A Nomadic Witch (A Modern Witch Series: Book 4) Read online

  “No.” Marcus was not entirely an idiot. “They’re better. They have sound effects.”

  It was a good thing he’d already read through the product description—it would have been hard to finish with Lizzie’s face an inch from the screen. Her head spun around—evidently beginner reading skills weren’t up to the task. “Tell me what it says. All of it.”

  He read of the wonders of a toy that spoke in Luke Skywalker’s voice. That would have been Evan’s sword—Sir Evan of the Light, off to slay dragons, or at least to find a really big rock to climb.

  Lizzie scowled. “Who wants to be stupid Luke?”

  Marcus blinked, hazy blond knights evaporating in a puff of dust. “What?”

  Her face and mind were both painted with disgust. “How come it has to talk in Luke Skywalker’s voice?”

  The saber. Gods. “There’s a Darth Vader one too.”

  Disgust turned to naked longing. “Can I see that one?”

  Obediently, Marcus navigated to the Darth Vader version, complete with guy-wheezing-in-plastic-bag sound effects. Lizzie was enthralled.

  Marcus yanked down his mind barriers. It was bribery—nothing more. He clicked on the “buy” button as casually as possible. And choked back a chuckle as one beginner reader figured out what he’d done.

  She spun around on the arm of the chair, nose an inch from his. “Can I touch it first?”

  What?

  His confusion must have been obvious. “Your sword. If I get to touch it before anyone else, then it will always be a little bit mine.”

  Ah. “I’m thinking I’ll be buying two.” He was pretty sure eyes couldn’t get any bigger. And dammit, he wasn’t supposed to be enjoying this. “One for Morgan. With a name like that, she’ll be needing a sword.”

  Pure, heady hope hit Lizzie with the force of a lightning strike. “She’ll need someone to teach her.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.” He eyed the tiny girl asleep on his chest as if seeking her input.

  “I can do it.” Lizzie still spoke in whispers, a sign of prodigious self-control given the wild tumbling of her brain. “I can start right away. I’ll show her some of my best moves, and she can watch the lights flash, and everything.” Blue eyes implored. “I bet she’d like the Darth one best.”

  Strange things happening in his throat, Marcus added a second sword to his shopping cart.

  For all his best efforts, it didn’t feel like a bribe.

  ~ ~ ~

  Jamie strolled around the virtual streets of Realm’s main village, surveying the action. Sometimes, despite the game’s sword-and-sorcery time period, he felt like the town sheriff. Someone had been planting deviously silly spellcubes again, and it was his job to track down the miscreant.

  He was pretty sure she wasn’t here yet—Warrior Girl’s hot pink armor was hard to miss.

  Someone else had put in an appearance, though. Jamie stared at the gnarled old monk in surprise—Realm was the last place he’d expected to find Marcus anytime soon. New babies were hell on gaming time.

  He crossed the street, falling into step beside the monk. “Someone rocking Morgan?”

  Dark brown eyes scowled under a hood. “Lizzie’s watching her.”

  And something about that tinged Marcus’s mind with guilt—and Star Wars music. Jamie shook his head—sleep deprivation did really weird things to his mindreading skills. “Babysitters are wonderful things. The triplets and Sierra look after Kenna all the time.” He had no idea how parents survived without ten-year-old nieces and cheery teenagers.

  “It’s not a babysitter I need.” Marcus was practically growling. “It’s a nice family in Fisher’s Cove willing to take in an infant until we can track down who she belongs to.”

  That had been Jamie’s assignment. “No one’s looking for her.”

  The monk’s eyes sharpened. “Are you sure?”

  Checked and rechecked. “Yup. Nothing on the witch airwaves, and no reports of a missing baby.” He had good cop sources in North America and witches reading the ether elsewhere. “And Adele says she’s yours, free and clear.”

  One very unmonk-like snort. “And you believe a Las Vegas fraud?”

  Yeah. He did. “She’s different, Marcus—but I don’t think she’s lying. And it took some serious magic to get her into Realm.” The kind that was still keeping him awake at night—young girls he loved called Realm their sandbox. His eyes were bleeding from coding new wards on the site.

  And Daniel had still been logged in at 3 a.m.

  “How did we not know about a witch under our noses with that kind of power? And does she have to ruin all our reputations with bad infomercials?”

  Shit. Oh, crap. Jamie cursed imperfect message delivery and pulled Marcus down a quiet alley. “Adele’s not the one with the power.”

  Blazing anger streaked through Realm—for a nano-second. And then it was gone, the monk’s Fort Knox barriers and slightly uneven breathing the only sign at all that he’d heard Jamie’s words. “You think Evan’s the one with the magic.”

  Neck deep in quicksand, Jamie just nodded. And tried to imagine Devin dead and gone and sending messages—to someone else. Bloody hell. “Maybe he can’t talk to you.”

  Marcus’s mind thermometer dropped twenty degrees, and he turned to leave the alley. “I came here to take a break. This wasn’t how I planned to spend it.”

  Okay, witch in denial. Time to backpedal. Hard. “Want some tips on how to play the game in fifteen-minute segments? I’ve had a lot of practice in the last six months.”

  The monk snorted, slivers of warmth easing back into his mind. “How do you manage to get fifteen whole minutes?”

  Phew. Jamie considered erecting neon-orange “STAY OUT” tape around Marcus’s mind—but given that he was the most feeble mind witch on the continent, everyone else with talent had probably already figured that out. “The triplets can usually buy me that long. At least your kiddo doesn’t start fires every time she sneezes.”

  Marcus winced. “I hadn’t heard that.”

  “She grew out of it about a month ago.” Jamie sighed. With Kenna, that kind of change wasn’t usually a good thing. “Now she messes with gravitational fields instead. Be glad you got a baby without magic. Poop’s easy.”

  He had no idea why Marcus’s mind suddenly got uneasy. Poop really wasn’t all that hard.

  ~ ~ ~

  He’d gotten twenty minutes. Marcus looked down at the wailing child on the blanket and sighed. Twenty minutes was just long enough to get cocky and position your troops for all the world to see.

  Odds were good that Warrior Girl was going to spy his attack formation long before he got back to Realm. And if she outfitted them in bunny slippers again, he was going to bottle Morgan’s wail and broadcast it at Ginia’s keep with the loudest speaker spell he could muster.

  Not that the crying wasn’t loud enough all by itself. Marcus dismissed Lizzie with a wave of his hand. No point both of them going deaf. Enough, child. This contraption takes time to put on. Keep wailing like that and I’ll leave you out for lobster bait.

  The baby’s shrieking stopped in its tracks. Scared of lobsters, are you? Smart girl. Marcus started the acrobatics necessary to get Morgan settled into the pouch.

  Dammit. When had she become “Morgan”? “Girl-child” sounded far less… permanent.

  He couldn’t keep a baby, no matter what all the powers of heaven, earth, and parts in between had to say. He got a vote, the only one that mattered.

  A leg kicked up out of the pouch. Morgan wasn’t going about her usual business of snuggling in. What’s the matter—rethinking the lobsters? A second leg joined the first.

  It was the hind end protesting. Maybe she was wet. Gingerly, he poked a finger in the general direction of her bottom. No obvious puddles, and he wasn’t up to dealing with the non-emergency kind.

  Which left food and long walks on the beach. Didn’t you get a bottle a couple of hours ago? He headed to the kitchen. Someone
much more familiar with baby feeding habits always seemed to deliver a bottle when he needed one.

  Which was good, because he was never, ever having a conversation about baby milk.

  Or how it got in bottles on his counter.

  See, this is how they torture me. He shoveled the bottle in the general direction of Morgan’s mouth, and watched in amusement as all four limbs clutched it like manna from heaven. What, now you’re a baby monkey?

  The naked toes wiggled in contented bliss. Marcus was quite sure he’d never seen them before. Lost your socks, did you?

  All he got in reply were elephant-sized sucking sounds. No wonder the kid burped like a beer-guzzling biker.

  He watched as her eyelids started to droop. Milk was like a baby sleep drug. Giving in to odd temptation, he ran a finger down her cheek, wiping away the milk dribbles. And then, very carefully, not thinking about why, set a monitoring spell.

  Basic common sense. Nothing more.

  Chapter 8

  Some moon harvestings were quiet and reverent. This one was anything but. Sophie looked over at her companion and chuckled. “If the giggles get any louder, we’ll wake up half the village.”

  Moira smiled, waving a quick incantation before she picked another bit of lemon balm. “Fisher’s Cove is well used to strange happenings in the night. The girls are just excited.”

  Either that or they’d sniffed a little too much magically powered mint. Sophie grinned, watching Lizzie hop lightly over the gathering basket. “Don’t spill what we’ve gathered, wild child.”

  “We won’t.” Ginia grinned as she hopped over the basket too, albeit with a lot more clearance than her younger friend. “Is it time for us to start the special moon gathering yet?”

  Moira looked up at the sky. “Just a few more minutes now. We want to wait until her face is right where she can see us.”

  Lizzie tilted her head sideways. “I don’t see any eyes on the moon.”

  “They’re not the kind of eyes we can see, silly.” Ginia crouched down, kindness taking any sting out of the words. “They’re eyes that we feel in our hearts.”

  It was one of the better explanations of magic Sophie had ever heard.

  “My mom has those kind of eyes. She says they’re in the back of her head.” Lizzie stared up, suddenly suspicious. “She can see stuff I do even when I’m on the other side of the village. How come the moon can’t do that?”

  Moira chuckled. “Perhaps she can, child. All the more reason not to tip over the basket.”

  Ginia picked up a handful of stems. “Does the moon like flower wreaths? Maybe Lizzie and I can braid some.”

  “I haven’t danced with flowers in my hair for ages.” Moira dropped an approving kiss on two small heads—and then winked at Sophie. “And no turning it into physical therapy for old hands, either.”

  It had only been an idea. One Sophie rapidly tossed overboard. Tonight was for magic.

  Lizzie sat down, exuberance happily traded for a heap of flower stems. “So, I checked. Uncle Mike has lots of ear hairs. He must be a really good daddy.”

  Sophie rolled her eyes and was grateful both the moon and her husband had high tolerance for small-girl hijinks.

  Moira, chuckling, leaned over and picked several stems out of Lizzie’s lap. “Twist them together like so, darling girl. We want them to stay together while we dance.”

  Apparently teaching could go where physical therapy didn’t dare. Ginia, braid already forming under her skilled fingers, grinned at Sophie. When Moira had that twinkle in her eye, all was right in the healer world.

  Sophie breathed in the cool air of a late spring night—and gave thanks. To the flowers, and the hands, young and old, that had kept Moira’s brain alive.

  They still needed her heart. The witching world wasn’t ready to lose its matriarch, even with several candidates in training.

  Ginia, always sensitive to the unsaid, grabbed Lizzie’s hand. “Let’s go get some of the special cornflowers for Aunt Moira’s crown.” She glanced at the flowers’ owner. “Can we?”

  “Get some for all of us.” Moira reached out and touched two shiny cheeks. “They’re such a pretty blue—they’ll match your eyes.”

  The girls sped off, racing toward the patch of the best-tended flowers in the witch universe. It had been cornflowers under Moira’s hands when she’d fallen in her garden. And every witch with even a mote of earth talent had poured their love into that patch of blue ever since.

  “We should harvest some extra. A nice bouquet for my nephew’s windowsill.”

  Sophie hoped Marcus never found out how much healer meddling snuck in right under his nose. “We could add some of the pretty clematis that matches Morgan’s eyes.” And opened deep heart channels, given enough time. She’d set Lizzie to tending that patch too.

  “He’s warming to wee Morgan.” Moira’s hands continued to braid. “Slowly, but he’s stopped trying to find any woman in the village ready to take her.”

  Even Marcus couldn’t be totally blind to the united wall of womanhood he faced. “He’s learning how to take care of her. The bottles keep coming back empty.”

  “Mmm. Not sure if he’s learning, or just bribing Lizzie to do it instead.” Moira looked less than pleased by the most recent rumors.

  Sophie nodded, understanding, but she’d picked up a key piece of intelligence—one that evidently Moira’s sources had missed. She checked to make sure the girls were still down at the other end of the garden. “Know what he’s bribing her with?”

  Moira frowned.

  “A saber.” Sophie grinned. “Top of the line, with lights and Darth Vader sound effects.”

  It took a moment for realization to dawn—Darth Vader wasn’t a cultural icon for old Irish women. “Those things the twins wave around?” Moira’s smile bloomed. “Our Lizzie’s been wanting one of those since the moment they were unwrapped. Smart little devil, she is.”

  That was the very best part. “It wasn’t Lizzie’s idea.”

  Moira froze, a hydrangea stem in her fingers. “Marcus thought of that?”

  Sophie nodded—and waited.

  And watched as the shock on Moira’s face shifted into something deeper and more vulnerable. “He’s opening. The babe—she heals him.”

  Sophie hoped fervently it would be that simple. It wasn’t only Marcus carrying heavy scars. “He has a long journey.”

  “Aye, I know.” Moira’s face, turned up to the moon, held joy. “But tonight, we can celebrate what has begun.”

  It was what healers did.

  ~ ~ ~

  Cold. Everything was so very, very cold. Marcus clutched his scabby knees, willing the mists to go away. They’d taken Evan—and they kept coming back for him.

  He cowered under his bed, watching mist-laden fingers crawling toward his toes. If you screamed, they just came faster.

  And somewhere in the distance—laughter. The mists knew he was weak.

  Maybe it was time to let them eat him. Just like they’d eaten Evan.

  And then the cold touched his toes and the pain hurtled Marcus out of his ball of fear.

  You can’t have me!

  Desperate now, he pulled magic into his puny hands. Water power just made the mists grow, so it was air he pulled. He’d been practicing, every hour of every day. Maybe tonight, it would finally be enough.

  For one moment of terrible hope, the mists hesitated.

  And then he knew, just like he always did. He wasn’t strong enough. Marcus lunged out of his bed, howling at the mists and the cold and the awful noise ringing in his ears.

  And realized it wasn’t his bed, he wasn’t five—and the child in his arms was ice cold.

  Morgan! He pushed for her mind, as hard as he dared. MORGAN!

  Her whimper cut through the shrilling alarm, the cold, and the icy fear in his heart. She wasn’t gone. The mists hadn’t taken her. He could feel her now, drowsy, unhappy, and oh, so cold.

  With a clenched fist, he waved off th
e monitoring spell’s red alert. It had done its job.

  Lurching to the door, he sucked in great, gulping swallows of night air. No mists in sight—just a day-bright moon. Clutching Morgan to his chest, he ran under its cool light. He needed a healer. Now.

  ~ ~ ~

  Moira added one last cornflower to Lizzie’s wreath. Perfect. Just right for a little girl’s first moon dance. “Try it on, sweetheart.” She lifted it up—and realized she was about to crown thin air.

  Lizzie was flying toward the garden gate, calling power as she ran. Sophie was three steps ahead of her.

  The madman charging in nearly trampled them both.

  Marcus.

  Blessed Mother.

  “I need a healer.” It was his voice, ravaged beyond all recognition, that got her knees moving again.

  But it was Sophie who caught him first. “We’re here, Marcus. We’re all here. Let me touch her.” Gentle hands reached for the baby he clutched to his chest.

  Moira stepped forward. Morgan wasn’t their only patient. Marcus was as close to catatonic shock as she’d ever seen in a man still standing. “Bring him inside. Now. We can tend to the child there.” She tucked a hand under his arm—and discovered what it was to try to move a mountain.

  It was Lizzie that got his feet moving. “Just one step at a time, Uncle Marcus. It’s nice and warm inside. Morgan needs us to warm her up a little. Take a step for me, now.”

  A few lurching paces more and they had Marcus on her ample couch, Lizzie still clutching his hand. Ginia squeezed Moira’s hand and dashed for the door, in search of warm milk. Bless Elorie’s ample supply.

  Sophie was bent over the baby, working around the two arms of steel that refused to let Morgan go. Already her skin was pinking up nicely. “Just cold, aren’t you, sweet girl. We’ll get you fixed up in no time.”

  It was Marcus who had Moira scared. His skin was the terrible gray of a man two days dead.

  Sophie laid a hand on Morgan’s head one last time, and then moved on to her next patient. Carefully, she set up a healing aura—and Moira smiled in impressed approval as she looped in both the baby and young Lizzie. Healers learned to find power in unexpected places.