The Enchanted Writes Book One (12 page)

“Your sister called several times today and
left messages on your machine. I heard them.”

Henrietta crossed her arms.

“You have been working very hard, and I
understand that your relationship is such with your sister that if
you were not to go to this party, she would cast dire aspersions
against your name,” Brick pointed out with an even expression.

She wanted to shake her head, but the
problem was, he was right. Marcia wouldn't be casting dire
aspersions against Henrietta, so much as going on the Internet and
telling all her friends Henrietta was a dirty swine of a sister who
could not be relied on for anything. She would complain to Patrick,
she would complain to Jimmy, and no doubt Henrietta would have to
put up with a rant from everyone she met in town for the next
couple of weeks.

“I have already picked out the costume for
you,” Brick nodded.

“You have done what?” Henrietta stood up
from her chair, planting her hands on the table.

Brick stood up too, but there was no menace
in his move. He stretched his shoulders and yawned. “I have picked
out a costume that is fitting of a warrior woman.”

She scrunched up her nose. She knew what
costumes Brick thought were fitting for a warrior woman, and there
was no chance in hell that she was going to wear them to Marcia's
party. Her sister would be thrilled to see Henrietta walk through
the door in incredible boots, a tiny skirt, and a top so low you
could see everything. But it wasn't going to happen.

“I have laid it out on your bed for you.
Also, I have taken the opportunity to get an expensive bottle of
wine.” Brick reached into his jacket and brought out a bottle,
placing it on the table before him.

She looked down. “That looks really old,”
she pointed out as she glanced at the dust and the water damage on
the label.

“It is. It is a 250-year-old bottle of
Chardonnay. It is good,” he assured her.

She was horrified. “We can't take that to
the party.”

“But your sister asked for the finest bottle
of wine. And this was the best I could find at short notice,” Brick
said with his usual nonplussed attitude.

Henrietta shook her head, realizing she
couldn’t win this one. Then she marched from the kitchen into her
bedroom. She expected to see the gaudiest and most outrageous
outfit lined up on her bed, but she didn't. In fact, what she saw
was, well, quite nice.

The clothes also weren't hers. She walked
over to them, picked them up, and looked them over carefully.
“Where did you get these?” She turned to Brick as he followed her
into her bedroom.

“I acquired them,” he replied
mysteriously.

Brick often said he acquired things. But as
of yet Henrietta hadn't managed to get him to reveal where he
acquired them from. She hoped the warrior monk wasn't a warrior
monk thief, otherwise she would be getting a knock on the door from
Patrick Black any day now.

She glanced down at the clothes again. There
was a stylish black dress, cut in a familiar glamorous 60s style,
with a flared skirt and netting underneath. There was also a pair
of expensive high heels. It seemed that when it came to shoes,
Brick had a bit of a fetish. The heels were high, but thankfully
they were thick enough that it didn't look as if Henrietta would
stab holes in any lawn she walked over.

There was a simple pair of clear stockings,
too, and an ornate silver necklace with an odd stone for a pendant.
Overall, Brick's choice in clothes had been fantastic. She didn't
want to admit that, so she pressed her lips together and let the
clothes drop back to her bed.

“I guess it will do.” She scrunched her lips
as she looked at him.

Brick nodded his head low, his expression
dropping as if he was remiss. “I know, I know, you would have
preferred higher heels, frankly, so would I. However, I couldn't
find anything that matched the dress.”

He looked serious. He didn't look like he
was acting or joking. He appeared genuinely disappointed at the
fact he couldn't find the perfect set of skyscraper stiletto shoes
to match her dress.

Henrietta shook her head, turned from him,
and went back to looking at the dress and pendant.

Whenever she went to one of Marcia's
parties, she was always the cheapest looking one there. That wasn't
to say she looked skanky and that her clothes looked like
sequin-clad scraps of fabric. She perpetually looked like she
shopped from a second-hand store, and no matter what Henrietta
threw on, Marcia always pointed out how dingy it looked.

Well, if Henrietta wore the clothes Brick
had brought her... hell, she could almost outdo Marcia.

A small smile spread across Henrietta’s
lips.

She turned to Brick. “But what happens if
you hear of any witch activity while I am at the party?” It was a
pertinent question. The witches only came out at night, and
considering the Witch King was upping his ante, their activity was
supposed to become more frequent from now on. That was what Brick
had assured her, and for the last several weeks that fact had been
confirmed.

Brick tugged at the collar of his jacket,
and it almost looked as if he was trying to appear dashing. “I am
coming to the party with you. Should I hear of any witch activity,
I will tug quite firmly on your arm, and we will dash out into the
night.”

Henrietta was never sure when Brick was
joking, but she settled on offering him a wry smile anyway. “You
think you are coming to one of my sister’s parties, dressed in
that?” She looked pointedly at his jacket.

Brick looked down at his outfit, and then
looked up. “Yes, I do.”

“Listen, Brick, you don't know my
sister.”

“Marcia Gosling, 28 years old, works as a
travel agent, is known to have multiple amorous encounters and
partners at the same time,” Brick began to reel off the facts.

Henrietta snorted. Multiple amorous
encounters and partners sounded like a tidy way of describing
Marcia.

“Though she is known to overreact and
appears to possess strong self-esteem, her behavioral patterns seem
to suggest an underlying lack of confidence. It may be a
subconscious psychological reaction to the fact that her sister is
the last witch hunter,” Brick finished.

Henrietta now snorted louder. “Sorry, what?
You think that Marcia acts the way she does, because on some deep
subconscious level she always knew that I was a witch hunter, and
that she feels threatened by it?”

Brick nodded.

“Marcia doesn't suspect I'm a witch hunter!
I didn't even know I was a witch hunter until several weeks ago.
The reason Marcia acts the way she does...” she trailed off. She
had no idea what drove Marcia to do the things she did. Henrietta
often tried to figure it out, but couldn't. Perhaps Marcia lacked
empathy, perhaps she felt some deep psychological need to be with a
partner, or several, all the time.

“Trust me, Warrior Woman Henrietta, this is
the psychological evaluation handed down to me by my warrior monk
brethren.”

“Excuse me? Your warrior monk brethren? Have
they been checking up on Marcia?”

Brick nodded as he jutted his chin out. “We
warrior monks are thorough. Now that I am your witch hunter
watcher, and I am destined to help you in your sacred duty, it
would be remiss of me not to find out as much about your life as I
can. And considering the overbearing psychological power you give
to Marcia, it is important that I assist you in your future
interactions with her.”

She took in a deep, spluttering breath. “She
doesn't have....” she was about to protest that Marcia did not have
unwarranted psychological power over her, but it was a lie. Of all
the people out there, Henrietta was most scared of her sister. Even
the prospect of the Witch King didn't freak her out as much as
going to the party did.

Brick waited, brought his hands in front of
him, locked them together, and nodded at the clothes on the bed.
“It is time to get dressed. The party is in half an hour, and we
must make our way across town. And as you will not be dressed as a
witch hunter, I fear that we will have to use public
transport.”

Though basic common sense told her not to
put on the dress and go to the party with Brick, she found herself
getting dressed.

After she did, she paused to look at herself
in the mirror.

For the first time in her life, Henrietta
Gosling almost looked... what was the word, attractive? She didn't
look as if she was a child wearing adult clothes, and neither did
she look as if she was the kind of girl who paid no attention to
her appearance. She looked perfect. The dress fit snugly, and the
heels made her legs look great. Okay, she didn't look as fantastic
as she did when she was dressed as a witch hunter, but it was a
different effect anyway.

Henrietta couldn't help but smile.

She had chased Brick out of the room so she
could dress, but eventually he found his way back in.

She turned to him. The blighter had used his
magic to transport from one side of the door to the other. Now he
had his arms crossed and was leaning back against the wall, looking
at her. He wasn't checking her out; he was appraising her with a
careful eye.

“You must do something with your hair, it
does not match your heels.”

It was always about the shoes with Brick.
She was starting to wonder whether the leather-clad warrior monk
loved shoes a little too much.

She turned back to her reflection and stared
glumly at her hair. Brick was right. Short of the fantastic things
that magic did to her red gnarled locks, Henrietta would never be
able to make her hair look anything other than freaky.

“Hand me your brush, and hand me your
hairpin.”

She looked at Brick, her lips pulling
themselves open. “Excuse me?”

“I will manage your hair.” He walked across
the room to her, grabbed the brush off her dresser, and then nodded
at her hairpin.

She snorted at him. “You are a warrior monk,
not a hairdresser.”

“I have my barber license,” he said as he
tugged at her hair and began to brush it before she could get
away.

“What the hell is a barber license? That
isn't a thing.” She tried to pull away, but he had a firm hold of
her hair, and was now brushing it vigorously.

He was quick too. Before she could muscle
free, Brick took a step back, clapped his hands together, and
gestured to the mirror. “Now you match your shoes.”

She cast her eyes over him, and hoped her
expression revealed to him how crazy he was. Then she looked in the
mirror.

She stopped.

She looked fantastic. Her hair looked...
great. It was smooth, it was shiny, it was no longer unruly. And
the red color looked far more alluring than usual.

Somehow, despite the fact Brick had used no
product and he hadn't used a hair-dryer, he had managed to curl her
hair into perfect tassels, leaving several strands of fringe
collecting around her neck, and pulling the rest into a beautiful
bun at the base of her neck. Then he had secured it in place with
the hairpin.

She stared at herself in wonder. She had
never looked this good in her life.

“We must now leave. I believe my warrior
monk brethren have pointed out on several occasions that your
sister... now, what is the correct word?” Brick paused while he
tried to think. “Ah, yes, can go ballistic. Your sister will go
ballistic if you are late. And we already have too much to deal
with in this town without adding a ballistic woman to the mix.”

She chuckled into her hand, but as she did
she kept glancing at her reflection in the mirror.

Wow. Just wow.

Henrietta and Brick made it to the party,
and somehow, even considering how thick the traffic had been, they
were not late. Before she wandered up her sister’s garden path, she
paused and tugged Brick to the side.

There was something she had to deal with
before she let that man anywhere near her sister. It was the same
thing Henrietta had to deal with when any man was about to meet her
sister for the first time.

Brick looked at her, and there was even a
flicker of interest and intrigue in his eye. “Do you sense the
forces of the witches nearby?”

Though his voice was quiet, she told him to
shut up. People were arriving all around them, and the last thing
she needed was for the local policeman to overhear her having a
farcical conversation with Brick about magic and witches.

“Do not worry, Warrior Woman Henrietta; if
anyone overhears us, they will merely assume we are mad,” Brick
said earnestly.

She wanted to hit him. She always wanted to
hit him, but she held herself back. “Brick, if you go in there, you
need to be prepared.” It was like she was briefing a soldier before
they went into combat, and hell, maybe it was exactly like that.
The second Brick walked through that door and Marcia laid her eyes
on him, was the second Brick would become prey.

Brick brought his hands up and tugged on his
collar. “I am prepared.” He even reached into his jacket
surreptitiously and pulled out the bottle of wine, nodding at her,
eyes vibrant as if to suggest he was more than capable of this
mission.

“Brick, my sister... well, look, she is
incredibly attractive.”

Brick, in usual fashion, looked nonplussed.
“Her appearance has been described to me by my warrior monk
brethren. She is tall, 5 foot 8 to be exact. She has long, flowing
blond hair, large blue eyes, thick eyelashes, a round and
pronounced bust tapering down to a narrow waist, and long slender
legs.” As Brick spoke, he didn't start gawking or get a look on his
face that suggested he wanted to run in and see Marcia for himself
immediately. He looked like a schoolboy reeling off facts and
waiting patiently for his teacher to reward him.