A Reckless Witch

CHAPTER 14



Sierra turned off the road at the address Govin had given her, grateful for the re-loan of Jamie’s moped. The house was in the middle of nowhere, or at least not on any major bus routes. Ten minutes out of town, and then a driveway winding between two rocky hills. On the upside, it was heading right toward the ocean, and that was a pretty nice job benefit.

Her view suddenly widened, and she stopped abruptly, yanking off her helmet. The salty air wasn’t gentle here—it swirled up the cliffs and blasted into her face. She reached out her hands in welcome, letting go a trickle of magic to play with the winter wind, glad she still had magic to play with.

It wasn’t the warm teasing of Hawaii or the mist-shrouded gales of Oregon. But it was her wind, and she was finally alone with it. She teased it a bit, trying to get a feel. Not the thundering power of Ocean’s Reach, either—just a strong blow with some tricky edges. She grabbed one of those edges and threaded the needle, weaving it back through the middle—and laughed as wind buffeted her from both sides.

“Yo. Sierra.” She spun around as a deep voice yelled from the doorway of a farmhouse. “Quit messing with my wind and come on in.”

She rolled the scooter up to the house, parked, and tucked away her helmet, never taking her eyes off the hulking guy waiting for her. She’d never gotten a really good look at him in the chopper—she’d spent the whole time staring at Devin’s forehead and trying desperately not to puke. Nell had told her Govin’s partner was really smart at math and really messy. She’d forgotten to mention he was huge and looked like a biker.

He waved her inside. “C’mon in. I’m still having breakfast. You want Doritos or a bagel?”

Okay, even she drew the line at Doritos for breakfast. “It’s okay. I ate already.” Nell made seriously awesome waffles, and there was always enough for three helpings if you wanted. Her belly hadn’t had that awful gnawing feeling once since she’d arrived.

Mountain man just grunted and led her back to a room with papers and dirty dishes everywhere—and a bad-ass wall of huge computer monitors. She beelined for the monitors. “What are these for?” One of the screens had like fifteen flashing warnings.

“Monitoring weather. That one’s tracking really local air currents, in case we need to put the chopper in the air. You set off every alarm I have—what were you doing out there?” He held out a hand. “I’m TJ, by the way. Not much time for introductions on that wild chopper ride.”

“I’m Sierra.” She blushed. “But I guess you know that already.”

“Yeah. Govin called. He’s running a little late. Said to tell you he’s bringing Devin out in about half an hour and you’re going to do pond magic.”

She blinked. “What’s that?”

TJ shrugged and snagged a Dorito. “No idea—I’m not a witch.” He nodded his head toward the monitors. “Wanna see how my toys work?”

She was already staring at the monitor with all the warnings, trying to figure out what it meant.

TJ sat down and clicked a few keys, and all the flashing lights disappeared. “This shows air currents in a one-mile radius in 3D. Line thickness shows speed, and color shows temperature.”

“So all the lines are blue because it’s winter?” She followed the thickest blue swirl for a minute. “And the air’s faster up high—that’s weird. Does it always do that here?”

He looked at her in surprise. “You’ve worked with weather models before?”

“Nuh, uh.” High school wasn’t nearly this cool. “And the air’s getting warmer where it blows over the ocean. How come it’s all tangly over here, though?”

He grinned. “This isn’t live. It’s playing back the last five minutes. That’s you out there, doing whatever you were doing.”

She watched in total fascination as the tangled lines spun and then threaded the needle. “That is so cool.”

The rest of the big bank of monitors suddenly shifted and showed the same kind of air lines—but laid over a global map. “This is the same basic thing, but bigger.” TJ hit a few more keys. “And we can layer in cloud cover, temperature, precipitation...”

Her brain was ready to explode. “Can you go back to just the air stuff?”

“Sure.” He clicked a few times, then crunched on another chip. “See anything interesting?”

She was looking, following the air currents in places she knew best. “What’s going on here, beside Maui?” It was over the whale winter nesting grounds—not a good place for trouble to be brewing. Swimming with the baby whales was one of her favorite memories ever.

“Small storm depression. See where the little, fast, warm-air current is smacking into the bigger, slower, cold one?” TJ crunched. “Sometimes it works itself out, sometimes you get storms. I’ve sent a big-waves alert to the surfers on that shore. They’re pretty good about keeping people off the beaches when it’s not safe.”

Sierra stared at the map a minute longer. “There’s warmer water south of Maui. If we pulled some of that up, it would warm up the cold air and stop the storm, I think.” So the surfers and the baby whales would all be safe.

“Might.” TJ nodded, contemplating. “If we had that kind of reach, it’s the kind of thing we would try.”

Not a problem. This she could do. TJ thought it would be okay, and they all trusted him, so she could too. “I need to be outside to do it.” Sierra got up, heading for the door.

“Wait.” He grabbed her arm. “Are you serious? You can move the water from here?”

“Sure.” And she needed to do it soon, before the storm picked up speed.

“No, wait.” Mountain man wasn’t letting her go. “Tell me exactly what you’d do. We need to model it, see if it would cause problems anywhere else.”

Sierra blinked. “I’m just going to move a little water. I thought you said it would be okay.”

“From there, sure—but if you do it from here, you’ll be messing with a lot of currents between here and there.”

Well, yeah. She couldn’t just teleport to Hawaii. “I’ll be really careful.” She’d make darned sure no waves headed for any more baby birds, for starters.

TJ shook his head. “Show me which currents you’d tug on from here. Can you see them on the map, or show me outside?”

She closed her eyes a minute, visualizing, and tried to overlay that on the map. “Here, this one. It’s not the straightest, but it’s the easiest to pull from here.”

He began madly banging on his keyboard, and half a minute later, the lines on the screens began to move. “I’ve asked the model to project what would happen if you tugged hard enough from here to fix the problem off Maui.”

Okay, he was the coolest geek ever. Sierra watched the lines on the screen as they morphed and changed, and grinned as the storm brewing offshore in Hawaii dissipated. “It’ll work, see?”

TJ didn’t take his eyes off the screen. “Keep watching. If I’ve learned one thing about weather, it’s that nothing is simple. No way you move the energies like that for thousands of miles, and nothing else happens.”

Magic was so freaking complicated all of a sudden. Sierra’s heart squeezed, thinking of her baby whales. She kept watching the screens, though. Seeing all those lines move was kind of mesmerizing. Suddenly TJ leaned forward and froze the screen. “There. Off New Zealand. See that disturbance? Keep your eyes on that.”

It was a tiny red dot. And as Sierra watched, it mutated into a big, ugly, green-and-red mess. “What’s that?”

“Class-four tropical storm. Almost hurricane status.”

Get out. “All that from fixing a little storm in Hawaii?” No way.

“Ninety-two percent likelihood. That’s pretty high. Might be a little bigger, might be a little smaller, but we’d probably make a lot of people in New Zealand pretty wet. Maybe some big waves, too.”

She’d never been to New Zealand. Momma said it was mostly sheep. “This is just a model, right? Maybe something messed up.”

“Maybe.” TJ shrugged. “But probably not. I’m pretty good at this stuff.”

She tried to wrap her head around messing up the worldwide weather just to keep the baby whales happier. It didn’t seem right to do that—but it didn’t seem right to just forget about them, either.

“Maybe there’s a different way to do this.”

“Maybe. From here, probably not, at least with your magic. Govin can use fire, and that’s sometimes easier when we need to reach long distances.” He leaned back from his computer. “But in this case, it’s probably going to be just as effective to leave Mother Nature alone and put out alerts to the surfers.”

“If it were a bigger storm, we’d want to do something, right?” She frowned, not quite ready to let the storm toss her baby whales around. “I could fix it more quietly if I were closer.” And take a swim with the whales, too.

“Yup.” TJ threw the Doritos bag at the garbage can and missed. “That’s why we’re trying to get things all sorted out for WitchNet. Jamie says they should be able to shuttle people through Realm—dump you out in Maui, or wherever. Or send the right spell to someone who’s already there.”

Okay, maybe Jamie was the coolest geek ever. “Is that what I’m going to get to do?” That would be pretty much the world’s best job, zapping in and out of Realm, being a weather superhero.

“Maybe.” He retrieved the Doritos bag and tried tossing it again. “Gotta solve the logistics and safety problems first.”

She frowned. “What’s that mean?”

TJ hit a few keys. “Here’s what could happen if five witches each did something along the lines of what you just did, without realizing what anyone else was doing.”

She watched as five spots on the map started flashing. Lines spread out from each, strange little ripples that traveled, and touched other lines, and sometimes met. She frowned as yellow alerts started popping up all over the world. “What are those?”

“Weather anomalies. Bad stuff the model wasn’t expecting.” He started pointing. “Storms here and here. Some flooding in low-lying areas, here. Big waves here and here. Those ones are forty-footers.”

A new alert popped up in the bottom center screen. “What’s the orange one?”

“Twenty-foot waves hitting coastal India.”

That was big, but she’d seen waves that big in Hawaii more than once. “So why is it bright orange, and the other waves were only yellow?”

TJ zoomed in on the map. “Lots of villages in low-lying areas in that region, and normally very little wave action. A couple of twenty-foot waves would cause a lot of damage down there.”

Sierra squinted as the alert started flashing. Estimated death toll: 11,312. Oh, God. “The waves would kill people? And you try to guess how many?” She stared at him in horror. What an awful job.

He nodded slowly. “It helps us figure out where we can help most. Save the most lives.”

“What if you can’t help enough? What if you can’t fix it?”

He didn’t look like a Dorito-eating biker anymore. “Then we have really bad dreams.”

~ ~ ~

Govin sat on the small dock by his weather pond and looked over at his two companions. They both made him nervous, and for some of the same reasons.

They already knew Sierra had enough power to wreak havoc—and very little understanding of the potential consequences of her actions. Devin wasn’t nearly such a loose cannon, thanks to a lifetime of training, but he was reckless by birth.

They were magical risk-takers. And he was anything but.

“Thinking about the last time I was here?” Devin grinned. “I promise to be better behaved.”

Govin groaned. No, he’d actually managed to forget about the hailstorm they’d made, the one that had dented the brand-new paint job on TJ’s chopper. “I put up a much tighter training circle today. Feel free to help reinforce it.”

Devin waved his hand negligently in a circle. “Done.” He looked over at Sierra, who seemed really subdued this morning. “You might do the same—neither of us have much air power, so you’re the best witch to be containing your magic.”

She looked totally blank. “Sorry—what’s a training circle? Is it like a groundline?”

Govin felt the knot in his gut tightening. “It’s a way of containing magic while you’re trying new skills. A trainer normally sets one for beginner witches, or anyone trying a new spell.” He grasped at wisps of hope. “Maybe your mom used to set one for you. It’s definitely something you should know how to do for yourself.”

Sierra squinted and reached out with a trickle of power, clearly following the lines already blending into the training circle spell. Moments later, Govin felt the weight of her power added to the existing reinforcements.

He breathed a sigh of relief. “That was quick—you must have seen something similar before.”

She shook her head. “No, not that I remember.”

Devin’s eyebrows shot up. “You worked out a spell you don’t know that quickly?”

“Sure.” She nodded, all unconcerned teenager. “That’s how Momma always taught me. She’d do something, and then I’d trace it. It’s how Aervyn learns spells, too—I felt him trace my funnel at Ocean’s Reach.”

Govin blinked. Not very many witches casually put themselves in the same sentence with Aervyn.

Devin nodded slowly. “That would make sense—explain how he picks up spells so quickly.”

Sierra frowned. “How else would you learn a new spell?”

Hard work, practice, and lots of mistakes. Govin chuckled ruefully. He should be glad his new student was a quick learner. “Let’s put your tracing talent to good use then, shall we?” Freaking out that she’d done magic for eighteen years without training circles or groundlines could wait until later. For now, he had a witch to train. The faster they started, the safer she’d be by dinnertime.

He pointed to the pond, calling power as he did so. “This pond is like a mini-world. We make small-scale magics here and watch how their effects travel outward.” Working carefully, he created a very small funnel, using a wisp of fire power to heat a curling stream of air.

Sierra sucked in her breath. “That is so cool—how’d you do that? Fire magic, right?”

“Govin’s the master of baby magics.” Devin grinned to take the sting out of his words.

“If you can’t control a spell when it’s small, you have no business making a big one.” Govin fired off the usual retort, and then winced as he realized Sierra didn’t know the thirty years of history behind their bantering. “I use micro-versions of weather magic to practice.”

She nodded solemnly. “Do it again, please.”

Govin complied, moving a little more slowly this time.

“Ah.” Her eyes brightened. “I get it. You’re using fire magic to heat the air instead of water. That’s a lot faster, but I don’t think I have enough fire power to do that for a full-sized funnel.”

He shrugged. “And I don’t have water power at all. We use what we have.”

She cocked her head. “So you’re a weather witch with fire as your strongest talent?”

“Yup. He’s a weirdo.” Devin tossed a pebble into the pond. “He was born with a brain for weather, so he decided to be the only fire-powered weather witch in the universe.”

Govin snorted. “Says the guy who spends his life trying to do fire magic with water power.” He grinned, very glad to have his old friend back in town. Even if he was really annoying.

Sierra just sat watching the two of them, yearning written all over her face. It suddenly struck Govin how insanely lonely the last six years must have been for her. He was an only child—but with the Sullivan brothers as friends, no guy would ever be lonely unless he wanted to be.

Sympathy stirring, he looked at Devin, hoping his friend’s very occasional mindreading was online. And then realized he was way behind. Devin wasn’t here to support Sierra’s training. He was here because she needed a friend. Trust a Sullivan to figure that out first—they’d always been the family adopting stray frogs, puppy dogs, and witches.

Devin winked. “Analysis complete, dude?”

Govin nodded ruefully. Sometimes a big brain didn’t work nearly as fast as good instincts. “Ready to make some weather, guys?”

Sierra straightened and swirled her fingers, suddenly all sporting two-inch hurricane funnels.

Govin gaped and closed his eyes to see her energy flows. Holy hell. She’d split air power ten ways—and then used water to swirl the left-hand funnels, and fire for the right-hand ones. Twenty-five years of practice, and he was darned sure he couldn’t do five at once. Okay. Maybe putting herself in the same sentence as superboy hadn’t been totally crazy.

He rapidly revised his plans for the morning’s lesson, pulled out a stopwatch, and selected one of his more advanced drills. “Can you lay those out on the pond in a way that none of them will amplify for at least sixty seconds?” Amplification happened when two funnel effects ran into each other.

Sierra squinted out at the pond. “Can I do stuff to the pond water too?”

Seriously? It had taken him a month to figure out that was the only way to solve this little problem. “Yeah. But only at the beginning. Whatever you set in motion needs to run free once the clock starts ticking.”

He watched as she carefully laid out her funnels on the pond’s surface, water currents eddying and ripple effects heading out to the rest of the pond. The first three, she impressed him with her understanding of spatial relationships. The next three, she astonished him with her easy skill weaving water currents.

She didn’t step wrong until funnel number eight. As soon as she let that one go, it was clear to Govin that disruption was coming. Funnel eight sat spinning quietly—but one of its side ripples began to create havoc over on the left edge of the pond.

And Sierra noticed nothing. Her eyes were fixed on funnel nine’s pretty dance—she’d just set that one down. She didn’t notice until the combined entity of funnels two and five bounced off the edge of the pond and ricocheted back through the center. At that point, a blind man wouldn’t have missed the chaos.

Her face fell.

Devin waved his hand to calm the energy flows, and then elbowed Sierra gently. “Congrats. I don’t think I’ve ever managed to create two-foot waves in a duck pond.”

She frowned, clearly not ready to let go of failure. “I was really close. What went wrong?”

Govin debated how to approach his answer. She’d laid down seven funnels before disaster hit. That was two more than he’d ever managed. Which made her later blindness all the scarier.

And hopefully more correctable. She’s not reckless. Not reckless. He tried to remember Devin’s words as he faced a witch who still scared him silly. “You’ve got the mind of a mathematician. Your initial layout was brilliant.”

She scowled at the pond. “I still had one more to add. I’m not sure where that one was going.”

He was pretty sure TJ and all his models couldn’t have solved that one either. “That’s part of the work we do—needing to judge when we can’t safely do any more.”

Her eyes opened wide. “You lay out funnels on the ocean?”

He’d forgotten how literal teenagers could be. “No. But we look at existing weather patterns and try to intervene in ways that solve problems without creating more. Sometimes the ocean’s pretty clear, and it’s like laying down your first couple of funnels. Sometimes the weather’s pretty gnarly, and getting even one small intervention in place is impossible.”

She nodded slowly. “So sometimes eight funnels fit. But not nine.”

“No.” Damn, she really hadn’t been watching. “It was your funnel eight that caused the problem. Sent a left-turn swirl toward funnel five that was a little too strong.”

“Eight?” She scowled, clearly not getting it.

“Yup.” This much he was sure of. “Five ran into two and caused the big funnel to form.”

He didn’t really expect her to understand. She’d spent her whole life doing magic without a care for the consequences.

She looked out at the pond, mirror calm now. “And if I screw up like that with a big spell, people die.”

Govin looked at Devin in concern. Damn, he’d been trying really hard not to whack her over the head with that. And then he knew what must have happened. TJ’s models had been all over the wall monitors when they’d arrived.

Sierra held up her hands, ten more funnels spinning. “I want to try it again. The same thing first, so I can see what went wrong.” She stared out at the water, eyes fierce. “Then I’m going to fix it.”