Wytchcraft: A Matilda Kavanagh Novel

by Shauna Granger

  “That’s an interesting little trick,” Jackson said. “So, Matilda Kavanagh, witch for hire, is it?” He paused and actually smiled at me, as if he expected me to answer him.

  “Why are you asking if you already know the answer?” I asked, crossing my arms.

  “Just making pleasantries.”

  “What did you do with Joey?” Ronnie asked, coming up behind me.

  “Joey? Oh, the pixie girl?” Jackson smiled again, showing teeth this time, reminding me of a Were showing his fangs. “Afraid she got away. Let us hope she’s not stupid enough to do anything to upset me, I mean, since I have her friends here.” He motioned to both of us.

  “Do what you gotta do, man,” Ronnie said, stepping forward and almost touching the bars. “We’re not going to do your bidding, got me?”

  “Oh, I think you will,” Jackson said, his voice dropping low. He lowered his chin, his gaze boring into me as he shifted his attention away from Ronnie. “I think you will.”

  He came to the door of our cage and pulled out a key to unlock it. The door swung in and he took a step, keeping his eyes on me so that when his hand shot out and grabbed Ronnie by the hair, she wasn’t expecting it. She screamed as he yanked her around by her braids. She lost her footing and fell to her knees, but Jackson kept his arm firm so that her hair pulled painfully against her scalp, and she struggled to get back to her feet.

  I rushed forward, hands out, wanting to help her, but Jackson stopped me, “Tut, tut, I wouldn’t do that.” Jackson pulled the handgun out of his pocket with his free hand and held it up to Ronnie’s head. I nearly fell in my effort to stop, holding my hands up in surrender.

  “Okay, just take it easy,” I said, keeping my eyes on Jackson once Ronnie managed to get her feet under her and she was standing again, taking the weight off of her hair. Jackson pressed the barrel of the gun to Ronnie’s temple when he pulled her against his body, like a human shield.

  “I don’t think I really need to explain how this works, do I?” he asked, tilting his head to the side.

  “I do what you say or else you kill my friend,” I said, rolling my eyes at him. “Got it, thanks. What the fuck do you want?”

  “Pretty simple really,” Jackson said as he walked backward, taking Ronnie with him. “You’re going to brew a potion for me.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “What kind of potion?” I asked, knowing there were hundreds of potions that were illegal and could get me burned at the stake just for brewing them, let alone letting anyone use them. But Jackson ignored me for the moment. He turned the gun on me and told Ronnie to go sit in a nearby chair.

  “If you try anything, I’ll blow her head off,” he said, and Ronnie rushed to do as he said, holding on to the armrests as if afraid the chair would eject her of its own free will and he’d pull the trigger.

  He came back into the cage to grab the door and shut it. I could hear the locking mechanism engage without him actually locking it. How disappointing. He turned back, set the gun on the dresser, and started to tie Ronnie to the chair with zip ties at her wrists and ankles. I could see the plastic strips biting into her wrists so tight that she’d risk cutting herself if she struggled too much. Ronnie and I stared at each other, struggling silently to figure out what the hell we were going to do.

  “What kind of potion?” I asked again, biting off each word.

  “A love potion,” Jackson said with a bright smile. “I understand those are your specialty, right? Should be as easy as pie for you!”

  “I don’t bake,” I said, making Jackson laugh.

  “So I just need you to tell me what ingredients you need, and we’ll get started.”

  “Who is the spell for?”

  “Does that matter?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  Jackson came toward the cage again and stared at me. His brows drew together as he stared at me, deciding whether or not to answer me. How quickly he went from laughing and joking to somber and considering made me worried. I figured I was just dealing with a power hungry human, but if he was actually a psychopath, I was going to have to tread carefully. I didn’t want to get Ronnie killed just because I was trying to stall.

  “Look, I need to know who it is because there are a lot of factors that go into the type of love potion I choose,” I said. “If it’s someone you know and they already have the propensity to love you, I won’t need something so strong. If it’s a total stranger, then that’s a whole different batch of ingredients. But if it’s someone you know, but they don’t like you, well, that’s a little more complicated.”

  Ronnie tilted her head to look around Jackson, trying to catch my eye. She knew very well that I only ever brewed one kind of love potion, the kind that caused affection and would wear off in time if the couple didn’t have true feelings for one another. But right now I needed to buy time to get our butts out of here. If Jackson knew anything about love potions, he’d be doing this for himself.

  “And, while we’re at it, why are you having me do this for you?”

  “Because you’re a witch,” Jackson answered, though it sounded like a knee-jerk response, not that he actually wanted to tell me.

  “I get that,” I said, waving a hand. “But you’ve caught two fairies, a cloud of pixies, and all these others. A love potion should be no big deal for you.”

  “I’m a human,” Jackson said, and for the first time, I heard remorse in his voice. “Spells aren’t very easy for me, and I’ve already had a few accidents with potions. So far the only ones that have worked for me are blood magic and I’m sick of it.”

  “I see,” I said. That cold and clammy hand was back around the base of my spine. Humans dabbling in blood magic was a scary thing. People died trying to get them right and they often ended up resorting to sacrifices and demon summonings. Too many misguided teenagers went missing once their pacts were up and the demons came to collect their new pets.

  “I’ve tried to use these.” Jackson moved over to the fairy girl’s cage and kicked it. She whimpered, half-surprised and half-terrified, as she huddled in on herself. My nails cut into my palms with the need to claw his eyes out and get him away from the young fairy. “But apparently you can’t wish for true love.” He frowned at the fairy, bringing his face close to the bars of her cage, wrapping his hands around the bars. I watched as his knuckles mottled, running red to white and back again.

  “That’s not how wishes work,” Jackson said in a high-pitch voice, mimicking something said to him before I arrived. “And this one…” he said. Shoving away from the fairy girl’s cage, he turned and gripped a cloth covering another cage. He ripped the cloth off with a flourish and my stomach lurched, making me stumble when I saw the dead body inside. “This one died too damn fast.” The dozens of will-o-wisps darted for the cage, covering the still form with their glowing light. I had to look away as they became brighter and brighter. At least they were leaving the rest of us alone for now.

  “How many wishes did you ask for?” I demanded, shifting my eyes from the dead fairy to Roane and back again. Roane was still curled up on the floor of his cage, and the horror of how close I’d come to arriving too late settled in the back of my mind.

  “What?” Jackson asked, finally pulling his eyes away from the body. His upper lip was curled in a sneer, and he tossed the cloth back over the cage. He did so without looking, not really caring so that the cloth didn’t cover the cage completely and I could still see one gray foot.

  “You can’t do this to fairies!” I yelled, my panic finally bubbling over. “They aren’t a bottomless pit, for fucksake! You have to let them recharge their magic, let them go back into the Shide. If you make them use their magic over and over again without replenishing their power, they die.”

  “Thanks,” Jackson said, picking a piece of lint off of the front panel of his pants. “I figured that out.”

  “Then why does he look like that?” I demanded, pointing at Roane.


  “I can’t very well send him home, now can I?” Jackson arched one brow at me, tucking his hands in his pockets as he faced me again. He was a man at his ease, discussing the weather or last night’s reality TV shows. “But a witch doesn’t need to replenish her powers, do you? You can brew potion after potion, create as many charms as I want. Can’t you?” His lips spread into a slow smile, and I saw a new light glinting in his beady eyes. I could almost see it in his eyes, the image of him swimming through an ocean of gold, dead bodies strewn about, cast out of his way.

  “Fine,” I sighed, realizing there was no reasoning with this man. If he’d already started using blood magic, I was afraid what else he would be willing to do and I really didn’t want to see Ronnie’s blood and grey matter decorating the walls. “Who is it for?”

  “My ex-wife,” Jackson said. Somewhere inside of me, I think I expected to hear him say that. I could see Bernadette unconscious on the concrete floor, her pretty, sandy colored hair tangled under her head and the red and blue bruise blossoming on her face. Yeah, this guy sure was a romantic at heart, I could tell.

  “That’s going to be difficult,” I said.

  “Why?” Jackson’s eyes flashed, and for a moment, his upper lip quivered in a sneer.

  “Why did you guys get divorced?”

  “That is none of your business,” Jackson said. It would have been less scary if he had screamed the words at me, but the way he said it in that low hiss, I couldn’t stop myself from taking a step back, away from him. Even with the bars separating us, in that moment, he scared me.

  “All right,” I said, holding my hands up to ward him off. “All I meant is that scorned love or a broken heart is harder to spell for. Can you at least tell me if you left her or she left you?”

  Jackson continued to glare at me, his nostrils flaring as he tried to control his breathing, but finally he said, “She left me.” Those were the angriest three words I had ever heard and I was scared for Bernadette then.

  “Very well,” I said, not at all surprised. “Then I’ll need cherry brandy, honey, orange rind, cumin, and mistletoe berries.” Ronnie looked at me again, but I refused to meet her eye, staring at Jackson, silently planning his death.

  Chapter 19

  “Mattie, what are you doing? You’re going to kill that woman.” Ronnie was practically bouncing in her chair, making her ties bite into her arms as she struggled to reach me in the cage. Two wisps had drifted out of the cage of the dead fairy to float around her.

  Jackson had brought me everything I’d asked for, including a copper pot and a camp stove for me to stir the spell. I’d thought better of the list I’d given him and added a few items, just in case he tried to do some research before he came back and found out the deadly properties of mistletoe.

  But to my great relief, he’d come back with a box full of supplies and ingredients, placing them inside the cage without a word.

  “Ronnie,” I whispered back to her as I crushed the mistletoe berries with the flat of my knife before chopping them, “shut up.”

  “Just tell me what you’re doing.”

  “I don’t want him to hear me,” I hissed back at her, trying to keep my voice as low as possible. “And if you don’t stop, he’ll hear you and kill us both.”

  “But Mattie, you’re making a poison,” she hissed back at me, leaning forward as if she could get closer to me.

  “I know that, but he doesn’t.”

  “How are you going to let him give that woman poison?”

  “For the love of toads, Ronnie, of course that’s not what I’m doing.” I threw my hands up in the air, sending specks of the poisonous berries flying. “Will you just trust me?”

  “It doesn’t matter what you do,” a rough, low voice spoke, drawing our attention away from the argument. I blinked when Roane rolled to his side and pushed up to sit. He turned his dull eyes on me, the corners of his mouth drooping and his once shining, raven black hair hanging lank and oily around his face.

  I noticed a burn mark on his cheek that, even in this dim light, looked red and angry against his pale skin. He pushed the panels of hair out of his face, tucking them behind his pointed ears as he coughed violently. Doubling over, he held on to his stomach as he rode the cough, quieting only after a light splatter of blood colored his lips.

  “Roane,” I said, realizing I’d moved to the edge of my cage and had come dangerously close to the bars. After Jackson had left to get my supplies, I’d tried to break out again, only to be electrocuted and thrown back on my ass again. Ronnie was the one who saw the wires running out of the top of the cage, the source of the electricity. Clearly Jackson didn’t have faith in the charms and enchantments he’d managed thus far.

  “Are you okay?” Ronnie asked Roane, though it seemed obvious that he wasn’t.

  “Just peachy,” he said, grinding his teeth.

  “I’ve come to get you out of here,” I said and realized almost immediately how stupid that sounded coming from someone held in an electrified cage.

  Roane laughed; it was a strained noise, punctuated with gasps of pain. “Rescue me, huh? And who is going to rescue you?”

  “Never mind that,” I said, shaking my head. “We’re all getting out of here. Your parents sent me.”

  “Seriously?” Roane asked, lifting his head when I finally got his attention. “You’re the cavalry my parents sent? One inept witch and her bungling sidekick?”

  “Gee, Mattie, please work faster. I can’t wait to save him,” Ronnie said in a monotone, turning to look away from the prince. I couldn’t blame her; Roane was turning out to be as charming as his parents.

  I turned back to my potion, giving the black liquid a stir with the wooden spoon. I never, ever used wooden utensils when I brewed. They were so often contaminated since wood could absorb anything it was submerged in and no amount of soapy water ever really got them clean. But since I was brewing a potion for our kidnapper, I wasn’t really worried about using contaminated tools. The worse, the better if you asked me.

  “So you’re gonna try to poison the psycho, huh?” Roane asked and laughed at me. My shoulders inched up around my ears, and I gripped the spoon hard enough to make it squeak in my hand.

  “Oh,” Ronnie said and I glanced at her to see her eyes wide with sudden understanding.

  “Won’t work you know,” Roane said. “The guy is crazy, but he isn’t stupid. You’d think you would’ve figured that out since he’s caught so many of us. But whatever, you think you’re so smart. But when you try to slip him that, he’s just gonna kill your friend there.”

  “Shut up,” I said into the pot, stirring a little too fast, making some of the black liquid slosh out and splash on my work surface. The plastic table top sizzled as the poison ate through, burning a nickel sized hole in the plastic. Roane scoffed behind me and I had to still my hands, reining in the desire to fling some of the black goop at him. But if I maimed him, I didn’t think the Dunhallows would come through with the other half of my payment. If I actually got out of this mess, that is.

  “Just ignore him,” Ronnie said to me.

  “Your majesty,” the little fairy girl cut in, and I couldn’t help but look at her. There were tears in her eyes and her tiny pointy chin quivered. “They’re just trying to help.”

  “I know that, Tommie,” Roane said with a sigh. “I just don’t see the point in getting our hopes up anymore.” A tear spilled out of Tommie’s eye, adding to the red tracks on her round cheeks.

  “Hope is always important,” she whispered. A wisp drifted out of the cage and bobbed its way to her, settling in the air just before her chest. I wanted to wrap her up in a warm blanket and hug her tight and wipe her tears away. I glanced over my shoulder at Roane and saw that he had the good grace to look embarrassed.

  “From the mouths of babes,” I whispered and turned back to the boiling potion. I dug through the box of useless supplies until I found the bottles in the bottom and grabbed two, one large and one sma
ll.

  I filled the small bottle, using a glass eye-dropper, relieved when the potion didn’t eat through the glass. Holding the vial at eye level, I whispered, “Inficio infeci infectum.” The vial grew almost too hot in my hand to hold as the spell activated, waiting to be used. I corked the vial; now that it was properly activated, it wouldn’t eat through inanimate objects. I tucked the small vial into my bra, hoping Jackson wouldn’t think to search me a second time.

  I had just managed to whisper the incantation over the second, larger bottle when Jackson entered the room, throwing the door open so that it slammed against the wall, startling us all. I have never been so grateful to already have a potion corked than I was in that moment. Jackson stood in the doorway, looking around at all of us. His gaze lingered on the now conscious Roane before he turned his attention to Ronnie, his eyes dropping to her wrists.

  I realized there was blood on her arms, around her ties. In her earlier excited state, she’d cut her arms on the hard plastic zip ties.

  “Trying to get out, are we?” Jackson asked, moving over to Ronnie.

  “No,” she shook her head vigorously. “You just pulled them too tight is all.”

  “I don’t think so,” Jackson said, and he pulled his fist back and let it fly, striking Ronnie on the cheek. I thought I heard something crack under her cry of pain, but he hit her so hard that her chair tipped and, after a moment where Ronnie hung suspended in the air, she crashed to the ground.

  “You dirty bridge dweller,” I screamed, rushing for the door of my cage, grabbing at the bars before I could stop myself. The electric currents shot through my body, shaking me, stealing my voice and setting every nerve ending on fire. The shock of power sent me flying before I could pry my hands off the bars, and I knew, if I was still alive in the morning, my ass was going to be seriously bruised.