Under Witch Aura (Moon Shadow Series) (31 page)

Fully armed, I stepped back
outside.
Anything that moved got blasted. Even the ones that looked dead got
blasted
and
stepped
on.

I used tweezers to stuff
spelled copper
inside the weep holes even though some evil bugs might be trapped
inside. Although there had been no sign of Sarah for a long time, I
kept an eye on the darkness around me. I was afraid of the cat too,
but not quite as much as before.

Working my way around the
house, I
killed four more scorpions and a centipede that was gliding straight
up the adobe. “Aaaztec curses.” My beautiful brown adobe
now had a chunk missing. Maybe I shouldn't have mashed the bug quite
that hard, but how dare they attack me?

The very quiet purr of a
car engine
motivated me to gather myself. I was an idiot for calling White
Feather over a few hundred nasty bugs. To avoid being mistaken for a
crazed Rambo, I strapped the silver dagger above my ankle underneath
my pants.

I didn't hear a car door
slam. Maybe he
was still inside the car testing the wind. I headed around the side
of the house to explain that the situation wasn't quite as bad as
feared, but...his car wasn’t there.

I blinked. My Civic was the
only
vehicle in front of the house.

Had he parked away from the
house to be
on the safe side?

I stepped inside the light
from the
porch to prevent him from mistaking me for a ghost and sending me
airborne with a wind attack.

The front yard was eerily
still. “White Feather?”

The cat screamed.

I whirled around, but was
too late.

A large, dark shape hit my
shoulder,
taking me down. “Oomph.” My left side bore the brunt of
the initial impact. I kicked and struggled to scramble free.

The cat screeched again and
landed on
my attacker. It gave me the half second I needed to wedge my fingers
into my pocket. Instead of a spell, I was rewarded with the pair of
tweezers I had been using to handle the copper.

The guy on top of me reared
back to
swipe at the cat.

I stuffed the tweezers up
his nose as
far as they would go.

He screamed.

The cat, either sensing
impending
magic, or not being one to stay around after raking her claws across
a person, raced into the trees.

My spells were crammed too
tightly into
my pockets. The second attacker was almost on me before I even
realized he was there.

Two spell packets dropped
on the
ground. There was no time to identify the spells; I crushed a
membrane, screamed meaningless words and threw it at the second guy.

I didn't wait to see if he
caught it or
what triggered. I went for my knife.

Headlights cut through the
darkness.
This time, it was White Feather.

My knife came free. Bracing
one hand on
the ground, I felt a round, soft packet underneath.

It would have worked better
had I
crushed it against the enemy, but since the spell had already
activated by being smashed, I launched it at the guy struggling to
hold onto me.

The moisture inside the
packet mixed
instantly, and the blood on his face from the tweezers served as a
conduit. Nettles and petunias bloomed across the bloody mess of his
nose. The smell of turpentine and chile peppers flooded the air.

Just as his face
disappeared behind
wild growth, the headlights from White Feather’s car lit up his
blond hair and desperate eyeballs. My nemeses, David the Frog and
his friend
Blondie, had
tracked me
down after all
.

“Aztec curses,” I screamed.
“Will you never leave me alone?”

I clawed my pocket for
another spell,
but came up with the heliotrope. I aimed for Blondie's screaming
mouth, hoping he'd choke on it.

David joined the fray with
something
that in the headlight glare looked suspiciously like a garrote.

I raised my dagger and
slashed.

An arm for an arm. I carved
into a good
chunk of flesh before the wind hit.

White Feather was skilled,
and he was
fast. He pushed me sideways while blasting a harder gust at the
attackers. I rolled with the wind, although it would have been
eminently more satisfying to sit there and chop David into tiny
pieces of hamburger.

The bible thumpers weren't
immune to
fear, but their pumping legs did them no good. The wind smashed them
against the trees.

Still angry, I threw the
last of my
spells, the last resort, the one I had hoped never to use. The
explosion would maim at best, kill at worst.

The wind delivered it right
to them. My
mouth opened to say the words, but White Feather's wind, a gentle
tangent, brushed along my arms and tangled my hair. The unspoken
question in the breeze was, “Are you okay?”

His wind danced along my
arms and legs,
checking for injuries.

The mix of emotions, my
hatred and
anger against his worry and gentleness, made me choke. Then again,
maybe it was the strong oils from the super-grow petunia spell.

White Feather loomed, his
hands fisted
at his sides, his attention split between the attackers and me. He
controlled the wind with little effort, but he couldn’t
continue using it. If he did, if it wasn’t already too late,
he would attract something much worse than these two scumbags.

My arms shook with the need
to extract
revenge. I stumbled to my feet.

“Are you alright?” A
sharp gust of wind from White Feather slammed David’s head
against the trunk of a tree. Blondie got his turn, face first.

If I had answered him,
White Feather
might have continued beating them until they were senseless, but I
was too focused on my own intent to maim and destroy to waste time
speaking. I felt the silver on my arms. I smelled the stink of plant
oils. The last time I had searched through Mother Earth, the earth
had literally spit up on me. Then again, I hadn’t been too
badly injured.

I reached for Mother Earth.

White Feather arrived at my
side.

David and Blondie took
advantage of his
momentary distraction. Rolling with the wind, they crashed blindly
through the juniper trees.

Earth, cactus
.
I reached for
that last bit of turpentine though my feet, searching for the
likeness growing out of Mother Earth.
Juniper needles, cactus
needles, sap.
I grabbed for the things in the spell and
shoved
with
everything in me.

Just like before, there was
a
suffocating gel. With the push, everything was momentarily displaced,
but the explosion outward didn’t make it any easier for me to
breathe.

I pushed again, hard, but
with no air,
I panicked. I let go of Mother Earth and struggled to surface.

White Feather said, “That
blood
had better all be theirs.”

My fingernails cut into my
palm. Fresh
nighttime air soothed me, but only slightly. Screams of pain and fury
from the trees were music to my ears.

I followed White Feather's
eyes to the
dagger in my hand. “The blood is his,” I spat out. The
wailing from the juniper trees abruptly ended.

I hoped the cactus needles
remained
embedded in their skin forever.

My legs trembled. I put my
head down,
striving to completely return to myself. I wasn't dizzy, but I sat
down.

White Feather crouched next
to me. “Are
you okay? Adriel?”

I nodded stiffly. “Okay.
Yes.” I started to lift my head, but there by my foot, of all things,
was
a watch with a giant face. It was the same one that David was wearing
when I escaped in the plaza. My knife blade had slashed through the
leather wrist band.

As White Feather shifted,
the light
from the headlight glinted off the face. There were no numbers and
only one very dark, black hand.

The tip was pointing
directly at my
front door.

I reached for the watch. If
I couldn't
destroy them, I would slash their property into tiny pieces.

White Feather grabbed my
arm. He was
close enough that my stabbing anything was dangerous. “Adriel?”

“I hate them.”

“Adriel, are you okay?” He
lifted my face gently.

“May the ghosts of Aztec
sacrificial priests gut them.”

White Feather brushed a
rather large
piece of dirt off the side of my face. “They're gone.”

My teeth ground with
frustration.

White Feather almost
smiled. “We’ll
get them.”

A sound very like a growl
came from my
throat.

“Careful with the knife,”
White Feather advised. He stepped away to give me time to get myself
under control. The headlights glinted off the watch.

I half believed I could
smash it, but
my brain raced ahead of my intent. The watch face had only one hand
and no numbers. I flicked at it with the end of the silver dagger.
The watch hand swiveled, stubbornly holding its position. “What
Mayan Curse is this?”

I rotated the watch again.
The arrow
kept its line, pointing directly at my house. “Magic. The
bible thumpers were using magic.” It was too late to get any
angrier; I had run out of energy. “If they hate magic, why
would they use it to find me? With me standing here, why does it
point to the house and not me?”

White Feather crouched down
again.
“What is it?”

Most tracking spells
required an object
that belonged to a person. “Did they get a piece of me?”
It was certainly possible. From the last run-in, David probably had
some of my blood smeared on his person. Or his knife.

“This thing is pointing at
my
house.” I demonstrated by turning it again, twice. “Why?”

White Feather touched my
arm. “I'm
going to shut off the car. Wait for me.” He didn't take his
hand away until I looked up. “Wait for me.”

“Okay.” Spells ran through
my head. “If it's tied to me, it should find me as the
strongest source. When did they find my house?” Had they
followed me before today, and I hadn't noticed?

It was much darker after he
shut off
his car and headlights, but I didn't need much light to slip the flat
of the blade under the watch and balance it there.

With him at my side, I
carried it to
the porch. I set it down and removed the influence of the silver
blade.

The arrow still pointed at
an angle
into the house.

I positioned myself
directly opposite
the arrow.

The arrow didn’t budge.

White Feather watched, but
he had other
questions. “Are you going to tell me what happened here?”

“Bugs. All over the porch,
the
side of the house, everywhere. I was out here killing them when I
thought I heard you drive up. I came around the house, and bam, they
tackled me.” My voice wasn't very steady.

“I don't suppose it
occurred to
you to wait for me after you called me?” White Feather leaned
over and picked up the watch. “If he was wearing it, it isn't
likely to kill either one of us.”

“I noticed the watch the
other
day when he was chasing me.”

White Feather ignored the
watch. “Are
you okay?” He touched my cheek. His thumb might have been
wiping away tear tracks. Or, at the very least, dirt smudges.

I gulped, but nodded. He
gathered me in
a fierce embrace.

I didn’t resist. “I'm okay
now. I wasn't so great a bit ago.”

He squeezed. “Okay.” He
held me tight for a few seconds. “Next time maybe you should
wait inside.” His voice sounded strangled, like he was trying
not to yell.

“I thought it might be a
wind
problem. And I didn't want you in any danger.”

His grip tightened. “Next
time.”
Deep breath. “You should wait inside.”

His heart beat next to my
own. Neither
one was very settled. “Maybe, but what if that ill wind shows
up? Now that you used your talent?”

He squeaked most of the air
out of my
lungs with his next squeeze. “You may recall I had a plan for
that, and I’ve been practicing. When I was a kid, the first
time I showed my mother some of my new tricks, she asked me if I
could call back all the power I was wasting.”

“What?”

“That was pretty much my
reaction. With air around me all the time, who needed to conserve
power?”

“Can you get it all back?”

“Not entirely, but enough
that
I’m not a giant beacon anymore. Instead of blasting wind and
letting it dissipate, I collect it back.”

“So maybe the ill wind
won’t
find you drifting on a breeze.”

“Yeah. So, next time you,”
he started and we both finished, “should wait inside.”

He embraced me for a few
more
heartbeats until I ventured, “We need to find out what this
thing is pointing at.”

“Probably.” He released me,
but kept his hand protectively on my shoulder. The door wasn't
locked.

A part of me cringed at
bringing the
watch inside, but after the scorpions and centipede episode, it was
pretty obvious security had been breached. What was one more
experiment?

I didn’t know about White
Feather, but I was waiting for disaster to drop on our heads when we
crossed the threshold.

Defying all expectations,
there were no
explosions, and no spells noticeably triggered. The arrow swiveled
slightly.

White Feather let the arrow
lead.

When we reached my bedroom
door, White
Feather peered in ahead of me. “Do you always throw the covers
across the room?”

I caught sight of the room
from under
his arm. It was a mess. The sheet and comforter were strewn across
the floor. “The centipede I told you about. It was on the bed.
Could this watch be focused on the bugs? Did they release them and
then return later?”

“It's pointing at your
closet.”