Woman Henrietta, and stop falling
over.” He leaned down to her, put his right hand on her arm, and
pulled her to her feet. “If you let the fear take hold of you, you
will lose your magic,” he warned, his eyes sparkling, despite the
dark night.
Henrietta swallowed through a nod, then she
stopped. What was she doing? What on earth did Brick mean?
Magic?
All in a rush, she started to shake and
shudder. She couldn't deny the situation was real; the skin along
her hand was cut and singed, and Brick's back still steamed where
the fireball had struck it.
“I know it is hard, but unless you act to
contain that witch, she could move on to harm others.”
She couldn't ignore that, could she?
Brick reached out a hand and clutched his
large palm over her fingers as she held the wand. “Write in the air
the word of a spell. Whether it be fire, water, ice, blizzard,
wind, tornado – any ferocious force you can think of. Write it in
the air, Witch Hunter, and it will appear. You can use it to
contain the witch. To fight her off, to overcome her.”
There was a steely magical quality to his
voice. His words bypassed her ears and ate straight into the
imaginative side of her mind. As he spoke, it was as if she could
see each spell he was talking of. Fire, ice, wind – all she had to
do was bring up her wand and write the words before her, then they
would appear.
She looked down at the wand.
“We do not have much time; I have pushed her
into the warehouse for now, but my wall spell will fail. This is a
powerful witch, and it will take a full Witch Hunter to overcome
her.” Brick turned, but still had his hand clutched over hers.
There was no more fighting this situation.
There was no more doubting what was happening to her. All Henrietta
could do was stumble forward, her heels clicking loudly against the
uneven bitumen, but her grip never failing around her wand.
Brick was by her side, crossbow in hand, and
when they reached the wall of magical symbols and she hesitated, he
clamped a hand over her back and pushed her through.
Henrietta sucked in a breath, squealing as
she stumbled through the magical symbols. In her mind, her face
would singe off the second she touched them, but nothing of the
sort occurred. She managed to walk right through them as if they
were nothing but air. They did crackle though, and a few of them
collected around her as if they were feathers and she was tar. She
patted at them, shaking her arms, trying to dislodge them, Then
Brick slammed into her side, wrapped a hand around her middle, and
pulled her out of the way.
A shot of fire, as if propelled from a
flame-thrower, blasted past her, and would have collected her if
Brick hadn't moved when he had.
Henrietta didn't have time to scream, much
less splutter, because at that point, Brick wrapped his hand tight
around her wand. “Write something in the air, and do it now.”
So she did. As she fell to the side,
Henrietta wrote fire.
It was on her mind. Considering her day,
fire seemed to be about the only thing she could think of.
When she finished writing the word, the most
spectacular thing occurred. A circular symbol appeared at her feet
and then a fireball shot right out from it. The fire swirled around
the edge of the symbol, collecting into a ball, before flying
forwards right towards the witch.
Henrietta still hadn't seen the creature in
full; the abandoned warehouse was dark, and all she could catch was
a glimpse of two long hands with equally long fingernails. They
were gaunt and painfully thin.
The fireball launched right towards
them.
There was a scampering sound and someone
appeared to take a quick, desperate breath. Once again it sounded
like the cry of a child, but it changed into the most horrible of
screams.
“Don't pause, keep writing,” Brick
commanded, and then he moved his hand over hers and brought the
wand up.
Ice.
It popped into her head, and the second it
did, she started to write the word.
As had occurred with