Single Witch's Survival Guide (The Jane Madison Academy Series) Read online

  Clearly annoyed, the woman clicked her tongue and touched something on the phone’s screen. Lowering the camera, she shook her head and struck an indignant pose, jutting hip and all.

  I blinked hard, half expecting her to disappear like the figment she seemed to be. She didn’t, though, so I turned my attention to her companion. The second woman was dressed almost like a normal person—khaki shorts, a matching shirt. She looked a bit like she was going on safari, and I wondered if she had a pith helmet slung across her back.

  In the meantime, Camera Girl was looking David up and down, her eyes flashing appreciatively. Without making a conscious decision to act, I settled a proprietary hand on David’s biceps. Camera Girl smiled knowingly as she raised her gaze to mine and asked, “Jane Madison?”

  “Um, yes,” I replied, even as David stiffened. He didn’t like strangers talking to me. Especially strangers who knew my name when I—when we—didn’t have the first idea who they were.

  “And this is the Jane Madison Academy?”

  My throat went dry. “Yes,” I said, without any conviction at all.

  She extended her hand. “I’m Raven Willowsong. And this is my sister, Emma.”

  “Emma Newton,” the blond woman said, apparently discovering her voice. Her very formal, very British voice, completely out of keeping with her sister’s flat midwestern tones.

  David still blocked the doorway. He obviously didn’t trust these women.

  And Emma, at least, was sensitive enough to recognize that. “Oh bother,” she said. “This is a bit of a sticky wicket, isn’t it? We should have been here hours ago, but we missed a turning in D.C. and the roadworks were awful getting out of town. A crash on the motorway held us up for ages.”

  I followed her vague gesture toward the driveway. A burgundy minivan was clearly visible in the light of the full moon. Its engine ticked as it cooled down.

  I waited for David to say something, but he was taking his time, studying our visitors. His gaze was less obvious than Raven’s camera had been, but I was certain he was recording every detail: The necklace—a pentacle, I could see now—that nestled perilously close to Raven’s cleavage. The earrings that pierced her lobes—matching figurines of cats. The collection of silver rings that decorated each of her fingers and one thumb, moonstones competing with images of the sun, the green man, stars, and the moon. By contrast, Emma wore only a watch. A gold one, with a Burberry band.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “No one told us you were arriving.”

  “But Clara said—” Raven at least had the good sense to cut off her words at my sharp intake of breath.

  Of course.

  I should have put two and two together faster. My mother was responsible for this. “What exactly did Clara say?” I asked warily.

  Raven recited, “We’re perfect for the Madison Academy. She said our auras make us an exact match for the classes you’re going to teach.”

  “And you believed her?” My voice ratcheted up an octave. I couldn’t help myself. Even if these women were witches, even if they had some actually affinity for magic, I could hardly welcome them into my not-quite-existent magicarium if they were naive enough to believe Clara’s claptrap about auras.

  Emma cleared her throat before she said, “This is a clanger. But Clara Smythe said we’d fit right in here. She even offered to pay tuition for our first year of classes.”

  So, that was my birthday present. Two new students, with tuition all paid up. Except, in classic Clara fashion, she hadn’t actually sent along the money. She probably never would. I started to issue a tart explanation, but Emma cut me off.

  “I can see you weren’t expecting us, and I’m truly sorry about that. But you have to understand. We’re desperate. We’ve nowhere else to go.”

  She made the statement without any melodrama, but I could taste the anguish behind her proper British accent. There was need there, and fear, all marinated in confusion.

  And, in a flash, I understood. Emma’s magical powers, and Raven’s, too, had not come easily. Magic had brought the women no joy. Emma’s face was grave as she confirmed, “We both have powers. Skills, anyway. Some … affinity for witchcraft.”

  “But why come all the way out here? There have to be covens in Sedona. Or wherever you two are from.”

  “Sedona,” Emma confirmed, nodding. The name of the southwestern city sounded strange on her tongue.

  “The Oak Canyon Coven has jurisdiction there.” David’s voice was low, challenging. He might have been willing to give me the lead in speaking to these women, but he wasn’t about to stand down entirely.

  Emma’s face clouded, but Raven threw up her arms in exasperation. “Oak Canyon didn’t have the first idea what to do with us.”

  “Why not?” No one could have mistaken David’s inquiry for a casual conversational gambit. Cold steel sliced beneath his question.

  Raven re-jutted a hip and tossed her mane over her shoulder. The gesture made her skin-tight shirt ride up high on her belly, and she looked like the cover model for every terrible urban fantasy novel ever written (and a few really good ones, too). I wondered how long I’d be in traction if I attempted the same pose. She pouted as she said, “The Oak Canyon Coven isn’t open to new ideas.”

  David might have been blind, for all the attention he paid to Raven’s posturing. “Susan Parsons is usually quite reasonable.”

  “We don’t know any Susan Parsons,” Raven snapped, raising her chin defiantly.

  Emma responded more calmly. “The Oak Canyon Coven Mother is Maria Hernandez.” Her precise British enunciation left no doubt that she understood she had just been tested.

  So. David had not quite believed that these women were from Sedona. Maria’s name, though, was apparently correct, because he released a tiny fraction of his tension. A casual viewer would not see a change in his jaw or his stance, but I knew.

  “Maria Hernandez has always welcomed new witches in the past,” David said evenly. Certainly, he would know. He’d attended Coven meetings with my mother, supporting the more conventional aspects of her witchcraft.

  Raven apparently took my warder’s statement as a challenge. She raised her camera and started filming again, launching a somber narration: “Maria Hernandez has strict rules for her witches. All electronic devices are banned from gatherings of the Oak Canyon Coven. What is the Madison Academy’s policy on modern communication?”

  Modern communication? I hadn’t exactly put the finishing touches on my student handbook. I knew I wasn’t happy with a camera shoved in my face, though. And I certainly didn’t like the way Raven swooped forward to press her point.

  “You do realize,” she insisted, “that modern witches need to find a balance with contemporary electronics, don’t you?”

  “I—” I stammered, but I wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence. Of course I believed in balance—essential fairness and equity were central to my powers. But those powers were based on the natural world. How did a camera fit in?

  “Ms. Madison,” Raven continued, sounding precisely like she was interviewing me for some gotcha reality show. “My sister and I were under the impression that the Madison Academy is on the leading edge of magicaria. We were assured that our instruction would be provided by witches who understand exactly what it means to live in the real world. The modern world.”

  “It will be!” I said. “It is!” My heart pounded as I fought to reassure her, and myself as well. I started to run my fingers through my hair, but I stopped, fully aware that the gesture would make me seem weak to Raven’s viewers. A trickle of sweat slipped down my spine.

  Raven pounced on my weakness. “Where are those instructors, Ms. Madison?”

  “They…” I trailed off, resisting the urge to turn to David. I didn’t want to admit I was the only instructor, at least for now.

  The quaver in my voice only poured new energy into Raven’s inquisition. She thrust her camera closer with a vehemence that actually made me take a step back.
“Our viewers are waiting, Ms. Madison. We are on the grounds of the Jane Madison Academy, aren’t we?”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “What was that? Speak up for the camera!”

  I was still trying to summon a coherent answer when David interrupted, closing his fingers over the phone and twisting sharply. Raven yelped as if he had flung boiling water on her bare flesh. At the same time, she clutched the device to her chest, cradling it against her pentacle pendant. Her motion was violent, rough enough that she had to take a couple of steps back to steady herself. Her left heel teetered on the edge of the wooden stairs, and her head snapped back.

  I started to cry out, but David took the necessary action, grabbing her arm tightly and hauling her forward so that both her feet were firmly on the porch. His gesture was harsh, but it was brutally effective.

  Even so, Raven cried out in a mixture of surprise and pain. She yanked her arm free, swearing loudly and succinctly, even as she thrust the camera toward her sister. “Record that, Emma! I’m going to have bruises in the morning, and I want everyone to know where they came from.”

  David growled deep in his throat, snatching the smartphone out of Raven’s hand before Emma could decide whether to join the recording party. I was certain he was going to fling it to the floorboards and grind it into electronic dust beneath his heel. Raven must have thought so, too, because she screamed. Her wail was high and wordless, a banshee’s screech that raised the hairs on the back of my neck. She launched herself at David, clawing at his hands and face, clearly desperate to regain her phone.

  Emma shouted her sister’s name. Spot chimed in, hulking close to the floorboards and voicing a low, constant growl. His lips were pulled back over his teeth, and his eyes followed Raven as if she were a particularly toothsome rabbit.

  I was helpless to do anything. Even in his fury, David had juxtaposed his body between Raven and me. He was protecting me, keeping me safe. He was my warder first and foremost.

  But Raven was a witch as well. Raven had a warder, too.

  In the scuffle on the porch, none of us had heard the side door of the burgundy minivan slide open. But we couldn’t ignore the sudden sword in our midst, gleaming like silver in the liquid moonlight. It carved out a perfect arc of protection for the wide-eyed, panting Raven.

  The man who held the weapon planted his feet in a determined warrior’s stance. His chest heaved beneath his white T-shirt as his baritone challenge rang out: “Halt! This witch is under my protection. Draw back or I will slay you all, in the name of Hecate and all her daughters!”

  CHAPTER 2

  THE WARDER’S CHALLENGE echoed off the light blue paint on the porch ceiling.

  Rage bloomed on David’s face, a stark fury that would have made me cringe if it were directed at me. It wasn’t directed at me, though. Instead, it was focused on the other warder. On the other warder and on himself.

  I could read David’s thoughts as clearly as if he spoke aloud: He never should have allowed himself to be caught without a weapon. He never should have ignored the possibility of a warder in the minivan. He never should have let me slip into danger.

  But the other warder wasn’t wasting time with useless emotions like anger. Instead, his entire body vibrated with focus. He watched David and me and Spot as well, clearly evaluating the threat all three of us represented. I caught the barest flicker of energy he spared for his witch, for Raven. He was attuned to her, angled toward her just enough that he could assess the full extent of her injury.

  And Raven milked the attention for all it was worth. She rolled her hips with the ease of a bellydancer, tossing her wild hair over her shoulder. I could measure the precise instant she remembered that her wrist was supposed to be injured because she slipped the contested phone into her cleavage and folded her fingers around her purported bruise.

  Emma caught the motion as well. The blond woman’s face tightened in frustration. Disappointment, too. But mostly, I read resignation across her features, heard it in the exasperated gasp she barely swallowed.

  This was clearly not the first time Raven’s games had precipitated chaos. Raven’s performance was forcing her warder to escalate his role; even now, the man was shifting his balance. David had no choice but to react, to brace himself for a true fight.

  But I could bring the curtain down. Now. Without injury to anyone involved.

  Carefully, precisely, I took a step back, toward the front door of the house. My motion brought my right heel to rest on a marble slab embedded in the porch, the centerstone for our home. As my foot made contact, a shimmer of energy rippled up my spine. I was tied into the power I had invested in the marble every time I entered the house, every time I brushed my fingers against the doorjamb and muttered a quick spell of protection. The astral energy spread beneath me like a moonlit pond.

  Raven’s warder was moving now, using his sword to sweep clear the space in front of him. David glided forward to grab the only available shield—an impossibly flimsy rattan table. Spot’s hindquarters tightened; he was ready to launch at the invader whenever he was given the command.

  Raven added sound to her own performance, keening as if her arm were broken. Her wails only grew louder when Emma barked out orders for her sister to step back, to show her wrist, to calm down. Raven’s warder shifted his weight, moving from a defensive posture to one of attack.

  The marble shimmered beneath me, humming with its reservoir of magical potential. I brushed my fingertips against my forehead and offered up the power of my mind. I touched my throat to commit the power of my speech. I settled my hand against my chest for a single instant to summon the power of my heart. The magical sequence awoke energy deep inside me, and I drew a steadying breath against the sudden, yawning core of astral force.

  My surge of power provoked an automatic response in Raven. She raised both arms high above her head, apparently forgetting that her wrist was supposed to be horribly injured. Potential surged within her, and shimmering waves crashed against my own magic. Without thinking, I drained the reservoir of the marble centerstone, absorbing its prodigious strength into my own. Acting to preserve my home, my life, I shouted the single word of a stasis spell: “Hold!”

  One syllable, crackling with all the power at my command. One syllable, and there was a bolt of nothingness, a flash like a photographic negative of the world around us. One syllable, and we slipped outside the stream of the universe around us, shimmering and shivering and disappearing to the physical eye.

  Then reality jolted the world back into being.

  Everyone on the porch was frozen in place—the new witches and Raven’s warder and David and Spot, too. Everyone was locked into position but me.

  My ears rang. My throat was scraped raw on the single word I’d shouted. Every inch of my body felt compressed and pounded, but now was not the time to hesitate, not the time to think. I couldn’t give anyone else a chance to recover, to devise any counterspell. Instead, I stepped forward and held out my hand toward David. “Give me that thing.”

  He glared, but he was not yet able to move of his own accord, even to speak the angry words that so obviously pushed against the back of his teeth. Pretending confidence, I set my hand on one leg of the table, pushing a little of my energy through the rattan. The tendril of power was enough to release my warder, to let him resume his protective stance beside me. I extended freedom to Spot as well, confident that the animal would follow David’s immediate hand signal to lie down.

  As my warder recovered, I returned the furniture to its place beside the glider. I told myself I was simply restoring order, but the truth was, I didn’t want to look at David’s face. I didn’t want to face the censure I was certain to find in his eyes.

  My Word of Power had been extreme, completely immobilizing so many people, removing all of their volition. And the spell had cost me. My arm actually trembled with the effort of setting down the lightweight table. I caught a quick breath against the back of my throat. The roof of m
y mouth was tingling. I was light-headed, and it seemed like the entire porch was swaying in a strong wind. I could barely keep my balance.

  If our unexpected visitors didn’t do me in, David might, now that he knew how much my spell had cost me.

  But all that energy would be wasted if I didn’t press my advantage now. “You,” I said, pointing to the new warder. “I’ll release you if you pledge to sheath your sword.” I pulled back my control over his vocal cords.

  He glared at me, refusing to respond. Exasperated, I snapped, “Raven!” I allowed her to speak.

  The other witch swallowed hard and licked her lips, fighting to say something, anything. I wondered if she’d ever heard a Word of Power before. Perhaps my spell had inadvertently shattered something within her own magic, some fragile ability she’d been mustering just as I cast.

  Concerned for her well-being, I further loosened the hold around her face and throat. “Tony,” she said after swallowing hard a few times. The name was scarcely louder than a whisper.

  Her warder forced a reply past his set teeth. “You have my word.”

  I inclined my head in acceptance of his pledge. Anything more, and I was afraid my knees might actually buckle. Bracing myself, I pulled on the strands of my magic, freeing up another tendril that had bound the warder. I let him return his sword to its sheath, but then I immediately locked down the weapon.

  Perhaps foolishly, I had hoped that unraveling the warder’s bonds would restore some energy to me. Alas, breaking my spell only drained me further. The energy I had invested in my Word of Power was cast adrift into the universe, shredded into the muggy summer night without any hope of retrieval.

  At least Raven’s warder seemed blind to my exhaustion. He did not test my limits, either on the physical or the astral plane. Rather, he merely swore under his breath as I allowed him to move out of his fighting crouch, to stand upright. There. More of my power floated away, cast off into the darkness.

  I stiffened my spine, thoroughly chagrined. I had no choice, though, but to make things look normal. I had to seem in control.