Under Witch Moon (Moon Shadow Series)

by Maria E. Schneider

  I dug out the tracking spell from my backpack. It was set to Harold to find the papers he had touched and signed. Thankfully, I hadn't needed to use it.

  Lynx was a smart kid and too careful to leave stray hairs in the front seat of my car, but he had been there recently enough that I could change the spell over. I removed Harold's hair from the fork and stashed it carefully in a silk sleeve inside the box with the papers. Using a pocket knife, I whittled away any remaining evidence of Harold. When I was finished, I rolled the branch across the seat. Lynx had sat here last, and it hadn't been long ago. It should work.

  I grabbed water bottles from the trunk, left the burgers for Lynx when we got back, and headed out. I didn't think he'd go into the Los Alamos territory, not after what we had seen, but there was still a lot of wilderness to cover. There were trails all over the neighborhood. There were houses too, but he would avoid those.

  Then again, he hadn't been running with a plan.

  "Lynx, sit yourself down and get a hold of yourself," I ordered the empty air. It was noon. At least it wasn't dark out.

  The willow branch didn't want to leave the vicinity of the car, and it first tried to go back to Sheila's house. Since I knew Lynx wasn't going back there ever again, I ignored its pull until it started indicating the canyon.

  "Lynx…" I wondered if he had tried heading back to the car on some route he had picked. It was possible there were trails right from Sheila's house down into the canyon, although most spots were far too steep--for humans.

  I made my way back to the car and parked in a different spot before studying the maps again. There were trails into the canyon. He had mentioned the park…I traced routes.

  There were at least two trails into the canyon that looked viable. The one by the park was too far away, but there was another exit from the canyon at a place marked Red Dot Trail. With my link to him, if he was in the canyon I should be able to find him, although he had better be heading my way to get out rather than deeper into Potrillo Canyon and Los Alamos land.

  Cursing my luck and still wondering if Sheila could trace us both, I emptied what I didn't need from my pack and headed down. The trail was bad. It looked like it had been hiked one time a hundred years ago by a desperate gold miner who needed to get to water.

  The canyon trapped the air and the sun beat straight down. My hands were too busy helping me ease over steep rocks to wipe the sweat away.

  Periodically, I stopped to drink water. It was hard not to sway, to give into vertigo. The shattered, jagged boulders from years of rock slides, the Rio Grande snaking below and the mountains of Santa Fe in the distance would have taken my breath away if I'd had any left to spare.

  Luckily the steep down was little more than a mile. The canyon eased off its death threats as I got lower. A few trees started to grace the gentler slopes and the map showed springs.

  No one could have been more grateful than I to find water there. I cooled off and tried the spell on the willow branch.

  Nothing.

  I tried it again when I hit the Rio Grande. I couldn't be certain if the vibration was hot wind off the water or a tease, but I headed deeper into White Rock Canyon, staying alongside the river and hoping.

  I passed at least two old Indian sites. They were all over the mountains in this part of New Mexico, although these looked like nothing more than mud spots that might have been temporary shelters. It was in a crevice of one such shelter where I found Lynx, huddled and maybe crying.

  I made sure he was aware of my presence before I said, "Lynx, it's time to go home."

  He whispered something I couldn't hear. A breeze picked at his torn shirt.

  "Are you okay?"

  "That lady, why you mess with her?" He was breaking all the rules by asking questions about a job.

  "She's the one who put the love potion on Vi's husband. We had to get the papers back to help Vi's husband."

  He lifted his head. His eyes were dry, but I couldn't tell much else. "Those people at the labs, that's pure evil!" He crossed himself.

  I almost laughed. Lynx was not a Christian in any sense of the word. He made fun of me for going to church on a regular basis. I made the sign of the cross back at him. "You'll note," I pointed out dryly, "that those animals weren't at the labs. They were hidden inside her home."

  He shook his head. "Burn it. Burn the whole place down!"

  "Lynx," I dared to reach out and shake his shoulder. "Your client hired you to get rid of a coercion spell that was going to help that lady obtain funding to continue her work. Vi and her husband were against it. We got the signed papers that might have given Sheila money. Not everyone at the lab is into that stuff."

  His eyes flashed so wide, I could see the white. "Evil!"

  I shook my head. "If people at the lab were doing her kind of research, she wouldn't have had to use a potion to befuddle Harold's mind so that he would sign. Besides, I read the headers on the papers she wanted him to sign. The experiments are nothing like what she has going on in her home. My guess is she needs access to funds and will stop at nothing to get them."

  "What's the difference if it happens at the lab or not if she gets money to do it? Burn it," he said again.

  I sat down next to him, my back against the hard-packed earth. The sun was shifting, but still hot. It would be a relief when shadows stretched across the ground, eating the light and heat. "She probably takes chemicals from the lab, but that doesn't mean she is supposed to. Our client was trying to stop her. Not all scientists are made of the same brain." I held out my hand. "Not all witches make the same potions."

  We sat that way for the better part of an hour, until close to three o'clock. I offered him a water bottle, but he ignored me.

  Finally, after another half-hour he stood up. If his pants sported any new holes, I couldn't tell them from the old ones. "It wouldn't do no good to set them free, would it?"

  I shook my head, not having to look up very far to meet his eyes from where I sat. "I went down to shut the door, Lynx. There's nothing there to save."

  His hands balled into fists.

  To distract him, I teased, "You could have at least run in the direction of home. This way we have to walk all the way back to the car and drive home." I handed him the water bottle.

  "I didn't charge enough for this job." He took the water and slugged the contents noisily.

  "What are you going to do with all the money you make anyway? Your prices are too high. You need to cut me a break now that you see all the dangerous work I have to do."

  He drank until the water was gone. With a satisfied burp, he handed the bottle back and started walking. "I'm gonna buy me a house," he said. He picked his way along, dodging a cactus and never missing a step.

  "A house?" I wouldn't have been more surprised if he told me he was building a rocket ship to leave earth.

  "Sure," he said. "Soon as you have a house, no one tries to put you in protective services. They figure you have an adult, and they stop asking questions. See, even if you run a," he tilted his head, "a business like mine, so long as you run it out of a house, it's legitimate."

  "Uh, Lynx--"

  He waved a hand. "Sure, some of it is illegal. But with a house, you can pretty much cover up anything by acting like a normal, you know?" He flashed his white teeth back in my direction. "Just like you. You do your witch stuff, but you act like a normal, and everyone leaves you alone."

  "I don't pretend to be a normal, Lynx."

  "Yes, you do. So do all the others. The ones that pretend the best survive."

  I started to argue, but couldn't. Witch or not, there was a lot of pretending that went on in life.

  Chapter 14

  We were on the first uphill stretch, perhaps a quarter of a mile from the Rio Grande when Sheila hit. My back arched all on its own, a spasm as though I had been knocked hard from behind. The small cachet of herbs that had allowed me to be almost invisible burst into flame. "No!"

  I threw my backpack off and
started dumping things out of it. My shirt came off as I danced around, shaking the backpack. Lynx grabbed the pack from me and started helping.

  "Fire," I panted. "Get a fire going, hurry." I tried to point out the lighter that had been in my backpack, but violent shivers took hold, making my aim useless. My jeans got stuck on my hiking boots, and I had to slow down to get them off. "Hurry," I screamed in an agonized whisper. "Hurry!"

  Lynx scooped together a few juniper needles and yanked on blades of dry grass.

  My turquoise necklace had been warm from my skin, but it was on fire now, fighting the cold that shook me.

  "Lynx…"

  He kept breathing life into the flames he was starting.

  There were things I needed to tell him, but maybe he was right to prioritize one task at a time. I pushed through the remains of my pack and found a bundle to help the fire. I threw the dust onto it.

  "Shirt and backpack first," I chattered. I bit back the "hurry."

  I pushed my hiking shoes close to the edge of the flames. They were mostly leather and would take the longest, but they were not likely to have supplied Sheila with whatever part of me she had found. I was damn lucky she had chosen revenge over tracking me. Or maybe she had tried to track me, and it hadn't worked, but I doubted it. Whatever she was doing was strong.

  "More of that powder?" Lynx asked, surveying the small flames.

  I was tempted, but I didn't want to start a grass fire in the canyon. "Just--" I thought of something. "Can you make it back to the car?" I had to stop and breathe slowly before I could continue. "I parked near the trailhead. There's a blanket in the back and a case with some supplies." It was over a mile straight uphill to the car. It would take me the better part of an hour to make it, but I was pretty sure Lynx could travel faster than I could.

  Lynx looked skeptical. "What about the fire? You sure you can take care of it? What about me? Can she find me?"

  I tried to shake my head, but the rest of me was shaking too. "N..no. I don't think she knows there were two of us. You were gone."

  "Okay." He picked up the keys from the mess and was gone before I could tell him about the cheeseburgers I had bought him.

  I got as close to the flames as I dared, but it didn't help. The cold came from inside. As I slowly fed one pant leg into the fire, the shirt finished burning. The backpack was a mess of melted nylon, smoldering on one side. "Come on."

  Teeth chattering, I sorted through my things. Hating it, I doused myself with the last of the water. It nearly killed me, but it helped slightly. There was water back at the Rio Grande, but I couldn't chance wandering around. Not only that, the currents there could be dangerous.

  I finally pushed the jeans fully onto the flames. It nearly smothered the fire. My hands were too unsteady to hold the lighter, so I waited, shivering and talking to myself. I lost track of time, but kept the fire going. At one point I was so cold, I burned my fingers before I realized what was happening.

  Lynx called out before coming into the circle of smoke. He didn't realize I wasn't capable of setting a spell right now. Besides, I wasn't about to use magic. If I were looking for a witch who broke into my house, I'd key to any magic in the area. A spell could lead her to me, or worse, make her spell stronger.

  He handed me the blanket and the small zipped pack where I kept a few extra herbs. I stuck some willow bark in my cheek, but it would take a while to help, if it did at all.

  "I saved you a burger," Lynx said.

  My teeth chattered as I tried to talk. "I..d..on't--"

  "It might help?" He broke off a chunk and handed it to me.

  I stuck it in my mouth, but chewing was almost impossible. "Got…to…go." I said. At least that's what I was trying to say. I was so cold, I couldn't think.

  Lynx shoved my boots further into the fire. The rubber on the bottom smelled horrible as it burned. We both moved out of the smoke, me huddled against a tree trunk under the blanket; him keeping watch.

  "Soon as it burns down, we'll get." He took off his shoes and tossed them my way. "I don't need them."

  It took me a while to tie the blanket under one arm, squaw style. The shoes went on okay, but I couldn't tie them. Lynx leaned over and did it for me. His eyes were narrow and yellow with the firelight behind him. I was either very cold or the kid was half-changed. If I hadn't been freezing to death on a hot summer day, I'd have been impressed. Few shifters could control the change enough to only take on some of their animal aspects.

  "You better eat this." He handed me the rest of the burger. I wanted to tell him about the fries and shake, but it was too much trouble.

  He had also found my rain poncho in the car. He tied off the arm and neck holes so that he could fill it with the stuff that had been in the backpack. "Any of this need to burn?"

  I shook my head, still chewing my second bite of burger. Nothing in the backpack could have been left behind at Sheila's house. The bag itself was probably what caused the problem. No doubt some of the fibers caught on the broken glass. Maybe some of my shirt too. I didn't want to look at my arm, at the reminder of the scratch. The thought of her hunting through the glass and maybe finding a tiny scrape of my skin, hair or blood...

  Lynx added more juniper needles, dried leaves and a log.

  "Don't…have time!" I said.

  He stared at me. From across the fire, I could tell he was scared. "Is she coming here?" His voice cracked. Maybe it was the fire.

  "Don't know. Got to get this spell...off me." My brain was numb. I couldn't figure out what she was doing to me. With regular voodoo, she could cause me pain. If she had my blood…she could try to control me or call me back, but this was some other type of torture. It almost felt as though she were trying to kill me outright by stopping my circulation.

  I looked down at my hand. The fingers were cramped, blue. Did she think she could stop my heart? What did she have of mine? My body shivered harder and dizziness took over.

  Lynx smacked the back of my shoulders. "You're breathing funny. Fast. Then stopping. Are you gonna die?"

  Yellow eyes peered into mine. "Burn it…faster," I gasped out. I wasn't sure if I was hyperventilating on my own or if Sheila had enough of me to stop my breathing.

  Lynx obeyed, shoving the backpack further into the flames and feeding the mess with more dead pine needles. "Shirt and pants are gone completely." He poked at the fire with a stick. "Backpack needs to melt more."

  As did the shoes. We didn't have time. "I'm going...for Pajarito Springs. Give it…" How long would it take me? "Give it what you can, then put it out." I stood up. Dizziness pushed me back down. "First cold water," I instructed. "Then…" I closed my mouth, knowing it was hopeless.

  "What herbs do you want?" he asked.

  He was a smart kid. "Not in my packs," I panted.

  "I know. But I can get them."

  "Sage. Corn pollen, white and blue. I have white in this sachet, but not the other two." I stared at the packet and tried to remember what to do with the pollen.

  He stared off and breathed in deep. "Sage I can do. The other will have to wait." He came over and gave me the stick he had been using in the fire. It was sturdy.

  I felt slightly better when I started moving. Sitting had only made me colder. I clutched my turquoise necklace and walked. Since the path was uphill, I tried running a few times, but the shivers unbalanced me.

  I made the spring. Off the main crossing, there was a giant boulder, a scant waterfall, and a pool of water probably formed by some kids blocking the stream. Great on a hot summer day after the steep hike down, but I did not want to get in. Cold spring water might cure me, but it could kill me first.

  I unwrapped the blanket and took off Lynx's shoes. I bit back a scream when my foot hit the damp earth. Scrambling backwards, I fell. At that point, nothing on earth could have convinced me to get in that water, but I was clumsy. If I hadn't been, I'd probably have died.

  Screaming, I slid into the water, unable to get my feet under me.<
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  The minute my head went under, I knew the truth. The water blocked the spell. Running over the rocks, across me and over the slight dam, the water took some of the spell that was stuck on me and washed it away.

  My teeth chattered, but I forced my head back under, too scared to chance muttering a spell of my own.

  I felt the sage when Lynx threw it in. He didn't bother to collect a few leaves. He tossed an entire bush in, roots and all. A branch dragged across my neck before fingers of it tangled in my hair.

  "Lynx, what in the--" I came up sputtering.

  "There's a lot of spring water in this stream. I didn't have time to harvest leaves."

  No point in arguing. I pulled some of the leaves off, breathing in the heavenly scent. It made me sneeze. I gagged and pushed my head back under, still holding the bush.

  Under water, I felt my way to the bank and pushed the torn roots into the soil as best I could. I didn't chance breathing the sage too deeply again, but I broke off a small piece to keep.

  Sputtering, I crawled out. The blanket was mostly out of the water and Lynx held it in one hand while dragging me out with the other.

  "I'm going to have to make good time up this mountain," I told him.

  "You go. This mess needs to disappear." He waved his arm to encompass the slide marks on the soil. He was right. A blind man could smell where we'd been and anyone else could see it.

  I got moving. Before I was halfway up, my teeth started chattering again. There was no more water on the way up to save me. I took the little pack of corn pollen out and clutched it, but I needed water to block her. I should have used the pollen at the stream, but I hadn't been thinking straight.

  By the time I made the car and got in, I was talking to myself and answering too. Part of me muttered, "Find Sheila," and the other part of me screamed, "No!" Sheila must have given up on killing me and decided to go with an easier spell--force me back to her lair.

  I wasn't going. I'd rather she kill me.

  After starting the engine and getting the heater going, I sat there like an idiot, my teeth clenched around the sage twig. I wasn't sure I should drive.