‘I’ll give you one last chance,’ he told me, ‘before I splatter your brains all across your windshield.’

I wanted to tell him that my brains were located where you’d expect and that if he pulled the trigger right now it would be my windpipe that would see the damage; my brains would remain intact. Somehow I didn’t think this was the time for an anatomy lesson.

‘Okay,’ I said soothingly. ‘I have a cashbox in the glove department. I need to lean across.’

‘Don’t try anything funny.’

Maybe it was his tone of voice but more likely it was his choice of words. In any case, when I stretched out to open the glove box with my left hand and sketched out a rune onto my thigh with my right hand, I knew exactly what I was doing. And, yes, I thought it was pretty funny.

‘What the…?’ he spluttered. ‘What the fuck?’ He yanked what had been a lethal weapon away from my neck and stared at what was now a banana. Clichéd, sure, but it made me smile.

‘I wouldn’t recommend trying to eat it,’ I said sunnily. It might look like a banana and feel like a banana but magic could only go so far. Unfortunately.

His eyes swung from the banana to me and then back again. I didn’t think it was possible but he seemed even paler than before. ‘You’re a witch.’

Duh. ‘Yes, I am,’ I replied pleasantly.

‘What is a witch doing driving a cab?’

That was a long, long story that I certainly wasn’t getting into with this guy. ‘I did give you the chance to change your mind,’ I told him.

His eyes shifted as he calculated the odds. I reckoned it was about fifty–fifty whether he lunged for me or made a run for it. Fortunately for both us, he chose the latter. He grabbed the door handle and tugged furiously but, of course, it didn’t open. Central locking. I was feeling generous, though, because I activated the button to open the door and he fell out. He scrambled to his feet, almost tripping over them in his haste to get away. Then he veered down the road, narrowly avoiding getting run over by a double-decker bus.

I watched him for a moment or two as he sped away towards the pavement and his supposed freedom. The smart thing to do would be to let him go; less hassle on all accounts. But there was a niggling voice in the back of my head that told me he’d be free to try this again – and on someone with fewer defensive abilities than me. I couldn’t do it. I rolled my eyes. Some days I wish I didn’t have a conscience.

I counted to three under my breath then raised my hand and drew out another rune. There was a loud crack and a heavy tree branch crashed down onto the head of my would-be assailant. He collapsed instantly.