Magical Influence Book One (8 page)

“Esmerelda, how very rude. You must
forgive her, Jacob, she has always been a bit funny around
attractive men. A little self-conscious, you know what I mean?
Doesn't know what to say, gets awkward,” my grandmother said
plainly as if I wasn't in the room.

I choked. Fairweather swallowed a
snigger.

I was going to kill her. I was going
to kill my grandmother, but I was going to bloody well wait until
Fairweather was gone.

Feeling my cheeks turn a furious red,
I blinked hard, patted down on my pants, and walked over to the
kitchen sink just to get away. I poured myself a glass of water,
and drank it as I stared concertedly out the window, feeling the
breeze that was pushing its way past the branch lodged in the
opposite wall.

“Jacob, I simply insist. I'll have Esme
here make you a cup of tea, and I'm sure we've got some biscuits or
cake lodged in the fridge somewhere. You’ve been such a dear coming
to my aid. Stay for a bit.”

Such a dear?

This was the same man that had dragged
her in for questioning a little over 24 hours ago.

“Well, if you insist,” as Agent
Fairweather, or Jacob as I had just learnt, spoke, he stared right
at me.

“Let me make a space for you,” I said
through gritted teeth as I walked over to the kitchen table,
brought out a chair, grabbed the mugs and bowls off it, and took
them over to the dishwasher. As I stacked them in, I was sure to
glare at it.

“So, Jacob, tell me some more about
yourself. How long have you been a Federal Agent for? And I must
say, you’re the first Federal Agent I've ever met, unless you count
the ones I've seen on TV or in movies,” my grandmother said in her
usual scatty tone as she sat at one of the other kitchen chairs,
apparently not caring that there was a dirty plate underneath
her.

“About two years now,” he answered, and as
he did, I swear he kept his attention firmly locked on
me.

“What did you do before that?” My
grandmother smiled at him invitingly.

“I was in the Army for a short stint.
“

“The Army, how exciting. What an action
man you are. They should make a figurine of you,” my grandmother
said, in a completely straight tone, with a completely straight
face, because she was completely serious.

I managed to swallow my laugh, and to
Jacob's credit, he simply tapped his hand on his knee and mumbled
that he didn't think so.

As I hurriedly cleaned the table,
stacked the dishwasher, set the kettle on, and prepared some cake
from the fridge, I started to get an itchy feeling along the back
of my shoulders and arms.

I dismissed it.

A mistake.

As my grandmother continued to
ask Jacob Fairweather the strangest and most awkward questions, she
suddenly stopped. She turned her head towards the window, narrowed
her eyes, and sniffed
. “How is your car, dear?”

She was talking to me.

And then I remembered. I remembered
the fact I had left the keys in the ignition, the door open, and my
bag on the front seat.

Swearing loudly, I dropped what I was
doing, ran out the door, and sprinted down the garden path as fast
as I could.

I needn't have bothered.

Because it was gone.

Seriously, my car was gone.

I had lost my job that day, and now to
top it all off I had lost my car too and my bag and
purse.

Fantastic. Bloody
fantastic.

As I stood there on the curb where my
car should have been, I closed my eyes and covered my mouth,
breathing a silent scream into it.

I heard footsteps behind
me.

“What are you doing?” It was
Jacob.

“I have no idea,” I answered honestly as I
brought my arms out expressively.

No, that wasn't fair, I knew exactly
what I was doing; I was ruining my life, one mishap at a
time.

“Where is your car?”

I couldn't turn to him.
Eventually I shrugged my shoulders
. “I'm not sure.”

“What do you mean you're not
sure?”

“Oh dear,” I heard my grandmother call
out, “shouldn't you call the police?”

“Are you telling your car has been
stolen?” Jacob insisted.

I wanted to cry. And scream and shout,
and generally make a scene. I managed to hold onto my dignity
though, but only just.

“Oh, I forgot, Jacob's a policeman, how
useful. You can let him know that you left your keys in the
ignition, the door open, and walked away from your car, practically
inviting it to be stolen,” my grandmother walked up behind
me.

“Is she serious?” Jacob looked at me
pointedly.

I grit my teeth, pulling my lips
around them in the world's most nervous, fearful, crazed
smile.

“When I pulled up, I saw the branch lodged
in the roof, and I just ran to check my grandmother was okay,” I
pushed my hand into my fringe as I spoke, feeling how sweaty and
hot my brow had become.

Really? Could this day get any
worse? I felt like facing the clouds above and shouting at
them:
“Enough already, I get the picture’. I was a very bad witch
who had been far too whingey and was now paying the
consequences.

“You left the keys in the ignition and the
door open,” Jacob tried to clarify.

“And my handbag on the front seat,” I
added, teeth still clenched.

“It really was an invitation for someone
to steal it, wasn't it, dear?” My grandmother patted a hand on my
back.” You should have known better.”

I really was about to pop.

“Can I just ascertain that you are
serious? Your car has been stolen?” Jacob looked from me to the
curb then back at me.

I shrugged my shoulders and
nodded
. “I
got held up this morning, lost my job this afternoon, and five
minutes ago, my car got stolen,” my voice was unnaturally
singsong.

“You lost your job, oh, how unfortunate,
how are we going to pay for all the damage? Also, how am I going to
pay for my new shipment? I ordered something fantastic off the
Internet last night,” my grandmother pointed out with a
smile.

I choked. Wrong time to talk about the
weird and wonderful things she was going to have shipped from other
countries; Agent Jacob Fairweather was still standing right there
to my left.

“You realize under most insurance policies
leaving the keys in the ignition and the door open will invalidate
the terms?” he pointed out.

What a comforting thing to
say.

“Oh dear, I think we should get back in
the house before the rain starts,” Granny removed the hand from my
back and pointed up to the sky.

The clouds were still racing, but if I
were any judge, it wasn't going to start raining any time
soon.

Well I was wrong, and my grandmother
was right; she was a far more powerful witch, after all, and she
had seen her fair share of weather spells. The exact hue to the
laden grey and blue clouds in the sky, the pace of the wind, and
the general ambience of the air suggested one thing; a
downpour.

By the time we made it back to the
house, there was a clap of thunder, seconds later the rain
began.

I caught a glimpse of
Fairweather glancing out the window and up at the clouds, a
confused look on his face
. “That was quick,” he said under his
breath.

“Come in and sit down, Jacob, I'm very
sorry you've been distracted. Now where were we?”

He’d been distracted? Was my car being
stolen nothing more than a simple little distraction? Was the fact
I had just lost my job nothing more than a mild
inconvenience?

I crossed my arms and frowned deeply
as I followed the two of them back into the kitchen.

The second I reached it,
I
realized
just how damaged the roof was. A gale was blowing through the hole
the branch had wrought, and as the rain slammed down, it fell onto
the floor, soon to ruin one of my favorite rugs.

“It's a bit draughty in here, Jacob, how
about we move into the drawing room? Esme, be a good girl and fix
up the tea and cake, would you?”

I didn't want to be a good girl. I
wanted to kick Jacob out and have a tantrum. I had just enough
self-control not to do that though. I busied myself trying to clean
up my kitchen instead. Once I had delivered the tea and cake to my
grandmother and her thoroughly unwanted guest, I set about trying
to figure out a way to get the branch out of the wall, and some
kind of shield up so my kitchen wasn't completely ruined in the
storm.

Clambering into a thick jacket and
gumboots and fixing my hair into a tight bun, I waded out into the
darkening day to see what I could do.

“I hate you, day,” I said petulantly as I
sloshed over to the oak tree that had lost its branch, planting my
hands on my hips as I leant back to survey the damage.

If I were a different kind of which, I
would have tried to talk the wood into pulling itself out of the
wall and the wall into stacking up its bricks, strengthening its
mortar, and fixing its plaster back into place.

Unfortunately I had to deal with what
I had, so I splashed over to the shed looking for the chainsaw I
knew was still in there.

I hauled it back to the oak tree, then
spent a few frustrated moments trying to get it to
start.

“You are seriously going chainsaw in this
weather, are you?” I heard Jacob ask from behind me.

Not expecting it, I gave a jump,
starting the chainsaw at that exact moment.

“Dammit, be careful, you could take my leg
off with that,” he scolded as I turned around with the chainsaw in
hand, the chain turning around as the machine groaned from years of
misuse.

I turned it off, dropping it to
my side
.
“It's not like I have much of a choice. There's a sodding great
branch in my kitchen,” I pointed to it needlessly as a gust of wind
plastered my hair into my face, the rain managing to seep its cold
touch down the back of my jacket.

“Just leave it, call someone in the
morning,” he suggested.

I frowned at him, turned my back,
started the chainsaw, and muscled it over to the tree.

And that would be when I felt
it.

Another snaking, twisting spike of
precognition.

There was a crack from behind me. From
the same mutinous oak tree that had already dropped a branch onto
my already decrepit house.

I had the presence of mind to drop the
chainsaw, and without my hand on the trigger, thankfully it stopped
before I could take my foot off.

Half a second later, a branch came
swinging my way like a dark shadow from a nightmare.

It didn't squish me; it didn't get the
chance.

Jacob slammed into my side, pulling me
to the left just as the branch fell exactly where I’d been
standing.

His arm around my middle, his weight
pressing into my back, I fell face first into the mud. I breathed
in the wet dirt, and I started to choke wildly.

But the weather and the day were not
over yet. There was another crack from above us. Jacob hauled me up
by the collar of my jacket, and pushed me to the side
again.

The whole tree was about to
go.

“Get back,” he commanded needlessly. It
was needless because I could already see I didn't want to stand
anywhere near that tree, and because he had an arm around my middle
and was dragging me away as fast as he could.

With another almighty snapping sound,
the whole trunk sliced in two and the rest of the branches fell
over with a groan.

It was a spectacular sight. Made all
the more frantic by the sudden clap of thunder and the slice of
lightning far off down the street.

Even though it was only relatively
early in the evening, the sudden approach of the storm had sucked
the remaining light out of the dusk.

Jacob let out a soft swearword
from behind me, eventually letting his arm drop from my
side
. “You
okay?”

No, I really wasn't. My life was
falling apart.

Lightning. And trees falling over. It
was most definitely The Tower card. Bugger. Because that card never
left the job half finished. The tower would come down, everything
crumbling with it.

My life was undoubtedly falling apart,
but judging by how screwed up the situation was, I knew it wasn't
finished yet.

“Are you okay?” He walked around me,
staring down into my face as he did.

I think my bottom lip wobbled at that
moment. I was getting ready to cry. Who cared if I did? It was
raining, and it wasn't as if Jacob Fairweather was a friend or
anyone I held in particularly high esteem; I didn't have to keep my
dignity around him. And maybe if I burst into tears it would
finally chase him away.