Chapter Four
Henrietta Gosling was not good at sport. She was terrible at athletics, she was horrible at gymnastics, and she’d given up on most forms of exercise by the tender age of 15. She couldn’t run and she was so uncoordinated that she’d always trip over everything in her path, from dustbins, to dogs, to old lady’s walking frames.
Tonight it was different. Tonight she could run. She could also jump, fantastically stupidly high. As Brick sprinted before her, managing the kinds of physics-defying moves that were relegated to video games and Hong Kong action movies, she matched pace. At one point Brick jumped on top of a building. He went from standing in an alleyway, to jumping up, planting his hands onto a wall, pushing himself off, and then somehow flinging himself onto the opposite building, despite the fact it was two stories tall.
Normal human beings couldn’t jump that high. Normal human beings had knees and legs and hips and bodies that were built for modest heights, but tonight that didn't matter. Somehow she followed his move. She planted her hand into the ground, her ankles sturdy despite the fact her heels were high enough to be considered penthouse apartments, and then she forced herself into a magnificent somersault. She jumped from the ground to the top of the building, and even though she stumbled when she landed, her skirt revealing an indecent flash of underwear, she still made it.
Incredible. This was all incredible.
The sensible, reasonable part of her brain tried to tell her she must be on drugs, but the rest of her brain was very much enjoying it all.
It was a dark night, which she was extremely thankful for. She hadn’t forgotten what she was wearing, and several times she had run past people in alleyways as they shot her wide-eyed looks, their eyebrows shooting off their faces as their gazes raced down her figure and clothes.
Henrietta could be thankful for one more fact: she had a mask on. She brought her fingers up to feel it a few times, and it seemed large enough to do a good job of hiding her identity.
Her hair felt different, too. Instead of being a wild red angry clump at the base of her neck, it was smoothed up into a fabulous bun at the top of her head. It felt elegant and was held in place with several clips.
Her mask was one of those Venetian masquerade jobs, with all the fancy trimming and details. How it was staying on her face, she didn't know, as there wasn't any elastic holding it around her head. It sat there, and no matter how high she jumped or how fast she ran, it didn't fall off.
She felt like she was wearing make-up, and as she ran along, she caught sight of herself in a shop window. She almost stopped.
She looked so different.
Her eyelashes were long and shaded a deep black. Her lips were covered in a dark-red wet-look gloss. She also had eye shadow on, and it matched the color of her black mask.
Before she could stand there and stare at herself for the rest of the night, Barney’s soft bark filtered back to her.
She set off again.
Soon, Brick began to slow down, and she realized they’d run all the way to the other side of town. A trip that would have taken a good few hours on foot had taken her 10 minutes of jumping and running along the rooftops.
Incredible.
Before she could distract herself with how amazing this was, she realized where they’d stopped.
They were at the abandoned docks. She’d heard Patrick Black talk enough about this area to realize the place was infested with crime. The city had plans of tearing it down and building something far more respectable, but for now it still stood, dark and forlorn at the edge of town.
She looked at the water to her left. It was dank and impenetrable, and no doubt cold.
The shadows of the buildings around her were long and cast the area into even deeper darkness. There were no city lights out here, and the closest streetlights were kilometers away.
There was only one good thing about being in this area: there was no one around to gawk at her.
Henrietta looked up to see that Brick was now sitting on top of the building to her left. How he’d managed to get up there, she didn't know, but she was starting to realize it was magic. While Brick could jump high and run fast, he also had another trick up his sleeve: he could transport, if that was the right word. He would go from standing in one place, to standing in another place close by in the blink of an eye. Either he put on a fantastic burst of speed, or else he could travel between two points without moving through the space between.
Henrietta Gosling had never been the kind of girl to believe in magic; she liked to think her head was screwed on right.
Well tonight her head was un-screwing.
She took several steps forward, clapped her hands on her hips, and tightened her grip on her wand. “Alright, I’ve followed you here, now give me my dog back.”
Brick let his legs flop over the edge of the roof, and he kicked them back and forth. “I'm afraid you’re going to have your hands full soon. How about I keep hold of Barney, and how about you have your first fight with the witches?”
“Give me back my dog!” she roared. It was loud, it was angry, and it was unlike her.
Brick chuckled. “Those clothes are changing you, Warrior Woman; you’re beginning to embrace your natural power—” He stopped and swiveled his head to the side.
A noise echoed from the building beneath him.
At first it sounded like fingernails scratching over a blackboard, then it arced up and teetered like only a voice could. It sent a cold rush and a prickle of surprise jumping up her spine.
She blinked, snapping her head towards the sound.
“I will stay up here, Warrior Woman, and I will direct you,” Brick said, voice quick and loud, and maybe a little afraid.
The voice cut out and a vortex of wind rushed past Henrietta's cheeks.
The funnel of air was sucked into the abandoned warehouse.
Within the building, black shadows danced.
She tightened her grip on her wand, her fingers curling around until they dug into her palm.
“You will be okay, Warrior Woman, but you must be forthright. Go in to meet the enemy,” Brick suggested as he stayed up on the roof, several soft barks emanating from his jacket.
Fight the witches? It was starting to dawn on Henrietta what was happening to her. From the fantastic to the fearful, she was realizing that maybe, possibly there was a witch in that abandoned warehouse and that she was going to have to fight it.
She started to freeze up, her muscles tightening and her eyes opening as wide as they could.
The screeching scream returned again. At first it sounded like a child sobbing, then halfway through the noise twisted up, reverberating high into a keening cry.
Whatever was inside, it didn't sound normal; it didn't sound human.
A light started to filter out from the building. At first it was dim, then grew brighter and brighter. It also crackled and smelt of sulfur.
“Quick, run in before the witch can set defensive spells.” The man was usually calm and nonchalant, but now he was on the edge of his seat, his voice betraying a tight fear.
This served to heighten her own panic. She had never felt as scared as she did now.
The door to the abandoned warehouse creaked further open. She could see several fingers curl around it, long fingernails tapping against the metal with spine-tingling squeaks.
“Duck,” Brick screamed.
She fell to her knees, crumpling her arms over her head.
Something hot and fast rushed over her. She twisted to the side, flopping on her back and rolling in time to see an actual fireball whiz past and slam into the dark water beyond the dock. It sizzled, steam erupting with a hiss.
“Duck again,” Brick roared.
Henrietta threw herself to the ground, and once again a sodding great fireball zoomed past.
She whimpered and whined, clutching her fingers over her head.
“Bring out your wand, defend yourself,” Brick commanded.
?
??How?” she screamed back, her voice tight with pleading.
She could no longer deny what was happening to her. In the face of imminent death, she was starting to lose all incredulity for her circumstances, and she was gripping onto her wand, ready to use it in any way she could to defend herself.
“Write the name of the spell you want in the air with your wand,” Brick announced.
She didn't understand. She didn't have time to clarify either, as yet another fireball came whizzing towards her. This one was so close it collected the side of her jacket and seared right through the fabric, even catching the edge of her skirt on fire.
She gave a pathetic scream and tried to pat down her skirt, but soon it didn’t matter. The fire picking up along the fabric disappeared and something fantastic occurred: the fabric grew back. At one point there had been a sodding great singed black hole in her jacket, and then the thing had fixed itself.
“Stop patting your skirt and duck!” Brick roared at her.
Henrietta looked up in time to see a fireball hurtling right at her face. She stopped. Time seemed to stretch out before her. Things slowed down. She could see the crackling fire bursting over the girth of the fireball as it came towards her.
It did not reach her. It did not slam into her face, knock her off her feet, and kill her dead in a second.
No, because at that moment somebody jumped in front of her.
Brick. In the blink of an eye, he appeared before her, face turned her way, back turned to the soaring fireball. It struck him, slamming into his back and shifting him forward with a ferocious force. Brick stumbled towards her, and she brought her arms up to catch him (despite the fact he was a dirty home invader who had stolen her dog).
He rested in her arms, and she caught a full glance of his face as he ached through a wince.
As quick as he could, he pushed himself up, shook his head, straightened, and gave a cough.
“Forgive my blasphemy, but goddamn that hurt,” he spat as he stretched out his shoulders and turned his head. Though the fireball had struck him neatly on the back, his leather jacket was not damaged. It did seem to emit steam in places, but there was no hole torn through it, and there wasn't a clump of Brick's exposed and bloody flesh to be seen. In fact, apart from swearing at how much that had hurt, he appeared to be fine.
Henrietta still had her arms and hands in exactly the same position they'd been in when she'd opened them to catch Brick.
This was happening so fast.
Before she could try to shake her head and catch up to the situation, there was another terrible whooshing noise, and Brick grabbed her roughly by the arm, pushing her to the side. In a snap, he plunged his hand into his jacket, the ends of it flaring out dramatically, and he whipped out his crossbow. He aimed it towards the fingers that were still curled around the door of the abandoned warehouse, then he fired.
Something rushed forward from the crossbow, and it jolly well wasn't a bolt. It was a small spark of light, and it landed right on the half-opened door, spreading over the whole metal frame with a horrible crackling sound and with the speed of a bullet.
She watched in horror and fascination as the door gave way. In its place a wall of magical symbols and squares stood instead. The symbols were not one-dimensional; they appeared to be 3D and thick, taking up the same width as the door had.
The witch screamed, if indeed it was a witch. The creature with its claws on the door yanked them back, and while at first it gave a cry like a child's, the sound of it twisted up into the ferocious call of an animal.
It made Henrietta scamper backwards, her heels snagging against the uneven ground, sending her toppling backwards onto her butt. She landed with a thump, but didn't waste her breath on moaning out an oomph.
For all the time she'd chased after Brick, for all those fantastic jumps she had managed to pull off, she hadn't tripped once. Yet here she was stumbling backwards and falling over like a total klutz.
Brick turned to his side and looked down at her. “Get to your feet, Warrior Woman Henrietta, and stop falling over.” He leaned down to her, put his right hand on her arm, and pulled her to her feet. “If you let the fear take hold of you, you will lose your magic,” he warned, his eyes sparkling, despite the dark night.
Henrietta swallowed through a nod, then she stopped. What was she doing? What on earth did Brick mean? Magic?
All in a rush, she started to shake and shudder. She couldn't deny the situation was real; the skin along her hand was cut and singed, and Brick's back still steamed where the fireball had struck it.
“I know it is hard, but unless you act to contain that witch, she could move on to harm others.”
She couldn't ignore that, could she?
Brick reached out a hand and clutched his large palm over her fingers as she held the wand. “Write in the air the word of a spell. Whether it be fire, water, ice, blizzard, wind, tornado – any ferocious force you can think of. Write it in the air, Witch Hunter, and it will appear. You can use it to contain the witch. To fight her off, to overcome her.”
There was a steely magical quality to his voice. His words bypassed her ears and ate straight into the imaginative side of her mind. As he spoke, it was as if she could see each spell he was talking of. Fire, ice, wind – all she had to do was bring up her wand and write the words before her, then they would appear.
She looked down at the wand.
“We do not have much time; I have pushed her into the warehouse for now, but my wall spell will fail. This is a powerful witch, and it will take a full Witch Hunter to overcome her.” Brick turned, but still had his hand clutched over hers.
There was no more fighting this situation. There was no more doubting what was happening to her. All Henrietta could do was stumble forward, her heels clicking loudly against the uneven bitumen, but her grip never failing around her wand.
Brick was by her side, crossbow in hand, and when they reached the wall of magical symbols and she hesitated, he clamped a hand over her back and pushed her through.
Henrietta sucked in a breath, squealing as she stumbled through the magical symbols. In her mind, her face would singe off the second she touched them, but nothing of the sort occurred. She managed to walk right through them as if they were nothing but air. They did crackle though, and a few of them collected around her as if they were feathers and she was tar. She patted at them, shaking her arms, trying to dislodge them, Then Brick slammed into her side, wrapped a hand around her middle, and pulled her out of the way.
A shot of fire, as if propelled from a flame-thrower, blasted past her, and would have collected her if Brick hadn't moved when he had.
Henrietta didn't have time to scream, much less splutter, because at that point, Brick wrapped his hand tight around her wand. “Write something in the air, and do it now.”
So she did. As she fell to the side, Henrietta wrote fire.
It was on her mind. Considering her day, fire seemed to be about the only thing she could think of.
When she finished writing the word, the most spectacular thing occurred. A circular symbol appeared at her feet and then a fireball shot right out from it. The fire swirled around the edge of the symbol, collecting into a ball, before flying forwards right towards the witch.
Henrietta still hadn't seen the creature in full; the abandoned warehouse was dark, and all she could catch was a glimpse of two long hands with equally long fingernails. They were gaunt and painfully thin.
The fireball launched right towards them.
There was a scampering sound and someone appeared to take a quick, desperate breath. Once again it sounded like the cry of a child, but it changed into the most horrible of screams.
“Don't pause, keep writing,” Brick commanded, and then he moved his hand over hers and brought the wand up.
Ice.
It popped into her head, and the second it did, she started to write the word.
As had occurred with fire, a symbol started to appear at her fee
t, and then a great rush of crackling ice shot around it and up towards the witch.
The witch screamed again, and the ice slammed right into her, those two hands plastering to her side from the force.
Henrietta still couldn't see the creature, but she was catching glimpses of it, beyond the hands to its torso, to the ends of its unkempt, scraggly black hair. It felt so nightmarish seeing it in pieces like this, as crackles of her spells lit up the creature in spurts.
It was wearing rags, a simple skirt and top, but they were burnt and dirty. It had the hollowest eyes, dark-rimmed circles underneath them, the pupils wide, the irises pale. It was thin, ghostly thin; she could see the bones in its arms and legs, and its cheeks were high, its neck long and gaunt.
So this was a witch. Apart from the long fingernails, she could have passed for a human being, a sick, horrific-looking human being, but a person nonetheless.
Henrietta stood there, but once again Brick leaned into her. “Do not stop, Witch Hunter; you must keep fighting.”
So she did.
This time she wrote the word wall. It formed before her mind, somewhat like the ice spell had. The second she wrote it, magical blue crackling outlines of bricks shot from a symbol under her feet and appeared before her. As they did, as they formed a solid wall, the witch screamed and shot fireballs from her hands.
It was a frantic thing to watch. Horrible too and terrifying, and it made Henrietta shiver. Fire began to crack up along the witch's skin, as if she was made of stone that was breaking under heavy weight. The witch hurled her hands forward, as if they had been yanked by heavy ropes, and the fireball collected off her skin and shot towards Henrietta.
It didn't reach either her or Brick; it slammed into the wall.
“Excellent,” Brick admitted through a quick, snapping breath.
Write any spell that comes to mind, Henrietta thought to herself. Her fingers tightened around her wand.
Wind.
She wrote the word before her, her wrist twisting.
A new symbol appeared at her feet, and it was accompanied by a quick burst of air that caught the ends of her jacket and skirt. Soon a vicious wind whipped around the circle and then shot forward at her magical wall. It pushed into the bricks and they flung forward, right at the witch.
The bricks fell against the creature, and as they did, a roaring magical wind slammed into her too. The witch brought up her arms, tried to protect her face, and let out a ferocious cry.
“Don't—” Brick began.
“Stop,” Henrietta finished off his sentence. That was what he was going to say.
It also gave her an idea.
Freeze.
She wrote the word, and the most curious of symbols appeared at her feet. Something that was not wind, that was not fire, that wasn't even visible, rushed up from the symbol and spread through the room around her.
The bricks stopped tumbling and the wind stopped roaring, the tails of her jacket and skirt stopped brushing against her legs too. In fact, everything stopped. From the dust filtering through the air, to the horrific cry of the witch.
Everything froze.
Even Brick did. The only thing capable of movement was her.
She had to replace this spell with something more useful.
She had to figure out some way to end this.
She didn't want to write end. Who knew what would happen. If writing the word freeze had made everything freeze, end could destroy the entire world.
So Henrietta thought, and she thought blindingly fast.
Float.
She wrote the word, but as she did, she kind of hoped that the spell would take effect on her and not the witch. It was a fleeting thought, but as it appeared in her mind, it made Henrietta change the direction of her writing; rather than write towards the witch, she brought her hand back and wrote the word on her own chest.
It worked. A new symbol appeared at her feet, this one a vibrant turquoise color that reminded her of tropical waters. She started to float and so did Brick. The moment he did was the moment he began to move. The freeze spell had obviously worn off and been replaced. He turned his head to her, his surprise evident.
Before he could say anything, Henrietta turned to the witch. She saw that familiar red crackle of fire begin to race over the creature's skin.
Henrietta had to do something; now that they were floating in the air, the two of them were sitting ducks.
Hole.
She wrote it as the word formed in her mouth, and she said it out loud too.
Something horrible happened. A massive gaping black void opened up in the ground. Everything in the warehouse dropped away. From the old crates, to the broken and rusted 44 gallon drums, to the piles of yellow magazines and trash. They all fell through the cavernous hole that was now the ground. The hole was deep, impossibly deep, and pitch black. Where it led to, she had no idea.
Only one thing mattered. The witch. She looked down at her feet for a split second, gave a cry, and fell through the hole.
The fire along her skin extinguished and the black darkness below engulfed the witch.
Henrietta was shocked, and it was such a powerful, tactile sensation, that she crumpled her shoulders and arms in, wrapping herself into a ball as she floated above the giant, enormous hole.
“Quick, bring the floor back,” Brick snapped, “before this spell dissipates.”
She wrote floor, and soon the floor reappeared below them. Her float spell stopped with a snap, and she fell about half-a-meter down until she flopped face-first onto the floor with a thud.
Brick managed to land on his feet, and snapped up to a standing position. “Warrior Woman Henrietta,” he began, and there was a distinctly proud note to his voice. “You have vanquished your first witch,” he was almost cheering.
Henrietta lay there with her face pressing into the cold musty floor for a few more seconds. She tried to process what had happened. Magic, witches, giant holes forming over the ground....
She heard a soft barking that grew louder.
She flopped over onto her back, and then forced herself to sit up, not caring that her ridiculously short skirt showed far too much.
Barney. Her beautiful old corgi was now resting in Brick's arms, and the mutinous dog was licking the man's face.
She scampered to her feet. “You give me back my dog.”
Brick handed Barney over.
Henrietta opened her mouth, readying for a volley of whatever torrid frustration, anger, and accusations she could think of. They dried up. For the love of god, she had fought a witch.
Her mouth was open, her lips slack, her skin deathly white.
Brick looked at her, but at the same time ran his hands over his jacket smoothing it, and then fluffed up his collar until it was stiff against his neck. He brought two fingers up to his hat and tipped it at her. “Well done. You have successfully taken hold of your destiny.”
She shook her head mutely.
“You may now return home. You will need to sleep. I fancy you will also require time to... adjust.” Brick smiled widely. “I will see you tomorrow night.”
“Sorry?” her voice shook.
“To hunt more witches,” Brick said as he took several steps back. Without another word the bugger did a jump that saw him land like a cartoon character on the heavy metal rafters, swing around and then do a fantastic somersault right through the broken glass skylight above.
There was a soft pattering of feet on the roof, followed by silence.
Which left Henrietta Gosling standing in ridiculous boots, with the shortest skirt in the world and the gaudiest jacket ever, clutching her dog to her chest with one arm as she held a magic wand with the other.
Eventually she walked home, though she was damn sure to keep to the side streets, and as far away from traffic as she could.
For a good half hour after she arrived home, she sat on her bed, or walked around her room in her heels, listening to the sound of them clicking on the floor,
and watching herself in her full-length mirror.
Several times she tried to tug off her jacket or skirt, but for some reason she couldn't get them off.
It wasn't until about half past midnight that she came up with the idea to write her own name with the magic wand. When she did, a reverse transformation occurred. When she had written the words Witch Hunter with her hairpin, she had turned into exactly that. When she wrote Henrietta Gosling with her wand, there were all sorts of lights, symbols, and sparks, and she landed on her bottom in her bathrobe.
Then Henrietta Gosling went to bed. Seriously, what else could she do?