Chapter 1
I lifted the damp t-shirt to my face and inhaled in ecstasy. I loved the smell of damp laundry. A brisk wind that smelt richly of overturned leaves touched my face and played around my long skirt. The smell of late autumn. I hung up the last wet sock and walked back into the warmth of my room, shutting the balcony door behind me with a snap.
I had come in at half past two last night. Or that was what the blinking numbers on my clock had told me. It gets a bit weird, so it could have been anytime from one to four. My senses were deadened by fatigue (I hadn’t gotten much sleep the past night either) and had accidently set off the Cobweb. Luckily, I had managed to trip into bed quickly enough so as Ferinn blamed it on a cat (The neighbourhood pets are always setting it off. Especially cats. Cats have an affinity with Witchcraft, so they’re drawn to our house.)
My house looks passably normal from the outside. It’s large, it’s true, and slightly crumbly, but that’s normal in old houses. The weathervane, perched haphazardly on the barn roof, appears to be shaped like a cockerel from far away, but up close, it’s actually a coiled dragon. The glittering lights that randomly pop up around the flowerbeds are not fireflies and the large scorch mark on the wall of the east wing was caused by an imp I summoned from the Hollow Planes, not an out of control barbecue. I could go on but I think you get the picture. But people see what they want to see.
I was thinking about the gullibility of most humans as I picked up the fifth Harry Potter book and rode the banister down all three flights of stairs. I keep them well polished. They’re just right for sliding, actually. Wide and not too steep, no narrow curvy bits in them. When I hopped neatly off the ground-floor banister, I the delicious smell of cooking batter greeted my nose.
Elizabeth was sitting at the table in her green Hornet shorts and a raspberry-coloured vest. Her red curls were rumpled, but her eyes were alert. She has a sort of supernatural gift that whatever she’s doing she manages to pull it off looking attractive and disdainful. A golden salamander was coiled around her wrist. When I walked past, it hissed and blinked.
As Ferinn came round with a plateful of pancakes, she rapped Elizabeth’s feet (propped up on the table) with the frying pan.
“Bad manners,” She sang. “And it’s dirty!”
“I’m wearing socks!” Snarled Elizabeth. But she swung her legs down anyway, sitting cross-legged on her stool. Ferinn is the Junior Leader of our coven. Rumour is she did something that seriously pissed off the Witch Mother, so instead of setting her fifty years of punishment detail, she made her tutor us. As Ferinn likes to say, we’re her eternal punishment. As like all Witches, she’s very beautiful, with blonde hair, crisp green eyes and a disarmingly sweet smile. She also has five knives hidden on her person at all times. She says she wouldn’t put it past us. Whatever that means.
Ferinn slid a familiar bottle across the table, which thunked into my elbow. She has several vices she swears by. She makes us take cod liver oil every morning. I’ve taken it ever since I can remember. And I didn’t take the squishy pills either. I take a full spoon of the real stuff. Of course it tasted disgusting, but I’d gotten used to the taste. I used to complain, but she wouldn’t hear of it. “Makes your hair shiny and your eyes bright.” She insisted. She even mixed it up with Kitten’s food. The difference is amazing in the hellcat. His hair was clipped short and glossy, and he smellt musky and healthy. I ran a hand absent-mindedly over his fur as Kitten jumped onto my lap. As a hellcat, he’s not really your average feline. He’s my familiar. I summoned his soul from hell and bound it into a normal cat’s body. He’s quite sweet, actually, but he’ll defend me to the death.
I gulped down the fishy oil, sitting cross legged by the fireplace filled with popping lilac flames. It was freezing in the kitchen, and the tiles were like ice against my bare feet. I opened my book on my lap and smoothed down the doggy ear, but I was interrupted by the last of our little trio, Cassie, shuffling into the kitchen. Behind her fluttered a sparrow with metal feathers and jewelled eyes. Alice, Cassie’s familiar. She had made her herself.
Ferinn pushed a stack of papers off the chair and Cassie onto it. Cassie shrieked as the chair rocked wildly back.
“Sorry!” Ferinn screamed, holding the back of the chair. “I keep forgetting which one the rocking chair is.” Our kitchen is what I would call a friendly mish-mash of all of our lives. Most of the original kitchen chairs are long gone; there’s a rocking chair, a little stool, an old patchwork armchair and a bedside table with a silken pillow pretending to be one. The cabinets are painted a faded yellow; Elizabeth killed a ghoul in here with a kitchen knife and the blood splattered all over the kitchen, so we had to repaint.
I piled up Cassie’s Coptic dictionary, Elizabeth’s ceremonial dagger and a pestle half filled with crushed witch-hazel and plopped them on the counter, clearing a place for the pancakes. We weren’t technically witches yet: Tomorrow was initiation. For months now, we had been given grunt work; labelling and sorting herbs, sweeping floors, translating passages of runes, peeling potatoes, polishing tack, that sort of thing.
I was jolted out of my reverie by Elizabeth spilling digestive biscuits over the floor. Cassie startled at the sound, which sent her chair rocking back again. Ferinn rolled her eyes.
“Ok, breakfast’s over. Elizabeth, they need you to sort the new delivery in the barn.” Elizabeth glared at Ferinn. Every month we get a new delivery of potions ingredients. Not only is sorting and labelling powdered tiger claw and newts eyes boring, it’s also gross. “Cassie, pull yourself together, it’s only a chair. You can help out at Summoning, they need a runner. Katie-” Here she turned to me “- Connie wants your help.”
I leapt to my feet. “Ferinn please don’t make me go there again. I literally almost died last time. Send Elizabeth, she spilt the biscuits.” Elizabeth turned her cold gaze onto me. I cringed away from her.
Ferinn smacked the back of my head. “A true witch doesn’t whine, Katie.”
“I’ve only had three pancakes!” Elizabeth moaned. For such a slim girl, she eats huge amounts. Ferinn didn’t smack her. I’ve yet to see a person brave enough to smack Elizabeth.
Fifteen minutes later and slightly out of breath, I rung the bell of number 23. Us witches live in a gated community; the people outside think we’re just snobby rich people who want to keep them out of our perfect lives. Little do they know, the gate isn’t there to keep them out; it’s to keep nosy apprentices like us in.
No one answered the door. I stomped my combat boots in an attempt to keep warm and shoved my bare hands in my armpits. It was still dark outside and the grass was crackling with frost. Kitten pressed himself against me in an effort to keep warm. Connie was always busy. Too busy to answer the door. I stared at my white, cloudy breath, trying to ignore the cold. Eventually, the door opened. Emily grinned at me, handing me the lab coat she had just discarded.
“Busy day?” I asked, buttoning it over my striped jumper.
“Jonathon’s in today. He strained a claw.”
“Perfect. Just perfect.” I groaned, snapping the plastic gloves over my numb hands. I was expecting to lose a pint of blood. Rebecca, our coven leader, had a dragon for her familiar.
Connie is sort of the vet of our community. But she has to deal with things a lot more exotic than dogs and cats. Kitten shot inside like a hairy bullet.
I groaned. It was barely colder inside than out. A long hallway with a steel ceiling and walls stretched ahead of me, fluorescent lights creating an artificial brightness. I moved quickly, partly to keep out the chill, and partly because I knew Connie would be livid if I was a minute late.
I pushed open the door to the waiting room. It was a large room, with an array of veterinary and magical paraphernalia cluttered on the desk. There were metal cages built into the wall for animals waiting for operation. A salamander, a black cat, and an owl blinked at me from the gloom, their jewel-bright eyes glittering. To the other side of the room were chains for tying up the larger animals. Usually there were all manner of griffins, kelpies and cockatrices straining at their leashes in a tangled of muscle, fur and feathers. There was only one animal there today. And it wasn’t chained up.
It blinked at me. Then, in one smooth movement, it bounded towards me. I screamed, reacting instinctively. My leg came round in a powerful side kick, smashing into the hell hound’s stomach. I heard a grunt from the animal, then a whine. The momentum from my kick had made me spin towards the floor. I landed heavily on the metal, jarring my wrist. I kept on screaming, scrambling backwards frantically until my back hit the wall hard. Hysterical tears were leaking out from under my eyelids. Something hot and wet licked my face. I kicked my legs like a child in a tantrum, screeching at the top of my voice. Fear took over my mind, an overriding, wild fear. I heard footsteps. There were loud voices and the hell hound was dragged out from on top of me. I kept on lashing and screaming.
There were rapping footsteps on the steel and a blur of high pitched voices. One of them was Connie’s. They all sounded panicked.
My fist connected with something. Someone swore loudly. “Jesus. Someone give her something.”
More cussing. “I can’t! She’s squirming too much!”
“Katie, baby, stay still,”
I couldn’t. I couldn’t stay still. If I did, they would get me. I felt something whizz past my ear.
More voices. “Katie’s having one of her fits. Yeah. No, I’m not worried about the dog. She’s completely panicking. I told you, I can’t, she won’t keep still!” Connie’s on the phone about you. The small voice of reason in my head said, but sheer terror drowned it out.
I heard footsteps closer to me and tried to scramble away desperately. I heard someone mutter something, and I felt my body go limp and smash against the cold metal floor.
