Fair Game (Alpha & Omega #3)(43)
Author: Patricia Briggs

Standing on the top of the ladder, Hally took a small rug out of her pack and laid it out flat. While she was snapping it into place, Charles caught a glimpse of circles and symbols and realized that she’d woven into the rug the protections that a witch would normally have used chalk for. It was a clever thing, something that would save her time and trouble – and also work admirably well on a boat in the rain.

Kneeling on the rug, she took out four or five small pottery jars and set them up as if their placement was important. She did the same with eight silver candlesticks holding dark-colored candles – probably black candles, but some witches worked with red. She adjusted and moved things around for a while. At last she set a tall candle in the center of her work.

"Light," the witch said, in an ordinary voice a half beat before the candles lit themselves despite the salt-sea air. The flames on the wicks burned steady and true though the wind whipped the strands of hair that had worked their way out of his braid. Magic. Her voice hadn’t been the trigger, just a distraction or embellishment. The smoke told his nose what Charles already surmised – there was human blood worked into the candles she burned.

The way witches cast spells differed from one witch to the next depending upon a lot of things: their family background, who their teachers had been – and a little of their own personalities. This one was a wiggler and moaner, but she did it with all the grace of a talented belly dancer, and her moans were both musical and mesmerizing. Charles felt her magic rain down upon their little boat and found himself agreeing with Isaac’s assessment: she was a power.

It made him wish that he’d called the white witch Moira after all. Hally didn’t scare him, but his paranoia didn’t like being in the middle of the ocean on a boat with his mate with a world-class witch who would – as Anna had helpfully pointed out earlier – as soon kill them as not. He intensely disliked being in someone else’s power.

If we jumped up there, she’d scream and fall in the water, Brother Wolf assured him, because he didn’t like being in her power, either. Or we could just kill her and save her the trouble of drowning.

Hally put the contents of the Baggie in a small ivory-colored pot shaped like a toad with big black cartoon eyes, its back open as if it had been made to hold a candle or a small plant. It fit into the palm of her hand. She pulled a vial out of her bag, pulled a cork stopper out with her teeth, and poured the liquid into the pot. By the smell, Charles knew it was brandy, and not the good stuff. Annie Green Springs, Everclear, or rubbing alcohol would have probably done just as well.

Storing the empty vial back in her pack, she held the pot over the flame of the middle candle with both hands and continued her melodic chanting. After a few moments, she slid her hands away and the pot hung over the candle without moving. She sat back on her heels and lifted her face so that the moon caressed her English-pale skin and slid down her hands, which were shaking feverishly about three inches from the pot. Theatrics designed to hide which were the important bits, in case another witch was watching.

Charles started to turn away from the show, but the corner of his eye caught something and he froze. A shadow thicker than steam slid out of the mouth of the frog. It sank to the rug and grew even thicker and darker, filling the space between the witch and the candles. He glanced around at the others, but no one looked worried or excited so he supposed he – and Beauclaire, who was slowly rising to his feet – were the only ones who saw the shadow.

In the middle of her music, at the height of her dance, the witch stilled and said, "Darkness."

The candles and every one of the boat’s lights went out.

Malcolm swore, dove for his console, and frantically played with the switches. He put a foot on the first rung of the ladder, presumably to go up and confront the witch for meddling with his boat.

Malcolm was under Charles’s protection, so Charles shoved past Isaac (still watching the witch instead of Malcolm), trusting that the Alpha wolf would have enough presence of mind not to fall overboard. He caught Malcolm by the shoulder when he was two rungs up, pulling him back to the deck. Interrupting a witch was not a good idea for anyone who wanted to survive long. Malcolm wrenched himself free of the unfamiliar hold and snarled. The noise cut off as soon as he saw who it was who’d manhandled him.

A dim light began to glow on the top of the fishing platform, distracting both of them.

"What in…"

In Hell, thought Charles, as the light resolved itself into the three-dimensional shape of an eight-year-old boy.

The smell of the black magic made Charles’s earlier seasickness rise with a vengeance, and he moved as far from the center of the boat as he could get. Anna’s cold hand closed on his. She was shaking. Not with fear. Not his Anna. No, she was shaking with rage.

"Tell me this was necessary," she said.

"No," Charles answered. He knew Anna didn’t mean the witch; she meant the method the witch had chosen. Directional spells were easy. He didn’t do them himself, but he had watched them cast. Calling a ghost as a compass was a major spell, a show-off spell, and entirely unnecessary.

"Tell me she doesn’t get to keep him."

"She won’t get to keep him," Charles told her. He was no witch, but his grandfather had taught him a thing or two. He might not be able to get rid of his own ghosts because he had to somehow fix himself first, but Jacob Mott, held by black magic, would be no trouble.

"All right," Anna said, her voice tight, trusting him to keep his word.

"Jacob, I invoke thee," the witch said, her voice like honey rising over the wind and slap of wave. "Jacob, I conjure thee. Jacob, I name thee. Do thou my will."

The boy’s figure, glowing with silvery moonlight, stood with his back to her, his head bowed, reluctance in every line of his body. But Charles could see his face – and there was no expression at all upon it, and his eyes glowed red as fire.

"Where did they kill you, Jacob Mott? Where did they sacrifice your mortal being?"

The boy lifted his head, looked south and east, and pointed.

"I can’t run without lights," Malcolm said. "It’s illegal, for one thing. And I don’t want to get caught with candles made with human blood. I don’t mind fines, but jail isn’t going to happen."

"My magic needs darkness," said the witch in a midnight voice.

Beauclaire got out of his seat and touched the rail of the boat. The lights came back on and the witch turned to glare at him.

"Your magic is darkness," said the fae repressively. "The rest is cheap theatrics."

The witch ignored him and put her hands on the shoulders of the boy, caressing him in a not-motherly fashion.