The soulless part had occurred to me.
She sighed. “I suppose I’ll have to call Patrick and offer...I am not spelling anything that might help bring a vampire back from the dead. Whatever the hell that means. And demon blood?” She looked at me. “Moonlight madness.”
It was definitely madness. “Can you store energy in a packet that you can give me? Like you store energy in your bracelet?”
She didn’t set down the silver spikes she held in one hand. “My bracelet?”
“Or any of the spell packets you have here.” I waved at the table. “Although your jewelry contains the most energy.”
She lifted her arm, her eyes narrowing at me over the turquoise. “It’s my conduit. You can see that?”
“It swirls with energy.”
“Can you use the energy?”
“Probably. I haven’t tried to take any of it, and I’m not sure what would happen if I did.”
She held her arm out. “We won’t know unless you try.”
I could harvest the energy if I went sideways. Trying to utilize it without doing so probably wouldn’t work. I slipped partway until the energy was clearly visible and placed one ghost finger on the bracelet. It was warm, then cold.
Adriel’s eyes widened. She might not see it the way I did, but she felt the energy transfer.
The flow tingled, like a shock when you rub your feet on carpet. “That’s more than enough.” My voice was hoarse and then squeaked on the end. “It’s not the same as other energy.”
“Well. That makes things easier. I can store Mother Earth in silver. Not that I did it on purpose with my jewelry. Until you mentioned it, I never thought of it that way. I guess I do store it, and draw through it.” She turned back to the table. “There’s energy in every spell. We just need it contained in something you can use.” She fiddled with things on the table for a while. “I’m not sure how this helps you with a weapon though. Can you push this energy at someone?”
“The hellhounds didn’t like being slapped with it. That was In Between, though. It might not work as a weapon here.”
“It’s worth a try.” She handed me a bead.
The energy was not nearly as plentiful as her bracelet, but a sideways glance showed it coiled neatly within the ball. “I can try, but I don’t think I’d better hit you with it. If it works, that could be a big mistake.”
“Good point.” She waved a hand at the target on the other side of the lab. “Aim there.”
Without going sideways, there was no hint of the energy. I could throw the ball. It would probably hit the target. But how to activate the energy within? “I don’t think that will work.”
“Why not?”
“The energy works against other energy. It’s like...electricity.”
“If you hit that board with an electric pulse, the board will be destroyed.”
I drifted sideways again. The energy radiated from the little ball. “I’m not sure what to do with it.”
She sighed. “I don’t blame you. These arts take training. You’re like Lynx—a complete mystery to me. I’m not sure what you can or can’t do.”
“That makes two of us. I’ve only ever tried to use the energy as a weapon against something that had energy. If I throw the ball at the board, it isn’t attached to me anymore, and I can’t see how to release the force of it once I’m not attached to it. If I’m sideways, I might be able to use the energy in the ball as a weapon if I can figure out how to fling it.”
“Sideways?”
I nodded. “Sideways is, well, it’s ghosting without being trapped In Between. When I’m sideways, I can’t protect my body because I’m not in it.”
“That’s going to make protecting you a real risky proposition.”
“I know.” I fingered the ball. “Maybe if I practice with this I’ll come up with something.”
“Be my guest.”
Chapter 27
Lynx brought food when he returned to pick me up. There was plenty to share with Adriel and White Feather, but since White Feather wasn’t there, Lynx ate his share too.
After we finished eating, Lynx drove me to the grocery store to stock up.
“I gotta run another errand. Just get everything. I’ll be back in forty.”
Forty days and forty nights? Okay, he probably meant minutes. He hadn’t told me if he had found Paula. He was probably still working on it.
As I roamed the grocery aisles, I felt vulnerable using the credit card Lynx had insisted on providing me. Even though the food would be shared with him, guilt prickled me all through the store. Since meat was expensive, I’d have made lasagna without it, but Lynx hadn’t eaten a meal that didn’t include copious amounts of meat.
My personal memories might be mostly gone, but apparently cooking skills hadn’t left me. I bet I could concoct the burritos with beans, meat, potatoes and chile that Lynx so loved. The Spanish rice did not ring a bell. He liked eggs. How about egg drop soup? Piece of cake. Hmm. Chocolate cake.
I bought more than was strictly necessary, but hunger, or the fear of it, gnawed at me.
Lynx was waiting outside when I rolled the cart out. He dropped me and the groceries off at his house and disappeared again, but he didn’t take the Mustang.
He still hadn’t reported any progress.
On the bright side, with all the shopping done, at least I had a worthwhile task ahead. Since Lynx’s idea of cooking involved racing the Mustang to the nearest burrito stand, my contributions had been limited.
After I started pasta boiling, I went outside and showed Spook my newly acquired silver ball. “I have to learn how to use this as a weapon the way we used our energy In Between. But I can’t figure out how to force an explosion without just mashing it up against someone.”
Spook nipped the ball gently between his teeth, but in his case that meant he grabbed the energy, not the physical ball. He trotted off a ways and then brought it back.
“Seriously? You want to play fetch with a packet of energy? What if you squash it?”
Spook snorted with disdain and wagged his tail.
I tossed the ghost ball. Oddly enough, the physical ball stayed attached to me with an elastic link between it and the ghost ball.
Spook took off after the ghost image, his missing back leg not hindering his progress at all. Maybe the ghost ball had to stay within a certain distance of the real ball, but I couldn’t tell if my throwing arm was weak or if the ball couldn’t sail very far past the tree line because of some ghostly restriction.
“Okay. You can deliver the packet of energy.” If I exploded the physical ball, would the other one explode? I tossed the ghost energy into the trees while I pondered the situation.
Finding the ghost ball, even in the trees, wasn’t a problem for Spook. He brought it back, gently depositing it in my hand where the physical ball waited.
“I can’t do it, Spook. I can’t do a thing with it once the energy or the physical ball leaves my hand.” I placed the ball against the front door. The energy was warm. Tingly. I clutched the entire ball, including the ghost energy, and slapped it against the door. “Nothing. I can still see it and push it.” I went sideways again. The pulsing force was visible and warmer now. I slapped the ball into the door again, flinging the ball like a weapon, envisioning the contents arcing out with the swing.
It worked! The stored energy left the ball and splashed out, still attached to me and the ball, forming a long beam.
The silver light hit the door before the physical ball. Instead of pushing the door open, the energy splattered sideways. Beams of the power bounced right back at me, hitting me solidly in the arm and chest.
I flew backwards and smacked into a hard body, ricocheting sideways into the porch railing. My stomach took the brunt of the blow, leaving me without much air. “Ooof.”
“What the hell was that?” Lynx sputtered from the ground where I’d knocked him two feet off the porch. He rolled into a crouch. One hand was down for balance, and th
e other up and ready to do battle. His claws were visible, and he was barefoot again.
I hung there for another second or two with no air to answer him. Finally, I half rolled, half fell onto the second step. “Uff.” I rubbed my stomach. “Was trying...new weapon.”
Lynx spent another minute scanning the surroundings, his ears swiveling faster than his eyes. He eventually stood all the way up. “You know you’re supposed to use a weapon on someone other than yourself, right?”
I glared at him. “I was attacking the door.”
He didn’t even glance at it. “You missed.”
“Did not.” I used the rail to haul myself up. “It fought back. Bounced the energy right at me.”
Now he focused on the door. “It’s warded. It was warded first with Adriel’s stuff, and then I added my own protections. Guess the spells performed well.” His lips tilted in his version of a happy smile, and I swear he purred.
“I didn’t think I could attack an inanimate object with the energy at all. I expected a loud noise at best and nothing at worst. I didn’t know the door was magicked.”
Lynx held out his hand. I dropped the ball into it. “Adriel gave this to you?”
“It doesn’t work that well though. I have to be touching it and very nearly touching whatever I want to hit. And I have to be sideways to release the energy.” I plucked the small remaining energy off his hand and tossed it into the trees. Spook promptly fetched the ball, but there was only a lingering bit of faded silver light remaining. “From here, I can’t do anything but see the pulse. So I tried to fling it against the door.”
“Yeah.” Lynx held his hand out for the ball, but Spook ignored him and deposited it in my hand.
I absorbed it. “Now the energy is gone. It doesn’t work as a weapon.” I sighed.
“If you want to fling or throw it, you need something longer. Get the weapon away from you. How far can you direct it?”
“I don’t know. We didn’t experiment very much, although I explained the problem to her.”
I climbed the steps tentatively. He followed, dusting off his backside.
“Oh, shoot! The pasta!”
Luckily, dinner wasn’t ruined, and it didn’t take me long to finish layering the lasagna and put it in the oven.
“A sword would be a better weapon,” Lynx said, beaming at the prospect. “If it was in your hand when you were visiting sideways, you could shoot energy down it. Probably.”
“I wasn’t dead that long, Lynx. I am pretty sure it is still illegal to carry a sword around.”
“Not to mention you might spear yourself until you learn to keep from bouncing it off a door.”
“An umbrella would work. I could even perch it over the top of me while sideways.”
He frowned. “Maybe you don’t need this sideways thing.”
“I should just carry around a big stick. Trees have energy. Even the leaves.” I wrapped bread in foil and placed it in the oven. “Do you own a crockpot?”
“A what?”
“I’m guessing that’s a no.”
“You think you can use a crockpot for energy?”
“No. It’s for cooking.” I rolled my eyes, and then noticed he was silently laughing.
“I knew that,” he said. “Smells good. Hope you didn’t overdo the tomato stuff in that.”
“Lots of cheese. And hamburger and sausage.”
“Good.”
Lynx either liked the lasagna or hadn’t eaten in three full days. Since we’d been together for most meals, I knew he had eaten.
When we finished dinner, Lynx eyed the plates and the full sink. “I’ll take care of the dishes, but I have business first. I’ll help when I get back.”
“Go on, then.”
Not that he waited for me to finish the sentence. The door snicked closed before the last word was out of my mouth.
Chapter 28
By the time Lynx returned it was late. I’d cleaned the kitchen, taken a shower and fallen asleep. The clock on the bedside table told me it was eleven. I got up anyway.
Lynx was in the living room with a guitar and several tree limbs.
“Adriel says it’s always best to harvest right from the trees. Then there’s no chance of any rogue magic interfering. We could buy hardwood from her too, and it would probably contain some of her magic. But the tree has its own.” Lynx held out three different lengths of wood, each carved differently.
“You made these?” I plucked the medium staff and twirled it. It flowed through my fingers. Surprised, I stopped twirling it.
“You—” he started to speak, and then just settled for watching me.
I twirled the bar across the fingers of my other hand. Memory twinged just outside my consciousness. I closed my eyes and danced with the staff, switching between hands and rotating it behind my back and across to the other hand. Lynx had carved the wood smooth, leaving no splinters. “Walnut.” I opened my eyes. “Right?”
He nodded. “Where’d you learn that?”
I frowned. “Batons. Thicker than this and not tapered.”
Lynx raised one of the other staffs and feinted a swipe at my neck. I parried. He lunged. I danced back, swiping low, smacking his stick. He had no trouble dodging my efforts.
He tossed me the extra. I caught it, spun it and attacked again. He was cat fast, but I was trained. He spun his body inside my swipe, hitting me in the chest, just enough to throw my balance off, but not enough to keep my other arm from automatically reaching across his throat in a choke hold. With an agility I couldn’t match, he snuck under my arm.
The spinning staff caught his shoulder, but neither of us was playing for keeps. He was outside my range before the movement really registered with me.
“Someone taught you to do more than bang into doors.” He wasn’t out of breath.
I was breathing hard, but I’d been lying in a coma not too long ago. My fingers never stopped rotating the mesquite. “I wonder where I learned this.”
“I wonder why you learned it. Adriel’s about the only girl I know who can fight, and she doesn’t have your balance. Shit. She hasn’t got any balance because she tries to fight, run and throw spells all at the same time. If it weren’t for her link to Mother Earth she’d be dead about ten times over. As soon as I came at you, you set your feet right. And that spinning thing.” He nodded. “I gotta learn that.”
I stopped twirling the staff and grasped it with both hands. The hellhound had left scars across three of my fingers, but the marks didn’t interfere with the automatic way I handled the weapon. “The question remains though. Can I push energy through it? And even if I can, it won’t help me much unless we figure out how to make it trigger when my body is unaware.” I started to slip sideways, but I had gone there a few too many times today. The light beams from the three staffs barely twinkled at me.
Lynx caught me as I swayed. “Enough, Shadow.”
We didn’t make it to the couch before I sat down again. It would have been a much harder landing had he not been there to ease me down. Swirls of color with a lot of black danced in front of my eyes. Somewhere in there I remembered. “Someone said to sit my ass down when I needed to!”
“Who?” Lynx tightened his fingers on my shoulder, still holding me even though we were sitting.
“I was trying to make it to a bench that was against the wall, but I fell and hit my head. It was after that she said to sit down when I needed to.”
Lynx relaxed his hand and draped his arm across my shoulder. I rested my head in the crook of his arm. I was completely exhausted again.
“You don’t remember who it was?”
Feeling as though sleep was but an instant away, I searched for the memory. On a soft sigh, I said, “My mom? No, my aunt. Maybe my Aunt Violet. But she’s dead now. I saw her cross over.” I frowned. “The memory is from a long time ago. I was small. We weren’t fighting for real. I wanted to be a ballerina, and so we practiced in a dance, but always with the baton. I was safe thoug
h, like I am now.” I lifted the staff Lynx had given me. “This is carved. The one I had then was rounded, smooth, white.”
“Are you sure you’re safe?”
I tilted my head back, smiling. The laugh died in my throat. Human eyes, eyes that caught my breath as surely as if I were hunted, held me instantly still. His arm tightened again, drawing my head closer to his.
I didn’t start breathing again until he kissed me. I reached up to hold him to me, and promptly smacked him in the ear with the staff still clutched in my hand.
“Ow!”
“Sorry!” My elbow saved me from landing flat on the carpet when he released me. “Accident!” I fingered the wood still in my hand. “I forgot I was holding it. I think I must have carried one a lot.”
He rubbed his ear. “Or something.”
I sat up fast, nearly clocking him again. “When I was In Between I never lost your braid even when I held it in my hand.” I switched the staff to my other hand and clenched my fist. “I never let it go. Holding this staff feels like that, like it belongs with me, and I’m used to carrying it.”
“Good. You need a weapon. Not right this second,” he clarified. “Unless you hit me again. Then you’re gonna need it.”
I grinned. “What’s with the guitar? Do you play?”
He shook his head. “Nah. But after I found the address where Kyle’s wife lives, Roberto said to make sure the wife had the guitar that Kyle crossed with. He said it was easier if something on this side was on that side.”
“You stole the guitar from her?” I was confused.
He snorted. “No. After Kyle hit his head, he apparently decided to stay overnight in Albuquerque instead of driving home to Santa Fe. When he died at the hotel, the police and ambulance came, but somehow the hotel in Albuquerque ended up with the guitar, and they hocked it.”
My eyes widened. “Oh no!”
Lynx shrugged. “Finding things is a specialty of mine. People, magic, information. Wasn’t too hard to track this down. There was no money inside, but it does have a false bottom. He must have had a thing about hiding stuff in his cases.”
Ghost Shadow (Moon Shadow Series Book 4) Page 16