I scooped up the knife before pushing through the open door and out into the yard beyond. I yelped as Abigail’s fist caught me on the ear, spinning me around as I waved the knife about in hopes of keeping her at bay.
She walloped me with another right hook and slammed a left into my belly. I doubled up, curling my body around her fist as the knife dropped from my numb fingers. I tried to suck in great gulps of air but a kick to my stomach sent me skidding across the dirt.
Abigail advanced, fists clenched and rage filling her eyes. Every blow from those fists came with the weight of oak and I knew that her skin would be as tough as old wood too. My arms trembled as I forced myself up and it was my turn to run.
The energy sphere spell had taken all of the magic I had to give and I was hurting. It seemed that Jen had been nowhere close to physically fit judging by the stitch in my side and it didn’t take long for Abigail to catch up with me.
I went down and she was on me, pummelling me with her fists as she snarled and spat her anger. We struggled there in the dirt, with me taking the hits until I saw flashes of light in my vision. In desperation, I clawed at the dirt and thrust a handful of it at her eyes.
She screamed and reeled back as I scrambled out from under her. I staggered two steps and grabbed a fist-sized stone from the ground before swinging around and smashing her in the face with it.
It was like hitting aged oak. I pulled back my hand and threw all of my weight behind the next blow, aiming for her eyes and cheeks, hammering at her face as she flailed at me, panic overcoming her.
Then she fell, blood spraying over the dirt as I sucked in a deep breath of air. Sweat was rolling down my cheeks as I panted. I stumbled back, turning and heading towards the house. As I reached the door, the sounds of a struggle came from within and I rushed inside.
Becca was on the floor with Paul sitting on her belly, legs astride her as his large hands were fixed around her neck. Blood streamed from her nose as she clawed at the man’s hands. I came up behind him and swung the rock with all of my remaining strength.
Something cracked and he slumped to the side. I dropped to my knees beside Becca as she gasped for breath.
“We have to go,” I said, between gasps. “Now.”
“W-what happened?”
“Tell you later.” I forced myself to my feet, wincing at the stabs of pain from where Abigail had hit me. “Come on.”
I helped her to her feet and together we made for the door, almost falling out of it in our haste to leave. I pulled Becca to a stop by grabbing her arm and swore.
“What?”
“Abigail’s gone.” I craned my neck and swore again. “So is her car.”
I still had my phone in my back pocket and Becca had hers. That gave us options. I grabbed her hand and dragged her across to the barn. Once inside, I cast a quick look at the body of Barney to reassure myself he was still down.
“The hell is going on!” Becca said, throwing off my hand and taking two steps towards the girl. She stopped and looked back. “What is this?”
“Grab the book,” I said. “The girl will be fine.”
I didn’t answer her questions as I approached the body of Barney and crouched beside it. I rifled through his pockets and came up with a mobile phone which I used his thumb to unlock. Then I dialled 999.
When the operated message sounded, I opted for the police and waited impatiently as I was transferred through to a human operator.
“There’s been a murder,” I said before the operator could even speak. “I’m not sure where exactly we are, somewhere outside of Hull. There’s two men dead and a little girl who's been drugged. We need help.”
With that, I dropped the phone onto Barney’s cooling body and ignored the tinny voice speaking through it. I grabbed a protesting Becca’s hand and dragged her back towards the door.
“What about the girl, we should help,” she said.
“Police will be on their way and they can help her better than we can,” I pointed out. “We need to leave before they get here.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Outside of the barn, I turned us away from the house and the driveway and headed around to the back fields. There was a low wall with a gate and then we were wading through waist-high stalks of wheat.
As we walked, I kept a firm hold of Becca’s hand and slowly explained what had happened while she tried the best she could to wipe the still slow-flowing blood from her face. She listened in silence until I reached the part where everything went a bit crazy and then she pulled back her hand and swore at me.
“What did I do?”
“How long did you know there was going to be a child involved?”
“From the beginning,” I admitted.
“And you were okay with that?”
“Clearly not.”
She snorted, blood misting in front of her. She brushed at her face with the back of her hand irritably. “No, you painted the symbols! You were at least considering casting the fucking spell, weren’t you?”
Way too damned intuitive for my liking.
“I didn’t do it, though,” I pointed out.
She gasped and threw her hands up, shaking her head. “You were going to!” She pointed a finger accusingly at me. “What sort of person could do that? Why didn’t you just refuse point blank when you knew what was needed?”
“We needed the money.” I shrugged. “Once I was paid, I didn’t have to do it.”
“And what the hell would you have done if she refused to pay you until after the spell was cast?”
She had me there and I wasn’t entirely certain of the answer. While I would like to think that I wouldn’t have killed a child to create a powerful curse that would, likely, be used on yet another child. I couldn’t really say that I wouldn’t have done it and dealt with the consequences of that later.
Whatever she saw on my face was enough to send her into a rage and she trembled as she stormed off. I watched her go and counted to five to give her a head start before slowly following her.
She hadn’t immediately cast a banishing spell, which was a good sign. Or at least that’s what I told myself.
We were over the wall into the next field before we heard the first sirens in the distance. They were coming closer and we could be seen from the road. I hurried my pace and grabbed Becca’s arm, pulling her down into the grass with me.
I landed on top of her and she glared up at me as I pinned her arms with one hand and pressed my finger to my lips with the other. I gazed into her eyes, seeing the anger and the hurt there, and knew that it was my fault.
Which was bizarre as I’d done the right thing!
The siren grew louder until it was right beside us and then it was past and fading as it headed away. Becca shifted beneath me and I rolled off of her to lie in the tall grass and stare up at the sky. I was beyond exhausted.
“We need to keep moving,” Becca said, not looking at me. Her voice was cold, but still, she hadn’t cast a banishment spell. I figured I still had a chance of getting through this, but I was on shaky ground.
Neither of us spoke as we crossed more open fields, moving further away from the bodies we’d left back at the farm. When we finally climbed a wall and dropped into a ditch beside a road, we paused for a breather.
“Abigail escaped,” Becca said, sniffing loudly through her still-sore nose. “She’ll be pissed. Should we be worried?”
“Not immediately,” I said, shrugging. “That property is connected to her and with the bodies there and the girl, she will be under too much scrutiny to really move against us anytime soon.”
That seemed to placate her for the moment but there was still a touch of worry on her face as we set off walking along the road. We walked for forty minutes with only a couple of cars passing us by, and then we came to Little Weighton, a small village of a few hundred people.
We garnered a few odd looks from people on the narrow streets but no one approached us. There was a village pub, a cosy place sitting at the edge of the village surrounded by elm trees. We headed there. Becca went to the bathroom to clean herself up while I went to the bar.
“You two okay?”
I looked wearily at the barmaid. I was way too tired to think of a clever lie so I just went with a close version of the truth.
“Yeah, just had a falling out with a guy. It got rough.”
“Oh! Do you need to call the police?”
“Nah.” I waved a hand dismissively. “It’s over with, but if you know of any local taxi companies we could call that would be great.”
“Sure.” She grabbed a couple of business cards from beside the till and passed them over. “You sure you don’t need anything else?”
“Couple of vodka’s would go down a treat,” I said, glancing at the cards and slipping them into my coat pocket. “One for yourself too.”
“Cheers, duck. That’s good of you.”
I flashed my most sincere smile and she gave me a funny look but went to pour the drinks. It was only as I caught a glance of myself in the mirror that I groaned inwardly.
“Note to self,” I muttered. “No trying to flirt.”
I’d forgotten for a moment that I was in Jen’s body and the young barmaid, while somewhat pretty in a girl-next-door kind of way, had brought out a reflexive urge to turn on the charm.
I would have laughed if I wasn’t hurting so much.
The barmaid placed the drinks down and I used Jen’s card to pay for it, spending some of the newly acquired money that Abigail had transferred over. I nodded thanks to the barmaid and carried the drinks over to a quiet corner and slid down into a chair at a polished wooden table.
Becca joined me when she came back from the bathroom and immediately took a long swallow of her drink. She closed her eyes and gingerly touched her nose.
“Christ, I needed that.”
“How’s the nose?”
“Sore.” She opened her eyes. “You have any injuries?”
“None worth noting.”
She swallowed another mouthful of her drink before placing the glass firmly on the table before her. She cupped it in her hands, rolling it this way and that as she stared down into it. When she stopped and looked up, I braced myself.
“We need to talk.”
“I know.” I glanced around the bar. “Not here though.”
“Back home.”
“Yes.”
A curt nod. “How are we getting back?”
I pulled the cards from my pocket and dropped them on the table. “Can call a taxi when you’re ready.”
Becca lifted the glass and swallowed the entirety of it before setting it back down. “I’m ready now, let’s go.”
I held back a sigh.
Great.