Witchslapped in Westerham Read online

  Witchslapped in Westerham

  Paranormal Investigation Bureau Book 4

  Dionne Lister

  Dionne Lister

  Copyright © 2018 by Dionne Lister

  ISBN 978-0-6483489-4-8

  Smashwords Edition

  Cover art by Robert Baird

  Content edit by Becky at Hot Tree Editing

  Line edit by Chryse Wymer

  Proofread by Mandy at Hot Tree Editing

  All rights reserved.

  * * *

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or school assignment.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Created with Vellum

  Coffee. You get me through every day. For that, I thank you.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Dionne Lister

  Chapter 1

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  I returned Olivia’s grin as the gangly teen checkout boy scanned our chocolate choc-chip four-litre ice cream tub and put it in the bag. Our mini-grocery trip was almost done. The checkout guy’s hand hovered over our bunch of bananas.

  A man’s voice came from behind us. “Hey, boy! Don’t touch those.”

  Angus—his name tag proclaimed it so—froze. He looked up through his lank fringe at the scrawny old man whose grey trousers appeared to be trying to devour him like a giant python. The pants had managed to swallow his entire lower body up to his armpits. Impressive high pantsing.

  The old guy shook his walking stick at the sign above him. “It says ten items or less.”

  Olivia and I looked at each other, and she shrugged. I turned back to the old man. “We only have nine items. I’m not the best at math, but last time I checked, nine was less than ten.”

  He reached across the conveyer belt and bashed my bananas with his cane. “There”—bash—“are”—bash—“five”—bash—“bananas”—bash. “That makes thirteen items, missy. You need to get your groceries and go to that line over there.” He nodded to the register next to ours.

  What in fresh hell was this? Now my bananas were probably only good for putting in a cake. I was going to have to go get another bunch. I folded my arms. “I’m pretty sure that the whole bunch is counted as one item. Isn’t that right, Angus?” I turned to the teenager, eyebrows raised.

  Angus stared at me, then at the old guy. “Um.” He swallowed. “Yes,” he squeaked, before leaning back, away from us. Pfft. Scaredy cat.

  Angus edged his hand towards the bananas again, his eyes warily on our adversary. The old man shuffled forward and slammed his cane down. Poor Angus only just snatched his hand out of the way in time. Part of the cane squished the bananas some more, but the end hit the plastic edging on the conveyer belt. The loud crack attracted notice. Two cashiers down the line from us turned to watch. A few shoppers swivelled their heads to rubberneck as they wandered past. Keep walking. Nothing to see here, people.

  If only that were true.

  “You young people have no respect.” The old man gritted his teeth as he spoke. “Now get out of this line. Ten items or less. Less!” He scowled, and his bushy white eyebrows came together like two hairy caterpillars kissing. I would have giggled at the visual if anger hadn’t been radiating off him. His face glowed red. Yikes. His circulation was quite good for an old person.

  I turned to Angus, to check if he’d put our bananas through. His gaze darted from me to python pants to the bananas, then to me again. “I think I’d like to get another bunch. These look ruined.”

  “Lily, look out!” Olivia’s eyes were wide.

  Thwack!

  “Ouch!” Sharp pain lanced through my shoulder.

  Thwack!

  I turned and threw my arms up, and the cane that had hit my shoulder came down on my forearm. Jesus, that hurt. This was ridiculous. I sized up the crazed man, waiting for his next blow. The cane descended. I grabbed it and held it with both hands. “Are you nuts? You can’t just hit people like that.”

  “Let go!” he screamed and yanked on the cane, but I wouldn’t give it up. No way in hell.

  Rage burned in his eyes. He tugged harder, and I needed all my strength to hold on, which was kind of surprising considering he must have been seventy or more, and he was shorter and frailer than me.

  Shoppers weren’t wandering past anymore—they were stopping for the impromptu afternoon entertainment. Great. Would I be the bad guy if I hurt this man? I hadn’t done anything, but now I feared for my safety.

  “That’ll be twenty-four pounds.” Angus obviously thought if he pretended nothing was unusual, all the weirdness would disappear.

  “Give me my cane!” the old guy bellowed. Crap.

  I didn’t want to take my attention away from my tug of war, so I called out to Olivia without turning. “Can you pay, please? I’ll pay you back later. We’ll just forget the bananas.” Although that hurt almost as much as getting hit with the cane. The old moron would win. “Actually, go grab another bunch. I’ve been through hell for those damn bananas, and I’m not going home without them.”

  “Yeah. Not a problem. Ah, do you need any other help?”

  “No. If you could just grab another bunch, that would be awesome.”

  “Coming right up.”

  I cocked my head to the side, assessing my opponent. Come on, Lily, he must weigh about fifty kilos and have osteoporosis. I adjusted my grip and braced myself. “Look, I don’t want to hurt you, but I’ve had enough. I really want to go home and eat my ice cream, which is probably melting now.” I was short of breath because he hadn’t stopped trying to reclaim the cane. “Please just calm down and lower the cane.”

  “Never. I’ll die before I let you get away with wrongly utilising the ten-items-or-less lane. There’s a special place in the underworld for miscreants like you.” His eyes shot death lasers at me. Well, they would have if it were possible. Oh, dear. It might be if he was a witch.

  “How many times do we have to tell you? A bunch of bananas is counted as one item. Don’t blame me. I didn’t make the rules. I’m just shopping by them.” I engaged my second sight. Okay, he wasn’t a witch, so I had to go easy. As much as he could bruise me, he wasn’t about to strike me down with lightning or singe me with lasers.

  He narrowed his eyes and leaned backwards, pulling as hard as he could.

  “Security to the express register. Security to express.” Well, it was about time someone made good use out of that loudspeaker. But I still needed to protect myself, or he could end up cracking my head open.

  I knew I shouldn’t because he was old, but I had warned him, not to mention that his behaviour was deplorable. You couldn’t just go around assaulting people and expect no repercussions.

  He leaned back further, determination etched into every wrinkle in his face. I pushed the cane and let go. He flew backwards and slammed into a huge, tattooed guy with a potbelly. The old man’s saviour
grunted as he caught him.

  Then security turned up—two middle-aged blue-uniformed men, one so skinny he’d blow away in a storm, and the other overweight, sweat beading on his forehead. A woman in a white shirt and black skirt was with them, and she’d brought her scowl. “I’m Alicia Smith, manager on duty. She turned to the old guy. “Mr Anderson, good morning.” Then she turned to me. “What exactly is going on?” Oh, great, they knew each other. I was the outsider in this situation, and things rarely went well for the outsider.

  “My friend and I were going through this checkout with nine items. That old man”—I pointed at him—“accused us of putting through more than ten items, and then he started hitting me with his cane. I could have him charged with assault.” I narrowed my eyes and shot him my own death glare. Stupid old man.

  She turned to the cashier. “Angus, did they have more than ten items?”

  I blinked. That was the question she started with? Did nobody care that I’d just taken a beating? I would surely have bruises later.

  “No, Miss Smith. They had nine.” Angus turned and looked out the front doors, no doubt wishing he was somewhere else.

  Mr Anderson had shuffled closer. He poked his stick towards Angus. “That’s a lie, boy. Tell her about the bananas.” He tipped his chin up, smugness radiating from every huge pore.

  Angus swallowed. He looked at his superior and shook his head.

  Alicia turned to Mr Anderson. “We count the same item as one item. One banana or ten, one tin of cat food or ten, they’re considered one item.”

  Olivia had returned. She stood next to me and gently placed the new bunch of bananas on the conveyer belt. The old guy saw her. His mouth dropped open. “You can’t be serious! This is not the England I grew up in. You’re not going to let them get away with this, are you? This is a travesty!”

  I didn’t want to leave anything to chance. “Um, excuse me, Miss Smith.”

  She turned to me.

  “He also damaged our original bunch of bananas. Shouldn’t he pay for them?” I tried not to smirk. I had the best interests of the supermarket in mind, but wouldn’t that be awesome if he had to pay for those bananas he so hated.

  Miss Smith nodded, but she wasn’t smiling. I supposed she didn’t want to treat any customer badly, but rules were rules. “Yes, he will.” She turned back to Mr Anderson, whose eyes were wide. “You will apologise to...”

  I couldn’t help it, but I smiled. “Miss Bianchi.”

  “…to Miss Bianchi, and you will also pay for that bunch of bananas. If you ever assault another one of my customers, I will call the police. To be frank, Mr Anderson, I’m quite surprised at your behaviour.” She shook her head.

  The fire in his eyes dimmed. He probably realised this battle was over. He turned to me. He’d clenched his teeth, which didn’t look all that apologetic to me. “I’m… I’m…”

  “Mr Anderson.” Alicia’s voice held a warning tone.

  He growled. “I’m… sorry. There, I said it. Happy now?” Talk about a constipated apology. That thing had not wanted to come out.

  As much as the apology sucked, I just wanted to go home and eat my melted ice cream. “Apology accepted.”

  Alicia smiled. “There now. All done.” She turned to me. “He’s not usually like this, Miss Bianchi. I have no idea what’s gotten him so riled up. I know it’s within your rights to press charges, but if you could give him a break, I’d appreciate it. He really is a nice man, and he’s too old to go through the trauma of being arrested.”

  I looked at Olivia. She shrugged. I sighed. I hated letting him get away with it, but he’d probably get off on an insanity plea, considering what had made him so angry in the first place. “Yeah, sure. But if he ever hits me again, I will.”

  “Thank you, Miss Bianchi.” She turned to Angus. “Angus, no charge for those groceries today. It’s the least we can do for Miss Bianchi.”

  Oh, well that was a nice outcome. “Thank you, Miss Smith. I appreciate it.”

  Angus bagged those trouble-making bananas. Olivia grabbed one of our bags, and I grabbed the other. As we walked out, heading for the public toilets, two women pushing shopping trollies stood facing each other, trolley noses touching.

  The taller of the middle-aged women said, “Get out of my way, love. I was here first.”

  The other shook her head. “I was here first.” She drew her trolley back and then slammed it into the other one.

  “What the hell is going on today, Liv?” I considered helping the women sort it out, but I’d already attracted my share of trouble, and the crazy thing was that there was plenty of space for both women to go around each other. They were being stubborn for stubborn’s sake.

  “I was here first. You move!” There was another crash as the trollies came together, like a couple of rams headbutting for territory.

  Olivia shook her head. “I have no idea, but I vote we get out of here before our ice cream becomes a milkshake.”

  “Awesome idea.” We made our way back to the public toilets, the discordant trolley din following us. I travelled us both home to the delightful silence of Angelica’s house.

  I’d been practicing a lot lately, and now I was strong enough to travel another person. I’d also been learning new spells and working on my physical self-defence with James. After being warned by Drake to stop killing witches, I was determined not to kill anywitch else. And no, I wasn’t a serial killer; I was just unlucky. It wasn’t my fault witches kept trying to kill me.

  We went straight from the reception room to the kitchen. I put the milk and cheese into the fridge. Then I opened the ice cream. “Hmm, it’s not too bad.” I poked it with a spoon. “It’s soft but not runny. We’d better have some, just to make sure it’s okay.”

  “You’re right. We need to be sure.” Olivia grinned.

  I magicked us both bowls and another spoon out of the cupboard, and we served ourselves. Angelica had told me to use my magic as much as possible, to build up my witch strength. It took just as much effort to remember to magic stuff than it did to execute the spell. I was so used to doing things the normal way, that I’d often be in the middle of putting something away when I’d remember to magic it. This time, I was on the ball, and I ordered the ice cream into the freezer.

  I sat opposite Olivia at the kitchen table and tasted the chocolate choc-chip goodness. “Mmm, this is so good.” I shut my eyes for a moment and savoured the taste.

  “Mmm, you’re right. It was worth getting smacked.”

  My eyes popped open, and I stared at Olivia. “Easy for you to say. You didn’t get caned, literally.” I put my spoon down and pulled the neck of my T-shirt down to expose my shoulder.

  Olivia’s eyes widened, and she bit her lip. “Oh, wow, that looks sore. That old guy was stronger than he looked.”

  I covered the purpling flesh. “Tell me about it. What makes a person lose it like that? And why do people have to be so stupid? He didn’t even understand how the damn ten-items-or-less lane works.” I comforted myself by shoving a spoonful of ice cream into my mouth.

  Olivia shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  Brrring, brrring. Brrring, brrring. The antique telephone chime Olivia had as her mobile ringtone sounded. She reached into her bag and pulled out her phone. “Hello, Dad…. Yeah, not much. Just eating ice cream with Lily.” As her dad spoke, her brow creased, and she frowned. “Oh, okay. I’ll be right over…. Yes. Bye.”

  “What’s wrong?” I had a funny twitchy sensation in the pit of my stomach. This wasn’t going to be good news.

  “Um, not sure, but Dad said Mum’s taken a funny turn, and he’s locked himself in their bedroom to get away from her.”

  “What? That doesn’t make sense.” Her mother was one of the most demure and gentle people I’d ever met. She didn’t appear to have a crazy bone in her body, but as I’d learned multiple times recently, you never really knew a person. Maybe she’d gotten stuck into the booze or something. “Do you want me to go wit
h you?”

  “Ah, no. Dad would be mortified if he knew I told you anything. If I need backup later, I’ll call you.” She stood and put her phone back in her bag. She stared forlornly at the ice cream she was abandoning.

  “I’ll put it in the freezer. You can have it when you get back.”

  Her smile was half-hearted. She must be worried about her mum, although it could have been for the ice cream. “Thanks. I’ll see you later.” She turned and walked out.

  I magicked her bowl into the freezer and finished eating. It was time to work on my spell to hide Millicent’s baby bump so I could tell her about it when I had dinner at her place tonight. I’d almost gotten it, but I had a couple of words to tweak. If I got it wrong, she was going to look very strange, and I didn’t want to do anything that would harm the baby. Glamours were tricky things. If you weren’t careful, you could actually change someone’s body instead of just making it look different.

  I took myself to the spare bedroom where I’d set up a mannequin to practice on. How exciting: it would be me and an inanimate object for the rest of the afternoon. How had I ever thought my life was fulfilling before I was a witch? Ha ha. Somehow, I knew the joke was on me. It always was.

  After I’d worked on my spell for the whole afternoon, I took a shower and got ready to go see James, my brother, and Millicent. I knocked on Olivia’s bedroom door at six thirty. She was coming with me. Tonight was the night we were going to explain my parents’ situation and the diary to her. She was sitting her final exams to become a police officer in a week, and we really needed help with researching where my parents had been and who they’d been with.

  She didn’t answer, so I knocked again. “Olivia? Are you in there?” I opened the door a crack and peeked in. “Hello?”