The Enchanted Writes Book One (9 page)

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 blizzard.

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.