Under Witch Moon (Moon Shadow Series)

by Maria E. Schneider

  "We thought he was a victim!"

  "What if he is the werewolf? That would explain the link to the women."

  White Feather stared back at the fork. "They didn't compare the DNA of the victims, they only compared the foreign DNA found on any of the victims. The foreign DNA they found on each of the women was a match except for the stuff on Dolores. The guy didn't have any foreign DNA so there was nothing to compare."

  "He was tied to them somehow, no matter how far apart the murders."

  We stared at the samples for a bit and moved forks around. The results were the same every time.

  "None of this explains how this guy died," I mused. "Was his body found like the others?"

  White Feather nodded. "Torn apart. There was a lot less blood. The investigators figured he had been bled out elsewhere. The other victims were torn apart too, but there was blood everywhere and no missing body parts."

  "I bet if you run the foreign DNA from the other crimes scenes, it will match with this guy."

  "Okay. Any other ideas?"

  "If I had more time, I could use one of these forks to find places the victims had been--or in the case of the foreign DNA, we might find traces of where its owner had been. Those places might provide a clue as to who the guy was." I explained how I had used a pager to track Zandy. "It was arbitrary though. I had to hope that I went places Zandy went, otherwise the pager wouldn't go off."

  White Feather nodded. "And if this guy was the attacker, he isn't going to be attacking anymore."

  "We can hope."

  White Feather went back to the kitchen to make his phone call. I took my gold and gave it to Lynx. He was a lot happier with it than the silver.

  Chapter 38

  The rumor about vampires flying was true. They flew a hell of a lot better than I did from what I saw, and I doubted the guy had magnets in his shoes.

  It was four in the morning, but since we were in White Rock, I wasn't the least bit sleepy. Lynx and I were still arguing about how to break-in. He wanted to go in right away, dead of night and all that.

  "It makes more sense to wait until morning and make sure she leaves for work," I pointed out for the millionth time as we stumbled through the weeds and grass towards Sheila's side fence.

  "You don't know nothing ‘bout break-ins. Proved that the last time." His jaw was tight, and he kept reaching up to touch the gold talisman.

  Sheila's fence was a row of spears in the darkness. I didn't want to cross that line, ever.

  "If the safe is in her bedroom--" White Feather started.

  Lynx interrupted. "She works in the labs at night from about two on. There was only one night she came down before midnight and worked all night."

  "Three days isn't enough to guarantee a pattern, especially now that you and Zandy have escaped," I hissed. "What if she has your blood down in the lab? We help ourselves to coffee while we wait for her to leave?"

  "I'll go. I'll check. I'll come back."

  "Right." Sheila had his blood. He could come back having been told to kill us, and we wouldn't know the difference until it was too late. My stomach knotted harder.

  The vampire saved me the trouble of further arguing. One minute we were contemplating the fence, the next he floated over it. Unlike our black jeans and long-sleeved t-shirts, his outfit was a loose flowing cotton that resembled a ninja outfit without the hood.

  I sucked in a choking breath and detected the slight smell of decay. Instead of a sense of alien power, I felt a distinct tugging as though he were reaching for my very essence or maybe…my very soul.

  The vamp landed gracefully, hands held out in the universal, "nothing to hide." He said, "You need a distraction so that you can get in undetected."

  What I needed was a new job. A new life. "Go away!" I hadn't found time to make a vampire stake, but I clutched my silver for all I was worth.

  His head turned to me, and I saw fangs. "You aren't very good at networking, are you?"

  "What do you want?" White Feather sounded calm, but I could feel the edges of his power, not really radiating, but building inside of him, ready.

  "Blood?" I guessed.

  Lynx made a gurgling sound in the back of his throat.

  The vampire was polite if nothing else. "I owe you a favor. Perhaps now would be a good time to pay the bill."

  "You owe me nothing. I think I was clear about that."

  "And I am clear about paying debts. You led us to she-who-hunted us, and although she captured the tiniest amount of blood from our weakest, your information," he tilted his head and laughed softly, "saved my life."

  I shivered. "Sheila was the witch hunting you? Then why do you still have word out at the pubs for the best witch?"

  The vamp smiled, no fangs. "Why would I look at pubs for a witch?"

  "But--"

  He silenced me by baring his fangs. "Sheila was the one at the bars looking for the best witch, fool. She also had the call out for the best werewolf and the oldest vamp!"

  "But doesn't she consider herself to be the best witch?"

  "Of course. But she wasn't going to run experiments on herself, now was she?"

  My face drained. "Oh."

  Lynx gave me a look of disgust. "Can we get moving here?"

  As soon as I found my heart and got it beating, sure. I edged away from the vamp. "You owe me nothing. Sounds like she got her vampire blood anyway."

  "He has been eliminated. She will not call him. We will see to it that she can't call any of those connected to him either. In the meantime, we are watching. There will be a break in her defenses, there always is."

  "You can't go inside her house? No invite," I guessed.

  Lynx said, "The cave ain't her home, but she caged us there. It's connected to her basement. You watching the cave?"

  The vamp's head swiveled so fast it made my neck ache. "What cave?"

  Lynx described the area where he had been held. "The cave has a direct tunnel into her lab. I don't know if the tunnels fall under your rules."

  The vampire tilted his head away from us as though listening, but there was no sound that I could hear. "This cave is a natural one?"

  I nodded. "There were a few places that had been opened up with dynamite."

  "Did she ever live there?"

  I almost laughed. "Not likely."

  "She never went in there," Lynx said. "The creature she kept there dragged us back into her lab whenever she wanted."

  "Where is this cave?" the vamp demanded.

  White Feather described the way we got in, but it wasn't much to go on.

  "Our kind can go through the cave, at least to a point," the vamp said. "We'll distract her from there and give you time to get into her home."

  "That might work," White Feather said.

  "Only if the samples are in her safe," Lynx said. "If they ain't, they're in the lab, and I'll have to go there next."

  "First things first," the vampire said smoothly. "I need one of you to help me find the cave."

  I sucked in a breath, but didn't volunteer. White Feather didn't show even that much reaction.

  Lynx surprised us both when he said, "I'll go."

  "Are you kidding?" I burst out.

  "There's a good chance my stuff is in the lab," he said. "I wait until she's gone, go in through the tunnel, get it, then I'm out. If it's upstairs, you get it and you're gone."

  "Uh, Lynx, there's a couple of problems with that." I took a deep breath. "We need you to get into the safe. And you probably need me to find your blood if she hasn't already spelled it into an amulet." I pointed to my backpack where I had placed his witching fork.

  "No." Lynx shook his head. "You don't need me. I'm gonna give you the combination to the safe."

  "You still remember it?"

  "It saves time when I have to go back. You'd be surprised, but there's lots of jobs that turn into two or three, same safe. I give you the combinations to the safe and to the door that looks like a wine fridge in the kitchen. Then I
go with the vamp. I can travel faster than you two anyway. We give you the distraction, you get the bounty and you get out."

  Lynx was talking too fast; his mind probably working faster. He wanted in there, and I didn't think he was going to calmly wait for Sheila to leave. "The vamp can't help you in the lab. And that trinket I gave you isn't going to save your hide past the first attempt she makes to control you."

  His eyes glittered up at me, glowing yellow. "She ain't never even gonna know I'm there." He jutted his chin at the vampire, who remained motionless, waiting for us to figure out a plan. "You ready, bloodsucker?"

  The vamp smiled, showing his shiny fangs. "The outside cameras suffered an accident every time she replaced them with the exception of one on the other side of the house. We left that alone so she could see certain images we chose to send her." He waved a palm at Lynx. "I'm ready when you are, fur ball."

  Lynx said, "Easy in, easy out for you two. Three numbers for the safe upstairs. The one in the kitchen has a trick to it so pay attention." He gave me the numbers. The spinning of the dials was not standard. "She put more work into the one in the kitchen, but I guess we know why." He finished his instructions and turned to go.

  "Lynx--" He didn't stop. "Be careful!" I yelled in a whisper.

  I never saw the vampire leave. All I heard was, "We get you in, the debt will be paid."

  Whatever. I shivered.

  Chapter 39

  We gave Lynx and the vamp almost an hour to get into place. We were cutting everything close, but the sun was threatening to rise, and the longer we waited the worse I felt.

  Going inside Sheila's house made my skin crawl. Like Lynx, I clutched my protective talisman, and probably unlike him, I prayed.

  I was worried about my wayward friend. What did Lynx have planned? The kid would die before he left this place without his blood. He probably wouldn't have left the first time had we not carried him out. I didn't want to have to do it again because I suspected he'd be dead if it came to that.

  White Feather had apparently picked a lock or two in his time, because he got the back door opened without my help. I stood off to the side while he worked his mundane magic.

  When White Feather pushed the door open, it didn't squeak. If there was an alarm, we couldn't hear it. He closed the door softly behind me.

  As we had agreed, he put his hand on my shoulder, and I led the way, using my memory as a guide. My hands out in front, I slid my feet forward, moving slowly, silently towards the stairway. I could feel the antique buffet in the dark. I kept my distance and didn't even dare look at it for fear of what I might see in the shadows.

  Sheila had no nightlights, and her living room blinds were all the way down. When I looked up the stairs, nothing but darkness waited. If I didn't stare directly, I could make out the shape of steps.

  White Feather's hand on my shoulder was heavy instead of reassuring. I couldn't hear him breathing and while that was good, it was scary.

  The top of the stairs was a bit lighter, but not much. I edged towards the bedroom.

  The door was closed. My heart jumped. Had it been opened when she wasn't home? I was positive that it had. Did this mean she was inside sleeping? Or waiting for us with a weapon?

  White Feather must have known it was the right room when I stopped. He slid next to me and elbowed me aside. I didn't like him going first. We hadn't agreed to this. In fact, we hadn't even discussed it other than to decide I would lead the way after getting inside the house.

  What was I going to do, yell at him?

  We both wore suede gloves lined with silk. He eased the door open. No squeaking. I wondered if my doors at home were so quiet. I resolved that I would put spells on all of them, something to tell me when my haven had been breached.

  We had better hope that Sheila didn't have any notification spells.

  Light from the windows outlined a large lump behind the bed curtains. I wanted to cry. The only thing that kept me from running was fear. She was here. In the room. With me.

  White Feather reached back and grabbed my hand. He squeezed my fingers. I remembered to breathe. The whoosh of air into my lungs sounded loud to me, but White Feather didn't react. Neither did the figure in the bed.

  At least Lynx was safer than we were. The kid might find his blood and be free. If he didn't, we stood only a small chance of getting it out of the safe without getting caught.

  It took another heartbeat or two for me to realize that White Feather was waiting. He held a hand out to the right, but the closet with the safe was on the left. I squeezed his hand and gently tugged the other way. He slid quietly that direction.

  His hand pressed mine, and then pulled down. I nodded. There wasn't enough light for him to see me. I moved his hand to my face and nodded again. I would stay put, shout a warning, distract her, kill her, whatever it took if she woke up.

  White Feather moved my hand to his lips for an instant before letting it go. He drifted through the dark to the closet. I kept my eyes on the form in the bed, slowly reaching to my ankle for my Leatherman knife. The blade was super sharp, dipped in silver and etched with a twenty-four karat spell.

  I very quietly opened the blade and held it ready.

  My attention was split between White Feather at the closet door and the bed. Since I expected Sheila might sit up, jump out of bed or even throw something, I almost missed her slide out of the bottom of the bed. Maybe she moved a pillow behind her so that the top of the bed still looked like a person sleeping, or maybe I wasn't paying enough attention. All of a sudden Sheila was slithering along the floor behind White Feather, about to take him down by his ankles.

  I screamed.

  It wasn't until I jumped on her back that I realized she was a snake. Literally.

  Slick scales defied my grip and the creature undulated, tossing me right back across the room. My knife was somewhere embedded in the snake. The knife might work its magic, but knifing the back of a snake wasn't a very effective killing method.

  "White Feather!" By the time I yelled, he certainly knew he wasn't safe. I yanked a chemical light stick from the side of my backpack and broke the element. In the high greenish glow, I could see White Feather pinned against the wall near the closet. The snake was six or seven feet long and at least as big around as person's body.

  I searched along the side of my backpack again. "One, two, and over one," I counted. I yanked the spell free from the pack, stumbled to my feet and launched myself across the room.

  The head moved incredibly fast and was almost on top of White Feather until he raised his hands. I felt the punch of wind crash into the head, deflecting it.

  I jumped on the snake, my legs around the neck. The jaws snapped. The tongue flicked towards White Feather. When the wind came again, I was ready.

  The snake jaws opened wide. I tossed my packet into fleshy snake lips.

  There was a second spell exactly like it attached to the other side of my pack, but before I could get it, the creature flopped over backwards, smashing me underneath. There was a sickening crunch. I thought maybe it was my back breaking. All the air was gone from my lungs. My pack was under me. I couldn't reach anything, although I tried to move my hands.

  Third spell along the edge? Which hand was I moving?

  I was disoriented. I hadn't said the words to activate the first spell. "Misbegotten," I mumbled. "Gutter." Nothing happened. Had I grabbed the wrong one?

  No, because the spell would have gone off under me, even were it attached to my backpack. "Misbegotten gutter," I screamed, realizing the spell was shielded by layers of snake.

  There was a thunk above me. The tail, as fat as the rest of the snake, lashed sideways. My legs were temporarily freed. I saw the spark of the spell and then a fireball as it ignited, coming out the snake's mouth.

  I rolled. "Get back," I tried to shout. There still wasn't enough air in my lungs to create more than a squeak.

  White Feather or the snake grunted. I looked at the snake. The back
half still undulated back and forth, but the side of its head was on fire. My knife wobbled from one side of its scales. "White Feather?" Tears from the smoke of my exploding spell blurred my vision.

  Another grunt, but from the opposite side of the room. "What was that?"

  I coughed before answering. "Firebomb. A really big firecracker."

  "Next time warn me before you set it off, okay?"

  "Sorry." I scooted further away from the snake, staring at it. "Is she a shifter?" I couldn't believe it. "A snake?"

  "Hardly." White Feather got up, wincing. "I think it's a simulacrum."

  "It's a little substantial for that, don't you think?" I still struggled to get enough air.

  White Feather eased over and retrieved a large blade from the floor. He reached up and stabbed the snake's smoldering eye. Keeping watch over its head, he pulled my knife out from the back of the creature and handed it to me.

  "Gross." I wiped the goop on the floor and turned away, breathing shallowly. White Feather put his knife through the other eye, making sure the brain was dead. I assumed the other two or three noises were him severing the spine.

  I kept breathing, hoping he didn't need me. "I think it's a guard--a familiar. She must leave it here so that…so that she knows what is going on in her absence," I ended in a whisper filled with dread.

  "Whatever it is, it's dead. Let's get what we need and get out." His own breathing was harsh and uneven.

  "It's not hard to tie a notification to a living object." I stared back at the snake. "It's dead. She'll know it."

  We both looked at the yawning doorway. We hadn't heard anyone approaching, but we'd been rather distracted.

  "She would know the minute this thing moved to attack, wouldn't she?" White Feather asked.

  I shrugged, knife in a defensive position as I righted my pack across my shoulders and checked the location of my remaining spells with my free hand. "It depends on how much control she had over the creature and how she set the spell. I'd have to do a lot more studying on the subject before I could answer that."

  "I'm not up on the subject myself." We stared at the doorway, not moving.