Witch Master Read online

  ‘What kind of joke is that?’ She said slyly, raising an eyebrow and propping herself up but making no effort to get off me as her long hair slipped free from the ponytail it was pulled into, unravelling over one side of her face.

  ‘Something about not getting distracted,’ I said, pretty satisfied with myself, and trying my best not to let the excitement get the better of me beneath my boxers.

  ‘Very funny,’ Lois replied. ‘Know what the second lesson is?’

  ‘Enlighten me.’

  The tip of the staff suddenly pushed into my field of vision, floating above my head. I tilted my head back, looking up to see Scarlett again, this time holding the staff capably in her hands, ready to strike me straight between the eyes.

  ‘Don’t get backed into a corner,’ Scarlett said, winking at me.

  ‘Having fun, are we?’ Brianna asked, her wings carrying her up the stairs. I had quickly gotten used to her blood-red appearance and unbelievable body.

  ‘Just teaching our trainee warlock a few things,’ Lois said. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Breakfast’s ready, obviously,’ she smiled. ‘Come on.’

  A few minutes later we were in the kitchen, digging into bowls of strawberries, plates of bacon rolls in between downing glasses of freshly-squeezed orange juice.

  ‘How the hell do you girls create meals like this every day?’ I asked, looking around at them.

  ‘We can’t create food with magic,’ Scarlett said. ‘That would be ridiculous. But we can use our powers to set things in motion and move things, as you’ve already seen. Takes multitasking to a whole new level.’

  ‘I’ll bet,’ I said in disbelief, looking over at Brianna was running her finger over a digital tablet propped up next to her plate. ‘What are you reading?’

  ‘I’ve been tracking a series of strange incidents across the state. People being attacked and slaughtered, mainly in forests. I think there might’ve been another one.’

  ‘And just when I thought we were getting a day off for once,’ Lois said. ‘Same as the last ones?’

  ‘Initial reports say so. Looks like it was at a pretty remote house by Westmoor Lake. Forensics from the human world are there now, which means it’ll be at least another five hours till they’re finished cleaning up. Once they’re done I’ll send you in.’

  ‘You got it,’ Lois said. She turned to me. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘… What do I think about what?’

  ‘Coming with.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Why not? It’s just a little recon, there won’t be any threats out there. Besides, you’ve already faced the devilishly terrifying threat of the hobgoblin in the attic.’

  Brianna and Scarlett laughed, both chewing back strips of bacon.

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ I smiled, nodding my head. ‘All right, it sounds like I can handle it. But Westmoor Lake? That’s… What, sixty, seventy of miles away? How are we supposed to make it there?’

  ‘Let me worry about that,’ Brianna winked over at me before returning to her tablet.

  ‘First things first,’ Lois said. ‘You need to know how to defend yourself. You and I will get a little training in once breakfast’s over.’

  ‘Oh, come on’ Scarlett said, her jaw falling open in mock-shock, ‘how come you get to play with the new guy first and not me?’

  ‘Because staying alive is the most important thing.’

  ‘And charm’s can help with that,’ Scarlett said matter-of-factly, wagging a slice of bacon at Lois before turning to me. ‘That’s my speciality.’

  ‘So you all have areas of expertise?’ I asked.

  ‘Basically. But we’ll get to that later.’

  ‘Right…’ I said. ‘Can I ask you girls something? Where did you learn all of this stuff?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that I go to college to study mechanical engineering, even if the laws of physics are slowly falling apart before my eyes considering all of the logic-defying stuff that you girls can do. So where did you girls go to learn all of these abilities?’

  ‘All three of us studied at Miss Helena’s Wicca Academy for two years in our respective arts before being grouped together. We actually didn’t know each other that well at college, and when we all turned 20 we were grouped together and stationed here. Everything in the state is our jurisdiction.’

  ‘There’s a college for witches? Jeez… But what about before that? How did you end up there?’

  ‘You already know my story,’ Brianna said casually, ‘My parents figured there was no alternative considering my appearance.’

  ‘That sounds like a much longer story than you made it seem.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not that big of a deal. There are thousands of other dimensions filled with all kinds of demons. Believe me, you don’t wanna know any of the details. Human curiosity…’

  ‘Daughter of an ancient wicca family,’ Scarlett said, putting her hand up a little. ‘It’s been in my line for generations. I was… A little wild, shall we say, when I was younger. They wanted to send me to Mistress Mildred’s college, which is where they’ve all been educated, but Miss Helena’s was much stricter, so I ended up there. Not nearly as wild as I used to be, let me tell you, but it might wake up in me again one day.’

  ‘Let’s leave the Breakfast Club confessions for later,’ Lois laughed, picking her empty plate up and snatching mine away while I my bacon roll was lifted from it. ‘If I’m gonna take you out into the field then I’m gonna need to get you trained up a little first. Get dressed – second floor corridor to the right, room at the end of the hall.’

  After throwing on the same clothes I had left in back in my room, I took a moment to examine my arms. They were still thoroughly wrapped up in rolls of bandages after the fight in the attic, but even moving them about fully didn’t seem to bring on any pain.

  What the hell… Why not?

  Using my teeth to rip at the edges, I undid the bandages and unrolled them on one arm, then the other.

  The only evidence that remained of the fight were a few small, light scratches, so miniscule that they looked as if they would fade away completely eventually.

  I headed down the hall, arriving at the room Lois had directed me to, and tried the handle – it was locked, but a second later I heard a key turning in the mechanism, and it swung open to reveal Lois herself. Her brunette hair was tied up in a tight ponytail, and she was now wearing a pair of plimsolls, purple yoga pants and a tight black vest.

  ‘Ready for your first lesson?’ She asked, raising an eyebrow as a small smirk rose at the edge of her mouth.

  ‘I thought I’d already had lessons one and two out in the hallway when you jumped me.’

  ‘Don’t be such a smart-ass.’ She spun on her heel and disappeared into the room, I following her like a donkey chasing a carrot on a stick as I struggled desperately not to stare at her almost unbelievable behind, wrapped up in tightly in her pants. ‘And stop staring at my ass while you’re at it.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘See, you’ve already flouted lesson one. If my body distracts you that easily then you’re gonna need to start working on your self-control.’

  Lois pressed a switch on the wall nearby, and the room illuminated – if I could even call it a room. A large sparring setup lay before me, ten yards on all sides, with sound-proofed walls, gymnastic mats spread out on the floor, and a set of various weapons lined up against one of the walls.

  But the only ones we would be using were the staffs.

  Lois crossed to them and took two, throwing one to me and keeping the other for herself. I barely caught it, fumbling a little and just managing to wrap my fingers around it.

  ‘Being a warlock means casting spells, and we’ll get to that, but it also means being able to use a staff for brute force if and when you need to. Let’s try out a few starter moves.’

  ‘Sneak onto a roof to get a baseball back and get inducted into a coven of witches as head wa
rlock… And where is it, anyway?’

  ‘Couldn’t find it anywhere. You’re not head anything yet,’ Lois said, moving forward in a fake jab. I jumped back, holding the staff before me defensively. She smiled in response. ‘You’re not gonna block anything moving like that,’ she continued. ‘If you jab with the flat edge in response to me striking you it’s a one in a million chance that you’ll stop me. Let’s try something else.’

  Lois and I practiced for several minutes, striking at each other in light attempts as she taught me the basic moves.

  Then, she increased the volume.

  I had picked it up quickly when she carried out a new move, dodging to the side as I attempted to jab her before, striking at me against my arm.

  ‘Ow!’ I yelled out. ‘What the hell was that for?’

  ‘A new move,’ Lois panted. ‘Stay on your toes.’

  ‘Y’know, I’ve been thinking-’

  ‘No time to think, this needs to be instinctive.’

  ‘How about we pause for a second while I ask you something?’

  ‘In the field you can’t pause-’

  Lois went to strike me again and I barely deflected her attack.

  ‘Will you cut it the fuck out?’ I asked loudly.

  ‘Definitely not,’ Lois went for another strike, but in a moment I threw my staff aside and reached out a hand, grabbing the staff in my fist in a move of pure luck and yanking on it. Lois refused to budge, clinging on, but after clasping both hands on it I pulled it from her grip and threw it aside.

  ‘What the hell is the matter with you?’ I asked with frustration. ‘I appreciate you’re giving me some montage-crash course but this is ridiculous.’

  Lois put her hands on her hips and stared back at me, trying to hold her frame but showing a flinch of weakness for the first time. Her demeanour had been prickly beyond belief compared to the other girls ever since I had met her, but a crack had shown.

  ‘Look,’ she said, panting deeply. ‘I’m sorry, I just… I know we just met and everything, and I’m the one who suggested that we induct you into our coven, but… I don’t know.’

  ‘Come on, tell me. Maybe I can help out or something.’

  Lois sighed again. ‘It’s just… I’m not used to having a guy around the house, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh…’ I said, taking a step back. ‘Well, if this is too weird for you, then…’

  ‘No, it’s not like that. Look, it’s fine. It’s not you or anything. You seem pretty decent to me, even if I’ve only known you for literally less than a day… Let’s just forget about it.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m sure. Pick up your staff.’

  I did as I was told, and we restarted. Over the next hour Lois barely broke a sweat, and somehow the same could be said for me – my new found musculature wasn’t only for show. Even if I hadn’t exactly been in bad shape before the Warlock Ritual, sparring with a staff for an hour should’ve easily taken it out of me. Hell, five minutes should have done the job.

  Now, though, as we struck back and forth at each other, combining the basic moves together and getting a little creative with the movements, I only felt the lightest of lines of moisture across my hairline, my dark hair sagging a little over my fringe as words disappeared, replaced by grunts of strength and effort for several minutes.

  We clashed again and again, our faces changing from smiles to animal-anger to pure concentration as I attempted to get a clear shot at Lois.

  ‘Come on…!’ She finally yelled through a panting breath. ‘Find a gap and strike!’

  ‘I’m a starter!’ I breathed back, swinging my staff to Lois’s side which she blocked with a quick hit. ‘How the hell… do you… Expect me to…?’

  ‘Search inside yourself and find something else.’

  I wasn’t even going to bother asking her for more information; my frustration swelled up, a deeper animal inside me roaring as I yelled out, jabbing forward with my staff.

  Lois went to knock my hit away and succeeded in doing so – but a second later I was glad that she had blocked me.

  A sudden jolt of lightning burst from the end of my staff, glowing blue like a fusion reactor. I had just enough time to see Lois’s eyes go wide. She ducked, keeping her arms held up along with the staff tightly in her grasp, the jolts of lightning flying through the air and slamming into the soundproofing material lining the walls. It fizzled to sparks quickly, but left behind burning embers that were about to set fire.

  Lois’s head snapped in the direction of the fire.

  ‘Shit.’

  She dropped her staff instantaneously, reaching into the waistband of her yoga pants and pulling out a stick of wood of all things – her wand.

  ‘Veto kalo!’

  A stream of water flew from her wand, washing over the embers and quickly putting them out.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ I asked, looking past her at the water dripping down the wall.

  ‘Basic water summoning spell.’

  ‘Yeah, I got that; I meant the freaking lightning bolt that came out of the staff.’

  ‘That was your first spell, Tom.’

  ‘How come I didn’t have to say anything?’

  ‘With all of your new energy building up it had to come out some way. Come on, you must have experienced that before? Energy and excitement building up till it becomes impossible to hold back?’

  ‘You’ve no idea,’ I laughed, pushing my fringe away from my face as Lois bent over right in front of me to pick up her staff, making no reservations about putting her behind on show.

  ‘Oh, look who can figure out thinly veiled sexual analogies in a few seconds,’ she said sarcastically, remaining bent over and looking over her shoulder at me. ‘Prop that staff up beneath your jaw and it might keep it closed when I’m around.’

  ‘Hey, you’re the one bending over like that right in front of me.’

  ‘True.’

  The door to the sparring arena suddenly opened and Lois stood up sharply. Brianna entered, standing inside the doorway with her tablet in hand.

  ‘Having fun?’ She asked with a smile, raising her eyebrows rhythmically and looking between us.

  I realised how it must have looked – the fighting had only made us break into a light sweat, but the sudden emergence of the electricity had left us both panting and looking spent.

  ‘More than you know,’ I laughed, looking Brianna up and down. ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘Do you ever wear anything other than that black lacy set of underwear?’

  ‘I have about twenty pairs of them in my room. Black on red is the most enticing color for men, did you know that?’

  ‘I do now.’

  ‘Plus, have you ever imagined what it’s like trying to get clothes that fit over a set of wings?’

  She unfolded her red wings in full span, stretching them out to either side of her enormously in the most casual of ways.

  ‘Can’t say that I have,’ I said.

  ‘She wears clothes in the field when she has to,’ Lois said, turning to Brianna. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I’ve got a location on a Marker close to Westmoor Lake. You two ready?’

  ‘Wait, now?’ I asked. ‘I thought you said five hours.’

  ‘I did, but I thought it’d take longer to find this thing. Shower up and we’ll get moving.’

  Before I even had a chance to ask what a Marker was, Lois had set her staff up against the rack and hurried towards the door. I went to put my own back, but-

  ‘Ah, ah, ahhh,’ she chimed over, wagging her finger at me as she walked backwards. ‘Don’t put that anywhere. You’re gonna need it.’

  Chapter Five

  I showered for the first time in the en-suite bathroom that was connected to my bedroom, spending a little time relaxing in the steaming darkness with the door closed. Showering in the dark had become a weird habit that I had fallen into by total accident over the years; there was
something overwhelmingly therapeutic about it that couldn’t be replicated anywhere else, myself and the heat being the only things that existed.

  As I stood beneath the water, not a single thought running through my mind beyond the total bliss of being lost to the heat of the moment, a clunk suddenly disturbed me.

  It hadn’t come from outside, though – this was too close to home.

  It had come from inside the bathroom.

  My eyes slammed open. I gripped the edge of the pane of glass, peaking around the corner and looking into the silhouetted darkness. A little light seeped through from the crack beneath the door but the light switch was on the outside.

  ‘Scarlett? Brianna? Come on, stop messing with me.’

  There was no response… Until two tiny dots of light appeared beneath the sink, as if from nowhere. I froze up the moment I realised that I was looking at a pair of eyes, and they were staring, unblinking, straight back at me.

  I scrambled for the door with the shower still running, running butt-naked into my bedroom and collapsing to the ground before crawling backwards away from the door.

  It only stood a little open, then creaked wide steadily, revealing my assailant.

  If you could call a fox with purple fur an assailant.

  ‘Christ… How the hell did you get in here?’

  I had said it as part of a cathartic instinct, not exactly expecting a response when the fox opened its mouth and said, in a soft male voice with a British accent;

  ‘Sorry about that. Been sleeping for days.’

  ‘What… Who are you?’

  ‘Amadeus Relacius III,’ the fox said, sitting back on its hind legs and raising a paw. ‘You can call me Rel.’

  I looked down at the fox’s paw confusedly before realising that it, or he, wanted me to initiate a handshake.

  ‘Sorry…’ I started. ‘It’s just…’

  ‘A talking fox? A little strange, I’m sure, although a little disappointing to say the least. I would’ve thought that the ladies would have mentioned me by now.’

  ‘No, it’s not that. Believe me, a talking fox is probably the most normal thing that’s happened to me in the last few days. It’s just… I’m naked, if you hadn’t noticed.’