by Jade Wolfe
She disappeared again, closing the door to my bedroom behind her. A few seconds later there was a flash of bright green light under the door, not really enough to notice unless you were looking at that spot.
Tom, of course, was looking. "What was that?" he asked.
I sighed and started wringing out my hair with the towel. "Maybe she had to fight the dragon for your clothes, Tom."
He rolled his eyes and slumped against the closed front door.
"Maybe she used magic to make you clothes of your own."
"Very funny," he answered.
It wasn’t funny – that was exactly what she was doing, but he’d never believe it.
Lucy came back, handed him a pile of clothes, and pointed to the bathroom door. "See if these fit. I'll make some tea."
"Can we have soup?" I asked. "I don't know about Tom here, but I'm starving."
Lucy peered at me. When I got this hungry, it meant I was using magic and she knew it. "Of course. Get changed, then come to the kitchen. You can help me."
She had questions, I had answers. Well, a few, anyway.
I wanted a shower in the worst way, but right now I needed food. Witches might have some pretty cool tricks, but none of that matters when the blood sugar starts dropping. Tunnel vision, weakness, clammy skin, all of it applies, whether you happen to know magic or not.
I padded down the hall to my room, taking the towel with me. By the time I got changed and back to the kitchen, I felt like I might pass out.
Lucy was stirring a pot of what smelled like potato and cheese soup on the stove. "It's not quite warm yet," she said, tossing me an apple.
I took a bite and groaned. "This is the best apple I've ever tasted in my life," I mumbled.
She shot me that quintessential grandma look, pursing her lips. She really hated it when people talked with their mouth full. "Who is he?" She nodded toward the doorway.
"Not sure." I moved to the counter so we could talk quietly. "He says he's a reporter, here to do a story in Wilding, but he decided to take a walk and got attacked by a giant bird."
"A giant bird?" She looked amused.
I leaned in a little and lowered my voice. "It sounds like a banshee, the way he described it, but I'm not sure about that." I finished the apple, walked to the pantry, and tossed my core in the trash. “I think he saw Myla, too, but I convinced him that it was just a stray dog."
She sniffed at that. “Myla would be insulted.”
“I know.” I went to get bowls from the cupboard and set them on the counter near her elbow. She started ladling soup into bowls, even though I would have been perfectly happy drinking it directly from the pot. "There's more," I said.
"What?" She carried the bowls to the table. I followed her and plopped into a chair.
"I think we've got another witch at Red Rock."
That stopped her mid-sit. She stood up again. "What do you mean?"
I explained about the cave and the barrier. "It was definitely a magical construct. Do you think Miranda or Pearl was out there doing something?"
She shook her head. "No - Miranda has been busy at the mission these last few days. I think they're giving out coats to the homeless."
"Pearl?"
She sniffed again. "Pearl wouldn't go out there - she hates to get dirty."
"Good point." The soup was fabulous. I groaned and ate faster, just as Tom came through the door. He was dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt that fit him perfectly, and he looked a little less confused. His skin was still pale, though, and his hair was sticking up all over.
"Eat," Lucy told him, pointing to his bowl.
He sat down and ate, watching us without a word.
"Is something wrong, Tom?" Lucy asked him.
He hesitated, glanced at me, and then shook his head.
"Are you sure?"
"I could have sworn I just heard you guys talking about a witch."
I smiled sweetly. "An old friend of mine. It’s a nickname. Eat up, and I'll drive you into town."
By the time I dropped him off at his motel, the only one in Wilding, it was getting late. Wilding wasn't a big town, but it wasn't a speck on the map, either. There was a downtown area, and several residential streets poking out from that. Over near the interstate there was a shopping center that boasted the motel, a few big box stores, and about fifty gas stations. Why was it that the smaller the town, the more gas stations there were? I would never understand that.
Tonight, the streets were empty, probably because there was a thin sheen of water running in them. Nobody wanted to be out in weather like this.
Tom asked me lots of questions on our drive, most of which I couldn't answer. "I've only been here a year," I told him, pulling into the dimly lit motel lot. It was almost empty, and an orange neon sign announced vacancies. "You probably know more about this place than me."
As I watched him get out of the car, I decided that I didn't really like reporters all that much.
Chapter Five
I was anxious to check out that cave, but it would have to wait for morning. Witch or not, I could still stumble around in the dark and break my neck. I wasn't invincible, even though I liked to think I was. I drove home in the rain, which was picking up again. Miranda was our very own weather-making witch. Tonight she was going overboard. I wondered which of her friends down at the mission complained about their chrysanthemums drying out. Whenever that happened, Miranda sent a few showers over.
She didn't usually create a flood, though. Maybe I should check on her.
Lucy must have had the same thought, because she met me halfway across the yard, carrying a yellow umbrella. Home was three small houses set up in a row, all surrounded by a picket fence and each boasting their own color scheme. Pearl's was lavender, Lucy's was a pale yellow, and Miranda's house was the brightest with a coat of salmon pink. All very pretty in their own way, just jarring at first because they weren't traditional house colors.
Of course, these weren't traditional women, either.
I parked in front of Lucy's house and ran to catch up with her. I got there just as she was knocking on Miranda's door.
There was no answer, but we both heard music inside - something with lots of flutes involved. Lucy raised her hand to try again, but then we heard a heavy thump.
"The key," I said, bending over to lift a big ceramic flower pot. Lucy grabbed the key from under it and let us in.
Miranda was lying in front of her roaring fireplace, the stem of a wineglass clutched in her small fist. The wineglass was empty. For a moment the scene scared me, but then she turned her head and grinned at us. "I think I fell down," she giggled.
Lucy stood over her, hands on her slim hips. "Miranda Picolat, are you drunk?"
Behind Lucy, I grinned. That would explain the torrential downpour. "Let me help her up, Lucy," I offered. She stepped out of the way.
Miranda almost dragged me to the floor instead, little as she was, but I finally got her to the sofa.
"Will you go make some coffee?" Lucy asked me once Miranda was settled.
I went to do as I was told, still grinning. Miranda was arguably the most motherly of us all, and seeing her smashed was funny.
By the time I came back, Miranda wasn't giggling anymore. I came through the door carrying two cups of coffee and heard her say, "I think she's here in town, but I don't know what to do about it."
"Who?" I asked, setting the steaming drinks on the coffee table.
"It's not important," Lucy said.
"It might be," I argued, thinking about the cave, who might be staying there, and what they were trying to hide with that magical barrier.
"Indigo," Lucy snapped.
I looked at her. She never used that tone.
She said, "We'll handle it. Let it go."
I let it go. Long ingrained in me was the rule to always respect my elders, and Lucy was my elder by almost a thousand years. But I planned to ask her about it first thing the next morning at breakfast. She
was acting all tense and weird, and that just wasn’t like the Lucy I knew. Maybe she was just tired, or didn't want to talk about whatever it was in front of Miranda.
We got her settled in bed. Lucy decided to stay, so I came home alone, where I promptly collapsed in a heap on my bed and drifted off, too.
When I woke up the next morning the sun was out, finally, which must mean Miranda was feeling better, I found Lucy setting out omelets at the picnic table in the shared back yard.
“I was just coming in to get you,” she said with a sweet smile, almost all traces of last night’s apprehension gone from her face.
I knew her well enough to notice the faint worry lines between her eyes, though.
I nodded, sat down, and grabbed my fork. Even after the soup last night, I was still starving, and Lucy’s omelets were always amazing. She used eggs, veggies, and white cheddar with some sort of spice mix that pulled all the flavors together perfectly. We ate in general silence for a while, then I sat back, finished my orange juice, and contemplated how to bring up the cave and what might be in it.
Before I could, Pearl came flouncing out and plopped down on the bench beside me, flipping her long dark hair back over one shoulder. Today she was in a blue sequined halter top and a matching skirt that hit mid-thigh. Pearl never went anywhere without dressing up, even to the back yard. "Did you hear about the hag?" she asked.
Lucy's gaze slid to me. Her worry lines deepened again.
I sighed and gave her a look. "You might as well tell me. I'll find out eventually. What hag?"
Pearl grinned and pecked a slice of toast off my plate.
"Hey!" I tried to snatch it back and missed.
"Miranda used to be married, did you know that?" she asked.
I shook my head and looked at Lucy. She shrugged and went back to her food.
"Anyway, he was a witch named Peter that trained with Raul, and apparently they were good friends back in the day."
"So?" I kept hearing about Raul, the great and wise witch who trained all three of these ladies, but I hadn't met him yet. In my head, he'd grown into some kind of legend, the way Lucy talked about him. Once in a while I even got the impression that she had a crush on him, but I wasn’t about to ask her.
"So, Peter had an affair, and it broke Miranda's heart," Pearl continued.
"Ouch." I felt bad for Miranda. She was probably the sweetest of the four of us.
"Yeah, well, the witch he slept with might be here in Red Rock."
My eyebrows came up. "Might be?"
"Raul asked us to watch out for any sign of her, just in case she came causing trouble."
My gaze shifted to Lucy again. She didn’t look up. "He doesn't know where she is? I thought Raul kept tabs on all the witches."
Pearl shook her head, and adjusted the strap of her top before stabbing a bite of omelet. "No, he keeps tabs on the Carrerras, the Picolets, and the Troporos. She isn't one of them."
These three families were assigned to guard the parks. My great-times-three grandpa and President Harrison had chosen the three most upstanding witch families in our young country to do this work, back in the eighteen hundreds. Lucy and I were Troporos, Miranda was a Picolet, and Pearl was a Carrerra, the last of her line. She was expected to marry and have children someday, but she didn't like to talk about that. She kept hoping that a cousin or other relative might step up and fulfill that role.
To be honest, I hoped they did too. Pearl with a houseful of babies would be like turning the monkeys loose at the circus.
"Anyway," she continued, "That particular witch – her name is Isadora - might be in town."
"That...sucks. I don't blame Miranda for drinking." I turned to Lucy. "Two questions. Is she the witch staying in the cave I found last night? And is she out to hurt Miranda? Because I can deal with her right now, if that's the case."
"We don't know. And no, you can’t just deal with her. She’s liable to be dangerous."
“Well, I’m pretty dangerous, too.”
She rolled her eyes and I laughed. I might have spent the last year growing my skills, but I was still maybe the least dangerous witch to walk the face of the earth. Another five hundred years and I’d be the elder here, but right now I was a toddler in the world of magical beings.
I still didn’t really like the idea of living that long. It sounded tiring.
Pearl interrupted my thoughts. "You found a cave last night?" she asked.
I filled her in on Tom and all the rest.
She pouted. "I miss all the fun. Was he cute?"
"Not really. He was pretty annoying." I made a face. "Asked way too many questions."
"Aww, that's sweet." She elbowed me. "He was interested in you."
Lucy smirked.
"He was a reporter, and he was nosy." I grabbed my plate and stood up. "I’m going back to check out my cave. Any requests if I run into the Despicable Cheating Witch, or should I just punch her in the face for Miranda?"
“This could be serious, Indigo. Just be careful, and let us know if you find anyone who doesn’t belong.” Lucy eyed me. “Promise.”
I wrinkled my nose and started to protest, but then remembered that any witch who had been around as long as these ladies could most likely kick my ass, magically speaking. “Promise.”
"And don't forget that Miranda and I are spending the day in Asheville."
My stomach lurched. If something really bad happened, like, I don't know, a rogue witch in our forest, I was on my own. Not that Pearl was useless or incompetent, but I just didn't rely on her the way I relied on Miranda and Lucy.
I went inside, cleaned up my mess, and dressed for the woods - thick jeans, boots, and my knives. I put on a t-shirt, but slipped a denim jacket over it because even though the sun was out, the air was still chilly.
I went for overkill with the knives. Two small ones in my boots, two larger ones at my belt. I loved my magic and I loved using it, but I needed a lot more practice before I felt comfortable going without my human weapons. There were moments when it wasn't practical or possible to use my magic, mostly when hikers or campers were in the park. If I had to drive away a banshee to save someone's butt, I didn't need them asking lots of hard questions. I just used a knife. I'd been practicing with them, too, and I could pin a sheet of paper to a tree at fifty yards.
Whenever I stopped to think about it, I was always amazed at the many changes in my life. A year ago, I was a wannabe lawyer with a shiny new degree, a crappy apartment, and a job waiting tables at a diner in Phoenix. Today I was hunting down a mysterious being in a national park in the North Carolina mountains and using magic and knives to do it. I was a hunter, I was a protector, and a year ago I'd taken an oath to bind me to this way of life.
Also, I was surprised at how much I was enjoying it. The new skills, the new friends, a grandmother I never knew I had...all of it suited me in a way that Phoenix life hadn't.
By the time I made my way through the woods and back to the mouth of the cave, I wondered how in the hell I'd managed to get Tom up that mountain. It was steeper than I remembered, and the brush growing along the slope was thick. I must have been too exhausted to notice.
The cave entrance seemed darker, too, but that might have been my imagination. I stepped inside and immediately shivered. It was damp in here, and every footstep echoed back through the tunnel. Ours weren't the only footprints, either. Someone else had been here since last night.
I bent down and looked at the prints in the dirt. They most likely belonged to a woman, or a very small man. Size six, maybe? Smaller than my own size sevens, anyway. As far as I could tell there was only one set. I stood up again, made a small fire ball for light, and headed to the back of the cave.
Whoever made the magical barrier, they were pretty good at it. This work was at least as good as Lucy's, and she was the most talented of the four of us. Lucy was the one who maintained the magical barrier around Red Rock. We all helped, but she was the real talent. It took skill to create o
ne, of course, but even more skill to create one that didn't dissipate after a few hours, much less overnight or however long this had been here.
If the story about the affair was true, and coming from Lucy I knew it was, then I felt bad for Miranda. Of all of us, she deserved it the least. She was the helper, the healer, always around to offer support - whether emotional or physical. She had made me feel welcome when I first came here. She had saved my life a time or two, even. Lucy was our stability, Pearl was our fun, but Miranda was our foundation. Without her, the rest of us would have crashed and burned by now.
And now the person who had caused her such pain was here, in our park? Anger sparked in my chest. No matter what Lucy said, I planned to find this witch and get rid of her. For Miranda.
The left hand tunnel was still barricaded, but I slipped through it without too much pain. The power jolt made me stagger a little, but I pushed on through it. The cave beyond had as much debris as the front part - wood scattered on the ground, a few small piles of animal bones and scraps of fur, and cobwebs, plenty of cobwebs. I swallowed at least three. I was about thirty feet in, following along close to the wall and checking behind me plenty when my fire-light went out.
I stopped moving and stared at where my hand should be for a moment, completely blind and wondering what the hell happened. My light had never failed me before.
I tried pulling in the energy from the air around me, but that didn’t work. Everything felt dead, or muffled, to the point that I couldn’t even make a spark.
A shuffling sound brought my head up. Something was ahead of me in the cave.
I blinked a few times, trying to force my eyes to adjust to the darkness, but that required at least a little light. There was none at all in here. The black was impenetrable. I even waved my hand a few times, but I couldn't see a thing. I pressed myself back against the cavern wall, out of the main part of the corridor. If something came through here, I didn't want it to run me over.
My next hint that something wasn't right was the wave of energy that shot through me in the darkness. The air crackled loudly. There was a deep boom and then I was on my ass, the ground shuddering under me.
