Magical Influence Book One (23 page)

“You don't have to look at me like that,”
he smiled, “I'm not going to eat you. I saved your life,” he nodded
down at my arm. Though he was driving, he wasn't paying any
attention to the road. Yet we hadn't run over any of the cars in
front of us, and neither had be ploughed into the ditch.

Definitely magical.

“Who are you?” I couldn't keep the note of
hesitation from wavering through my voice. I sounded like a scared,
lost, and confused child.

“You really are the worst witch in the
world, aren't you?” He chuckled to himself.

I had to make a decision here. Was
Jacob a threat, or was he just entirely irritating?

He was clearly, clearly more powerful
than I was, and right now I needed to decide whether staying in
this car with him was a good idea.

He could be taking me anywhere.
Hell, he could be taking me to
anyone
. Though he'd seemed relatively innocent
so far, what if he were working for one of my enemies, what if he'd
only wandered into my life so he could gain my trust, kidnap me,
and take me to some nefarious magical syndicate?

Maybe my indecision played
across my face, because he crumpled his brow and shook his
head
.
“Whatever you’re thinking, I can guarantee it is wrong. It's just
the residual fear from escaping your house. And maybe a little bit
of the damage left over from your wound. The slice of Necrona sword
can be deadly. You are lucky I healed you when you I
did.”

I clutched a hand onto where my
wound should have been and I left it there
. “Stop the car,” I dropped my voice
low, warning him with the only thing I had left.

“Really, is that the thanks I get? I heal
your wound, save you from a house invasion, and this is how you
react?”

“Stop the car,” I repeated, undoing my
buckle and putting my hand on the door.

“No. Do you have any idea who is after
you? If I stop this car and you get out, you will last all of about
10 seconds before you're either struck by lightning or a car
ploughs off the road and squashes you. Are you really that stupid,
Esme Sinclair?”

“Then tell me who you are and where you're
taking me. What's going on here? If you were magical from the
beginning, why didn't you tell us?”

“Did you ever ask? Or did you just assume
the pathetic little annoying agent didn't know anything about your
world?”

I wanted to slap him, I really
did. But I figured that would land me either unconscious or in
handcuffs, so I settled for clutching my hands on my lap and
looking at him severely
. “What are you after?”

He let out a frustrated
chuckle
.
“It’s not you, if that's what you’re worried about. Hell, I would
like to be as far away from you and your brand of trouble as I can
get, but I don't have that luxury. So why don’t you just sit there,
try not to get yourself injured again, and get some
rest?”

I was so close to slapping him now it
wasn't funny. Another quip like that, and I'd lean over, pluck up
the handbrake and settle my hands around his throat.

“As for where I'm taking you, it’s
somewhere safe.”

“Where?” I clutched my hands tighter and
tighter, and I hoped that if I put just a little bit more effort
into my gaze I would start to boil his blood.

“A safe house, for witches like you who
get themselves into far too much trouble than this city can handle.
I'm not sure if you appreciate this, but if you just jump out of
this car and try to fight your way through your attackers, you'll
be putting other lives at risk, infrastructure too. So it is up to
people like me to jump in when we have too,” with that he latched a
hand on his tie and straightened it.

I scoffed
. “Up to people like you? Who
the hell are you, I thought you were just a Federal
Agent?”

“Just a Federal Agent? That's more than
you. You're unemployed, so I wouldn't go round picking holes in
other people's jobs.”

“Unemployed? As of this morning I'm a
private detective,” I settled back into the chair, glowering at
him.

He sniggered
. “Yes, sorry, I forgot. You
can't even find a way to open your attic door, but soon someone's
going to employ you to track down lost objects and people. I'm sure
you'll be great at it,” he winked sarcastically.

“Are you always this rude? Is this what
you do to every witch you pick up?”

He grinned
. “I'm not picking you up. Do
you think this is a date?”

I blushed a
little
. “You
know what I meant. Is this the standard attitude you have around
other magical creatures in trouble, or do you just enjoy acting
like the playground bully around me?”

“You really don't know how to say thank
you, do you? Here I am driving you to a safe house, and the only
thing you can do is bicker. Well I'll be out of your hair soon,
Esme Sinclair, so just try to shut up until we arrive.”

I turned back to the window. My hands
were so tightly curled into fists that I felt as if my fingernails
would cut my palms.

I couldn't deny that currently
my situation seemed better off than it had in a long time. Despite
how frustrated the man made me feel, when I was in his presence,
the danger of the situation seemed dulled. And now the haunting
sense of magical terror that had filled me in my house was all but
gone. A quick glance through the window told me the clouds and sky
were still in turmoil, but I felt
... safe.

It seemed as if the worst was over.
But I didn't know whether I was prepared to accept Jacob's story in
full. Was he really taking me to a safe house? Did people like him
exist to track down and protect witches like me so our troubles
couldn't spill out and damage the city and its denizens?

“We've already sent a team in to get your
grandmother back, everything should be fine and you should be back
in that dump of a house of yours by tomorrow. You don't have to
thank me; your look of pure indignation is enough,” he sniggered to
himself again.

I turned back to
rim
. “Just
who do you work for?”

“The Federal Government,” he looked
pointedly at the badge on my lap. “You don't follow what other
people are saying, do you? Your head is too full of woolly, useless
magic.”

“I don't get it, why the act?” Though I
still wanted to slap him, I couldn't deny that my questions burned
far brighter than my frustration. Also, the more he goaded me, the
more I realized what he was doing. He was a little bit like a
troll, and everyone knows, you don't feed a troll. He could
irritate and tease me all he wanted, but if I wanted him to stop, I
had to start reigning in my reactions.

I sat a little straighter,
jutted out my chin, and patted down on my Santa Claus's jumper.
Latching a hand on my hair and straightening it, I glowered up at
him
. “Are
you going to answer, or are you going to spend the next five
minutes thinking of an appropriate insult? You might be more
powerful than I am, Jacob, but that is no reason to withhold this
information from me. I deserve to know.”

He looked back at the road for
a moment, flicked his gaze to the storm, then turned back to
me
. “It's
standard practice not to reveal ourselves to... lower magical
forms,” his lips tugged into a grin.

I was about to react. But then I
didn't. Because I was still sitting straight, my chin was still
jutting out, and my hair was still sitting just right. And all of
those little factors summed to make me all the stronger.

Influence magic. Jacob could
say what he liked, but it was the most powerful force in all the
universe, if used correctly
. “You're lying,” I replied coldly. “And you're
particularly bad at it. I don't think either my grandmother or
myself are that much weaker than you, Agent Fairweather, we’re just
different. So why don’t you cut the bullshit, and tell me the
truth?”

Was it just me, or did his gaze
flicker? Did the irritating bully falter for a second?

He cleared his throat, glanced
back at the road, and kept his eyes locked on it is if suddenly he
cared about driver safety
. “I had to see what you were capable
of.”

“What I was capable of?”

“Not you, your grandmother. I already know
what you’re capable of: not much.”

I put up my hand. It was a very
strong move. And the fact it was strong made me
stronger
.
“What do you want with my grandmother?”

“Mary Sinclair has a reputation that
proceeds her. She also has a checkered history. She has made
enemies in her lifetime, I'm sure you're aware of that.”

“You haven't answered my question. What do
you want with her?”

“I told you, we need to see what she is
capable of,” that arrogant edge of his dropped for a second, and I
got a glimpse of the man underneath. He seemed to be under a lot of
pressure, and though he appeared to take a lot of joy in teasing
me, I could tell it was all just an act.

“Why?”

“To recruit her,” he answered
plainly.

I blinked
quickly
.
“Recruit her? She is 95. Recruit her for what? I thought you said
you were a Federal Agent?”

“I am. I just don't work for the agency
you think I do.”

“Did you... did you set this up?” I
receded in my chair, my head banging up against the headrest,
Jacob’s badge tumbling off my lap and onto the floor.

“No. Of course we didn't. Trust me, that
was all you. Your grandmother's right; you undermined your life
with persistent whingeing, disinterest, and a lack of get up and
go. You can't blame this on me.”

“Are you sure?” I didn't bother to lean
down to grab his badge. I left it there, right by my shoe. “It
sounds as if you've known what would happen for a while. And
considering your abilities, it looks as if you could have stopped
it at any point. So I'm going to ask you again, did you set this
up? Did you wait until all those magical creatures assailed my
house, just to see what my grandmother would do and how powerful
she could become?”

He looked uncomfortable.

Good, because he should bloody well
look uncomfortable. From where I was standing he had baited a
95-year-old woman, put my grandmother and I at risk, and had lied
to us to top it all off.

Clearing his throat, he checked
in his rear-view mirror, though he didn't once turn back to
me
. “It's a
lot more complicated than that.”

“Of course it is, and of course you can't
tell me why, because I'm just a stupid little witch.” I turned away
from him and locked my eyes on the passenger-side
window.

“You can't begin to imagine what we do.
The threats that we turn away from the city, from the
world.”

I ignored him, and I would continue to
ignore him. I was done with Jacob Fairweather. Now that I had found
out his secret, I didn't want to have anything to do with the
man.

Again I was struck with how damn
inappropriate it had been for my grandmother to think that Jacob,
of all the possible suitors out there, would be the guy I would
ultimately settle down with.

Which reminded me of one particularly
uncomfortable fact. If Jacob had always been magical, and had
always known that my grandmother and I were witches, what exactly
had he thought when my grandmother had offered him tea? Had he
known it was a love potion, had he followed the
conversation?

“You're wrong about this,” he tried
again.

I still would not turn to him. In
fact, we spent the rest of the long car journey in silence. I
stared up at the clouds, thought about my grandmother, and hoped,
prayed that everything would turn out right.

Chapter 17

He’d taken me out of the city. Though
I'd been dying to ask where we were headed, I hadn't dared break my
silence. It wasn't until we pulled up along a country lane and
turned down a gravelly driveway that I finally shifted my head from
staring out the passenger window and glanced through the windscreen
instead.

“We’re here,” he said in a distracted,
quiet voice.

“And where is here?”

“Talking to me again, are you?”

“Listen to me,” I snapped around, undid my
belt buckle, and fixed him with possibly the most powerful gaze I
had ever mustered. “I have just been through a hell of a day. You
can continue to goad me, Agent Fairweather, but it will reflect far
more on you than it does on me. As you've already proven, you're
the powerful one here, so start acting like it. Show a little
wisdom and decency.”

With that I turned around, opened the
door, and jumped down. Though I still felt a little lightheaded, I
forced myself to stand.

Once again it had a measurable effect
on me. Not caving into my weakness made me all the more
powerful.

But what was the point?
A mutinous little
voice noted in my mind. The kind of power I could muster through
changing little facts about my life was nothing compared to what
Jacob had at his fingertips. The way he had healed my wound proved
that he had incredible magic available to him.