Before I could defend my decision, White Feather said, “Wait a minute. Mat doesn’t know him as Gordon?”
My finger jabbed the air in the direction of the dinner table. “I didn’t know him as Gordon either. If Mat had known, she’d have mentioned it. So far as she knows, he’s Jim. Not a cop. Not your brother. Just a guy who cared.”
“Hey, I do care!”
I whirled back to him. “Not enough to be honest with her,” I snarled.
White Feather tugged on my hand, probably to prevent me from launching myself over the table. “Gordon, are you out of your mind? You’ve been dating a witch for how long? And you didn’t tell her you were a cop? You lied about who you are to your girlfriend?”
Gordon’s eyes narrowed, but before he could respond, White Feather turned to me and said, “You might want to give him forty-eight hours. After we eat, he’ll have time to check in with work. If I were in his shoes, I’d clear my schedule.”
“Hey, whose side are you on, anyway? You know my job! Some of us don’t get to entice chicks with fancy magic. You could at least stand by your own brother here. I’ll tell Mat when I’m ready.”
My fingers cramped when White Feather’s grip tightened on mine. The ring on my left hand warmed even as the air swirled around it. “In case there was ever any doubt.” White Feather held up our linked hands. “Adriel’s mine. My family. Do what you have to do any way you see fit with your relationships, but mine is for life. Be happy she’s giving you twenty-four hours instead of marching over there right now, because if that’s what she decides to do, I’m going with her.”
I sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. As introductions went, that was putting the cards on the table. I had expected “This is Adriel,” or “Adriel, the witch I told you about.” My heart was beating fast, but his words tripped it with relief. A small spark of giddiness spread through me that was its own kind of magic. I tamped down on my anger, letting some of it drain into Mother Earth.
White Feather didn’t bother to employ a similar trick with the wind, at least not until his mother stepped away from the entrance to the kitchen, breaking the stare between the brothers.
“Welcome to the family,” she said. “I hope you like enchiladas, and I hope you like things hot. This family doesn’t do cold chile or cold anything else.” She set down a bread basket and approached us. When she clasped my free hand, she felt the ring White Feather had given me.
The diamond sparkled up at her. She smiled and winked at White Feather. She released my hand and hugged White Feather. Her black hair, mostly gray on the top, wound down her back in a single braid that was still black on the latter third.
White Feather had to lean way over to embrace his mother.
As soon as she stepped back she said to me, “Ignore any food you don’t like and eat what you do. My son tells me you are of the earth.” She inhaled deeply as though she might be able to smell me. “That is good.”
She touched my arm and guided me to a chair, leaving White Feather to follow. “Sage bread for appetizer?”
My hand might have been a bit shaky from residual anger as I helped myself to a slice from the woven basket.
There was a long silence before Tara finally broke it with her own concerns. “How is Lynx?”
I chewed on a bite of warm bread. Even in my current state my taste buds declared the bread a slice of heaven. “Lynx? He’s fine. I’ll tell him you asked after him.”
Her face blanched. “I don’t think it will do much good. I have about as much luck with relationships as Gordon.”
Gordon didn’t have his head down, not exactly, but he was intent on buttering his bread. His intense concentration was warranted even without the family spat. The bread tasted of baking in a stone oven; crisp crust, wonderfully soft center. I followed his example and focused on eating. It wasn’t hard to compliment the blue corn enchiladas or the cheesy pan-sauteed zucchini.
For the rest of the evening we all behaved, but the event could only be considered a qualified success. No one died and there were no actual fist fights. I didn’t set off any spells, and if Gordon had any, he kept them quiescent.
I fully intended to follow through with my threat to tell Mat, and everyone knew it. That fact kept Gordon appropriately preoccupied. Before we left, I would have suggested Gordon have fire engines in the area to put out the fire that was likely to ignite across his head when he told Mat, but Tara distracted me when she handed me a note.
“For Lynx,” she whispered. “I spelled it. You won’t be able to read it.”
“Do you want me to try?”
She started to reply and then stopped, warring with her desire to know if I could beat her magic.
I laughed. “Don’t worry. I won’t.”
White Feather’s mother hugged us both and sent us home with leftovers.
On the way back to White Feather’s house, he asked, “Were you ever mad that when we met, I pretended to be someone else?”
“We weren’t dating. We were business associates protecting our identity, and we both used disguises. We both knew they were disguises. Your brother met Mat in a social context and kept it that way. What is he trying to hide?”
White Feather was silent for a while. “A lot of women don’t like cops.”
“And a lot of them do.”
“Some women don’t like...warlocks. He might have done it to protect me. Or hide it from her. He’s done that before.”
“Mat is a witch. She’s an obvious, never even been in the closet, witch. She’s met you. What’s to hide?”
He chewed on that for a while. When we pulled into his driveway he said, “If he’s been using her to investigate some case or other, I might have to kick his ass myself.”
“You can get in line, but if that’s what he was doing, after Mat gets done with him, there’s isn’t going to be much left to kick.” And if she didn’t finish the job for some reason, I would.
Chapter 10
Pounding on the front door early the next morning—very early—had me rolling across the expanse of the king bed, reaching blindly for my silver dagger. White Feather jumped into his pants before I found my weapon.
His ability to explore with wind filled in the cracks between the knocking. “It’s your dad,” he sputtered.
It took a moment to register. “Moonlight madness!” I relaxed my grip on the sheath and sat back on the bed, blinking blearily.
White Feather finished pulling on a tee shirt, and only then noticed my stupor. “Isn’t there an emergency?”
I hadn’t even started searching for my clothes. Around a yawn, I shook my head. “Not necessarily. Dad gets up early.”
“And visits? It’s 5 a.m.!”
My brain was too befuddled to explain. I nabbed a sweater and jeans from the pile on the floor and stumbled along behind White Feather to the front door.
It was an effort to discern which of the two very large men at our front door was Dad. “Dad, it’s five in the morning!” It was also freezing out. “Come in. Or let me get my coat. Is Mom okay?”
White Feather retreated behind me, allowing everyone to crowd into the foyer.
Dad eyed me up and down. “You still in bed? How do you expect to finish building this house if you’re sleeping in?” He subjected White Feather to a snort of disdain before turning to the man with him, a guy almost as bearlike in size as Dad. The main difference between them was that Dad had a head of short black hair turning silver, and the friend was blessed with a brown beard and a crown of curly brown hair that hung almost to his shoulders.
I stifled a groan. White Feather was going to disown me. I knew moving in with him was a bad idea. I had mistakenly worried about my own bad habits and hadn’t even considered those of my family.
The barrel of a man next to my father held out a rough palm. “Mason,” he said.
I shook his hand. “Adriel, and this is White Feather.”
“No,” he said, ducking his head shyly. “I’m a mason.
Your dad says you need some building done.”
I blinked fully awake, my suspicions rising.
Dad did nothing to alleviate my concerns when he asked, “Have you at least put on the coffee? It’s a little cool in here too. I’ll start a fire.” Dad had a habit of taking in strays—dogs, horses, and yes, people.
It would be rude to ask if he had found this mason under a bridge, but it was entirely possible. I sighed. “Yeah, sure, the coffee is about to brew.”
White Feather was already in the kitchen by the time I turned around. Since the coffee train wasn’t yet in operation, he made coffee the old fashioned way, in a plain glass coffee pot.
Dad lumbered to the living room fireplace and ignited the logs. It wasn’t even the effort of striking a match for him, although his arm muscles bulged slightly as he changed his internal energy to fire and directed it at the kindling.
The mason stood with his hands in his pockets, staring down at the floor. “Looks like you need a wall finished up in the kitchen. I can do it. Take me a day or so.”
Dad said, “Do you want me to cook breakfast or—”
“Dad!” I blushed furiously and beat him to the fridge only because it wasn’t his kitchen so he stayed in the living room on the other side of the bar.
“Can’t expect a man to erect walls on an empty stomach.”
White Feather did not look my way, not once. He lined up coffee cups, found the bag of sugar and retrieved the half and half. Completely mortified, I scrambled eggs. There was no way to trick Dad into leaving. If I told him we didn’t need help, he’d be hurt. If I tried any of the lame excuses that came to mind, he’d just ignore me and buckle down to the tasks of his choice.
It’s hard to protect yourself from family when they show up in the middle of the night. My defenses were down.
“I’ll check on the supplies,” Dad said. “See how the bricks are coming along. We’ll be back in time to eat.” He nodded at the mason, a man whose name we still didn’t know, and headed down the hallway. They disappeared between sheets of plywood where the hallway abruptly met the great outdoors.
I apologized to White Feather. “I’m really sorry. Dad has this way—”
White Feather plucked the fork for the eggs from my madly waving hand. He chuckled, almost silently. Either he was hysterical from the rude awakening, or he was amused at my complete inability to manage the situation.
“He seems to enjoy getting his way,” White Feather said around his amusement. “And he checks on you often. Is there enough light for him to inspect whatever it is he is inspecting?”
It was November and pitch dark this early. “He’ll start a fire if he has to. Just a small torch, he’ll call it. But he can do sparks of light too.” Dad’s talent was that of fire, a flame he could ignite, control or extinguish by channeling his internal passion for life. He made it appear simple, but it was a silent workout. His muscles paid the price, flexing and burning up energy as he fueled the fire with his magic.
White Feather grinned down at me. “He seems eager to make sure you have a decent place to live.”
I didn’t see the humor. “I have a house.” But I didn’t, not anymore. Dad didn’t even know about my recent run-in with the vamps. My parents weren’t thrilled that we hadn’t been married conventionally, but they did respect my choice, if only because White Feather had proven himself when he endangered himself to rescue me. Saving my life held some sway when it came to my family. “Moonlight madness, you don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into,” I muttered.
“We do need the walls up as soon as possible.”
“It could be worse,” I muttered.
“Oh?”
“He didn’t bring Kas and her husband to install the toilet and other plumbing!”
White Feather shook his head and grinned. “There’s always tomorrow morning.”
By the time we finished breakfast, we learned that the mason’s name was Tracy. He was a drifter who had been a trucker, a guitar-picker and had been hired at the hardware store off the books when Dad heard about a guy with a “talent for brick work.”
I had to recite spell ingredients in my head to refrain from blurting out random curses. The guy who ran the hardware store was my cousin Manny. And he knew Dad and his penchant for strays. Kept an eye out as it were.
As soon as White Feather offered to show Tracy around in preparation for the day’s work, I walked Dad to his truck, fully intending to lay down the rules of engagement. They included a seven o’clock curfew—no showing up earlier.
Dad strolled out, extolling the virtues of his latest find. “He seems like a good fellow. Doesn’t drink and doesn’t smoke. I’ll be back to pick him up this evening. He’s staying with cousin Manny.”
“Dad—”
“I was right impressed with the workmanship your White Feather has done so far on the house. It’s quality.” He smothered me in one of his big hugs, his favorite technique for preventing me from getting in a word edgewise. I dug my feet in.
“Dad, you let White Feather build this house how he wants it.”
“To be sure. To be sure.”
He hopped in his truck, but then rolled down the window. “Tracy has something. It’s of the earth. Your mother couldn’t tell either.”
“He’s an earth witch?”
“No, not like you, but something. I don’t think he knows what it is or what to do with it. It’s kept him from finding a place. He thinks in a nice straight line, but life isn’t ever that simple. You help him if you see it, you hear?”
“Dad—” It wasn’t that I minded helping. But it was different now than when I was on my own. I’d never had to worry about anyone else being impacted by family strays, wild-haired ideas or relatives that weren’t quite normal. It was bad enough that my parents had never stopped nagging me about helping my sister Kas find a talent or at least passion in life.
“You’ll give him a nudge in the right direction.” Dad smiled, his eyes sparking. “You take after me that way.”
He put the truck in gear, leaving me sputtering as he drove off into the cold dawn. “I do not,” I told the empty driveway. I loved my parents, but I wasn’t anything like either of them. I’d worked hard to be my own person, my own witch with my own talents. I certainly didn’t go around hiring strays who had odd talents that didn’t fit into normal society.
“Moonlight madness! Lynx better run some background on this guy,” I muttered on my way back inside. “And if this Tracy dude messes anything up I’ll—well, I won’t let Dad fix it. I’ll have to do it myself. And White Feather better not kick me out over this. I am not moving back in with Mom and Dad because of a little thing like a vampire.”
I stomped out back to find White Feather, wondering how in the world to explain it all.
Chapter 11
The sun was not yet up, but there were hints of morning light. The smell of frigid night air resting against Mother Earth was already drifting, letting bits of desert dance with the scent of smoke swirling out of White Feather’s fireplace. When the sun finally did flash its way across the morning, it would be lighting the stage of a beautiful backdrop.
White Feather and Tracy dumped bricks around the outside wall. Tracy appeared to know his way around the tools and supplies without any encouragement. I considered pulling White Feather aside, but there really was nothing to say that would change anything, not at the moment.
Maybe I should just tackle some of my own tasks and let this Tracy situation either work itself out or not. “I’m headed to my house to complete some spells in my lab. I’ll stop by Mat’s on the way home and check on her.”
“She might need a shoulder to cry on?” White Feather guessed.
“A shoulder?” I shook my head. “I thought I’d try to talk her out of cursing him for life since we’re practically relatives and all.”
“Practically?” His eyes narrowed. “You’re having difficulty accepting all the ramifications of this marriage thing, aren’t y
ou?”
Admittedly, issues did seem to be presenting themselves with terrifying speed, but I wasn’t going down without a fight, especially for the easy problems like his lying, conniving brother. “In Jim’s case, I figure it’s not too late to disown him. That way I won’t be caught in a cross-curse.”
“Mm-hmm.” He reeled me in for a kiss. “Do not let her kill him. He’s a pain in the ass, but I don’t want to have to console my mother over the loss.”
“I’ll do what I can, but he got himself into this mess.”
I left them to their work and headed out to do mine.
* * *
The lab was home sweet home. I was behind on at least three client spells because of the vamp invasion, but as excuses went, the clients were better off not knowing about any vamp visits. Two of the spells were for previous clients who needed renewals of protective charms. I hammered them out in less than an hour.
Lynx’s new client required a more intricate spell. It was rare to get an order from a client who not only believed in witchcraft, but knew enough about it to request such a complicated spell. “Matched set” spells were magical elements split in two that would allow either half to be “found” using the other half of the spell.
Because I had already moved most of my dried herbs to White Feather’s house, I selected juniper bark and berries from a single tree out back. The client had also provided two birthstones, a red garnet and an amethyst. I cleaved them in two and split the results across each packet.
Wisely, the client had also sent hair for each set, which I snipped in half before sealing the strands in silver to protect them.
If the client knew the best ingredients for a finding spell, why hadn’t she completed the magic herself? Or had Lynx had a heavy hand in advising the client what to send?
A witching fork would be necessary to locate the matching packet, but the client could always hire a witch for that part too. It was quite possible that I’d be the witch hired should finding the packet become necessary.
Under Witch Curse (Moon Shadow Series) Page 6