An Unlikely Witch (17 page)

“I can pay.”  A clear point of pride.

One that Nat almost accepted, until she felt the need rising up in her own heart.  “You could.”  She looked at Trinity and took a deep breath.  “Or you can teach me how to throw a decent punch.”

Surprise hit the young woman’s face.  And then something that looked suspiciously like understanding.  “Yeah.  I can do that.”  Trinity grinned, and it didn’t look at all nice.  “Get yourself a pair of stinky shorts.  I’ll come back in an hour.”

Nat grinned back.  “I’ll be here.”

Ready to hit something.  So.  Ready.

-o0o-

Lauren steadied her mind.  She’d heard the news.  Heard the finality.

The healers had found nothing.

And every single cell in her body refused that message.  Nat was everything that was good and right and holy in the world.  She didn’t deserve this, and there was an army of people who would do anything in the realms of earth and magic to try to fix it.

But they needed information.  And right now, their best source just might be a self-important paperweight.

She sat down in front of the bay window and took the globe into her hands. 
Wake up.
 And because her negotiator instincts apparently extended to balls of glass, added one more word. 
Please.

The strange, not-quite-alien presence of the orb slid into her head.  Cautious, but lacking its usual delusions of grandeur.  Amused, almost.

I need to know more.  About the little boy and the snowman.

Amusement fled abruptly. 
Have said all that is known.  All that is important.

That damn well wasn’t good enough.
 I need more.
 

Is.  Not.  Permitted.  To tell.  Have said all that is possible.

Wow. 
That
was new information.  Lauren felt her instincts humming.  And tried to translate them into the weird reality of a glass ball. 
Have you said everything you know?  Perhaps you know something that doesn’t seem important.

Confusion. 
Yes.  And no.  Perhaps.

Dammit. 
She’s mine.  My best friend and my sister, and this is killing her.  I need everything you know, and I need it in a way I can’t possibly misinterpret.

She felt its protest rising.  Too hard, too complicated, too unknown. 
Humans have small brains.  Limited.

Like hell they did.  She leaned forward, smelling something worth going to the mat for.  It knew something, even if it didn’t know how to say it. 
Give me the best you can.  Please.

Confusion.  Frustration.  And the sense of a really big hammer hanging over its glass head.

Lauren knew that game.  Real estate agents dealt in the currency of veiled hints and threats and things behind the scenes.  She needed to help a giant marble bend the rules. 
Okay, so some things can’t be said.  The important stuff.  Find something that doesn’t seem important to the powers that be.  Give me that.

She felt it move.  The narrow, tightly channeled thinking.  The delicately reformed thoughts.  It was trying.

The surface of the crystal ball whirled, little storms of white building and then dispersing to the edges.  Framed clearly in the middle, the image of the little boy and the snowman.

Lauren held her breath.

And then watched, horrified, as both of them faded away.

As if they’d never existed.

-o0o-

Moira pulled her cloak tighter around her and walked the last steep bit up to the rocky point, face pointing straight into the sharp sea spray.  Lizzie had come flying in her door with the report—one very angry healer, throwing stones and power out into the winter sea.

Sophie’s head jerked around as Moira traversed the last stretch of gravel-strewn goat path.  “Dammit, you shouldn’t be up here.”

Well, they weren’t wrong about the anger.  “I’m not dead yet.  And until I am, I’m as surefooted on a bit of wet rock as anyone in this village.”  She hadn’t been a barefoot Irish hoyden for nothing.

“Sorry.”  The younger healer looked it—marginally.  “I needed to work off some steam, and I don’t think I’m ready to be reasonable yet.”

“No one’s asking you to be.”  Moira looked carefully out to sea, inhaling its icy strength.  “Although, if you’ve a mind to kick a boulder, you might wait until we get a little closer to home.”  Sean had broken his toes three months back on the very same rock currently tempting Sophie’s boot.

A whiff of amusement touched the other woman’s face.  “I’ve learned how to throw a good temper tantrum without earning myself several doses of your vilest green stuff.”

Moira smiled.  “I’d have made wee Sean’s goo tastier if he hadn’t broken his toes trying to defend his kingdom with my best kitchen pot.”  Not that it had done the pot any harm, but she had a reputation to upkeep.

Silence.  Amusement had gone, lost in the real reason Sophie stood here throwing defiance at the gray and turbulent ocean. 

“Come back inside with me, sweetheart.  Your channels are tired, I can feel it.”  She couldn’t tell any such thing in this wind, but it was a likely guess.

“Magic and I aren’t on speaking terms at the moment.”  Said in the clipped tones of a healer who was ready to toss her skills out into the deep waters.  With a concrete anchor attached.

An old Irish witch had been there once or twice.  “Mmm.  Is that why you’re up here throwing half my beach into the ocean?”

Irritation snapped in the air.  “I need a better reason?”

Moira sighed.  Sometimes no answer was the worst answer of all.  She shifted, seeking better footing in the wet pebbles underfoot.  “I’m sorry.  I’d hoped you would find something.”

A long, disturbing pause.  “I didn’t.  Nothing concrete.”

That was unexpected.  And ominous.  “What did you see?”

“I don’t know.”  Frustration—great, looming waves of it.  “Maybe it was nothing.  Hints of a shadow just beyond what I could reach.  Maybe it wasn’t there at all and I just want so very badly to help this patient that I’m making things up.”

Sophie was the strongest and most skilled healer Moira had ever known.  And the least prone to wishful imaginings, no matter how much she might want them.  Her scientific heart would never permit it.  “I don’t believe that for a moment.  You’ve good instincts.  What do they tell you?”

A handful of pebbles arched gracefully out to sea, soundless, their landing swallowed in the crashing winter waves.  Their thrower turned, eyes resolute and sad and weary.  “I think I’ve found the thing that matters.  And I have no idea what it is and I can’t see well enough to do anything about it.”

Now the temper made sense.  Moira laid a hand on the younger woman’s arm.  “Perhaps another look in a day or two when you’re fresh.”

Sophie tossed off the connection and the easy out.  “I was fresh enough.” 

A woman with excellent knowledge of her own skills.  A healer who had done everything she could.  An old Irish witch tried to make peace with the end of a road.  “We can only do what we’ve the skill and talent to do.”  Useless, throwaway words. 

A head tipped downward in defeat.  And then rose in something else.  “I could maybe do more.  With Ginia’s help.”

Creeping dread touched Moira’s heart.

“Nat’s ready to fight, just as I’ve run out of options.” said Sophie flatly.  “Except one.  Ginia scans energies better than anyone, including me.  And she’s the most creative healer we’ve got.”

“She’s just a child.”  And those, too, were useless, throwaway words. 

“Yes.”  Sophie’s voice hitched.  “And that’s why I’m out here throwing half your beach into the ocean.”

Moira bent down and picked up a handful of rocks.

And hurled them as far out into the foaming sea as an old lady’s fear and anger could take them.

Chapter 14

Somehow, she hadn’t expected this.

Nat stood in her studio, feet on the warm, familiar bamboo.  And that’s where comfort ended.  Everything else was strange.  Jamie’s gym shorts, held on by an ingenious assortment of hairpins and bungee cords.  The gauze wrapped around her knuckles.  The odd smell of three-day-old sweat already permeating the room.

She
liked
it.  And all they’d done so far was warm up.  Which had involved zero breathing exercises and a lot of bouncing.

Trinity held up an old, grungy padded square that she’d gotten from somewhere far dirtier than the studio had ever been.  It tugged on something in Nat’s belly.  Tickled the insane, barely banked urge to hit something.  The need to give the bubbling rage in her belly a name and somewhere to go.

“Better.”  Trinity nodded sharply.  “Get your head in the game.  None of that Zen yoga gig you do so well.  You try to punch someone with that look in your eyes and they’ll squish you like a week-old banana.”

That was a lovely image.  Nat set her feet and hoped the bungee cord was up to its task.  “Anything else I need to know?”  The need to hit the pad in Trinity’s hands wasn’t going to wait much longer.  Her body, seeking new knowledge.

“Yeah.  Fix your thumb.  Hold it like that and you’ll break something.”

Nat molded her fist to look like the one Trinity held out.  Minus the lines and calloused knuckles that said their hands had lived very different lives.

“Hey.”  Dark eyes held way too much understanding.  “If I can sit on my butt and contemplate some weird stream-of-light shit in my gut, you can learn how to hit some dude hard enough to break his nose.”  Her teacher smirked.  “Although that’s not where I suggest you aim.”

Nat didn’t direct violence at bugs, never mind human beings.  “It’s not a guy I’m mad at.”

“You can’t punch at ideas in your brain.”  Trinity cocked her head.  “Missy says you do all those visualization things.  Picturing pretty flowers running around between your ears and stuff.”

Nat tried not to laugh.  “Something like that.”

“This is kind of the same deal.  Except it’s not flowers—it’s some mean dude who wants to wrap his hands around your neck.”  She held up the pad.  “And it’s not inside your gut or between your ears.  He’s right here looking you in the eyes and calling you a wimp loud enough for everyone to hear.”  Trinity nearly growled.  “You gonna stand here and take that?”

Nat’s fist hit the pad before her brain even connected all the words.  And then the other hand, the reverberations backfiring all the way to the monster pacing in her gut.

She lowered her head, ready to pummel the pad until her arms fell off.

“Look up.”  Trinity snapped out the words.  “You hit that bastard hard and you look him dead in the eye while you do it.  So he knows that you matter.”

Nat punched again.  Wild and swinging this time.  Form didn’t matter.  Only intent.

Right.  Left. 

She.  Mattered.

-o0o-

Lauren looked up as the door to Berkeley Realty chimed and tried to dig out of her foul mood.  Not too many clients for the next week or two, but these guys were welcome.

Anything to take her mind off crystal balls and small, vanishing boys.

Devin came in first, balancing approximately a hundred orders of takeout noodles in his arms.  He didn’t know exactly why she hurt—but he knew she did, and that was enough. 

Josh followed, bearing beer and something that might be eggnog.  Jamie closed the door behind them all, holding something that was very definitely chocolate under his right arm.

“Hey, guys.”  Lauren paged Lizard in the back room.  Apparently they were having an impromptu dinner party.  She reached for Jamie’s box.  “You don’t want any of this, right?”

Dev somehow managed to kiss her with his arms still full of takeout.  “We’re all scared to eat it.  The woman at the bakery said it’s better than an orgasm.”

Lizard snorted from the hallway and then grinned at Josh.

Lauren slammed her mind barriers down.  No way she wanted to know what
that
was about. 

From the look on Jamie’s face, he hadn’t gotten his down quite fast enough.  She took pity on his red cheeks.  “Where’s Nat?”

“Busy.  We swung by the studio first, figuring everyone could use some noodles in advance of whatever Lizard has up her sleeve this evening.”  His mind felt a little disconcerted.  “Nat’s in there with Trinity.”

Huh.  “Nat’s been trying to sneak yoga in the door of the castle for a while.  Maybe she’s finally found a way.”

“They weren’t doing yoga.”  Now Jamie looked entirely strange—and a little proud.  “Nat was throwing punches.”

That… “What?”

“Trinity was holding up some kind of big pad thing.  And Nat was wearing a pair of my gym shorts and pummeling the hell out of it.”

Lauren wasn’t sure which part of that to gape about first.  In the almost fifteen years they’d known each other, her best friend had gotten violent exactly never. 

“You guys have led way overprotected lives,” said Lizard dryly, picking up on things both said and unsaid.  “Nat’s got a lot on her plate right now and sometimes hitting things makes you feel better.  I don’t think it’s all that complicated.”

For anyone else in the universe, maybe.  “Not Nat.  She had lots of reasons to want to hit things growing up, but she never did.  She’s all about surrender and breathing and waiting for a way to shift your stance or change the rules of the game.”  A different kind of power.