© 2014 Gem Sivad LLC. All rights reserved. Blood Stoned, A Jinx story
Chapter Two
Bull on Fire
I shook out the reins, my glance fixed on the view between Clarence’s ears as I drove away. I didn’t have to look over my shoulder to know the jaguar sat in the clearing by my cabin; I could feel his gaze on me. As always when I’m near Hunter, my skin tingles from the spicy earth magic swirling in the air.
I pondered my last words to him as I made my way toward Willow Springs and the coming healing that pulled me there.
It seemed best not to wait on him to ask for a night in my bed. Considering the man’s silent presence and stoic demeanor, I thought sending the invitation by way of the beast made more sense.
I wonder if he’ll show up at my door as a cat or a man. My emotions concerning the beastman were mixed. It’s been sometime since I’ve enjoyed the attentions of a man. The truth is, just looking at Hunter makes my breath quicken and insides clench.
Though I’d have liked to moon over thoughts of Hunter as I drove to town, I’m a witch whose one talent is healing and I had work to do today. My gift is more a curse that makes friendships difficult to hold onto and learning my craft darn near impossible.
When I’m called to lay-on-hands, I take hurt away, knit bones together, and cure maladies; but I’m not a doctor. Taking away pain is my gift—it’s magic. I have no say over those I’ll help or where I’ll go. If my hands pulse and I feel the pull, I follow where they lead whether I’m called or not.
My life has always leaned toward strange, but since I moved to Willow Springs, it’s definitely slid into bizarre.
On my way to town, I inexplicably had an urge to visit the Patrick family and turned at the lane that led to their farm. Once I arrived, Myrtle bustled from the house all smiles, making me feel welcome.
“I told Paddy you’d get one of your feelings,” she said, beaming at me.
“What is it?” I asked, immediately worried that something had befallen baby Patrick.
“It’s Sullivan,” she answered and gave me a beseeching look. I didn’t have to have the sight to know she wanted me to examine her husband Sean’s prize bull.
When we arrived at the corral, Sean was slumped despondently beside the beast.
“Not to worry now, Paddy. Maggie Jenks is here to see to our lovely bull.” Myrtle looked with obvious adoration at both figures in the corral.
Noting the similarity between the hulking brutes, I cringed at the idea of laying hands on either. In this case, this particular animal’s temper was as bad as his owner’s. Both males usually pawed the ground and threatened me when I visited.
This time however, instead of belligerent, the beast was listless. So were my hands; they tingled slightly, but I felt no compulsion or flood of healing power.
Sullivan, Sean’s black, two thousand pound Aberdeen-Angus bull, stood with his head lowered, wheezing in and out so slowly his nostrils barely moved the dust on the ground.
“Look at this.” Myrtle’s husband swiped his big palm across the animal’s back and then showed me the results. Blood coated his fingers. “What’s wrong with him? Is he hexed?” Sean’s snarled question was more an accusation.
Though I’d just arrived, and not even had time for Myrtle to offer tea, her husband was ready to burn me at the stake if his bull died.
With Sean, every illness and malady known to mankind could be laid at the door of witches. His opinion wasn’t tempered at all by the fact I’d recently healed him from sure death and saved his son from the clutches of an evil-touched shaman.
I wanted to snarl back. I didn’t, in respect for his wife. I liked her; the bull and Paddy, not so much. She hovered next to me with baby Patrick on her hip. And a fine boy he was. I swelled with pride every time I looked at the couple’s son.
After I’d delivered him, I’d shamelessly cultivated Myrtle’s friendship. Unfortunately, that meant tending her entire brood when my healing skills were needed. Evidently that included Sullivan.
“Maybe he ate something that poisoned him,” I offered half-heartedly. There was an unpleasant odor surrounding him and I considered the possibility that he’d somehow gotten hold of some rotten hay or soured mash.
“Well ye’ll need to do your witchery and leech the poison out, if that’s the case. I’ll take no pleasure in eating the meat, but if he’s done-for, we’ll be having beef for our meals the rest of the year.”
Sean’s gloomy scowl made it clear what he thought of that possibility. I knew he’d spent a goodly sum acquiring the animal to improve his breeding stock. And, too, I couldn’t leave Myrtle and the baby with poisoned meat.
So, against my better judgment, I stepped forward and laid hands on the beast.
Nothing happened.
“Are you fixing him?” Paddy demanded.
“Hush, Sean Patrick,” Myrtle whispered.
“Did he walk through a patch of prickly cactus?” It didn’t hurt to ask. I didn’t know what was wrong with him. “He’s got cuts all over him. Maybe he’s allergic to something.”
The last was a desperate attempt to play doctor when I clearly was no such thing. Sean’s look of disgust warned me not to offer idiot speculations again. The bull represented two years worth of scrimping and saving and was treated as royalty.
Up close, I could see the tiny cuts still seeping blood. His back and legs—I squatted to check under his belly and found the same type of wounds there, too. All of the bull’s body was covered with tiny cuts that had sliced the tough skin as if he’d walked through needles. Watery blood still seeped from the lesions but I felt certain I could fix that.
For Myrtle’s sake, I closed my eyes, reaching inside for true sight. If I couldn’t heal the bull, maybe I could at least see what was wrong. A cloudy aura of ill-health surrounded the beast but that told me nothing more than I could see with my eyes.
“You heard nothing last night?”
Sean’s head shake deepened the puzzle. He didn’t like me, but he tended his stock with the eye of true love and protected his wife and child from the world.
My gaze swung back to Sullivan. I couldn’t believe this monster that usually ruled the corral had stood quietly while a predator fed.
Though I had no desire to crouch on the ground next to the beast, I needed to touch the legs. Bending low, I laid hands on the right foreleg and stroked down, brushing across the seeping wounds.
“Alrighty then,” I murmured as I watched the cuts scab over. Inelegant though it was, I crawled around Sullivan, attending each leg. By the time I returned to the foreleg, the scabs had dried and flaked off, leaving pink scars.
“It can’t be anything he ate. His feed’s not been changed and he’s either been in the barn or the corral where there’s no weeds to eat.” Sean’s voice was gruff. He stared hard at me, letting me know without begging, how important the bull was.
Trying not to see the desperation in his silent plea, I continued my examination, stroking the muscled shoulder and following a vein up the thick neck to the bovine jaw.
Instead of the steady sound of a healthy heart, the bull’s pulse stuttered and beat in a sluggish rhythm. Not expecting much to happen in the way of healing, I settled both thumbs side by side on the vein, focusing whatever drib of power I might have on that spot.
I can’t describe what happened next, other than to say I became a conduit, pumping magic through my thumbs into the bull. I stared at the connection and watched the white haze buzzing around the beast gradually change to gray. When it finally dispersed altogether, the connection ended, and my hands dropped to my sides.
“That’s all I can do.” I closed my eyes, tottering on my feet as I shook my head to clear it. When I opened my eyes again, it was to see the recovered animal trotting across the barn lot.
Paddy grabbed up Myrtle and the boy and whirled them around, dancing an Irish jig. Watching them I paid no mind to the bull until I heard Sullivan snort. A quick glance his way confirmed he had his head down, pawing the ground in a challenge. Being both sapped of energy and bloated with magic, at first, I ignored the creature.
“Maggie, move,” Myrtle shrieked when the beast began a gallop across the lot.
I stumbled backward and fell, landing on my rear in the dust. I had no chance of reaching the fence before the bull reached me. Myrtle shouted at Paddy to do something and to his credit, he picked up a pitchfork.
Whether it was to be used on his bull or me, I didn’t wait to find out.
Drawing on the power I’d just harvested from the healing, I cast a protection spell to create a shield between me and the ungrateful beast. But instead of shaping itself into a wall, magic zinged from me and smacked the bull a forceful blow. Sullivan, named after an Irish boxer Paddy admired, fell to his front knees. A patch of hair on his right shoulder appeared singed while another spot burst into flame.
“Well isn’t that grand? The animal seems to be feeling frisky again.” Myrtle remained positive, ignoring my misfired spell, while Paddy beat out the blaze dancing on the bovine shoulder.
”’Tis true yer a jinx.” He pointed at the scorched patch of hair still smoldering. “You fix one thing and break two more. Ye’ve put a devil mark on my Aberdeen-Angus.”
Ignoring Paddy’s complaints, I climbed the fence and walked to where I’d left Clarence tied to my buggy. Before I drove from the farm lot, Myrtle handed me a basket.
“Thank you,” I said without looking at the contents. It wasn’t until halfway home that the aroma of fresh bread replaced the smell of singed hair. Depressed but hungry, I checked to see what Myrtle had sent and found a jar of honey as well as hot rolls. My humiliation was no less, but her gift gave me supper to look forward to.
Treating Paddy’s bull tired me more than it should have. I’d lost interest in proceeding on to Willow Springs and spent my trip home, wondering if I needed a tonic to perk me up and mulling over possible elixirs I might concoct.
I was pleasantly surprised on two fronts when I followed the path that branched from the main road to my cabin. It was wonderful after my early morning fiasco to see that my wards had successfully kept out visitors.
It was equally rewarding to discover I might not need a tonic after all. My heart thumped with a healthy beat and heated blood coursed through my veins as Hunter rode toward me. Two other members of his crew were with him and all were apparently waiting for me to come home.
*
Hunter had already laid the dead carcasses out on Maggie’s porch. He could have kept them until her return, but he needed to prove to Lynx and Wolf that her ward wouldn’t stop him from entering.
“If you can get through, I can too,” Wolf had growled. But when he’d tried to follow Hunter through Maggie’s magic, blue motes surrounded the wolfman, eliciting a surprised yelp.
Hunter had laughed to himself, pleased that two of the beastmen had witnessed evidence of his bond with the little witch. It was good. But the dead bodies he left for her to examine, they were bad; puzzling too.
Now, he rode close to her buggy, rewarded when she began to tell him about Sean Patrick’s bull. Caught up in the thrall of her voice, peace settled over him, calming the nagging worry burning his insides.
Once they arrived at her cabin, Hunter lifted her from the buggy, liking the way his hands felt circling her waist. He wanted to pull her close and breathe in her scent. But with Wolf and Lynx watching, he had to be satisfied with staying close to her as she inspected the bodies on her porch.
“They’re dead,” she said slowly, then looked at him as if for guidance.
“We want to know if they died by magic,” Lynx told her. “Hunter says you can tell by looking at the bodies.”
Lynx shouldn’t speak to Hunter’s rainha. Wolf ignored Hunter and used the common mind path to rebuke the other beastman. Ask Hunter your question and then he’ll ask his mate.
It was true Wolf knew more about the rules governing being mated than the rest of them but he’d been stingy with sharing. Apparently, that had changed.
As Hunter waited patiently, Maggie frowned down at the husks of three animals, a raven, rabbit, and fox, studying them again before she answered Lynx. “No magic.”
Then she looked at Hunter. “Will I get paid for this?”
“Yes.” His answer made her perk right up. “Can you tell if these animals died by magic?”
“No magic was used to kill them,” she said carefully.
That was bad. He’d hoped it was magic she’d be able to fix. The little witch focused on one thing, and it wasn’t the dead animals.
“When will I get paid?” she asked.
“When we figure out what did kill them, and the rest of us get paid.” Hunter could have pulled the wad of cash from his pocket and paid her on the spot; any money she received came from him.
“Oh, then I’m not finished?” She sounded hopeful. She needed the myth that she was part of their team. And then it occurred to him that maybe it wasn’t a myth. Maggie knew things they didn’t.
“Can you tell what happened to them? Is it a disease?” Hunter knew about plagues that swept over an animal population. If that was happening, they needed to find a way to stop it.
“Not a disease,” she answered. “If it was sickness, my hands would be kicking up a ruckus sending me willy-nilly to every sick cat, dog, and person around.”
“Any idea what killed them?” Hunter relaxed. He hadn’t been aware of the magnitude of his dread until Maggie said no plague.
“I don’t know,” she muttered, reaching out to touch the red fox pelt. “Why is it so flat? There’s nothing left but loose skin over bone.”
“None of the dead are cut, but they’ve all been drained.” He’d seen humans kill and collect the blood from animals; usually they cut the throats then hung them upside down on a pole to bleed out.
“Whatever happened to them, the skin isn’t ripped and the bones aren’t broken.” He picked up the dead carcasses ready take them back to camp.
“Wait.” Maggie motioned him to put them back down. “They stink like ammonia,” she complained and wrinkled her nose.
Even after being carted around from place to place, the unpleasant stench hung over the animals. The strong smell made Hunter sneeze whenever he got a good whiff of it.
She leaned closer, mumbling to herself as she focused her gaze on the fox. A hazy nebula of power surrounded her as she studied the corpses. “It’s not magic that killed them, but whatever drained all the blood from them attacked Sean Patrick’s bull last night, too. They have tiny cuts all over their bodies, like they rolled in cactus. The Patrick’s bull bore the same kind of marks.”
She began one of her long rambles repeating her story about the bull she’d tended this morning, openly puzzling over whether she’d healed him or not. Hunter listened to the music of her voice and barely restrained his purr.
“Get hold of yourself,” Lynx snarled at Hunter, giving him a disgusted look. Tilting his head to indicate the old lobo gazing from beast-wild eyes at Maggie, he said, “We need to get back to camp. And, as long as there’s no magic involved, there’s no need for her to come see the rest.”
Hunter sighed, and nodded his agreement, wishing he could curl up on her porch and spend the afternoon lying in a patch of sun while he listened to his rainha talk.
“The rest?” Maggie sounded surprised.
“We only brought these three,” he told her. “But there were many carcasses littering the ground up toward Raton Pass.”
“You need to take those with you and go somewhere.” She made a shooing motion with her hands. “I’ve got to get rid of the stench and get clean now.”
He’d been planning to come back later for supper and take her up on her offer to sleep in her cabin. But his beast sat up and chuffed at the idea of joining her in the swimming hole, now.
Hunter escorted Wolf and Lynx through the witch ward, then doubled back and shifted into his jaguar form.
Play time.
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