Beneath An Ivy Moon (Legacy Of Magick Series, Book 4) (4 page)

I started chugging. “Cypress,” I said, coming up for air. “I believe that those sorry and sad folks— such as yourself— who wake up early, all bright eyed and chipper should be rounded up and publically flogged in the town square. Say around noon?”

Cypress laughed at my snarky comment. I went back to my soda, guzzling until half the can was gone. I focused on Cypress and, to annoy her, I belched. It was deep and loud enough to make any Frat boy proud.

Burping finished, I patted my belly. “I may live,” I said.

“Ivy!” Cypress laughed at the burp, sipping delicately at her coffee.

“You do caffeine your way, I’ll do it mine.” I yawned again, grabbing my shower bag off the hook behind the door. I scooted my feet into my flip flops, and headed for the showers across the hall. I only felt slightly more enthusiastic when I returned.

“It’s the shambling dead!” Cypress joked.

I made a face. “Yeah, that never gets old,” I told her, unwrapping the towel from my hair.

Cypress hitched her book bag over her shoulder. “Your phone was ringing while you were out.”

“Okay,” I yawned and started to brush out my hair.

“See you later!” Cypress waved and bounced out of our room, slamming the door behind her.

I flinched at the loud noise, but the caffeine had started to do its job and I was slowly becoming more alert. After drying my hair, I went over to my bed and patted around for my phone. I had a voice mail from the editor of the campus newspaper. They wanted me to go over and photograph the construction of the museum expansion.

That’s convenient.
Now I had an excuse to go snoop around and see if I could figure out what was going on over there at the site. I made a mental note to go over to the site magickally loaded for bear.
I could wear the tourmaline to combat negativity...
I tossed a pop tart in the microwave to warm it up and considered what other things I could do to protect myself from the negativity that seemed to be coming from the area.

I hauled my makeup bag to the mirror over the sink and began to put on my face. Once I had my foundation finished and set with powder, I opened a huge palette of eye shadows and started to add highlight to my brow bones. I went for pale pink under my brows, with a rosy purple for the lid, plum for the crease, and finally a smoky gray to add depth. The colors would bring out the green of my eyes and in this one thing, I took my time.
I loved makeup
... okay it would be more accurate to say that I
obsessed
over eye shadows. I added some deep charcoal eye liner, smudged it into a thick cat eye and brushed on black mascara.

Satisfied with my face, I added my favorite silver pentagram pendant and slid a chunky bracelet of protective black tourmaline over my left wrist. I checked the contents of my camera bag. Making sure I had a fresh memory card, I went ahead an attached my long-range lens to the camera body. I tucked my wallet and keys in the camera bag— today it would have to double for my purse. I stopped at my desk and considered my collection of tumbled crystals and stones that were mounded in a blue ceramic dish.

I chose tiger’s eye, hematite, and a snowflake obsidian. All protective stones. I held them up into the beam of morning sunlight that poured in my dorm window. The stones seemed to glisten as they rested in the palm of my hand.

“By the power of protective stones times three; warded, shielded and safe I surely will be,” I chanted. I focused on the stones and felt them growing warm. Satisfied that they were now empowered, I dropped them in my camera bag.

I slid my cell phone into an outside pocket of the bag and decided to come back for my books for my afternoon classes. I layered a long, flowing, charcoal striped tank over a black camisole, tugged on black shorts, and laced up my chucks. I hitched my camera bag over my shoulder, remembering my student ID badge at the last second, and clipped it to my top.

I checked my reflection and grinned at what I saw. “Intrepid girl photojournalist— reporting for duty.” I added a gray rolled brim hat, angled it low over my eyes and decided I appeared appropriately gothic, and photojournalistic all at the same time.

I hated to admit it, but the late morning stroll across campus perked me up. The leaves of the dogwood trees were starting to show a hint of the red they’d become, and I stopped along the way to take some photos of the foliage. The trip probably took me twice as long as it should have, but I figured the photos would be great for my next photography class project.

I framed my next shot, stepped back and took several pictures. I changed the aperture on the camera and tried a few more. Keeping the camera up to my face, I moved to my left circling the old twisted dogwood tree, searching for the perfect angle, the perfect composition.

I bumped solidly into someone. “Watch out,” I said, but never lowered the camera.

“That’s very rude,” a male voice pointed out.

“Um hmm,” I agreed, and stuck my elbow out to help the person move out of my way.

“Hey!” the guy laughed and nudged me back.

I lowered the camera and peered up at him.
Wow, he’s gorgeous,
was my first thought
.
The second was:
I’d love to photograph him.
He was a good six inches taller than me, with light brown, jaw length hair that ruffled in the breeze. His brows were dark, almost horizontal, and made his steel-blue eyes stand out.

I gave him the once over, wondering whether or not I could get his picture without pissing him off. He wore faded jeans and old motorcycle boots. His khaki colored shirt stretched over a great chest, and those steely eyes narrowed at me in derision.
Yum.
My mouth watered. “Stand over by the tree. Lean against the trunk,” I said spontaneously.

“What?” he sputtered.

I grinned and tugged him towards the dogwood tree. “Relax, this won’t hurt a bit,” I said.

“Are you nuts?” he said, scowling at me.

“Nope. My family had me tested,” I said. When he only stared at me, I took that for permission. I lifted my camera, took a few steps back, and framed him in.

“You can’t just take my picture,” he began.

I snapped several as he continued to scowl, or maybe the correct term was glower at me.
Whoa baby. That’s one hot glower.
I thought. “Do you want to be responsible for hampering creative genus?” I said completely serious, as I continued to take his picture.

“Listen Goth-Girl,” he sneered, and now I felt a little tickle of attraction. He held up his hand to block me, and I lowered my camera. “I don’t know who you think you are—”

“I’m Ivy. Hi.” I smiled, reached out to that hand and shook it. “I’m a photographer on my way to cover an assignment for the University paper.”

He pulled his hand free. “Okay, Ivy—”

“And what’s your name?” I asked, cutting him off again.

“Certifiable...” he muttered, struggling against laughter. He shook his head, hitched his leather satchel over a shoulder, and walked away from me as quickly as he could.

“See you around, Certifiable!” I called cheerfully after him.

I watched him break into a jog and chuckled. “Oh man, he was hot!” I said, checking my camera to see how the unplanned pictures had turned out.
Too bad he doesn’t have a sense of humor to go with the looks.
I studied a particularly good picture of his glower.
Then again,
I thought.
Glowers really worked on some guys.

I shrugged and made my way over to the construction area. Even though I had the protective stones with me, I could feel the negativity emanating from the site the closer I got. My mood plummeted, and I reminded myself to raise up my shields. G
o forward in awareness,
as my mom used to say.

I had to wonder how many
other
psychically sensitive people on campus were picking up on this “energetic nastiness.” Being exposed to this type of negativity for any length of time wouldn’t be good for anyone, be they Witch or mundane. I had a hunch that though the energy had begun on the astral— the plane where magick lived— as it leaked over into the physical plane it would start to cause damage in the “mundane” world.

I blew out a breath, rolled my shoulders against my discomfort, and walked around the history building where the current museum was located. I cut through their little gardens, my stomach churning from the closer proximity to that negative energy. I was relieved to find myself all alone in the pretty gardens. I saw several opportunities for photos, so I stopped and knelt down for a few pictures of a cluster of late summer asters.

I was lowering my camera when an implosion on the astral plane detonated. While silent on the physical plane— the implosion was devastating on a magickal level. The force of the energy was like a punch to the gut. It hit me so hard that I lost my balance and landed hard on my rear end.

Instinctively I reached for my pentagram and held it up on its chain like a shield. My silver pentacle shone bright against the magickal energy that screamed violently around me. A bright golden shield emanated from the pendant into a cocoon of protective energy. It took effort, but I held my ground, pushing back against the negativity that howled past. I was shocked to see the delicate asters next to me being stripped of their purple petals.

As quickly as it had begun, it was over. “Whoa,” I gasped. “I’ve never seen a protective shield manifest visually before.” I stayed where I was, scanning the area around me. Allowing the camera to rest against my chest, I climbed carefully to my feet, still holding up the pentacle out in front of me— just in case.
The energy wasn’t here anymore.
I realized, with no small amount of relief.

“That was intense!” I muttered to myself. “Any magick user in the vicinity would have felt that.” I was reaching for my phone to check in with Bran and Autumn when I heard the first shout.

It was male, and it sounded terrified. I tucked the phone back in my bag, grabbed onto my camera and ran towards the voice.

I skidded to a halt at the edge of the construction site. A large section of the cyclone fence had been taken down, and they had started to dig out for the new building’s foundation. Several men were rushing towards one fellow who was down in a scooped out section. They were trying to haul him up out of the area, and others were talking excitedly. As I watched, the equipment was shut off and all of the workers congregated around the man.

I saw no one else in the area, so I walked right through the opening in the fence. The men were about fifty yards in front of me, and I worked my way over quickly. Even though I was nervous from the psychic implosion, I was very curious as to what all of the men’s excitement was about. My intuition told me that no one was hurt, but
something
had really frightened them. The closer I got, the more comments I could overhear.

“Holy shit! Do you see that?” the man they had pulled out of the hole said.

“Tim went down to get a better look...” Another man in a bright orange hard hat seemed to be patting the hauled up man on the back.

“Somebody should call the cops...” I heard from someone else.

I quietly skirted around the outside of the group.
You don’t even see me...
I pushed a little reluctance out in front of me. It combined nicely with the fascination over whatever it was they’d found, and no one even noticed me. I walked farther around the group, raised my camera lens, and focused on whatever was down in the hole. At first, all I saw was some stacked stones sticking out of the dirt, and a round stone, partially uncovered. I adjusted my lens and took several pictures of a man who knelt down and gingerly brushed soil away from the round stone with his gloved hand.

I jolted when I realized what I was seeing.
The round stone had eye sockets.
It wasn’t a stone at all. It was in fact, a human skull. Unexpectedly, a psychic scream seemed to reverberate through my head. Not sure if I was hearing my own horror, or sensing someone else’s, I blocked it out, knelt down to changed my camera angle, and kept taking pictures as fast as I could.

“Hey you! What do you think you are doing?” A male voice shouted.

I took a few more shots before I lowered my camera. “I’m taking pictures for the campus newspaper,” I said to an angry man wearing a buffalo plaid shirt.

He marched straight towards me. “This is a construction zone, you can’t be in here.” Buffalo plaid shirt guy scowled and grabbed ahold of my arm.

“Okay, okay, I’m going!” I said, as he yanked me to my feet. “Take it easy.”

“Out. Now,” he said, hauling me roughly towards the opening in the fence.

“Hey! Hands off!” I pushed a little magick at him and plaid shirt guy stumbled hard enough to release my arm. He went down to one knee. I stepped around him and headed out.

“I’m going to call the police, young lady!” he threatened.

“You should.” I turned back to him. “Be sure and ask for my sister-in-law, Officer Lexie Proctor-Bishop.” When he sputtered at me, I raised the camera and focused on him. “Say cheese,” I said, and snapped his picture.

CHAPTER THREE

I found the highest point on the outside of the fence to take more pictures. The police had arrived, and as if I’d conjured her up, the responding officer
was
Lexie. There were suits out at the site now. I wondered if they were detectives, or maybe folks from the University. I saw a couple of men show up and step into white zippered protective jumpsuits. They tugged shoe coverings on before climbing down into the hole with various tools, supplies, and cameras.

Now things were getting good.
I focused my long range lens and took several photos of them brushing away at the skull to reveal more of it. There were other bones too, it seemed. I swallowed past the lump in my throat and told myself a real photojournalist would not be squeamish about bones. The second man in white blocked my shot, and I lowered the camera. My mind raced as I wondered how old the remains were.

My intuition announced my cousin’s presence a moment before her hand dropped on my shoulder. “Ivy.” Autumn gave my shoulder a little squeeze.