Page 43 of Which Witch Is Wicked?
"Must be the food," Claire gagged, standing to claw at the latch to the windows.
Aerin grabbed the broom. "I'm chasing that thingoutof here," she hissed, her words almost drowned out by another thunderous expulsion of smoke from beneath Cheeto's curly tail.
Ignoring Moira's defensive shouts, Aerin swept Cheeto toward the door and out into the gardens. Closing only the screen door, she flicked her fingers, circulating the air, watching the smoke inside the house dissipate in curling wisps of olfactory death as Cheeto let a fart so disastrous it lifted him off his feet and propelled him down the porch steps.
Beyond the lethal points of wrought iron enclosingMaison de Moray, a tall, wide black shadow lurked beneath a beech tree. Aerin couldn't make out the features from across the expanse of Tierra's splendid gardens, but she didn't need to. That cavernous loneliness reached through the sunlight filtering through dancing leaves. Beckoned her.
Julian.
Moira padded toward her. "I've got to make sure Cheeto don't dig up the yams and parsnips or Tierra will skin my hide."
"I'll do it," Aerin offered quickly.
Moira raised a skeptical eyebrow. "You just called my pig bacon."
Oh. Yeah. Shit. "I have to go get some damned branches and shit from those trees over there anyhow to make that cock-sucking broom. I might as well keep an eye on your pig."
Moira's other brow joined the first.
"If you're worried about it, take Doctor Lecter as collateral." Aerin threw some impatience into her voice, hoping between that and the enmity between Moira and the vampire bat, it would quell her sister's suspicion.
It worked. "Suit yourself." Moira turned away, wandering toward the fridge.
Aerin looked down at her storm cloud gray slacks and sighed. She’d said she was going to get a broom, so get one she must.
That meant an ax.
5
The flagstone path to the tool shed helped to make sure her Manolo Blahniks didn’t aerate the grass. The tool shed was surprisingly well stocked, and she found an ax hooked to the wall with two nails supporting the head.
Aerin was amazed how good it felt in her hands. Heavy and useful and dangerous. Now that she had to start thinking about zombiepocalypse weapons, this one was in first place.
Cheeto followed her cheerfully toward the fence, one of his gastric blasts propelling him to bump into her legs.
“Jesus H. Christ,” she muttered, glancing around to see if she could stash the animal where it would do the least damage. She thought for a moment about putting it in the shed and locking the door, but after a few more of those methane-infused emissions, and the damn thing would probably explode.
Using the tippy, tippy toe of her pointed pump, she nudged the tiny critter toward the garden. “Hey little guy,” she said in a bright voice people usually reserved for small animals and babies. “How about you go dig up some of those flowers? Doesn’t that look fun?” She’d promised the safety of Tierra’s tubers, but in her opinion, everything else in the garden was free game.
Intrigued, the little animal pranced across the grass toward the gardens, rhythmic little toots accompanying his happy gait.
That ought to keep him busy for a while.
When she turned back to the fence, Julian was nowhere to be seen, but she could feel him out there in the copse of trees that lined the property. He had an emotional signature like no one else she’d come across. It was an eternal stillness in a ruffling wind. A black smudge among a riot of color. Peace and patience amongst chaos. In a way, his lack of intensity made him very intense.
Closing the gate behind her, only pausing for a moment’s hesitation, she stepped beyond the house’s wards and plunged into the trees, the heavy ax secure in both hands.
Summer sunlight made the shadows dance beneath the tall trees, this particular swath of forest a collaboration of species. Oak, elm, pine, beech, and ash trees crowded around each other like gossiping neighbors, their boughs heavy with greenery and age. Aerin liked to think that the trees didn’t have to compete for moisture here in the Northwest, and so they might be friendlier to each other in these plentiful groves. Underbrush and shrubberies that were foreign to her played at the ancient roots of the trees like unruly children. Tierra would be able to name them. Aerin avoided them.
She found Julian standing in the middle of a small break in the foliage with his back to her, the sunlight filtering down to shine off the silver strands in his otherwise ebony hair. He wore a thick black coat and leather gloves on his hands which were clasped behind him, even though the temperature topped the eighties. Wilting, dying leaves dropped to the earth around him like a rainstorm, and Aerin felt as though she could sense the trees throwing them at him, making it clear in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t welcome among their summer bloom.
Famine. Desolation. Pestilence. It wasn’t only humans he killed with his poisonous touch.
Aerin formed a breeze with her will, blowing the dead leaves away from him in a wild puff, uncovering the lush moss and grasses.
A small circle of brown and gray spread amongst the grass beneath his glossy shoes.
He turned to her, his sharp, masculine chin rasping against the high wool collar of his coat. In a forest of light and shadow, of greens and browns and tones of the earth, his brilliant blue eyes seemed to glow. A web of lines appeared at their corners as he smiled, and Aerin had to catch her breath. Those lines kept him from looking truly young. They whispered of a life harshly lived, like he’d been weathered on a sea where the clouds never broke. Where the sun never kissed him like it did in this grove. Sometime in a past so distant, it was unimaginable.
