West Coast Witch

by Justen Hunter

  “Great.” I was starting to wonder if there might be something in her history that I couldn't know, something that she'd hidden on purpose. “What is the nature of Amy? What is she?”

  The image of my mother paused for a moment, considering. “That is something she would have to tell you. Your mother had several theories, but there is nothing conclusive.” She must have seen my disappointment. “My construction is limited.”

  “All right,” I nodded. “Then what about magic?”

  “Magic is something I can offer help with.”

  “Blood magic.”I said. “Hypothetically, I could use blood to track someone, right?”

  Again, she paused for a moment, considering. “Indeed. You will required much more focus, and concentration, but it is definitely possible.”

  I nodded. “All right, good. We're on sort of the same page here...” I thought for a moment. “What about a vampire's blood? What if the person I was trying to find was bitten by a vampire? Could I use that vampire's blood to try a spell to locate the one who was bitten?”

  “It is possible. You would need to be very focused.” She smiled, just slightly. “But your line is strong. You will find a way.” She offered me her hand. “Stay strong, Eric.”

  I put my hand in hers. The skin was cold and clammy, but still, my mind thought, even just for a moment, that this was at least my imagination touching my mother's, in some odd way. “You bet I will.”

  I awoke to someone shaking me awake. “Eric, Eric!”

  I blinked my eyes awake. Amy was standing over me. Sometime in the night, I had fallen over onto the floor. “Huh?”

  She sighed, standing back. “I thought you were hurt. You were on the floor, and you did not respond the first few times I called to you.”

  “I...” The dream from the night came back to me. “Amy...” I rubbed at my forehead. “Right, the vampire!”

  “What vampire?” Amy furrowed her brow, watching as I sprang up to my feet and headed over to the little hamper I kept in the corner.

  I rummaged through my dirty laundry pile, ignoring Amy’s disapproving looks as I dug and dug. I found my pants from a few nights ago, and rummaged through the pockets. I found Robert Stewart’s card in the back pocket.

  “Fan-freaking-tastic!” I whooped in glee, and I ran to my phone.

  “I assume you found someone who has had contact with Coolidge?”

  “This vamp bit her regularly! Jackpot!” I said, and started dialed the number.

  It rang for a few beats before Robert answered. “Robert here.”

  “Hi Robert, this is Eric Carpenter, the human from a few nights ago.”

  There was a pause for a moment. “Ah, yes, the one who made the vampire lawyer joke.”

  I sighed. “Uh, yea, sorry. Listen, I wanted to speak to you about Sam Coolidge. I may have an idea about how to find her, but I would need your help.”

  “Why, yes, anything for Sam. What do you need?”

  “Why, Robert,” I grinned, and did my best Bela Lugosi. “I want your blood.”

  We agreed to meet at Robert’s house. As it was the weekend, he wasn’t needed at the courthouse or at his firm, so we’d caught him free.

  As Amy drove us to his place in the Castro, she said. “You’re very happy with yourself right now.”

  “Damn skippy I am.” I said. “I may have just figured out how to find Sam.”

  “It may not work.”

  “Oh, we’ll never get that done with that negative thinking.”

  “Now who is scolding who about negative thinking?” Amy laughed at that. “Well, then, Eric, suppose it works. What do we do?

  I shrugged. “Uh, we call in the cavalry, maybe.”

  “The cavalry? The police will not have any idea what to do with a man like Lucien.”

  “Then we call in Teresa.”

  Amy shook her head. “No, they won’t do anything without proof. They could smell the bite marks on you before. They will not, however, have any way of confirming wherever Sam is before Lucien can move her somewhere else. We need to do this fast.”

  I smiled. “Then we do it. Together. We do it fast, we do it right.”

  Amy looked to me. “Oh, you are a witch, that is true.” She sighed, as if she had had this conversation before. “I will do this, but not without a plan. We find out where Sam is, and we figure out a plan to retrieve her. Understood?”

  “Yea, what could be so difficult about killing a 500 year-old vampire?” I said.

  “Much. They’re tougher, faster, stronger than the normal vampire. Some can even overcome their weakness to sunlight.”

  “Okay..” I said. “But they can die, right?”

  “Everything can die.” She said. “Everything can die, including young witches who might think otherwise.”

  “Yea.” I sighed. It was only three nights ago that I had nearly died myself, and from a vampire no less. But here I was, openly discussing the idea of going after one with much more power and experience. I must have been certifiable, from some points of view.

  Hell, I probably was. But I had a goal in mind. And nothing, if I had anything to say about it, would push me from it.

  Robert Stewart’s house had been a slum at one point, but it had been fixed up into a nice place. That was something I remembered reading about a lot of Arcanes who had bought property. They liked fixing a place up to stand out. The house itself was a little one-story that looked fresher, more maintained than the old houses on either side.

  We crossed the tiny lawn up to the door. I knocked, and Robert answered. “Hello, Mister Carpenter. Who’s your friend?”

  “Oh, this is Amy. Amy, Robert Stewart.”

  Robert bowed his head politely. “Come in, please.” He said, and gestured for us to enter. The house was sparsely decorated. It didn’t look very lived in. But, I surmised, there wasn’t much of a mess for a vampire to make most of the time. They didn’t need to eat, drink apart from blood, or even go to the bathroom, so far as I knew.

  “So, why do you need my blood, Mister Carpenter?” he asked.

  “Well, the explanation requires a bit of secrecy on your part.”

  He nodded, and gestured for me to continue.

  “I’m a witch. And I think your blood, since you have bit Sam recently, might be the key to finding her.”

  “A witch?” He smiled. “I thought you all were dead.”

  “We are, I guess, apart from me. Makes me an endangered species, don’t it?”

  “I would suppose so.” He smiled. “But environmental law isn’t really my specialty. Let’s go to the kitchen.”

  We moved to the kitchen. It was well-sorted, with tidy counters and a wine rack. Robert took a seat at the kitchen table, and I took the seat next to him.

  “Do you have a knife we can use?” I asked. “I’d really prefer not to cut you with silver.”

  “Steak knife, on the counter. There’s a rack there,” he said.

  I nodded to Amy, who went to the counter and retrieved a steak knife. When she returned with it, I withdrew a handkerchief. “All right, so, I’m just going to prick you, collect a bit onto this handkerchief.”

  “Before we begin, I would like something from you.” Robert said. “Nothing drastic, but I would like a promise.”

  “A promise?” I asked, confused.

  “Yes, I would like your word that this blood will not be used to harm me. I know what a witch can do with blood. So I only ask that you promise that you will not use my blood in any spell against me.”

  I nodded. “All right, that’s fair enough.” I thought about how to word it. “I swear, Robert, that I will not use your blood against you in magic.” I felt, for a moment, a sudden twinge, a whisper in the air.

  I took the steak knife into hand. “Uh, look away?” I suggested. I hesitated in this, feeling a little queasy. Great, now I lost my nerve.

  Amy rolled her eyes. “Give me that.” I handed her the knife, and she poked Robert’s thumb swiftly. The blood w
elled on the tip, and I covered it with the handkerchief.

  “Wow, I didn’t even feel that.” Robert remarked.

  “Yes, well, you pick up things now and then.” Amy dismissed it easily. She went to the kitchen sink and washed off the knife. “Do you think that will be enough, Eric?”

  I nodded, trying to quell the feelings that blood brought up in me. I’d always been terrible with needles and blood. “We’ll find out soon enough, won’t we?” I smiled at Robert. “Thank you very much. You ever want a favor or anything, you’ve got it.”

  “Be careful about offering such things freely, Mister Carpenter. I may just call you in on that.”

  As I stood, I saw Amy glaring at me. “Come on,” I said. “We have work to do.” The two of us left Robert’s house, and I said. “Okay, so I think we’re going to need to modify the tracking spell some.”

  “How so?”

  “I…am not sure yet.”

  “You are not sure. That is it?”

  “Flying by the seat of my pants here, all right?”

  Chapter 22

  We returned home, as I theorized and planned. From what I had gathered from my mother’s notes, a witch could modify a spell for a more specific purpose. However, it was also a matter of making sure that your modifications weren’t too drastic, but different enough so it would “feel” right. I wasn’t exactly sure of how we could do it, But, I suppose, that was the nature of innovation. Not knowing how the heck you were going to do something, and adapting.

  We got home at around two. We had a few hours of daylight left. I wanted to try striking in the day, if we did it. But if we took too long, we would have to wait until tomorrow, or risk going at night when Lucien could thrash us. I had no idea how capable Amy actually was in a fight, and I only had Teresa’s lessons to learn from. How the hell would I do this?

  I didn’t think. I just did. I headed into the kitchen, and I grabbed the candles and the salt. I made the salt circle, setting the candles at each of the points of the star. But this time, when I set my mother’s compass in front of me, I pulled a rubber band around the handkerchief, leaving the bloody part touching the metal of the compass. It made sense, at least for me. I had replicated the situation from the earlier spell.

  “Do you think this will work?” Amy asked.

  “Why do you think it won’t?” I crossed my arms across my chest. I was already in the circle, knelt down and ready to start.

  “You just are replicating the same methods as the hair spell.”

  I nibbled on my lip. “Okay, maybe, yea. But, can’t I just change it, try and try until I find a way that works?”

  “Honestly, probably not.” She said. “My guess is you probably have two or three attempts. You’ll burn the magic off before you expend the energy in that blood.”

  I nodded. “So, I’ve got maybe three tries at most?’ I bit my lip, thinking. I stood up out of the circle, leaving the compass and bloody handkerchief there.

  “That is my guess. And blood…blood is special. You cannot do the same thing for it like you did with the hair.”

  I started to pace around the living room. There wasn’t much room to pace. I found this new side of me to be interesting. I’d never been like this; energized, tense, eager. But maybe that was a side effect of the magic too. Or maybe this was what creating something was like. I wasn’t just reading, learning. No, I was attempting to create. Was this what being an artist was like? A ball of energy waiting to get out?

  “Okay, a thought.” I said. “Vampires can gain memories by drinking blood, right?”

  She nodded. “Yes, it is how they can sometimes wipe memories from their victims, the more powerful ones at least.”

  I sat back down on the futon. “Okay. So, theoretically. What if I used magic to somehow…uh, absorb the blood, or take it into myself, and just shoot the magic there, concentrating on Sam?”

  Amy thought about it for a moment. “I…I suppose it would be worth a shot. But your focus would have to be great.”

  “That, well, I’ll have to work at. But this is my best shot, I think. There is one thing I’m going to need you to do though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, okay, if we want the blood to mix with me, we’d need to have it to touch my blood, right?”

  Amy nodded. “They would have to interact, yes. At least, that is how I am given to understand it. The energy in the blood of their prey, mixed into theirs, gives a vampire their strength.”

  “All right.” I bit my lip. “You’re going to have to cut me.”

  “Me?”

  I rolled my eyes as I stood up to go back to the kitchen. “I’m not going to cut myself. I’m a wimp in that regard, okay?”

  “You are serious?”

  “Incredibly. I hate needles.”

  Amy produced a knife. “This one is non-silvered, so will not have any lasting damage.”

  “Why didn’t you offer that one to Stewart when we cut him?” I asked.

  Amy chuckled at that. “Yes, a vampire will believe me when I say that my blade is not silvered. I did it with his knife so he would be comfortable with it.”

  “All right.” I stuck out my hand. “Cut me.” She cut at my thumb, and ruby-red blood welled up. “Okay, let’s do this.”

  I went into the circle, and with my bloody left hand, grabbed the handkerchief. I had remembered somewhere in my mother’s notes. Magic was to be wielded with the dominant hand. It made sense to me, at least on some level.

  I closed my eyes, and dropped into my senses. This time, in the blackness that surrounded me, there were two hums of power. The first was that familiar little hum out at the distance, ready for me to grasp it. The other, however, was in my hand, in the handkerchief. There was a small bit of power in the handkerchief, in the blood there. I felt that power, and with my mind’s hand, I grabbed the power, and wrapped it around the thumb, around where Amy had cut my thumb.

  Memories started to flash before me. They were just images, quickly flashing. A courthouse many years ago. A train coming west. Fire, shouting. Wolves. I focused on the wolves. I brought that to forefront. There weren’t just wolves, though. A bear, foxes, large cats. They all surrounded her, like a family welcoming her into their own. I brought that memory to mind, Sam’s memory.

  There, focused on my mind, I reached out and tried to grasp the string of magic, bend it to my will. The power slammed into me, wrapped it up around me. It was fantastic, with so much of it encircling me. They were two very different types of energy. The first, the blood, was life. It was earthy, a power I could understand. The second, however, was an enigma. I could only understand just what little of it I could touch. It was mixed in with the blood, older and more refined, somehow tainted. The energy of the undead.

  I tried pouring the magic into the compass. However, with nothing tied to it, it seemed to just spill over onto the ground, useless. Something was wrong. It wasn’t taking to it. Even with Sam in my focus, the thought of the blond woman, with her short hair, now cut, I couldn’t do it.

  My right hand, with the magic in it, started to burn. The magic was building in me too fast. I needed to use it. So, I just focused on Sam, thought of finding her.

  I took the word I used last time. Find her. “Trouver. Trouver. Trouver.” I focused all of my mind onto her, onto her image. “Trouver!”

  Images started to flash through my head. The first was a room. I saw boxes everywhere, crates. Feelings worked their way into me. I was in pain, so much pain. Every bone in my body yelled at me to make it stop. Fear, shame, desperation. They filled me and told me to shut down.

  I realized, after a moment, that these weren't my feelings. No, these were Sam’s. I had somehow worked a way into her mind. I didn’t know how long I had to do this. There was just something wrong with it. Like I wasn’t supposed to be doing this. However, I knew that I had to find something, any way to find where she was. I filed through her senses, one by one. Nothing was there. There were only box
es.

  But that’s not how a fox would have analyzed the situation. A canine would have recognized more by smell. So I thought about what she smelt. It rushed into me, like I had just gotten an information dump, an overload of senses. Seawater, the salt of the ocean, was near me, but also metal. It was a warehouse, I figured. But what kind?

  The mix of senses, pain, and emotions was beginning to overwhelm me, though. I forced myself to pull out, forcibly pulling myself from the vision.

  Reality was a slap in the face. The first thing that immediately came to mind was the bile in my throat. “Bathroom.” I croaked before falling forward onto my hands and knees.

  I vomited on the kitchen floor, emptying my breakfast out onto it. ”Shit.” Amy hissed, and she carried me into the bathroom.

  I spent about 15 minutes worshiping the porcelain god, on and off. Amy held my hair back. It wasn’t excessively long, but I was shaggy enough to the point that I appreciated the effort on her part.

  “What did you do?” Amy finally asked, as I laid out on the bathroom floor. Amy sat on the counter, looking down at me.

  “I don’t know how, but I touched Sam Coolidge’s mind. She’s in a warehouse somewhere. She’s still in San Francisco, I think. I could smell the seawater, so I think she’s near the piers or something. No guards, but that was just in the room she was being kept in.”

  “How was she?” Amy said, her voice quiet.

  “She’s in pain. She’s scared. I would be too, if I was in that much pain. I could feel it all. They’d abused her, I think. Tortured her.”

  “You are sure about that?” Amy asked.

  I nodded. “Pretty damn sure. Granted, I don’t get tortured a lot, but that pain, that fear…Damn.”

  “Do you have any bit of a more…specific idea of where she might be? There are a lot of warehouses on the piers.”

  I shook my head. “Not that I could tell. There’s a lot of hazy stuff. But I think even she doesn’t know.”

  “That does not give us a lot.” Amy shook her head. “Not a lot at all.”

  “We’ll figure out. We’ve got to.”