Ghost Shadow (Moon Shadow Series Book 4) (20 page)

I nodded and pulled a packet from under my shirt. “It’s good for blending and works especially well at night. But I’m not invisible, and there’s no actual protection. He said to use it if I found myself in a tight spot, but it won’t physically stop someone from harming me.”

She shook her head. “The kid has a nose on him like—”

“A cat,” I finished for her. “He said to tell you it took him a couple of tries.”

Adriel rolled her eyes. “Yeah, because he probably added an improvement or two.” She tilted her head. “Let’s go to my lab.”

Her lab was a combination kitchen and work area with tables, benches, and jars filled with an inventory of herbs, stones, and unidentifiable goo. There was a flat piece of wood with a circle in the center off to one side, piles of other wood, cabinets and books that looked too ancient to be real.

“First spell, first,” she said, rummaging amongst the jars. “Cuttlefish! It’s a huge improvement for the blending spell. Those creatures can change pigments at will, blending even as their environment changes. I’ll add it to his spell. That way, even if you’re in motion, be it light or dark or changing back and forth, you’ll still be nearly invisible. I used smoke screens with the old spell, and that is great in half light or fog, but New Mexico isn’t known for foggy days.”

After she fixed the spell to her satisfaction, she started with a set of new ingredients. I told her what had happened the day before with the vampires and Amy even though she indicated that Lynx had called with details yesterday. “Do you think Tina will survive drinking the demon blood?”

Adriel shivered. “I don’t know. I don’t see why demon blood would harm her in particular because she already gave up her soul. I guess it could have poisoned her because drinking that stuff can’t be healthy.”

The soulless part had occurred to me.

She sighed. “I suppose I’ll have to call Patrick and offer...I am not spelling anything that might help bring a vampire back from the dead. Whatever the hell that means. And demon blood?” She looked at me. “Moonlight madness.”

It was definitely madness. “Can you store energy in a packet that you can give me? Like you store energy in your bracelet?”

She didn’t set down the silver spikes she held in one hand. “My bracelet?”

“Or any of the spell packets you have here.” I waved at the table. “Although your jewelry contains the most energy.”

She lifted her arm, her eyes narrowing at me over the turquoise. “It’s my conduit. You can see that?”

“It swirls with energy.”

“Can you use the energy?”

“Probably. I haven’t tried to take any of it, and I’m not sure what would happen if I did.”

She held her arm out. “We won’t know unless you try.”

I could harvest the energy if I went sideways. Trying to utilize it without doing so probably wouldn’t work. I slipped partway until the energy was clearly visible and placed one ghost finger on the bracelet. It was warm, then cold.

Adriel’s eyes widened. She might not see it the way I did, but she felt the energy transfer.

The flow tingled, like a shock when you rub your feet on carpet. “That’s more than enough.” My voice was hoarse and then squeaked on the end. “It’s not the same as other energy.”

“Well. That makes things easier. I can store Mother Earth in silver. Not that I did it on purpose with my jewelry. Until you mentioned it, I never thought of it that way. I guess I do store it, and draw through it.” She turned back to the table. “There’s energy in every spell. We just need it contained in something you can use.” She fiddled with things on the table for a while. “I’m not sure how this helps you with a weapon though. Can you push this energy at someone?”

“The hellhounds didn’t like being slapped with it. That was In Between, though. It might not work as a weapon here.”

“It’s worth a try.” She handed me a bead.

The energy was not nearly as plentiful as her bracelet, but a sideways glance showed it coiled neatly within the ball. “I can try, but I don’t think I’d better hit you with it. If it works, that could be a big mistake.”

“Good point.” She waved a hand at the target on the other side of the lab. “Aim there.”

Without going sideways, there was no hint of the energy. I could throw the ball. It would probably hit the target. But how to activate the energy within? “I don’t think that will work.”

“Why not?”

“The energy works against other energy. It’s like...electricity.”

“If you hit that board with an electric pulse, the board will be destroyed.”

I drifted sideways again. The energy radiated from the little ball. “I’m not sure what to do with it.”

She sighed. “I don’t blame you. These arts take training. You’re like Lynx—a complete mystery to me. I’m not sure what you can or can’t do.”

“That makes two of us. I’ve only ever tried to use the energy as a weapon against something that had energy. If I throw the ball at the board, it isn’t attached to me anymore, and I can’t see how to release the force of it once I’m not attached to it. If I’m sideways, I might be able to use the energy in the ball as a weapon if I can figure out how to fling it.”

“Sideways?”

I nodded. “Sideways is, well, it’s ghosting without being trapped In Between. When I’m sideways, I can’t protect my body because I’m not in it.”

“That’s going to make protecting you a real risky proposition.”

“I know.” I fingered the ball. “Maybe if I practice with this I’ll come up with something.”

“Be my guest.”

Chapter 27

Lynx brought food when he returned to pick me up. There was plenty to share with Adriel and White Feather, but since White Feather wasn’t there, Lynx ate his share too.

After we finished eating, Lynx drove me to the grocery store to stock up.

“I gotta run another errand. Just get everything. I’ll be back in forty.”

Forty days and forty nights? Okay, he probably meant minutes. He hadn’t told me if he had found Paula. He was probably still working on it.

As I roamed the grocery aisles, I felt vulnerable using the credit card Lynx had insisted on providing me. Even though the food would be shared with him, guilt prickled me all through the store. Since meat was expensive, I’d have made lasagna without it, but Lynx hadn’t eaten a meal that didn’t include copious amounts of meat.

My personal memories might be mostly gone, but apparently cooking skills hadn’t left me. I bet I could concoct the burritos with beans, meat, potatoes and chile that Lynx so loved. The Spanish rice did not ring a bell. He liked eggs. How about egg drop soup? Piece of cake. Hmm. Chocolate cake.

I bought more than was strictly necessary, but hunger, or the fear of it, gnawed at me.

Lynx was waiting outside when I rolled the cart out. He dropped me and the groceries off at his house and disappeared again, but he didn’t take the Mustang.

He still hadn’t reported any progress.

On the bright side, with all the shopping done, at least I had a worthwhile task ahead. Since Lynx’s idea of cooking involved racing the Mustang to the nearest burrito stand, my contributions had been limited.

After I started pasta boiling, I went outside and showed Spook my newly acquired silver ball. “I have to learn how to use this as a weapon the way we used our energy In Between. But I can’t figure out how to force an explosion without just mashing it up against someone.”

Spook nipped the ball gently between his teeth, but in his case that meant he grabbed the energy, not the physical ball. He trotted off a ways and then brought it back.

“Seriously? You want to play fetch with a packet of energy? What if you squash it?”

Spook snorted with disdain and wagged his tail.

I tossed the ghost ball. Oddly enough, the physical ball stayed attached to me with an elastic link between it and the ghost ball.

Spook took off after the ghost image, his missing back leg not hindering his progress at all. Maybe the ghost ball had to stay within a certain distance of the real ball, but I couldn’t tell if my throwing arm was weak or if the ball couldn’t sail very far past the tree line because of some ghostly restriction.

“Okay. You can deliver the packet of energy.” If I exploded the physical ball, would the other one explode? I tossed the ghost energy into the trees while I pondered the situation.

Finding the ghost ball, even in the trees, wasn’t a problem for Spook. He brought it back, gently depositing it in my hand where the physical ball waited.

“I can’t do it, Spook. I can’t do a thing with it once the energy or the physical ball leaves my hand.” I placed the ball against the front door. The energy was warm. Tingly. I clutched the entire ball, including the ghost energy, and slapped it against the door. “Nothing. I can still see it and push it.” I went sideways again. The pulsing force was visible and warmer now. I slapped the ball into the door again, flinging the ball like a weapon, envisioning the contents arcing out with the swing.

It worked
! The stored energy left the ball and splashed out, still attached to me and the ball, forming a long beam.

The silver light hit the door before the physical ball. Instead of pushing the door open, the energy splattered sideways. Beams of the power bounced right back at me, hitting me solidly in the arm and chest.

I flew backwards and smacked into a hard body, ricocheting sideways into the porch railing. My stomach took the brunt of the blow, leaving me without much air. “Ooof.”

“What the hell was that?” Lynx sputtered from the ground where I’d knocked him two feet off the porch. He rolled into a crouch. One hand was down for balance, and the other up and ready to do battle. His claws were visible, and he was barefoot again.

I hung there for another second or two with no air to answer him. Finally, I half rolled, half fell onto the second step. “Uff.” I rubbed my stomach. “Was trying...new weapon.”

Lynx spent another minute scanning the surroundings, his ears swiveling faster than his eyes. He eventually stood all the way up. “You know you’re supposed to use a weapon on someone
other
than yourself, right?”

I glared at him. “I was attacking the door.”

He didn’t even glance at it. “You missed.”

“Did not.” I used the rail to haul myself up. “It fought back. Bounced the energy right at me.”

Now he focused on the door. “It’s warded. It was warded first with Adriel’s stuff, and then I added my own protections. Guess the spells performed well.” His lips tilted in his version of a happy smile, and I swear he purred.

“I didn’t think I could attack an inanimate object with the energy at all. I expected a loud noise at best and nothing at worst. I didn’t know the door was magicked.”

Lynx held out his hand. I dropped the ball into it. “Adriel gave this to you?”

“It doesn’t work that well though. I have to be touching it and very nearly touching whatever I want to hit. And I have to be sideways to release the energy.” I plucked the small remaining energy off his hand and tossed it into the trees. Spook promptly fetched the ball, but there was only a lingering bit of faded silver light remaining. “From here, I can’t do anything but see the pulse. So I tried to fling it against the door.”

“Yeah.” Lynx held his hand out for the ball, but Spook ignored him and deposited it in my hand.

I absorbed it. “Now the energy is gone. It doesn’t work as a weapon.” I sighed.

“If you want to fling or throw it, you need something longer. Get the weapon away from you. How far can you direct it?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t experiment very much, although I explained the problem to her.”

I climbed the steps tentatively. He followed, dusting off his backside.

“Oh, shoot! The pasta!”

Luckily, dinner wasn’t ruined, and it didn’t take me long to finish layering the lasagna and put it in the oven.

“A sword would be a better weapon,” Lynx said, beaming at the prospect. “If it was in your hand when you were visiting sideways, you could shoot energy down it. Probably.”

“I wasn’t dead that long, Lynx. I am pretty sure it is still illegal to carry a sword around.”

“Not to mention you might spear yourself until you learn to keep from bouncing it off a door.”

“An umbrella would work. I could even perch it over the top of me while sideways.”

He frowned. “Maybe you don’t need this sideways thing.”

“I should just carry around a big stick. Trees have energy. Even the leaves.” I wrapped bread in foil and placed it in the oven. “Do you own a crockpot?”

“A what?”

“I’m guessing that’s a no.”

“You think you can use a crockpot for energy?”

“No. It’s for cooking.” I rolled my eyes, and then noticed he was silently laughing.

“I knew that,” he said. “Smells good. Hope you didn’t overdo the tomato stuff in that.”

“Lots of cheese. And hamburger and sausage.”

“Good.”

Lynx either liked the lasagna or hadn’t eaten in three full days. Since we’d been together for most meals, I knew he had eaten.

When we finished dinner, Lynx eyed the plates and the full sink. “I’ll take care of the dishes, but I have business first. I’ll help when I get back.”

“Go on, then.”

Not that he waited for me to finish the sentence. The door snicked closed before the last word was out of my mouth.

Chapter 28

By the time Lynx returned it was late. I’d cleaned the kitchen, taken a shower and fallen asleep. The clock on the bedside table told me it was eleven. I got up anyway.

Lynx was in the living room with a guitar and several tree limbs.

“Adriel says it’s always best to harvest right from the trees. Then there’s no chance of any rogue magic interfering. We could buy hardwood from her too, and it would probably contain some of her magic. But the tree has its own.” Lynx held out three different lengths of wood, each carved differently.

“You made these?” I plucked the medium staff and twirled it. It flowed through my fingers. Surprised, I stopped twirling it.

“You—” he started to speak, and then just settled for watching me.