Under Witch Aura (Moon Shadow Series) (20 page)

“Your arm is stitched up.
Your
head needs watching. Doc said you probably don't have a concussion,
but should have someone stay with you anyway. We kept you under to
make things easier. It's not as safe for me here during the daytime.”

He was back at the side of
my bed.

I snarled, “Show-off.”

He smiled, lips only. If he
was trying
to gain my trust, his lack of teeth wasn’t hurting his cause,
but there wasn't much he could do that would make huge inroads.

“The cat be willing to stay
with
you?”

“The cat?” For a second I
thought he meant the little stray that had been crying outside my
window, but then the fight rushed into my memory. “Is Lynx
okay?”

Patrick shrugged. “He got
you
here.”

“Lynx brought me here?” I
blinked. “He knows I can’t afford a hospital!” He
also knew I didn’t trust them.

The smile again. “He knows
about
the room.”

“The room?”

Patrick stretched his arm
to encompass
the space around us. “It’s a little side operation in the
basement for special patients. I check on them while I’m on
break from the regular hospital rounds. You don’t really
qualify, but Lynx figured I owed you.”

I shook my head vehemently,
sending
waves of pain and light through my head. “No way! You don’t
owe me.”

Patrick chuckled softly. It
was a sexy,
comforting sound. My fingernails nearly drew blood as I gripped my
bracelet. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized the pain in my
arm was partly due to stitches that ran all the way up the top side. My
t-shirt was intact except for one sleeve that was completely
ripped away. Blood was liberally splattered across the front.

Instead of my jeans, I now
wore some
sort of loose shorts. They looked suspiciously similar to Patrick’s
hospital pants, only they had been cut off at the knees with a very
sharp knife.

“I am not sure we are yet
even,
witch.” He made the last sound like an endearment. “You
helped me greatly when I was in need, and I ended up with a house out
of the deal.”

I scooted to the side of
the bed where
he was not. “That house had nothing to do with me.”

“Not so much, but you did
rid it
of the pestilence.” He waved a hand again. “Enough. The
question remains, will the cat stay with you and guard you?”

“Where is he?”

“Can you reach him?”
Patrick countered.

Patrick was fishing, maybe
trying to
ascertain how strong my powers were or how much influence I held over
Lynx. Well, he was bound to be disappointed. “I can call my
mother. Or sister. Or White Feather will come and get me.”

He took a cell phone out of
one pocket.
“Call.”

I didn’t want to use his
phone.
Or anything else he had touched, but the phone was my best chance at
freedom and survival. I accepted it without touching his cold
fingers.

“Where are you?” exploded
through the ear piece, the second White Feather heard my voice.

“The hospital—”

“I’ve checked nine times!
Gordon has a bulletin out on you!”

“Uh, Lynx didn’t tell you
he brought me here?”

“Lynx?” He cursed. “Is
Tara with you?”

“Uh, no.” I scanned the
room again to be certain. Before I had a chance to say more, Patrick
leaned in and confiscated the phone.

“Come in the back way, near
the
dumpster. The door is marked with the number seven. She’ll be
waiting.”

I blinked rapidly as
Patrick snapped
the phone shut.

“The back?”

“You aren’t officially
here.” He extracted a folding wheelchair from behind a
partition. “You’re my first day creature.”

“But...it’s a hospital!”

He smiled, and this time
there was a
bit of fang. “The back room is mostly for shifters. On rare
occasions a vamp requires treatment. Your friend Lynx knows about the
special arrangement.”

He lifted me in the chair
without
answering the questions running through my mind. How much of my blood
had he taken before he stitched my arm?

Had he…I gulped.
Had
he
licked it clean? Or just sucked out a meal's worth?

It wasn’t possible to
contain the
shivers that took hold of me. I was suddenly freezing and near panic
again. Patrick noticed, but he just threw a blanket over me. From
under the bed, he extracted my backpack and set it on my lap. He
recited instructions concerning care for my head and stitches.

With the roaring in my
ears, I heard
none of it. I suddenly missed the sunshine, but not for the same
reasons he did.

The hallway and stairwell
was dark;
perhaps the area was for maintenance, perhaps it was long forgotten.
If there was an elevator, Patrick didn't use it.

We didn't wait long at the
back door. I
couldn't hear a thing, not even a car door slam, but Patrick seemed
to know when to open the door.

“You can hear him breathing
through the door, can't you?” I babbled, unable to help myself.

Patrick gave an amused
chuckle, but
didn't deny the charge. He held the door with one arm and pushed the
chair through with the other.

At first I thought it was
still dawn
out, but that made no sense. Gradually, I recognized dusk, that
hovering space when everything was gray and getting darker. If there
were nearby street lights, they weren't operating.

White Feather was ready for
a fight, at
least until he saw me. His eyes dismissed Patrick as if he were no
more dangerous than a vase of flowers. “Adriel.” It was
half prayer, half sigh. He knelt down, his hand clutching my knee as
he examined my injuries.

“She'll be fine,” Patrick
said. “Bump on the side of her head. Keep an eye on her. She'll
get a nasty headache.”

“I already have one!”

White Feather's hand moved
gently up my
arm, turning it to see the stitches there. “What happened?”

“Meet went bad. They were
witch
hunters, the ones from Mat's shop. I never found the time to tell
you about them.”

“Witch hunters?” Patrick
echoed.

White Feather cursed.
“Gordon
mentioned them. He said they've been causing trouble around town, and
he mentioned something about Mat having trouble with them. Some
fanatic group called enlightenment or enforcement.”

I groaned. “Somehow Lynx
missed
who they were when he set up the meet.”

“You might want to leave
the door
open,” White Feather told Patrick. “When I find Lynx,
he's going to need your services.”

Patrick's fangs flashed.
“No
credit for saving her?”

White Feather's grip on my
arm was
about to make me whimper. “Was Tara with you?” He kept
his gaze on Patrick.

“I thought I was alone.
Lynx and
Tara must have followed me. Guy ambushed me from behind. But Patrick
is right. I didn't get here by myself.” I tugged away from
White Feather's grip. “Haven't you found Tara yet?”

White Feather's hand
relaxed when he
noticed my pain. “No.”

“How did you know I was
missing?”

“Smoke up at the lodge.
After
what happened to Sarah, Gordon called me in from the start. There
were bullet casings and expended spells. I recognized your aura. Just
how many spells did you set off?”

“Not enough. I would have
used my
levitation spell, but Lynx and Tara showed up.” I closed my
eyes against the guilt. “I'm sorry, White Feather. I had no
idea they were there!”

He squeezed my hand, this
time gently.
“Gordon found a guy inside the lodge that was mauled by,”
he glanced at Patrick and then remembered that the vampire knew, “a
cat of some kind. The guy refused treatment and even with the bullet
casings, there wasn't enough evidence of a crime to hold the guy. I
looked for you first and when that failed, I tried to locate Lynx and
Tara.”

Patrick finally spoke.
“These
hunters, what are they after?”

“It's a witch hunt,” I
said. “Bible throwing, threats, fire.”

“Interesting.”

I thought I was past
caring, but if
something interested a vampire, and it concerned witches, it would be
stupid to ignore. “Why is it interesting?”

“You're the third witch in
this
week. The other two were checked in on the regular floors. There's
one here now who sustained more injuries than a simple Bible beating
unless someone used Bibles to flog skin off.”

“Flogging? Someone flogged
a
witch?”

Patrick tilted his elegant
head.
“Hikers found the witch over by Tent Rock. There appeared to be
quite a bit of inebriation involved on both the part of the witch and
the hikers. I ignored the witch's nonsense about snakes pinned to the
ground, maidens dancing in the desert and corncobs. The witch didn't
report anything about Bibles.”

“Gordon didn't mention
witches
had been hospitalized,” White Feather said. “Who are
they?”

“Sorry,” Patrick answered
with an elegant shrug. “Neither was admitted to my special
space. Privacy laws protect them unless they decide to contact
Gordon.”

The list of witches I knew
was fairly
long. Some I suspected were witches, others I knew about for sure and
a few I knew by name or reputation. Because Patrick mentioned Tent
Rock, it took me longer than it should have, but few witches spent
time inebriated in the desert. “Martin!”

Patrick raised an eyebrow.
“Clairvoyant
too?”

“Who is Martin?” White
Feather asked.

“He's a drunk. The guy I
told you
about with the heliotrope that was infected by the ill wind. He
spends a lot of time alone in the desert, so those guys could have
gotten to him.” I called to mind everything that had been
happening lately, but none of it fit together.

Patrick said, “Your friend
Martin
mentioned spirits, not Bibles. Perhaps I should have paid more
attention.”

“Spirits? Like a wind
spirit?”
Martin usually made sense if you knew what he was talking about. The
corncobs and maidens didn't fit the bible-thumpers, but it
reminded me of sand paintings. “Did he say he saw those things
as part of a drawing? Like a sand painting?”

“He wasn’t what you’d
refer to as sober. Of course, we ignored most of what he said and
assumed he had been flogged or beaten senseless.”

“Is he going to be okay?”

“No worse than before he
was
admitted.”

The inference that Martin
was not
exactly ever going to be “okay” was obvious but
unarguable. “Tell him I asked about him.” I struggled
mightily before adding, “Let me give you my phone number. He
can call me if he needs anything.”

“I have it,” Patrick said.

The vamp loved to make me
shiver. White
Feather wasn’t amused. He leaned over, and though the chair was
quite awkward, picked me up in one smooth motion.

Patrick held the car door
opened. After I was taken care of, Patrick said, “The first witch in
wasn't in bad shape. You might have Gordon do an inquiry.”

“Hard to do without a
name,”
White Feather growled.

“Try the newspapers. There
was an
attempted theft of several horses with the first witch. The current
accident is being reported as a fall. He was drunk and wandering
around at night during a full moon.”

I groaned. The
bible-thumbers could
have found Martin at work, but under the circumstances, we couldn't
rule out the wind being responsible for Martin's mauling. Whatever
was riding the wind was far more dangerous than a couple of guys
waving a souped-up cigarette lighter or a gun.

Then again, as Patrick
floated
soundlessly back to the door and disappeared, “dangerous”
was all relative.

White Feather used his cell
to check
with Gordon while he drove me home. “One found, two to go,”
he said after he hung up. He squeezed my hand as soon as his was
free.

“If Lynx got me to the
hospital
and didn't take Tara there, she’s probably okay,” I said.

“I don't like this whole
thing
with my sister and Lynx,” White Feather grumbled. “I
wasn't sure I liked Lynx before he and Tara met.”

This wasn't news to me.
Lynx was my
friend in some ways and in others, I felt he was my responsibility.
“Because he's a shifter?”

“Because he's a
teenager
!”
White Feather exploded.

I smiled and relaxed.
“That's
curable.”

“Not necessarily in time to
save
my sister.”

He had a point. “She's a
teenager
too.”

“So?”

Telling him I wasn't all
that enamored
of her wouldn't help anything. “She's got a lot of growing up
to do.”

“Couldn't she find a
nice--”
He slapped his hand against the steering wheel.

“Yeah, she isn't going to
stumble
across a nice teenager. There isn't any such thing.”

“
But
Lynx?
He's a thief!”

“He's very protective.”
Listing Lynx's best qualities was challenging, especially considering
I hired him for his more unsavory ones. “He's extremely
intelligent. And I'm pretty sure he has turned over a bit of a new
leaf since he started seeing Tara.” Except for the little leaf
that was Tara convincing him to break into my house and follow me to
a meet.

“Where does he earn his
money?
Are you telling me he got money for his new car legally?”

Now there was a question.
“I
honestly don't know. Not everything Lynx does is illegal. He takes a
lot of odd jobs, many of them magic related. That doesn't mean they
are illegal.”

“But he charges more for
the
illegal ones.”

“Not necessarily. Lynx
charges by
difficulty. He'll even turn down some illegal stuff if it isn't worth
his time.” Those qualities weren’t particularly
admirable, so I tried again. “If he wants something and it's
worth money, he'll do his own thieving, but he won't steal for
someone else, not even for a large payoff. He doesn't generally do
things that can get him blackmailed or that serve to enrich the guy
he's working for more than himself.”