Winded (2 page)

Chapter Two

Vetiver waited until she was absolutely certain none of her
neighbors could see her before she let Ball off his leash and took down her
hair from its messy ponytail. Her curls spilled free, the wind tugging at them
playfully until they were a storm cloud about her shoulders and back. It was
chilly; of course it was, this deep into September. But she was untouched by
the cold.

She had changed clothes before leaving the house, leaving
behind the trendy layers of mall-purchased tops and silver-riveted jeans dyed
the deepest black. Now she wore a loose shift of the softest handspun cotton,
the same smoky color of her eyes—she was only truly comfortable in the clothes
she made herself. Manufactured clothes felt too much like plastic and metal on
her skin. Her arms were bare but for an old silver armband that she always wore
high up on her left forearm—she was a lefty, so the band must be worn on her
projective hand, her hand of power. She was also barefoot, the better to feel
the soft moss and rich earth sighing beneath her sensitive soles.

Vetiver knew if anyone saw her now, they would never have
believed she was twenty-seven years old. Right now she looked no older than a
teenager—the Device women were renowned for looking far younger than their
years, which would be nice when she was in her sixties but was more of a bother
now than anything. People hardly took her seriously as it was, unless they were
island natives who knew her family well enough to respect her for her name, at
least. But she would never complain aloud. It was good to know she would age
gracefully. Right now, though she looked young, she felt old from the weight of
her burdens.

Her vegetable garden was dormant for the rest of the year,
the harvest over and done. Her plot of cotton and herbs—always planted
intermingled to give the puffy white fibers a cleansing scent—had already been
tilled, the earth covered and enriched by a good infusion of manure, fallen
leaves and fertility spells read from her Grimoire. She visited each tree,
checking to ensure none were afflicted by parasites or disease. And the deeper
she wandered into their midst, the easier she could breathe.

The connection she felt to her land was strong. Its vitality
fueled her own. She tended it well and it tended her, so that now her stress
melted down from the top of her head, her shoulders, her rigid back becoming
more elastic until it seemed her cares and worries seeped out of her feet and
were absorbed by the earth. This island may legally belong to many, though
really it belonged in whole to her and her bloodline. But it seemed that these
remaining acres were the most sacred, and so she kept to her property line as
she strolled with her dog.

The breeze of the season was what struck her most vividly;
it was so precious and unique to autumn. Opening her mouth to taste the air was
like biting into a crisp apple, with all its tart effervescence exploding on
her tongue. The ground was still warm from summer, but only just, and the
grasses were cool against her toes. Newly fallen leaves, already crinkled and
brown from being shed of their mother trees, rustled like the sigh of a mummy’s
corpse being moved. The scent of evergreens now pervaded, the sweeter scent of
all the blooming flowers faded to memory. The land was in transition.

Vetiver was in transition too. She felt this truth deep in
her soul and wondered what consequence it would bring.

Ball watched her with a patient eye. He was always patient.
The only constant in the world she could really count on. He gave the
appearance of acquiescence, but in reality he always led the way on their
walks. It wasn’t that he was in front of her—he was always positioned carefully
at her side—but Vetiver knew very well that he was guiding her.

Her guardian knew exactly what she was about tonight. And he
knew the perfect spot to see the thing done.

She hadn’t consulted her Grimoire, or the many others that
had been handed down through the hands of so many Devices who had come before
her. There was no need. She’d read them all too many times to think she’d
missed anything important. No, the spell she needed wasn’t in those old,
fragile pages. It was writ on the tissues of her own heart. It just needed her
voice to lend it power, and one of the few pieces of land that still held a
whisper of the ancient purity that had once been so plentiful in this New
World.

Ball led her to one such place now. A large stone, as big as
a semi, planted in the ground at an angle so that it created a sort of lean-to,
was the only object in the wide meadow. Under the lee of the rock and along its
sides, an enormous patch of eternally blooming night jasmine colored the
ground. This was a spot of earth that no frost or snow ever touched. It was a
sacred space. And the rock itself was one of the four keystones on the
island—four large, standing rocks that had no business being where they were
other than to keep watch at each compass bearing on the land.

Vetiver had never used this particular spot to cast her
voice into the four cardinal directions.

She’d never dared.

It didn’t bother her. She accepted the truth that she wasn’t
a powerful witch, or even a particularly talented one. But she was a daughter
of nature and that was more than enough for her to be satisfied. She wasn’t
proud. Nor was she power hungry. It wasn’t that she wanted more magic for
herself now, it was that she
needed
it, to see her job done.

She felt a pressing need for haste. Something dark and
threatening loomed on the horizon, just beyond her sight. A wild, hungry thing
knocked at the wards on the island and Vetiver was afraid it wasn’t a
metaphorical beast. With such imminent danger at hand, it would take all of her
strength and effort to keep the island closed to the evil that wanted in so
badly. And even trying her best might not be enough. In the past there had
always been more than one Device witch invoking the autumnal spells. It was a
precarious time. The world in a state of change, from living summer to dormant
winter, made all the wards tremble. It took a lot of power to ensure their
stability.

The binding spells must hold. This island was more than an
island. It was a doorway. And the door must remain closed. Because on the other
side of the threshold there lurked a threat to all who lived here, a threat
Vetiver felt like a hand around her throat. Squeezing.

Careful not to trespass on the delicate flowers, Vetiver
skirted the little garden and climbed up the backside of the stone, until she
stood on the ledge overlooking the meadow.

The wind picked up, bringing with it the perfume of the
jasmine blossoms. It wasn’t a gentle gust, but it barely touched her and only
disturbed her enough to lift her hair and cool her face. She was perfectly
balanced on the edge of the enormous stone. There was no chance Vetiver would
fall, though looking out over the dusk-kissed blooms from such a great height
gave her a moment of vertigo. Her heart pounded, blood singing hot in her
veins.

“I need your guidance,” she told the wind, the trees and the
sky. “My people are gone. I am the last of my line. I know it isn’t my place to
ask for your help with this burden, but I’m afraid that I can’t guard this land
alone. The world is moving too fast for me to protect my own home, much less
this whole island and everyone who’s moved here.” Her teeth ground bitterly. “I
feel the weight of too many greedy souls to guard and these people have no wish
to receive the island’s protection. Or mine.”

Ball moved behind her and Vetiver looked down to find that
he had produced her ebony-handled Athame. He deposited the worn dagger at her
feet, having secreted it out here somehow without her noticing.

This wasn’t what sent a mixture of excitement and dread
through her. It was the spectacle of his giant head lowered, his eyes burning
bright in the gathering shadows, his unwavering study of the patch of flora
below their leaning stone. Something in his stance warned her to be cautious
and she responded immediately, without question. He wasn’t telling her to stop.
He merely suggested that she tread carefully on this strange, unexplored
terrain.

Blood…send it on the Wind.

The words, Ball’s gravelly words, seared themselves into her
brain.

Ball always knew what to do in these situations. Moments of
decision were never unsettling to him as they could be to Vetiver. Her
companion was omniscient in so many things, it was second nature to her now
that she listen to him without question. So she bent and took the blade in her
left hand. “A payment in blood, then.”

Such a price was demanding, but her need was great. She’d
never performed a spell that required her blood, though she knew from the books
she’d studied her whole life that they weren’t entirely uncommon. Dangerous but
not forbidden—Ball would never have suggested it otherwise. Because she wished
to receive such a great boon, she would spill the blood from her receptive
hand. She would bleed, pray and hope for the best.

“Please light my path.” She let the words float out into the
air and wrapped her right fist around the naked blade. She squeezed and
twisted, flaying open her skin on the razor-sharp edge. A spray of blood, black
in the night like tiny shards of jet, flew out into the air, raining onto the
thirsty flowers waiting down below. “Show me the way. I am ever your servant.”

But damn, did it hurt.

The wind howled louder. The scent of night jasmine grew
strong. The blossoms bloomed larger. Vetiver held the blade doggedly, her blood
flowing faster. The pain went deeper than the cut, touching her soul. But it
was a pain she weathered, knowing the virulence of it signified a great
shifting in the universe.

For a while she failed to notice the ground bulging at the
base of the rock. It wasn’t until the stone under her feet cracked right
through that she was startled back to reality. Ball was pulling at the hem of
her shift insistently. Wrapping the bloodied blade and her oozing hand in the
folds of the cloth, she let him guide her down safely.

The earth groaned and Vetiver grew fearful. What had she
done to upset the elements so? Ball was pacing, her heart was pounding in her
head and the ground shook so hard she was dizzy. The trees wailed. Her hair
blinded her, whipping about her head, stinging her exposed skin. The armlet
burned where it wrapped around her muscle, glowing like Venus in a clear night
sky.

The bed of flowers bulged upward violently, a geyser of soil
and broken blooms spraying high into the air. The scent of old earth clouded
her senses. The breeze was now a dervish, tearing at everything in its madness.

Two fists thrust themselves up into the air, breaking out
from the ground.

Vetiver gasped, then shrieked when arms followed. Ball stood
between her and whatever it was being birthed from the ground, but it was
little comfort. A dirt-caked head emerged, then broad, heavily muscled
shoulders. As she watched, Ball pressing her back, a man sprouted in front of
them. Fully formed, hair straight and long, cut sharply just above his broad
shoulders, clothed in unusually fashioned raiment, he climbed out of the womb
of earth like a golem fashioned of blood and soil.

His gaze glowed like fire. A faceted flashing of amber,
citrine and golden sapphire, his eyes were gemstones that glittered in the
shadows. The dark lashes that rimmed his eyes like kohl were thick, and the
same dark shade of his hair. His skin would be bronzed, she hazarded a guess,
though it was impossible to be certain, shrouded as he was beneath the grime and
layers of cloth he wore like a
sherwani
.

Her eyes fell down the length of him—and there was a lot of
length of him to assess—and it was then she noticed the torn and bloodied
material on his right calf. As she watched, he stumbled and swore in a language
she didn’t recognize. Ball moved aside, giving her the freedom to choose to
approach the man if she so desired.

Despite the dangerous aura he wore, despite the warning
clanging in her head, her heart moved her to action. He had come at her behest,
was wounded and bleeding on her land, and so she was bound to welcome him. It
was her responsibility as a daughter of nature to tend his wound, no matter how
threatened she felt by all that had transpired in the past few seconds.

Vetiver was beside him instantly, unhesitatingly. He was so
tall—perhaps just shy of seven feet, whereas she was only a few inches over
five feet herself—so it was awkward work, but she managed to position her
shoulder underneath one of his and tilt her hip so he could take weight off his
freely bleeding leg.

“Can you walk?” she asked, raising her voice to be heard
over the raging gale. “It isn’t too far to the house.”

He looked down his nose at her, haughty and proud, and it
was then she realized how stunning he was. Not beautiful, not handsome, but an
exotic mixture of both, doused with an inordinate amount of power that made her
feel like a novitiate by comparison. She was suddenly aware of her plain shift,
smeared with her own blood, and of her wild tangle of hair. Her lack of makeup.
Her bare, dirtied feet.

He said something in a language that touched upon the
infinite wonder in her spirit. But she didn’t understand his strange, musical
words.

“I don’t know what you’re saying.”

“What is this place?” Now he spoke in English, his words biting
and faintly accented, his sharp gaze scanning the terrain. “It is so heavily
warded. You should not be here, human, this is surely perilous territory.”

Vetiver frowned and put her left hand around his hips, her
fingers tingling where they rested just below his waist. “These are
my
lands. I live here,” she said defensively. “The wards are mine. We’re safe
here.” For now.

He attempted to rebuke her offer of help, shrugging off her
hand so that he could put weight on his bad leg. Beneath his dark complexion,
his face bleached white as pain struck him. He made no sound, merely slumped
against her, taking her to the ground with the full bulk of his solid weight.
Vetiver yelped as she lost her footing. But Ball was there, his shoulder ready
for her to pull herself and the half-conscious stranger back up.