Under Witch Curse (Moon Shadow Series)

by Maria Schneider

  “He’s not a witch,” Tara said.

  Lynx almost slid his eyes away from mine in time, but I caught the flicker of acknowledgment there. Good at it or not, he was practicing. Whether it would make a difference with healing was another mystery entirely.

  I propped a wooden tv tray near White Feather for Mom’s supplies.

  Mom examined the wound again. “It’s mended a bit. The spell is still in multiple pieces. Flecks here and there.” She frowned. “Tattoo ink lives in the second layer. Blood reaches that layer. That must be how the construct is fed.”

  I updated her on the fact that the homeless guy, Nick, had probably received the tattoos the same night the ink infected White Feather.

  “Doesn’t matter when the tat was done. The danger is that someone knows how to call the tattoos. It’s black magic, blood magic. There is blood mixed in, maybe copper because the tattoo was blue. I don’t know about this idea, but you show me what you do.” She beckoned Lynx over.

  Lynx froze, his legs locked. He finally blinked, but still didn’t join her.

  Mom tapped one finger against her jeans. “I don’t see how it will help, either.”

  Tara crouched near White Feather. She rested her hands on the skin. “We need to make the skin flow.”

  By the time she looked away from White Feather, Lynx had managed to force his legs closer. He was silent. Barely breathing.

  Tara reached for his hand, but he flinched.

  Mom tsked. “Tara, you must always ask first. Remember the patient and the healer must be willing or it does no good.”

  Lynx stared at them out of crystal yellow eyes. Mom smiled. “That is good. Now back.”

  He blinked, surprised. “That’s all you want? Just the eyes?”

  “But—” Tara started to protest. She stopped, not needing anyone to chastise her further. The hurt that so often surrounded her shuttered over her like a veil.

  Mom tapped her finger, ignoring her for the moment to focus on the problem. “It might be easier with your hand. Can you do that? We do not require your entire cat, and in any case, it is up to you.”

  Lynx offered his hand to my mom. The snick of a claw snapping into place was not entirely new to me. I hadn’t actually watched it happen, but I’d heard it.

  Mom said, “Back again.”

  She held his hand, protecting it from the rest of us. I kept my distance, providing a scant illusion of privacy even though I badly wanted to help.

  “Hmm. I see this flow.” She shook her head. “Tara, you are right. It is like liquid. Lynx, if you are ever badly injured and cannot make it happen, I am almost certain I can help, but I am not certain you would ever need help from me. Magnificent.” She continued to hold his hand and tap her fingers against her leg with her other hand.

  She finally turned to White Feather. “The cells simply are not the same. Lynx has two together that shift back and forth with one or the other on the top. White Feather has only the human type of skin cell. When Lynx moves the cells, he can expel anything between them. White Feather would need a second layer of cells to do this.”

  Tara’s hands balled into fists. “Why can’t we shift the cells, one kind or not? Lynx shifts them and doesn’t always move one completely in place of the other!”

  Mom shrugged. “That is the magic of Lynx. I do not think he can give this magic away, even if he wanted to.” She released his hand and examined White Feather’s ribs again. “I can see the bits of cells that don’t belong. I could cut them with a knife and remove them. But I cannot shift them.”

  “But we knit them together! I knit them together when they were not!” Tara cried.

  Mom frowned. She hovered over White Feather, concentrating. White Feather grunted. I couldn’t see anything happening so I scooted a few steps closer.

  Mom gasped. “Ground for her,” I warned White Feather. “She’s not that good at it without Dad around.”

  White Feather responded with a wild-eyed stare and yelped. “Ow! That spot hurts like hell!”

  My wedding ring may have warmed a tad, so I grounded for him, cycling it through my ring to his. It wasn’t as strong as if he held the link himself. “Mom, I am not grounding for you! Lynx, do you know how to ground?”

  Now Lynx shot me a panicked look, one that had a lot of “run and ask questions later,” but despite twitching, he stayed rooted to the spot. He didn’t reach for my mom. He didn’t move at all.

  Tara said to him, “You’ve grounded for me. You did it on the mountain.”

  His gaze switched to her, but it was over. A pinprick of bloody blue bubbled to the top of White Feather’s skin.

  With a gasp, Mom slid off the couch to the floor next to Tara. Sweat dripped down one side of her face. “Mi Dios. And that one was nearly on the surface.”

  “You moved two skin cells!” Tara crowed.

  “I didn’t. I squeezed them to push that one drop out, but it was close enough to the surface it was more of a splinter than a tattoo.” She shook her head. “It would be impossible to do them all. I can knit them, but this unknitting, squeezing thing, that is counter to the magic.”

  White Feather’s lips showed white around the edges. “Burning it out would make more sense.”

  “With lasers or light manipulation, there is the danger of some pieces being absorbed,” Mom said. “I had really hoped this would work.”

  “Let me try,” Tara urged. She didn’t dare look at anyone directly.

  Mom glanced at her in surprise. “You saw how I did it?”

  She nodded.

  Mom said apologetically, “It is not so much healing. But she is stronger than I am. She can force more of it to the surface.”

  Mom’s face had lost all of its color. “Mom, do you want hot tea or coffee?”

  She sighed a big breath. “Tea.”

  I made tea while Tara studied the problem. She looked sideways at Lynx twice. His eyes changed from human to glowing cat. I couldn’t tell if that was a threat or if he thought he was helping.

  Tara finally sat back and said, “I need a splinter. Something I can jab Lynx with. Then he can change. I want to see if he breaks it up or expels it.”

  Lynx’s eyes snapped to mine, all human. It was asking a lot, too much. And it was not my call to make. He had done what he had promised, and it had provided Mom with some insight. My insides roiled. His fear was different than mine, but visible all the same. He was trapped out in the open and forced to deal publicly with his ability to shift.

  Mom’s eyebrows raised. “It might not matter how Lynx does it. White Feather is different.”

  “Maybe not. But it might.”

  Mom glanced at me with a smile. “She is stubborn, like you.”

  I bit down hard on my reply. Lynx’s ears swiveled between the players. He stared down at White Feather’s wound. Then he looked at me, but his eyes drifted to my hands, and I realized they were clenched. His nose twitched, and I knew he was telling me that I smelled worried or afraid or insulted.

  “Very funny,” I said.

  He did a half of a silent laugh, but it cut off as suddenly as it started. I might smell different, but he probably smelled funny too because he didn’t like Tara or the situation any better than I did.

  “Not silver,” Lynx said. “Wood’s okay.”

  I stalked into the lab, hurrying, but my hands weren’t all that steady. I feared for White Feather. A part of me feared for Lynx. None of us knew what we were doing.

  I shaved off a few small pieces of a pecan stick and returned to the living room. Lynx reached for them, but my mom intervened. “I can place it just so,” she said. “I do not see how it will help, but it will be less painful if I do it.”

  She split one of the slivers with her fingernail. Lynx offered his hand, and this time when Tara reached out, he let both of them hold it. Mom slid the splinter in carefully. His head tilted, but if it hurt, he didn’t jerk away.

  “Change,” Tara said, her voice a low chant. She was focused no
w, centered. Somehow she had grounded, probably through Lynx. He didn’t seem to notice, or if he did, he allowed it. His hand changed, first the snick of claws, then fur rippled across the back of his hand.

  I held my breath. Mom was right. It was magnificent. I could feel the magic, even if I didn’t understand it.

  The front of his hand toughened and changed colors. He changed back, almost before the paw completely formed.

  Tara kept her concentration. She didn’t ask him to do it again, nor did she pick up the sliver that now rested on his fingertip.

  When she turned to White Feather, his intake of breath was as loud as mine. Her hands hovered for a moment, but then she swallowed hard and began. I felt a swoosh of wind and warned, “Ground or it will burn like the devil.”

  The wind trickled to a breeze and we locked eyes. I linked to earth again, willing it to hold against his pain. He latched onto my link and added his own. The breeze came through the diamond now, but I trapped it and fed it to Mother Earth.

  Lynx clasped Tara’s shoulder hard. She struggled to keep her breathing even. Instead of a small pinprick of blue, it was like water bubbling from an underground spring. Tainted blue ink pooled across White Feather’s ribs, forming a small puddle before dripping down onto the sheet. Mom wiped it away, watching everything closely. There was no blood on his skin. There was no open wound.

  White Feather let out the breath he was holding. So did Tara. She closed her eyes and started to shake.

  “Stay centered,” Mom and I ordered at the same time. We recognized the draining that left you feeling as if you’d run a mile full out and all of sudden your muscles dropped out of the race.

  “Release it slowly,” Mom said to my, “Ground through Lynx.”

  Tara laughed shakily. “That was...hard.”

  Mom rubbed her back, but her gaze was on the blue ink staining the sheet. “I didn’t examine the cells of the ink carefully enough. I concentrated on the human ones. I didn’t realize...the ink cells, they are similar to Lynx. There are sets of two, rubbing against each other.”

  Tara nodded, finally sitting back, but still trembling. “They’re like the shifter cells. So I shifted them back and forth, back and forth. Reverse of what Lynx did. I expelled White Feather from the ink.”

  It took a minute to understand what she said, but then I shouted, “Shifter cells?!? As in—”

  Together White Feather and I swore, “Zandy!”

  “Patrick said Zandy was selling his blood to someone else! And Zandy was there. Tats use blood for color...or in this case, to create a construct.”

  White Feather groaned. “He’s selling his blood to a tattoo artist who creates tattoos that turn into constructs.”

  “Or he learned to do it himself, the fiend. But, no. Patrick said Zandy found another customer. Apparently the new customer isn’t interested in vampires at all—he’s using Zandy’s blood to create constructs. The blackmail thing must have been just another attempt by Zandy to make money from nothing. That coyote has more than one death wish.”

  White Feather flexed his shoulders and stretched his side. “I feel a whole lot better.” He tugged a strand of Tara’s hair. “Thanks, kid.”

  She blushed.

  I nodded and added my own gratitude. “Took guts to try that after my mom failed and all of us standing here expecting no better.”

  Mom smiled. “She’s stubborn like you. She’ll make a good witch. She just needs patience.”

  “Hmm.”

  Tara lifted her head, her face drawn, but it was a good kind of tired. A half-cocked grin lit her face before her eyes dared find Lynx. “Thanks for grounding. I can’t do that part.”

  There might have been the slightest sheen of respect on his face, but then he blinked. “Let’s eat,” he said. “I’m hungry.”

  Chapter 27

  When you obtain the blood of your enemy, if he is dead, you burn it. If he’s not, you make sure that Lynx has smelled it, and then you bury it in the backyard where it can do you no harm. But you have it if you need it.

  White Feather tended to blow bad spells away, so he didn’t have an area for evil spells until we dug one, lined it, added a holy water barrier and encased it in protection spells.

  It was after midnight of a very long day when we finished, but we both slept better knowing the spell was outside and not inside White Feather.

  White Feather beat me into the kitchen the next morning. He whistled while preparing breakfast. When I came in dressed in jeans and hiking boots, he raised an eyebrow along with his spatula.

  I sniffed. “Is that hash browns I smell? Mmmm.”

  “We can’t live on bacon entirely, even if Tracy and Lynx vote that way. You look set for spell practice.”

  I hesitated, still not really used to running my less-than-logical ideas by anyone. “Martin mentioned something about demon spit, ghouls and black magic. I was wondering whether it has anything to do with constructs.”

  “Demon spit. To form tats?”

  I shrugged. “What Martin calls things and what black magic really is could be one and the same. The energy comes from somewhere.”

  “From the dead bodies, it looks like the victims are providing the energy. Throw some Zandy blood in there, maybe some blood from the conjurer and how much more bad energy do you need?”

  “True. But I started wondering how much Martin can see. If he sees black magic or demon spit coming through to our side, maybe he can see who is casting the construct spell.” I dumped Mom’s leftover salsa on my eggs and hash browns.

  “And he might be able to tell us where the person is?”

  I nodded. “Or describe the person. Or something.”

  “Would Martin pay attention to details like that?”

  “Who knows? Not when he was living, not unless he was sober, and that wasn’t very often. At least now he’s sober.” I thought about it. “Well, I think he’s sober. He’s so weird it’s hard to tell for sure.”

  I finished breakfast and decided that if we kept eating big meals, I would have to do more outdoor spell casting—like about ten miles up a canyon. My jeans were definitely squeezing me. “Martin always noticed magic. That’s what enabled him to excel at finding stones. He’s like Tracy. He hears magic.”

  “I’ll go with you,” White Feather said, joining me at the sink to wash his own plate. “No need for you to meet up with a ghost by yourself. We don’t know his intentions.”

  “What?”

  “He flirts with you.”

  I blinked up at him, not sure if he was teasing. “He’s dead. I don’t think he has any serious intentions, good, bad or otherwise.”

  White Feather swallowed the last of his mocha. He set the cup down and wrapped his hand around the back of my neck, bringing me closer to him. “May as well let him know that when you cross over, you’re still mine.”

  He kissed me good morning and made me wish we’d never gotten out of bed.

  * * *

  There were a few necessary chores to take care of before leaving. I couldn’t put off adding my magic to White Feather’s lab any longer. At the rate Tracy erected walls, if I didn’t do it today the lab would be completed before I had a chance. Plus, helping Tracy might teach me how he talked to Mother Earth.

  I was up to my elbows in mud and dirt when White Feather came outside to tell me that Gordon had called. “He has some mug shots of tat artists who are known or suspected of dabbling with some dangerous inks.”

  I snorted. “From what I read, all the inks are potentially lethal.”

  White Feather nodded. “They’re made from noxious chemicals even before magic is involved. Gordon collected samples of inks from about four shops. It’s a long shot, but we might be able to pick up an aura that matches the stuff that came out of me. A match would point to the artist responsible. Since you’re knee deep, I’ll go while you finish up here. Gordon’s at Mat’s place, minding the store.”

  My head whipped around. “Minding the store? No one
minds the store except Mat.”

  “He said she had an important errand.”

  “Hmm. Well, we can hike Tent Rock this afternoon. I won’t be much longer at this.”

  He left to take care of his business, while I continued to stack my rows of bricks. If Tracy thought it was odd for me to build parts of each wall, he never said anything. Of course, he rarely said anything anyway, so what was the difference?

  While I slathered mortar around, I listened. Tracy didn’t so much hum as vibrate, but whatever it was, my bracelet sang back. I hummed a version of the tuneless little notes, but the vibration wasn’t really his voice, it was his magic. He drew Mother Earth into his work as surely as I did.

  As I headed inside to clean up, Mat drove up.

  It was a few minutes before ten o’clock, which was usually when she opened shop. Her red hair was braided and looped up. She wore jeans, albeit Ralph Lauren ones, but worst news of all, she had on running shoes. Even though she was dressed in her version of battle gear, she oozed delicate beauty.

  The good news was she probably hadn’t stopped by to ask me to kill Gordon because her eyes were no longer red-rimmed or puffy. Plus, he was minding the shop, whatever that meant.

  “You look dressed for special projects this morning,” I said after waving off her hug. “I’m filthy. Let me wash up.”

  “Your kind of job, not mine. Patrick stopped by last night. His vamp friend is dying. He asked if I had any potions or ideas.”

  “Guy named Joe?” I rinsed off the worst of the dirt at the kitchen sink.

  Mat sat at the bar and rested her chin in her hands. “I didn’t meet him. He’s at the hospital. Patrick said you’d know where. He said they would both be there even during daylight if I thought of anything. The only thing I thought of was you, but he said he’d already asked you.”

  I dried my hands and arms. “And so you stopped by because?”

  “Wits end. I know you don’t deal with the vamps, and I don’t deal with them much either, not anymore. He’s desperate.”

  “What if he thinks witch’s blood is the cure?”