Under Witch Aura (Moon Shadow Series) (11 page)

“The storm was winding down
by
the time it hit the power sources.” He turned back to the
kitchen. Part of the room was now open to nature. The living room was
strangely intact except for the large picture window, which had
shattered outward. My backpack still rested on one of the six chairs,
untouched. Tara’s purse had fallen off the end table.

I frowned at the anomaly.

White Feather gestured at
the chairs.
“More of Grandfather’s protection. Not much magical can
get past that circle.”

“Your bedroom is protected
by the
furniture too, isn’t it? Your grandfather was a force to be
reckoned with.”

“He studied things. The
paths of
water and wind fascinated him.”

“They're pretty
fascinating, all
right.” My eyes followed the path the wind had taken. The
destruction had gone around the living room, blowing garbage into
what was left of the kitchen.

“The train!” I cried,
rushing forward. The counter where it had been was under the fridge.
Part of the ceiling had fallen, resting on what was left of a wall.

White Feather grabbed my
wrist. “I
can rebuild it.”

The tiniest echo, or maybe
it really
was an innocent breeze, brushed past. There was no excuse for my
distraction. I flared my magic again, hiding us.

White Feather tensed. He
pulled me
close, his free hand at his lips in a shushing motion. Slowly, he
tugged me toward what had been the guest room. I matched his stride,
careful not to crunch debris. I wasn’t certain it was possible
to be quiet enough to fool wind, but I mimicked White Feather’s
example.

By the time we reached the
sheered off
hallway, I was strangely light-headed, which was odd considering we
hadn’t moved very fast or very far.

It wasn’t until White
Feather
released the spell he had cast that the air was suddenly fresh
again.

I took a deep breath. “What
was
that?”

“Shh.”

We sat tight, the seconds
stretching to
minutes. Thankfully, my silver remained dormant.

Finally, White Feather
relaxed. “It’s
gone. Whatever it is.”

I shivered. “What did you
just
do?”

“Displaced the air. I
created a
bubble around us, but a layer after that was devoid of oxygen.”

“You separated the elements
of
air?”

“If it had been Sarah--a
ghost--it wouldn’t have worked. Ghosts don’t need to
breathe. I learned it for other reasons entirely, but it seemed to
fool whatever was searching, at least for the moment.”

“That thing was not Sarah.
The
witching fork never twitched. Whatever it was might have been looking
for her.”

“It was far more dangerous
than
any ghost. That wind didn’t just snag that witching fork away.
It grabbed the gust I threw and intended to bleed me out. It's tired
of waiting around for its next meal.”

My voiced cracked when I
said, “That's
not good. Maybe you should leave this place for a while.”

“No. I'm not leading it
anywhere
else. That thing has tasted me twice now. It may have found me
through Sarah, but it acts like there's a very strong link to me.
Maybe it's only my wind; maybe it's something else.” He
squeezed my shoulders, but it wasn’t the answer I wanted. “I’ve
stayed in Grandfather’s retreat before. It’s perfectly
safe.”

I turned and embraced him,
pouring all
my worry into it. I couldn’t force him away, but he wasn’t
the only one with a few tricks. The man needed a silver barrier,
every protection spell invented and a lot of luck. I might not be
able to manufacture luck, but I could certainly help with the rest.

Warding White Feather’s
house
kept us busy long into the night. I wanted to stay with him, but he
had withdrawn again, leaving me worried and dejected. From the set of
his chin, he wasn’t thrilled either, but the reasons were
probably not the same as mine.

I headed home, but even
after the long
night, sleep was impossible. I dozed on and off until dawn, but
couldn't shake the image of White Feather’s nearly destroyed
house. I knew the devastation of a lost home; I had lost mine to a
rogue spirit trapped in old Aztec gold. The relief at being alive was
quickly replaced by despair from the destruction. The sense of hope
was tempered by a huge fear that the thing would return to finish the
job.

White Feather’s cell phone
worked
fine so checking on him was only a speed dial away, but I’d
rather he be locked safely here with me.

Up early, I was about to
tackle wind
research when Lynx interrupted with business. Just like old times,
there was no car, just a knock at the front door. As soon as I opened
it, Lynx blurted, “He’s good for it. He wants a meet.”

Several seconds passed
while I
processed his statement. It took a while before a ragged piece of
memory finally broke through the stress of the last few days. “The
evil-eye client?”

“Yup. He tol' me all about
his
bad luck, how he's sweatin' all the time, and how business ain't
good. Even better, he paid cash, and he paid triple because he still
claims he doesn’t know the witch that did him.”

“Hmm. Not very specific.
I can
sell him a standard protection ward.” I didn't want to mess
with a new client right now. A basic spell might be enough to calm
the guy down, and if he was just having a run of bad luck, the
talisman might solve the problem without further involvement. If he
turned out to be one of those needy types who wanted spell after
spell, this would push him off until I had more time.

“Guy wants a meet. I set it
up
for Sunday since he paid triple. He suggested Hyde Park, by the
lodge.” Lynx made his way into the kitchen, ignoring my frown.

“How'd you know I would
take the
case?”

Lynx gave me his best
Cheshire cat
grin, not perturbed in the least. “Doesn't matter. You don't
take it, I find someone who will.”

“Business as usual.” I
seriously considered letting the client go, but well-paying
customers were necessary--especially if I wanted the luxury of
researching off-the-wall spells to help a guy who would rather I
stayed clear.

I accepted the money,
knowing that Lynx
would already have deposited anything the client had touched.

“Dawn, at the rear of the
lodge,
near the hiking trail,” I instructed. “The front is too
open to the road, and people driving by will assume something nasty
like a drug drop.”

“Dawn ain’t nobody gonna
see you in the front or the back. Drug drops are done at night. Ain’t
no dopers gonna bother to be up that early.”

Lynx's knowledge was one of
the reasons
I valued him. Lynx's knowledge was one of the reasons I feared
working with him. “Dawn anyway and in the back.”

“You the boss.”

His acknowledgment would
have been more
respectful if he wasn't digging through my kitchen cupboards. He
easily located my last box of animal crackers. I was tired, crabby
and more than a little frustrated. Maybe that's why I made the
mistake of trying to squeeze my money's worth out of Lynx. “I
have a question.”

“Sure.” He nodded too,
just in case I couldn't understand him around the cookies in his
mouth.

Asking Lynx about anything
to do with
shifting was risky business. He was a shifter, and he was well-aware
of my knowledge, but life in the underground was all about illusions.
We never openly discussed shifting. We never openly discussed how my
spells worked. Those topics were lines not crossed.

I bounded ahead anyway,
convinced the
reason was important enough. “You any good at talking to other
cats?”

“I can talk to anybody,
anytime,
get anything. What you lookin’ for?”

“No, I mean cats. Real
ones.
Small, about…” his eyes narrowed, but I plowed ahead.
“I’ve got this problem with a cat.”

“A cat.”

“I think it’s a house-cat
type of cat, not a shifter, but I’ve only seen glimpses of it.”
He slapped the box of crackers down on the counter. His ears were
flat against his head, an impossible trick for human ears.

“You think I'm like some
kind of
pet?” The contempt was almost a snarl.

“What? No! Lynx, this isn't
a
joke! I'm not some shape shifter voyeur, you know that! Look, I’m
pretty sure the cat is alive, but I did see it the first time around
a ghost.”

He hesitated, halfway to
the front
door.

“I’m not sure if it’s
trying to haunt me. That could be the case if it really is dead, but
it might be trying to convey some other information.”

He turned around, his eyes
glinting
with cat. “Like maybe it’s hungry?”

I shook my head quickly.
“Well,
that too. But it came with the ghost. It warned me, so I think it’s
alive. Could have been coincidence.” I held up my hands. “But
I've seen it when the ghost hasn't been anywhere around. That cat
also stole something that may have belonged to the ghost. It wasn't
food either. Why would a cat steal something?”

I dropped my eyes, unable
to meet the
accusation in his gaze. His stare burned into the side of my head
while I studied my fingers.

“I don’t know nothin’
‘bout no cats.” The door snicked closed, leaving me no
chance to apologize or explain further.

“Hey,” I shouted. “I
wasn’t trying to be ugly!” If I'd asked him to spy, kill,
cheat or steal, he would have been proud. Imply he might have an
affinity with a house cat, and he was insulted. Maybe I should have
my head examined for gross-stupidity. Maybe I should do all my
research by reading textbooks instead of asking moody bobcats what
they thought.

Mixing a spell for Lynx’s
latest
client, a protection and generic warding spell, was quick and since I
lacked specifics, easy. As soon as that was out of the way, I tackled
more important spells. White Feather's ability to search the wind was
currently a liability, but if I used earth in such a spell, maybe we
could gain some critical information without any ill winds being the
wiser.

It hadn't occurred to me to
ask Matilda
for advice because I'd associated the spell with White Feather.
However, if she didn’t know how to create a spell, she bought
it from someone else to sell in her shop. If a spell existed for
collecting information via air or through the earth, she would know
about it.

I arrived only minutes
before Matilda
normally opened. She unlocked the door with the hand not cradling a
giant cup of coffee. “It's early.” She paused to yawn.
“What happened to your arm?” She was already in
shop-keeper form, her red curls floating with wild static. Only a
witch would strive to add static to a hairdo.

“Spell accident,” I
mumbled.

“Ah.”

No more needed to be said,
really. “I’m
looking for a spell,” I told her.

“Of course.”

“It’s not a simple one.
I’ve seen this spell done using wind, but I want to use earth.”

“Anything using wind magic
is
likely a combo. You can’t capture the power of wind in a
bottle, but what are scents if not part of the air? Basic wind
spell.”

“I’m after something
specific that can collect information and transfer the essence of it
through earth. I've only ever seen it done with wind.” I
explained in as much detail as possible how White Feather gathered
information.

She scanned her shelves,
sipping coffee
in big slurps. “There's only one I can think of and you're
right, I use wind, but I don’t sell them as wind spells.”

“You make a wind spell?”

“Sort of.” She checked the
lock on the front door and then led the way to the back room. “For
the right price, I’ll work with wind. It isn't easy, because
I’m a water witch, but I use vapor as a substitute, which I
then integrate for fortune telling.”

She opened several files on
her
computer. “My spell is more a merging. I use the power of the
water as it changes. The person breathes some of the vapor, and then
I interpret the vision.”

She turned the monitor for
me to read.
“The bloodstone—heliotrope--turns the water red during
the telling. The reflections impart all kinds of foretelling in the
water and the vapor.”

“Heliotrope? The healing
stone?”
While I worked easily with any earth element, healing wasn't my
forte.

Mat winked at me. “If you
didn’t
have such an aversion to fortunes, you’d have read the spell
before. Bloodstone calls storms and everyone knows there are messages
in the wind. I use it in fortune telling because clients pay through
the nose for that kind of telling.”

I focused my attention on
her notes
while she skirted around me to her safe.

“How in the world did you
come up
with this spell? It integrates earth, water and wind!”

“Because I'm brilliant?”
She giggled and waved a hand. “I actually learned it was
possible from talking to Abuelita.”

“Ah, Granny Ruth.” Granny
was neither her grandmother nor mine, but witches were funny about
names because names were power. All witches used one or more
nicknames. My own everyday name was from my great-grandfather and not
my actual birth name.

“I wanted to carry
something from
Granny in my shop for a certain client. If she didn't have the
spell, she has every magic book ever written. If her books couldn't
help, she knows every witch in town.”

“And has their respect.”
Most of us were either in awe of Granny Ruth or afraid of her. Rumor
had it that she had been a coven head back in the days when there was
a council of witches. Of course, the nastier gossip-mongers implied
that the reason she had all the grimoires was because she had stolen
them from the other witches when the council disbanded. I didn’t
believe that since Granny shared the books with almost anyone who
asked.