The Enchanted Writes Book One (16 page)

The man smiled even harder, bringing his
hands up to clap. The hollow sound of it echoed around the
docks.

“Warrior Woman, get out of here,” Brick
pleaded with her again.

“Brick, who is that?”

“Allow me to introduce myself.” The man
folded his arm in front of himself and bowed. He raised his head
while he was still in the bowed position, always keen to keep his
gaze locked on hers.

Henrietta's throat was dry, and the muscles
of her face were tense, forcing her eyes wide and her lips
apart.

“I am Theodore Francis Hellier the Third,”
the man bowed again.

She'd already scrambled to her feet, and she
held hold of her wand and pushed it in front of her, getting ready
to write.

The man smiled harder, but it was not a
reassuring move. “I welcome your magic, young witch hunter.”

“What are you?” As soon as the words shook
out of her throat, she came up with her own answer.

It was obvious the man was a witch, and so
far the only male witches she had heard of were the King
Witches.

Brick had told her over and over again how
powerful they were, and how Henrietta was in no way ready to face
one yet.

A powerful surge of fear crossed over her,
and she found herself teetering on her heels until she fell over
again.

“I have not met a witch hunter in years,”
the man pointed out as he took a step forward, the black hole
underneath him disappearing in a hiss.

He looked at her with such interest that
Henrietta began to blush. It had something to do with the quality
of his gaze, how his eyes darted over her and seemed to see right
through her.

She stumbled to her feet again, clutching a
hand in front of her chest.

The man chuckled. He kept walking forward
until he physically took a step off the barge. He didn't plummet
down and fall into the river. No, he walked over it.

The hair on the back of her neck stood on
end, and a horrible metallic taste filled her mouth.

“Get back,” Brick shouted as he fired a bolt
towards the man.

The man brought up a hand and swatted at the
bolt, the magical light dissipating in an instant.

“Stay out of this, warrior monk,” Hellier
spat.

He made it to the dock, he walked right onto
it, his expensive shoes now squeaking over the old wood. Up close,
he looked even more intense.

Wall.

Henrietta cast the spell, her arm twitching,
her breath fast.

The wall appeared, but as it did, the Witch
King began to chuckle.

Then he walked right through it. Although
the magical bricks fell around him, and appeared to strike his face
and arms with violet force, he was unaffected. He brought up his
other hand, fixed his hair, cracked his neck, and kept walking
towards her.

“What do you want?” She kept staggering
backwards, but it was hard to keep her balance, and her ankles and
legs wobbled from side to side.

Though her wall spell had been so
ineffective, she still held her wand defensively.

“An invitation,” the man tipped his head to
the side and gave her a lingering look.

Henrietta baulked. “I'm not going anywhere
with you!”

He snapped his eyes up, no longer looking at
her skirt and boots. “Now or later, Witch Hunter, you will follow.
They all do in the end.”

“Warrior Woman, run,” Brick shouted again,
whirling forward and bringing his crossbow around towards
Hellier.

Hellier darted to the side, brought his arm
up, and protected his head as Brick brought the crossbow
around.

That would be when the crossbow
shattered.

It wasn't even loud, but Henrietta found
herself shrieking at the noise.

Brick took a shuddering step backwards and
gave his crossbow an alarmed look. He threw it to the side and
launched himself at the Witch King.

The two of them fought.

Hellier was fast, but so was Brick.

“Run,” Brick begged her once more.

Henrietta ran.

She didn't stay by Brick's side, she didn't
try to defend him, because the look in his eyes was so pleading she
couldn't ignore it.

Still shaking on her heels, her fear
drowning her, Henrietta ran from the dock, and she kept running
until she was as far away from that side of town as she could
get.

In fact, it wasn't until she reached her
home, locked her door, and flopped down on her floor that she
stopped her frantic escape.

She curled up on her rug, right next to the
singed section of floor where her hairpin had burnt through the
floorboards. She waited.

She stayed in that position until Brick
returned home.

When he appeared in her house without
bothering to open her door, Henrietta screamed.

She punched up to her feet and brought her
hands up as Brick fell forward.

Though he was tall and well built, and she
was hardly a body builder, she managed to catch him and hold him in
place.

“Brick!” She twisted him around in her arms
until she saw his face.

It was covered in bruises and blood, and his
bottom lip was fat and cut right down the middle.

He offered her a bare smile.

“What happened? Are you alright?” She
brought him down until he rested on the floor, and then she leaned
over him like a worried mother.

She heard a soft bark from her bedroom, and
then Barney, showing never-before-seen speed, ran up to Brick's
side. The dog sniffed over Brick's jacket, and then began to nuzzle
at his hand.

Brick chuckled. “Bring me food,” was all he
said.

“Brick, you are injured, what can I do?” She
didn't rush to her kitchen and bring him a sandwich; he was so
beaten and bloody it looked as if he could hardly move, and though
it had been years since she had done her first aid course, she
doubted that a hastily-made cheese sandwich was recommended as a
cure-all.

“Bring me some chicken,” Brick said, his
voice faint and light.

He even reached a hand towards the
kitchen.

Henrietta was still dressed as a witch
hunter. She hadn't bothered to change; she’d just run all the way
home from the dock. She still had her wand pressed into one of her
hands.

She looked at it.

While she'd been fighting witches for
several weeks now, she still hadn’t figured out how many spells she
could write. There was always more to learn and more to try.

Henrietta ran her fingers over the crystal
at the top of her wand, then she looked down at Brick.

“Chicken,” he said again, voice still
pathetic. If he wasn't so injured, the scene would be farcical. A
man in a giant leather jacket groping towards the kitchen and
pleading for chicken; it belonged in a cartoon. But Brick was
obviously injured. His breathing was ragged, what was more, blood
kept trickling and oozing from the injuries on his face, and as
Henrietta looked down to his chest, she could see his shirt was
spattered with red.

Heal him.

She wrote the words. Nothing happened. No
rush of energy came out from a symbol at her feet and collected
over Brick, fixing him up in an instant.

Henrietta looked down at her wand again.
“Come on,” she encouraged it.

Healing.

She wrote that word instead, but once again,
nothing happened.

“Chicken,” Brick moaned.

It was sometimes hard to find the right
words that would cast a spell. Not any collection of phrases would
produce magic; she had to pick the right ones.

She had no idea what she was meant to
write.

She wanted to heal Brick, and she had no
reason to believe she couldn't.

Health.

Light appeared from under her feet, and then
a whirl of orange, yellow, and white sparks rapped around her and
shot right down into Brick.

He jostled, twitching, and Henrietta crammed
her hands over her mouth and screamed.

What had she done?

Soon the sparks settled down into Brick’s
skin, and they crackled around his injuries, dancing like fireflies
in the wind.

The effect lasted for 30 seconds, the light
dissipating with a pop.

Brick shot to his feet.

The move was sudden, and she reeled
backwards.

Brick looked fantastic, if the warrior monk
could ever look good in his leather jacket getup. The point was, he
looked healthy, vibrant even.

He turned to her and nodded his head low.
“Thank you, Warrior Woman Henrietta.” Without another word, he
walked off to the kitchen and helped himself to some chicken from
the fridge.

Henrietta followed after him, staring down
at her wand as she walked.

She had healed a man. She had taken away
someone's injuries with magic.

Incredible. It was incredible. Just how much
magic could she produce? Just what other spells was she capable
of?

“I was wondering when you were going to
learn that spell,” Brick said as he crammed a chicken wing into his
mouth, chunks of food splattering over his chin and neck.

Henrietta grimaced, walked over to one of
her drawers, and pulled out a tea towel, handing it to him. Then
she listened to what he was saying. “Why didn't you just tell me to
cast that spell?”

“It doesn't work like that, Henrietta. I
can't tell you how to learn; you have to do it for yourself. If I
told you what spells to cast, you would never develop a proper
battle brain.”

“Battle brain?” she asked him. “What does
that mean?”

Brick paused, the chicken wing still half in
his mouth, and he tapped at the side of his head. “Your instinct.
That subconscious connection that tells you what to write, that
knows the best spell to win the battle. I can't teach you that; you
have to learn it yourself.”

Henrietta pressed her lips together. “But
you were so injured! Why didn't you just tell me the name of that
spell, I could have healed you the second you got in the door.”

Brick kept shoveling the chicken into his
mouth. “It doesn't matter, you cast the right spell anyway.”

She always hated when he used excuses like
that. He would do something dangerous and risky, and then he would
blow it off by telling her that everything worked out in the end
anyway. If Henrietta were Brick's mother, she would go over there
and clip him around the ears for being a smart ass. Instead she
grabbed at the plate of chicken and pulled it across the table from
him.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

“You don't get any more chicken until you
tell me who that guy was at the dock,” her voice shook. “He was a
witch king, wasn't he?”

Brick let the chicken wing fall from his
mouth, then he rested his hands on the table. “Yes.”

Henrietta felt sick, but she hid the feeling
by straightening up in her chair and crossing her arms. “Why did he
appear?”

Brick let out a worried-sounding breath. “I
had hoped that he wouldn't. I had hoped that we would have had time
to train you before your first encounter.”

“Why did he invite me to join him?” Her
voice wavered, and she clutched hard around her middle as her sick
feeling surged.

“Well, technically, not all witch hunters
were killed off in the last war.”

“What do you mean?”

“Witch Hunters are not all that different
from witches; they are both capable of using strong magic,” Brick
pointed out.

“Brick, answer the question.” She had been
around him long enough now to know that the warrior monk always
dodged around uncomfortable questions by answering something
else.

Brick looked at the table. “They can join in
union. Witch King and a witch hunter.”

Henrietta scrunched up her brow
instinctively. “You mean marry? A witch hunter can marry a witch
king?”

Brick nodded. “They prove to be powerful
partnerships.”

Brick’s words and the notion of the concept
he was explaining sat heavily with Henrietta, and she rubbed at her
stomach, trying to chase away the nausea. “Well I would never marry
that man. I don't even know him!” she pointed out, as if that was
the most important factor. But, seriously, he was a witch king. He
commanded a force of nefarious, horrible creatures hell-bent on
destroying humanity.

“Nothing happened, Warrior Woman Henrietta.
You managed to get away, and now we are safely in your kitchen,” he
looked across at the chicken, “feasting.” He leaned over and
grabbed at the plate.

She got there first, and picked it up,
taking it out of his reach. “I am not done yet, Brick.” She gave an
uncomfortable swallow. “What happens now? Is that guy going to
appear every single time we fight a witch? Am I going to have to go
into hiding, and practice on my own, until we are ready to face
him? Is he going to hound my every move?”

Her voice was quick, frantic even, and just
as she thought of one question, another one popped into her
head.

Brick raised a hand. “Henrietta, I know this
is difficult, but the threat is over for now.”

He was calling her Henrietta again. Not
Warrior Woman Henrietta, or witch hunter, just Henrietta. For some
reason it calmed her.

“To answer your question, I do not know.
Though I doubt that the Witch King will appear every time we fight
a witch. I believe tonight... was different. That water witch was
very powerful, and may have been one of Witch King Hellier's
personal bodyguards.”

Henrietta let a sharp breath through her
teeth. “But is he going to be after me now?” That was the question
that was most important, the one she needed an answer to.

“The answer is yes. He is a Witch King and
you are a witch hunter.” Brick gave a shrug. “It is only
natural.”

“Brick!”

He put a hand up. “What I mean to say is, he
will not be after you any more than before. While we have every aim
to clear this town of witches, his own goal is to secure his power
and influence over his own kind. He now knows of your presence, and
he will try to interrupt our operations. But if we stay away from
him directly, and only go after the lower class witches for now, we
will have a chance to train you up before you meet him again in
battle.”