Witch in the Wind (Bandit Creek Books) (10 page)

By the time they turned their attention back to him, Pelles looked strained and tired. Marcus braced himself and waited for them to speak. It took all the fortitude and control inherited from his ancestors.

“Guardian Egan,” Pelles spoke in his officious voice, the one he only used in The Council Chamber. “You will continue with the assignment as directed. We must recover the missing amulets.”

Marcus nodded. Finding the missing amulets had been every Guardian’s assignment for a hundred years.

“Do you need the assistance of the hybrid child to achieve that objective?”

He clenched his teeth and looked at his mentor as if he’d grown demon tusks, only to drop his gaze afraid his irritation would make things worse. At least they were going to let him train Avy. They had no choice. They had to contain the risk posed by her uncontrolled magic. It was the only option. “Yes, Council.”

“Then you may use the hybrid to find the amulets. Once that is achieved, you will destroy it.”

Marcus’s head shot up. Confused. “Destroy the amulets, you mean?” He scanned the faces. Even Xanthus Kemena,—Avy’s own grandfather,—stared at him in stony silence. Her grandmother kept her hands folded in front of her. They were steady. His weren’t.

“Bring the amulets back to us,” Pelles replied. Was there a flicker of something behind the pale gray eyes? Regret, maybe? “The decision of this Witches Council is to destroy the hybrid offspring.”

Marcus felt his mouth gape like a blowfish. He struggled to hold himself in check. To hide his shock. His rage. The mountain air felt so thick, it threatened to choke him. Kill Avy? Were they insane? He shook his head thinking it might clear. Surely, he’d misheard them. “Excuse me?”

“Kill it,” Tobias repeated, his mouth twisted into a sneer.

Early the next morning, Marcus stood watching Avy from a cluster of trees at the edge of the Gwynn
property. He felt the rough bark against his scalp where
the back of his
head leaned against the trunk. Fatigue sapped his strength to the point of nausea.

Avy was sitting on the top step of the porch with a steaming mug cupped in both hands, the early morning sun throwing a warm glow over her face. She wore a denim shirt under a heavy flannel jacket that overwhelmed her slight frame. Bulky wool socks hid her feet while one pale knee poked out of a hole in her jeans. He wished he could sit beside her look
ing out
over the town and the land that stretched like a canvas beyond. He didn’t move.

Busby lay across the step with his head in her lap
, obviously
enjoy
ing
the easy rhythm as she gently stroked his ear. He looked relaxed to the unobservant but one brown eye scanned the yard. The familiar knew the moment Marcus arrived but was not alarmed. He should be.

Marcus clenched his hands. He was looking at a postcard for rural life in cowboy country. Why did Council want him to destroy this? Where was the threat? The evil?

He pushed off the tree he’d been leaning on, and saw Busby twitch in response. He leaned back again so the familiar wouldn’t give away his presence in the shadows. Turmoil roiled in his stomach and pushed into his throat. H
e
rubbed his temple where it ached but it didn’t ease the pain. He wanted to go to her. To help her somehow. But that sure wasn’t his job now. Something deep and sorrowful seemed to be smothering him. He was supposed to be a Guardian of witches but this time he was going to fail. He wanted to hammer something with his fists. Every muscle in his body was rigid with tension. He couldn’t accept Council’s decision. At least not the last part. There had to be a way out of this.

He straightened again and breathed in the crisp mountain air with its scent of forest and earth. This time, Busby raised his head and looked in his direction.

Avy stopped stroking the dog but didn’t seem concerned. She continued to stare out over the town, lost in her own thoughts.

Maybe time was the answer. Council had said he could use Avy to find the amulets. He didn’t have to do anything until after he’d found them. A fresh jab of fear struck at his heart. If he didn’t find the amulets soon, they’d still want her dead. How long would they give him? He didn’t get it. It was as if Avy had become the bigger danger to them. How could that be? Five
Master Witch
es against one untrained, practically human, witch.
How could she possibly hurt them? S
mack them with her cowboy hat?

He stepped into the clearing and waited for her to sense his presence. She didn’t startle. Her eyes simply drifted towards him like clouds across a clear sky.

“How’re ya doing?” he asked.

She gave him a weak smile. “Hangin’ in.”

He stepped up to where she sat, shifted Busby out of the way like a sack of potatoes and settled down beside her. Together they looked out over the trees to the town below.

After a moment, she said, “I read the grimoire.”

He swung around to look directly at her. She seemed unharmed.

“I was careful,” she said, guessing his thoughts. “I only skimmed the spells and things.”

“Did you find out anything else?”

She didn’t answer immediately. He waited. “It confirmed some of what you told me.” Her gaze drifted off to the clouds in the distance. “I think one of the spells was used to keep my magic—” She seemed lost for the word.

“Bound,” he finished for her. “A binding spell.”

Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “Why would they do that to me?”

He wanted to ease the hurt so clearly showing on her face. “I think it was to protect you, Avy.”

Thinking of his meeting with Council, he had to work to keep his voice neutral. “If you had used your magic, Council would have sensed it and tracked you down. Magic is hard to control when it first emerges in your teens. Your parents couldn’t risk it. Risk you.”

“So your Council knows about me now.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah.”

She looked at the scorch marks on the house and lawn. “Did they kill my parents?”

He reached for her hand. At least for now he could comfort her on that. “No,” he said. It was time to tell her the rest. Maybe together they could find the amulets, and her parents’ killer. She sat still as a statue, as he explained what he knew about the power of a Goddess Amulet.

Then she turned to face him, leaning her back against the post, “I found the records for the security box. It doesn’t say it’s an amulet but it does say one piece of heirloom jewelry.”

“Not two?”

She frowned up at him. “No, just one at the Ellis Bank in town. The one that was robbed.”

He
rubbed
the
back of his neck
. “Of co
urse, your parents would’ve realized the danger. Too late but they wouldn’t risk it happening again. They had to hide the amulets separately.”

Her face reflected her confusion. “Amulets? There’s more than one?” Then she sat up and caught her breath. “What danger? And what do you mean ‘too late’?”

* * *

Marcus looked off into the distance. It was a habit he used when he didn’t want anyone to read anything in his eyes until he’d taken the time to choose his words carefully.

She waited through the silence letting her own gaze travel back to the steeple of the church on Willow Street. She wondered when she’d be able to settle the date for her parents’ funeral. The sheriff said it depended on when the Coroner agreed to release their bodies. She swallowed the now familiar lump that formed in her throat.

After a moment of silence, Marcus spoke. “Remember the Council positions are passed within the family from one generation to the next?”

She nodded. “Uh-huh. A Guardian is like an apprentice for the Council seat.”

“Right, each Council family has its own unique amulet. It’s what gives the Guardians the powers they need to do their job protecting Council.”

She reached towards him and used her finger to hook the string and pull his amulet out from his shirt. “So you’re a Guardian too.”

“Yes,” he said and didn’t try to take his amulet away from her.

She looked at it more closely. It was like a piece of pottery, made from reddish clay. On the front was a detailed design of a tree with exaggerated roots growing down from the trunk.

“My element is the Earth,” he said, his hand closing over hers and the pendant.

That explained the tree, she thought feeling the warmth of his hand slide up her arm.

“So the families of Mom and Dad—” It was strange thinking of her parents having extended family and even harder to consider them being connected to her in any way. “My relatives hold two Council seats.”

He stiffened at her words and she wasn’t sure why. She stared into his eyes willing him to tell her the truth. They were almost uniformly dark, but like a night sky, it was hard to say they were a single color.

“Your parents came to Bandit Creek wearing their family’s amulets. The Kemena amulet and the Gwynn one,” he said. “Two amulets.”

He slid off the step and stood. She felt suddenly cold without his body heat warming the air around them but she gave him the distance he needed. “I still don’t understand why that’s such a big deal. So they took their amulets.”

He took a deep breath but she didn’t sense it was from frustration. Again, he was taking his time. Choosing what he would tell her. It pissed her off. Enough of this—

“It left both of their families without one.” Marcus said, before Avy had a chance to speak.

It was more than what he was telling her. His face was a mask but she could sense the turmoil beneath. Whether it was worry or fear, his agitation vibrated in the air. “And that’s a problem because—” she said, more gently. He turned away from her. Whether to hide a lie or distance himself from her, she wasn’t sure.

His words were clipped when he answered. “Like I told you before. Our law requires Council families to stay independent of each other. The law was there to keep our world stable and safe but your parents ignored it.” He spit his words out. “They brought their two amulets through the portal together.” He turned and looked at her as soon as the words left his lips. His face went pale, then blank.

Busby, who had been quiet to this point, whimpered and she knew this was the secret Marcus had been hiding from her. At least one of the secrets. She tried to keep her voice neutral. “You mean when they escaped?” She didn’t want him to hear her fear or he might try to hide the truth. There was something here that she needed to know. She could feel it. She just wasn’t sure if she was ready to know. “What did happen when they went through together?”

The look he gave her was cautious. And sad. “Your parents brought a lot of magical energy into a very enclosed space.”

“And?”

“The pressure rocked the whole mountain. Until now, we believed your parents died the day they went into the portal together.”

“Rocked the mountain?” Dread curled in the pit of her stomach. “You make it sound like—”

“A major rock slide.”

“That’s not possible. People would have noticed. It would’ve made the news. I’d have heard about it.”

His face softened. He knelt on the step at her feet and stroked her cheek with his palm as if to calm her. “It did. And you have heard about it.”

Frustration warred with fear. “No, there’s only been one big disaster. A flood and rock slide destroyed Old Town in 1911. The flooding collapsed the Ellis Mine shafts in Turtle Mountain and triggered the rock slide.” Her head ached. Birds chirped in the nearby tree but the sound was muffled to her ears. Her vision narrowed until all she could see was his face. His lips moving.

“Yes, in November 1911,” he said. “I saw the memorial in town last year marking the 100
th
anniversary.”

The strain of absorbing everything, her grief, shock and fear without exploding these last few days had taken a toll. The lid on her emotions snapped open. “Don’t be ridiculous.” She pushed up from the step, jumped down to the path but then stopped.” My parents wouldn’t even have been born in 1911.”

He slid his arms around her. “Hon’, your parents were born in the 1880s.” His voice was probably the one he used on skittish animals at the clinic. She turned slowly in his arms and faced him. Her mouth opened, ready to speak, but she couldn’t think of anything coherent to say. He slid his hands down her arms until he covered her hands and squeezed. He looked almost sheepish. “Remember we’re not mortal. We’re supernatural beings.”

All she could do was stare at him. He looked so normal. Okay, as a man, he was too breath-taking to be considered normal, but still just a human being. Except he wasn’t. She could feel the magic skittering over her skin where he held her. She realized there was a glow around him that she’d been seeing, but ignoring as reflected light.

“Are you immortal?” she whispered. Were her parents? Was she?

“No,” he smiled as if relieved about that. “Our lifespan is about 300 years.”

Her mind couldn’t process that information. Not when the implications of the date were still sinking in. “November 1911,” she said almost to herself. The dread in her stomach bubbled up as bile to the back of her throat. She swallowed hard. “Old Town was destroyed. People died. It was a natural disaster.”

“That’s what the mortals thought. Some of it was. The flooding was worse that year so the mines probably were about to collapse anyway.”

“But they might not have.” The blood drained from her face and she struggled to catch her breath. She heard buzzing in her ears like a swarm of mosquitos. Pinpricks of light sparkled in front of her eyes as pressure built inside her head. “It was their fault.”

Marcus pulled her against his chest and stroked her back. She could feel the rumble in his chest as he said, “Not on purpose, Hon’.”

He’d told her before that her parents had broken the law by being together. She hadn’t believed him. They’d seemed like romantic outcasts. Romeo and Juliet. Now she wondered if he’d been right. Were they criminals? Their actions killed men, women, even children. Tears burned behind her eyes.

“Avy, they couldn’t have known what would happen when they entered the portal together—wearing their amulets. None of us would have.”

“People died in the rock slide. Even more lost their homes in the floods later.” Her voice cracked and she laid her forehead against his shoulder. Felt the pulse of his warm blood beating at the base of his neck. But it wasn’t human blood. Hysteria bubbled in her chest. If she scratched him, would he bleed red, or some weird color? The bubble inched closer to the surface. She realized she’d never had a blood test. What would happen if she did? Her breath caught in her lungs.

Marcus massaged her back and shoulders. “Breathe, Avy. It’s going to be okay. Breathe nice and slow. There’s my girl.” He leaned her out from him and bent down so his face was even with hers. Her eyes found his and she was drawn by all the colors swirling there, like a whirlpool. She was pulled in, circling deeper towards the center. At the vortex, the flickering colors warmed her. First her hands and skin as if she was sitting near a campfire. Then it seeped into her bones driving out the chill that had made her marrow ache since her parents’ death. Finally, her rampaging emotions glowed brightly and merged into the warmth. She felt calm. Peaceful.