Under Witch Moon (Moon Shadow Series)

by Maria E. Schneider

  The chemical links in Sheila's rune had to be broken, but unfortunately, I hadn't seen this particular rune before. I studied the lines, looking for a weakness, looking for a door. The start and end places might work, but a weak link would be better...or where the lines were too close or a bit crooked.

  Maybe...

  I sprinkled sage over the area. That alone would probably keep it from activating, but Vi had a good maid. She might vacuum the sage up.

  I was about to cut the carpet when the sage started smoking. "Aztec curses!" I scooted as quickly as possible out from under the bed. I threw open a window and tried not to breathe any of the wisps floating out from under the bed.

  I shoved against the heavy oak frame, but it barely budged. I wondered what my chances were of getting Harold to help.

  "None," I muttered in despair. I pushed again, more frantically this time. The house could start on fire. Even if it didn't, I didn't want to breathe those herbs mixing with God knew what.

  I finally dragged the mattress off the top, sat on the floor with my back to the bed and pushed with my legs. It moved enough that I could see part of the rune.

  The master bath was the closest source of water. I soaked a sponge and ran back over. After three trips, the carpet stopped smoking.

  More water could help break the rune. On the other hand, Sheila was likely to know I had messed with it. "Aztec curses and Mayan sacrifices!"

  Using the sponge, I soaked the spot. Very carefully, I ran the diluted mess back across where the sage had been. Diluted rune! I hadn't thought of that. I quickly soaked the edges so that the dried chemicals spread. No way would Vi and Harold want to sleep over the spot, but it gave me another idea.

  I found a phone and on Vi's behalf, ordered carpet cleaning. "Yes, today. I've spilled something. Of course I'll pay extra."

  The earliest they could make it was tomorrow.

  I hung up muttering, "Damn runes." Sheila would probably notice her missing rune, but if she checked, hopefully she'd confuse it with the carpet cleaning even if it were a day late.

  To be more certain, I made a second pass in the bedroom and pushed the bed further away. Next, I tackled the bedroom where Harold had been sleeping.

  I couldn't even go in the place. The back of my neck itched. The silver on my arms went cold and then hot.

  There might have been a rune across the door, but I couldn't be sure. Sheila was beyond scary. Without going in, I identified a few bad objects, but I let them be.

  A carpet cleaning in that room might dilute any runes, but it wouldn't help much. To be consistent, the cleaners should go in there, but I didn't want to ruin so much that Sheila would feel a need to come back and replace anything.

  The study wasn't too bad at first, but anything near the desk was at least as bad as the room where Harold slept. If I'd had a choice, I'd have burned the briefcase, but it was too dangerous. I left it and the rest of the room alone.

  Two other rooms had questionable objects. The spells on them had worn down, but I didn't see any point in leaving them inside the house, so they went out with the plant.

  Vi came back as I finished removing things to the porch. "I got the frog. " She panted lightly as she pushed a wheeled aquarium across the tile floor.

  "Good. We can get your husband out of there." None too soon in my opinion. The place was giving me serious willies.

  "This will work?" She stared at the frog.

  "Hang on." I went into the guest bath by the study. "He's been using this bath, right?"

  She nodded.

  "This is his toothbrush?"

  Another nod. Inside a drawer I found a comb and a couple of stray hairs.

  Returning to the hallway, I checked the frog and applied the spell.

  "Call him out of there," I instructed, standing by with the aquarium. If we didn't pull this off correctly, we wouldn't get a second chance.

  "Harold," she whispered.

  Expecting her most strident voice, I jumped at the eerie whisper. Strangely though, it worked. Harold's eyes snapped opened.

  "Time for dinner," Vi said. "You know I'll come get you if I have to."

  The pain behind the words spoke of a physical battle. I didn't want to watch. Like a puppet, Harold jerked to his feet.

  "I eat, you leave me alone," he rasped out.

  "Agreed."

  I nodded at her to be ready, my hand on the aquarium. "Timing," I whispered.

  She stepped back away from the open doorway.

  "Harold buddy, come through the door sideways, would you?" I kept my voice low.

  He didn't react.

  Vi repeated the order. "Wait, Harold. Stand there a minute. Turn." She touched him.

  I couldn't have done it. He was a broken man. "Possessed" barely scratched the surface of the murk that surrounded him. He flinched backwards at her touch, stepping back into the room.

  "Come to the edge of the doorway," she said. "I won't touch you if you come through sideways."

  He stood there as though unable to process the command. My stomach clenched.

  "I'm not hungry." He turned back to the desk.

  "Harold." She stepped into the doorway, blocking me. "The therapist gave me the medication. We can force you. There's always the IV."

  "Let me die."

  "Later." She stepped back out of the doorway.

  "You go through this every day?" I whispered.

  She shook her head, her eyes focused only on her husband. "Not always so bad. It was worse before the medication." As Harold jerked back to the door, she stopped talking. She put her hand out in the middle of the doorway. To avoid it, he turned sideways, edging through.

  Vi was in my way. For a second, I panicked. Her hand and therefore her body blocked me from seeing where to push the aquarium. With all that I had triggered this morning, I couldn't take any more chances.

  I shoved her sideways, hard, and then pushed the aquarium into the room.

  "Ooomph." She hit the wall on the side of the hallway. Harold took a blow from one corner of the aquarium, and I ran over his toes.

  "Pull him all the way out!" I shouted in a frantic whisper.

  Halfway on the floor, she couldn't do it. I shoved the aquarium with one hand and grabbed a papery arm with the other, forcing him across the threshold.

  Shivering, I stood perfectly still for a moment. The frog didn't like the movement. For a time it would be stressed, but that would likely match Harold's dinnertime and not be unusual. If my spell worked, Sheila would still sense Harold in the study and keep her focus on the spells in there. Harold would be out of her direct and constant bombardment, yet close enough Sheila might not notice.

  "Okay, let's get him away from here."

  If it hadn't been for the fact that Harold had to be available to deny his signature on documents, getting him out of the state probably would have been best. As it was, we had no choice but to hide him right under the witch's nose.

  We dragged him into the living room and deposited him under a sunbeam. He blinked against the light, but otherwise didn't move.

  "Food first," I suggested. "Meanwhile I'll work on the bedroom."

  "You want him to eat here rather than in the kitchen?"

  "I don't like the kitchen. There's something wrong with it, but I don't know what."

  She halted in her motion to go there.

  "It shouldn't hurt you."

  "Shouldn't?" she parroted.

  I shrugged. "I don't know what it is. I don't like the idea of feeding him in there, and I don't want him eating anything already in there. That's why I had you get fresh groceries and takeout."

  "Oh. The maid left enough prepared food for dinner." Her voice trailed off, but her feet headed to the garage. She had rallied nicely now that she could take action.

  I followed her. She pulled groceries out of the trunk. I helped myself to the cedar.

  "I hope you like hammering." I waved one of the planks in her direction. "Have him sit on this board. Put
it under the chair or the couch." I looked up. Her hands were full of bags. "Oh, never mind."

  I took the box of planks into the living room. The cedar was cut in thin strips, ready to be slotted together for lining a drawer or closet. I situated Harold before carting the rest of the boxes into the master bedroom.

  While Vi spoon-fed her dying husband, I cleared the entire closet in the bedroom. The cedar panels slid nicely together. All I had to do was hammer them in place. All fifty or so. More like a hundred. I'd need to do the ceiling too.

  Cedar was a great blocker of evil spirits. Harold was too controlled to stop Sheila if she figured out what was going on, but with the cedar blocking her sensing, the frog would be the strongest Harold link and should keep her focused there.

  I was maybe a quarter of the way done lining the closet when Vi came to find me. Her husband trailed listlessly behind, held captive by a strong hand. "He didn't go straight back to the room," she crowed happily. Her eyes shone.

  "The frog," I explained. "I tossed some of Harold's hair and his toothbrush in the cage. The compulsion spell that commanded him back there so that Sheila could keep soaking him in spells has been transferred to the frog temporarily."

  Vi blinked. She looked at her husband and then back at me. "Are you saying you turned a frog into my husband?" The noise she made sounded strangled.

  "Not--" I realized with amazement that she was giggling. "Not really," I sighed. "Sit him here on these boards and let's finish this."

  We worked late. I told her and Harold how they were going to slowly fight Sheila's magic. Harold drooled, but that was a vast improvement over answering Sheila's call. Or so I told myself.

  "He'll have to sleep on the floor tonight," I announced when we were finished.

  "I have an air mattress."

  She trotted off and came back with it a few minutes later. She stuffed it into the closet and plugged in a pump. "This closet looks like a coffin."

  "Think of it as a cellar. The cedar will block negative vibes and evil spirits." My back hurt. My eyes hurt. I closed them for a moment of peace. "Did you get the sage pillow from the shop I told you about?"

  "In the car." She didn't move to get it so I did.

  When I came back, I handed it to her and said, "Sage is a purifier. The scent will seep into his brain and hopefully create pure channels, ones that aren't contaminated by Sheila." I shook my head. "In time, it might heal some of the damage. If you go to a shaman, he will use sage to try and help Harold connect back to his spirit--his soul."

  She grabbed the pillow and began arranging it. "Harold, use this."

  "And remember to feed the frog at the times we talked about," I stressed. "If Harold leaves the closet, make sure he comes right back, especially at night. If he goes back in that study or his other bedroom, his stronger essence will pull any spells off the frog and back to him."

  "Okay."

  I knew without asking that she would stay in the closet with him. It was probably the first time in a long while that he wasn't actively fighting her. The shock of leaving the bubble Sheila had created for him had left him numb.

  "How long?" she whispered.

  I had no answer and was too tired to try for a guess. Without another word, I left the closet and drove home.

  Chapter 17

  It was time to visit Tino. Not only had I not gotten the original information I wanted about the werewolf attacks, there was the little matter of the vampire visit. On top of that, there was Sheila. It was the last problem that provided me with my own evil little idea to ensure my safety from the dead. I was pretty sure Tino could help with all three problems.

  Tino didn't feel quite as negative as I did toward vampires, at least I assumed that was the case since I knew he could get a message to the walking dead.

  I ate lunch at The Owl, but Tino was at The Monastery. It bugged me that I was having such a hard time connecting with him. Was he avoiding me, or did I only notice because I had tried to talk to him more often than I normally did?

  I finished eating and made my way over to The Monastery. Since I had already eaten, I took a leather stool at the bar and ordered chips and salsa with an ice water. The salsa was too spicy for carbonated drinks, and I never drank spirits in Tino's places. I wasn't sure why. They were either the safest places in town or the most dangerous because of all the magicals around.

  "Tino in?" I asked the waitress.

  "He's in the back."

  I gave the coded hand signal indicating I was on the approved list. I also asked her politely to tell him I was here so that anyone watching wouldn't notice the signal.

  While I waited, I considered my plan again. By sending a message to a vampire, I was playing with fire. It was even scarier because I was making up the facts. I assuaged my conscience by telling myself that Sheila deserved some attention from a vampire. She was playing puppet games with an innocent man. She had abused subjects in her lab, and she was certainly capable of figuring out how to track a vampire. All I was going to do was suggest that the vampires ask her about her talents. If she felt hunted, well, that wasn't my fault.

  I shuddered, just as Tino came out from the kitchen. He gave me a half grin from behind the glare of lights. I waved the chip in my hand.

  "Yo," he said. "Hear you're in hot demand, stirring up a lotta trouble."

  Tino had to be descended from other than the Mesoamerican Indians because he was the only six-foot tall, bald Mexican I'd ever met. In addition to shaving what little hair he had on his head, today he was without any other facial hair, making his dangling Quetzal earring more noticeable.

  "I wanted to ask you about all this demand stuff. Who is looking to hire me?"

  "There's been those asking around. Mostly in El Lobo and El Ojo."

  "I don't think I've ever taken a client from The Mongrel or The Evil Eye," I said, swapping his Spanish to English. "Not usually serious clients."

  He shrugged and chewed on a skewer. A normal sized person would have been satisfied with a toothpick, but that would have been nothing more than a splinter in his large hands. "Didn't figure you'd be interested so I didn't go out of my way to contact you."

  "Is it a cop?" I asked.

  He pondered that one. "Not the guy doing the asking. Not professional enough." His forehead moved, and if he hadn't shaved, his eyebrows would have raised. "Could be a cop, now that you mention it. Sending in someone to do some checking. Not a very good cop if he asked for you around there."

  "The cops don't know much about your better restaurants," I pointed out.

  "Any cop trying to hire you doesn't know much about you or any of my restaurants if he is looking for you at El Lobo or El Ojo."

  "True." I smiled. "Get me a name if you get another chance at it. You have my permission to set up a meet if you have to dangle the offer in order to get more information."

  He shook his head. "You are looking for trouble."

  He didn't know the half of it. "I also have a message to send." The counter top was of sudden interest to my restless eyeballs.

  "Sure."

  "This one might be a little harder than normal," I confessed, picking at my napkin. "I don't know the guy's name. I know he's looking for a witch, a strong witch. He doesn't know the witch's name."

  I glanced up and got the raised invisible eyebrows again. "The message is for a dead guy. A vamp, a real one."

  Lucky for him, his eyebrows had already left his head. Slowly he took the wooden skewer out of his mouth. "I'm listening, chica."

  "This vamp, since I don't know who he is, you'll have to get the message to any vamp. You tell them the witch they are looking for might be named Sheila. Over by Los Alamos." I didn't need to provide a last name. These guys hadn't gotten to be walking dead and stayed that way by being stupid. Besides, the information wasn't exactly golden.

  "That it?"

  "That's it."

  "You planning on getting paid for this information?"

  "Are you kidding?" My eyes
bugged out.

  He nodded and smiled. "Wanted to be sure. I take the message, but I ain't touching any bypass. I didn't think you did business with vamps."

  "I don't." I glanced around quickly. Do they--" I had to stop and get air. "Do they come in here?" While I couldn't go around wearing garlic and generate any business, I could certainly wear more silver. Carry a gun. More knives. Carry a stake as part of an umbrella. Who cared that it never rained in New Mexico?

  "Nah. What they do that for, chica? Those suckers, they don't need to eat, not my food. Take some air, kiddo. You ain't lookin' so good."

  The thought of a vampire lurking in a corner booth…I wasn't Tino. I was five-five, maybe five-six in the morning with my hair sticking up. I didn't run that fast. I didn't have a safe restaurant to offer abnormals as a place to do business. "Okay, okay. It's just--" I shivered. "I don't do business with vamps, okay?"

  "You giving them this message. Some might say that is business. You better off getting the message to them through someone who does business with them."

  I shook my head rather frantically. "No. Not business. Passing along information that is of possible interest. She might not even be who they are looking for. Make that clear, Tino. I don't want any trouble."

  "No trouble," he repeated. "No payment, nothing more than a tip. You want, I keep your name out of it. Just an anonymous tip."

  That wasn't fair to Tino. I knew my doors had protection, but I wasn't sure that his did. I was scared enough that I wasn't sure what to do. "Give them the name. If they ask you where the message came from, tell them."

  "You a brave bruja." He picked up another skewer. "It still be better if you go through one who does business with them."

  I caught the hint this time. "You don't do business with them either?"