"Can you take it off?" He raising his hands to show burned palms. "There's an electrical shield out there, man. It'll kill me."
Not trusting him, I said, "As soon as you tell me how to find Lynx."
Zandy shook his head. "Your buddy didn't make it." He swallowed hard, rubbing hard at his neck. There must have been silver in the collar because his skin was red from more than chaffing.
"Where is he?" I snapped.
"He didn't cooperate." Zandy pointed to a jagged hole off the side of one rock wall. A misshapen boulder almost blocked it from view.
I glanced at White Feather, but we had no choice. It was now or never. I crawled to the hole and shone my light in. Several small rocks lined the opening. The space wasn't big enough for a person. I couldn't breathe properly, even thinking about it. I set Lynx's fork across my palm. It fell off my hand, pointing at the opening.
I picked it up and said, "I'll check."
On my hands and knees, I moved forward faster than my brain could command me to stop.
The space was too small for White Feather. It was really too small for me. I couldn't tell if it was getting smaller, because that part of my mind refused to work properly. Everything in me told me that the rocks were closing in.
So long as I fit through the hole, I kept moving.
"Lynx?" My teeth were clenched so hard his name was more of a gasp. Would the walls crumble? Would the entrance be closed when I backed out? I couldn't turn around; I'd have to slither backwards.
I thought I heard a groan. "Lynx?"
Swallow. Breathe. In and out.
I concentrated on White Feather's voice. He was interrogating Zandy.
"Not my fault, man. The werewolf she was keeping got away. She said she needed another one but after I got Lynx here, she wouldn't let me go either."
I couldn't hear White Feather's response, but Zandy was louder.
"No way, man. That other werewolf is the one that's been doing the killing, not me! She thought she had control of it, loaning it out to Arturo, but the thing didn't do what she wanted."
The cavity didn't get much bigger, but I could smell something rotting. It stunk more of bodily functions than a dead body.
A final squeeze forward left me flattened. A boulder jutted from the ground, cutting my guts in half. The front of me was inside a small hole, the back of me wanted to wiggle out to freedom.
"Lynx?" I could see a naked, dirty foot. He had moved rocks around when he buried himself.
"I'm going to pull on your foot," I said. The flashlight was in my way. The shadows, when I set it to my right, made it look as though the rocks had caved in on Lynx. "We're going to get you out of here."
I moved a rock carefully. The ground was nothing but loose dirt. I was too big for the space and far too panicky.
My hands shook. I couldn't get a hold of a second rock. I was going to crush the kid if I didn't get it together. The thought of being smashed caused a hiccup to come from my throat. Small moans punctuated my breathing. I clutched the light for support.
"Adriel?" White Feather yelled from somewhere behind me. "Don't keep going if you haven't found anything. We've got to get out of here."
I took a deep breath. A small amount of haze cleared from my eyes. White Feather was saying something about coming back with help.
"It will be too late," I whispered. Maybe it already was. Lynx could be dead. I hadn't even checked to see if he was breathing. My shirt was stuck on a rock. When I started wiggling backwards, it tore.
I reached forward again, shining the light. The foot moved. "Lynx." I shut my eyes. "Talk to me, buddy." Because if you don't, I'm going to crawl back out of here screaming like a lunatic, and we'll never get you out.
I pushed forward enough to slide another rock. Dark brown eyes, round ones that I recognized, peered back at me. He didn't speak, but now I had a face, I had another person. He was something besides crushing rocks.
White Feather cursed from the entrance.
"I'm coming out!" My voice was barely a squeak. Lynx went from pain to fear. He hadn't understood my words because the echo didn't sound like me.
He whimpered and tried to crawl away.
There was nowhere to go. "This way out," I enunciated slowly. "This way out." I moved a rock, then another. Purposely or not, Lynx had used this area as a latrine.
By the time I'd cleared enough rocks to see him better, I guessed it wasn't on purpose. He had been badly beaten. "What isn't broken? I'm going to have to pull you out."
He might have looked down. I felt up his ankle. When I pulled, gently as possible, his eyes rolled back into his head.
I kept right on pulling, doing my best to protect his head, but in the end, I dragged him out, painfully backwards.
White Feather grabbed my feet. Panic roared in my ears, one part of my brain shouting "hands" and the other "rockslide." I lay there panting, while he pulled and tugged. I fought the pull until he realized what was happening.
"It's okay, Adriel! You're almost out. Let me help."
He dragged me out. I was shaking so badly, I couldn't hold onto Lynx's ankles. I pointed back in.
"What is it?" He wiped at my face, at tears I hadn't realized were there.
"Get…Lynx." My teeth chattered. I wrapped my arms around my knees and tried to hold myself still. Clenching my jaw, I muttered the ingredients to the first spell I had ever learned. From there, I thought through to the second one, then the third. I muttered until I thought my teeth would break.
When White Feather grunted, I forced my head off my knees and took in the mess that was Lynx.
Without his wig, he looked closer to fifteen. His eyes were still too big on a small face, but without hair falling all over the place, his head wasn't as lost, wasn't as much teddy bear. Stubble from an almost shaved head stood straight up. I could finally guess that he was Hispanic. He was still small and with his eyes closed, he looked almost innocent.
"Let's go," White Feather commanded.
"Wait. The collars." My hands were shaking so badly I wouldn't have been able to complete the unlock spell except that I'd had so much practice lately.
The second I finished the spell, White Feather shifted Lynx to a better carrying position. He moved back the way we had come in. When Zandy's collar fell away, he took off down the tunnel, pushing around White Feather.
I couldn't tell if the warning prickle at the back of my neck was someone tracing the spell or nerves. I moved faster, but the silver at my neck didn't subside. As I ran out behind White Feather, there was a rumbling growl from the tunnel we hadn't explored. I didn't look back, I just ran faster.
Even though I had been sweating and was now half-jogging, I felt a sudden chill. There was no way to know if it was the cool air of the cave or Sheila trying to reach me through solid rock with a spell. There were enough tunnels and air currents through here that it was possible a spell could find its way to me--or not.
I ran.
Lynx woke once and whimpered, but he didn't protest. He probably smelled fresh air and decided it was a good thing.
Zandy tracked all the way out without any help.
When we squeezed out the entrance, White Feather punched numbers into his cell phone. He waited for an answer and punched in more numbers. "We're going to take a slightly different route back and end up closer to where the last signal was. I had Gordon move the car while we were tracking. He left me a message to tell me where he left it."
I took White Feather's pack, grateful to feel the warm sun. I clutched my silver as we jogged. The beads in my hair felt loose. When I reached up to touch them, I found nothing but bits of crumbling dust. I swallowed hard.
The beads had shattered.
Instead of feeling good about the fact that the beads had helped against a vicious spell, I felt worse. The spell had destroyed the protection though layers and layers of rock.
Sheila couldn't know yet whether her spell had succeeded or failed, but there was no doubt in my mind
she would work on a new one anyway. That was bad news for all of us.
White Feather carried Lynx ahead of me. I feared for him. For them both.
Zandy sniffed out our old trail, and he stuck to that until White Feather barked, "east here."
He fell behind then, following. I didn't turn around to make sure he stayed with us.
Chapter 34
To get out, we had to climb over the fences in broad daylight. The best we could do was make sure there were no cars coming.
I was disoriented, because we went out a different spot than we had gone in, but the car was waiting where White Feather expected it.
Breathing hard, White Feather deposited Lynx gently in the back seat.
"You're in back with him," he told Zandy.
"Man, I won't be able to move! There ain't room with him all over the seat."
I would have happily sat in the back with Lynx, but White Feather didn't want Zandy up front, so that was the way it was going to be.
Zandy stood, trying to decide whether to get in the car or not. I went to the trunk and retrieved a blanket, food and water.
Lynx was still out cold. He needed a lot more medical attention than spells, but there was no way he could go to a hospital. He was under-aged, had no guardian that I knew of and no record of his birth. Someone would probably arrest White Feather or me on battery charges.
"My house," I whispered.
White Feather nodded grimly.
It was the safest place I knew and full of chemicals we could use in place of a good doctor. I also needed to be where I could block spells of any kind.
I climbed in the front seat. Zandy got in back and closed his eyes. Within minutes, he was either sleeping or pretending well.
The ride back to Santa Fe seemed hours longer than the trip to White Rock.
Lynx never moved, not even to groan in pain.
When we finally arrived at my house, White Feather carried Lynx from the car. I carried in the extra food. Zandy wasted no time following us inside and making himself at home in my kitchen. Apparently he hadn't eaten much during captivity.
"Where should I put Lynx?" White Feather asked.
"Put him in the spare bedroom. He'll probably rob me blind when I'm asleep," I pretended to grumble.
"Is he dangerous?" White Feather halted in the act of opening the door I indicated.
"Not to me." Lynx wasn't, but Zandy was. Now that the lanky teenager was free, he exuded an adrenalin confidence, one that completely ignored that his rescue had come from outside hands rather than his own wits.
White Feather followed my glare as I tracked Zandy around the kitchen. "I'll be right back." He disappeared into the guest room with Lynx.
"Where can we drop you off?" I asked.
Zandy stopped in the act of stuffing a last piece of rolled lunch meat into his mouth. "Me?"
He blinked rapidly, and I had to acknowledge that despite his energetic eating, he was dead on his feet. "Let me get you a t-shirt." I went into my bedroom and got the largest shirt I owned. Though I didn't think much of the guy, he probably should see a doctor. The wounds crisscrossing his back and sides needed attention. Grumbling under my breath I went into my bathroom and found some peroxide.
I took them both back out. White Feather was standing over Zandy, waiting.
"You should probably clean your wounds," I said.
He grabbed the shirt. "I get it," he growled. "The kid can stay here, but I'm nothin' but a garbage bag!"
"Did you kill her or not?" White Feather asked, in what must have been a repeat of the question.
"He did," I said quietly. "But you can track him down later. Tonight he gets the peroxide, and we take him wherever he asks." I wanted him out of my house. Lynx I could tolerate, but not a half-adult who had accidentally killed an overzealous client.
"Let him disappear? That doesn't make a lot of sense. We have him here now, and you're telling me you saw him kill her!"
"I didn't say I saw it. I said he's the one. He knows it, and so do I. You could take him down to the station right now, and the first place they are going to send him is a doctor anyway."
"I'm not letting him walk out of here."
Zandy finally figured out he wasn't off scott-free. "I deserve a break, man. I didn't kill her, not exactly. She did it to herself!" He spread his hands, his eyes darting between White Feather and me.
I frowned. "Don't act like a complete idiot. She didn't strangle herself."
"She attacked me with the silver!" He backed away. His eyes telegraphed his move to the door.
I reached out and grabbed White Feather, but he tore his arm away effortlessly. I tripped him or he would have had Zandy without a problem.
From the carpet, he swore. "What the hell did you do that for?"
I put my arms around myself. "I wanted him gone."
"My brother could have been here in five minutes!"
The shivers didn't stop. I rubbed my arms and sat down. "I wanted him gone."
White Feather opened his mouth, but then snapped it shut. Neither of us moved. Finally he asked, "Do you have any coffee?"
I nodded. "Yeah."
When I didn't make a move to make any, he stomped into the kitchen and banged away. When I felt I could, I got up and followed him. My hands were still shaking, but I managed some juice. "I guess Lynx could probably use some food." I stared dumbly at the glass of juice. "Or water or something." My brain started thinking of herbs that would help.
"He has a lot of bruises, and I think his arm is broken." White Feather watched the coffee drizzle into the carafe instead of looking at me.
"You do realize he can't waltz into a doctor's office like a normal kid with problems?"
"I don't suppose so. But if he's hurt badly, he needs a doctor to check him over."
I shook my head. "He doesn't have insurance. I'm not depositing him in the emergency room. He'd escape the minute he was able." I rummaged through bags until I found the Gatorade. "I'm gonna put this in his room."
Before taking the Gatorade in, I went to my lab and cut a short length of walnut from my store of various woods. I gathered some herbs and went to the bedroom.
Quietly, I opened the door. He would know it was me. His brain could distinguish smells whether asleep or unconscious. In the half dark, I called out, "I brought you some Gatorade. If you wake up and want food, I'll leave a couple of sandwiches in the fridge." I was unbelievably tired and didn't know how I was going to find energy to make sandwiches. "I have chips," I said, but my voice hitched.
I set the Gatorade carefully by the bed. "I'm going to put some herbs around your arm and splint it to keep it steady. Here's an extra package of herbs too. If you think you can get in the bath without drowning, they will help."
I couldn't see much in the dim light, but his arm was swollen to the touch. "I gotta get some water."
White Feather must have known what I was doing, because he was suddenly there. "Nuked some water." He held a steaming bowl.
Together we swabbed some of the dirt away and set his arm.
"That stick is hard. I hope he doesn't roll over on it," White Feather said.
"He isn't going to roll on that arm. Not for a long time." I dribbled Gatorade down Lynx's throat. He didn't choke, but he didn't open his eyes either.
White Feather took the messy bowl of water back to the kitchen.
I whispered to Lynx, "You can stay as long as you like."
"Let him rest," White Feather said from the door. He came in and touched my arm, drawing me back out.
"You look like maybe you should eat something yourself," he suggested.
I didn't remember him putting his arm around me, but I found myself leaning against him. When we got to the kitchen, we stood there for a minute, watching the coffee pot. "I should have told him I'd make some pasta. I think Zandy ate all the lunch meat."
White Feather laughed. "I imagine he'll find the pasta if you leave it instead."
The thought of f
ood cheered me a little. I put a pot of water on to boil. When I turned around, White Feather was taking milk from the fridge.
He grinned. "Maybe we should've stopped and gotten takeout." He glanced down at his dirty clothes. "Can they refuse to serve you at the takeout window?"
"Probably." My clothes were worse than his.
We made the pasta and ate in exhausted silence. He didn't suggest leaving, so I got blankets out. "The guest room is full. The other room is a study," I said by way of reference to my lab.
He took the blankets. "This will work. Sit with me a while."
"Okay." I looked down the hall. "Do you think he's thirsty?"
He took my hand, and we checked on Lynx. I spent another five minutes dribbling Gatorade down his throat.
When I was done, we sat on the couch. He took his shoes off and settled against the arm. I leaned against him.
In no time, I was fast asleep.
Chapter 35
Morning was less awkward than I would have expected. Lynx had always been good at making an entrance. For a possible cat, he didn't sneak very well either.
He stumbled into the kitchen, nearly knocked over a chair and announced, "I have to go back. She has my blood."
He promptly collapsed. White Feather jumped up and headed toward him, leaving me to fall bonelessly across the couch. "Oh my God." He had to be wrong. He had to be.
"Give me a hand, would you?" White Feather said. He got an arm under Lynx, but couldn't lift the kid without mashing his broken arm.
I stood up. If Sheila had Lynx's blood, getting him back into bed wasn't going to help matters much. I moved forward anyway.
White Feather half supported Lynx on the side of his healthier arm. I helped lift so that White Feather could carry him back in the bedroom.
While he got Lynx settled, I made a healthy herbal tea and sweetened it with mashed frozen strawberries. Lynx could use the vitamin C in a big way.
I took it into the bedroom. Lynx's eyes were wide open. He made a funny noise in the back of his throat. "She has my blood."
"Sheila?"
Under Witch Moon (Moon Shadow Series) Page 23