Саманта Сильвер - Busy As A Beaver

Still, so long as I wasn’t dead, there were still things I could do. I launched another protective spell just as Chuck attacked me again. Once again, his spell was absorbed by the protective spell I had put up, and I could tell he was getting frustrated as he came closer and closer.

For a little while, the two of us basically played a game of cat and mouse. I was stuck, held in place by his spell which left me upside down, but I could still use my magic. A floating spell allowed me to rise up above one of his spells, and the protective spell helped me a few more times.

The problem was, with every spell that I used, I was becoming weaker and weaker. Magic wasn’t this infinite source of energy, and the more I used it, the more tiring it became. I hadn’t used this much magic in quite a long time, but Chuck seemed to be completely fine.

It was just about over for me. I could definitely tell that much.

As Chuck approached me, I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see what was about to happen. All of a sudden, though, I heard a voice say something I absolutely wasn’t expecting.

“Get the hell away from her, you dumb creep,” Sophie said, and my eyes burst open just in time to see her whack Chuck across the head with a two-by-four. A disgusting thud resonated through the alley and Chuck’s eyes rolled into the back of his head for a second before he fell down, collapsing into a heap, no longer a threat.

Unfortunately for me, the instant Chuck found himself unconscious, the spell he had used to keep me hanging upside down was broken. I let out a yelp as my ankle was let go and I dropped to the ground, hitting the cement with a thud. Luckily, I thought to cover my head with my hands, and while a searing pain coursed through my left arm, my head was fine.

“Are you ok?” Sophie asked, rushing over to me. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“My arm hurts,” I whined. “I thought I told you to get out of here.”

“I know, but then I realized I couldn’t just leave you here. Then, when I saw that your spells weren’t doing anything against him, I figured he had put up some sort of magical barrier. So I thought I would see if he had protected himself against all attacks, or just magical ones.”

“I guess he thought we were both witches, and that we would only use magical attacks against him,” I mused.

“Joke was on him. The closest I ever came to magic was that one time when I was the best player on our soccer team growing up,” Sophie said, looking down at him.

“We need to call 9-1-1,” I said as I got up and scraped the gravel off of my knees.

Sophie nodded and pulled out her phone while I made my way over to Chuck and looked for a pulse. It was there, but it was weak. Sophie had evidently done quite a number on him.

The important thing was he was going to go to jail for a very long time. He was never going to get to enjoy the fruits of his robbery all those years ago.

Chapter 19

The next six hours or so flew by like a blur. I had to call Karen and ask her to reschedule the afternoon’s appointments as well, as there was no way we were going to make it back to Willow Bay in time. Luckily, all of my patients were extremely understanding when they found out exactly why I had to push their appointments back.

After Sophie had called 911, an ambulance came by first, followed very shortly by a police cruiser whose cops came right up to us.

“Can you tell us what happened here?” one of them asked, flipping open a notebook.

“He tried to attack us,” Sophie said. “Luckily, there were two of us, and we managed to get the upper hand eventually.”

Everything we told the cops was accurate, except for the magic, which we obviously left out. We explained to them that we had found out Chuck was actually Charles Green, but that there had been no evidence that he had been the one to attack Gloria and kill Michael Carlton. We explained that we had gone to the coffee shop to try and talk to him in a public setting, but that he followed us out and tried to kill us.

Ok, so we lied a little bit. But it was mainly so that Chief Gary wouldn’t yell at us quite as much as we knew he would if we told the truth. After all, there was nothing wrong with us going to see the man in a public place; that was the safe way to do it.

Sophie played the recording of the conversation between us and Chuck for the cops, then emailed it to one of them so that they would have a copy.

We were interrupted by one of the EMTs who wanted to know if either one of us required medical attention as well. I shook my head; my arm was starting to feel better with every passing minute and I didn’t think it was the sort of thing that was going to require medical attention.

“Is he going to be ok?” I asked, motioning towards Chuck.

“It’s too early to say,” the EMT replied. “We’re getting him to the hospital right now.”

With that, she left me, closed the ambulance bay doors, and got into the driver’s side seconds before peeling off, lights and sirens blaring.

“Well, at least it’s over,” Sophie said to me quietly. “We figured it out, and Gloria is safe now.”

I nodded. It was over. We knew who had committed the crimes, and he was incapacitated. Even if for whatever reason he couldn’t be tried for Michael Carlton’s murder, there was at least a pretty open-and-shut case of attempted murder against Sophie and me.

The cops brought us coffee and asked us to wait for a few more minutes. That was totally fine with me; I was definitely ok with hanging out here, as I wasn’t sure I was really in a state to drive back to Willow Bay. My hands shook as I took the steaming cup of coffee, and I suddenly realized that Sophie might be doing even worse than I was.

“How are you holding up?” I asked her, leaning my head against her shoulder.

“I’m actually ok,” Sophie said. “Even if he dies, I know that I did it to save you, and since it came down to a choice between having him in the world and having you in the world, well, I definitely made the right call.”

“I love you so much,” I said to Sophie.

“Same here. You need to work on those magic skills; that dude should have never been able to out-magic you.”

“Hey, it’s not like I come across a murdering wizard every day,” I argued. “Who am I going to fight against? Charlotte? I’m pretty sure she would destroy me one hundred percent of the time.”

As I said the words and realized that in a few months I wasn’t going to be able to magic-fight Charlotte even if I wanted to, my heart dropped slightly. I had always taken it for granted that my sister was going to be around all the time, and it was going to take a little bit to get used to the idea that it wouldn’t always be the case.

“Do you think that weird magical court you had to visit a while back is going to go after Chuck?” Sophie asked.

I shrugged. “I doubt it. After all, there was no one non-magical around except you, and you’re allowed to know about magic since your mom’s a witch, so there were no magical rules broken. If he uses his magic to try and break out of human jail, he’ll get nailed by them, though.”

“Was that how he stole the money, do you think?” Sophie asked. “Using magic?”

I shook my head. “No, I doubt it. The magical council would have definitely gotten mad at him for doing that. Besides, if he had used magic, he wouldn’t have needed help from Michael and Francis.”

Just then, a familiar car pulled up to the front of the alley. Chief Gary got out of the driver’s side and started making his way towards us, but not before I spotted his passenger: Jason. He practically sprinted out of the car and made his way over to me, taking me into a huge bear hug.

“I’m so glad you’re ok, Angie,” he whispered in my ear as he held me close.