Under Witch Aura (Moon Shadow Series) (6 page)

He headed for the fridge.
With his body
behind the door, he asked, “Why you always have carrots and no
Cheese Whiz?” Giving up, he reappeared with two sodas, a diet
for me.

Gratefully, I popped the
top and took
long hard swallows. “I need a shower.”

His smirk wasn’t quite
hidden by
the can. “Yeah, you better get cleaned up before White Feather
comes by.” His nose twitched.

The essential oils smelled
bad to me;
to his more sensitive nose it must have been a real treat. “You
have business?” I asked. Lynx had always been difficult, and
once his disguise had been broken, he went from twelve to seventeen
overnight. With it came even more attitude, but better hygiene. His
garbage-can-unkempt black locks were now a respectable buzz cut.
Instead of a pathetic street urchin with dirt smeared on his arms and
face, he could pass for a twenty-year old college student.

The only thing that hadn't
been cleaned
up was his smart-mouth. Luckily, his underground network didn’t
mind his mouth or appearance. He was my ticket to anonymity and jobs.

“Guy wants the antidote to
the
evil eye.”

“Does he know who hexed
him?”

His mouth twisted, Lynx’s
version
of a smile. “Says he doesn’t know, but he ain’t
lily-clean; probably brought it on himself.”

My eyes narrowed. Part of
the reason I
paid Lynx was because I didn’t want clients too far down the
totem pole. It was not judgmental; it was survival. Some people
equated killing those they hired with payment for services delivered.
“You know him well?”

Lynx gave a half shrug. In
his line of
work, keeping his mouth shut kept him alive. The trust that resulted
kept him in business. “He ain’t real bright. Gets into
trouble ‘cause he takes on jobs and isn't real good at
results.”

“Hmm. Tell him it’s triple
the price if he doesn’t name the person. If another witch
directly hexed him, I can block the spell, but she can easily throw
another one at him.”

“You take the case?”

The problem with the evil
eye was
twofold. Half the time a client was having a streak of bad luck,
there wasn’t even a spell involved. When it was a spell, it was
often a general curse that resulted in nightmares, flat tires, or
broken appliances. If a witch really knew her stuff, she’d go
after specifics—a vain guy might find the seams of his pants
splitting in public or he’d develop a stench he couldn’t
lose.

“Tell him I can sell him a
standard package to ward off bad luck if he wants to go the economy
route, but a good witch will know ways around it. If he wants
protection from a specific spell, I have to see the damage. The price
may change depending on the witch involved too. I don’t need a
turf war.”

Lynx nodded. His ears
flicked toward
the windows then, a pretty cool trick for a human. “White
Feather,” he declared even though White Feather's Prius was
very quiet and no car was visible yet.

Since his hearing was
better than mine
by, oh, the skill of a bobcat, I didn’t argue. I wasn’t
too keen on Lynx being here when White Feather showed up. He would
quickly sense the change in our relationship. Of course, since White
Feather was a known entity, Lynx wasn’t going to leave without
me telling him to, and suggesting it would raise even more
suspicions.

I gave up without bothering
to find a
viable excuse to make him go. Hurrying into the bathroom, my ruined
clothes went straight in the trash. My silver went under the sink in
a special Navajo basket.

I showered quickly, washing
off as much
cactus, oil and dirt as possible. A pair of tweezers removed most of
the larger cactus spines, and hopefully the sound of the shower
running covered up my curses and whimpers.

A few spines were too
embedded to
remove.

With my arm stinging and
throbbing, I
threw on fresh clothes and grabbed my favorite silver and turquoise
bracelet. It went on the uninjured arm. My grandmother's matching
necklace was sadly no longer a part of my collection. Since I thought
of it every time I wore the bracelet, it was still with me in
important ways.

By the time I made my
entrance in the
living room, Lynx had already let White Feather in.

White Feather stopped
mid-pace when he
got a good look at my face. “When did you get sunburned?”
His green eyes narrowed. “You haven’t been exploring over
at Sarah’s cabin by yourself, have you?”

“No, I was working on a
spell,
and I think I insulted Mother Earth.” The “sunburn”
was more a combination of hard scrubbing and the remaining stain from
red cactus juice.

My explanation didn’t make
him
any happier. “Looks like it hurt.”

“Don’t worry. People pay
to have their skin exfoliated. This didn’t cost me anything,”
I joked.

Gently, he touched the side
of my face.
“Tara is in the car. I wanted to introduce her to you in case
you had any training tips that might stick. Now might not be the best
time, although if she meets you today, she might realize that
witching is dangerous.”

There was a snort from the
doorway.
Lynx had helpfully opened it when he heard someone on the other side.
His tail, if it had been out, would have been twitching. Since he was
in human form, he settled for flicking his eyes between players.

I peered around White
Feather, and
nearly gasped aloud. I had seen a picture of Tara, but the real deal
was covered in so much makeup, I couldn’t have picked her from
a lineup. Her hair was dyed a deep black on black, her lips were
painted with black lipstick and her face was powdered white.

“What, no tattoos?” The
girl looked like the walking dead, the worst of the worst groupies.

“My body is a temple,” she
proclaimed, her palms out as though offering herself. “I will
put no spells or marks upon myself until I know the purest of them.”

White Feather snarled
impatiently,
“Adriel, this is Tara. Tara, you can drop the dramatics
.
”

“Come on in,” I said.

She tromped across the
threshold.
Although she strove for casual disinterest, her eyes missed nothing.
My mundane living room was bound to be a disappointment. The garlic
and silver protection was hidden underneath the door frame. The
crucifixes were in plain sight, but most of the New Mexican
population was Catholic. As decorations, they were not out of place
over the fireplace and kitchen window.

The dried grasses arranged
in a large
Indian pot, a basket of pine cones and some other dried herbs all had
witch purposes, but from the sudden slump of her shoulders, it was
obvious she dismissed me, the room and any hope.

The only item of interest
was Lynx,
where her eyes lingered for a moment before she asked me, “Well?
Did you want to question me to see if I am worthy?”

White Feather’s lips
thinned.

Before the situation could
deteriorate,
I asked, “What kind of questions?”

“Jason says you can test my
potential. Like you know more than he does or something.”

“Jason.” I almost laughed.
Jason was just too ordinary for the magic White Feather encompassed.
When we met, I had used Merlin and he had used White Feather. His
name had stuck. “White Feather, why don’t you leave Tara
here for her first lesson. You can pick her up in an hour or so.”
I did not add that dinner afterward would be a wonderful diversion.
After all, Tara would be with us, and having her along was not likely
to make for a fun evening.

“She knows that nickname?”
Tara glanced at him in surprise, sounding impressed for the first
time.

White Feather's head jerked
from Tara
to me. “Maybe this isn't such a good idea.”

Lynx's eyes positively lit
up with
curiosity, and I was almost certain his ears grew slightly so he
wouldn’t miss a thing.

“We have to start
somewhere,”
I said with a shrug. “Contrary to popular belief, I can’t
test her potential by waving a wand.”

White Feather sighed.“Okay.
I
need to check on the house anyway. I’ll be back in an hour.”
He opened the door and then hesitated, but couldn’t think of
anything else to say.

“Lynx?” I said.

“Huh?”

“Don’t you have to be
running along also?”

He shook his head. “No. I’m
good.”

“
Lynx.”

He grinned. “Yah, yah.
Yankin’
your chain.” He sauntered to the door where White Feather
still lingered. He cocked his head sideways as though listening to
something the rest of us couldn’t hear. At the last second he
turned and pinned Tara with his stare. “She’s good, man. Don’t mess
with her. I need the business, and she gets into
enough trouble without you blowing anything up.”

He was around White Feather
and across
the porch before I could reply. Tara didn’t know Lynx so
probably wouldn’t recognize the backhanded compliment or the
fact that he moved with a grace and scurry not known to most humans.

I caught White Feather’s
eyes.
With great reluctance, he finally pulled the door closed.

Not wanting to think too
hard about
possible consequences, I plowed ahead. “Let’s go to my
lab. I’ll show you around.”

Tara followed me, stopping
at the
doorway to the lab.

I invited her in, a
formality, but an
important one. The lab was marginally more impressive than the
living room. There were ancient leather bound books, glass jars
filled with herbs, pieces of wood, lots of stones, and pottery.

The concrete floor had two
drains for
hosing away messy chemicals. There was a dual burner with a
protective hood next to a sink on the far wall. Three locked cabinets
and shelves wound around the outer walls of the room. My computer and
various books lived on one table; another long table on wheels served
as a work surface. The windows were up high, not at normal levels
where prying eyes would have an easy way to spy.

Tara said, “You don’t have
any goats. I checked when we drove up.”

“Uh, no. I had chickens for
a
while, but the coyotes got them.”

“Where do you get your goat
heads
then?” She perused the labels on my jars as though hoping to
discover one hiding in or between the bottles.

“Goat heads?” I repeated
cautiously.

“I want to learn the spell
for
turning men on,” she said. “The aphrodisiac. I
know
it requires goat heads in the formula. I don’t know if it is
the entire head or dried pieces of it or the blood or what. But
that’s the spell I want to learn.”

Tempting as it was, I did
not cry. “You
are what? Sixteen, seventeen years old? You don’t need a goat’s
head to attract men. Trust me.”

She nodded emphatically.
“That’s
in the spell. If you don’t know that, you can’t be much
of a witch.”

I considered telling her
the truth, but
a little knowledge in the mind of the wrong person could be fatal.
Whatever she had read must not have mentioned that “goat head”
was just the common name of the garden weed known as a “puncture
vine.” I didn't want her killing any man by overdosing him, so
I just moved on. “Have a seat.” I took the stool and
left her the low chair by the computer. “First things first. I
need to know what’s in all that makeup you’re wearing
because some chemicals will react with what we do. I don’t want
to figure out after the fact the reason your face ignited.”

“I’m
not
taking my
makeup off. It’s part of who I am.”

My arm hurt, my head was
starting to
throb, and I was about out of patience. “The black stuff—around
your eyes and on your eyebrows—if it contains charcoal, it will
dampen the effects of any spell.”

She tossed her hair.

“Charcoal absorbs,” I
lectured. “For some spells that means complete negation. It
might be why you’ve had trouble creating spells.” It was
also the likely reason she couldn’t attract nearly every guy
she wanted. But she was young. Stupidity like hers could usually be
overcome.

Now why I had taken on this
job, that
was another kind of stupidity, and it probably couldn’t be
cured. I stared across the lab at my defiant...apprentice? and nearly
dropped my head to the table. I’d rather teach Lynx magic, and
he had the attitude of a cat.

Too late now. “Let’s try a
witching fork.” I rubbed one end with an herb. Done right, she
should be able to trace it to the jar from which it came.

White Feather had already
taught her
the basics. She marched the fork around the lab like a trained
soldier, pausing at each jar. She understood the technique and tried
to compensate for it mentally. If she had an affinity for magic it
was well concealed behind a morass of emotion that was as thick and
dark as her makeup.

I went to my workbench and
retrieved
two willow branches. “Okay, here. Let's try raw magic.”
Willow was naturally tuned to water. If she had ever seen a pair, she
might know it, but she couldn’t be sure I hadn't respelled
them.

I handed her the sticks.
“Follow
them.”

“To what?”

“Let the magic lead. Follow
them.”

She accepted the rods
tentatively. Her
fear of failure had her gripping the handles so hard the sticks
couldn’t have led her to water had the faucet been gushing.

“Relax your grip. Feel for
vibrations.” I turned her away from the faucet to the inside of
the house. The sticks would go to the closest source. “Do you
know how to center?”

She nodded, again putting
in enough
effort that any possible magic would be repressed if not extinguished
outright.

“Magic is a living,
breathing
entity. Don’t smother it with enthusiasm.” I paced away,
giving her space. “Where can you go?”

“What?”

“What place do you know
well
enough that you can visit in your head while still standing here? It’s
like yoga. Sleep without sleep.”