by Heide Goody
She ducked again as Natasha tried another experimental blast of witchfire at the wheelchair.
“Ur, you tried that,” said Sabrina, dismissively. “It didn’t work. Wicked witches: no imagination.”
“Please, someone,” whimpered Kevin from ground level somewhere. “My leg—”
Natasha ignored him and moved round the edge of the room until she was standing over Effie. “Get out of the chair or I burn this one to a crisp.”
“Please don’t involve me,” said Effie.
“Do it,” sneered Sabrina. “The woman’s a fool.”
“She’s an innocent bystander,” said Natasha.
“Exactly,” said Effie. “Don’t mind me. Be about your business. I’ll just—”
Effie was cut off by the arrival of what she could only describe as a flying cat covered in bees. It burst out of the fireplace, loose insects blossoming in its wake. Screaming like a rollercoaster full of screech owls, it lapped the room with no care for what lay in its path.
Life was indeed like a play she had come into halfway through, and that had taught Effie one thing: don’t sit there gawping, get on with it.
As wicked witches stared or swatted at the stinging insects, Effie picked herself up and ran for the door. In the corridor outside, floorboards had been pulled up and thrust aside by an unexplained oak branch which hadn’t been there earlier. Effie paid it no heed, vaulted over the gap in the floor and ran for the stairs, where she met Dee, Jenny and Kay coming the other way.
“Oh girls! We need to leave this place, you’ve no idea how strange things have become!” She looked at the assorted gardening implements they were toting. “Or maybe you have a pretty good idea.”
“Get out of here, Effie,” said Jenny. “Run.”
“Wait!” said Dee, rummaging in her handbag for a moment. She pressed a six inch nail into Effie’s hand. “If Natasha or any of her friends come after you, use this on them.”
Effie looked stricken, but she clasped a hand around the nail and ran for the door.
“Everyone as far forwards as possible,” said Caroline, assisting a pale teenager to a seat nearer the front. “Utch up. Get cosy.”
It took Agatha three attempts to get her range on the minibus. After charring a telegraph pole and setting a hedgerow aflame, her third shot from Dee’s car found the rear of the minibus. Windows smashed and one of the back doors lost a hinge. It swung loose.
The minibus swerved but Madison kept it on the narrow strip of tarmac between the hedgerow and the dyke. The rear of the minibus was now an open target. One well-timed blast would fry them all.
“I’ll deal with this,” said Shazam who had produced a crystal ball from God knows where.
“Hardly time for fortune-telling, Cobwebs,” said Caroline.
Shazam leaned over the back of the last chair. With powerful arms that were more than the bingo wings they appeared, she lobbed the crystal ball at their pursuers. A headlight popped. Tyres screeched. For the time at least, their pursuers fell back.
Jenny, Kay and Dee approached the dining room.
“That’ll be one of my acorns,” said Dee proudly as they sidled past an oak branch growing through the massive rent in the floorboards.
The noise from within the dining room was a deafening cacophony of buzzes, roars and yells.
“I’m guessing Operation Distract ’em with Bees worked,” said Kay.
Jenny pushed the door open. It was difficult to see clearly, with the density of bees in the room. They circled the room at speed: a dense, buzzing fog. The half-dozen wicked witches in the room – and Natasha was not among them – were using their witchfire to try to clear the bees. All they managed was burning a handful with a brief electrical pop before a thousand more took their places. They couldn’t have done a better job of antagonising the bees if they had smeared themselves in honey and thrown personal insults at their queen.
An empty wheelchair sat in the centre of the demolished dining table. To one side, Sabrina crouched in a defensive position and was magicking bowls, plates and anything within range to fly at the beleaguered wicked witches.
A serving dish whizzed through the air and smashed over the head of a witch, spilling broccoli and cauliflower every way. A wicked witch attempted to retaliate but the yowling thing that was Beetlebane in a bee flight suit buzzed the woman savagely and drove her back.
The trio advanced, trying to look menacing with their unlikely weapons.
Dee called out. “Sabrina! We need to get you out of here!”
“Good!” said Sabrina. “I’m running out of crockery based missiles.”
Jenny had to duck as the last of these spun over her head. She saw movement from the corner of her eye. Kevin Carter-King was on the floor, crawling for the wheelchair. There was a dark and ragged wound on his leg.
“Kevin,” she said flatly.
“Jenny,” he croaked. “You’ve no idea how great it is to see someone normal. Can you believe all this, eh?”
Jenny was stunned. “You wretch!” she said with something between pity and contempt. “This is your doing. All yours.”
A wicked witch had managed to battle her way through the bee cloud to reach Sabrina and the rescue team. Kay jabbed savagely with her garden fork and the woman fell back as four searing holes bubbled on her thigh.
Kevin hauled himself up into the chair and began wheeling himself to the door.
“Bastard nicked a wheelchair boss,” said Jizzimus. “That’s low, that is. You should report ’im to Stephen Hawkin’ or summat.”
Kay thrust her hand up into the bee cloud and a stream of rainbow-coated bees flowed past her fingertips and towards Kevin. The swarm amassed behind the wheelchair and leant their power to his efforts. He was suddenly accelerating out of the door. There was a crunch and a crash and a whimper.
“Come on!” urged Dee. “Let’s stick together and get out of here!”
Jenny hooked her arm through Sabrina’s. The group formed a tight cluster as they made for the door. Once through, Jenny helped Sabrina past the massive hole in the floor. The wheelchair lay off to one. Kevin Carter-King lay awkwardly among the joists and timbers in the gap under the floorboards.
He reached out to Jenny. “Give a friend a hand, eh?”
Jenny shook her head and moved on.
Kay and Dee looked down at him.
“Please, Jenny,” he called.
“You ask for help? Now? How can you do something so evil, be immersed in it, and not see what you’re doing?”
“Don’t be like that. We can make it all better.”
“Of course we can, sweetness,” said Dee. With a song and a wave, she mended the hole in the floor.
Caroline called forward to Madison. “Slow at this second corner. Just for a moment.”
“What’s the plan?” said Shazam.
“Plan is a strong word,” said Caroline.
As the minibus slowed on the sharp bend, Caroline pushed herself out the rear door. She had pictured herself landing with a parachute roll but her onward momentum sent her tumbling backwards: bum, shoulder, chest.
“Undignified,” she said, picking herself up off the tarmac. But she was unhurt.
The one working tail light of the minibus trailed off in one direction. Dee’s car, Mustapha, rounded the bend in the other. The second car, further behind, was not yet visible.
Caroline flexed her wrists. She took a deep breath. “I am a bloody big tractor,” she said. “I am a bloody big tractor.” There was an impenetrable hedge to one side of her and a deep dark dyke the other. If this didn’t work it was going to be a dive into the drink for her. “I am a bloody big tractor and I’m pulling onto the road— Now!”
The car swerved to avoid a non-existent tractor. It bounced over the verge, cleared the ground entirely for an instant and, as it slid past Caroline, rolled down into the dyke. It smacked into the water upside down.
“One down,” said Caroline. She turned back to the road and the Be
ntley that was rapidly approaching. “I am a bloody big tractor,” she said. “I am a bloody big tractor and I’m pulling onto the road— Now!”
The Bentley didn’t budge.
“Now.”
The Bentley was on her, fat headlights blinding her.
“Big fucking tractor!” she screamed and prepared to dive aside.
Something barrelled out of the sky, grabbed her outstretched hand and snatched her away, still screaming.
“Damn it! Can’t hold you!” yelled Norma.
They tipped, wobbled, mostly cleared the top of the hedgerow and came down hard in a field of something that was both soft and spiky. In the dark, Caroline couldn’t tell what it was.
She sat up. Her arm was dislocated from when Norma had grabbed her. Dislocated or ripped off at the joint. It hurt too much for her to check.
There was a clap and a ball of pale fire in Norma’s hand.
“Bennu’s Something-something Light,” said Caroline, surprised how weak her voice sounded.
“Phoenix Fire,” said Norma, placing it on the ground beside Caroline. She tutted. “I blame the EU.”
“What?”
Norma lifted the flap of a ruined pocket in her tweed jacket. “They used to make things to last.” She scouted about on the floor, gathering a pile of pins, nails, charred acorns and herb bundles. She deposited them all in Caroline’s lap. “Ah-hah!”
She held aloft a woodworker’s file that had been sharpened to a wicked point. “I need to check that witch in the ditch is dead.”
“But the other car…” said Caroline.
Norma touched her hand. “You gave them a head start, Miss Black. They’ll be fine.” She stood. “You did well.”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said.”
Norma scowled at her and ran off into the night, leaving Caroline in the small circle of light.
As Jenny, Kay, Sabrina and Dee hurried along the corridor, the double doors leading to the entrance hall slammed shut in front of them.
“No,” said Natasha.
The three witches turned to see Natasha behind them.
“Dog willies!” said Jizzimus with feeling.
As Natasha moved her hands, the corridor around her cleared of bees, excluded by an invisible bubble of her making. The bees buzzed angrily, but it sounded as though they were in another room. Natasha sighed loudly.
“You girls have passed the point of being a tolerable diversion. You have caused material damage to a successful operation, and I’m afraid you will need to be disposed of. Put down, like diseased beasts.”
Natasha’s face, her beautiful face, was marked with angry red bee stings. They were blemishes on perfection. Dee – who had always favoured the ill-favoured, always loved the ugly creatures in the world, always been drawn to the lop-sided, the weak and the plain – Dee saw, by the same token, absolute beauty could be the personification of evil. Those elegant cheeks, those gentle eyes. Every bit of the woman had been paid for in the blood of innocents.
“How old are you?” said Dee.
“Four hundred and fifty seven. And I’ve dealt with more pernicious pests than you.”
A side door from the stairs flew open. A trio of hulking imps burst through, visible to all and larger than life. One, with the face of the ugliest goat in the herd, opened its extendable jaws and began slurping bees out of the air. The one Jenny recognised as Clappoxian, his severed hand now reattached, clambered up the animal trophy heads on the walls to the ceiling and leered down at them. The third imp was Malunguibus, Natasha’s imp, the saw blade stuff whirling quite merrily through and around his neck, like a hardcore Elizabethan ruff.
“I thought we blew them up,” said Dee.
“Idiot,” sneered Natasha. “You can’t kill an imp!”
“Cos we’re ’ard as fuck,” said Jizzimus proudly.
“But we can kill their owners,” said Sabrina. She reached out and summoned the overturned wheelchair to her. It knocked Natasha’s legs from under her as it slid past. Malunguibus roared as his mistress fell.
“Aw did the wickle imp’s mummy get a boo-boo?” said Jizzimus. Malunguibus whirled on him but Jizzimus was already running through the beast’s legs and away.
Dee jabbed at the goat-faced imp with her still-buzzing strimmer, slicing his beard and a chunk of his goaty chin away.
Clappoxian leapt down on the witches, his bulk smashing Kay aside. Out of fear as much as rage, Jenny opened her hands and pumped witchfire into his face. She stopped when she heard him laugh.
“Witchfire doesn’t work on imps, child!” snapped Natasha.
Natasha swung her hands out and magically whisked the witches’ legs out from under them. Jenny’s breath was knocked from her. Kay came down hard and smacked her head off the skirting board. Sabrina tripped over the wheelchair in front of her. Dee had to roll aside to avoid getting cut by her own dropped strimmer.
The goat-headed imp lunged down at Dee. She grabbed the handle of the strimmer. “Veikti!”
The flying strimmer took off, dragging Dee out of the imp’s reach. Within the length of the corridor she managed more by luck than skill to angle the strimmer up and take to the air, doubling back on herself and gaining what little height the corridor allowed.
Dee looked at the row of trophy animal heads on the wall: dead, stuffed, but still holding a glimmer of the life they once had. She gave a mind-focusing wiggle, bringing her hips and feet into the spell while her hands were occupied with steering.
The first to move was some sort of long horned antelope. It gave a startled glance around the room, then focused on the ancient witch and imps below. A fox’s head chomped its jaws a couple of times, as if getting used to the idea of moving again. Finally a tiger fixed its predatory amber eyes on the goat-imp and licked its lips.
The imp looked nervous. Dee liked that.
She had given the animal heads as much animation as was possible to something without limbs. It was largely a question of getting them to fall into the right place. The long horned antelope gave a plaintive bleat, piercing Malunguibus in the arm as it flung itself clear of the wall. A wolf burst forward with surprising energy and fixed its jaws across the shoulder of Clappoxian, growling and chewing ferociously. The tiger pivoted out of place and, jaws wide, landed mouth first on top of the goat-imp’s head. It made a sound like someone chewing a giant gobstopper – a gobstopper made of flesh and bone and which screamed like a trapped animal.
“Score one for the kitty!” yelled Jizzimus, punching the air. “Now if that tiger would just get on wiv it an’ eat the ’ead ’oncho we can get out of ’ere!”
However, Malunguibus was not fazed by the antelope attack. He wrenched the reanimated ruminant out of his arm and fed it, snout first, into his whirling neck-saw. The antelope head exploded in a burst of tanned hide and stuffing.
Clappoxian ripped the wolf’s head away – along with much of his shoulder – and flung it at Jenny. She batted it aside with open palms, giving Clappoxian time to grab her in a muscular grip and slam her to the ground. She still held the shears but her trapped elbow prevented her angling them round to use them on the imp.
Beside her, Sabrina, who had been tending to the unconscious Kay, directed a telekinetic nudge at a couple more heads – a ram and some sort of polecat-weasel-badger – and they leapt from their positions onto Malunguibus. Their effect was sadly negligible. The giant troll pounded, pulverised and shredded them in short order, before pinning Sabrina to the ground with his massive foot.
Dee yelled out, but should have been more mindful of her own safety. Malunguibus reached up with his gorilla arm and tumbled her from her strimmer with a fingertip. Dee fell into his rough claw as the strimmer, riderless, shot up against the ceiling and skittered along the coving like a fly trying to get out of the wrong side of the window.
Jenny struggled futilely under Clappoxian’s bulk. Suddenly, the shears were ripped from her hand by a powerful, unseen force. Natasha’s smile inc
reased. The shears were reversed, the metallic tips brushing Jenny’s forearm. She screamed as blisters erupted along her skin, and pain seared through her. She could hear hisses of delighted glee from Clappoxian.
Natasha cooed. “Come now Jenny, it’s just a little iron. It’s not as if you’re about to lose a finger, is it? Hmm. Perhaps you are.”
The shears opened and the maw of the vicious tool crept along Jenny’s hand, flesh sizzling in its wake. She closed her fist to protect her fingers. Natasha tutted, and Jenny could feel her fist opening, even though she fought it: fingers splaying against her will.
“Don’t you dare ’urt my guv,” yelled Jizzimus, giving up on gnawing at Clappoxian’s face. He flung himself at Natasha. Before he was halfway towards her, Natasha bunched her fist, snapped it open, and Jizzimus exploded into a hundred chunks of imp flesh with a sound no louder than a damp cloth ripping.
Norma didn’t bother looking for a gap in the hedgerow. She took the view that the plant kingdom was entirely subservient to humanity and it would not be proper to let plants think otherwise. Armed with that attitude, a parasol, a file and layers of protective tweed, she pushed through and onto the narrow road.
Dee’s car lay upturned in the dyke on the other side, sunk up to its wheel arches and steaming gently.
Water was historically regarded as a fine way to deal with witches. Water or fire. Better still both. Non-wicked witches did not have access to witchfire but a can of hairspray and a butane lighter were a fine substitute. Norma crawled a little down the bank and sprayed the car’s underside with flame. And, yes, there was enough leaked oil or petrol on the underside for the fire to take hold.
“Tried to burn me, you cow?”
Norma whirled. The witch, soaked and dripping with black silty water, rose from the dyke bank. Agatha unleashed a bolt of fire. Norma had only time enough to raise the parasol in front of her. The fireball burned the parasol cloth and pressed on with enough impact to push Norma head over heels, down the other side of the car, and into the dyke.