A Very British Witch Boxed Set Read online

  She had several candles in the room, but all had been previously used.

  Thinking it was better to use a fresh candle, she searched the house and found a pair of long, plain white, unscented candles. She couldn’t find the right-sized candleholder, so instead she grabbed a plate that matched the bowl. She lit one of the candles and after a moment, poured hot wax onto the plate. She stuck the base of the candle into the pool of melted wax and held it there until the wax cooled, securing the upright candle to the plate.

  Okay, ready now.

  She briefly wondered if she should draw a pentagram somewhere. Or maybe she should be wearing one: for protection, or at least to look the part.

  She chuckled to herself, and went to her wardrobe, pulling out an old black hat from a Halloween costume a couple of years ago.

  Maybe I should look the part?

  She put the hat on her head, and shuffled into the bathroom to look at herself in the bathroom mirror.

  Well, life’s too short to take one’s self seriously…

  She grinned, and struck a pose. Cute! Maybe she could make this her normal attire, once she mastered a spell or two. Just for giggles. And dramatic flair. Amanda would find it hilarious, and ridiculous if she wore it when they went out.

  In fact, she started to muse, maybe that would be how she would break the news.

  Hi, my name is Scarlett Slater, and I’m a witch!

  She laughed to herself, amused by the fantasy, and padded back into the bedroom where she put the grimoire on the dresser beside the bowl and the candle where she could see it. She didn’t know if this was right, but she needed to be able to read the spell and check the instructions.

  Feeling more serious now, she took the hat off and dumped it on the bed. After all, she didn’t want the flagae-whatsits taking the piss out of her, if they did actually show up. Then she turned off the lights in her room so that only the candlelight remained, plus a bit of moonlight spilling in through the curtained window. She stood at her dresser looking into the mirror and saw herself lit from below by the candlelight.

  Now I really do look like a witch.

  Who should she summon, she wondered? She gave this a moment’s thought and decided that she wanted to see Cliff. She had only met him a short while ago, but he had played a starring role in her last few days and had turned her world completely upside down.

  And, oh yeah, he was a vampire.

  She wondered if the mirror spirits would be able to show a vampire. After all, weren’t they supposed to not have a reflection? She made a mental note to check that detail next time she saw him, but decided it was time to put the spell to the test.

  Checking the book, she spoke the words in the best Latin she should muster.

  “Speculo speculum

  in pariete

  ostende mihi…

  Clifford Rogers.”

  She picked up the candle, cracking the wax supporting the base, and dipped the candle flame into the water. The fire winked out, filling the room with shadows. She could just about still see her faint reflection in the mirror lit by moonlight. She laid the candle down on the plate and put her fingertips into the water in the bowl. She moved her fingers through the water slowly as she gazed into the dark mirror, thinking of Cliff and waiting for something to happen.

  Her soft pale face in the mirror seemed to shimmer and shift for a moment, as if seen through rippling water. Scarlett thought she could see it transform into something else, someone else. Another face, though she couldn’t be sure.

  She tried to lock onto the new image that seemed to be forming, concentrating with all her willpower, but soon the image before her resolved into a reflection of her own face.

  Scarlett frowned, disappointed.

  Something had happened, she thought. But then again, it could have simply been a trick of the moonlight.

  Practice makes perfect.

  That’s what Aunt Tabitha had said, and she needed to keep reminding herself. She’d read about the 10,000-hour rule, where supposedly artists, musicians and athletes had to practice 10,000 hours before they could master their discipline.

  I sure hope it doesn’t take that long! she muttered to herself, flopping dramatically down on the bed. She felt tired just thinking about it. In the darkness of her room, and already lying down, her next decision came easy.

  Bedtime.

  But when she crawled under the covers and glanced back at the mirror, a chill ran up her spine. She got back out of bed and threw a spare blanket over the mirror glass.

  Just in case.

  Then, she returned to her bed, carefully making sure that she was completely covered.

  Chapter Two

  John Radcliffe Hospital, Headley Way, Headington, Oxford

  Cliff arrived at the John Radcliffe Hospital on Headley Way about an hour before sunrise and parked around back. The street was quiet at this early hour. The sky was still dark, and the Oxford residents were just waking up.

  The hospital, of course, was open twenty-four hours, but even the medical profession had its busy and slow periods. The hours before dawn were usually calm. He heard no ambulance sirens this morning, and the traffic around the hospital was light.

  Cliff turned off his engine, killed the headlights, and waited.

  He thought back to the events of the past week. So much had happened. The death of Bill Knight, the military investigation, the cover-up. Cliff had handled most of it himself, but in the end, it took all of them—Cliff, Ronnie, Karl and Tarquin—to put things back together and preserve their way of life in the quiet little town.

  Scarlett had been an unexpected problem. She had witnessed the killing of Bill Knight and resisted his attempts to compel her. That had never happened to Cliff before, someone resisting him like that, and especially not a woman.

  The explanation should have been obvious to him right away, but he was so taken aback by her powers of resistance that it had sent him spiraling into confusion and self-doubt.

  It was Tarquin who had pointed out the obvious. “She’s probably a witch.”

  In the end, they had confirmed it. Only a witch could resist both a vampire’s compulsion and the potions of a sorcerer. But his manliness still felt diminished somehow.

  He sighed, glancing out his window. He checked the surrounding buildings for cameras. He had picked this spot last year because of the gap in CCTV coverage, but he only came here once a month for his blood supplies and there were new cameras going up all the time. He didn’t see any new ones this morning, though, so things were good.

  Cliff adjusted his seat to lean back a little, relaxing into it as he watched the no-parking area ahead for signs of movement.

  His contact was an orderly named Harris. The man was in his late fifties and nearing retirement. He’d worked at the hospital for thirty years and was a trusted member of the staff. He was also a weak-minded loyalist who would be showing signs of Alzheimer’s in another few years, which had made him an ideal candidate to be Cliff’s thrall.

  Cliff had cultivated him earlier this year as a replacement for a woman who had transferred to London and was no longer of any use to him. Harris had been easy to compel. He needed the extra cash from their secret arrangement to fund his retirement.

  Cliff heard Harris before he saw him. As a vampire, he had a keen sense of hearing and he’d learned to recognize people’s individual walks. Harris had a signature pace and a kind of shuffling step that scraped along the asphalt. He wore thick-tread soft shoes that almost swished across the ground.

  It was Harris, all right, approaching from just around the corner ahead. The man’s footfalls were heavy and unbalanced, favoring his right side. This meant he was carrying something heavy in his dominant hand.

  Blood packs.

  Stepping out of his car, Cliff left the door open and reached for the wallet in his back pocket. He had withdrawn five hundred pounds from the bank yesterday, and now he removed the bills from his billfold. He moved around his open door to
the front of the car and leaned against the hood, waiting. This had become routine, and yet the thrill of new blood still fired his senses.

  Harris was dressed in his orderly uniform. In his right hand was the heavy cooler bag that contained a full month’s supply of fresh blood packs.

  Cliff nodded to Harris, a silent acknowledgment that honored the clandestine nature of their illicit exchange. One day, he thought, there would be an open market for blood and no need to make deals in the shadows, but that day was still far off. For now, things still had to be done in secret, at odd hours, and out of view of video surveillance.

  Harris was only a few yards off now, and Cliff could feel the anticipation rising in his soul.

  All of a sudden, there was movement off to the side of one of the sheltering buildings. Another man turned the corner from which Harris had emerged. Harris couldn’t see the second man, but Cliff had a good view and his senses were heightened and on alert. The second man was tall and thin and wore a white hospital lab coat.

  Oh no, thought Cliff. This isn’t good.

  Cliff locked his eyes on Harris and willed the orderly to keep on walking and ignore all distractions, one step after another until the objective was achieved and his mission accomplished.

  “Harris!” The second man shouted loud enough to wake the neighbors. “What the hell?”

  The orderly froze and turned back to see who had called his name.

  And with that, the spell was broken. Cliff could feel the sudden break, the loss of his control over Harris, like a snapped rubber band.

  The second man was running now, and Harris turned to stare at Cliff. The orderly looked confused, as if he didn’t recognize Cliff or remember how he got there. Or what he was carrying.

  “What’s going on?” the second man demanded as he approached. “Harris, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” He looked at Cliff with sharp suspicion, still closing on the two of them. “Who are you?”

  Cliff didn’t answer, but locked eyes with the second man in an effort to establish control without escalating the situation or raising further alarm in the open.

  “This is wrong!” Harris exclaimed, as if waking from a dream into a nightmare. “This is wrong! How could I be so stupid?”

  The second man reached Harris and grabbed him by the shoulder to turn him around and see what he carried. He opened the bag. “You can’t take those, Harris! Blood packets? Did you steal these from the blood bank? Harris, look at me. Show me the paperwork. Harris! What the hell has gotten into you?”

  He grabbed the bag, and Harris tried to resist. It was a weak effort, but enough to cause the cooler bag to open and spill a couple of blood packs onto the street.

  All three men stared at the blood packs on the ground.

  Cliff felt the hunger rise in him, and with that hunger came the strength and aggression of the world’s greatest predator. His eyes sharpened and his face tightened. He could feel a fire in his veins surge through him.

  The two men were staring at him now, their eyes wide at Cliff’s transformation from bystander to threat. In a moment, they would run or shout or do something stupid. Harris was the older of the two and had the weaker will. Cliff had trained the man’s mind over many months, and Harris was no immediate threat.

  The other man, though, was strong and young. And now he was afraid. He would fight or flee, and either choice posed a danger to Cliff.

  Cliff’s vampire instincts took over. He surged forward, grabbed the man in the white lab coat, and snapped his neck.

  Before the dead man could fall, Cliff grabbed the cooler bag. He bent to pick up the blood packets that had fallen and returned them to the bag. Reaching into his front pocket, he pulled out the pound notes, and threw the money at the orderly.

  By now Harris was starting to understand what he’d seen. A murder. He wasn’t looking at the money but at the dead man in the street, someone he no doubt worked with and knew well.

  Harris was freaking out. He stood frozen in place and began to hyperventilate. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god…”

  Cliff tossed the cooler into his car and marched back to Harris. He covered the man’s mouth with his hand to stop his babbling. Cliff channeled his thoughts into the mind of the other man, compelling him once again.

  “Calm down,” he said, using the voice of control. “Everything is fine, Harris. Perfectly fine. You were just out here getting some air on your break. That’s all. You didn’t see anything unusual. It’s a quiet morning and now you’re going to go back to work and forget everything that happened here.”

  He released Harris, who turned and walked zombie-like back down the street to return to work.

  Cliff stared down at the dead man in the street, trying to decide what to do with the body.

  This is not my day.

  +++

  John Radcliffe Hospital, Headley Way, Headington, Oxford

  Tim Clarke arrived at the crime scene as fast as he could. It was nearly ten o’clock in the morning and he’d gotten the call forty minutes earlier. He’d been up late and only had time for a quick cold shower to get his blood pumping before heading out the door.

  There were two squad cars parked near the entrance, and when Tim walked into the front reception area, he saw four policemen among the citizens waiting for medical attention.

  He introduced himself to the first constable he saw. “Hello, I’m Tim Clarke. Who’s in charge here?” He flashed his badge discreetly.

  “Over there,” the PC muttered, pointing to a gaunt-looking man in plain clothes. He had sandy brown hair and wore a tan jacket and matching tie. He was sitting with another man in a far corner, conducting an interview. The other man was dressed as an orderly and seemed nervous and shaken.

  As Tim approached, the interviewee glanced up with alarm. The plainclothes detective noticed and glanced at Tim.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “I’m Flight Lieutenant Tim Clarke.”

  “Oh, right.” The detective rose and offered his hand. “Detective Sergeant Oliver Davies.”

  “I came as quickly as I could,” Tim said.

  Davies turned to the orderly he’d been talking to. “Stay here.” He tapped Tim on the elbow. “Walk with me.”

  Tim followed Davies who led him to a small meeting room just off the next corridor away from the public. They found an empty table and sat down.

  “The man we’re looking at is called Harris,” Davies explained. “He’s a staff nurse. Works the night shift.”

  “The man you were talking to just now?”

  “No, that was someone else. We’re questioning everyone who was on duty last night. Putting a timeline together. Most of them had already gone home, so we had to call them back in. A few haven’t answered their phones. Probably sleeping. We’ll knock on a few doors if we have to, but most of the interviews are being done here.”

  “Where’s Harris?”

  “We’re holding him in one of the staff rooms for now.”

  “I’ll need to talk with him.”

  “Understood.” Davies didn’t seem happy, and it wasn’t hard to see why. He would consider this case his jurisdiction. And normally he’d be right. But this was obviously a special case and the powers that be had already smoothed that over amongst themselves and let Davies know what his responsibilities were.

  Still, though it was Tim’s investigation, he needed police cooperation. And he liked to form alliances whenever possible. He’d found that using terms like “task force,” helped. Tim didn’t care what they called it, as long as he was in charge and had access to the information he needed to solve the case.

  “So what do we know?” Tim asked.

  Davies filled him in on the details of the interviews so far. Tim nodded but didn’t take notes. The cops would file their reports and he’d get access to those. Right now, what he needed was the big picture.

  The big picture was that a man had gone missing.

  He was the night supervisor, a man nam
ed Dr. Noah Morton. He had walked outside shortly before dawn and hadn’t come back. He had left the hospital building moments after Harris had, possibly with the intent to follow him, though they weren’t certain.

  “You have surveillance footage?” Tim asked.

  “Yes, and we’re reviewing it now.”

  “I’ll need a copy for my own files.”

  “Of course.”

  The detective continued on with his report, giving him a brief rundown of the footage they’d reviewed so far. The hospital had tried to contact the night supervisor. When they couldn’t reach him, they’d called the police.

  “Did the man have any known health issues?” Tim asked.

  “You mean like maybe he walked out of the hospital and had a heart attack?” Davies smirked. “Wouldn’t that be ironic?”

  “Preliminary thoughts?”

  “Could be a kidnapping,” the detective speculated. “There’ve been more than a few of those this year.”

  “A missing person, at any rate.”

  “Not yet,” the detective countered. “Not officially. Hasn’t been forty-eight hours.”

  “Let’s hope he’s just on a bender or turns up at some mistress’s apartment.”

  “Stranger things have happened.”

  Don’t I know it, thought Tim.

  “I’d like to talk to Harris now, if that’s possible?” Tim said, asking instead of ordering. There was no need to throw his weight around unless he came up against resistance. Tim knew the friendly approach was the best first tactic.

  Davies hesitated, then nodded. “Sure thing.”

  The detective led Tim to the elevators and they went up to the fifth floor. The staff offices were on the upper levels of the building. As they navigated the halls, the two men caught some curious looks from the staff members walking by. It was probably unusual to see strangers on this floor. Davies was in a suit and tie, so he fit in just fine with the executive class officed here, but Tim was in his military uniform and stuck out like Santa in a graveyard.