by Mara Webb
“We need you, you are her guardian,” Walter interjected. “If she comes to any harm then you will be living with it for the rest of your life, trust me.”
Ryder recognized Walter. Greta had toyed with hiking in the interests of spending more time with Ryder, hoping that enough exposure to her would cause him to fall in love. It didn’t go down that way, but she must have mentioned him to her dad. They locked eyes for a moment, almost as if sharing a private conversation.
“Let me get my crossbow,” Ryder announced.
“Oh, hold on!” I protested. “That sounds like a bad idea, we don’t need to be shooting anybody with arrows and—” He had disappeared into a back space of the building and quickly re-emerged with the weapon. I didn’t have the luxury of time to argue with him about it, so shrugged my shoulders at Walter and followed Ryder out onto the high street.
He took the route through the buildings towards the edge of the trees that he had taken me on last time, but as soon as the moonlight was blocked by the leafy canopy, and the streetlights grew dim in the distance, I could see almost nothing.
“Follow my voice,” Ryder encouraged.
“Easier said than done, I think there is an owl throwing a tantrum in here and if a snake touches me, I am going to freak out,” I whimpered.
“You are about to infiltrate a gang of musicians that are performing dark magic, now might not be the best time to lose your courage,” Walter reminded me.
“Good point, but unless one of them turns into a snake, I’m not scared of them,” I replied. Should I be though? I mean, I was an actual witch, they were just play pretending. Jake’s murder hadn’t involved witchcraft, they hadn’t demonstrated that they could actually do anything yet, had they?
I saw a shaft of moonlight cut through the trees and glisten on the tip of the arrow that was loaded into Ryder’s crossbow. At some point he had also donned a quiver and the sound of the arrows rattling together as he ran up hill made him easier to track.
I wished that Miller were here, something about his proximity lately had made me feel safe. Ryder turned back to look at me, as if he could hear what I was thinking. I gulped nervously, worried that he was picking up on my doubt.
“Stay close to me,” he whispered in the dark. “We are almost there.”
His voice was gentle, soothing enough to give me pause. Suddenly he extended an arm to block my path. Walter was right behind me and crashed into the back of my body after my abrupt halt.
“What is it?” Walter asked.
“I can hear something,” Ryder replied. I listened out and could only just make out a sound that wasn’t coming from the animals of the island or the breeze.
“Are you part bat?” I joked. “The last thing my life needs is a vampire.”
“Tell me about it,” Walter mumbled. What?
“They are reciting something, I think there are three or four of them,” Ryder said, ignoring my comment. “What did you want to do? What needs to be done?”
“I don’t know,” I confessed. “We need to stop them, but I don’t know how dangerous they might be. I guess I didn’t consider that they would outnumber us.”
“I can defend you, as well as Ryder,” Walter assured me. “I know you’re new to this, but your magic can help. You might surprise yourself.”
We crept higher up the hill, choosing our steps carefully to avoid snapping any large branches. The voices grew louder, and I suspected that they wouldn’t have been able to hear us even if we had bulldozed our way to the clearing. They were chanting, repeating strange sounds over and over that sounded like a foreign language.
“They must have someone up there, a victim on the flat rock,” Walter said. “They are close to the end of the ceremony. We have to move, now!”
I nodded silently. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears now, almost totally drowning out the sound of the chants. There was a light in the clearing. I could see four figures standing around the place where I knew the flat rock to be. Walter was right, there was someone on the stone. I could see a limp hand hanging down from the body.
“That’s not Jake,” I muttered. “That’s his wife. They must have taken her body from the house.” How could they have done that in such a short space of time? Who even knew that she was dead?
A sound pierced the air so loudly that I had no doubt every person on the island could hear it. It was a long, pained howl. Miller. The four figures around the rock seemed to break focus and stopped chanting. One of them turned to see us lurking in the trees at the edge of the clearing and when I saw the face of the man staring at me, I knew what had happened.
One of them shouted, ‘run’ and they scattered in all different directions. I saw Max as the moonlight hit his face, I recognized him from the photo that Effie had been clutching on his bed. Walter seemed to know who he was too, so ran towards him and off through the trees. Ryder moved forward into the clearing with his crossbow against his shoulder, one eye squinted shut as he tried to take aim.
I knew my target.
I followed the man that had looked at me. I ran towards him as he tunneled left, racing between branches and leaping over roots that burst through the earth like the trees were trying to pull themselves out of the ground. The man that had looked at me had been in the police car that had rolled into the gated community, after Miller called the station to report that we had found Mrs. Hall dead on her living room carpet.
He was a police officer.
I heard the crossbow fire; Ryder had shot at something. I had no idea where my guardian was, and I was now alone in an area of the woods chasing down a bad guy. Perhaps the officer realized it at the same time as me, because he stopped running and turned to face me.
I was in real trouble now. I could see a taser on his belt, his hand racing to grab hold of it as a warning to me. I stopped moving.
“It’s over,” I said, my hands up, palms facing him, trying to lower the temperature of the confrontation. “Let’s just take a second to stay calm.”
“Do you know how my girlfriend looks at me when I tell her that the band might get signed any minute? She rolls her eyes. So does my mom, so does my brother. If you are a guy in your thirties that is still trying to make it in the music business after so long, people laugh at you,” he exclaimed.
“I’m not laughing at you,” I assured him.
“I only trained to get into the police as a plan B, but music is my real passion. Max found a way to make it happen for us, you can’t understand what it’s been like,” he whimpered. I was struggling to mask my annoyance now. “I mean, I only joined the band recently. Before this I was trying to make it as a solo artist.”
I remembered that Miller mentioned something about them getting a new guitarist, but not knowing who it was. Now I knew why he wasn’t concerned when that police officer had driven to the crime scene when we found Evie Hall, he didn’t know this guy was in the band.
He clearly wanted sympathy, as if the actions that had led to the deaths of two people were justified because he wanted to ride on a private jet and win a Grammy. I could feel a tingling in my fingers, like I was getting a mild electric shock. I could swear that I saw a flash of light dash across my palm, something that the officer noticed. He looked fearful; he grabbed the taser.
I could hear the crunching of leaves as someone else was running towards our location, the eerie howl that had echoed across the island earlier seemed to bellow out from a place much closer to the clearing.
The officer fired at me, the prongs of the taser projecting out from the weapon in his hand and zooming through the air towards my chest. I saw another flash of light on my hand, like a fraction of a lightning bolt. The prongs slowed, they were still approaching me, but I was watching them coming at me now. I stepped to the side and was immediately knocked to the ground by something else.
There was a lot of shouting, something heavy hitting a tree and the sound of retreating footsteps. I couldn’t see a thing. The darkness in this part
of the woods was so total that I may as well have closed my eyes.
As I wondered what had knocked me to the ground, I felt movement. It wasn’t a ‘what’, but a ‘who’. There was a body on top of me and we were now nose to nose, the warm breath rolling over my skin like mist on the ocean.
“It’s just me,” the voice said.
17
I was being hoisted up from the ground in the dark, mysterious arms beneath me lifted me and I could sense that we were walking back down the hill. I closed my eyes for a second, trying to understand the whirlwind that had been the last few minutes.
There had been three of us and four of them. If each of us had captured someone from the band, then one would still have gotten away. We had interrupted their ritual, but if all four of them were able to reconvene then they would just try again, right?
I needed Kate and Effie to explain what might happen next. How much worse would it get? Would they keep killing people until they got famous? I still struggled to believe that winning some small-time radio contest on an island in the middle of nowhere would lead to them getting international success, but they were all clearly crazy so in their heads it must seem totally logical.
The person carrying me was cradling me close to their chest and I could feel the warmth of their body against my face. Sounds from the high street were drawing nearer, we would soon be in the light and I could see who was carrying me, I could ask them all the questions that raced through my mind. I didn’t have the energy to speak just yet perhaps using my magic had drained me.
“Is she okay?” Walter asked. I recognized his voice, he wasn’t the one holding me, but he was nearby.
“I think so, we need to get Effie and Kate. They will know what to do, maybe Greta too,” the voice explained.
I had heard a howling in the air, it had to have been Miller. Was he the one holding me now? The scent was familiar, I felt safe. The trees began to thin, and the buzz of the night life was close enough that I could hear full sentences from people leaving restaurants. I looked up at the face of my rescuer, Ryder.
“I…” I began, exhausted from the exertion of speech. He stooped to lower my feet to the ground and helped me stand, I couldn’t help but look into his eyes. I saw something there, a flash of energy like the mini-lightning bolts I had seen on my palms earlier.
He had told me in the past that he had used magic with Greta, that she had been teaching him some of the basics. I had never seen his eyes do this before. The longer he looked at me, the more bolts of electricity fired across the center of his eyes and I found myself drawn to him in a way I never had felt before.
All of the noise from the questions in my mind seemed to quieten, silenced by the proximity of his mouth to mine. We were so close. I felt the spark on my hands again, something was alive inside of me now and was reacting to him, just as he was reacting to me.
“Sadie!” Kate yelled. Ryder straightened up instantly and, just like that, our moment was over. Kate was running towards me waving her arms around like her body was on fire and I noticed Greta fading into view by her side.
“I’m fine,” I wheezed.
“Walter said you got shot!” Kate shrieked.
“But I didn’t,” I smiled. “We just… I don’t actually know what happened back there, but I don’t think this is over. Did you guys manage to catch anybody?” Walter was jogging towards us at a speed that was slower than walking, both he and Ryder shook their heads. “What do we do? They had Mrs. Hall on the rock up there.”
“Well, I have good news and bad news,” Kate grimaced. “Which do you want first?”
“Always say bad news first,” Ryder answered. “Then the good news can be a palette cleanser.”
“Okay, well the bad news is that Scott, you know Scott from the radio station?” Kate asked. I nodded. “Well he decided that the contest would be better if we did it like those big TV competitions instead of the way I had planned. That means that the listeners get to vote for the winner, and we are no longer judging it.
“Max’s band have been getting a lot of votes and they are currently in the running to take the big prize. If they win this then there could be dark consequences for all of us.”
“What sort of consequences?” I asked, nervously.
“Oh you know, destruction, flooding, disease… nothing major,” Greta mumbled.
“What do we do then? If they are going to win this thing, and we can no longer pick the winners ourselves, what do we do?” I said, standing a little taller as the energy returned to me.
“We have to go full Kelly Clarkson,” Effie announced. She had joined our gathering at the end of a side street and was holding a wooden spoon, her face locked in a scowl.
“Pardon you?” Walter said.
“When our girl Kelly was on American Idol, we were obviously, like the nation, obsessed. We found a little work-around for how many times you were allowed to call in and vote,” Kate smirked. “I’ll not go into details, but basically Eff is suggesting we call in and vote for someone else.”
“I have questions about a lot of that, but I think I have another idea,” I said. “When is the deadline for the competition?”
“Oh, well that brings me to the good news,” Kate announced. “I brought the end date forward to reduce the amount of time Max had to do sinister stuff!”
“That isn’t currently good news, Kate,” Effie sulked.
“Well I thought it would take that group of humans longer to figure out what they were doing! That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. But yeah, we have until midnight tomorrow, or tonight? I don’t know what time it is… we have around twenty-four hours anyway,” Kate said. “Surprise!” She was smiling at us in a way that suggested she wanted us to see the funny side, we didn’t.
“What’s your idea?” Ryder asked.
“I’m gonna keep my cards close to my chest, just for now,” I replied. Our eyes met again for a second and I felt extremely aware that there were people looking at us. “Give me until the morning, I will gather everyone back together at nine o’clock.”
“Make it nine thirty,” Kate protested. “My alarm clock is super fiddly, and it will take me forever to change it.”
“Kate, people could die!” Effie cried.
“Fine!”
The sisters turned to walk away, but then Effie looked back at me. “Where are you staying tonight?” she asked. I paused. Until she mentioned it, I hadn’t considered that it would be dangerous for me to go home alone after what had just happened. “That blank look on your face settles it, you’re with us tonight.”
“But—”
“No buts,” Kate laughed. “You’re being dragged into our lair for a second time, you lucky thing. Come on, we can eat cereal in our pajamas and talk about boys. Maybe that boy specifically.” She pointed at Ryder and I felt my cheeks burning. I staggered away from Ryder and into Kate’s embrace as she wrapped an arm around my waist to steady me.
“Magic used to wipe me out as a teenager,” Effie assured me. “My mom said it was all the sodas that were making me tired, but I knew. It won’t be like this forever, you’re just new to it.”
“Good to know,” I smiled. “I still can’t believe I used my magic at all, it’s like I just knew what to do. It’s so weird.”
“Yeah, this whole place is weird,” Kate smiled. She was unlocking the door to Pete’s Za, the pizza place that she worked at part time.
“Why are we going in here?” I asked.
“Do you actually think I walk to work every day?” she laughed. “No chance, I set up a portal months ago. It means I never have to get into a cab with Wes and I can set off for work, like, thirty seconds before my shift starts.”
We walked into the building and she locked the door behind us. Effie walked over to the menu that ran from floor to ceiling in a light box beside an old arcade game. She pulled at the menu and it swung out like a door, revealing a shimmering section of the wall. She stepped into the wall without hesitatio
n and I stared in disbelief.
“Yeah, it’s not a great menu because Pete put the most expensive stuff right at the bottom and no one ever looks that low down. But in terms of concealing a magic portal, it’s a ten out of ten.” Kate helped me get close to the open menu/door and I could see a toggle on the back of it. “I just pull that as I’m stepping in, it closes the door behind us.”
She lowered her arm from around me and I shuffled forward a few steps, looking back at her for reassurance that I wasn’t just going to headbutt the tiles. She nodded her head towards the portal, gesturing with her hand for me to hurry up. I took a breath and stepped into the shimmering space with my eyes closed.
“Not bad, huh?” Effie said. The chatter from the high street was gone, it was now the comfortable silence of home after the rest of the neighborhood had gone to sleep. I opened my eyes and I was standing in the living room of Kate and Effie’s house, Kate appearing behind me through a mirror hanging on the wall.
“Who want’s chocolate puff-o’s?” Kate asked as she skipped towards the kitchen.
“Just say yes,” Effie chuckled.
“Yes!” I replied, slumping down onto the sofa and feeling myself sink into the cushions.
“So, this thing with you and Ryder is getting spicy, huh?” Effie asked. “I’ve seen that little eye-energy thing y’all have going. Jeez, Miller is gonna be heartbroken. And Greta… but she’s dead so I don’t know how much time you wanna spend worrying about her un-beating heart.”
“Miller!” I shrieked, sitting up. “I need to get to him.”
“Wolf stuff?” Kate said as she handed me a bowl with a mountain of chocolate shapes in milk. “Is he in a cage or something?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Look at the time,” Kate smiled. “We are only a few hours from sunrise. We are over the darkest part of the night and the sky is cloudy now on account of you and Ryder making heart-eyes at each other.”
“What?” I asked.
“Greta taught Ryder how to do some weather-control magic. We all saw the way he was looking at you earlier, it made the sky get weird and now the moon is hidden behind clouds,” she explained. “Ryder helped Miller out, kind of. I mean, making out with you in the woods isn’t helpful for Miller obviously…”