Page 49 of Vengefully Matched

“If you enjoy your employment, mind your manners and remember what I said.” Her voice was flinty.

A small, disreputable bit of Priscilla wanted to seize this as an opportunity to finally sway Kevin to her side, but then again, the promise of Agatha’s steely voice laying down the law wasn’t unattractive. Perhaps two beautiful women ought not to be fighting over something as insignificant as a man.

They pulled up to the greenhouse to find a frazzled old woman outside of it.

“I’m NACoW president Agatha Vanderbilt Voisin, and this is Councilwoman Priscilla Hart.”

“Oh, thank goodness!” she exclaimed. “I’m Dotty Jenkins, the head horticulturist here. It’s just terrible. I had to send out a message to the mundane occupants that there was a sewer leak, and to the magical ones that there was a zombie bedbug infestation.”

Priscilla recoiled. “There isn’t actually a zombie bedbug problem, is there?”

“No,” moaned Dotty, covering her face with her hand. “Oh goddess, it’s so much worse.” A loud thumping and buzzing sound came from inside, and the building shook. “There’s a magical force field that prevents anything magical in the greenhouse from getting out without my permission or a pass—a necessity because of some of the plots and what they contain—but no one can get in there, and I can’t seem to find anything that shuts them down. No amount of magic will fix it. They’re immortal chainsaws, I fear! I managed to drop a statue on one of them, and it split into pieces and STILL kept right on revving and sawing the empty air and anything that it came across.”

Agatha’s eyebrows shot up. Something nagged at Priscilla, as though she should be putting things together here.

“I really don’t want to do this, honey,” she grumbled to Agatha. The nickname slipped out, but she couldn’t bring herself to regret it, watching the other witch bring her hands up for magic.

With a smooth move of her fingers, and then another, both of them were sheathed in crisp lavender armor.

“Really, Agatha? Pastel?”

“It’s my signature blend from the vault. Faerie lilacs boost my witchcraft and protection spells. The only downside is that we’ll have to be ungloved, obviously, to be free to use magic.”

“I’m going to need a stiff drink after this,” said Priscilla, frowning. “Fine. Let’s get it over with.”

CHAPTER 15 Agatha

When the rogue magical chainsaws’ dismemberment rendered one of Hart’s pinkies impossible to surgically reattach, Agatha began to feel that she had been wrong to ever suspect the other witch of sabotage. The missing tip of Priscilla’s left pinky was, of course, the final nail in the coffin of Agatha’s theory that the deliciously macabre councilwoman could be the real perpetrator of the attacks. Priscilla was beautiful, even when bleeding.

Agatha tried not to think about how much of an asshole it made her to have believed she was the would-be murderer, to have put up the walls between them, and to be lusting after someone injured as she muttered under her breath, summoning the various blood-clotting herbs she knew of. What was hemostatic, again? And what was a blood thinner? Goddess, she didn’t want to make this worse.

With a slide of her thumb across her other fingertips, she summoned yarrow, and then witch hazel, both of which she could see in the garden.

Come to think of it, it was a good thing Prissy didn’t need her pinkies for her particular brand of magic. Agatha ran her thumb across her fingers again, sprinkling some of the herbs directly on the wound and reserving the rest to mix. She was relieved to note that the herbs seemed to slow the bleed somewhat.

She ought to really thank Otho for insisting that she should take that First Aid for Plant Crafters refresher course earlier this year. Maybe she should put magic specific emergency preparation in the required training videos for all Council members. Fuck. She could not for the life of her remember the third hemostatic, and Priscilla was looking pale, slumped against the wall next to the now-useless handle of the final chainsaw. They’d taken it apart and stored the individual pieces in separate magical lockboxes to keep them from knitting themselves back together.

She didn’t need three. Two clotting herbs would do, especially if they responded to her magic. She rubbed her thumb across all four fingers again, and the herbs mixed themselves in the air, binding together, pressing against the finger.

Priscilla let out a little shriek, but when Agatha summoned clean cloth bandages and reached for her hand, Priscilla shook her head and pressed the cloth to the bleeding digit.

“Painkiller?” Agatha didn’t want to dose her without asking.

“I’d kill for some,” said Prissy, the joke falling flat, framed by her too-pale cheeks. “Please,” she added, and Agatha rubbed her fingers again, sending the poppy opiate directly to Prissy’s bloodstream.

Normally, she did not administer emergency opiates, and she certainly was not in the habit of doling out drugs to her employees, but this was an extreme situation, definitely covered by the Good Samaritan witch codes for emergent magical maladies. Besides, her affinity for plants was strong enough that she doubted she’d be able to stop herself from helping Priscilla with them even if that weren’t the case.

Priscilla sat back, her breathing slowing to normal, and Agatha felt the exhale on her cheeks and realized she was kneeling too close. She sat back on her heels, looking around her at the destructive wake the bizarre, enchanted tools had left behind.

“I can’t believe they wouldn’t stop, even when disassembled,” said Priscilla, voice shaky, hand still pressed to the now-bloody bandage.

“Cause for inquiry indeed,” she said.

She had never seen anything like this, but she couldn’t figure out the seemingly immortal chainsaws until she took care of her bleeding girlfriend.

Clarifying that said bleeding girlfriend was a fake girlfriend felt like an unnecessary distinction. She rubbed her hands to make a new poultice of the herbs, and then again to bandage it freshly.

“Keep it over your head. Or maybe just above your heart? That slows bleeding. I think.”