Chapter Four

 

Winter wasn't in his office when I went up to look for him but his secretary, an enthusiastic young Zealator who terrified me every time I saw her with her bubbly zest for life and the way she bustled around the piles of paperwork that always sat on her desk, told me that he was in a meeting on the third floor. What I should do, I decided, was to put some kind of GPS tracer on the man. That way, when I went looking for him I wouldn't have to trudge up several flights of stairs and then seconds later traipse down several more to locate him. Winter seem to think that the exercise did me good but the way my thighs ached told me otherwise. Pain is not my friend. Pain is not anyone's friend. In fact, anyone who tries to persuade you otherwise is several ice cubes and a slice of lemon short of a gin and tonic.

When I finally spotted Winter in one of the grander conference rooms, he was deep in discussion. I didn't think he realised what kind of picture he presented to the world. From the other side of the glass wall, I could see him sitting at the head of the conference table in a high-backed leather chair. In his lap, Princess Parma Periwinkle lay curled up and, even though Winter was beyond busy, he still managed to pause every so often to stroke her fur. Anyone else looking at that image would immediately think he was some kind of Bond villain – admittedly better looking than any other Bond villain that has ever existed, but a villain nonetheless.

Despite my concern over the missing Angel, I took a moment to watch him. He listened carefully, his head tilted to one side as someone at the end of the table spoke. He continued to listen when one of the Order assistants thrust a piece of paper in front of him and tapped at it to encourage him to sign. Then, a door at the far end of the conference room opened and somebody stuck their head in and began talking. Winter said something back, his expression intent. Now he was not only reading a piece of paper while listening to a colleague, but he was also talking to an underling.

Winter is the very definition of multi-tasking. Frankly, it surprises me that he wasn't doing all this from a treadmill. That way he'd have been able to get in his daily exercise at the same time as everything else. I keep trying to tell him that multi-tasking doesn’t exist and that current thinking suggests it is far better to focus on one job at a time. Mindfulness is the word of the day; scratch that, it is the word of the year – nay, the decade. Winter just accuses me of subverting current popular opinion and adapting it for my own uses. I don’t deny it. Of course, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that; if the facts don't serve me, I don't want to know them. Who would?

All the same, there was something rather wonderful about watching Winter at work. He was like a conductor in front of an orchestra, in full control of everything that he was doing. The man had no idea how sexy he was. Then he looked up, his sapphire eyes catching mine, and the world seem to stop. We gazed at each other, lost in a single moment of togetherness; it was as if the world had stopped spinning on its axis just for us. A moment later someone waved another piece of paper in front of Winter’s face and the spell was broken. It didn't matter; I knew that if I wanted it I would always have his full attention.

Giving him the chance to finish what he was doing, I hung back knowing that he wouldn't take too long about it with me waiting outside the glass-fronted conference room. In fact, I kicked off my shoes and lay down on the floor, stretching out my arms behind my head as if I were lying on a beach on some tropical island instead of on a beige carpet in a nondescript bureaucratic hallway in Oxford. I might have looked foolish but it calmed me to rest, even if only for a few moments. I closed my eyes and centred myself just as the conference room door opened and Winter’s voice could be heard.

‘Ivy,’ he said, with a gruff growl that attacked my nervous system better than any destructive curse could. ‘What on earth are you doing? You can't tell me that you're too tired to walk home. I've told you before and I'll tell you again – I am not going to set an entire Order department to investigate the merit of flying broomsticks so you can zoom around from place to place. Plenty of witches have tried it before and plenty have failed.’

I pushed myself up to my elbows and regarded Winter calmly. ‘Just because others have tried and failed doesn't mean that failure is always going to be the end result.’ I arched an eyebrow. ‘Frankly, that sounds like a defeatist, lazy attitude.’

The corners of Winter’s mouth crept up. ‘Lazy?’ he asked. His eyes glittered.

I bit back the response I wanted to make. As much as I would have liked to encourage more banter to see how far we could push things in a public place, sadly this wasn't the time. I got to my feet, hearing my bones creak as I did so, and looked at Winter seriously.

‘We have a problem.’

‘I’ll say. I was hoping for a sexy elf costume, not a morbidly obese man with more facial hair than is hygienic.’

I grimaced. ‘Actually, this is a real problem entirely unrelated to the hell hole that is Santa’s grotto.’

Winter stilled. ‘Go on.’

I looked at him hopefully. ‘I don’t suppose you’d like to pack a suitcase right now and run away with me until we are as far as we can possibly get from anything Order related?’

He didn’t respond.

I sighed. ‘I thought so.’ I ran a hand through my tangled curls. ‘Some angel thing has gone missing. It was supposed to be on top of the main Christmas tree in the square out front but no one can find it. Apparently its loss will trigger at least one terrible curse.’ I raised a shoulder. ‘Effectively, we’re all doomed – but whether through green pustules or smoking volcanoes, I’m not sure.’

For a moment, Winter’s expression was nothing but pure bafflement. Then it seemed as if a light went on behind his eyes. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said slowly. ‘Are you talking about the Angel of the Order? Made out of pure silver?’ He made a shape with his hands. ‘About this high?’

I pursed my lips. ‘I have no idea,’ I told him. ‘I've never seen the thing. What I do know, Raphael Tobias Sexy-Arse Winter, is that at least one curse is attached to it. If the Angel really has gone missing, disaster will ensue.’ Cue dramatic music.

Winter rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘I had heard that,’ he admitted.

I jabbed him repeatedly in the chest with my finger. ‘See? See? You're not even the slightest bit superstitious and yet you believe this curse.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘Hey, wait a minute. I didn’t say that I believed in the curse. I simply said I had heard of it.’ He frowned. ‘The Angel of the Order is a very valuable object. I hate to think that somebody would steal it.’

‘Maybe,’ I suggested, ‘we should send someone down to the sewers underneath the library to look for it.’ I was referring, of course, to where the sceptre had been hidden after it was supposedly stolen. On that occasion, as well as almost drowning in rotten sewage, I finally realised that Raphael Winter was not the idiot I'd taken him for. Order geek, yes. Highly desirable Order geek? Most definitely.

Winter allowed himself a small grin at the memory before sobering up. ‘I will send someone down to check it out just in case. I think it's most unlikely that Angel is there though, don't you?’ He looked at me. ‘I might not believe in curses, Ivy. I may not be superstitious. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t think the Angel has value. It has always been the centrepiece of each year's Christmas tree. Witches like tradition, and the Angel of the Order is all about tradition. It's not a good thing that it's gone missing, not good at all.’ He shook his head. My Winter was troubled. I wasn’t having that.

I folded my arms and drew myself up, while puffing out my chest and feeling an angry ripple shudder through me. There could only be one reason why the Angel had gone missing: somebody was trying to scupper Winter’s reign as Ipsissimus. Despite everything that had gone before, he still had his detractors. Well, they hadn't banked on me by his side. I would not let anyone hurt him. I didn't want pus-filled pustules on my skin or fiery volcanoes exploding on top of me, but those were beside the point. I was going to find the Angel, find who took it and save the day, dammit. Besides, if I could become the hero of the hour then surely I'd be able to wriggle out of this Santa’s grotto disaster in which I was extricated.

‘You look angry,’ Winter observed.

‘I am angry! But don't worry, I will find this Angel and I will stop the curse, whatever it may be. And I will make sure that no one, witch or otherwise, even thinks about ruining my first Christmas with you. I want you and me alone on the sofa watching It’s A Wonderful Life and eating turkey and chocolate. Not necessarily turkey and chocolate at the same time but it’s something we could think about. Both are good.’ I didn’t even pause for breath. I was on a roll. ‘There will be mistletoe. There will be snuggles. There will not be evil witches causing curse-filled mishaps and interrupting our holiday.’ I glared at him for full effect. ‘Got that?’ I demanded.

Winter held up his hands and took a step back. ‘You're a scary lady, Ivy Wilde.’

I raised an eyebrow. ‘Scary?’ I scoffed and scrunched up my nose. ‘You ain't seen nothing yet.’