day,
however was only just getting started in terms of the trouble it
could produce.

Chapter 6

I was on a park bench, just outside
the convenience store, sipping on a particularly unappealing but at
least warm cup of tea.

I was staring out at the police cars
and an ambulance.

I was trying very hard not to listen
to the man berating me.

“You should have stayed behind that shelf,
where I told you to,” Fairweather raised his voice
again.

I replied by scratching my
nose.

“Are you listening to me?”

No, I really wasn't. Or at least I was
trying not to. This day was getting out of hand, and if I knew a
thing or two about magic, I could understand where it was heading.
Unless I ran home, hid under my covers, or did something else to
turn my back to this ominous Tuesday, my life was going to
explode.

I just wanted to get out of here
already.

“I'm a Federal Agent, and I knew perfectly
well how to handle that situation; it was dangerous and foolish
getting involved,” he had his arms crossed, and now he seemed to
tighten them, his forearms bulging against his shirt.

It was a mildly distracting view, but
it didn't serve to completely let me forget what was happening
here.

“Are you going to say anything?” he
prodded angrily.

“This tea is terrible,” I
managed.

It was the wrong thing to say. I was
coming off as exceedingly churlish. For a woman who had been pulled
into his office only the day before because her grandmother had
stupidly imported a kilo of narcotics, only for some downright
bizarre lawyer to somehow manage to have all charges dropped, I was
being very stupid here. I shouldn't even be talking to this man. I
should be trying my best to stay out of his way, tell him what he
needed to know, and get home as quickly as I could. Instead I was
acting like a teenager being told off by a parent.

Latching a hand on my neck, I finally
turned to look up at him.

“That could have ended differently,” he
stared right into my eyes.

I got the message.

Just not the message he was trying to
convey. It could have ended differently; if I hadn't gotten
involved, Fairweather here would be the one in the ambulance, not
the gunman.

That was no guess either; this was
witch’s intuition. I knew how to read a context, and that grocery
store had been as clear as day.

I couldn't exactly tell this to
Fairweather, and nor could I ever get him to understand even if I
could break the sacred rule of magic and let him in on the fact I
was a witch.

“I'm very sorry, officer,” I tried,
ensuring there wasn't a trace of petulance left anywhere in my
tone.

“Agent,” he corrected in a
snap.

“It's been a long day, and yesterday,
yesterday wasn't any better,” I clutched at my cup
harder.

“How exactly did you get those charges
dropped, anyway, who the hell was that lawyer, who are you
connected to?” Fairweather jumped in, asking more of the questions
he had bombarded with me with last night after Fred had managed to
wade in and pluck my Granny out of the Federal Polices’
clutches.

I stood up
. “Is this all? Am I free to
go? I've given my statement, and I really, really want to go home
now.”

He pressed his lips together. He could
have been handsome, but right now he looked deadly.

He didn't say anything. I took that to
mean it was up to me to try to leave and find out what would happen
next.

Figuring there was no way I was going
to finish my tea, I popped my half-full Styrofoam cup on the end of
the bench and started to walk away.

He cleared his throat. God
dammit that was a grating, heavy sound. It was like a mountain
being dragged across the landscape
. “You going to litter in front of a
policeman?”

“I thought you were an agent?” I
mistakenly quipped back.

“Littering is an offence,” he stared at me
directly.

I wanted to pick the cup up and
throw it in his face, but I managed a quaint smile instead, grabbed
it up, and walked it over to the trashcan closest to
me
. “I am
very sorry officer, I had no intention of littering, I was putting
it down just for a moment.”

“Agent,” he corrected again.

Pain in the
ass
, I
wanted to add, but I had the presence of mind not to.

“I'll be keeping my eye on you,” he nodded
my way as I turned.

Dear God, it sounded like a line out
of a movie. He would be keeping his eye on me? Where did he get off
threatening perfectly upstanding members of the
community?

... Okay, I wasn't exactly a perfectly
upstanding member of the community; I was a witch, and as far as he
was concerned, I was complicit in drug imports, and fancied myself
a rogue police negotiator.

Anyhow, I knew what I meant
underneath. Agent Fairweather was being a bully.

Not bothering to say goodbye, I walked
away, shrugging into my jacket, and half wanting to bring up my
hand and shake my fist at the marching clouds above.

So what if my grandmother was correct;
so what if I had been the one to create this day through months of
whingeing and anguish. I knew just how to get away from it. It was
time for another bath and another plate of chocolate
cake.

Chapter 7

By the time I made it home, I was
ready to pop. I'd made a quick call to my boss, intending to let
him know what had happened. But my conversation hadn't gone quite
according to plan.

I’d been fired.

Yes, that's right, fired. Yesterday I
had spent several hours in a police station, today I’d been in a
robbery, and this afternoon I’d been sacked.

But I wasn't done with the
trouble.

As I pulled up outside my house, I sat
there for a few minutes, staring at my steering wheel
glumly.

I needed to find another job as soon
as possible; we already lived beyond our means. I didn't relish the
opportunity of job hunting though.

I also didn't relish having to tell my
grandmother. Because she was going to say one thing; The Tower. I
had created this mess, now I was reaping the rewards. I had never
liked my life, and I had been undermining it for weeks and weeks
now with my constant whingeing. Well, I had successfully attacked
the foundations, so now the house was falling.

Leaning back in my seat, closing my
eyes, I indulged in covering my face with my hands. The slight
smell of my perfume still lingered.

It was an orange, rose blossom
mix, and it had always been my
favorite.

I felt it summed me up perfectly: a
little bit sweet, a little bit delicate, but not too
showy.

After almost a minute of hiding, I
finally opened the car door and got out.

That's when I saw the
house.

Or rather, I saw the tree. One of the
oaks had lost a branch, and that branch was now lodged in the
roof.

I winced.

Then I snapped my eyes
open.

My grandmother was smart, she was
powerful, she was a witch; but she was still old.

Leaving the car door open, the
keys in the ignition, my bag on the front seat, I sprinted towards
the house
.
“Mary, Mary, are you okay?”

Nobody answered; nobody could hear me.
The gusts of wind that had been tearing through the city were only
growing more powerful. My hair was whipping around my face like a
fan, and twigs and leaves were picking up along the garden path,
slamming into my legs and feet.

The front door was open.

I rushed in, heart suddenly in my
mouth.

“Mary, Mary?” My shoes squeaked on the
once beautifully polished floorboards of the hall as I headed for
the kitchen.

If I was any judge, the branch had
fallen into the roof just above it.

I had a horrible flash of my
grandmother lying underneath it, pinned down, and possibly covered
in the dirty dishes that kept unpacking themselves from the
dishwasher.

I had to grab hold of the doorframe as
I sprinted into the kitchen, just to stop myself from slamming into
the wall.

I didn't, however, stop myself in time
before I slammed into someone’s back.

“Hey,” that someone snapped. It was a man.
A man in a suit.

As I stumbled and righted myself by
grabbing at the kitchen bench, he turned.

I almost fell over, despite the fact I
now had two hands clutching onto the side of the kitchen
bench.

Agent bloody Fairweather.

For a second the fact that he was in
my kitchen and I'd run into his back was all I could think of, then
the urgency caught up with me again.

I snapped my head to the
side.

Mary, my grandmother, was sitting at
the kitchen bench, staring up at the branch that was lodged in the
wall.

“There you are, dear, look what happened?
A branch came down. What a storm we've got out there.”

I stared at my grandmother, over to
the branch, then back to Fairweather.

There were a lot of questions to be
answered here.

“Is everybody okay?” I asked quickly,
swallowing loudly as I did. Though I'd said everybody, I didn't
mean it. I meant my grandmother and the house; Fairweather could go
hang for all I cared.

He straightened up, patting down on
his tie again; he did that a lot, perhaps it was his little way of
neatening up the world. He did seem to be the kind of fellow that
would be obsessed with ordering things, cleaning them up, keeping
them on the straight and narrow. He was a Federal Police Officer,
after all, or an Agent as he so liked to insist.

“I'm fine,” Mary said with a smile, “Agent
Fairweather here seems suspicious of us, and as for the house... it
looks as if you're going to have to pick up another job to pay for
the repairs. I called our builder friend, it’s going to be
costly.”

I nodded my head, then shook it. I
understood the bit about the house and my grandmother, but as for
the statement about Fairweather, it was probably bang on the mark,
but it wasn't comforting.

I narrowed my eyes as I slid my
gaze over to him
. “I see, and why exactly are you here, Agent
Fairweather?”

“I was on business in the local vicinity.
I was just outside when the branch fell. I heard your grandmother
call for help, and I came to assist.”

A likely story. The man had probably
been parked out front, sipping on a coffee, just waiting for me to
come home so he could harass me again.

I nodded, keeping my smile as
pleasant as I could
. “I guess I should thank you then.”

“I suppose you should,” he
agreed.

We stared at each other for slightly
too long.

Granny cleared her
throat
.
“Would you like a cup of tea, or a biscuit?”

Fairweather looked over at the kitchen
table.

It was covered in dishes. In fact, you
couldn't see the lovely wood underneath; all you could see were
mugs and plates and pots and pans.

He looked back at me. I got the
picture. He couldn't blame my dear old grandma; she was clearly
demented. He could, however, cast
judgment on the crazy lady who seemed to
allow her to collect federal offences and live in
squalor.

“Did you unstack the dishwasher again
before it was done?” I asked very softly, glancing towards my
grandmother.

I knew fully well that she hadn’t been
the one to unstack the dishwasher; I'd been a witch and had lived
in this house long enough to understand its quirks.

She crumpled her brow and
looked at me suspiciously as if I'd suddenly lost my
mind
. “It
unstacked itself.”

Fairweather just
nodded
. “I'm
fine, I don’t need a cup of tea or a biscuit,” he assured me, that
tone of his bottoming out as it always did, making me feel as if he
was dragging me down to hell.

“Okay then, I guess you'll be leaving,” I
said pointedly.

I wasn’t usually this rude. If we had
guests, I was a very obliging host. I'd be the one to pull the
chair out for you, to ensure your glass was always full, to make
you special food if you had any allergies. But here I was
practically telling Fairweather his stay was up.