But Ferrets Can Never Hurt Me

by Nhys Glover

  “I may not have laid a finger on him, but it was my doing. Squib isn’t wrong about that. And don’t whitewash my life in your mind, Princess. I told you, I’m not a good man.” He sounded defeated and tired. I hated to see him that way.

  “Did... Did Johnno ask when you were coming back?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Every feckin’ time I call. I give him the same answer each time, though: I’ll be back when I’m back. But that won’t hold him forever. He needs me too much.”

  I would have expected to hear pride when he said the last part. Everyone liked to feel needed, didn’t they? But being indispensable seemed to only make him feel trapped. Or that’s how it sounded. Maybe I was reading more into it than there was, because I wanted it to be true.

  “Does this change anything? Knowing about Arthur Watkins?”

  Jake gritted his teeth. “It changes everything!”

  My heart dropped to my feet. I’d expected that answer, but I hated to hear it. At ten years old he’d arranged for the death of his mother’s murderer to get vengeance. What would he do about the person who murdered his father and coerced his mother into prostitution, now he was a dangerous man? Far worse. I knew it would be far worse.

  “If they go after the dragon they might all end up dead,” I said to try to ease the tension in the man I loved.

  “If that happens, all well an’ good. If it doesn’t... I’ll be there. And I’ll cause as much pain as any fire-breathing dragon, I promise you that!” he growled.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Jake, wake up!” Squib yelled.

  The man wrapped so comfortingly around me jerked awake, taking me with him. Bounding out of bed, Jake looked around for the ghost. He was naked, but I didn’t even notice, beyond remembering why he was naked in my bed.

  “What?!” he snarled, searching for the voice we’d both heard.

  “That fancy-nancy prof’s in the library,” Squib said, standing way too close.

  If Jake moved the wrong way he’d short-circuit the ghost, and we were long past doing that to him.

  “Mason is here?” I cried, suddenly processing what Squib had said.

  I was far slower than Jake, who was already pulling on jeans and heading for the door. I grabbed up my dressing gown and followed. If Squib caught a glimpse of my naked body, I didn’t care. Mason Smart, or Jordan Whatever, was in my house. In my library, probably trying to steal my books!

  How had he gotten in? I was aware of barking, high and fierce. Rex? Oh, no, Rex wasn’t trying to attack the intruder was he? What if this Rex ended up being kicked to death like his namesake?

  No, Mason wouldn’t do that. I’d seen the way he’d reacted to the news about Rex.

  But if he was facing sharp teeth, he’d fight back, wouldn’t he?

  The thoughts whirled around and around in my head as I rushed down the stairs after Jake and Squib. As we got closer to the library the barking got louder and more frightening. He was only a pup but he was a big pup. And a protective one, as we’d already discovered.

  Jake burst into the library with me on his heels. We found Mason backed into a corner between the bookshelves and occasional table. Rex was barking madly at him as Percy wrapped himself around one leg, biting into the man’s ankle. While Mason was kicking his leg, trying to dislodge the cat, Fred was attempting to tangle himself around his other leg. Was he trying to bite his ankle to or just make him lose his balance? Only Mason’s outstretched arms kept him from doing the latter it seemed.

  For a moment both Jake and I just stared at the scene. It was too funny for words. Daphne was giggling quietly off to one side, her hand over her mouth, as if she knew she shouldn’t be finding an intruder funny.

  But it was. Mason’s expression was classic. Eyes as wide as ping-pong balls, he was jumping around, while trying to cram himself even tighter into the corner to avoid the fearsome half-grown pup.

  “Enough,” I called, adopting the tone I used when I wanted my pets to know I was serious.

  Fred and Percy paused to look my way. Rex did the same. The blessed silence was a balm to my sore ears. That dog was loud! If Squib hadn’t woken us, I was sure the barking would have.

  I moved past Jake to grab the scruff of Rex’s neck, pulling him away a little, while petting him and telling him what a good boy he was. The smaller furry protectors followed along, leaving Mason alone in his corner.

  Righting his clothes, the intruder attempted to regain his poise. He failed abysmally, because his ping-pong ball eyes kept bouncing between the dog and Jake. There was no way he didn’t know he was still in heaps of trouble.

  “I... I came to warn you,” he stammered, then cleared his throat.

  “By breaking into my home and coming into the library, when we were so obviously in bed upstairs?” I said, miffed that he’d even considered trying to use such a see-through excuse.

  Jake continued to watch him like the predator he was, every muscle pumped and ready for action. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t tear you limb from limb for what you did to Alfie!”

  Hearing the threat in his new master’s voice, Rex began barking again, and I had to grab him around the neck to keep him from going on the attack once more.

  “They’ve found the dragon and they’re going after it tonight. I... I decided to leave them to it. Those people are insane. If I’d known, when I signed up for the gig, I would never have done it. No amount of money is worth getting involved in murder.”

  “You’re right about that,” Jake grated out, still ready to attack at any moment. “So, what, you came here to steal from Alfie?”

  In a whiney voice Mason began. “I need a lot of money to get away from Watkins. The only way I can do that is by selling the Book of Shadows. On the black market it’s worth a fortune. If I didn’t need to disappear I would never have—”

  “Stop. No excuses. Tell me where the dragon is, and what they plan to do with it,” Jake continued.

  Considering the low volume of his voice, it amazed me how the sound cut through Mason’s pathetic yammering like a hot knife through butter.

  “Morgan’s Hill. They have this gadget that measures changes in the energy fields. Because the creature is invisible to the naked eye, they’ve been using the device to sweep the area for it. Early this evening it was finally located on the top of Morgan’s Hill. They plan to come at it from the north, draw it to them using a spell that’s not in the book you have. A spell they got from somewhere else. I don’t know where. Then they plan to bind it to their will, again using another spell.”

  “They never needed our Book of Shadows?” I spoke up.

  Mason looked my way and shook his head. “No. Finding that was a real surprise to everyone. They were glad of the spells to add to their collection, but they didn’t need them for their purposes.”

  “They’re there now? That’s why you came at, what, midnight? Because they were busy elsewhere?” I asked, remembering the digital readout on my bedside table when I jumped out of bed.

  Mason swallowed and nodded.

  “Alfie, start ringing around to all the coven members while I teach this intruder a lesson or two.”

  Mason’s eyes widened in fear. I wasn’t sure I was happy to have Jake beat him up. He deserved it. God, I’d wanted to kill him myself for conning me. But now we had him, I didn’t want that. Let the police take care of him.

  “There’s no time. Tie him up for later,” I suggested.

  But as I spoke, Mason came out swinging. From the way he moved, it was clear he was no amateur.

  Jake dodged the first blow easily enough, but the second caught his jaw. That was all it took. Jake went on the offensive, driving his fists into his opponent’s body like pistons, one after the other, over and over. All Mason could do was try to block the blows as best he could. It was a bloody pummelling, and I could see why Jake had gained the reputation he had in the cage.

  Turning away, I dragged the dog with me out of the room. I couldn’t stop th
e fight. Maybe I didn’t want to. Mason had started it, so any sense that it wasn’t fair had evaporated. My only hope was that Jake wouldn’t hurt him too badly. The police could charge him, if he did.

  I raced out to the landline. My first call was to Jason.

  It surprised me how alert he sounded when he picked up on the first ring, until he told me he’d been waiting for my call. He’d also already alerted the others and all they were waiting for was a destination. I gave it to him in astonishment. He quickly worked out where we should all meet. If the Watkins Clan were coming in from the north side of Morgan Hill, then we would come in from the south. There was a large parking bay for walkers there.

  By the time I’d ended the call, the thumps, gasps and cries had stopped. I re-entered the library to find Mason on the floor in a bloody heap. But he was still breathing, if the gasps coming from him were any indication.

  “Is he badly hurt?” I asked Jake, who seemed barely winded by the fight.

  “Nah. A few cracked ribs and a bruised spleen. He’ll be pissing blood for a few days but nought else. I know what I’m doin’. Maximum pain, minimum long-term damage.”

  “Huh, wish I’d known that,” Squib piped up, still looking buzzed from the fight. He’d been in Jake’s corner from the start, egging him on without saying a word.

  Jake grinned, his teeth bloody. “Now why would I’ve told you that? Fear is as effective as pain in my business. And if I really took a body part, how would you ever pay Johnno back? Gimps don’t make a lot of cash.”

  I grimaced at the slang term I didn’t like, but I agreed with the sentiment. I assumed it applied to the cage as well. Take an opponent down, cause plenty of blood and pain to appease the audience but cause as little permanent damage as possible. The police would close them down fast if dead bodies started popping up after each fight.

  “Do we have anything to tie him up with?” Jake asked, dragging his opponent to his feet.

  Mason’s head drooped low and every movement was obviously painful.

  “How about the dog and cat leads?” I suggested.

  “Good enough. I’ll tie him to a kitchen chair and leave Rex and his mates to guard him. They were doin’ a fair job o’ that before I stepped in.”

  I laughed a little, hearing the slightly hysterical edge to it.

  “How did you get in?” I asked the barely conscious con-artist.

  “Dog flap.”

  I grunted. He would have had to contort himself like a pretzel to make it through that flap. Rex used to have trouble with it. But if you were desperate, I suppose you’d try anything. Mason wasn’t to know we had a new watch-dog. Although the fact he got all the way into the library before the hue and cry started up said something about how exhausted the poor pup was.

  While Jake tied Mason up, I rushed upstairs to dress. Daphne followed me, so buzzed I thought she was about to jump out of her non-existent skin.

  “I wish I could go too. It’s not fair that Squib gets to go and I don’t.” Her complaints reminded me of a child’s.

  “You get to help the animals guard Mason,” I got out, wrestling with the difficult catch on my bra.

  Jake arrived in time to expertly do it up for me. I didn’t like that he was so good with women’s clothing.

  Daphne had a devilish look in her eye. “Can I practice on him while you’re gone?”

  “Practice?”

  “Yes. Scaring him with my poltergeist skills. I’m getting very good.”

  “Aye, why not?” Jake put in, slipping on his boots.

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” I objected.

  Daphne might get a little carried away. She’d been helpless for so long, she might take her new-found ability to interact with the physical world a little too far. In my mind, I saw a frying pan, held by invisible hands, colliding with his head. After the first thunk, she’d find she enjoyed it so much she’d do it again. And again.

  But I didn’t have the time or energy to argue.

  In a few more minutes we were ready to go. What we were going to do when we got there was a whole different question for which I had no answers. But we were going to see the action, just a Jason had predicted we would.

  We raced out to the garage and were soon on the bike headed for the moors on the far side of town. I noticed there was no police car on duty at our place, so Jason must have found a way to get rid of it for the night. Having his foreknowledge and his position with the police force were definite advantages.

  Morgan’s Hill was not really a hill at all, more like a small mountain, but it was just one of the many odd names for places here in the Dales we all took for granted. Like Wiggleswick. It had nothing to do with people wiggling, as I’d thought when I was a girl. It came from the Old English Wincel, which meant child, and wick which meant dairy farm. So, the original town was likely Child’s dairy farm. Not nearly as much fun as imagining a town full of wiggling people.

  I directed Jake easily enough, and we were soon in a large parking bay regularly used by walkers. They’d leave their cars for the day and begin their trek across the moors from there. The view from the hilltop was said to be magnificent. Not that I’d ever seen it. Maybe I would tonight.

  In the early hours of the morning there wouldn’t be any walkers around, but how many of the cars I saw belonged to Watkins and his men? Oh, wait, they’d use the parking bay on the far side of the hill if they were coming in from the north.

  Before Jake turned off his bike I’d already spotted the Mitchells and Jason. Once the loud machine fell silent, the kids dashed over to us and began talking a mile-a-minute.

  “They’re approaching from the other side of the hill, Jason says. In a group. Following a gadget they have. We’re going to go up from here and surround both the dragon and the Watkins Clan. Jason said we could try to capture it first, but he doesn’t think that will work. Tonight is about balance, he says, whatever that means.” Danielle prattled on, Bryce interrupting her every few words until we got the gist. By then Jason had walked up to join our small group.

  “Am I any use to you? After all, I don’t own the land anymore as far as natural law is concerned,” I said to the policeman come Gifted Seer.

  I nodded at the people clustered around us. Most of the faces I recognised, though I couldn’t put names to those faces. They looked such ordinary folk. It was hard to believe any of them were Wiccan or Druids and practiced the Old Ways.

  “You’re still living on the property, and therefore still have possession of it. No piece of paper trumps that,” Jason explained, his tone terse.

  I guessed that whatever we were about to do was going against his training as a police officer. Vigilantism was not condoned by Her Majesty’s Police Force. Yet his allegiance to the Old Ways was greater, especially as he knew no weapon belonging to the force would take down an invisible fire-breathing dragon.

  “Because you’re the power source, you need to stay well back, out of it all, until we need you,” Jason went on. “I’d have told you to stay home, but your destiny is here with us.”

  Jake growled, I assumed because Jason was using the destiny card. Though he was now reluctantly accepting of the idea that his fate had led him to us, given all the impossible coincidences, Jake was a far cry from being a believer in destiny and the Old Ways.

  “I’m on the front lines with you,” Jake told his cousin, his tone brooking no argument. “The young’uns should stay back as well. If there’s a fight, they’ll be hurt.”

  Jason agreed readily enough, even as Bryce and Danielle began to whinge about needing to see justice done.

  “You can see it all from a distance. Jake’s right, this will get dangerous,” Jason told them sternly.

  Knowing there was no arguing with either man, the Mitchells fell silent.

  “We start our containment chant only when it becomes apparent Watkins and his people are failing,” Jason told the group, clearly finishing up the plan he’d been explaining before we arrived.r />
  “How will we know that?” A man at the back of the group asked.

  “There’ll be fire and screaming. Believe me, you’ll know.”

  With that ominous prediction, people went into action. Even the Mitchells seemed satisfied with this expected outcome. Revenge or Justice, to them it was all the same.

  While Jake looked back at me uncertainly, I nodded and urged him on ahead with the others, to take up his place beside Jason. A quick headcount told me we had more than the requisite thirteen, so I was happy to lag behind until I was needed. If I was needed.

  For the next hour we climbed the dark moor. Luckily, it had been a hot day, and the left-over heat stored in the stones around us assured a warm night. Although I was certain our emotional overload and the exercise would have kept us warm, even if it had been cold.

  No one carried lights. We were moving by the light of the nearly full moon. If the Watkins Clan saw any of us, it wouldn’t be because of stray torch beams on the dark moorside.

  Though I wanted to ease the tension by chatting, I knew without being told that we were to remain silent. Sounds travelled a long way out here. And though I expected the droning chants of the Watkins’ spell would drown out any extraneous voices, it wasn’t worth the risk.

  I tripped. At first I thought it was over a rock. But when I looked down I realised one of laces on my hiking boots had come loose. I crouched to tie it up again and motioned the kids on ahead of me with my hand.

  What occurred next seemed to happen in slow motion. Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a shadow moving. Before I could turn to properly see what it was, I was grabbed from behind. A filthy calloused hand clamped over my mouth, stopping me from making a sound. I was dragged backwards, down the hill.

  Sure I was still following, the kids climbed on ahead, unaware of what was happening to me. I struggled and fought, but it was useless. The man who had me was a giant. Even if I’d had the wherewithal to use the skills Jake had tried to teach me, panic sent them all flying.