Under Witch Curse (Moon Shadow Series) (8 page)

Dad eyed me up and down. “You still in bed? How do you expect to finish building this house if you’re sleeping in?” He subjected White Feather to a snort of disdain before turning to the man with him, a guy almost as bearlike in size as Dad. The main difference between them was that Dad had a head of short black hair turning silver, and the friend was blessed with a brown beard and a crown of curly brown hair that hung almost to his shoulders.

I stifled a groan. White Feather was going to disown me. I knew moving in with him was a bad idea. I had mistakenly worried about my own bad habits and hadn’t even considered those of my
family.

The barrel of a man next to my father held out a rough palm. “Mason,” he said.

I shook his hand. “Adriel, and this is White Feather.”

“No,” he said, ducking his head shyly. “I’m a mason. Your dad says you need some building done.”

I blinked fully awake, my suspicions rising.

Dad did nothing to alleviate my concerns when he asked, “Have you at least put on the coffee? It’s a little cool in here too. I’ll start a fire.” Dad had a habit of taking in strays—dogs, horses, and yes, people.

It would be rude to ask if he had found this mason under a bridge, but it was entirely possible. I sighed. “Yeah, sure, the coffee is about to brew.”

White Feather was already in the kitchen by the time I turned around. Since the coffee train wasn’t yet in operation, he made coffee the old fashioned way, in a plain glass coffee pot.

Dad lumbered to the living room fireplace and ignited the logs. It wasn’t even the effort of striking a match for him, although his arm muscles bulged slightly as he changed his internal energy to fire and directed it at the kindling.

The mason stood with his hands in his pockets, staring down at the floor. “Looks like you need a wall finished up in the kitchen. I can do it. Take me a day or so.”

Dad said, “Do you want me to cook breakfast or—”

“Dad!” I blushed furiously and beat him to the fridge only because it wasn’t his kitchen so he stayed in the living room on the other side of the bar.

“Can’t expect a man to erect walls on an empty stomach.”

White Feather did not look my way, not once. He lined up coffee cups, found the bag of sugar and retrieved the half and half. Completely mortified, I scrambled eggs. There was no way to trick Dad into leaving. If I told him we didn’t need help, he’d be hurt. If I tried any of the lame excuses that came to mind, he’d just ignore me and buckle down to the tasks of his choice.

It’s hard to protect yourself from family when they show up in the middle of the night. My defenses were down.

“I’ll check on the supplies,” Dad said. “See how the bricks are coming along. We’ll be back in time to eat.” He nodded at the mason, a man whose name we still didn’t know, and headed down the hallway. They disappeared between sheets of plywood where the hallway abruptly met the great outdoors.

I apologized to White Feather. “I’m really sorry. Dad has this way—”

White Feather plucked the fork for the eggs from my madly waving hand. He chuckled, almost silently. Either he was hysterical from the rude awakening, or he was amused at my complete inability to manage the situation.

“He seems to enjoy getting his way,” White Feather said around his amusement. “And he checks on you often. Is there enough light for him to inspect whatever it is he is inspecting?”

It was November and pitch dark this early. “He’ll start a fire if he has to. Just a small torch, he’ll call it. But he can do sparks of light too.” Dad’s talent was that of fire, a flame he could ignite, control or extinguish by channeling his internal passion for life. He made it appear simple, but it was a silent workout. His muscles paid the price, flexing and burning up energy as he fueled the fire with his magic.

White Feather grinned down at me. “He seems eager to make sure you have a decent place to live.”

I didn’t see the humor. “I have a house.” But I didn’t, not anymore. Dad didn’t even know about my recent run-in with the vamps. My parents weren’t thrilled that we hadn’t been married conventionally, but they did respect my choice, if only because White Feather had proven himself when he endangered himself to rescue me. Saving my life held some sway when it came to my family. “Moonlight madness, you don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into,” I muttered.

“We do need the walls up as soon as possible.”

“It could be worse,” I muttered.

“Oh?”

“He didn’t bring Kas and her husband to install the toilet and other plumbing!”

White Feather shook his head and grinned. “There’s always tomorrow morning.”

By the time we finished breakfast, we learned that the mason’s name was Tracy. He was a drifter who had been a trucker, a guitar-picker and had been hired at the hardware store off the books when Dad heard about a guy with a “talent for brick work.”

I had to recite spell ingredients in my head to refrain from blurting out random curses. The guy who ran the hardware store was my cousin Manny. And he knew Dad and his penchant for strays. Kept an eye out as it were.

As soon as White Feather offered to show Tracy around in preparation for the day’s work, I walked Dad to his truck, fully intending to lay down the rules of engagement. They included a seven o’clock curfew—no showing up earlier.

Dad strolled out, extolling the virtues of his latest find. “He seems like a good fellow. Doesn’t drink and doesn’t smoke. I’ll be back to pick him up this evening. He’s staying with cousin Manny.”

“Dad—”

“I was right impressed with the workmanship your White Feather has done so far on the house. It’s quality.” He smothered me in one of his big hugs, his favorite technique for preventing me from getting in a word edgewise. I dug my feet in.

“Dad, you let White Feather build this house how he wants it.”

“To be sure. To be sure.”

He hopped in his truck, but then rolled down the window. “Tracy has something. It’s of the earth. Your mother couldn’t tell either.”

“He’s an earth witch?”

“No, not like you, but something. I don’t think he knows what it is or what to do with it. It’s kept him from finding a place. He thinks in a nice straight line, but life isn’t ever that simple. You help him if you see it, you hear?”

“Dad—” It wasn’t that I minded helping. But it was different now than when I was on my own. I’d never had to worry about anyone else being impacted by family strays, wild-haired ideas or relatives that weren’t quite normal. It was bad enough that my parents had never stopped nagging me about helping my sister Kas find a talent or at least passion in life.

“You’ll give him a nudge in the right direction.” Dad smiled, his eyes sparking. “You take after me that way.”

He put the truck in gear, leaving me sputtering as he drove off into the cold dawn. “I do not,” I told the empty driveway. I loved my parents, but I wasn’t anything like either of them. I’d worked hard to be my own person, my own witch with my own talents. I certainly didn’t go around hiring strays who had odd talents that didn’t fit into normal society.

“Moonlight madness! Lynx better run some background on this guy,” I muttered on my way back inside. “And if this Tracy dude messes anything up I’ll—well, I won’t let Dad fix it. I’ll have to do it myself. And White Feather better not kick me out over this. I am
not
moving back in with Mom and Dad because of a little thing like a vampire.”

I stomped out back to find White Feather, wondering how in the world to explain it all.

Chapter 11

The sun was not yet up, but there were hints of morning light. The smell of frigid night air resting against Mother Earth was already drifting, letting bits of desert dance with the scent of smoke swirling out of White Feather’s fireplace. When the sun finally did flash its way across the morning, it would be lighting the stage of a beautiful backdrop.

White Feather and Tracy dumped bricks around the outside wall. Tracy appeared to know his way around the tools and supplies without any encouragement. I considered pulling White Feather aside, but there really was nothing to say that would change anything, not at the moment.

Maybe I should just tackle some of my own tasks and let this Tracy situation either work itself out or not. “I’m headed to my house to complete some spells in my lab. I’ll stop by Mat’s on the way home and check on her.”

“She might need a shoulder to cry on?” White Feather guessed.

“A shoulder?” I shook my head. “I thought I’d try to talk her out of cursing him for life since we’re practically relatives and all.”

“Practically?” His eyes narrowed. “You’re having difficulty accepting all the ramifications of this marriage thing, aren’t you?”

Admittedly, issues did seem to be presenting themselves with terrifying speed, but I wasn’t going down without a fight, especially for the easy problems like his lying, conniving brother. “In Jim’s case, I figure it’s not too late to disown him. That way I won’t be caught in a cross-curse.”

“Mm-hmm.” He reeled me in for a kiss. “Do not let her kill him. He’s a pain in the ass, but I don’t want to have to console my mother over the loss.”

“I’ll do what I can, but he got himself into this mess.”

I left them to their work and headed out to do mine.

* * *

The lab was home sweet home. I was behind on at least three client spells because of the vamp invasion, but as excuses went, the clients were better off not knowing about any vamp visits. Two of the spells were for previous clients who needed renewals of protective charms. I hammered them out in less than an hour.

Lynx’s new client required a more intricate spell. It was rare to get an order from a client who not only believed in witchcraft, but knew enough about it to request such a complicated spell. “Matched set” spells were magical elements split in two that would allow either half to be “found” using the other half of the spell.

Because I had already moved most of my dried herbs to White Feather’s house, I selected juniper bark and berries from a single tree out back. The client had also provided two birthstones, a red garnet and an amethyst. I cleaved them in two and split the results across each packet.

Wisely, the client had also sent hair for each set, which I snipped in half before sealing the strands in silver to protect them.

If the client knew the best ingredients for a finding spell, why hadn’t she completed the magic herself? Or had Lynx had a heavy hand in advising the client what to send?

A witching fork would be necessary to locate the matching packet, but the client could always hire a witch for that part too. It was quite possible that I’d be the witch hired should finding the packet become necessary.

Once business was out of the way, I turned to my own experiments, many of which needed finessing. Today I wanted to mimic White Feather’s ability to extract information from the air, only in my case I intended to gather data from Mother Earth. So far my attempts resembled warfare rather than reconnaissance, but I had a new idea.

After being stuck in the eye of a killer storm, I realized my affinity to silver didn’t require that I be in actual contact with the metal to push or pull from it. Silver was an electrical current for me; it provided a ground and energy. I could feel it across a room. Of course, its ability to communicate information was in doubt, but one step at a time.

I arranged multiple caches of silver around the lab. Sensing them was no effort at all. Pulling them to me...I could certainly feel them, nudge them around, and if I needed to...yes! “If they were round, they’d roll easily. Or arrows would be good. Wait. How did I get back to warfare? Beads would be better.”

Melting silver into balls was child’s play. While the balls cooled, I grabbed a quick lunch, but the rewarmed pasta was on the stale side. Seemed to me that there had been a few more items in the cupboards. I checked the spot where I normally kept animal crackers.

Nothing but dust. Hmm. Lynx had been helping me pack.

Well, I’d been eating more than my share of fattening foods lately anyway.

I tossed the remaining pasta in the garbage disposal and returned to the lab.

The silver beads weren’t perfectly round, but there would be time to perfect them later. Not having a complete handle on anything other than sensing, I rested my hand on the table a few inches from the first ball. I grounded to the bead, purposely reaching for it, knowing it was there.

It rolled right to my finger as if yanked by a magnetic force. “Awesome!”

I pushed the round blob of silver while pulling another one towards me. The two hit each other rather harder than expected. One flew off the table and slammed into the potted aloe vera sitting high in the lab window.

I didn’t need magic to tell me to duck away from the ricocheting missile.

Good thing I hadn’t taken the plant to White Feather’s or I’d need to replace the window. “Wow.”

Okay, I hadn’t really figured out how to use this technique to gather information, but I was progressing fine on the warfare part.

I sighed and took a moment to rethink. “My door is lined with silver. If Dad knocked...how can I read the aura?” Dad’s aura was very familiar to me. And silver recognized auras...I played around with shapes and various properties. Strangely, one of the easiest things to do was push or pull the silver. Excited by the possibilities, I designed larger beads.

I was nearly finished stringing the beads onto a bracelet when the phone rang. Normally I’d ignore the interruption, but the silver needed to cool more anyway.

I scooted to the kitchen. “Hello?”

“A fire hydrant burst on Matilda’s block, maybe four shops up from hers,” White Feather said without preamble. “Something about the sidewalk erupting from underneath due to sudden unexplained water pressure rising. It’s probably coincidence, but Mat hasn’t called you, has she?”

My backpack containing my cell phone, one that I almost never remembered to turn on, was in the lab. “Noooo.”

“I haven’t heard from Gordon. She wouldn’t really blow up a city sidewalk to douse my brother, would she?” When I didn’t answer immediately, he asked, “She’s that strong of a water witch?”