Chapter Six
Henrietta never usually left town; she wasn't one for the country. She had always been a city girl, and she got hay fever around too much grass. But here she was, jumping out of the bus, the tires still smoking, and walking her way towards the National Reserve forest that backed up onto the city.
It was still light, and would be for several hours yet, but the cicadas were already beating their wings, and there was a light breeze picking up and taking the edge off the heat.
Brick hadn't been wrong about one thing: the grass and trees were dry. Now she put her mind to it, apart from the sudden scuds of rain that drenched her on her way to work, it had been a dry summer.
“Perfect weather for a fire,” Brick shook his head, “considering the low water content of the soil,” he reached down, picked up some soil and rubbed it between his fingers, “this forest will go up like a firecracker.”
She looked at him and then shifted her gaze carefully towards the still-smoking tires. He followed her and shrugged. “Don't worry about them,” he flicked his hands towards the bus, “they will be fine.”
She nodded her head, then shook it when he turned away.
She held onto her wand tighter as she started to wonder what she was doing. This was a public forest, a public reserve. Naturally, it would be full of the public. Though Brick had managed to park somewhere far away from the usual car park, somehow taking the bus cross-country to park it on top of a hill, Henrietta knew they would run into people at some point.
She found herself clutching a hand on her skirt and trying to make it longer.
Brick watched her. “You don't want to do that. Long skirts make you trip up.” He nodded at her knowingly. “What you have there,” he pointed closely to her skirt, “is the perfect length for action.”
She clutched her hands into fists but didn't say anything.
Suddenly she turned towards the forest. She'd heard something.
It sounded like a child crying. It sent a cold wave of nausea running through her body.
“Witches,” Brick said with a powerful sniff.
Henrietta redoubled her grip on her wand.
“Warrior Woman Henrietta, it is time for work.” Brick nodded forwards, then began to walk off towards the forest edge.
Despite the fact the ground was soft and full of holes, she did not trip over in her stupendous heels. Once again, she found she was walking with great ease, elegance even, and she knew that if she wanted to, she could probably flip right over the tree nearest to her. It was an odd but kind of awesome sensation. It saw her looking at her hands in admiration.
“If you act somewhat like you did last night, this should be easy,” Brick said, his statement hardly clear.
She narrowed her eyes and turned to him, walking right over a large rock, even though any attempt to do so in those heels by a normal woman would see her fall on her back and break her legs. “What are you talking about? Why don't you tell me some real advice? Like what are the witches, and how am I meant to fight them? What spells are the best? If I write anything in the air, will it happen? Why don't I write ‘witch disappear?'”
Brick frowned at her, confused. “But you were fine last night.”
She gave an angry harrumph. “I played it by ear last night, and we barely got out of there alive. If you are meant to be my warrior monk helper, then you tell me what I have to do. I don't even know what a witch is.”
“Really?” He looked dumbfounded.
She wanted to hit him. He knew that she knew nothing about this magical world, and that before yesterday, she’d never experienced anything like this in her life.
“I thought everyone knew what witches are?” he pointed out again.
She balled up a fist and went to hit him, but the lithe and quick man ducked out of the way in a flash.
“Why would you punch me?” he asked, surprise obvious.
“You are being so bloody obtuse. If you want me to help get rid of these witches, and if you're meant to assist me in that task, then bloody well assist me. What are witches, and what kind of spells should I use to defeat them?”
The two of them kept walking through the forest, and at that moment, they found the path, but they also found something else. As Henrietta finished asking Brick what kind of spells she should use, two surprised-looking old ladies rounded the corner.
They stopped, and they stared.
Henrietta couldn't blame them, because she was dressed in ways that an old lady could never approve of. What was more, she was walking around with a man in a ridiculous leather jacket and hat, with billowing, puffy clothes.
The two old ladies stood there, exchanging glances and staring at Henrietta and Brick.
Brick didn’t stop; he nodded their way, gave them an affable smile, and waved Henrietta forward.
She was horrified. Her eyes grew larger under her mask. She wanted to clamp her hands over her face and hide behind them, because there was no way she was going to manage to hide behind the scraps of fabric she was wearing.
Brick looked at her and shrugged further along the path, the move quick. It was obvious he wanted her to hurry up.
So, cold embarrassment still wrapping around her, Henrietta turned away from the women and ran up the path.
“Oh my god,” she mumbled when she was sure they were out of earshot, “oh my god, I have ruined everything. Those two ladies saw me!”
Brick shrugged. “And?”
She looked at him, her cheeks growing hotter with every second. “They saw me in this.” She clutched a hand onto her bodice and tapped it there.
Brick looked down at the bodice, but not once did it seem as if his gaze was lecherous in any way; it was cold and pointed. “Do you have a problem with the national dress of the Witch Hunters?”
“Yes,” she said after a pointed pause. “But isn't this meant to be secret?” she added, getting to her real question. “Aren't people never meant to find out about me or the witches?” She brought up her wand and waved it around. “Or magic?”
Brick nodded. “They won't find out about the witches, and they certainly aren't meant to find out about your true identity. This is not because you require anonymity from the public. It is because the witches might find out, and if the witches find out, they will come to your house in the night and surround you in so much flame that you can't get out.”
Her hand gave a violent twitch, and she clutched it to her chest as she conjured that mental image. “Sorry?”
“But as for people finding out about magic, frankly, it's not going to happen. They will think you are a loony running around in a costume. Plus, that is where the wand comes in.”
She was ready to hit him, but she paused. “What do you mean that's where my wand comes in?”
Brick pointed to it. “You are right, Warrior Woman Henrietta – you do have the sacred task of keeping magic, the witches, and your true identity secret, but you have several powerful tools to assist you in that area. Also, you must remember that no witch would ever fight in front of an ordinary human. It is a witch's last desire to become known by humanity. They live in the shadows, and though they come out to do damage, they do so secretly. All magical races, I think you will find, enjoy their anonymity from humanity.” Brick nodded sternly as he spoke, and he had the kind of tone that suggested he was a teacher conveying his wisdom to his attentive pupil. Except the only problem was Henrietta was more gob smacked than attentive.
“I thought you said that the witch in the forest is about to set it alight? That kind of sounds like the type of behavior—” she began.
Brick brought up a hand. “You misunderstand. Witches will certainly act to destroy both lives and property, but they will do so from the shadows. They will only make themselves known to their victims, and never to the general public. They are a secretive race, and this has always made our war with them a shadow one.”
“So what do we do then?”
“Simple, we find the witch, we fight her,
you contain her, then we go home.” Brick smiled.
“What happens if someone recognizes me? What happens if someone comes across me while I'm fighting the witch? What happens if someone sees my magic? Witches may be secretive, but what happens if I make a mistake?” It was an important question considering her track record in life. She was the one who failed at everything, she was the girl who made every possible mistake, and she was certainly capable of screwing this up.
Brick took a moment to think, his eyes darting up, and his lips crumpling to the side. “Humanity is a curious race. Even if they see magic, their tendency is to rationalize it away.”
It wasn't a good answer. “You aren't answering my question,” she spat back, her costume making her a great deal stronger and more forthright than she usually was. “Am I going to get in trouble if someone sees my magic? Am I going to be dragged up in front of some kind of Witch-Hunter Council? Is my wand going to be taken away from me? Is some secret and shadowy government organization going to swoop in and kidnap me?”
Brick shrugged. “I'm not sure.”
His answer made her cheeks burn with anger. “What do you mean you're not sure? You are meant to be my helper. You’re a warrior monk, you were given the sacred task of helping me hunt the witches,” she reeled off the facts she’d learned from him last night. “So how can you not be sure? You seem to know everything about the witches and Witch Hunters, and I don't know a thing.”
He gave a cough, and it caught Henrietta's attention, because it was careful.
He didn't answer her question though, so she took a breath and got ready to steam roll on. “How many other witch hunters are there out there? How long have we been fighting the witches? Is there some kind of organization I now belong to?”
As she kept pumping out her questions, Brick looked less and less sure of himself, which was an odd and unusual expression for the warrior monk to hold.
She ground to a halt, the heels of her boots digging into the soft and dry ground. “What aren't you telling me?”
Brick cleared his throat, running his tongue along his lip as he looked up into the sky. “That there kind of haven't been Witch Hunters for a couple of hundred years,” he managed to say.
She scrunched up her nose. “What?”
He shrugged. “You are kind of on your own.” He brought his arm up and scratched at his neck uneasily.
“What do you mean I'm on my own?”
“You know last night when I told you it took me a couple of years to find you?” Brick asked through a bizarrely frozen and stiff smile.
Henrietta didn't answer.
“Well, by a couple, I meant a couple of hundred. I've been looking for you for 350 years.”
She paled.
“All of the other Witch Hunters are... to put it lightly... dead.”
“Dead?” She jerked back and crammed a hand on her stomach. Before tonight, she’d never heard of Witch Hunters. Yet the prospect she was now the only one left made her shoulders droop and her eyes widen.
Brick latched his hand onto his neck. “I was meant to find you before the last war, however, you hadn’t been born yet. We got the prophecy wrong.” He sighed heavily, and now didn't so much look awkward as grief stricken. His sadness passed quickly, but it hinted that under Brick's odd exterior was a real man.
“Prophecy?” She kept her hands clamped on her stomach, the fingers tugging against her bodice.
Brick nodded. “You were meant to be the Witch Hunter to put an end to the war.” He didn't look at her. “But considering you weren't born 350 years ago....”
She swallowed, closing her eyes and squeezing them tightly shut.
“But I finally found you.” The light returned to Brick's gaze. “And, who knows, the prophecy may now turn out to be true. You may be the witch hunter to finally end the war. Or at least we can hope you will be... because you are the last witch hunter, and when you die, well, there will be no stopping them.”
She wanted to throw up. Her saga of finding a magical hairpin and transforming into a witch hunter had taken a turn from the fabulous to the serious.
“So, to answer your question, I don't know what will happen if people see you doing magic; you are the first witch hunter to exist in modern times. Although, obviously, it would be preferable that no one ever saw you, we will have to see what happens if they do.”
She locked her teeth together and grimaced. What happened if all of those books and fantasy movies were right? What if the government came and kidnapped her and did all sorts of experiments on her?
“We must press on.” Brick sliced a hand forward. “That witch is near.”
Far in the distance, something began to cry.
It pushed a familiar flutter of fear through her stomach.
She still had a lot of questions for Brick, such as if he’d been looking for her for 350 years, why hadn’t he found the time to update his wardrobe?
Before she could point that out, she caught a whiff of acrid smoke curling through the trees.
“Drat.” Brick clicked his fingers.
She was about to pull him up on saying drat and clicking his fingers like a ‘50s cartoon character when a wind sliced through the air. It brought with it the sizzling and crackling of dry wood.
On instinct, she flattened herself onto the ground. Her face and nose pressed into the dirt, and she sucked in a chunk of dry dust. She spluttered, but she moved. A fireball whizzed over her head and slammed into the ground beside her.
Instantly the dry leaves and wood littering the forest floor burst into flame.
Henrietta had served firemen for long enough to appreciate how dangerous forest fires were. When it was summer, when it was windy, when the ground was dry, the forest behind the city could go up like a tinderbox. All it would take was a smoking cigarette for the entire place to burst into flame.
She pushed to her feet, flicking her wand forward.
Brick had dodged the fireball too, and sprung to his feet, whipping out his crossbow and pointing it at the fire. He fired, and the familiar blue spark erupted from the crossbow’s tip. It slammed into the flames, pushing them out and fanning them forward with its force. Then a symbol began to grow, and the crackling flames began to die.
“Hurry, contain the witch; I can fight the fire, but not very effectively.” Brick shunted to the left and shot at a different patch of fire that curled up the side of a tree.
She locked her knees, braced her shoulders, and twisted her head. She tried to listen to the witch, tried to figure out where it was. As she did, she snapped her wand up and wrote water.
A unique, blue, flickering symbol that reminded her of the ocean depths appeared at her feet. Water rushed and furled out of it, shooting up and around her, until it reached a zenith that equaled the height of the tallest tree. With a pop, it flopped down to the earth in a thundering splash. It soaked everything around her, including Brick, and extinguished the fire instantly.
He stood there, rivulets rushing off his hat and down his face.
She wanted to giggle, but now wasn’t the time.
She planted her hand into the ground and flipped to the side, somersaulting high over a fireball as it swooshed past her.
She landed and pulled up her wand.
Blizzard.
A rush of cold wind and snowflakes whirled from a symbol beneath her feet. They pushed her jacket and skirt up, revealing way too much underpant real estate.
The blizzard whipped up and twisted around and around her, sending the freezing snowflakes left right and center.
The snowflakes hit the burning forest ground, the flames sizzling under the onslaught, but unfortunately the wind also fanned them outwards, pushing them further into the forest.
Oh no, bad move.
Yes, the blizzard was cold and the snow was thick, but wind and fire don’t mix!
It also made visibility low. The snow was that blanketing that it was hard to see beyond a meter or two.
Stop bli
zzard.
The second she finished, the blizzard abated, errant snowflakes drifting around her until they settled on the ground by her feet.
Way to go, Witch Hunter. She'd made things much worse with her carelessly chosen spell.
She bit her lip hard and took a shifting breath.
“Don't stop, Witch Hunter; get the witch before she can set the whole place alight.”
Henrietta let his words catapult her forward.
She had no clue what she was meant to write, and as Brick had given her little guidance, her only option was to learn by trying.
How about help me? It was worth a try.
As she dashed through the trees, her heels clicking along the rock-laden ground, she tugged her wand up.
Just in time, she stopped herself. It seemed like a very open spell. It felt like an invitation to anyone and anything. She shivered as she realized the witch could take it as an invitation to help itself to Henrietta, or something equally as horrible.
But Henrietta had to do something, so she snapped up her wand again and wrote water. Once again a tidal wave rushed out, but it didn't rush far enough to extinguish every spot fire.
Plus, as the witch darted through the trees, wherever the creature ran, she set the place alight, her flaming body licking against the dry leaves and twigs. The witch kept shooting off fireballs, too, most of them zipping off course and traveling deep into the forest.
Brick was right, she had to end this. She had to stop the witch before she could hurt anyone.
So Henrietta wrote the next word she could think of.
Frost.
It was an odd spell to pin her hopes on, and as she finished writing it, she began to regret it. She didn't have the time to waste on useless spells.
As frost shot out from a symbol at her feet and covered the forest, she noticed something. Not only did it damp down the fire – it protected the forest from any more sparks.
The frost she’d conjured wasn’t ordinary. It wasn’t a light smattering of frozen water droplets over leaves and bark; it was deep and thick. It covered the ground, trees, branches, and foliage in a casing of frozen water. It was like an armor against the fire. As the sparks floated through the forest, and fireballs kept cracking her way, they no longer ate into the dry wood, but glanced off the ground, coming to rest and sizzling and steaming like a match thrown on the snow.
The witch shrieked.
Henrietta could hear it closer now; the keening cry couldn’t be more than several meters to her left.
She changed direction, her jacket flattening over her legs but never tripping her up.
Frost ball.
A whirl of frost crystals erupted around her, twisting until they balled together and shot forward.
If frost had worked so well to contain the fire, then perhaps it would work on the witch too.
Henrietta could now see the creature rushing through the forest. Like the one from last night, she had the appearance of a thin and glum young woman. She had sallow, large, round eyes. She was wearing the remnants of a summer dress, but it was just so many rags against her pale skin. She had long unkempt hair, and she wore no shoes.
As Henrietta sprung towards it, she struggled to latch hold of a plan. She couldn’t write hole again and have a void form in the forest floor. It would leave a massive section of barren land devoid of trees and life.
But how else could she get rid of that witch?
Henrietta darted to the side and wrote wall, that familiar magical wall forming in front of her just as a fireball slammed her way.
She twisted and wrote frost, a thick blanket of frost covering the forest.
As she ran and wrote, she had to admit something: the more she wrote, the more tired she became. It was like cramp or bad RSI.
Had she run out of magic? Had Brick neglected to mention that there was a limit on how many spells she could cast?
The witch suddenly stopped and whirled on the spot, her unkempt and greasy hair flying over her shoulder and slapping into her neck and face. She opened her jaw wide and let out a keening, screeching cry.
She balled her fists up, familiar cracks of red fire splintering over her skin.
Henrietta skidded to a halt, her boots snagging on the ground as a surge of fear rushed through her. Her elegance and agility fell away, and she fell over, slamming onto her butt and jarring her wrist.
Terror tore through her, ripping through her chest. It was the look in the witch's eye. It was the proximity of the creature as she loomed forward, more and more flame licking high into the air. It was the horrible promise that kept flickering in her eyes.
The wand threatened to slip through Henrietta’s grip, but she snatched it up in time.
The witch drove a fireball right towards her. Henrietta rolled, but not before the fire smashed into the ground next to her and singed her leg.
She screamed, a deep, primitive move that tore through her throat.
Her leg crackled and burnt, the skin bubbling like pig fat thrown in a pan. A shooting pain burst up into her hip and back.
She scrabbled on the ground, white-gloved fingers gouging the dirt.
The witch loomed above her.
Henrietta, heart stilled, let her head fall back as she stared at the witch.
The flame crackling over the witch’s flesh punched higher and higher, wider and wider, until Henrietta could feel it seer the unprotected flesh of her face.
Time slowed down.
This was it.
Fight or die.
She chose to fight.
Shackle.
With a shaking hand, she wrote the word as fast as her sweat-slicked fingers could manage.
Just as the witch flung her hands back, readying a fireball, chains appeared out of nowhere and wrapped around the creature's wrists, shackling her to the ground.
The witch shrieked, and Henrietta flung herself backwards, clutching a hand to her burnt leg.
Brick appeared, just as she stumbled, her leg buckling from the pain stabbing through it. He caught her, wrapped an arm around her middle, and pulled her back to her feet.
“You fly fast, Warrior Woman Henrietta; I lost track of you.” He struggled for breath. “But you are now weakened. You have cast too many spells.”
Her wrist was stiff and unmovable, her body a sweaty, burnt mess. Too true she was weakened. It was a struggle to keep her eyes open.
“But we haven't yet overcome the witch.” He took a step back from her when it was clear she could stand, and tugged his crossbow from his jacket. He aimed it right at Henrietta's stomach.
She was still shaking from fatigue and pain, but she shuddered backwards. “Brick, what are you doing?”
The witch crashed about in the background, the clinks and clangs of her chains reverberating through the forest.
“Casting a magical magnification field.” He fired. Blue sparks streamed from the crossbow and thumped into the center of her chest.
It didn’t topple her over and send her tumbling meters over the scorched ground. Instead, a mandala appeared at her feet, a rush of energy snaking into her legs and tingling all the way up to her fingertips.
“Write the word banished,” Brick bellowed.
She didn’t hesitate.
Which was unusual. She was the girl who took half an hour to decide what to eat. It always took hours to pick a movie. And last time she went shopping, she’d spent half an hour in torture over which T-shirt to buy.
None of that mattered now. She wrenched up her wand and wrote banished.
An eerie black light shot out from a dark symbol at her feet. A powerful, tingling, rushing sensation pushed through her, sending a sharp shiver dancing up her spine.
The witch screamed, the black light surging forward and encasing her.
Suddenly, she was yanked backward. Her body stretched like a soaked photo as she was pulled towards some invisible point. Her screeching grew quieter and quieter until both it and the witch disappeared.
> Henrietta slumped forward. Brick caught her. He chuckled and patted her back. “Excellent work.”
She let out a morose sigh, strands of her fringe falling in front of her face. She felt like hell.
“You did let yourself get burnt, and you almost died, but apart from that, it was alright.” Brick tried to cheer her up. “Oh, and you almost burnt the forest down with an ill-chosen blizzard spell. But honestly, apart from all that, you did well.”
Her stiff neck creaked as she looked at him. It was clear Brick had no social skills, but at least his friendly smile was genuine.
Suddenly, sirens filtered through the dense trees.
Brick turned to them. “It sounds like the Fire Service are finally here.”
Henrietta stood and surveyed the damage. The forest was most definitely on fire. It wasn't a raging inferno, and the sections covered in frost still appeared to be immune, but there were spurts of flames and bursts of smoke dotting up everywhere.
She dragged her wand up.
Brick rested his hand on her wrist and pushed down. “You do not have the magic left.”
“But I have to do something.”
“A banishment spell is the hardest spell to perform, and uses up all residual magic you have. You need to rest now. Let the Fire Service deal with this.”
“But what about your crossbow? Surely there is something you can do?” Guilt gathered in her gut as she watched the flames catch over the trees and scrub.
“I am out of bolts. And you and I must now leave. While I do not know what would happen if the humans saw us casting magic in the forest, I am sure they would pause to stare at your costume regardless of whether you were waving your wand around or not.”
Had he admitted her costume was outrageous? She was too tired to bring him up on it. She felt totally drained.
“The fire is small, and it should be easily contained. So now it is time for you and me to get on a bus and to drive like cats on speed.” Brick wrapped an arm around her middle and pushed into a run.
She collapsed against him, thankful he was there.