Witch's Moon: A Celia Winters Novel Book 1

by D. L. Harrison

  She remembered the cops and turned to look at the other cars.

  Ed grunted, “Already taken care of, they didn’t see you leave the store.”

  He must have used glamour on their windshield or something.

  They made it to the pack lands faster than she ever wanted to, and the alpha met them at the front door and led them to his bedroom. His bedroom looked, normal. There was a queen sized bed with dark blue blankets. One night stand held an alarm clock, the other a picture. There were four people in the picture, him and his sister Jennie when they were much younger, and two adults she didn’t recognize stood behind them with hands on their shoulders.

  They looked like a typical happy family. She wondered for a moment where those adults were, they weren’t old at all in the picture. Probably killed in the war, is that why he’s such an ass? Of course, that wasn’t an excuse, a lot of people lost family in the war.

  There were more pictures on the walls, family outings at lakes, she even saw a picture of wolves that a normal human would probably put off as a nature picture, but was more likely just another family portrait. She didn’t want to feel sorry for him, he wanted to kill her, he did kill Bruce, and he needed to be stopped. But then, she was doomed to do both, both empathize and be one of the ones to stop him.

  She took an old pocket knife off the dresser, and then walked back downstairs to their kitchen.

  “Alpha, do you have a bowl? Anything but plastic will work. Ceramic or glass would be best.”

  His mate Natalie pulled one down and gave it to her. She’d never been so nervous before doing a spell, would it work? Or would Silva panic and break her concentration?

  She put the bowl down on the counter and put her bag next to it. The magic wouldn’t actually find him. The knife had a sympathetic connection to its owner, Tom. The knife already knew where Tom was, what direction he was in. There was energy there, connecting the object to its owner.

  What the spell would actually do is find that connection and increase it, make it visible to a witch’s senses in which she could determine direction and distance. She was hoping that this tracking spell would take a low amount of energy.

  There were other spells, scrying for and locating a person’s energy directly. She knew though that right now that spell was beyond her, it would take a lot of magic to span outward and find that energy. This was different though, as it was just a light injection of magic to bring up and highlight what already existed.

  Still, she knew it would be more magic than lighting candles, she just wasn’t sure if the more was too much more. She’d procrastinated enough though, and started to work the spell. She crushed the ingredients with a mortar and pestle, trickling magical energies into it to enhance the basic properties of the herbs.

  She poured it into the bottom of the bowl while chanting the spell. This wasn’t war magic. Most of those magics required nothing but the natural magic power of the witch, discipline, and the words and focus. Most other spells required ingredients, including this one.

  She dropped in the pocket knife as she finished the chant. She could feel Silva gibbering in fear inside her, but so far the great cat had managed not to freak out. The magic flowing from her wasn’t all that powerful, and she was filled with both relief and guilt as the spell took hold and her magic finally stopped flowing. The spell was self sustaining now, and would last a couple of days.

  She carefully fished the knife out of the bowl, and could immediately feel a pull about ten miles to the south west. She let them know.

  Paul asked, “Is he moving?”

  She shook her head, “I’ve got the feeling he’s settling in.”

  Ed raised an eyebrow, “He’s going to fight us?”

  Remembering him, she wasn’t all that surprised he wasn’t going peacefully, or running.

  Tony looked thoughtful, “That’s rough country out there, no way to get a vehicle there.”

  Paul replied, “Do we have permission to run through your land?”

  Tony nodded, “I’ll keep my pack in until you get back.”

  Paul looked at Ed and raised an eyebrow.

  Ed frowned, “I suppose it’s fine, it’s not like we need to question him, just bring back proof I can show the council.”

  She nodded. Ed could come along, but hiking ten miles would slow them down considerably. She and Paul could get there in fifteen minutes, or faster, as tigers. Still, even with two to one odds, she was new, and Tom had knowledge of the terrain and could easily have traps ready. She took a deep breath and followed Paul outside.

  She wouldn’t be able to take the knife, but then she wouldn’t need it. As soon as they got there, even if he left, his scent would be too strong to miss. She stripped and changed, very aware of Paul doing the same just a few feet away. She was sure after this second time, her shift was faster than his, she wondered if that had to do with her being some kind of hybrid, maybe the core of magic that made her a witch also could fuel her shifter side. She thought it would be worth experimenting with sometime.

  Silva stretched arching her back and whipping her tail, bringing her back into the moment. They had a murderer to hunt down. She focused on following Paul as closely as possible, he made it easy this time, as their goal was to stay together, not for him to lose her in some game.

  She was a little nervous, and worried about the purpose of their run. She was deliberately racing toward a fight to the death, it was… insane. Yet, she was filled with life and exhilarated by the run, and there was a part of her that couldn’t wait to test herself. She knew it was foolish, but it was there. She was a deadly predator now, like it or not.

  Her greatest fear wasn’t that she’d freeze up, or not be able to do it. No, what absolutely terrified her was that she might like it.

  Chapter 16

  The surroundings became less and less comfortable as the forest floor gave way to more rocky terrain, and the trees thinned out considerably. They’d crossed his scent path a while back and knew Tom was close, but they were moving more warily and were highly alert for ambush or traps.

  Her ears and nose twitched as Silva tried to discern everything around her. It was getting dark now, but that was no challenge to a cat’s eyes. She was five feet behind Paul, to her own objection, but admitted it was probably smarter than being bunched together. Paul slowed and stopped as the scent trail went up an incline, onto the side of a small rocky hill.

  It didn’t seem a place that wolves would be all that comfortable with either, but she didn’t doubt he was up there somewhere. Paul started up carefully, she could see his whole body was coiled and ready for action, and imagined she looked just as tense. Their paws hardly made a whisper of sound as they slunk up the incline. To her right was stone, and steep short cliff walls, to her left they were slowly rising higher away from the ground.

  The scent turned and backtracked onto a higher trail.

  There was a growl in her mind, and then she heard, “I’m going to kill you both, but I’ll really enjoy killing that abomination. You shouldn’t have let it live.”

  There was a blur that came from above. There really wasn’t a lot of room to dodge on the cliff trail, so Paul growled and swiped with a paw. It was a solid hit followed by a growl of pain, but the wolf didn’t hesitate and simply barreled into Paul sending him off the cliff. It was an insane strategy, and Tom almost followed him off, but he managed to stop before plummeting after.

  She cringed as she heard Paul hit the ground and the wolf turned toward her. He had claw marks across his muzzle, and great tufts of his fur were missing from his side and neck, but it seemed to be mostly superficial. Her anger rose up, and her fear at what happened to Paul. They weren’t that high, but it was high enough to reach terminal velocity.

  “You’re dead bitch, I don’t know how you did it, but you’re gonna pay and I’m gonna enjoy it.”

  He said a few more words about her that were rather unflattering, and then lunged for her throat. It was over faster than she
thought possible. He latched on as she allowed his momentum to flip her backwards. She rolled her body into a ball then extended her rear claws, then straightened her body out, ripping him open from chest to lower abdomen.

  Her neck hurt, she could feel the puncture wounds from his teeth, but he hadn’t had time to rip or shake his head. Otherwise she was perfectly fine outside of being covered in viscera. She kicked his body off and rolled over on her stomach. A sense of relief went through her, she had enjoyed making the kill, but it was more a feeling of intense satisfaction at a job well done than anything else. She wasn’t in a rush to find her next victim, there was no feeling of power or an addicting head rush.

  Still concerning perhaps, but her fear was more that she would revel in the blood and kill, that simply wasn’t so. She stood and made her way down the cliff trail quickly and found Paul unconscious but still breathing. His right front leg looked broken, and he had a gash from a sharp rock that oozed blood. She thought it extremely likely he had internal bleeding as well.

  She thought about that spell in the war magic book the first time she’d looked through it.

  Field healing magic. It wasn’t as thorough as something brewed, but it also didn’t need any components.

  Silva sniffed at him and put a paw on his side as if to say hurry up. She couldn’t talk in this form, or could she? She used her mind voice to chant the spell while running the magic through her paw and into the body below her. It was nowhere near the limits of her power, but it was still a very strong spell.

  Silva completely panicked and threw off her concentration.

  Silva sounded ashamed and frustrated with herself, “I’m sorry, I know it won’t hurt me. I know it! I trust you but I just can’t help myself.”

  She sighed, “He could die, what do you suggest we do?”

  Silva asked, “Slower?”

  She frowned. A spell had a certain cadence and rhythm to it. But she could try to go slower, as it should spread out the magic needed as well, which would… might, just work.

  She started again, this time pausing between each word and lengthening the normal pauses in the spell. It was a crazy idea, but it seemed to be working. She could feel both fear and pride radiating off of Silva as their magic flowed lightly into Paul. The spell took a long time, what normally would have taken half a minute took five.

  But it seemed to work. She felt a sense of relief as his seeping blood stopped, and his leg straightened. There was also a small crack and grinding of bones as she could sense internal injuries righting themselves. He still had a wound, and his bones weren’t healed all the way, but they were at least set.

  She sat down and looked around. It was much darker and she had a passed out shifter that probably weighed in at seven hundred pounds or so, and a dead shifter to get back to the pack house. And no way to carry either. Crap…

  She wondered what kind of sight she made as she stumbled into the area where they left their clothes. She could see okay, but not as good as when she was a cat. She was completely naked, with a large male tiger thrown over her shoulder while carrying the head of a wolf in her other hand. It’d taken her about a half hour to make the jog.

  She dropped the head carelessly, and gently laid down Paul before scrambling into her clothes. She was generally clean, all the viscera was gone from her skin after she shifted, now all she had was a bunch of cat hair stuck to her sweating body. She’d felt a little self conscious walking that way, nude through the woods, but she’d gotten used to it quickly enough.

  Still, she wouldn’t be making a habit of it, and no one had been conscious to see it either. Once she was dressed she grabbed Paul, his clothes, and then Tom’s head and made it to the house.

  She reported what happened to Ed and Tony while Natalie looked over Paul.

  Nat said reassuringly, “Paul should be just fine. Shifters heal fast so he should be up and about sometime tomorrow and fully healed the day after. He can stay here.”

  Ed grunted, “You did well for your first mix up. But you shouldn’t have let him get your throat like that.”

  She wanted to stick her tongue out at him, except that he’d sounded genuinely concerned. She was tired, sweaty, exhausted, and a little beat up. Although shifting seemed to have closed the holes in her neck, they were still sore and she wanted to put a magic balm on them.

  But she held it all in and smiled, “I’ll keep that in mind, I’m sure Paul will train that out of me.”

  Ed nodded firmly, “Come on, I’ll take you home.”

  She was grateful and followed. It had been only a little over an hour since they started out, and she was walking back into the store around seven thirty.

  Mia’s eyes widened as she took Celia in.

  She giggled, “I’ll be right back, need a shower.”

  The shower was heavenly, and she put a little healing cream onto her neck before she pulled on a pair of jeans and a shirt that said witches do it to candle light. Luckily the rest of the night was slow, and Mia was clearly trying to make an impression on her first day, and had managed to do most of the work, outside the paperwork anyway. Still, she was glad at nine when she could lock up the store and get some sleep.

  She really had no idea about the magic though, she’d read up on some techniques for overcoming phobias. But nothing really struck a chord in her; she found the idea of flooding to be cruel. She… or rather they would figure something out eventually. Maybe some more research.

  She hit the pillow and a short time later was asleep…

  She had a nightmare and woke up drenched in a sweat around five in the morning. It wasn’t the best, but she’d actually gotten eight hours of sleep so she wasn’t arguing. Strangely enough, the nightmare seemed focused on Paul getting thrown off the cliff, not of her brief but violently deadly struggle with Tom.

  She got up and pulled on sweats and hit the road, there was no point in showering before her run. It felt good as her heart and breathing picked up, as her legs hungrily ate up the pavement. She went twice as long that morning, running four miles before turning around for the trip back. She felt great as she went back inside and cooled off a few moments before jumping in the shower.

  She wondered as she went through her clothes, what would Paul think of her in a summer dress. That thought brought her up short and she froze for a moment. She found she actually cared about him now. Maybe she’d been wrong to worry about her love life. She thought about it for a while and decided that her new instincts to bed and kick out Paul had been the new way her instincts dealt with instant attraction via pheromones and lust.

  Now that she actually was starting to… appreciate him, she wasn’t feeling the need to chase him off. Strange. But it also made sense when she thought it through. Initial physical attraction was all about human instincts, hers just weren’t human anymore. But those same soft familiar emotions she had as a human witch were still there once things moved along far enough.

  She was relieved and happy about that, as far as relearning who she was, this had been one of the better discoveries. She’d been half afraid based on her libido and desires she’d been turned into a genetic slut and man eater. That she wasn’t… was a huge weight off her shoulders. Sure, she knew she still had the potential to be, but it was her choice.

  There would still be other complications she was sure. She’d already been told cat shifters didn’t mate for life, but the idea she still had the potential to love and want someone around some, or even most of the time, was a welcome one.

  Still, she wasn’t sure it was wise to pursue something with him, at least not yet. Paul was both her co-worker on the council, and also her trainer in all things shifter including combat. That could get complicated.

  There were almost two hours before opening, so she pulled out her laptop and slipped into a meditative trance. She kind of knew the format from seeing the case file earlier, so she typed up everything that happened, including word for word conversations, including up to when she got back to the p
ack house. Of course, she left out any worries about her magic.

  She wasn’t sure about some councilor e-mail addresses, so she just sent to the ones she had, asked for the others, and then shut down.

  Then she pondered her confrontation with Tom, something didn’t feel right. Tom was crazy, she was tempted to say evil. He wasn’t a nice man at all. But what the hell had he meant when he said she wouldn’t get away with it. His exact words were ‘You’re dead bitch, I don’t know how you did it, but you’re gonna pay and I’m gonna enjoy it.’.

  What did he mean by that? She couldn’t figure out what she did that put his sentence in a context that made any sense. She shrugged and dropped out of the trance. It was too late to find out now, despite popular fiction witches couldn’t speak to the dead, and it was probably just some crazy shit in his head anyway.

  Her other worry was the cops. If they didn’t plant evidence she was fine, but they may decide to make her life hell if they think she’s guilty. Jim and Brett could become a constant presence in her life as she tried to hide magic and the tiger from them. That would… suck.

  After all, there was no way to make Tom’s death look like a suicide and lead the cops to think he was the perpetrator. Nope, that ship had sailed when she tore his body open, and then ripped off his head for her carrying convenience.

  She would just have to wait and see what would come.

  Chapter 17

  She sighed and hung up the phone.

  All in all she couldn’t complain about how things were going with the business. But she did get a few more cancellations for midwife services, and she’d just gotten done getting a new supplier for a few of her herbs. The last one had called and screamed at her, saying she wouldn’t deal with a damn shifter, and cancelled Celia’s account and current orders.

  So far her internet orders hadn’t slacked at all, she wondered if that would last.