The Witchfinder Wars (20 page)

My aunt snorted, crossing her arms over her
chest while she glared at me.

"The Hopkins aren't 'good', Annie. They
aren't 'kind' to people like us. Does he know? Have you told him
you are Chosen?"

"No! Why would I? Do you think I want him
running away from me as fast as the other people in this town
do?"

I could feel my anger approaching its
boiling point, strong enough to bring tears to my eyes. I blinked
them back before Evie could see them. She walked to the door and
opened it, turning to face me before she stepped outside.

"Anya, if you don't stop this, then you are
bringing death to our door and you will only have yourself to blame
for it. If you don't let him go, right here and now, then we will
send you away. We still have friends up North. Your father's
family. Perhaps that's where we should have sent you in the first
place."

She left me with those final words
resounding in my head as my confusion began to mix in with the
anger. What was the big deal? What was so dangerous about Tommy's
last name? Why couldn't she understand how important he was?

Why did she want to take him away from
me?

I slammed the door to the hideout as I left
it, racing down to the edge of the pond where Tommy and I had spent
a single afternoon together. Here I could find the peace I was
desperately seeking. Here I could believe nothing was different,
nothing had changed.

But it
had
changed. Everything. And I
had failed.

I couldn't release Tommy. He was now fated
to love me whether he wanted to or not.

The Witchfinders were after us because of
me. Because of some stupid power I had and couldn't use. And Evie
was right. It would all be my fault if they got hurt.

Now, with her final words, it seemed I would
lose my home too. My family. The only place I had ever known. I
sighed as I headed back to the house.

And it was all because of a spell.

Chapter
Twelve

Tommy

"Try that on," Clay said. He was leaning
against a big black Hummer in our garage.

Kinsey held out a black vest.

"That's not exactly my kinda thing," I said,
but not too loud. I was still a little worried about my relatives'
mental state. "I guess I'm more of a jeans and tee kind of
guy."

Kinsey didn't say anything, just held out
the vest like he was settled in for the duration. So I took it.

"Heavy," I said as I slid my arms into it.
It was, unfortunately, a perfect fit.

"Bulletproof," Kin said in his
I-don't-waste-words patented style.

"Hey, now, let's just wait a minute," I said
as I slid back out of it and tossed it on a battered old shelf
against the wall of the garage. "I thought we were going out to
pick up a couple of nice old ladies and offer them a new and
better, uh, position. This is something you guys do all the time,
right? Since when did bullets get involved?"

"We like to be safe, and cover all our
options," Clay said, smooth as usual.

He'd laid off the liquor all day; all I
could smell on him was the old reek of cigars and something under
that, an odor I'd smelled earlier in his office.

"There are seldom any problems, but
sometimes...we run into something unexpected. So keep that on at
all times, even in the car."

"I guess the car is plate steel and
bulletproof glass too, huh?" I laughed a little.

My uncle and cousin did not. Neither did the
three goons who were going with us—one of whom, I had been
surprised to find out, was Ray LaCroy, our chauffeur. I'd liked Ray
in the couple of months he'd been with us. Now I was wondering
exactly what his job title was: Hopkins chauffeur or resident spy
plus backup goon.

Man, this whole thing kept getting weirder
and weirder all the time.

I just hoped Anya would do as I'd asked, and
would be down at the pond instead of in her house at nine o'clock.
I didn't want her to be involved, and I for sure didn't want her to
see
my
relatives drop by to pick up
her
relatives.

Not that I planned on them being prisoners
for long. I'd made a couple more calls on Jordan's phone in
addition to the one to Anya.

I was learning from dear old Uncle Clay. It
paid to have backup. And, while I knew he thought my dad hadn't
told me anything about the business, Dad had told me some things,
and Grand had told me more. Not to mention, I wasn't completely
stupid.

"Okay, then," I said as I grabbed the vest
and put it on. I'm sure it went great with the black pants and
long-sleeved tee I had on already.

Jimmy Bond, that's me.

Like I said, we were in the garage. It was a
long wooden building with a half loft, the whole thing a lot bigger
than I'd realized but, after all, we'd only been in the house a
week, and other things were more important than checking out the
garage behind the house.

Very important things, of which the most
important seemed to be Anya, and the strange pull she had on me. I
didn't understand it. I'd been dating for a couple of years and I'd
liked lots of girls, but my feelings for Anya were...different
somehow. I wanted to be with her and I wasn't exactly sure why. I
knew next to nothing about her, what she liked, what she read, what
she wanted to be, and I usually was only interested in girls who
shared the things I was interested in: history, cars, music, books.
I figured I'd spent a total of three hours in Anya's company, two
of which I'd been asleep, and she hadn't exactly shared much about
herself. I'd done almost all of the talking, and it was about me
and my life.

Maybe Jordan was right. Maybe Clay and
Kinsey were right.

Yeah. And maybe the earth was flat.

Clay glanced at the gaudy watch on his
wrist. "It's after eight. How long is the drive?"

"Less than half an hour." That was Ray.

I didn't like the idea he knew exactly how
long it took to get to Anya's house. Had he been out there?

And worse, had he seen me there?

But if he had, I'm sure he'd already shared
that information with Clay, so I decided not to worry about it.

"And the schedule?" Clay asked.

Another goon said, "Ivy Blanchett arrives
home from her job at a local drug store at approximately twenty-one
hundred hours. We need to be in position, so we should roll
soon."

I was feeling more and more like I was in a
spy movie. "Yeah, let's roll soon," I said wryly. "I've got school
tomorrow, so I'd like to be in bed early."

Nobody appreciated my humor. We all piled
into the car, and I noticed—but didn't say anything—somehow I
managed to be between the two biggest goons in the back seat.
Coincidence? Uh huh.

Ray drove out of the garage, then hit his
remote; the door closed behind us.

We headed around the house, out of the drive
and onto Clarke Street. I knew where we were going, but of course I
didn't want Clay to know that, so I said,

"Exactly where are we going?"

Everyone ignored me for a minute, then Ray
said, "Out on Route Nine."

"Okay, now I'm all clear." I tried out a
sardonic laugh but I don't think it succeeded. "Remember, we just
moved to town a week ago. Other than two drives to school and my
little ride around the block yesterday morning with a classmate,
I'm clueless about this town. How did you guys find it, anyway?
Kinsey, you're in the know. Tell me everything while we're on our
little ride into the country, why don't you?"

Kinsey was in the back, doing something with
some equipment I was itching to ask about but didn't dare. He said,
his voice soft and menacing, "How do you know we're going into the
country?"

"Kin, get real. How big is Manning? And even
if it was the size of New York, Route Nine doesn't exactly scream
the bright lights of down town, now does it?"

Kinsey retreated to his toys, about which
suddenly I so did not want to know.

No, that was wrong. I did want to know all
about whatever he had back there.

We were on the way to my girl's house.

Where her mother and aunt lived with
her.

I just hoped Anya was gone and wouldn't be
back to see us pick up her relatives.

Which reminded me of a something I wanted to
know. "Clay? We're on our merry way to pick up, well, witches,
right? So what happens to them then? We ask them about their
powers, wooo, and hope they don't curse us?"

"We take them to the complex," Clay said.
"We keep them there and drain them until there's nothing left."

I so did not like the sound of that. "Uh,
right. Well, isn't someone going to wonder where these people are,
like family and friends? I mean, we can't go all black-ops in North
Carolina, fergoshsakes, and just keep our fingers crossed no one
notices, now can we?"

"No one will bother us," Kin said from
behind me. "We've taken care of that already."

Well, I'd been right not to try to involve
the local police. If I had, I was pretty sure I'd not be where I
was now. "Smart thinking," I said. "So, is this standard operating
procedure for WFG, then? Arrive in a town that's hurting for work,
set up a fancy new clinic, spread some money around, buy off the
local cops and then we're golden?"

"As a matter of fact," Clay said around a
mouthful of stinky cigar, "that's about it."

I subsided between my goon bookends. I'm a
pretty big guy, over six feet already and about one-eighty, but I
felt like I was the size of one of the twins beside them. The one
on my right—I hadn't been introduced to either, so I was calling
him Bert—must have been six-five at least, and the other one,
Ernie, was even bigger. There wasn't much seat left for me, and I
could feel very clearly—and I was probably supposed to—they were
both armed. And behind me, Kinsey kept producing odd little
click-clack noises, like he was ratcheting something up and
down.

I so did not like this. All of a sudden, I
wished I'd done something besides get Anya out of the house. We
were going after her family. And all I'd done was ask her to run
away.

What was she going to think of me? Man, I
was so useless! I wanted to pound my head against a brick wall, or
maybe Bert's fists, both of which were probably about the same
hardness. I'd had almost two days to think of something, and what
had I come up with? A phone call! I should have done something to
the car, or strangled Clay or set Kin on fire or something.

"We're almost there," came Ray's voice.
"Five minutes."

It didn't take that long.

A battered old car was parked in the
driveway of the Blanchett home. A single light threw out a corona
onto the garden to the right of the house. I could smell the odor
of lavender being sucked in through the car's vents, strong enough
to overpower even Clay's cigar.

We pulled in behind the old car, blocking it
in. The Hummer's back doors opened silently and Bert and Ernie slid
out and disappeared. I jumped out before Clay could tell me not to,
but he didn't seem to notice. He got out himself and strode toward
the front porch. I followed him, wondering where the goons and
Kinsey had disappeared to in the darkness.

Clay mounted the three steps to the front
porch and pounded on the door.

"Hello? Is anyone home?" he called, calm and
polite, as if he were just out for a late call on the
neighbors.

"Just a minute," came a voice from inside,
the southern accent making the two syllables of 'minute' into four.
"Let me get my apron off."

The door opened and a rectangle of bright
yellow light spilled out onto the front porch. Two green eyes—so
much like Anya's that for an instant my heart stopped in my
chest—looked out of a broad cheerful face. The woman was solidly
built, not very tall; she smiled.

"Well, now, what can I do for you handsome
gentlemen?"

Clay held out his hand.

"I'm new in town, ma'am, and I'm afraid we
got a little lost. Is this the Blanchett place? Are you Miss Evelyn
Blanchett?"

"I am," she said, taking Clay's proffered
hand in hers, her smile still in place.

I dreaded the moment she'd lose it.

"And do you have a sister named Ivy, by any
chance?" Clay continued as he shook her hand. Instead of dropping
it, he held onto it.

"I do indeed, and she's just got home. Why
don't you come in, Mister...?"

All at once, Bert and Ernie materialized
beside us. Clay shoved Evelyn Blanchett—Anya's Aunt Evie, the one
who grew the lavender—backward as they all three pushed into the
house.

There was a loud noise, like a soft crash,
somewhere deeper in the house, and Bert—or maybe it was Ernie—drew
a strange looking gun, its barrel a good three inches wide and
maybe twice as long. It looked like a cartoon gun and I had a
sudden crazy impulse to laugh.

"All clear back here!" came Kinsey's
voice.

Clay still had Evelyn's hand in his. I saw
him reach into his pocket and pull out a pair of handcuffs; he held
them out as he tried to snap them around her wrists.

That was enough. I was still on the porch,
kind of dazed, but that was definitely enough. I barged forward,
accidentally-on-purpose tripped on the door sill and slammed, hard,
into Clay's back. He took two steps forward onto a wonderful little
rug, which was smart enough to slip right out from under him. He
went down on his broad ass.

And Evelyn ran, yelling.

"Ivy! Get out, Ivy! It's them, the
witchfinders! Tell Anya to run!"

I heard a scream, a door slam. I felt my
heart stop at the sound of her name.

"After her," Clay snarled as he tried to get
up. But that blessed little rug was still under his feet and it
slid and he sat back down, hard.

Bert and Ernie hurried to the back of the
house, almost ran into Kinsey who was herding a slender woman in
front of him.