A Nomadic Witch (A Modern Witch Series: Book 4) (17 page)

She would weep for the terrified little boy later.  “She’s not in the mists, Marcus.”  Not tonight.  The risks to either of them were minimal.

He shuddered again, and a bigger dose of sanity flowed back into his eyes. 
I’ll do it.

He was a witch fully grown and he loved the small girl in his arms.  She had to trust that it would be enough.  “Remember—it’s your job to stand.  It’s hers to come back.”  She stretched out as much love as she dared.  “You can’t do her part for her.”

She reached for earth power, rooted as deep as she could pull, and offered it to him.  He needed to feel her strength. 
We’ll be waiting. Call your girl home.

~ ~ ~

He could go get her now.

Marcus felt like a soldier under fire, numbed to the death screaming over his head at regular intervals.  The inside of his skull begged for mercy, channels ripped to shreds trying to hold Morgan close.

Idiot.

Astral Travel 101.  Travelers can’t be held.  They can only be called.

And usually that failed too.

Cool waters lapped at his head.  Healing waters. 
She’s not gone, Marcus.

He let himself touch the coolness Sophie offered, for just a moment.  He had to be ready. 

It’s time.

Marcus turned in the darkness of his mind.  East.  The direction Morgan had gone, just like every traveler before her.

And instead of purple eyes, he saw brown ones.

Anguished guilt blew through the cracking, scarred dike holding back memories of his twin brother.  Evan, counting shiny rock treasures and offering up the biggest pile.  Evan, bare feet racing up the sand, always a half step ahead.

Evan, headed east, laughing—and never coming home.

It’s not Evan gone now. 
Sophie’s mental voice shook him, hard. 
We were too late with him.  Morgan’s still tethered, and she needs you.

He felt her hands, pushing against the memories in his mind, trying to contain them. 

He could have told her it was futile.

Brown eyes.

No.

Purple
eyes.  They needed him.  With all that he had left, Marcus sent up a magical beacon—a light to call his girl home.  And tried, somewhere, to find a whisper of hope that she was close enough to see.

~ ~ ~

Lauren felt Marcus slide deeper into sleep and nodded at Sophie.  “He’s under.  Want me to put up a bubble?”

The healer pondered, and then shook her head.  “That will block him off from Morgan, and he needs to feel her.”

Lauren looked over at the happy, drooling baby lying on a blanket on the floor, Ginia and Lizzie filling dual shoes as playmates and monitors.  “She seems fine.”  The motley crew standing outside the house had held their breath as Marcus’s beacon finally flared—and deflated in a collective whoosh of relief, moments later, when a stream of magic had danced through their midst.

One traveler, back home—and nothing wrong with her that a bottle of warm milk hadn’t fixed.

Jamie came over, two suspiciously green glasses in his hand.  “I’ve sound barriered this corner of the room so we don’t wake him up.  Come drink your just rewards.”

Even Sophie looked askance at the glasses.  “Which of my students is responsible for those?”

Jamie’s grin was not reassuring.  Lauren decided she didn’t want to know.  “I don’t need green goo.  All I did was a little mindlinking.  Cookies will fix me right up.”  It was probably bad that she sounded panicky—healers smelled fear.

Mike walked over, Adam asleep in his arms.  “It goes down easier if you hold your nose.”

Right.  Lauren scowled at Jamie.  “I’m unvolunteering for any late-night duties that involve green goo.”  She wasn’t at her best at whatever the hell time this was.  Not enough coffee.

“I’m glad you were here.”  Sophie sat down on the nearest chair, glass of gunk obediently in her hands.  “Marcus is the only mind witch on this coast who talks through walls easily.”

The walls had been nothing compared to the effort needed to broadcast Sophie’s voice through Marcus’s hard head.  “It seemed like you had things pretty much under control.”

“She did.”  Jamie shook his head and looked at Mike.  “Your wife has balls of steel.”

Mike spluttered in quiet laughter, Adam jiggling in his arms.  “Yup.  She broke his laptop.  That took some serious courage.”

Jamie chuckled.  “Forgot about that.  I’ll put my repair crew on it—see if we can resurrect it from the dead before he wakes up and tries to choke someone with the remnants.”

Sophie just made faces and kept drinking. 

Lauren eyed Jamie.  Newbie-witch time again—there had been a lot of emotional baggage in the room, but Sophie had appeared to navigate it all with a deft touch.  She was lost.  “Why was she brave?”

He shrugged.  “There were a dozen people standing in the street, any of whom could have put up a beacon for Morgan—and she sent in the guy with the drowned-cat magic instead.”

Marcus had been in pretty rough shape, but a beacon wasn’t complicated magic.  Lauren frowned.  “I haven’t had coffee.  Not following.”

“She took a risk.”  Mike’s voice was full of pride.  “A big one, and it worked.”

That didn’t compute.  Witches, especially healers, didn’t take unnecessary risks.  She wasn’t
that
new. 

Jamie grinned. 
Says the woman who left a juvenile delinquent in charge of her office
.

Lauren rolled her eyes—Lizard wasn’t all that delinquent anymore.

Sophie smiled and set down an empty glass, looking several degrees perkier than when she’d started drinking.   She glanced over at the man sound asleep on a couch in the corner, a tiny sock still clutched in his hand.  “He needed to know he was there for her tonight.  It will help him face what might be coming.”

Lauren felt unease hit all three minds closest to her.  She’d had enough of a crash course in astral travel to understand why.  Level two, the traveler was still tethered and fairly easy to call home.  Level three required a full circle and someone willing to put their life into the circle’s hands while they chased the traveler—and even then, it often ended in tragedy. 

Level three scared the crap out of every witch she knew.

Mike settled carefully in a chair beside his wife.  “How deep did she go?”

Sophie’s eyes held a bleakness Lauren had never seen.  “Far enough.  She was so faint, Mike—I could barely feel her.  All the warning signs are there.”

She was high risk for full-blown travel—and all they could do was watch and wait.

Mike leaned in to comfort his wife, and Lauren reached for one of the cookies that had suddenly appeared in Jamie’s hands.  She had a question.  A very quiet one. 
How was Evan missed?
 Moira was the most conscientious witch she knew.

He was a fire witch.
  Jamie’s mental sigh carried the same collective guilt that stamped every conversation about Evan. 
Astral travelers always go through the safer levels first, as their magic develops.  At first, they get cold—except fire witches never get cold, so no one ever noticed.  Just a really bad combination of magics.

An awful and sad one—and it explained one of the missing pieces.  After cold came tethered travel. 
And that weighs on Marcus too—that he didn’t notice his brother leaving.

Jamie’s forehead pinched together in grief. 
Five-year-old boys sleep like the dead.  He couldn’t have known.

Lauren had learned something about the bonds between brothers who had shared the same womb. 
He doesn’t believe that.

No.
  Jamie watched Morgan playing, cookie uneaten in his hand. 
None of us would.

Chapter 13

Jamie watched The Monk steal into another dark alleyway, and turned so the small girl riding on his back could see.  “What do you think he’s up to, munchkin?”

“Ya-ma-da-da-ya.”  Kenna chattered away happily, far more interested in the buckle on the backpack.  So far, early attempts to teach her game strategy weren’t going very well, but at least it let Nat take a nap.  Nights were not exactly restful lately.

The Monk turned, silhouetted for a moment by the mage-light in his hand.

Huh.  Jamie moved closer, curious now.  Odd bumps under cloaks were generally grounds for concern in Realm.  He strained to catch a better angle—and then laughed as a small, naked foot popped out. 

Marcus’s game persona turned and glared.  “If you’re going to follow me, you could at least do it quietly.”

Not a totally unreasonable request.  Jamie released a silence spellcube around the four of them—no way was he trying to keep Kenna quiet enough for good skulking.  “What are we up to?  Is that librarian kid on the move again?”

“I have no idea.”  Marcus tucked the stray foot back under his cloak.  “My house has been invaded by people expecting me to crack at any moment—I needed somewhere to go.”

Realm had always been a haven for introverts.  Jamie’d never been one, but his brother Matt had sometimes suffered from the witch hordes.  “You’ve got a nice private castle keep—how come you’re in the alleyways?”

Marcus looked around like he’d never seen an alley before.  “I don’t know.  We were just taking a walk.  I need to think.”

Jamie winced and spelled away a basket of half-rotten grapes, Marcus’s foot inches from being slimed.  And sighed—he knew the classic signs of parental sleep deprivation.  The man needed a keeper.  “Want another head to help you think?”  He didn’t have to ask about the topic.

“I’ve spent forty-three years thinking.”  Marcus stopped and leaned back against a wall covered in dirt of questionable ancestry.  “Gotten exactly nowhere.”

Jamie pulled out a couple of apples and offered one up, crunching on the other.  Two sleep-deprived guys were not the best brain trust to throw at hard problems, but there was something that had been niggling him.  “Have you wondered why Evan sent Morgan to you in particular?”

Marcus blinked.

“Think about it.”  Jamie tugged on the thread he’d been worrying.  “If we assume he wasn’t just trying to torture you, then he must believe you can help keep her safe.”

“With what?”  Marcus looked ready to spew rocks.  “Light sabers and pretty blue flowers?”

“Dunno, dude.”  Although Jamie was pretty fond of the light sabers idea.  “That’s what you have to figure out.”

“My brother always did overestimate my thinking skills.”  Marcus’s voice was as dry as dust, and no more hopeful—but Jamie could hear his brain coming online.  “It was usually his utter disregard for the laws of physics that got us into trouble, and then he’d expect me to come up with some brilliant idea to get us out.”

It was an experience Jamie had lived through all too often—and the first time he’d ever heard Marcus volunteer anything about his long-gone brother.  “Devin was the holy terror in our trio.  Matt was the brains.”

Humor tickled the edges of Marcus’s mind.  “What job did that leave you?”

“Lookout.”  Jamie squeezed the feet of the chatty baby on his back.  “Don’t let anyone tell you that’s the easy job, girl of mine.  The lookout always gets in trouble first.  Gramma Retha’s got eyes in the back of her head.”  Although if Nell’s experience bore out, their mother was more often found aiding and abetting the troublemakers these days.

Apparently grandmothers played by different rules.

“The Fairy Godfathers missed that particular piece of advice.”  Marcus flicked invisible lint off his robe.  “The car-seat-on-top-of-the-dryer trick was quite useful, however.”

Jamie said nothing.  He’d mostly been the lookout for that particular project, too.

“You might thank Daniel and his sidekicks, should you see them.”  Marcus pushed off the wall and meandered in the direction of daylight.  “And tell him to fix whatever infernal hole he used to hack my computer.”

It had been a very small hole—Daniel had cursed a blue streak getting that particular job done.  Jamie grinned.  Maybe Marcus would read his damn email next time.

Kenna cooed as they reached the street, arms stretched up to the sun.  His child of heat and light, even the virtual kind.

They watched as Slink walked by, followed by a couple of motley tagalongs.  Fifteen years trying, and he was still the worst player in Realm. 

And then Jamie had another piece of the puzzle.  Sometimes they were easiest to see just as you stopped looking.  “What does Slink do wrong?”

Marcus snorted.  “What
doesn’t
he do wrong?”

Point, but not the one he was trying to make.  “He has no plan.  All he ever does is react to what happens in Realm.  He never experiments, never builds alliances, never launches an attack.”  He didn’t even pick his sidekicks—they just kind of stuck to him like old chewing gum.

Marcus stared.  “You think I need to go attack the mists?”

Kind of.  “I think you need to stop reacting.  Go on the offensive.  You’re one of Realm’s best strategists—you play to win.”

The Monk steered around a lamppost, amused.  “Hasn’t worked out so well.  I’m currently getting schooled by a ten-year-old.”