Loved Up

by A. A. Albright

  Ronnie looked up at him, shaking her head. ‘Sorry. I was in another world. What did you say again? Something about her heart?’

  I broke away from the group, my own heart feeling like it was about to explode with pain. Agatha. One of the loveliest witches I’d ever met. Strong. Hardworking. The kind of person who saw what was wrong and tried to fix it. As I stumbled along the corridor, about to go out and get some fresh air, Finn caught up with me.

  ‘You okay?’ he asked.

  ‘No. Something’s not right. I’m going to run those tests again myself. I know my way around Ronnie’s lab.’

  His hand went to my shoulder, and he gently stopped me in my tracks. ‘That’s important, and you need to do that for sure. But first of all, I think you and the rest of your coven need to sit down and talk.’

  I opened my mouth to reply, but he put a finger on my lips. ‘I’m not taking no for an answer Wanda.’

  ≈

  It took cajoling, bribing, a little bit of physical force (and in Ronnie’s case dragging her from Arthur’s front garden, were she’d gone after the morgue), but eventually Finn had us all sitting around the kitchen table at Wayfarers’ Rest. For some reason he’d removed all of my weapons and gadgets when we arrived. I would have asked him why, but Max was smiling at me, and I got a bit lost in his eyes.

  ‘You all know what this is,’ Finn pointed to the small disempowerment device on his belt. ‘I’ve already programmed it and switched it on, so as of right now, I’m the only one in this room with power. Basically, you’re all stuck here until I’ve figured this out.’

  ‘Why did you drag me here, though?’ Ronnie moaned. ‘Arthur wasn’t really going to go through with the restraining order.’

  ‘He should,’ Melissa said. ‘You’re acting bat-poop crazy, Ronnie. You’re the main reason why Finn has had to stage this intervention.’

  Finn lifted a brow. ‘Remind me where you were when I tracked you down five minutes ago?’

  Melissa looked at her fingernails. She’d had them painted bright red, with love hearts on each. ‘There’s nothing wrong with my being on Max’s bed. I was just ... smelling his sheets. I needed something nice to smell after being in a morgue.’

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ I said. ‘You can’t even be bothered to think of something that makes you sound a little less crazy?’ I held my hands up. ‘Finn was definitely right to bring all of you here. We have to get this sorted, and soon.’

  My mother began passing around mugs and pouring tea. ‘Thank goodness I’m not affected. But it’ll all be over soon enough.’

  ‘You?’ Finn spluttered. ‘Not affected. So how come you weren’t the slightest bit excited when you were announced as the new commissioner? How come you’ve either missed or been late for every meeting we’ve scheduled recently? Beatrice – you, Christine, Ronnie, Melissa and Wanda are all affected. And possibly Max too, although I’m not a hundred percent sure about him.’

  I stood up. ‘Me?! And Max?! What are you on, Finn? Listen, I agree that we need this meeting, but I will not have you belittle me and Max’s relationship. It’s the most important thing in the world to me.’

  My father and mother looked at each other in shock, while Christine and Ronnie clapped their hands to their mouths.

  ‘You and Max?’ Christine’s green eyes gawped from me to Max and back again. ‘But you’re always saying you’re just platonic. And what about Gabriel?’

  ‘I’m telling him tonight,’ I said.

  ‘Come again?’ Finn spun me in my chair to face him. ‘I thought we agreed we were going to play it safe with Gabriel until we knew for sure about his dad.’

  Melissa stood up and walked over to Max, grabbing his hand. ‘Wanda’s only telling Gabriel because she’s desperate to keep Max from me. She knows she’s on borrowed time. Any day now, Max is going to realise that I’m the better choice.’

  Okay, here’s the part where I have to apologise ahead of time. If you’ve only known me for a while, you might mistakenly think that this is typical Wanda behaviour. If you’ve stuck with me through my previous adventures, though, you’ll realise it’s not. Either way, I’m sorry. Violence is never the answer, folks. But just then, it kinda seemed like the best idea.

  I growled (I wish I could find a better word for the sound I made, but it was an all-out animalistic growl, no matter how much I might want to forget it) and lunged across the table, pushing Melissa away from Max and wrapping my arms around him. Melissa took but a split second to straighten her hair, fix her blouse, and come right back at me.

  We were about three seconds into our brawl when Ronnie made a run for the back door, with Christine on her heels.

  ‘Hey!’ Finn bellowed. ‘No one leaves this house!’

  ‘But I just want to see Kevin for a minute,’ said Christine sweetly, giving Finn the kind of smile that would have melted a lesser man.

  He stood in the way of the door, but she and Ronnie turned quickly, rushing to the front door instead.

  ‘Enough!’ We all snapped our heads to the sound of my father’s voice. He was standing up, shaking, and looking close to exhaustion.

  The room fell into an uncomfortable silence.

  ‘Finn is right. You all know it. You’ve already tested for love potions. You wouldn’t have agreed to that if you didn’t suspect something was wrong with you all.’

  Ronnie rolled her eyes. ‘Yeah, Aengus, but we didn’t find anything. Which means we’re all fine. Duh.’

  My father pulled at his auburn hair. ‘You’re not fine. Not a single one of you. Agatha is dead. A member of this very coven. A woman who you’ve all known for too long to count. And instead of grieving, you’re all running around, fighting with each other. Is that your idea of fine?’

  I got up off the floor and brushed myself off. ‘Sorry, Dad. I don’t know what’s wrong with everyone. But Finn isn’t right about everything. Whatever this is, it has nothing to do with me and Max. We really are totally loved up.’

  He looked like he didn’t know whether to scream at me or laugh. ‘Wanda ... as much as I wish you were with someone as nice as Max, you and him are not loved up. You’re drugged up, just like everyone else.’

  ‘You really don’t like Gabriel, do you?’ Finn asked my father curiously.

  He cleared his throat. ‘Well ... maybe it’s a hangover from how I feel about Gabriel senior.’

  ‘Yeah, but you never really explained why you don’t like him, either,’ Finn pressed.

  My father sat back down, sipping at his tea and looking like he wished he’d never stood up in the first place. ‘Here’s the thing ... we were friends. Good friends. For years. And whenever I was hanging about with him, I felt like he was my best friend. Like there was nowhere else I’d rather be. But when I was alone, I’d start to recall all of these things he’d said that irritated me. And then ...’ My father shuddered. ‘Then there was Clive.’

  My mother placed her hand over his. ‘Clive was your dad’s familiar,’ she explained. ‘He was a cocker spaniel, a gorgeous fella, always helping your dad find the right tool he needed – because even when we were at school he was tinkering about with brooms. Anyway ... Clive disappeared one day when we were all up at Godbody House. We searched for days, used a million locator spells ... eventually Gabriel senior turned up here with Clive. Dead. Said he must have been attacked by a fox or something in the woods.’

  ‘But then why didn’t your locator spell work?’ Finn wondered.

  ‘Exactly.’ My dad’s eyes were brimming with tears.

  ‘But why didn’t any of you tell me this when I started going out with Gabe?’

  Christine shook her head. ‘Gabe’s nothing like his dad. Gabe is great. And you’re always saying yourself how wonderful he is.’

  ‘Yeah. And he’s gorgeous,’ Melissa added.

  ‘And famous,’ Ronnie put in. ‘And stinking rich. And an amazing sportsman and ... need I go on?’

  I looked at Max, and knew that we were thinking ex
actly the same thing. Maybe Gabriel was just like his dad. When I was with him, I fell in like all over again, no matter how irritated I might have been with him before. I fingered the necklace around my neck. As the cinnamon scent that covered everything Gabriel owned wafted up to my nostrils, a sick feeling rose in my belly.

  ‘We’ve tested ourselves,’ I said, pacing the room with my hands clasped behind me. ‘And nothing came up. But I know that most of you have been spiked.’

  Finn’s irritating eyebrow twitching began all over again.

  ‘Fine – I’m willing to consider that I may have been spiked, too,’ I conceded. ‘But it’s incredibly unusual for this many people to get dosed with a love potion at the same time. So it had to be something everyone ate or drank, right?’

  Ronnie nodded. ‘I guess. But that’s not much of a help. We eat together all the time.’

  ‘You do,’ said Finn. ‘But if you can narrow down when you all got affected, that’ll be a good place to start. When did you all start feeling odd?’

  Ronnie glared at him. ‘I don’t feel odd. None of us do.’

  Finn sighed. ‘Fine. Let’s pretend that’s true so I can get on with this and get home. Beatrice and Christine have both been in their relationships for some time. It’s going to be difficult for them to pinpoint when it became more intense. But maybe Aengus can give us an idea?’

  My father’s face reddened. ‘Things between me and Bea have always been intense. But I guess I’ve been noticing changes for a few days now. No matter how close me and Bea are, she doesn’t usually let it get in the way of work.’

  ‘And Ronnie?’ questioned Finn. ‘How long have you and Arthur been an item?’

  Ronnie swilled her tea around in her cup. ‘Well, I dragged him under the mistletoe last Solstice, but nothing happened again for a while. Things only started up properly at Imbolc.’

  ‘Imbolc!’ I said excitedly. ‘That was when Melissa got all funny when Max was outside. That was the first I ever heard from Agatha about this museum curator guy, too.’

  ‘Yeah, but it was Imbolc,’ Christine argued. ‘All witches feel amorous at Imbolc. It’s in our DNA.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘But on the same night someone’s been murdered? Nancy Berry was killed that night, and apart from a little bit of scrying when we got back from the tavern, we didn’t act nearly as concerned as normally would. We all just drank wine and thought amorous thoughts. That is not like us. I remember that night. That was when I started to get funny feelings about Max.’

  ‘And me about you too,’ he admitted. ‘But ... I mean, we are perfect for each other. It could just be a coincidence that we realised we were in love the same night everything else went down.’

  I was about to agree with him when Finn’s eyebrows started up again.

  ‘Max,’ Finn said, ‘what did you have that the others had? I doubt it was anything at Three Witches Brew, or even more people would be as nuts as all of you.’

  Max shrugged. ‘I mean, I took a sneaky slug of some of that wine Gabe left for Wanda. I was planning on going to break up with Emily, so I needed Dutch courage.’

  ‘Wine?’ I wrinkled my nose. ‘Gabriel didn’t leave me wine. I found choccies and flowers that he’d magicked into my room as an Imbolc gift. No wine.’

  ‘There was wine, too,’ Max said. ‘The Château Toff de Toff. I was looking for Wolfie, and I went in your room. A vase of flowers had spilled all over the wine, and I was wiping the bottle off when I thought, what the hell?’ He shot a guilty look in my direction. ‘You know how I feel about Gabriel. The thought of you and him drinking it and laughing together made me a bit annoyed. I mean, I don’t get it. Why are you still seeing him? He was a total twat to you at Winter Solstice, shouting at you, trying to force you to let him in on the investigation you were doing at the time. He’s not a good guy, Wanda. I don’t care what everyone else thinks. I trust my gut, and until him, you used to too. You didn’t like him on sight. Neither of us did. So ... why?’

  I swallowed, tears spilling from my eyes. ‘I don’t know, Max. I keep telling myself I need to break up with him. I keep thinking of all the crappy things he’s said or done. But then once I’m around him, it’s like I get overwhelmed by my feelings. I should have dumped him months ago. I’m so sorry.’

  Max looked away from me. All of a sudden, things felt far too real. I knew that, even without my new feelings for Max, I really should have broken up with Gabriel long ago. And I knew that it was exactly what Max wanted – and deserved – all along. For me to put him first, no matter whether we were a couple or not. I cared more about him than I did about Gabriel. I always had. And it was killing me that I hadn’t put an end to things before now.

  ‘Anyway, I only took a couple of glugs,’ Max went on. ‘I left most of the bottle down here on the table with the rest of the wine that was laid out. I was going to leave an apology note, but then I started to change and ...’

  Ronnie slapped her hand against her thigh. ‘And that’s exactly what we all drank. The Château Toff de Toff. Agatha brought so much wine with her that night. Gifts from well-wishers for the upcoming election. We all assumed it was one of hers, but it must have been from Gabriel.’ Her eyes filled with the shock of realisation. ‘Wanda, your boyfriend might have tried to use a love potion on you.’

  They all turned to stare at me. The sick feeling I had a little while ago was taking me over. It was no longer a suspicion. It was fact. I thought back to my time with Gabriel. The gifts he was constantly giving me. The drinks he poured and the food he prepared. The way he smelled. ‘Um ... the thing is,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure that the Château Toff de Toff was his only attempt. I’m starting to believe he might have been dosing me for a long time now.’

  Finn looked at me, his eyes wide. ‘Well then we need to find Gabriel. First off, so he can tell us the bloody antidote before anyone else goes the same way as Agatha. Second off, so we can arrest his creepy, girlfriend-drugging behind!’

  We all stood up, full of resolve.

  And that was when the lights went out, and something hard cracked me over the back of my head.

  23. Godbodys and Monsters

  My eyes began to sting, and I realised that I was in a brightly lit room. Scratch that. I was under a light, sitting on a hard, wooden chair, my wrists and ankles shackled. I shielded my eyes, doing my best to look around. The light was shining on me only, while the rest of the place was in darkness. It was a kitchen, old and messy, with the remains of a recent meal on one of the countertops. There was one of those ancient refrigerators, an old wood-fired stove, and ... I squinted. A microwave?

  ‘She’s awake,’ a voice I recognised called out. The speaker came into view, and I blinked. It was the gorgeous vampire who’d been visiting Johnny Goode in jail, except that she had Horse Face’s voice – she even had Horse Face’s thick bracelet on her wrist. Cogs began to uncomfortably squeeze themselves into place.

  Lindsey Berry was Loretta Banks. But what was she, exactly – a vampire or a witch?

  She smiled at me, her fangs elongating. ‘Watch this,’ she said, waving a hand over her face. ‘Glamour on.’

  In front of my eyes she became Lindsey Berry, replete with the long face and skinny body.

  ‘Glamour off,’ she said, waving a hand again, returning to her vampire form.

  I swallowed. Even Gretel couldn’t do a glamour as quickly as that.

  ‘I’m good, amn’t I?’ said Lindsey, or Loretta, or whoever she was. ‘But then, as the love of my life is constantly telling me, there’s no other woman quite as talented as me.’

  I rubbed my eyes as Gabriel appeared, snaking his arm around her waist and kissing her cheek. ‘Don’t get me started on which of your talents I love the best,’ he said. ‘We don’t want to make poor Wanda feel like a gooseberry, now do we?’ He looked at me and grinned, fangs lengthening and retracting in the blink of an eye.

  Oh dear. Those cogs in my mind were turning again. Their lurching speed was
making me feel a bit ill, to be honest. Gabriel was some sort of vampire, too? Well, I guess I should have seen that one coming. He was a member of the Dark Team all along. And seeing as a kitchen this creepy could only belong in Gabriel senior’s ugly old mansion, that meant I’d been right about his father, too.

  ‘Aw, isn’t she adorable?’ Lindsey said. ‘Everyone keeps saying how clever she is, but she never did see what was staring her in the face. I mean, you’d think she might have picked up on the fact that you and me are madly in love.’

  Gabriel grinned and said, ‘Yeah, well, she knows now.’ He pulled her in for a kiss. A noisy, slurping kiss that I couldn’t bear to look at. Every part of me hurt, but nothing more than my heart. And I didn’t think it was devastation over Gabriel’s betrayal. I’d never liked him enough for that. In truth, I’d never liked him at all.

  The hammering in my chest did not feel good, though, and I had to wonder how long it would be before I followed Agatha to the afterlife.

  I pulled at the cuffs. Witch irons, I could feel it. Why did I always wind up disempowered at the most inconvenient of times? I glanced around while I pulled, but most of the room was in darkness. If I was here, did that mean everyone else was too? What about Max? My family? Wolfie, Dizzy and Bowie?

  A screen suddenly appeared, in front of a dirty looking above-sink window. Gabriel finally ripped his lips away from Lindsey’s. He pressed a button, and the screen began to show footage of the Godbody dining room.

  I hated that room with a passion. I had endured painful dinners there, while Gabriel and his father stuffed themselves and threw bones to invisible animals. Invisible animals that I’d always meant to ask about but never had. Why was that? What exactly had Gabriel been doing to me all this time?

  I peered at my loved ones on the screen, each one posed around the table as though waiting for their meal to arrive. Their familiars were in their laps, dozing as though they hadn’t a care in the world. Dizzy was there too, slumped in the middle of the table. Bowie was in my father’s arms, and Wolfie was sleeping at his feet. But where was Max?