Wolfsbane: 3 (Rebel Angels) by Gillian Philip Read Free Book Online

the café for a beer and an uncooked panini before I found a quiet
place to sleep. Also, I felt like I wanted to curl up and have a decent cry about various aspects of my life, and I wasn’t going to do that in front of the village idiot.
    ‘Don’t mind me,’ he said.
    I came to a halt and turned on my heel. ‘Listen, where do you stay? Because you should be getting back.’
    ‘So should you.’
    ‘I’m staying here,’ I said.
    ‘You’re not,’ he said, and I didn’t like the confidence in his voice. Actually, quite suddenly, I didn’t like
him
. I didn’t like his happy smile or
his charm or the way his messy hair flopped over his glittering silver eye.
    I took a step back. And funnily enough so did he. His hand clutched the air, tore at nothing, and I was so busy watching that, and fearing for his sanity and my life, I didn’t see his
other hand move.
    I didn’t see him lunge for me, because he moved faster than anything I could hope to see. I only felt him seize my wrist and yank me, and I screamed and fell with his arms locked round me,
and we hit the cold ground together and the world went dark.

    ‘JESUS,’ I screamed. ‘What did you do THAT FOR?’
    When the world and my vision cleared, I was sitting on top of the blond boy, which made it easy enough to pummel his ribcage with clenched fists. Not since I bit Lauren’s face had I wanted
to hurt someone as much, as physically, as I wanted to hurt him then. Clenched fists, in fact, weren’t cutting it; I began to tear at his eyes with my nails. ‘What do you
want?
Why did you
DO THAT?
’
    He batted me away, shutting his eyes tight, snatching for my hands.
    ‘Because you WOULDN’T HAVE COME, you
silly cow.
’
    ‘I’m not GOING ANYWHERE.’
    ‘You already HAVE.’
    In an instant he was limp and unresisting beneath me, blinking up and biting his lip with a sweet uncertainty that looked well-practised.
    I had a horrible feeling, then. I couldn’t go on hitting him when obviously I didn’t have to. ‘What?’
    Once again he moved so fast, I didn’t know what happened. Only that I was the one on the ground, I was the one winded by a knee in the solar plexus, I was the one staring in breathless
astonishment at a grey sky as the boy Rory frowned and chewed one fingernail. His other hand gripped my throat in a very un-amateurish way.
    ‘Ucch,’ I rasped.
    ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Just look.’
    I rolled my head to the right, as far as his grip allowed. It must have been tighter than it felt, because my vision was distorted, obscuring my view of the castle. The air seemed torn, like I
was seeing double, and I started to panic.
    ‘Don’t kill me,’ I squeaked.
    ‘Don’t be such an idiot.’ He rolled off me and stood up, dusting himself down.
    Staggering up, rubbing my throat, I backed away from him. ‘I’m going now. Don’t follow me.’
    He smiled. ‘Where you gonnae go?’
    My breath hurt high up in my throat. I swallowed and made myself breathe more deeply; then, trying to keep one eye on him, I turned a full, slow circle. I wasn’t seeing double any more,
but I wasn’t seeing anything familiar either.
    I’d been right. The castle looked a lot better as a forbidding ruin, and I wondered who could have imagined interactive keyboards and overspill car parking in this context. The chain link
fencing was gone, and so were the signs. The loch at my feet was a black menacing stillness. I could have been in another place entirely. The illusion was perfect.
    ‘How did you do that?’ I whispered.
    Rory chewed his lip. ‘I’m not supposed to, of course. But what’s the point of being able to do something if you never get to do it?’
    I was sure we’d done that one in Ethics, and I believe the moral dodginess of stage hypnosis had actually come up. Sadly I couldn’t remember the upshot of the discussion, since
I’d bunked off the second period for a fag.
    He grinned. ‘I
knew
I was going to get on with you.’
    I gave him a