My Favorite Witch

by Lisa Plumley

  “I’ve been told I’m hard to please.”

  “You are hard to know.” The magus smiled. “You like it that way. You think that if you stay hard, like the rocks outside my door, that nothing will penetrate you. Nothing will hurt you.”

  T.J.’s next bite of pie turned sour in his mouth. His jaw ached with it. He swallowed again, then set aside his plate.

  “But a rock is not unbreakable.” The magus pulled her attention from her wolfhound to T.J. Her demeanor was calm and sure, her posture alert. “A strong rock can withstand a great deal. But the smallest trickle can work its way inside. Given enough time, a meager stream can split apart a huge boulder.”

  “Maybe. But I have something a huge boulder does not.”

  “What is that?”

  “Legs.” Grinning, T.J. put his hands on his thighs. “I can walk away from that trickle of water, and I damn well would.”

  The magus, her aristocratic face lined with the cares of a thousand Patayan, did not smile in return. “I think you already are walking away. Running, almost.” Her gaze dipped to the birthright mark on his biceps. “I sense a difference in you.”

  His Gila monster tattoo prickled in response. Irritably, T.J. rubbed it. “What you sense in me is impatience. I want to fulfill my promise to our circle. Instead, I was delayed again today with a greenie’s mission to trace a runaway witch.”

  “Your work for the InterAllied Bureau is important, too.”

  “Not as important as my promise to the Patayan.”

  “You are of both worlds. You do an admirable job of balancing them. As far as your promise is concerned, I’m not worried. You have never failed me or your people.”

  T.J. grunted. He poked his pie with his fork, then lifted his gaze to the magus’s walls. Here in the main living space, where his magus accepted visitors, the walls were lined with totems and photographs and historical artifacts. Each piece fit in its niche as though made for it. They were spotlit like museum pieces, clean and venerable. He felt a million miles from them.

  “I haven’t earned anyone’s praise. Especially yours.”

  “You deserve praise without action. Love without measure.”

  With a cynical snort, T.J. stood. A swift current of wind followed him, stolen from the night and shaped by his restless mood. It ruffled his hair and scoured his skin, much the way Dayna’s rainstorm had. Reminded of her, he frowned.

  “You appear angry,” his magus observed. “But you feel—”

  “As though I want to have this mission done,” T.J. interrupted. His voice sounded harsh, even to his own ears. “I want this danger settled. You still sense a threat looming?”

  A pause. A grudging nod. “I do. The confrontation we’ve feared feels closer than ever. I’ve had signs. Spirit visions. Evidence from EnchantNet. Hateful traditions are returning, building to a new and destructive force.”

  T.J. exhaled. He’d hoped to hear differently. He’d been gone for a few days while tracing cusping witches for the IAB’s inaugural remedial magic classes. He and Deuce had been assigned the stragglers—the cusping witches no one else could bring in.

  “This force’s dark energy is centered on Covenhaven,” his magus said. “Maybe because of all the cusping witches who’ve gathered there. Maybe because Samhain is almost here. I still don’t know the reason, but the danger is real.” She broke off, studying him through curious eyes. “But talk of divisive witchfolk is not what you came here for, is it?”

  She was right. T.J. refused to admit it.

  Instead, he strode to her avant-garde bookshelf and picked up an ancient Patayan lifewheel, a gift from a neighboring Patayan circle. He turned it in his hands. He could confide in his magus. But confidences—like closeness—led to betrayals.

  T.J. refused to be vulnerable again. Like the lifewheel, he was closed now. Like the lifewheel, he was unbreakable.

  Unbreakable…like his bond with that witch.

  In a whir of movement, he put down the lifewheel and paced instead. The wind he’d conjured swirled around him, revealing more than he wanted with its restive nature. When his magic conspired against him this way, he couldn’t hide a damned thing.

  As proof, his magus’s soft voice chased him from across the room. “Why did you come here, T.J.?”

  Because I’m beginning to feel lost again.

  The truth burbled inside him, wanting to be told. Striding across the dwelling’s polished floors, T.J. ruthlessly squashed it. He could deal with these feelings the way he always did—by refusing them. Other people’s emotions kept him busy enough. From the moment he awakened, he absorbed feelings that were not his own, the way all Patayan intuitively did.

  It was no wonder a few Patayan typically entered the human world, where their powers of insight and compassion earned them natural work as therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists. Listening and hearing and feeling were unavoidable for them. In T.J., those elements were especially strong. He accepted that.

  “The signs you’ve seen…this threat comes from witches?” he asked. “You weren’t specific about the danger until now.”

  “I didn’t have specifics until now. I only knew that The Old Ways would return. That they would divide us again. That they would pit us against one another—legacy witch versus human, human versus myrmidon, myrmidon versus Patayan. I knew that, like the last time, one vixen witch would—”

  “—rise up fearlessly and end the conflict for everyone.” With a derisive sound, T.J. dropped into his chair again. His trailing current followed him, blowing past the chair’s clean lines before dissipating into mist. “I know the vixen legend is cherished. But most witchfolk don’t even believe—”

  “I believe.” His magus gave him a warning look. “So did you, when you made your promise.”

  Beneath that look, T.J. relented. She was right. According to The Old Ways, vixen witches—those witches born on the same day and in the same year—were especially powerful. When joined to form a vixen “pact” of two or more witches, they were capable of all kinds of potent and unusual magic.

  Rumor held that the last time a vixen pact had formed, it had ended badly—with the infamous Salem witch trials. What had been lost in human telling of that story was that the members of that particular vixen pact had sacrificed themselves to free other witchfolk; they’d saved countless witches from fiery deaths in the process. As devastating as the Salem trials had been, they had cemented vixens’ mythological status, turning them into the larger-than-life heroes of the witching world.

  “Your belief guided you to accept your mission. To give your promise.” His magus turned her considerable authority in his direction. “Have you found her yet? The juweel?”

  Unhappily, T.J. shook his head. According to his magus’s prophesy, one vixen witch, the juweel, would help the Patayan defeat the dark forces in the conflict to come. Even though it wasn’t known how or why, the Patayan had learned that no proof was needed to accept a magus’s vision; magian prescience was accurate without fail. His magus’s tocsin had to be heeded.

  “I’ve identified the vixen witches in Covenhaven. That was simple enough, given Deuce’s skills with the IAB database.” Even turned, his partner was better with human-built machines than anyone in the witching world. “But I’ve been busy tracing for the IAB. My last target was…complex. I’ve had no time to—”

  “You must make time. The juweel is key.” His magus’s grave tone allowed no dissension. “Right now she is lost—hidden among her own kind. But she will awaken. And her struggle to come into her own—to choose an allegiance among the witch factions—will mean the difference between good and evil for us all.”

  T.J. eyed his magus. “You’ve had new information.”

  “Yes, but still not enough. I fear it comes too late.”

  Too late. Sobered by the details she’d shared, T.J. considered the situation. His magus’s visions were becoming more vivid. More complete. That could only mean that the threat facing them was also complet
ing itself. “If the juweel exists, I’ll find her. In a few days, this crisis will be averted.”

  The juweel. The term—in the old tongue, “the one who is tested”—had lost its original associations long ago. In the years since its inception, it had been co-opted for other uses and other meanings—including “the prize” and “the favorite.” Even the IAB had selected it as a mark of distinction for the participants in their cusping-witch classes. T.J. doubted Leo Garmin and his associates knew or cared about the true connotation of the word. They trampled witchfolk traditions with impunity, all the while bragging about creating “efficiency.”

  “But there must be a missing piece to your prophesy. Only legacy witches can be vixens.” T.J. turned over the problem, considering his half-forgotten culture lessons. “If the legacy witches want to battle with The Followers—with a subset of their own kind—there’s no reason we should become involved.”

  “Their division will endanger the human world.”

  “It can’t. The human and witching worlds are more separate than ever.”

  “It will. I’ve seen it.” She paused. “I fear it.”

  T.J. swore. He knew better than to doubt his magus’s view. She’d always been right, for as long as anyone remembered. She and their Patayan circle had discussed this matter already.

  “As guardians of the magical world, we Patayan are bound to maintain peace,” his magus reminded him. “Whatever the cost.”

  At times, that cost had been great. The Patayan’s role as protectors was both fated and elemental. In the same way witches could detect deception after eons of persecution, Patayan could detect impending conflict after ages of battles. Resolving those conflicts sometimes got dirty. Dark magic and lethal spells were used. Neither could be employed without hurting the Patayan who wielded them. Every instance of magic came at a price.

  T.J. knew that price all too well. Caught by that reality, he examined his hands. They were scarred with the remnants of old spells—fraught with evidence of everything he’d done in the years before he’d found salvation at the IAB.

  He didn’t want to become that man again, without scruples or trust or lasting satisfaction. But if the old darkness kept tugging at him the way it had today…

  “Maybe this time,” he said bleakly, “we should let the dozers fight their own battles.”

  “Never.” His magus gave him an unyielding look. “And I will not have that slur spoken in my house.”

  Dozers. The term was crude, but it fit the humans he’d encountered—people separated from their natural world, oblivious to the interconnectedness they all shared, moving with a tunnel vision that narrowed their options and their happiness.

  But it didn’t pay to debate his magus. Like most women, she could outlast a man in an argument. She could always win.

  “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  “No, it won’t. Especially from you.”

  He knew what she meant. Contemplatively, T.J. scraped his knuckles over the cleft in his chin—a sign of his compound birth. As a child, he’d been taunted for that telltale marker. As an adult, he’d become proud of it.

  But the dozers couldn’t be proud. They’d never awakened to their magical natures. They didn’t know what they were missing.

  That was probably just as well. Even the Patayan’s Native American counterparts—enlightened and strong people—weren’t immune to wanting what they didn’t have. Jesse, with his dreams of his father’s impossible “magic,” was proof of that.

  Everyone wanted more. Even T.J., today, with Dayna.

  Haunted by the memory of the runaway witch beneath him on her flimsy human-made bed, he slid his hand to his jaw. A quarter inch of beard stubble met his fingertips—evidence of all he’d endured. When confronted with emotion—theirs or other people’s—Patayan sometimes couldn’t contain it all. T.J. had never met anyone who’d overwhelmed him more than Dayna.

  He’d been bulldozed by the strength of his need for her. His body had reacted with bristly stubble—a visible keep away sign that would have been laughable…if it hadn’t hurt so much.

  His magus saw his gesture. “Are you ready to tell me?”

  T.J. jerked away his hand. “Tell you what?”

  “About the surge in your magic.” Her eyes sparkled. “I sensed it the moment you arrived. I’ve been waiting for you to—”

  “It’s nothing.” He rose, pulling a swath of darkness through the skylights along with him. Barely noticing its sleek shape churning around him, T.J. paced. “A bond. With a runaway witch. I didn’t mean for it to happen. I was trying to cuff her. That’s it.” He broke off, clenching his fist at the memory. “After all this time, I thought I had better control.”

  “It’s not your control that’s in question. Some magic is still beyond our understanding.” His magus watched him pace. “But all magic recognizes its like. Your birthright mark must have found its mate and enacted a bond for you both.”

  “Without me knowing it? That’s fucked up.”

  “Your birthright mark is you.” His magus gave him a censorious look. “It’s you at your most elemental self, forged when your identity first becomes your own.” She nodded at his Gila monster tattoo. Her mouth quirked. “Have you forgotten how much you complained when yours emerged?”

  “Not with you around to remind me, I haven’t.”

  “‘Ow, it hurts! Put a charm on it to make it better.’” His magus put a teasing face on her mimicry. Unfortunately, that didn’t remove its sting—or its accuracy. She sighed. “Even as teenagers, you men have no tolerance for pain.”

  “The damn thing burned itself onto my skin!”

  “Gradually.” She waved away his complaint. “It took its time. It happens to everyone, remember? All Patayan, at least. And now look at you. You’ve almost brought your birthright mark to its fruition.” She beamed at him like the proud mother she nearly was. “Soon you’ll be fulfilled, with the kind of loving, wholehearted, lifepair union that most can only dream of.”

  With a sarcastic guffaw, T.J. kept walking. The darkness he’d pulled engulfed him, leaving him safe and cool in its midst. As a child on the res, he’d dragged the shade of the mesquite trees with him on his walks to school, trying to temper his intrinsic Patayan reaction to the sun. His people didn’t burn under the UV rays. In their presence, Patayan became stronger and more magical. Like junkies for sunshine, they were laughably eager to strip naked at the first opportunity and soak up more of that magic-giving heat and light.

  That reality was not easily understood by fifth-graders. Fifth-graders liked to laugh, point, and occasionally use the slide T.J. had chosen as a sunbathing platform. A parent-teacher conference the next day had made T.J. realize, for the first time, that he would have to control himself around other people.

  It was a lesson he’d never forgotten.

  “You have consummated the bond, haven’t you?”

  Ignoring the question, he continued walking.

  “You haven’t!” His magus gave a tsk-tsk sound. “Oh, T.J. I’m disappointed in you. You should have consummated your bond.”

  Even the freaking wolfhound whined a complaint at him.

  “I was tracing for the IAB! It was complicated.” It was…hot. Seduced by Dayna’s nearness, he’d wanted to make her his with no questions asked. She’d made him drunk with need. Rock hard. As urgent and unschooled as a warlock still coming into his own. Roughly, T.J. stopped moving. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not consummating the bond. If I don’t make it complete—”

  “It will still haunt you.” His magus made a gentle gesture. Magically, her motion cleared away the darkness surrounding him. The gloom he’d cultivated fell to his shoes and seeped through the floorboards. “And it will haunt the one whose magic has bonded itself with yours. This witch, your bonded witch—”

  “Dayna.” Even saying her name made him feel breathless.

  Disgusted with the realization, T.J. frowned harder. He felt like a damn riser. The
epithet was usually given to insatiable young warlocks who hadn’t yet mastered their skills, but today it fit him like a shadow. He didn’t like it. He refused to be led around by his cock—or worse, by his need to see one particular witch smile at him. He refused to want.

  “Dayna is important.” His magus gave him a solemn look. “She’s important to you. You were fated to find her.”

  “And now I’ve lost her, so it’s done.”

  “Lost her?”

  “I left her at IAB headquarters. I told her not to come to me. I told her not to expect me to come to her.”

  A perceptive frown. “How did that feel?”

  T.J. gave a bitter laugh. “Worse than my birthright mark searing onto my arm. So what? It’s done now.”

  “Nothing is ever done.” His magus smiled gently. “Everything is a journey. This is a rare opportunity. Your bond could still become a source of great joy to you.”

  “Or it could be a big pile of trouble. Even the stupidest greenie knows that being bonded with a witch is irresistible.”

  He glanced at his magus, hoping she’d disagree.

  She did not. More alarmed than ever, T.J. paced faster. As a teenager, he’d been enamored with the legends about witching bonds. A lifetime of mind-blowing sex had sounded pretty good to a horny rising warlock. But now, faced with the reality of an all-consuming connection, T.J. wanted no part of it.

  He shook his head. “A bond is seductive. A bonded partner is seductive, without even knowing it. The last thing I need is to let my warlock side run wild with that kind of temptation.”

  “Ah.” The magus nodded. “That’s true. Most Patayan don’t also have witchy blood in them. That complicates things.”

  Spurred on by her agreement, T.J. continued. “Being with Dayna is a dangerous distraction. I’m glad to be free of her.”

  “Are you free of her?”

  He turned away. “How about another piece of pie?”

  “Very funny. You haven’t finished your first.” His magus murmured softly to her wolfhound, then cast T.J. an empathetic look. “The truth is, you don’t trust yourself around this witch. You don’t trust what a union with her would create.”