Under Witch Aura (Moon Shadow Series) (13 page)

Mat stumbled to her feet
and raced to
smother the flaming scarves with one of her flowing robes. “Adriel!
Adriel, are you okay?” Mascara ran down her cheeks and her
throat was red and bruised. Her beautiful red hair was singed.

“Oh Mat! Your hair!” Her
hand went to it just as I smelled the awful stench of it.

“Damn…damn them.” She
turned to Jim, who held the blond guy in a headlock. Shorty’s
legs weren’t doing much to support him.

Mat hiccuped. “Out the
back.” She gimped to her back door, and threw the bolt in a single
motion.

Jim dragged the guy through
and
deposited him in the alley. “The other one?” he huffed.

“Put him out the front,” I
suggested. “Let them wonder what happened to the other.”
I stood to help, but had to catch the wall when dizziness unbalanced
me. Still swaying like a drunk I used the wall to work my way toward
the front of the shop with Mat. We paused in the doorway. “What's
with the petunias?” I gasped out.

Matilda tried to laugh, but
it came out
a half sob. “I saw you spill the green potion, and knew it was
for a flower. You’re supposed to add water and say the magic
word, but when the other stuff spilled on top of it, I figured at
least one of the potions had water in it.”

“Someone buys that stuff?”

She shrugged. “Guys buy it
to
impress their dates.”

We stared at the mass of
flowers
covering most of the floor. Jim dragged the moaning body of Frog-eyes
through the purple blossoms on his way to the outer door.

“It is pretty impressive,”
I said.

Matilda stepped over the
petunias,
checked to make sure no one was near the front door and then opened
it. Jim did not drop the guy lightly. From the way his head bounced
on the concrete, it would be a while before he managed another moan.

Matilda waved at the
flowers and said,
“It’s only supposed to be a single flower. I wonder what
else broke.”

I leaned against the glass
counter. “There was some smoke that messed with my head. Who in Mayan
Ruins were those guys?”

“Religious fanatics. Damn
their
hides.”

“You know them?”

She shrugged. “They caught
me as
I was locking up a couple of weeks ago. I got the door locked, but
the fat guy slammed the glass a few times with his stupid Bible. He
shouted a bunch of threats until a few tourists dialed 911.

“After that, I made a spell
to
keep them out. They’ve come by a few times, but the spell
activates an illusion that the shop is closed and leaves an
impression of a locked donut shop.” She wiped at her face and
realized she was a mess.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have
picked a donut shop illusion. Blondie looked like he was a bit too
fond of donuts.”

She rewarded me with a weak
smile. “I
didn’t have anything in the spell to stop them if the door was
already open.”

I groaned. Her gaze focused
above my
head, no doubt contemplating an improved spell, one that wouldn’t
let them cross the threshold at all. I clamped my lips down on any
criticism. Less serious fanatics or mischief-makers would have been
fooled by her spell, forgotten the place and moved on.

Jim stepped back inside. He
used Mat's
still dangling keys to lock up. “Mat, are you all right?” He glanced my
way, but his attention was on my friend.

“I'm fine,” I said.

Jim grabbed Matilda’s hand
and
rubbed her shoulders. She leaned against him in relief.

I found a sudden need to
inspect the
cut on my right hand with rather more attention than it deserved. It
burned, but most of the liquid from the broken jars seemed to be on
my shirt rather than the cut. “I gotta go.” I stepped
over the flowers.

Matilda reached out. “Oh my
God,
Adriel, that was awful. Are you sure you're okay?”

“Sure.” Jim spared me
another glance, but I beelined to the front door. “I’m
going home to get cleaned up. Let me know if you want any help
improving that spell.” With her contacts it was doubtful, but
her natural abilities leaned to illusion. In this instance, she
needed something with a bit more heat.

A quick check outside
revealed a
bloodied Frog-eyes starting to come around. I pushed the door open
and dashed down the street before he even thought about finding his
feet.

Bloodstone wasn’t native to
New
Mexico, which was one of the reasons I hadn’t studied it
thoroughly. A local Indian jeweler might have a stone or two,
especially since healing was one of the properties associated with
the stone. The problem with worked jewelry was that it often carried
any number of properties added by the artist.

There were numerous good
suppliers for
silver and gold, and I could dig up my own turquoise, but the best
place to get untainted stones was Martin.

Unfortunately, big
unfortunately,
Martin was a freak. If I called to tell him what I needed, he’d
probably be naked when I arrived, in all his wrinkled glory. He was
sixty years old if he was a day and even though he had never lived in
a commune, he liked to pretend he was into drugs, free love and
flower power.

For a long time I thought
he was an
addict—got a little too much magic under his skin and couldn’t
stop drinking it in. My mother disagreed. Her take was, “He
was always a bit ‘touched’ even when he was younger.”

Touched or not, I wished
he’d
wear his damn clothes.

After a quick shower and
change of
clothes, I went searching for him. He lived in a teepee. No, not one
of those impressive ones made out of deerskin that had professionally
constructed poles and required a good-sized trailer to move around.
His teepee was a ragged mix of cloth and leather that may or may not
have been cured properly.

His trailer—and he did have
one—was for his collection of stones, odd pieces of metal, and
at least three railroad ties. He claimed they were from the original
Santa Fe Trail. His rusted-out, lopsided, dented truck should have
been scrapped twenty years ago. Maybe he kept it running by using
some sort of energy-from-rust spell.

Martin tended to favor the
older
highways that paralleled the interstate. He parked and walked for
miles scavenging for desert riches.

After driving north for
twenty minutes
and perusing a few side roads, I retraced my route and headed south
of Santa Fe. When I finally spotted the ramshackle truck and its
owner, I pulled over.

It was my lucky day. Martin
had
underwear on. One hand held a can of beer.

At least he was awake. His
sign was
out, advertising “natural stones.”

Who in their right mind
would pull off
the freeway and buy anything from a dirty hobo in his underwear?

Grumbling at my apparent
lack of sense,
I parked for a fast get-away.

Martin lounged next to a
weathered,
plastic lawn chair. He belched and raised the beer in my direction as
I approached. “What do you need the stone for?”

He wasn’t as clairvoyant as
he
pretended. All I ever purchased from him was stones.

“Bloodstone for wind
spells.”
Said force ruffled my hair, pushing it away from my face and swirling
the dust that my car had stirred.

Martin burped a series of
noises that
could only be a love song to the desert toads. There was no way to
know if he was lost in thought or if he hoped to appear mystical.
“Not your usual.” He touched a dirty finger to the side
of his nose. “Could be dangerous. There’s a lot of danger
in the wind right now.” He sucked in a large breath of air,
gurgled and then spit the results. He finished with a swig of beer.

I tried not to gag. “Yeah?”
Was it good or bad that someone like Martin had noticed an ill wind?
It could mean that the wind was gaining power or given that this was
Martin, it might mean nothing at all.

“I don’t like this wind.
Interferes with my hunting.”

The sad truth, and perhaps
the
principle reason I disliked Martin was because he was of the earth.
He had to be. He collected bits of it, skillfully selecting the
stones that mattered. If they weren’t pure, he purified them.
Nothing I had ever purchased from him had the slightest
contamination.

That his talent was even
vaguely
related to mine left me disgusted.

Martin finally sauntered to
his old
horse trailer and grabbed one of the cloth bags tied to a side rail. He
fingered the contents.

I’d felt his power before,
usually as a sudden sense of dirt, not fully decayed with a kind of
dried out sandy smell. This time, there was another scent, probably
rotted beer farts. I held my breath until he tossed me a stone.

I caught the flick of
green, nabbing it
with my left hand. Specks of red mingled with the deep juniper color.
Scant rivulets connected the larger spots like rings in a tree. It
was beautiful.

“I have others.” He sorted
through two more cloth bags before holding up a darker green, almost
brown stone. It too had flecks of red; larger drops of blood. “Not
too many people know about bloodstone and its air affinity. Usually,
I get healers.”

“Uh-huh.” According to
Mat’s notes, the dark green was chalcedony, while the red
streaks were jasper. In addition to healing, chalcedony had the
reputation of curing the ability to see ghosts. I took that to mean
it repelled them. The witch who had tested the chalcedony didn’t
believe in ghosts, thus when the haunts disappeared, he labeled the
stone as a cure for hallucinations. As with any text, interpretation
was up to the reader.

Jasper was not only the
“rain-bringer”
and healing element for blood diseases and hemorrhages, it also
protected against venomous creatures and extracted poisons. “Which
of these stones is better for wind spells?”

“For wind, I think the
green,”
he said. “But this dark one has a stronger earth quality. Your
earth link is already very potent. You don’t want to crash the
elements, just touch them.” His fingers caressed the stone in
his hand while his eyes roamed suggestively down my body.

He was beyond disgusting.
My hand
curled reflexively around the green stone. To my surprise, it
responded. Clutched in my hand, a light brush of earth or wind
squeezed out from the inside. I glanced down, but there was nothing
to see. A grunt from Martin drew my attention back to business.

“Let’s talk price, Martin.
This specimen came from Wyoming? Or Texas?”

His beatific smile revealed
very
crooked teeth. “I liked it up there.” Then he frowned.
“But the ranchers, they weren’t as kind as down here.
Didn’t want me roaming on their property. Kept moving me off.
You're lucky I was able to get such a good specimen.”

The ranchers here didn’t
want him
on their property either, but the summer heat was more intense here,
which meant they weren’t out and about to ask Martin to leave
when he trespassed.

“Don’t get greedy.” I
opened my hand to inspect the stone again. A slight whiff of
something rotted caught me by surprise. “Is this pure?” It was the same
smell I had thought was Martin’s body odor, but
the rock shouldn’t be tainted with it.

Martin’s eyes darted back
and
forth. He straightened up tall. “Don’t tell me.”

I had expected him to argue
with me,
not be afraid. He dropped the brown stone from his hand. “Only
a few know about its affinity for wind spirits, mostly the fortune
tellers, but they don’t need the stone to work their magic.
Hardly ever gets used for that anymore.” His shoulders
slumped. “Damn. Of course it would infect this stone first.”

“What would?”

His eyes rolled wildly. “We
will
have to purify it!”

“Martin, what in all of the
moonlight phases are you talking about?”

“Why is it that when the
contamination creeps in, you can’t see it yourself? Can you
smell it? I sure can’t.”

Had it been anyone other
than Martin, I
wouldn’t have said it, but this was Martin. “Beer farts
and donkey pee,” I declared.

Without changing his gaze
from the
horizon, he chuckled. It started small and then grew louder. I’d
heard him cackle before, but this was softer, true amusement. “The
beer farts, you ain’t got to worry about.” He waved his
hand and then reached over and took the stone from me. “The
other, we can fix. I give this to you as a gift, not meant to harm,
not meant for me to gain, but for you to find that which you seek and
so that you can prosper. I give it to you freely, only the stone and
no other.”

I knew the spell he was
activating, but
I nearly hid my hands behind my back like a stubborn child not
wanting to take medicine. He held the stone out. “Please?”

The plea upped the ante and
added
additional purification. He was asking for help freely given. “Okay.”
I put my hand out. “I accept your gift of the stone with no
obligations or attachments.”

He smiled. “Gifted, the
spell
can’t follow. I’ll have to purge the rest and make sure
it hasn’t gotten any further.”

“Hmph.” There were numerous
ways for curses and freeloader spells to stay attached to objects.
The gifting itself didn’t automatically guarantee a purge. If
the person receiving the gift didn’t know about the spell, and
the giver was devious, accepting the gift could actually make the
spell stronger. The receiver’s acceptance acted as a welcome
for both the spell and the gift.

Of course, I did know, and
we had done
the purge correctly, but the thought of a spell transferring to me,
especially one connected in any way to an ill wind, made my skin
crawl. “What was attached to it?” I asked.

His watery, alcoholic eyes
returned to
me. “There’s ill spells being carried on the wind. I
didn’t know any had gotten to my stash, but bloodstone is a
likely spot for it to land, isn’t it?” He nodded his own
conviction. “If you need more of this stone, go to a place
called ‘Charms' near the plaza. I sold a batch of bloodstone
there before any of the nasty wind drifted through.” With a
morose frown, he hefted the cloth bag in his hand. He tilted his
head, then eyed me like I was a gumball prize. His arm stretched my
way.