Bait
So I was in a quaint school uniform that wasn't mine and I'd been chained to a drainpipe gushing water over my pink gumboots, and the only thing I could think was: where the hell did he get the handcuffs?
PIMs didn't normally have handcuffs. PIMs normally had guns or sticks or cricket bats – something to kill and maim and – ohhhh boy, there was the weapon.
I eyed the switchblade my stalker had whipped from the back of his skinny jeans. My wand was stuffed beneath my school blouse, easy enough to access if I wasn't shackled to a bloody drainpipe. My wrists were chafing from the steel cuffs, locked at eye height and nowhere in reaching distance for my one chance at defence.
"You know," I said breathlessly, because hell, I was scared shitless, and talking was what I did when I was scared shitless, "skinny jeans have never been a favourite of mine. They're for skinny people. Not curvy people, like me." I nodded down to my hips. "We just look like triangles – ahh."
I pressed myself against the damp brick wall behind me as the twenty-something-year-old boy aimed the switchblade at my exposed torso.
Wand, wand, I needed my wand –
"Little witch, little witch, let me in," he said in that creepy way all the PIMs did before they killed their victims.
Oh my wizardy god, I was going to die in this outfit and these gaudy pink boots –
Boots.
I kicked upwards and in a burst of magic the boy went flying down the alleyway. His switchblade clattered against the wall as Gordo finally ran in from the street.
"Obliviate!"
The PIM, who had started to scramble up, slumped back to the ground. Gordo pointed his wand at the boy's body. "Incarcerous."
Thick ropes wrapped around the boy and held him into place. He didn't struggle. Was probably still battling with the memory spell, mixed with the Imperius spell that had been put on him earlier.
"It's about time, Gordo," I said. "Where have you been?"
He shot me a glare that suggested at some point he had been considering letting the boy murder me.
Fair call. I may have given Gordo the slip to lure the boy further away.
Not that it was my fault. Gordo looked like The freaking Rock. He was hardly inconspicuous, and how was I supposed to lure PIMs somewhere private with a muscly Auror keeping a step and half away?
"This is the last time, Romy." He stalked over to unlock my handcuffs. "You're off this assignment. I'm talking to Valentine as soon as we get back."
I rubbed my aching wrists and pulled out my wand. "Aw, come on, Gordo – we got the guy. No harm done."
"You were almost killed. You're underage, and you shouldn't be doing this in the first place."
"I know, but I'm so good at it, aren't I?"
A car blared its horn on the street.
Gordo gave me the once-over, his mouth tightening beneath his goatee. "You shouldn't have worn that stupid outfit, either."
I twirled to allow the pleated skirt to flutter. "What's wrong with this? I borrowed it from Mandy Bromman in the apartment above us. She goes to this fancy inner city school that –"
"Hasn't gone back yet," Gordo said with a growl. "School doesn't start again until February 1st. Any bozo knows that."
"This bozo didn't," I said, prodding my ex-attacker with my pink gumboot and accidentally sending him flying across the alley again. "Oops."
With reflexes fitting for an Auror, Gordo flicked his wand and had the boy stop mid-air and float gently back to us.
"I forgot they were magic," I said sheepishly, tapping at a puddle with the thick-soled toe. "That makes twice, now."
The boy groaned. His tongue lolled a little, and his eyes were crossed. It shouldn't have taken him so long to recover, which mean my PIM, my Potentially Imperiused Muggle, was just IM, Imperiused Muggle.
"I can't believe we have another one," I said as Gordo lugged the bound boy to his feet. "How come you lot haven't figured out who's doing it yet?"
Gordo grunted and, shoving the handcuffs in his jeans pocket, snagged my arm for Side-Along Apparition.
I wasn't concerned. He was always angry at me. Valentine said it was because he was worried. Everyone was worried. What kind of sick freak goes around the entire country putting the Imperius Curse on muggles to turn them into murderers? Murderers, who, might I add, only went after magical teenagers.
The world whirled, and I braced myself for that awful, suffocating feeling that came with Apparition, and a moment later we were in the Australian Ministry of Magic.
The boy promptly vomited all over my pink gum boots. That was my cue to leave.
"Well," I said, slipping out of the boots as the employees around us wrinkled their noses, "this was fun and all, Gordo, but I really have to be getting back."
"Don't you dare, you ratbag – you need to debrief with Valentine."
But I was already padding in my socks towards the Floo Network in the corner of the room. "Can't stay – got to start packing. It's my last year of school this year, you know!"
"Romy!"
"Bye!"
I threw a handful of glittering green powder into the fireplace and stepped in before Gordo could order anyone to stop me. I knew I was going to get into trouble – Valentine loved her debriefs, and Gordo was probably still planning to tell on me for my little slip-away act.
But debriefs were for adults, and I wasn't an adult.
I was a seventeen-year-old girl with a very rare and very, very useful power.
Ministry-issued pink stunner gumboots had nothing on a Metamorphmagus.
