Under Witch Curse (Moon Shadow Series)

by Maria Schneider

  “Looks that way. He ended up with Zandy’s blood, holy water and a tattoo that wouldn’t turn into a construct. The holy water wouldn’t have been sterile so it probably caused the sepsis, which killed him. You tried to turn him and it didn’t take, not completely.”

  “He didn’t turn because of the holy water or Zandy’s blood?”

  Mat chewed her lip for an answer so I gave it my best shot. “I’d guess the holy water. Could be the church too. He’s not insane, but he never drank Zandy’s blood. I don’t imagine it was healthy for him though.”

  “What if we removed the tattoo?”

  I shivered. No way in any play book was I offering Tara’s services. Her gift of healing on a vamp would be black magic. It was too close to necromancy to even consider. “No idea.”

  “If it contains holy water, I am not sure it can be removed,” he mused.

  I agreed. “That would be a blessing, not a curse. And I don’t know how you can remove a blessing if you are one of the damned.”

  “He is not cursed then. He is blessed.” Patrick laughed softly. He showed none of his usual restraint; his fangs gleamed.

  Mat crowded closer to me.

  He didn’t cease his awful chuckling.

  “Pretty sure our tasks are done here.” My feet barely paused long enough for me to grab my pack on the way to full speed.

  Patrick was still cackling, his voice floating after us as we tore down the hallway. “We need a curse that is worse than vampire blood. Now I wonder what that could be?”

  Mat and I nearly knocked each other over shoving our way out the back door.

  Chapter 29

  White Feather was waiting at the back of the hospital, which saved Mat from having to drive me home. Gordon wasn’t with him. I was surprised Gordon had stayed away until White Feather explained, “He gave his word that he’d watch the store until she came back or he had to leave on a police emergency. It was a matter of living up to her trust, and he’s running a bit of a deficit in that area. ”

  “He’s going to kill her,” I said.

  “If this is her idea of payback, I’m guessing they’re even.”

  I shook my head. “She didn’t expect him to find out.” When he lifted an eyebrow, I explained, “I’m private about my work. She knows that. She had no clue I’d call you to tell you where I was headed. And I had no idea Gordon would be right there listening.”

  He thought for a long while before he said, “Thank you.”

  I stared out the window. “It’s what I’d want you to do. I’m not used to answering to anyone. And I wasn’t asking permission.”

  “I got that impression.”

  I unclenched my fists. “I didn’t want you to find out the hard way if something went wrong.”

  “No, that wouldn’t be good.”

  I wasn’t sure I’d ever be entirely comfortable with this relationship responsibility, but I’d made my promises. I’d keep them.

  It was easier to focus on the case than personal issues, so I ran through what had happened at Patrick’s lair. “All of the crimes are happening in close proximity to the nail salon. And whoever robbed Tam and Richard’s home obviously knew the nail salon’s routine. Mat’s place is down the block.”

  “An employee at the bakery or salon? Their own kid, Kevin? Or are you thinking of an employee at one of the places that was robbed?”

  I shrugged. “Mat doesn’t have any employees unless you count Gordon, and I suppose we can safely eliminate him. Right?”

  His bland expression told me not to press my luck.

  Instead of hiking Tent Rock after lunch, we postponed the trip in favor of carefully testing the auras on the samples White Feather had obtained from Gordon.

  Despite enhanced witch forks, not even the barest of twitches indicated any kind of match.

  The results weren’t unexpected, but it was disappointing. After everything was tested, we added some additional safety measures to the new holding area in White Feather’s backyard and stored all the samples.

  As the sun went down, we finished securing the sand-packed enclosure. Since the sand was exactly the same as all the other dirt in the yard, a spell to blend wasn’t necessary, but I buried an arrowhead under the dirt to prevent the magic from attracting the eye of a witch.

  Darkness and arrowheads reminded me of Patrick and his sick friend. Would they be roaming the night in a last ditch effort to locate a cure? What might they try? Joe wouldn’t hold on much longer.

  I was glad to hurry inside where vampires couldn’t enter. Well, not unless Zandy fed one again.

  My shivers weren’t only from the cold.

  * * *

  My priorities shifted overnight. Meeting with ugly vampires, one of whom wasn’t even a proper vampire because Zandy was dumb enough to offer black magic tattoos on church grounds, made me determined to limit my vulnerability to the coyote.

  “I need better weapons,” I told White Feather over breakfast.

  “And we need a hell of a lot more information about this case. It’s time I hunt down some wind spirits and see if I can convince them to talk.”

  “Wind spirits?” I blinked. “The last time we dealt with wind that had a mind of its own, it ripped half your house apart!”

  “Don’t worry. Normal wind spirits are nothing like that monster.” He reached over and tugged on my hair. “They’re playful breezes, little sprites collecting dust here, leaves there, and along the way, bits of information.”

  “Playful? Just how playful?”

  He shrugged. “They’re basic elementals. It’s the same thing as when you talk to the earth, right? Earth spirits, wind sprites or spirits, same thing. The wind sprites are like little kids with the attention span of a gnat and about as reliable, but sometimes they are worth questioning. I’ll take a couple of quick hikes and see what the breezes know.”

  “Why can’t you do it here? Maybe use your grandfather’s sacred place?”

  He moved to the sink. “The magic that grandfather guarded isn’t tied to the here and now. I need to reach specific breezes that have danced through town, swirled up into the mountains and collected tastes of the recent past. Then I need to tease those bits together.”

  White Feather had always been able to glean more direct information from the wind than I had been able to from Mother Earth. It wasn’t until I concentrated on a single element of Mother Earth that I’d been able to get any concrete messages from her. My brow furrowed. “You’re saying there are separate whirlwinds you talk to?”

  “Your breakfast is getting cold.”

  I put my spoon down. Oatmeal was not my favorite and this was far more important. “Are they dangerous?” Mother Earth was alive. I had not thought of the wind quite the same way. Mother Earth had moods and...yes, various parts of her were more or less dangerous, more or less informative. She had different smells and different voices.

  “No more so than when you hike Tent Rock and run into ghosts like Martin.”

  “I didn’t...that’s not hiking...?!?” I sputtered.

  He laughed, a quick snap of air tugging my hair as his hand had just done. “There’s no risk to me. But I need to be away from distractions. Find the right breeze. Tease out any clues the wind sprites might know. It’s like listening to a hundred songs at the same time and quite possibly as useless.

  “When I’m able to convince them to cooperate it’s a lot like when we hunted for Lynx with the witching fork, only less precise. You knew an area to search so we were able to narrow in. I’m looking to narrow our search area by asking the wind spirits to focus on the tat smell and tat magic.”

  I shook my head. “Finding Lynx wasn’t much more than luck until we found that overhang.”

  “True, but the air doesn’t forget. The right breeze might have seen something and convey an important clue. Right now we’ve got nothing.”

  “I’d better go with you to watch your back. If you’re focused on chatting up wind sprites anything could happen.
”

  “You’ll just distract them and me.” He leaned over to kiss the top of my head. “You hike and work all the time. Same thing, only I bet I don’t even see any ghosts.”

  I frowned. Ghosts were hardly the biggest worry. “Do not find any dead bodies. With or without tats.”

  While he prepared to leave, I washed my dishes. Unlike me, he didn’t collect a backpack of supplies. He simply put on hiking boots and a coat because it was cold outside.

  He kissed me good-bye, leaving me feeling distinctly unsettled. He was a powerful warlock. He could take care of himself. When I was at home, and he was here working, I was never concerned.

  I glared at the closed door. I wasn’t used to this whole marriage thing and having a partner. Of course, the wind spirits didn’t sound particularly dangerous. Unless one of them went rogue and spun him down the mountainside. Then again, he could control the air and defend himself against it.

  “Hmph.” At the moment, he was the only half of the partnership focusing on an accomplishment. I was standing here like a ninny.

  Okay then. Defense. Even with half a lab, I could pound silver. Arrowheads didn’t have to be pretty. They needed to be sharp and fast.

  Since Mat could use a silver weapon or two, I created enough for both of us. She’d probably refuse to use them because they were so misshapen. Too bad. If she had them and was near me, I could use them. I notched holes in the arrowheads to loop on my bracelet alongside the round silver beads.

  Feeling clever, I attached a few of the arrowheads to small pieces of ash. Mini-stakes in the form of darts. The wood might not be ash because I had never gotten around to labeling the wood pile, but we weren’t after vampires anyway. It was more for the sake of art. I could combine warfare and art; I just needed the right incentive.

  Once I had a pattern, it was a matter of pounding, shaping and sharpening.

  White Feather hadn’t returned by one o’clock, even though it was lunch time. When I toiled over spells in the desert, I was gone for hours.

  I made a quick foray into the kitchen for a snack, made four burritos for Tracy and took a quick peek out the front door.

  Nope, he wasn’t home yet. The tiniest hunt for his silver wedding ring resulted in a warm tingle across my gold band. Could he feel me checking on him? The touch wasn’t strong enough to glean a sense of place, but it did make me feel better.

  Feeling like an idiot, I closeted myself back in the lab and arranged a flat board on one end. It was time for target practice.

  It didn’t take long for me to discover that aiming at silver was easier than pushing silver randomly and hoping to hit a target. Once a silver arrowhead was lodged in the plywood, I could accurately shoot the rest of my weapons to within a quarter of an inch.

  “Excellent.” Anyone or anything wearing jewelry would be an easy target for me. Of course, most of my enemies, by their nature, didn’t sport silver accessories. Shame, that.

  Within the hour, White Feather returned. Hyper-sensitive, I knew the minute he drove up. I dithered over whether I should greet him or continue working.

  “Moonlight madness.” What was the point in standing here when I wanted to be out there?

  I didn’t quite yank the front door open.

  White Feather was already on the porch. “Good, I won’t have to set these down.” He peered at me over two huge bundles of willow branches, one dried and one green.

  I grinned like a happy idiot and accepted one of the bundles. “This is...you’re entirely too awesome!”

  He rolled his eyes. “Most women expect roses. You, you think dead sticks are the stuff of romance.”

  I laughed. “Willow is worth more.” If it hadn’t been for the willow in the way, the kiss I gave him would have lingered on even longer.

  When I stepped back, he followed me to the lab with his half of the branches, only to stop in the doorway with one raised eyebrow. He stared at the board full of silver arrowheads. “Practicing your aim?”

  “I’ve improved it greatly.”

  He grinned down at me, set the branches against the wall and pulled me in for another kiss. “I’m glad you’re not most women.”

  I was very glad he wasn’t most men, too, because most men probably couldn’t handle living with a witch at all, let alone know the right gift to make my day.

  Still locked inside the circle of his arms, I asked, “Did you learn anything from the wind spirits?”

  My question broke the pleasant mood. His brow furrowed and his eyes flashed dark brown. “It wasn’t good.” He loosened his hold on me as though he didn’t want to taint me with the news. “They conveyed the smell of death and old magic.”

  “We already know people are dying.”

  He shook his head. “This was decay. Like a body left somewhere that we haven’t found, but the breezes shied away from talking about it. The magic and blood they hinted at was even older. You may have been right when you said I should use grandfather’s room to hunt information. There’s some ancient magic at work here, something someone dug up and delved into.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a promising lead.”

  “I just wish there had been a sense of direction, but the deaths and tats have been in several places. That makes it much harder.” He sighed and stretched his back. “I need to take a shower and get something to eat.”

  He left me standing with my new piles of willow sticks. I fingered one, wishing I knew a spell to ferret out the root of the evil. They weren’t any good for that, but if I spelled the green branches now it could improve the finding ability once the sticks aged.

  I ran through my list of clients mentally. Lynx’s new client, the one with the matched packet finding spell, might hire me to locate one of the packets someday. It wouldn’t hurt to spell some willow with dust from amethyst and red garnet. Repeat clients were my beans and tortillas, and it never hurt to be prepared.

  I whittled away at the sticks while I considered more weapons for my arsenal.

  Chapter 30

  Next morning, I headed to Mat’s with my silver presents. The bakery was definitely on the way from my parking spot.

  Fortunately, great minds think alike. Mat was already installed inside the cafe, sipping coffee. She spotted me coming through the door and waved with a happy smile.

  “Split an eclair?” I offered in greeting.

  “I’m being good. Only having coffee.” The coffee was topped with whipped cream, cocoa and some cute colored sprinkles. No doubt the almond biscotti was strictly a stirring implement, not meant to be dipped and eaten.

  “Yeah, that looks low calorie all right. Okay, I’ll eat the entire eclair, but it’s your fault if I get fat.”

  I ordered the eclair and picked up two forks. The Asian man at the counter, Richard, I assumed, was kind enough to cut the eclair in half, saving me the trouble. He grinned wide, stuffed my dollar tip in the tip jar and beckoned the next customer forward. It sure would be bad news if his own son were somehow involved in the robberies.

  I set the tray down at Mat’s table. She helped me arrange the plates and accepted her half of the eclair without blinking an eye.

  “Brought you something.” I pulled a set of five darts from my backpack. “These aren’t much, but I also brought you my spare dagger. I’ll give you that at the shop.”

  “I don’t need the dagger. I bought one, but thanks.” She pulled the box her way and opened it. “Interesting...What in spell’s bells are they? Something from an African war chant?”

  I laughed. “They’re darts.”

  “If these were from anyone but you I’d refuse them. I now have a dagger and colloidal silver located strategically all over the shop.”

  “Excellent! I can manipulate that too.”

  She sipped her coffee. “The colloidal liquid is fluid enough for me to call it like I do water.” She fingered the little darts. “These look like mini stakes.”

  I nodded. “Kind of. I considered enhancing them to be attracted to
Zandy specifically.”

  “You have something of his?”

  “From a long while back, and now something more recent. Thing is, he’s dangerous. I don’t want him tracking me.”

  “Can he do witchcraft?”

  “Not back then. But someone is using black magic now. What if Patrick is wrong and Zandy isn’t selling his blood, but he’s using it to create the constructs? I don’t want anything of his anywhere near me. So the darts are clean, no magic. Throw them or use them in a bracelet that conceals a wrist knife.”

  “Why haven’t you designed a wrist wrap for one of your knives?”

  I jingled my new charm bracelet. “Don’t need one. I can pop these off and send them flying. I’m improving too, although from a distance, I have trouble keeping the point aimed correctly.”

  She reached over and examined the various arrowhead “charms” on my bracelet.

  “Armed and dangerous,” Mat said with satisfaction.

  I wanted to ask her a few questions about Kevin, but since his father was manning the bakery it would be stupid to discuss his possible involvement here. I swallowed another bite and casually asked how her designs were turning out.

  “Awesome. I’ve picked out the material for the purses and have a couple of prototypes embroidered. I’ll show you when we get back. They are absolutely gorgeous.”

  “You’re using Kevin’s drawings?”

  She nodded and twirled her fork, her eyes darting to the counter where Richard was wiping down the espresso machine. “I came here this morning to pick up his notebook. Need to flip through it again to see if there is any other artwork I might want to use.”

  “Oh.” I was betting Gordon wanted to see the notebook, and Mat was his excuse to get his hands on it. My stomach fluttered nervously. “You found what you were looking for then?”

  To my dismay, she nodded. “You name it, the kid has done it. Dragons. Snakes. Flowers.” Her eyes flicked to the counter again.

  “Any matches to anything else you’ve, uhm, considered?”

  “Close enough.”