Under Witch Aura (Moon Shadow Series) (14 page)

I dodged quickly to my car.
“Thanks
for the gift.” The words had to be said because a gift had to
be given freely and freely accepted in order for the purifying spell
to trigger. “If I need others, I’ll check out Charms.”
I was not taking the entire bag to help him cure the infection.

He had his work cut out for
him if he
was going to save that particular bag of stock.

When I got home, my first
instinct was
to call White Feather and tell him about Martin’s taint and the
thugs at Matilda's shop. He was my link to the normal world and my
connection to the police. Mat wasn’t on the best of terms with
the police considering the fact that most officials viewed her as a
kook who brought problems upon herself.

Unfortunately, when I
arrived, someone
else waited—two of them. The white Mustang was in my yard, and
Tara had scooted the silver-lined chair next to the unlined one Lynx
was sitting in.

Before I was halfway to the
porch it
was obvious something was wrong. Lynx had never been good at
concealing guilt, mainly because it had to be pretty bad before he
felt guilty at all. As I climbed the steps, his eyes shifted,
checking and rechecking escape routes. His shoulders tensed, and I
swear the golden yellow of his cat eyes flickered.

“Hello.” My feet, of their
own accord, shifted into a balanced flee stance, ready to bolt for
the door or the car. My fingers twitched, wanting to grab a weapon or
a spell, but if I had had them on me, I would have already used them
in the earlier fight.

“I came over to tell you I
figured it out,” Tara said.

“Figured what out?” Wary, I
watched Lynx for signals.

“Water. The witching fork
is set
to find water,” she announced triumphantly. Her gaze shifted to
Lynx.

“And?” My buddy wasn’t
nervous because his girlfriend had guessed a spell correctly.

Neither said anything. Lynx
nudged her
arm in a movement so fast, I wasn’t sure it happened until Tara
blurted out, “We think maybe…” She trailed off and
glared at Lynx uncertainly, her gaze a cross between anger and
nerves.

I had a sudden, sinking
thought.
No.
They hadn't been dating long enough for her to get pregnant. Well,
technically, they hadn’t been dating long enough to
know
she was pregnant. I shook my head. “Spit it out. Just spit it
out.”

“You want a ward or some
protection?” Lynx asked.

My muscles clenched, and I
shook my
wrist to feel the silver. “A ward? You’re carrying
something with you?”

“I don’t think it’s a
big deal,” Tara said, whipping an oblong package out of her
purse. “Lynx thinks it's bad magic because, well, he could get
inside, and I couldn’t.”

My front door was closed.
It was
spelled to warn me of any breach. I stepped to the door and put my
hand on the locks. There was a current. My key had silver in it that
made contact with the locks when I opened the door. If someone
breached it without the silver key, the current would be broken.
Whatever Lynx had done, he had effectively gotten in and then
relocked the door. I would never have known he was in my home unless
he tripped something else once inside.

“You used silver?” My voice
was high with accusation, but more than that, disbelief. Lynx was a
shifter; silver would burn him as sure as fire. Lynx was also my
friend, and I was stunned to find he had broken into my home.

Lynx started talking, but
not fast
enough. “We got here, and you weren’t here. I told her
we’d wait like I always do. She got thirsty. I told her I’d
get her a drink.”

“It wasn’t his fault,”
Tara said. “I was thirsty, but it was all my idea. I thought it
would be…cool to go inside and…wait there.”

“Lynx.” I fought down
something akin to rage. The feeling was mixed with fear. “Tell
me you know better than to go into my lab!”

“Well, sure.” His defiance
reasserted itself, but his muscles remained bunched as if he would
spring up and escape any second.

“And you think you could
have
prevented her from going in there? Lynx, are you crazy?” Going
off on the kid in front of his girlfriend wasn’t a great
strategy, but this was life and death. He may have guessed the key to
picking my locks, and even learned to handle silver to do it, but
getting inside my house was trivial compared to messing in my lab.
There were active spells in there. Ingredients to spells. Half
spells.
Real protection against intruders that could kill.

Lynx didn’t meet my eyes.
“Sorry.”

Tara straightened in her
chair. “You
don’t have to apologize! It was my idea!“ She stopped
when I snarled at her.

The silver on my wrist
warmed. The
turquoise worked to cool it. “He was apologizing to you,”
I snapped.

It wasn’t true, but it
should
have been. He could have gotten her killed. My threshold would not
have kept him out because he was welcome in my house. Or he had been.
But his ardor had pushed him into impulsive stupidity. What if he
hadn’t been able to prevent her from prancing right into the
lab?

I shuddered at the thought
of having to
explain Tara's death to White Feather. He understood the need for
protection spells, but if she had set something off and harmed
herself or Lynx, logic wouldn’t suffice.

“She couldn’t even get
inside your house,” Lynx rushed out. “I thought maybe it
was because you didn't like her or somethin' but she'd been in there
before...”

“I couldn't get in until I
took a
running leap at the doorway and my purse fell off my arm.” Tara
held up a bright pink purse. “I scooped it up, but I couldn’t
bring it inside until a bunch of stuff fell out.”

It was the same purse that
had been
sitting on White Feather’s end table.

Lynx said, “I got her back
out on
the porch, and asked her what was in there.”

Tara extracted a package
wrapped in
brown paper. “It’s only a picture. But Lynx was right.
When it was out of my purse, I walked right in, purse and all.”

“You tried to bring evil
inside
my home?”

“No! I told Lynx it wasn’t
magic. I
know
it isn’t. I just had it in my purse,
because I forgot it was still in there. It’s no big deal. It’s
not
magic, I'd know if it was.”

“And I told her ain’t no
witch alive gonna allow a bad spell to cross the threshold, and that
thing must have voodoo on it!” Lynx said.

I sucked in air and held
it. I was
still so very angry. Violated and betrayed by my
friend
.
The
only good news was that he had recognized the threat and not let Tara
talk him into anything else. I relaxed fingers that wanted to
throttle his skinny little neck. “Not necessarily voodoo,”
I said tightly. “What is that thing?”

She started to unwrap the
brown paper.
It was a square of about eight by eight inches.

“Wait!” I shouted.

“It’s been unwrapped
before,” Tara said. “It’s just a picture. I had it
wrapped so the sand wouldn’t scrape off.” The paper fell
away to reveal an Indian sand painting.

None of us moved.

I finally asked, “Did you
get
your purse through without the picture?”

“Yeah. This and some other
stuff
fell out. I was picking it up from the doorway, but then Lynx got all
paranoid. He shoved me out and locked the door. It's the only thing
in here besides makeup. Maybe it was the charcoal in my mascara?”

That was a nice thought,
but way off
the mark. “My spells aren't the type to be canceled by
mascara.” Of course, my snootiness was obviously misplaced
given that Lynx had canceled my spells and waltzed inside. I clenched
my fists and wished for something to smash. “Where did you get
the picture?”

“White Feather threw it
out, but
it’s a great picture.” She turned it my way, showing me
the details. Colorful lines of sand represented plants and people or
possibly decorated gods. The design could have been Pueblo or the
more common Navajo form. Even with limited knowledge of sand
painting, I already knew its nature. “Do you know what a rune
is?”

“Well, sure.” She didn't
get the connection. Lynx crossed himself, but he did that whenever
magic made him uncomfortable, whether he knew much about it or not.

Neither of them was
enlightened—or
protected. “Sand paintings can be--they’re essentially
runes by a different culture.”

Tara blinked. “But sand
paintings
don’t have any power if they aren’t done in a ceremonial
tent by a shaman. This is just a picture. I know who made it, and she
isn’t a witch!”

“Set it down.” Who knew
what damage it was doing while she stood there holding it?

“See,” Lynx muttered,
crossing himself again. “Tol’ you.” He scooted his
chair away when she set it on the porch.

“Put it on the dirt over
there,”
I instructed. As long as she had already touched it, she was already
contaminated. “I don’t want that thing on my porch.”

Rolling her eyes, she moved
it. “It’s
harmless. It’s just a painting!”

“Where did you get it?”

She remained crouched over
the picture.
“White Feather. Claire gave it to him--”

“The ex-girlfriend?” My
rage had a new focus. I hadn’t even been certain Claire was
anything more than a figment of Tara’s nastiness, but
apparently she was real.

Tara raised placating
hands. “They
broke up a long time ago, but we ran into her at the plaza when White
Feather took me to get some supplies. Claire was doing great, had
found a new guy and was learning her own magic.” Tara snorted.
“She doesn't have any, never did. I think she felt guilty about
what a bitch she was when they broke up so she gave White Feather the
painting as a peace offering.”

“How did you get it if she
gave
it to him?”

“He threw it in a trash bin
as
soon as she turned her back. It was pretty and hey, what if they got
back together or something?” She leaned down and touched the
edge, almost affectionately.

I did not like the way she
was drawn to
the painting. It was colorful, but it didn't strike me as special
enough to cause a teenager to retrieve it from the trash.

“Why don't you go wait on
the
porch,” I suggested.

Tara whirled from her
crouch. “It's
not dangerous! She’s not even a witch! I
know
she's
not! T
hat was the whole reason my brother dumped her!”

Our eyes locked. Through my
own mixed
feelings of anger and fear, the insult in her comment was clear. I
lashed out, automatically defending White Feather. “Your
brother did
not
dump Claire because she isn't a
witch.”

Tara nodded emphatically.
“Yes,
he did. I don’t care what he told you, but she wasn’t
good enough for him because she had no magic talent at all. He can't
stand people that aren't talented!”

That made no sense, but the
history was
a complete mystery to me. My lack of knowledge made me almost as
angry as the stupid gift lying in the yard. “Did you keep this
thing in your house?” Even as I asked, my stomach hit bottom.
“Was it in your purse
the
whole time?”

She garbled something under
her breath
before speaking more intelligibly. “It was in my purse, but I
forget it at White Feather's house when I was there practicing
spells. I meant to go back and get it because it’s my favorite
purse. Mom saw it yesterday in White Feather’s car, and she
brought it inside.”

“Moonlight...Mayan crap.”
White Feather had been exposed to the rune for days. He probably
hadn’t warded his own house against Claire so when Tara brought
it inside, nothing triggered. A slow acting spell, much like we’d
been worried about. Only it wasn’t from Sarah, as we’d
assumed.

“Let me guess. You ran into
Claire about two weeks ago.”

She shook her head. “Nah,
it was
longer than that. Maybe three weeks. It was when White Feather first
started giving me lessons.”

It had to be spelled with
something
bad, quite likely on several levels and not only specific to White
Feather or Tara wouldn't have had a problem getting it into my house.

Whatever the spell, it had
affected
Tara enough to persuade her to retrieve the picture from the trash,
but then forget about it. Had it been attracted to White Feather’s
stronger magic? Then again, since Claire had given it to him as a
gift, there were bound to be some specifics to him.

I knelt next to the
picture. “When
did your Mom give it back to you?”

“Yesterday.”

The paw print of the bear,
a symbol for
the snake and at least two female characters decorated the picture. I
wasn’t expert enough to be anything more than puzzled. “It
looks like one of the bear stories.” At least one legend
involved a bear competing against a monster to win a beautiful
maiden.

There were both male and
female
characters; round heads indicated male figures, square represented
females. Maybe Claire was still interested in White Feather or maybe
she wanted revenge. I simply didn't know enough to judge what might
be in this spell.

“I need to look something
up.”
I turned to Lynx. “You come help me. I’m not letting it
inside my house. We’ll use a silk scarf to block some of the
vibes at least temporarily.”

Lynx beat me inside, but
only after
allowing me to unlock the door. As if that would soothe my
feelings.

We left Tara frowning over
the picture.
I wasn't about to invite her in the lab. Lynx was obviously
untrustworthy too, but he had a healthy respect for magic, especially
of the renegade kind. Even if he had no respect for my threshold, he
wouldn’t do something completely stupid around magic.

As I collected supplies, I
wondered if
White Feather had pretended to accept the gift. Probably. Even fake
acceptance could activate a spell.