Under Witch Moon (Moon Shadow Series)

by Maria E. Schneider

  "She's not coming, is she?" I whispered.

  "She could be waiting for us downstairs."

  I listened with every ounce of my being. "She could be otherwise occupied."

  White Feather let out a hiss. "Do you think Lynx is keeping her distracted?"

  "Knowing Lynx, he's trying to kill her. My only concern is that she won't be distracted by that for long." It would be child's play to work through my puny spells and control Lynx. "We can get the stuff later. We better find Lynx."

  I moved toward the door. White Feather didn't like me going first. He moved ahead of me, or at least his aura did. It blew out the door and down the stairs, searching for danger. Now that Sheila knew we were here, there was no point in not using magic. His was a neat trick, one I'd like to mimic in a spell when I had the time.

  White Feather didn't find enough of a threat to stop us, so I crept down the stairs with him glued to my side. The light from the bedroom made going down easier, but our shadows were in front of us. I wasn't certain, but I thought chasing our own shadows was a bad omen.

  Chapter 40

  The door through the kitchen was easy enough since Lynx had given us the combination, and Sheila hadn't changed it. I expected to go down the stairs slowly, listening for danger, but once the door was open, the noise from below was loud and violent. No one was going to hear us coming.

  We took the stairs two at a time.

  The vault door going into the lab was already open. The place was in chaos. Cages were on the floor, rats squeaked, and from the scurrying across the floor, some had obviously escaped.

  The opposite side of the room was where the real danger waited.

  I thought it was a shifter, but it was hard to tell. Some shifters were more animal, some more human. When shifted, there were a few who didn't even remember their human side. I didn't know if the awareness was a choice or if certain shifters didn't have room to be aware of both. Face it, some humans were less human than others, whether or not they could shift.

  Lynx was in a battle for his life against the bear-like creature. It stood upright, but that was its only human feature. What fur it had was in mangy patches; blotches of skin ranged from a rash-like pink to dark, mottled black. One arm ended in a stump, the other had long claws, but they stuck out sideways from the end. Where eyes should have been there was nothing but shaggy fur overhanging an odd shaped, bear-like snout. Teeth that would have done a boar proud gnashed and splattered saliva with each heaving grunt.

  Lynx crawled backwards, enticing the monster to follow him through a door and into a tunnel. The tunnel had to lead to the caves where Lynx and the vampire had gone--and probably should have stayed. The kid was injured again, burned from the looks of the black across his lower jaw. If his tattered shirt was any indication, the gold amulet had exploded off entirely when Sheila reached for him with her amulet magic.

  Our entry into the lab probably saved Lynx's life. Sheila was at the far end, working over a pot of chemicals. She stopped to shriek when she saw us.

  "Aaaaaaiiiiii!" A glob of black goo dripped from her wooden spoon. It started smoking, eating through the tabletop. The rest of the glob was on its way to us.

  I ducked. Sounds like her feral yell usually meant a spell was about to activate.

  The glob missed, but she reached inside her shirt. How many amulets could she wear and control at once? Aside from Harold, I knew she had something of mine and something that belong to Lynx, but surely--

  I screamed. The amulet she pulled out contained whatever I had left behind in her house. She held it high, reveling in her power and my pain. Cold ice raced across my skin, piercing me like jagged needles.

  As suddenly as the pain started, it stopped. The silver circuit I had created snapped, just as I had designed it.

  I flopped to the floor anyway. Let her think she had me cowed for the moment. "Stop her," I cried out, crawling away as though in pain. Hopefully White Feather caught the wink and even if he didn't see it, surely my obvious words would keep him focused.

  Wind breezed across the distance. I rolled under a bench, praying the rats wouldn't come after me.

  Sheila deflected the wind easily enough. She had felt it before, and she was ready. She shoved it into the creature attacking Lynx.

  "Ahhhhhh," it sighed, almost a purr.

  I smelled the backlash and gagged.

  Every witch who works with spells knows something about earth elements. I knew the power that lay in the belly of the earth, waiting. Every time I used a spell, I touched it, but the idea was to encapsulate the power, to make sure that a tiny bit stayed within the lodestone, within the silver, within the bits of plant and trees.

  Whatever Sheila was using was like earth power, but she twisted it. Worse, she made no attempt to contain it. Instead of matching like elements, she threw bits of earth randomly. Some of the power deflected White Feather's wind, the rest landed like pieces of hot ash.

  The creature howled again, forcing my attention back to it. Lynx inched backwards using his arms. He reached for the doorway. A white hand hovered, ready to pull him, but he wasn't quite far enough. The beast leaned down, grabbing at Lynx with its teeth even though some pointed out, and too many pointed straight up. The fur across its forehead shifted. Hollow, furred sockets contained no eyes. Instead, it made shuffling, moaning sounds as though sniffing.

  Lynx had three feet to go. He clawed another few inches forward.

  White Feather ran towards the back of the beast, but Sheila threw something at him. His body arced sideways, hitting the wall so hard, he may have broken bones.

  "Bring him to me!" Sheila shrieked, rubbing one of the amulets. "Bring my baby home!"

  The creature bobbed up and down eagerly, its whole body quivering with delight at the command. It swung an arm down to Lynx, battering him. The stump on the end could not grab him, but once the misshapen bear felt Lynx's leg, it fell upon him, banging with the stubbed arm, snapping with its teeth. One of its legs ended in a hoof that kept sliding uselessly across the concrete.

  Lynx yelled and pulled hard towards the tunnel. "Now, man, now!"

  He wasn't far enough. His back stiffened suddenly, and he screamed.

  I picked up an empty cage and threw it at Sheila.

  She turned to me with a smile. It only took her a moment to grab a different amulet.

  Rolling under the bench, I went for the beast on hands and knees. Lynx had changed directions. He was now almost hugging the beast, trying to crawl back to Sheila. "Nahhh."

  Sheila's spell hit me again, but this time, instead of playing dead, I rose to my feet with a shriek. With everything I had, I ran straight into the back of the monster and shoved it towards the tunnel where the vampire waited.

  A single claw went over the line into the tunnel. A white hand reached out, but stopped cold, as if it hit a wall. Like a child teasing, it touched the claw, but couldn't grab it.

  The circuit on my last silver popped. The spell came at me full force, and I gasped, squirming away from the grotesquely furry creature. Tears blurred my vision. My body shook. Turquoise burned hot, then cold. "Stooop!" I clutched at the first spell I found.

  I threw it. I didn't know what words to yell because I didn't know which spell I had grabbed.

  Lynx yelled, "Go, go, get back!" He still crawled towards Sheila.

  I shoved my legs against gnawing teeth. "Die," I screamed.

  "You'll die," Sheila replied with a happy cackle.

  The wind was only a brush, a gentle caress, but it blocked her magic a bit. Needing more, I breathed it in, drawing it and holding it.

  With sudden control of my feet, I pushed again and this time, the vamp had more than a claw. The vamp yanked the giant monster inside the tunnel.

  There was a second of deadly silence.

  My eyes found Sheila. She was frozen, her lips opened in a soundless wail, but I don't think she was feeling pain. It was the sudden snapping of her link to the monster that left her momentarily
stunned.

  White Feather was as focused as I, only he moved stealthily towards her, while I could barely move.

  Lynx curled into a ball, shivering.

  Sheila sucked in air and turned to her pot. Grabbing a rat, she sliced it open. Blood poured over the cauldron. The next thing that went in looked like a cat, one that already had strangely long claws.

  Chemicals smoldered. She mumbled words, arcane and powerful.

  The pot burbled. It tried to crawl away. No, it was a creature, crawling out.

  I felt her call to the earth, a resounding flash of power from under the floor.

  "No!" I screamed.

  The power hit the rat-like creature coming out of the pot. It absorbed the power, blowing itself full, like a balloon. One eye popped out, the other found its focus on me.

  Calling the elements directly was dangerous, foolhardy. Like a heartbeat, I knew they were there, but I respectfully tiptoed around them, taking only what the earth might consider pretty baubles. I never took more than bits and pieces of rocks or plants that mother earth didn't need.

  Sheila's magic was outright theft.

  "How do we kill it?" White Feather yelled, weaving back and forth trying to distract the new beast.

  "Kill it?" It wasn't alive, not technically. It might have a heart--or two or four. From the looks of the thing, the animal had died in the chemicals, and she had somehow animated the various parts. "I don't think it's alive."

  "Too bad, we've got to kill it anyway!"

  The creature came towards me, its pointy rat nose twitching. The thing was almost as large as a full-grown German Shepard with talons that belonged on an eagle. It was a mindless mass of energy, no more than a bundle of molecules torn into rogue compounds, an unstable mess. Dangerous sparks, like electrical shocks gone haywire, snapped from its body as it tried to eat up more energy.

  "I don't think we can kill it," I said again, barely audible. I scooted backwards.

  From the floor, Lynx threw a glass vial towards the creature. When it hit, the glass instantly shattered, the lethal shards coming back at us. I ducked.

  White Feather rolled behind a cabinet. "Can we burn it?"

  I had no idea. Nothing in my spells could break apart the thing she had created and put them back where they belonged. Burning would only add heat to the reaction, possibly making it…hungrier. It could not be sated. "It has to go back."

  My mind ran through a few explosion spells, including the two or three on my pack. "Back to source, reassemble…how much power to tear it to pieces? Maybe we could drown it."

  White Feather tipped a table sideways in front of the creature, but it didn't matter. The rat-thing pulled itself up and oozed over. A back foot reached out, and the thing stood on two hind legs, using a long naked tail for balance.

  "Water?" White Feather repeated hopefully. He rolled near a sink, turning the faucet on full blast. Climbing to his feet, he shoved nearby paraphernalia into the drain.

  Lynx threw more vials at the creature, slowing it down. I looked at Sheila because I couldn't figure out why she wasn't attacking. She had gone completely still, holding onto the side of the pot with one hand and an amulet with the other. Her eyes stared straight ahead, ignoring us.

  She was somewhere else. She was pulling the energy that controlled this thing.

  There were many types of earth magic. The red earth of the cliffs had a different voice than the sandy desert soil that blew in the wind. One type was quick and shifted with the wind. The other was old, like a deep artery, feeding many channels. The magic danced across all of it, but it wasn't all the same.

  We needed the old magic, the one with bare threads in the air.

  "I can hear it," I said.

  "So can I," White Feather yelled back. "What about it?"

  Was the earth called to this thing or repelled by its existence? "Could you enhance the call? What would happen if you pushed even more power into it?"

  "Are you crazy?"

  "Can you deflect it? Or push it back where it came from?"

  White Feather tried. I could feel his power, a breeze from the tunnels, from the cave, from the earth. It swirled around us like a net, blocking some of the raw power in the room. I pulled the magic to me, almost giddy with relief.

  Grabbing Lynx, I dragged him by the arms into the water that spilled out of the sink. It wasn't much because the drain wasn't completely plugged, but it was better than nothing.

  Rats squealed, squeaked, and protested. The cacophony was almost too much to bear. Standing in the water, I reached for White Feather. He swung a cage on top of the rat creature that was almost upon us.

  I was afraid the only way to kill it was to kill Sheila.

  The vampire must have agreed with that thought. Like death itself, he appeared in the tunnel doorway.

  "Welcome," Sheila crowed. "Come inside, little pet, come into your new home."

  I choked.

  Sheila cackled madly. "You drank the blood of my creature, and I control its blood! Now I own you!"

  I noticed two things at once. Although Sheila's attention was not on the rat creature, it still came at us, easily dodging White Feather's attempts to attack it with the metal leg from a table. Secondly, I noticed the vampire's smile. I had seen this guy smile more than once; fangs, and no fangs. This was the first time I had ever seen the smile light his eyes.

  "Thank you for the welcome, witch."

  I never saw him move, but he was across the threshold and next to Sheila in the blink of an eye. As quickly as he arrived, he was thrust backwards, hitting the wall hard enough to dent it. The vampire snarled, fangs dripping.

  Sheila hadn't invited the dead to her table without preparations. She reached up again, maybe to grab an amulet or a spell.

  I didn't wait. I activated the first spell I came across by pulling a string that would allow the chemicals to mix and threw the packet right at her. "Catch, witch!"

  My spell, probably a deflection or illusion spell, did absolutely nothing against whatever she worked, but my yell gave everyone a half a second when she looked at the object flying her way.

  She returned almost immediately to her focus. The unholy earth fire that she had called to animate the rat was nothing compared to what she unleashed now. The floor under her feet cracked, and her arms went up as though propelled. Her feet came off the ground.

  The force of her calling blew a hole through the side of the room, but the vamp was no longer standing there.

  In a blink, the vampire was again next to Sheila. She snarled, but couldn't redirect her unleashed power without blowing herself to smithereens.

  "Did you actually believe I would eat any creature of yours?" the vampire hissed. His hands wrapped around her neck.

  "Wait," I cried. "She has to send this power back!"

  I heard the snap.

  Sheila's neck lolled to the side.

  We were doomed. The raw energy that Sheila had unleashed had nowhere to go. Like a tornado, it howled, ripping through the stone, forming another tunnel before bounding back into the room.

  The rat creature didn't stop coming for us either. I was pretty sure Sheila was dead, and if she wasn't, the vampire was going to fix that soon enough. The problem was the energy. It swirled, feeding the rat creature and devouring anything in its path.

  "Goodbye," I said.

  White Feather heard me. He turned, but I waved him off and raised my arms, mimicking Sheila. He probably knew a lot more about channeling than I did. He probably knew it was too dangerous to mess with, but we needed a way for the power that thrumbed through the room to flow back to the earth.

  I didn't have a lightning rod, but I knew how they worked. It was foolhardy, dangerous, and I would burn.

  Power was not something I knew how to actively call, but I understood how to link things. I was of the earth. My silver was of the earth. The air, the breeze from White Feather, was from the earth.

  There was no time to understand how Sheila had done
it.

  I could only link what I knew. My hair stood on end as if wind were blowing up through my body. I pulled my turquoise necklace free and held it high. The silver chain blew straight up.

  Lightning rod.

  I focused on every earth element on my person, calling earth to earth. The blue stone was from the earth, but it shattered under the huge energy force that came at me. I let the energy flow through me, but I could not control it. It was its own law and once unleashed, I was merely a wire for the electricity.

  I screamed. Even that primal sound was taken from me as the earth rushed into my lungs. My feet were on fire. My hair stood straight out, but then the heat curled it, singeing.

  It hurt. I think I had done the spell backwards.

  Earth magic arced across the ceiling and linked with the tornado, gathering dust, glass, tabletops, and broken, hopeless pieces of animals. It circled, looking for a drain. The only way back out was the channel I had formed.

  I couldn't move, couldn't even breathe. I hadn't intended for Lynx or White Feather to be hurt, but once called, the earth had its own purpose, mindlessly swirling. Sooner or later, the laws of nature prevailed, and the earth was going home even if it swallowed everything else with it.

  "Are you crazy?" White Feather yelled.

  "You just figurin' it out, buddy?" Lynx bellowed. His claws were out, literally, digging into whatever he could find. As the center of the storm, I was not being torn apart, merely used, but Lynx and White Feather would be sucked into the maelstrom and would die.

  White Feather took a wicked blow from a tabletop. The force of it threw him into Lynx. He grabbed and held onto him.

  I couldn't move. I wanted to help, but I was rooted to the spot.

  With a strange feeling of inevitability, I watched them tussle for control. I turned my head away, beseeching the earth not to tear them to shreds. When my head turned, I realized that while my feet were rooted, the rest of me was not.

  My entire body appeared to be reaching for the energy as though to draw it in.

  "Get away," Lynx yelled.

  But White Feather shook his head, never taking his eyes off of me. As the center, where I stood was the calmest. He grabbed Lynx and hauled him closer.