Badlands Witch - Carrie Vaughn Page 0,2

part visualization exercise— where they could talk. She’d had a body, once. Here, she did again, resembling the single old sepia-toned photo he’d seen of her, with her serious demeanor, her hair in a prim bun, her clothing precise, long Edwardian skirt and high-necked blouse. He liked being able to see her, to talk to her.

He lay back in the grass, hands laced under his head, eyes closed. Sleep within sleep. He thought he heard chickadees in the pines up the hill.

She sat nearby, leaning against an outcrop of rounded granite. Her hand tapped nervously against her knee in what seemed to be an unconscious gesture. A disembodied spirit shouldn’t have nervous ticks. If she existed only as consciousness, could she be unconscious of anything? This was why Cormac avoided the philosophy of it all.

“What?” he asked brusquely.

“Would you like to apprise me of any other outstanding grudges we might encounter?”

“Not particularly,” he said. “I didn’t even remember that guy until he was hissing spit in my face.”

“You destroyed a gang of vampires. How can you forget something like that?”

She wasn’t going to like the answer, so he waited, but she remained expectantly silent. “Because I used to do a lot of that sort of thing,” he said finally, and she blew out a frustrated breath. “They usually don’t come back for revenge.”

“Usually. How are you meant to protect yourself from random vampires seeking vengeance?”

Do a better job of keeping stakes and holy water in his pockets. Live in a never-ending state of vigilance. “I figure one of these guys’ll get me, sooner or later.” These battles just delayed the inevitable.

“If you die, I die.”

“You already died.”

“You know what I mean.”

“We’ve talked about this.”

“Yes, I know. I just felt so. . .helpless.”

He hesitated. The chickadees had stopped calling. “I’m sorry you felt helpless.”

Her lips pursed in a tight smile, but her gaze remained troubled. “I died once, you’d think I’d be less frightened of it happening again. But I’m not.”

He straightened, sitting up with his arms around his knees. She rarely got this worked up. “I suppose I could get one of these guys to make me a vampire. . .”

“You’re joking.” She looked sharply at him. “You are joking?”

“Yeah.”

“Because I don’t think you becoming a vampire would stop anyone with a grudge from trying to kill you.”

“No, probably not.”

“Besides, I’m not sure I’d survive the transformation. I have no interest in attempting the experiment.”

“So you like being here?” He looked up, around. Quirked a smile.

“I suppose I do.”

“Could be worse, I guess.”

“Cormac, what did you ever do before you had me looking out for you?”

“Got myself sent to prison is what I did.”

“Ah, yes, see. That’s just the sort of thing I’d like to avoid.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Spiritually cleansing dog parks. Let’s keep to that.” She settled back against her boulder and closed her eyes.

Chuckling, he lay back in the grass and let a real sleep overtake him.

A few mornings later, their email delivered a more interesting proposal than magically protecting dog parks.

An archeologist at a dig in South Dakota had found an unusual artifact, a clay pot in a style and with markings that didn’t match any other pottery styles of the time and region. The archeologist, Professor Aubrey Walker, claimed to have some magical sensitivity, and believed that the artifact represented something otherworldly. Would Cormac please come and examine it, to see if he could tell if it was magical, or merely odd?

“‘Otherworldly.’ That could mean anything,” Cormac murmured.

I’m not sure we have the expertise to evaluate such an item.

“We can be up front about that. Walker has to be willing to pay travel expenses and a consulting fee, even if the answer is we don’t have a clue.”

We can’t guarantee an absence of magic. We can only state definitively if we do find something. It seems unsatisfying.

Amelia insisted on doing initial research to determine if they were even qualified to take on the job. Cormac did a web search on Walker and her credentials, and the trail of online breadcrumbs led to the home university of the archeology team and information about the dig, which was investigating hunting and camping sites of Plains Archaic cultures from about fifteen hundred years ago. So, there really was a dig, and their correspondent really was a scientist there. A scientist who wanted a magical consult.

Amelia was intrigued. An artifact such as intact pottery seems very incongruous with other information about the culture. You’d expect to find bones and fire pits, maybe