Under Witch Aura (Moon Shadow Series) (30 page)

What monster had Claire
called? Had she
beckoned Burrowing Monster or maybe Thunder?

Thunder was known in the
legends as one
of the guardians of Father Sun, but also a hindrance. Thunder was
used in sand paintings to heal those struck by lightning or harmed by
storms. Yet Thunder was also the precursor of destructive storms.

The elements were so
intertwined
separating them was impossible. Calling a single one without the
control of the others and thinking to harness it? Insanity.

In a real ceremony, after
each painting
was drawn, sand from each color would be sprinkled on the patient. In
my case, I was after protection, but I needed to protect myself,
White Feather and the very earth from accepting a monster through
a door that should not have been opened.

We needed a real shaman. My
great-grandfather, long gone, might have saved us. Perhaps my
affinity to Changing Woman, a part of Mother Earth, would help me.
She was the one who brought the Twin Slayers to save the world. But I
wasn't a spirit or a god who could shove something powerful back into
containment.

Sand paintings required
real elements as an enticement to
the holy ones;
water, feathers or the most exquisite turquoise. I fingered the turquoise from Martin and the loom from
Granny. Legend had it that Spider Woman had provided the Navajo with
the secret of weaving. Granny's special prayer bundle was old and
like Grandma Ruth, it was tuned to a magic foreign to my own.

Martin’s gift was old as
well. It
had lasting magic that had seeped into it from the earth and grown
over time. Both were good gifts.

I sprinkled the symbol of
the hand
basket for carrying wind. What color was White Feather's wind?

Green. But there wasn't a
green sand,
unless I counted the heliotrope. The traditional colors for wind were
black and yellow.

Still, the heliotrope had
been gifted
to me from Mat. Just as repetition in a sand painting made things
stronger, so did gifting, especially since the heliotrope was
precious to me because of its natural tie to White Feather and his
magic. I ground some very carefully.

From myself, I gave silver.

The finishing touch was a
protective
sundog; a red and blue rainbow surrounded by white on the inside. I
drew a line for each of the gifts. My plea was for protection of the
people who had given them.

The call to power was
usually black
zigzagged lines. I dug around the lab drawers and found charcoal
pencil to complete the call when the time was right. The pencil would
be much faster than sprinkling sand.

The painting had to be
completed before
sundown on the day it was made, but it was impossible to guess which
day I would need it. Instead of dispersing it, I collected it inside
the leather and declared the practice a prayer bundle. I whispered a
chant, a Word of Power.

Words of Power were the
primal shout of
warning from a mother to her child in danger. My chant had to be
powerful enough to call together whatever magic existed in the
pitiful sand painting I had created. When the time was right, I'd say
the word again.

It would then be up to
whatever good
spirit heard my plea to determine if the gifts were valuable enough
to compel an answer.

I tried to sleep, but the
cat had
returned to her noisy tasks. The minute my head touched the pillow,
howling pierced the walls. Just as suddenly, it quieted, leaving me
worrying that something had gotten the cat.

Game on.

Slumber drifted close, but
meows
drifted through my hovering dreams. The dream catcher did nothing to
stop her, either. It sounded as if she was playing hopscotch on the
porch. Maybe her food had spilled, and she was pouncing around
killing each piece.

I buried my head under a
pillow,
determined to sleep, but when the cat finally stopped howling my
dreams were of a ghost driving a car that chased me.

The cat may have given up,
but the
enemy had not. My first warning, my only warning, was a prickling
along my leg. It was a subtle threat, but a deadly one.

My eyes flew opened.
The
prick of insect legs along my calf curdled a scream in the back of my
throat. I
searched the darkness above my head, waiting for
more insects to fall and devour me. If this was the battle the
grimoires foretold, I was completely unprepared.

Get it off.

Luckily,
fear far surpassed logic and locked me in place. H
ooks
picked
at my skin like tiny needles.

It had to be a scorpion,
something with
a delivery system that would strike with little or no provocation.
Had Claire sent it? Or worse, the foul smelling wind?

The thing must be enhanced
by some
monstrous spell—not hard to do when the damn creatures were
already evil. My household protections wouldn’t keep out a
scorpion or even a cockroach for that matter. “Don’t let
it be a cockroach,” I pleaded. For just a moment, death by
scorpion sting seemed preferable to being killed by a cockroach. Then
again, cockroaches didn’t sting so unless a witch had spelled a
cockroach to eat my live flesh…I could not afford to shake. I
couldn’t even afford goose bumps. Anything could cause the
thing to strike. Or start chewing.

Sweat doused my body,
making it hard to
distinguish between hallucinations and reality. Until it moved again.

“Eee!” What would Mom say
if I died from a cockroach? The neighbors would never speak to her
again even if it were a super-enhanced, spelled, evil cockroach. My
aunt would say, “You ever met a good cockroach? No. Your
daughter must have dabbled in terrible magic.”

Without moving my legs, I
flicked the
comforter to the side, a quick inch.

Nothing. The beast rested
against my
leg, biding its time. Maybe it was infecting me wherever it touched.

I tugged harder, flinging
the comforter
off.

Could I remove the sheet
without
getting up?

Possibly. I could also get
bit, stung
or chewed.

Reaching slowly, I pressed
the switch
on the lamp next to the bed.

The light didn't cause a
lethal
reaction.

I picked up the alarm
clock. It wasn’t
heavy enough. The bed underneath was soft.

Slowly, I sat up, lifted
the sheet
and...
Oh my God.
It was a
centipede. I knew the legends: A spelled centipede crawled under your
skin and sucked your blood, replacing it with poison. The
counterspell was rumored to require burning it out with a flame.
Effective, yes, but there was no way to do it without burning skin
and other tissue along with it.

Maybe it was the cold
sweat. Maybe I
twitched my leg. Maybe the thing just decided to attack, but
suddenly there was the movement of a hundred legs along mine.

“Aeeeeiiii!” I yanked my
leg away and smashed down with the alarm clock. The electric cord
didn’t quite come free of the wall, and I missed the creature
completely.

I half slid, half fell off
the bed,
jerking the sheet free as I went.

The six-inch centipede,
blood-red in
the center with straw colored legs—hundreds of moving, slimy
legs--reared its ugly forefront in threat.

I screamed and smashed the
alarm clock
down. The grotesque body twisted and turned.

My skin jumped across my
arm. Only a
vampire could travel as fast as that cursed thing did. In the blink
of an eye it was at the end of the bed. I tore at the sheet again. No
way was it escaping to wiggle back later.

I swung the clock, knocking
the
centipede to the floor. “Aeeeeeiiii!!!!!” If a fireball
spell had been handy I would have set my bedroom on fire in order to
kill it.

Instead, I smashed the
clock against
the twisting nightmare until it was nothing but a smear.

The clock would never tick
again.

“Ick.”

I abandoned the clock and
crossed
myself. Centipedes were very bad luck. They were the carriers of
poison.

This enemy was dead, but
what if there
were more? If they carried malicious spells, and of course they did,
were the creatures too small to be repelled by my protections?

No, a spell was a spell.
Any spell
against me couldn’t be activated until after the insect was
lured or forced inside.

What had enticed the
creature to hunt
me?

I cringed and scooted away
from it.

It had gotten in. Somehow.
The logical
response was to make certain my spells were strong enough to blow any
insects, spiders, arthropods, fish…“Okay. Maybe not the
fish.”

I found my moccasins and
stomped on the
toe parts. Nothing crunched. A visual inspection showed they were
empty.

I put my toes in and
wiggled. “Okay.
Lots of lights.”

Turning everything electric
on, I
stared inside my closet. My cleanest pair of jeans, the ones I had
worn a couple of times, sat on top of the laundry pile. If I were a
centipede or a bug, wouldn't that laundry pile look attractive?

I grabbed a pair of dress
pants from a
hanger. Bugs couldn't get inside hanging clothes easily. Right?

I shook the pants and then
put them on
the floor and walked across both legs and the top.

Nothing crunched.

I still peered inside the
legs before
putting them on.

The lab was the most
protected area of
the house, but even there, I still didn’t feel safe. Bugs went
everywhere.

My safe contained at least
two
potions made from spider venom from Granny Ruth. Any spell against scorpions should also be
effective against centipedes.

Checking the references
Granny had
provided against the internet, I devised a simple spell: spider
venom and copper. Copper worked on scorpions like silver against
werewolves.

There was only one copper
scratch pad
in the house, but there were two copper tubes and some copper tape
for repairs in the lab. First, I'd protect weep holes, window sills
and any other visible cracks. In the morning, I'd buy more copper
and devise a copper barrier all the way around the house.

Cutting the copper was
easy. Spelling
it wasn't very difficult either because metals had an affinity for
magic. If only I had known this enemy when the house was built, I
would have added the spell to the chicken wire mesh inside the adobe.

By the time I was finished
mixing
poisons and copper, it was one in the morning. I had no intention of
going outside—at least not until the cat howled.

“Okay. That's it.” I
marched over to the phone.

Middle of the night or not,
something
was out there.

White Feather answered on
the first
ring.

After warning White
Feather, I armed
myself with a flashlight and prepared for battle, even if it meant
facing a ghost or windstorm head-on. I pocketed my latest defense
spells, my favorite silver dagger, the copper spells, and the
heliotrope. My hand hovered over the ochre that Martin had provided,
but there wasn't time to draw a sand painting to trap wind.

I settled on threading a
chunk of raw
turquoise and an arrowhead onto my silver necklace chain.

If whatever was out there
was an ill
wind, White Feather would be in more danger than me. That didn't mean
I wasn't scared, but it did mean I was going to check before he
arrived.

With all my weapons handy,
I couldn't
even unlock the front door without first setting down the dagger.

It was dark out. A light
breeze, cooler
than expected after the warmth inside, brushed my bare arms, gently
reminding me that winter was on its way. Wide sweeps with the
flashlight revealed that it was not the cat or a ghost that waited
for me, but little lumps of debris scattered across the porch.

The lumps weren't soil and
they weren't
leaves. They were dead insect bodies. “Five, six,” I
counted frantically, swinging the flashlight. A centipede, not dead,
dangled from the wooden porch railing. I hit the porch light with the
hilt of my dagger.

My heart nearly stopped.
“Moonlight
madness!” I had never seen so many bugs, especially poisonous
ones.
Given the
coolness of the
night, maybe it hadn't even taken a spell to convince them to head
inside. As for who had left them, there was no obvious calling card.

And why were they mangled
and dead? Was
this some kind of practical joke? Or had my defenses somehow injured
them?

Once again, I heard the cat
before I
saw it. She pounced onto the steps, bounced and flung an object into
the air before swatting it with her claws. She didn't outright eat
it, but it was bound to have a few holes in it.

“
That's
why you were
causing such a ruckus? Where did they come from?”

The cat didn't answer. She
chewed at
the bug, mangling it worse before dropping it in the dirt.

I aimed the flashlight past
the porch
light.

The cat had killed or
maimed everything
in range except for the centipede on the porch rail. With me this
close, she wasn't about to stalk it.

This situation did not call
for spells,
it called for industrial strength bug spray. A truck full. A moat
around my yard. A bazooka.

The cat licked her paw, an
act so
calming, it quite possibly saved me from hysteria.

“I hope you didn't get
bit.”
With her wild nature, she'd never willingly visit a vet. “How
did they get here?”

The cat didn't even blink.
I debated
calling White Feather to tell him not to come over, but I wasn't too
keen on killing the rest of these things on my own.

I ducked inside, switched
out my
moccasins for my hiking boots and located some bug spray.