Ghost Shadow (Moon Shadow Series Book 4) (21 page)

I twirled the bar across the fingers of my other hand. Memory twinged just outside my consciousness. I closed my eyes and danced with the staff, switching between hands and rotating it behind my back and across to the other hand. Lynx had carved the wood smooth, leaving no splinters. “Walnut.” I opened my eyes. “Right?”

He nodded. “Where’d you learn that?”

I frowned. “Batons. Thicker than this and not tapered.”

Lynx raised one of the other staffs and feinted a swipe at my neck. I parried. He lunged. I danced back, swiping low, smacking his stick. He had no trouble dodging my efforts.

He tossed me the extra. I caught it, spun it and attacked again. He was cat fast, but I was trained. He spun his body inside my swipe, hitting me in the chest, just enough to throw my balance off, but not enough to keep my other arm from automatically reaching across his throat in a choke hold. With an agility I couldn’t match, he snuck under my arm.

The spinning staff caught his shoulder, but neither of us was playing for keeps. He was outside my range before the movement really registered with me.

“Someone taught you to do more than bang into doors.” He wasn’t out of breath.

I was breathing hard, but I’d been lying in a coma not too long ago. My fingers never stopped rotating the mesquite. “I wonder where I learned this.”

“I wonder why you learned it. Adriel’s about the only girl I know who can fight, and she doesn’t have your balance. Shit. She hasn’t got
any
balance because she tries to fight, run and throw spells all at the same time. If it weren’t for her link to Mother Earth she’d be dead about ten times over. As soon as I came at you, you set your feet right. And that spinning thing.” He nodded. “I gotta learn that.”

I stopped twirling the staff and grasped it with both hands. The hellhound had left scars across three of my fingers, but the marks didn’t interfere with the automatic way I handled the weapon. “The question remains though. Can I push energy through it? And even if I can, it won’t help me much unless we figure out how to make it trigger when my body is unaware.” I started to slip sideways, but I had gone there a few too many times today. The light beams from the three staffs barely twinkled at me.

Lynx caught me as I swayed. “Enough, Shadow.”

We didn’t make it to the couch before I sat down again. It would have been a much harder landing had he not been there to ease me down. Swirls of color with a lot of black danced in front of my eyes. Somewhere in there I remembered. “Someone said to sit my ass down when I needed to!”

“Who?” Lynx tightened his fingers on my shoulder, still holding me even though we were sitting.

“I was trying to make it to a bench that was against the wall, but I fell and hit my head. It was after that she said to sit down when I needed to.”

Lynx relaxed his hand and draped his arm across my shoulder. I rested my head in the crook of his arm. I was completely exhausted again.

“You don’t remember who it was?”

Feeling as though sleep was but an instant away, I searched for the memory. On a soft sigh, I said, “My mom? No, my aunt. Maybe my Aunt Violet. But she’s dead now. I saw her cross over.” I frowned. “The memory is from a long time ago. I was small. We weren’t fighting for real. I wanted to be a ballerina, and so we practiced in a dance, but always with the baton. I was safe though, like I am now.” I lifted the staff Lynx had given me. “This is carved. The one I had then was rounded, smooth, white.”

“Are you sure you’re safe?”

I tilted my head back, smiling. The laugh died in my throat. Human eyes, eyes that caught my breath as surely as if I were hunted, held me instantly still. His arm tightened again, drawing my head closer to his.

I didn’t start breathing again until he kissed me. I reached up to hold him to me, and promptly smacked him in the ear with the staff still clutched in my hand.

“Ow!”

“Sorry!” My elbow saved me from landing flat on the carpet when he released me. “Accident!” I fingered the wood still in my hand. “I forgot I was holding it. I think I must have carried one a lot.”

He rubbed his ear. “Or something.”

I sat up fast, nearly clocking him again. “When I was In Between I never lost your braid even when I held it in my hand.” I switched the staff to my other hand and clenched my fist. “I never let it go. Holding this staff feels like that, like it belongs with me, and I’m used to carrying it.”

“Good. You need a weapon. Not right this
second,
”
he clarified. “Unless you hit me again. Then you’re gonna need it.”

I grinned. “What’s with the guitar? Do you play?”

He shook his head. “Nah. But after I found the address where Kyle’s wife lives, Roberto said to make sure the wife had the guitar that Kyle crossed with. He said it was easier if something on this side was on that side.”

“You stole the guitar from her?” I was confused.

He snorted. “No. After Kyle hit his head, he apparently decided to stay overnight in Albuquerque instead of driving home to Santa Fe. When he died at the hotel, the police and ambulance came, but somehow the hotel in Albuquerque ended up with the guitar, and they hocked it.”

My eyes widened. “Oh no!”

Lynx shrugged. “Finding things is a specialty of mine. People, magic, information. Wasn’t too hard to track this down. There was no money inside, but it does have a false bottom. He must have had a thing about hiding stuff in his cases.”

Alarmed, I asked, “Do you think someone already took the money?”

“Did he say it was in the case he was carrying?”

I shook my head. “No. I don’t think he would have carried the money to the concert that night. The way he worded it made it sound like it was in one of the cases at home with her.”

“I didn’t want to set anything up with his wife until you had some protection and we had the guitar. Roberto’s good, but he can’t hold that window open for very long on his own steam. He just about got himself yanked over there the first time when he gave the bloodstone to Martin. We’re more careful now.”

That reminded me of another problem. “Martin used the bloodstone to open the portal to send me back. He doesn’t have it anymore.”

Lynx nodded. “I know. In the canyon when we talked about what was needed to get you back, he told Roberto to hold onto the bloodstone and yank it the second you were through. We knew it might be difficult so Adriel had a hold of him to make sure everything pulled this way and not Martin’s way.”

“Can we throw more bloodstone to Martin?”

His ears swiveled forward. “Does he need it?”

I nodded. “It’s...” Trying to describe how important it was made me relive In Between. Old desperation clawed through me, and I started to sweat. “It’s like your braid. Like a lifeline. Even though we are dead and things from this side can’t save us, it helps.”

His eyebrow flicked the tiniest bit with surprise. “Can he come back here?”

I shook my head. “He wouldn’t anyway. He’s happy there. But the bloodstone is energy. It’s...” I waved my hand, the one not holding the staff.

Lynx sat back, determining the answer before I did. “It’s earth. For Martin that’s about as close to life as it gets. He’s an earth witch, like Adriel, but don’t tell her I said that. She’ll start yammering about how they are nothing alike.”

“She doesn’t like him?”

“He was a drunk when he was alive and liked to roam the desert naked.”

My eyes widened. “He still does that!”

Lynx gave his silent cat chuckle. “Figures.”

“So when can we visit Paula?”

“I can get more bloodstone from Adriel. She keeps the pure stuff. Roberto’s recovered, but he’s worried about Kyle’s wife. She’s pregnant and due soon.”

I had conveniently forgotten that part. “Oh. We don’t want to trigger any unexpected events.”

“And even without that, it’s dangerous. So you gotta make sure you have this protection stuff down before we take too many risks. We don’t know what’s on the other side.”

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. The problem was that I knew all too well about the hungry things waiting on the other side.

Chapter 29

I slept dead to the world again, but this time when morning rolled around, I had a plan. Lynx had an entire room that was nearly empty. It was perfect for practicing. I was out of shape. I’d already died once; no need for a premature repeat.

The add-on room had a concrete floor that was cold on my bare feet. Despite the chill, it felt natural to flow through the forms with no shoes. After the first practice, I put shoes on. It changed my balance, but practicing both ways was important because unlike Lynx, I didn’t often run around without shoes.

The third practice was all the forms with me sideways. That took the most out of me, and my concentration wavered all over the place. By the time I finished, I was shaking and starved.

Lynx reappeared from whatever haunts he visited in the morning.

We crammed ourselves full of leftovers, and then he joined me for the afternoon practice.

He was a quick study, mirroring the forms without a staff. He was faster than me, and it wasn’t because I was still regaining my strength. The cat was just amazingly agile. I’d never match his speed, not on my best day.

Once he had the basic pattern down, he flew through the forms, adding a wall climbing run that left me gasping. “I need to learn that!”

He shook his head. “Your center of gravity isn’t right for it. I adjust mine as I go. You’ll just land on your head.”

But he was wrong. I used the staff as leverage, climbed and somersaulted backwards. I landed off-balance and had to roll. My staff stayed with me though.

“Not the same thing!” He then mimicked my straight up the wall without the benefit of a staff. He held it for an extra second before flipping all the way over and landing on his feet.

I shook my head. “You’re amazing. Absolutely amazing.”

His eyes flashed a smile. “You’re not so bad yourself. Teach me that thing you do with the staff.”

“Which thing?”

“All of ’em.”

I laughed. “Okay.”

Lynx was faster than a human and smart too. I only had to show him a technique once. The hand twirls gave him the most trouble, but it wouldn’t be long before he’d outdo me there too. “It’s not just the speed,” I told him. “It’s positioning it, being ready to fling it, switch it, bat with it, stab with it.”

We sparred, using four different exercises, a light back and forth with the staffs. “These can be done with a knife too if you’re careful enough.” That thought stopped me cold. Pictures flashed through my mind; a dagger with a long wooden handle hitting the staff.

Lynx pulled the practice swing that he had aimed at my head, but left it a bit too late. The memories distracting me kept me from deflecting the smack.

“Ow.” I spun inside automatically, despite the sting.

He was good for the maneuver, grabbing for me as I spun. His arm snaked around my ribs, locking me in tight, but he had to drop his staff to hold me there. The move left him without a defense against my staff.

I slid my hand along the bar and then jabbed it backwards into his ribs. “Ha! You’re fast, but with the stab, my point!”

He kicked my legs out from under me in retaliation. His hold loosened enough that I tumbled towards the concrete.

I grabbed his arm and forced him down using my weight.

Well, maybe that would have worked had I been twenty pounds heavier, in good shape and not running on empty.

He followed me down easily enough, but rolled me under him.

“Okay, we’re even. Your point,” I panted.

“I didn’t use my claws. I’d have earned the first point too if I clawed you instead of grabbed you.”

“There is that.” I inhaled another deep breath, which wasn’t all that easy with him pressed across me. “I used to teach this stuff.”

“You remembered. That’s good. But in a real fight, can you not stop to think about it so much?”

“Absolutely. No distractions allowed.”

Despite my agreement, the worry in his eyes didn’t disappear. He reached up and brushed away a gray lock that had fallen across my eyes. He felt along the side of my head searching for a bump, his fingers tangling in my hair. “We’ll practice more.” After failing to find any sign of an injury, very carefully, he extracted his fingers. He placed his palms against the concrete and lifted himself off me using just his arms, like a push-up. “Did I hurt you?”

I smiled. “No. Besides, it was my own fault.” I reached over and traced his ribs in one gentle swipe, but I was certain I hadn’t hurt him. He sucked in a breath, startled.

“Hey, your ribs aren’t hurt! Pulling punches is part of training. We all learn that.”

His eyes locked on mine. “I’ve never pulled a punch in my entire life. And I’ve almost never fought without my claws.”

“Oh.” That meant he’d never been in anything other than a real fight. And he had never shared his techniques with anyone other than me.

“You didn’t hurt me,” I said. “I forgot we were training because you’re fast, and then the memories got in the way. Sorry.”

He blinked. “Sorry? You’re apologizing to me? I almost took your head off!”

I shrugged. “But it was my fault. Part of teaching is to know when the student is dangerous. Do you think maybe I made a living teaching?”

He rolled his eyes. “Will you quit worrying about money?”

“I don’t like...being...”

He spun into a sitting position. “I know. I can’t stand owing anyone anything either. But we’ll settle. And I don’t care about it, anyway.” He stood and hauled me to my feet. I could tell he still didn’t trust my assessment of not being hurt because he kept his hand under my elbow and the other ready to catch me.

I deliberately swayed towards his shoulder, forcing him to reach out and tuck me under his arm. Like any good warrior he was watching my eyes so he wasn’t fooled. I giggled. “See. Told you I am fine.”

“Shadow...” Conflict flashed across his eyes. He let go, dropping his arm without any warning.

Despite the surprise, my feet snapped to support me with only the slightest skip. I balanced on the balls of my feet, ready for whatever might come next.