We planned to meet up the next day at the Wicker Stop after Michael and me finished our shifts, and then go to the library. I'd had a text from Alabaster, who I suspected was magically hungover again, to tell me that some strange woman with very long hair had been hanging around in the churchyard and had been spotted by Deacon Jones. I'd also got a message back from Rusty with some information on the family tree, the family's interest in the place, and the fact that the fae courts also had an interest in what was going on here, and I suspected these two things might be connected.
But before we could meet up and talk properly, there was a new visitor to the cafe. A woman with very long hair. I heard her ordering some ridiculous skinny latte from Michael, then actually asking if we had kale something-or-other! Like I'd allow kale in my kitchen! Michael managed to sell her on the carrot cake, since it technically contains vegetables.
Then she started hitting on him! At which point I had to go over and make my presence felt, because if I'm going to unnerve people just by being around them I may as well make use of it. I don't remember exactly what she said to me, but I think I might have told her that if she hurt him I would rip her guts out.
Damn Rusty. He always did see right through me.
After a bit of dancing round the subject while she pretended to be a writer and looking for the vicar, we finally established that her name was Elizabeth, she was in fact aware of weird bollocks, and was here for a reason. She was connected to one of the fae courts, and was looking for doppelgangers, who are a harbinger of death but not actually the cause of said death. And the reason for the doppelgangers' presence is something to do with a chosen one.
We needed a private chat. None of us were particularly keen on telling Elizabeth that Michael was the one the doppelganger had appeared as while being dead. But much as I hated to say it, having looked into her head, I was pretty sure she was telling us the truth and at least to some extent we could trust her. If not with everything, then at least to help out with the current situation.
And while we had some privacy, I had something else to tell them about Agnes. Or rather, about the multiple people called Agnes, since it's the name my family traditionally gives the girls who are meant to become the family matriarch. There was the Agnes who'd lived back in the 17th Century, who'd run away from the family for love of a witch, but had been periodically sighted since then. Then there was Aunty Agnes, who frankly I'm terrified of and who nobody wanted showing up around here. And then there was the youngest Agnes. Me.
I thought when I left home and changed my name, I'd got away from my family legacy, but it's looking increasingly like something was always calling me to Wicker Valley.
We rejoined Elizabeth, who'd actually spotted the doppelganger hanging around outside the cafe. She needed to get up close to it, so asked us to go outside to distract it. Which we did. I took the opportunity to take a look inside its head as well. Which might have been a mistake. Normally when I do that I get trains of thought almost like actual trains of words running through someone's head. With the doppelganger, there were no words, only pictures. And all of them were of Michael. Michael getting hurt. Michael getting stabbed. Michael with a red dot laser sight trained on his forehead. Over and over Michael on the point of death.
I burst into tears and threw my arms around him. Which meant that when Adam dragged us both to the ground and the shot echoed in our ears, Michael only had a slight graze rather than a hole right through his head.
Robin tried to get back into Vanessa to get his rifle, but another shot missed him by inches and took out the wing mirror instead. A wall of ice suddenly appeared between us and the shooter, and the next two shots knocked chunks off it. Elizabeth, presumably. She certainly looked like a witch. Although this wasn't really the time to be telling her to get some sunglasses and stop dressing so conspicuously.
Another shot that took out Vanessa's back windows stopped Adam getting to the van. I knew what I had to do. I watched for the flash of the rifle shot, and reached deep inside myself for the primal magic within. I awoke the tree branches around the sniper to bind him in place. It wouldn't last long, I could feel already, but it was long enough for everyone to pile into the van and take off to the junkyard.
All I wanted to do was comfort Michael. Telling him that I'd just seen him die repeatedly probably didn't help.
Back at the junkyard, Adam talked to his police contact, while I checked my messages again. More from Rusty. I'd never known him to be this helpful before. That alone told me how serious things were. He was pretty sure he could help us learn more about Agnes, but it would need all of us to meet up somewhere we felt safe.
I shared his offer with the others. Michael was understandably wary of meeting Rusty again, given how their first meeting went. All I could offer was that Rusty had promised not to kill anyone this time.
Much to my surprise, everyone was willing to go along with it. Adam even suggested that we meet him there in the junkyard, but it was pointed out that he had a ward specifically to keep things like Rusty out. We finally decided on a cafe - not the Wicker Stop, as the last thing I wanted was my workplace ending up tainted with whatever Rusty was up to, but one on the other side of town - and I sent him directions. I also texted Alabaster. If we were going to have to deal with Rusty, I wanted as many people on my side as possible.
Rusty was already there when we arrived, in a quiet booth. Of course seeing him in his human form made it clear to Michael who it was who'd been ordering jam buns in the Wicker Stop. But there was no time to worry about that. Rusty told us we needed to find Agnes' pouch of power. And he had a way for us to do that. Then he looked at me, told me he was sorry in a way I suspect nobody else could hear, and blew a cloud of powder across us all.
The next thing I knew, I was a crow, perched on a branch outside a little stone cottage out in the woods, knowing with absolute certainly that I was a witch's familiar, the witch was dead, and that my fellow familiars and I were going to have to hunt down the witch hunter and steal his eyes.
Fellow familiars. Yes. There was Adam, now a dog, and Alabaster, unsurprisingly a cat. Robin was a rat and Elizabeth was an owl. And Michael was a spider.
I felt particularly qualified for the job of eyeball removal. But I still remembered that I needed to find Agnes' pouch of power. And Rusty had sent us here to find it.
No comments:
Post a Comment