The Binding Witch and the Bounty Hunter Read online

  “But isn’t it supposed to last you a lot longer? What are you, like thirty-five, forty?” I guessed based on the worry lines that crowded his forehead.

  “I’m twenty-five!” Leo said indignantly.

  “Oh dear, that’s just so awkward,” Luna squawked. “It’s really never a good idea to guess someone’s age, Kate.”

  “Why don’t you just go over to the kitchen to see what there is to eat, Luna?” I crossed my arms and glared at her.

  “I thought you’d never ask!” She launched herself off my shoulder with surprising power for just one good foot and flapped over to the kitchen to peck at a cluster of purple grapes I bought a few days ago on my weekly shopping trip in Magnolia.

  “Nice familiar,” Leo said.

  “Thanks,” I said. His face was blank, so I couldn’t tell if he was teasing me or not. “So I hate to burst your bubble, but I don’t know the first thing about how to discharge that thing.”

  He sighed. “Well, that presents a problem. I likely won’t be able to find your mother without using the bracelet. It’s almost full, and if I don’t get a witch to discharge the charms, I may die. If I’m dead, I can’t help you.”

  7

  The full weight of his request sat with me for a few beats before I could speak. On the one hand, helping him would help me. On the other . . . “You want me to save you from death, after you kidnapped my mother.”

  “I did say I’m an asshole, right?” He shrugged. “The demon said he could get it discharged for me if I kidnapped your mom, but he reneged on his promise. So, I’m kind of stuck now and not feeling super loyal to him. Witches are scarce these days, and since you can’t do it, the only one I know of now is your mom. If I’m really careful, this bracelet could last until we find her. If she can discharge it at that point.”

  I pursed my lips in thought. Whereas I was pretty sure my mom would agree to do this in theory, I couldn’t be absolutely certain. Either way, it looked like I had just one choice.

  “Okay.” I put my hands on my hips. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but yes, I promise my mother will do something about your bracelet. Which, by the way, wow. As in, you are obviously a really big jerk to have used up almost all of that bracelet.”

  “I don’t deny it—and you won’t be sorry. I think I can get the info on the demon’s lair pretty easy.”

  Having him call where Mom was being held a “lair” made me a little squirmy. “Sure. What do you need to do?”

  “Well, I need to leave. I’ve got to go talk to a guy.”

  “So take me with you,” I said.

  He shook his head. “Can’t. He won’t give me the info in front of a stranger.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “How do I know you’re not going to just take off and I’ll never hear from you again?”

  He shrugged. “You don’t, I guess. You’re just going to have to trust me.” His smirk faded and his expression grew serious.

  “Just trust him, my Kate,” Luna cooed in my head, making me twitch. “He’s really not useful to us otherwise, and we don’t want to have him hanging around when your spell wears off.”

  I wondered if I was ever going to get used to her speaking to me telepathically.

  I looked back and forth between my familiar and the bounty hunter and weighed the options. There weren’t any others that came to mind, and I realized Luna was right. “Fine. Go.” I shooed him away.

  He struggled to his feet from the low-slung sofa, and the trailer rocked gently. “Smart move, kid. You won’t be sorry.”

  “When will you have information?” I had already begun to regret my decision when my phone buzzed again. A quick glance revealed another call from the Wright residence—the Bindan again. I sent the call to voicemail and shoved it back in my pocket with a twinge of guilt. I’d call them back. Surely it was as I had said—nothing serious. I hoped. Lily and Ella would text me if it got bad.

  Leo’s eyes tracked my movements. “Tomorrow morning at the latest. I can meet you back here by breakfast.”

  “Here if it’s still raining, but my fortune-telling tent if it’s dry.” I knew it was up to me to keep the business going if we were to have any chance of paying the bills this year. “It’s on the first loop, right by Pirate’s Pub.” It was Mom’s favorite place to set up, namely because, as she liked to say, a drunk dressed like a pirate and his money were easily parted.

  “Agreed.” He stepped lightly to the door, then turned back hesitantly. “And you might want to consider getting your own—”

  Someone began pounding on the door.

  “Kate Roark, open up!” a lightly accented voice yelled.

  “Oh, crap.” I smacked my head.

  “What? Trouble?” Leo crouched into a fighting stance and peered through the smoked glass. “Looks small. I can take her out for you.”

  “No, no! No need for that.” I placed a hand on his arm and opened the door to reveal a very wet and pissed-off sari vendor. “Get in here, Indira!”

  Her large, dark eyes darted from Leo to me, taking in the situation in the critical way only Indira can. Finally, she leapt into the trailer with wind and rain blowing in behind her and slammed the door. She flung off her hood, and water cascaded onto the already wet floor. I sighed. It was going to take days to dry out the trailer.

  “Who is this and why is he in your home?” It came out more of a demand than a question. “And where is Clea?”

  I took a deep breath and held my hands up, knowing that direct answers were best when my friend got angry. “This is Leo, he’s here to help us get Mom back. She was kidnapped.” I conveniently left out the part where Leo did the kidnapping. I could tell her that after he left. If she asked.

  “Who kidnapped her?”

  My shoulders sank. Of course she would ask. “Some bad-news demon,” I deflected.

  She clenched her fists. “Demons! Why?”

  Unreasonably Impatient Indira was emerging, and I needed to nip it in the bud. “Indira, look, I don’t know why. All I know is that Leo here needs to go because he’s going to try to find out where the demon is keeping her.”

  She flipped her hood up, flinging more water everywhere. “What are we waiting for, then? Let’s go!”

  Another deep breath. “We’re not going with him, Indira. He has to go alone or he won’t be able to get the information.” For some reason I couldn’t explain, I trusted Leo to come back.

  She eyed Leo up and down with a glare. “Hmph.” Her hands went to her hips, and she stepped aside to leave a path to the door for him. “Fine. Go quickly. The ditches are getting full, and if this rain doesn’t stop, pretty soon the water will cover the road and we’ll be trapped here for the night.”

  “But if the rain slows or stops, the ditches will drain pretty quickly, and it will be fine,” I said, trying to stay positive.

  “Tomorrow morning.” Leo met my eyes. “I promise.” With that, he left.

  I stared at the closed door and hoped I hadn’t just made a huge mistake.

  “Since your mom is not here, I will stay here tonight.” Indira dipped the toe of her shoe in the widening puddle on the floor. “What a mess.”

  “Indeed.”

  8

  Leo failed to show up the next morning, even though the roads were still passable. “Betrayed” and “hopeless” were two words I could see in my metaphorical rear-view mirror—I was on my way to utter despair.

  To make matters worse, it had rained through the night, and we received notice the festival was closed until further notice due to the expectation of area road closures by noon. Stranded vendors used the festival message board to communicate game parties in the shops that were still somewhat accessible with a good pair of rain boots. There was a role-playing board game in the pub, a live-action role-playing game in the House of Pain museum, chess in the leather shop, and, inexplicably, Monopoly in the costume-rental shop.

  I didn’t attend any of these like I normally would, because if my spell ha
d indeed failed and Leo was no longer an ally, I needed to come up with a Plan B. At least the hourly texts I got from Ella and Lily through the night indicated that nothing had changed with Jennifer’s condition. No change was good, right?

  Since I couldn’t send Luna away from me to look for Mom (were pigeons even good trackers?), I asked her to speak to Gringo for me.

  Of course, he was already planning to go out and hunt for Mom, but at least now I could use his telepathic link to Luna to stay informed of his progress. He grudgingly agreed to stay in contact and slipped away through the cat door. Indira didn’t notice as she banged around the kitchen, making pancakes. She took her job of watching over me very seriously.

  While I waited for news from Gringo, I stalled Indira over breakfast with the story about the pigeon that was still in my trailer, how she became my familiar, and exactly what happened when my mom disappeared. I knew that if I tried to get rid of her too quickly, she would become suspicious. Instead, I tried to stick to the facts but leave it to her to focus on the negative. Luna watched without comment from a basket on top of the fridge.

  “So you did magic.” Indira bit her lip. “Like Madame Miri.”

  I sighed. “No, not like Madam Miri!” The reference to my attacker from earlier in the year frustrated me. Yes, another hedge witch had used a magical talisman on me and I’d temporarily gained some weird abilities, but those were gone and this was different. “This is totally mine and real. Mom even said so when I called her at the tent about it. That’s how I heard the attack begin.”

  “I can see you are excited about this, Kate, but you see how it could also concern me. Playing with an unknown power, without the benefit of your mother’s guidance . . .”

  “That’s not fair. I’ve been waiting for this my entire life!” I folded my arms. “Besides, what choice do I have but to try to use my powers to find Mom now that Plan A went bust?”

  Indira went silent and considered my question. “Did your mother say anything to you before she was taken? Anything that might indicate what we are up against?”

  My shoulders straightened in defiance. “She told me not to look for her.”

  Indira pursed her lips. It seemed like she was weighing my worthiness to hear what she had to say next. Something about me must have passed, because she finally spoke. “Demons are dangerous, Kate.”

  I opened my mouth to respond with, “How do you know so much about demons anyway?” but then I realized I had a bigger question.

  For the most part, paranormal creatures went unnoticed by humanity, and Indira was definitely human. You had to either have had a significant encounter and lived to tell about it, or you had to be a trusted ally. Sometimes you became a trusted ally because of the significant encounter, but mostly you ended up dead. Indira knew about witches before she met us. She spoke of the mysterious Indian daayani that had powers like the European witches we descended from. And most interesting of all, Mom trusted her. This breakfast was revealing more than I had expected.

  Indira leveled a steady gaze at me and took a deep breath. “A demon killed my family, Kate. I’ve been looking for him since I was sixteen, to finally extract justice.”

  She spoke with such reserved fury, it raised goosebumps on my arms.

  “I—I didn’t know,” I said. That answered my question and then some about Indira. A vengeance-fueled trip across the ocean following the demon who killed her family was definitely grounds for her intense personality and preoccupation with violence.

  “You weren’t supposed to find out,” she said. “When I ran into your mom while I was tracking the demon, she said she would help me find him, as long as you didn’t know about it. She’s very protective of you, Kate, and she knew you’d want to jump in and help.”

  I rolled my eyes and shrugged. “Well, yeah, I would.”

  She laughed. “I’m protective of you too, so please listen to me when I say that your mother knows what she’s doing. Maybe we should just let her do it and stay out of her way. This is her business.”

  I blanched. “You don’t think the demon who has my mom is the one who killed your family, do you?” That would certainly put an Indira-sized kink in my plan.

  Indira paused, and I saw in her dark eyes that she was working over the question in her mind.

  “No,” she finally said. “He’s a one-trick pony, trading lives for wishes come true. I’ve never heard of my demon kidnapping anyone. And I would guess your mom has come into contact with her fair share of demons over the years. It’s more likely it’s one of those demons and not the one I’ve been tracking. Either way, if she said not to look for her, that’s what you should do.”

  “Maybe.” I sighed with relief that it wasn’t the same demon. “But I’m not very good at listening.”

  “Yes.” Indira sighed and folded her arms. “I know that about you.”

  “Then you also know that I’ll probably find a way to follow her,” I said.

  “Yes, yes.” She threw her hands up in exasperation. “I know this too.”

  “So wouldn’t it be better to come with me, prepared and with a plan, than to sneak after me and hope for the best?” I knew this would rankle her, since the last time Indira followed me, she was bested by Madame Miri and almost died. I wasn’t about to let that happen again—not if I could help it. Mom and Indira weren’t the only protective ones around here.

  “Fine, Kate,” she said after a long pause, during which her intense stare made me squirm. “But we are going to be very careful, and you will at least try to coordinate our attack. If you go off on your own, it is very difficult to watch each other’s backs. What is the plan, and what do you think we need?”

  I nodded as I executed my plan to get Indira clear of any danger. “I think we need all the weapons you have. The sharp ones.” I knew she had some crazy curved knife or sword things in her trailer—she’d let me watch her practice with them. “I think you go in first, and I can follow with some ranged spells—attack from the rear, with magic.”

  Until now, Luna had stayed silent. She finally spoke to me, her words slipping calmly into my mind. “Gringo is back, hiding under the trailer. He’s located your Mom’s trail, clearly accessible through the woods and not too far from here.”

  I bit my lip. I wondered about my ability to disarm humans without hurting them. Since I was able to somehow spell Leo into following my orders, maybe I could just do the same thing to the humans guarding my mother. Now I just had to get Indira someplace she couldn’t follow me. There was no way I was dragging her into this. It would be much easier to do this myself, with magic. Humans were way too squishy, even bad-ass martial artists.

  “I like Indira,” Luna said. “She cares for you a great deal.”

  I glanced up at Luna and nodded.

  Indira caught my gesture. “Is she talking to you right now?”

  I smiled. “Yes, she likes you.”

  Indira squirmed. “It is nice to, er, meet you, Luna.”

  Luna cooed.

  “She said it’s lovely to make your acquaintance, your eyes are very shiny and trustworthy,” I “translated” on Luna’s behalf. What I was really doing was trying to lull Indira into trusting me. Part of me felt kind of dirty about that, but the other part was just happy to keep her out of danger.

  Indira laughed. “I will take that as a compliment.”

  “You shouldn’t do this, Kate,” Luna cooed to me. “And I don’t appreciate you using me to trick Indira.”

  I could tell managing a familiar was going to be challenging, just like Mom said.

  “I’ve got some spell prep to do, and I’d like to enchant your weapons, if you’ll let me.” I wasn’t exactly lying, but I had never heard of such a thing. That didn’t mean it didn’t exist—surely there were lots of spells I hadn’t seen yet.

  Indira’s eyes narrowed. “What will that do?”

  “It’s like a blessing to make them stronger and give you an advantage over your opponent,” I said, rememberin
g the blessing Mom did on my tool box to ensure every turn from every tool was true. “You can bet dollars to donuts they’ll have enchanted weapons also if they’re working for a demon, so it’s only leveling the playing field.”

  She mulled over this information and nodded. “I’ll go get them.”

  “I’ll clean up breakfast and head down to the workshop to prepare,” I said. “I’ll modify the ward on the door so you can come in when you get back. Just place your hand on the door and when it admits you, come on in.” I let my enthusiasm for my plan show as excitement for Indira’s participation.

  “I still don’t like this one bit, Kate.” Luna launched herself off the fridge and flapped around the tiny space.

  Indira ducked on her way to the door to don her raincoat. “Is Luna okay?”

  “She’s just excited about getting Mom back,” I said, glaring at the bird. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

  Luna settled on my shoulder and smacked me with her wing.

  Indira laughed. “Okay, I will be back in about twenty minutes.” She let herself out and shut the door, wind and rain whipping in once again.

  I felt a twinge of guilt for what I was about to do, but not enough to stop me.

  9

  I modified the ward on the door, all right, but not in the way I’d said. Since Indira was the last to touch it, I asked my orb-magic to change the ward to admit her but not let her out again. That way, when she returned after I had left, she wouldn’t be able to leave until I—or Mom—came back to let her out.

  It was for her own good and to keep her safe—and to stop her from following me. Kind of risky in the event we died, but I didn’t spend long entertaining that thought. This time, I was armed with magic—and some other cool gear from the workshop. Death was not on the menu.

  I cleared out of the trailer in under fifteen minutes, just to be safe. A grumpy Luna was tucked inside my mother’s old jacket, which looked like a beat-up canvas car coat with a hood but had vast interior pockets and was enchanted to repel rain, cold, heat, and most magic. It would not, however, stop bullets.