A Hidden Witch (A Modern Witch Series: Book 2) (30 page)

“Or a train wreck,” Marcus growled.

Jamie laughed. “It’s not that hard to handcode a
train wreck either. This way, you get to learn the logic of a spell
first. When you want to get fancy, then you can work on
handcoding.”

She and Uncle Marcus were going to have quite
the chat later. Following Jamie’s clear instructions, Elorie had a
protection spell assembled in just a few minutes. Then two warriors
appeared onscreen. “Mine’s the one with the blue helmet,” Jamie
said. “When I look like I’m losing the fight, I want you to
activate the protection spell and push it to my guy there.”

Elorie jumped as an all-out swordfight broke out
on her screen. How the heck was she supposed to decide when someone
was losing? One good swipe of the sword and it could all be over.
Even virtual beheadings weren’t something she really wanted to
witness.

“Lose faster,” Marcus said dryly, “or I’ll send
over a couple of my men to help.”

Suddenly Jamie’s avatar fell to the ground,
sword tossed uselessly to the side. Elorie grabbed her mouse and
threw in the spell. The red-helmeted warrior’s sword swung down
like the wrath of God—and turned into a flower as it crashed into
the protection spell.

Jamie looked stunned, and Marcus laughed like
Elorie had rarely heard. “Didn’t proofread her code well enough,
did you? She used one of Ginia’s spellchunks. You’re lucky not to
be flittering like a fairy. That girl leaves all manner of silly
magic lying around, and she insists on adding most of it to the
spell libraries.”

Maybe she should be getting Realm lessons from
Ginia—they sounded like a lot more fun. And Uncle Marcus didn’t
sound nearly respectful enough of her skills. Elorie looked
pointedly at the flower. “The sword’s hardly a threat now, is
it?”

Jamie laughed. “Only to the male ego. Can you
reverse the spell?”

Elorie reached for her mouse and quickly
pictured the reversing spellshape in her mind. She pushed it at the
warrior with the red helmet, and then squealed and covered her eyes
as blood spurted out of Jamie’s now headless avatar. “Ugh, gross!
Do you have to make it quite that realistic?”

She uncovered her eyes to see two faces watching
her in utter shock. “Oh, no. Did I do something wrong? It worked,
didn’t it?”

Jamie looked at his dead avatar and nodded
slowly. “Oh, yeah. Worked like a charm. I just expected you to
spellcode the reversing spell. How’d you do that?”

She blinked. “Well, it’s mostly the same shape
as the first spellcode. I just twisted it around a little.”

Jamie frowned. “What shape? You see shapes in
spellcode?”

Didn’t everyone? “Sure. Just like any other
spell.”

Jamie looked at Marcus, and Marcus shook his
head.

“Holy shit. Hang on a moment.” Jamie started
typing furiously on his keyboard. A couple of minutes later, he
looked back up, victory in his eyes. “I just messaged Ginia,
Marcus. She sees shapes when she spellcodes, too. That’s why she
can use Net power like Elorie, and we can’t. They see the
spellshapes.”

Marcus groaned. “Warrior Girl can do this too?
God help us all.”

Why was she always the last one in the room to
understand her own powers? “Why is that important?”

Jamie grinned. “Well, it seems that for you and
Ginia, at least, it doesn’t matter whether the magic is in virtual
space or real space—you can see the power streams and manipulate
them the same way.”

She shrugged. So she was a virtual witch. That
wasn’t news.

Marcus sighed. “I hope Ginia appreciates the
wonder of her talents a little more than you do, niece.”

Elorie’s frustration spilled over. “How can I
appreciate it when I don’t really understand why it matters? Doing
parlor tricks in an online game doesn’t seem like something to get
all excited about.”

Oh, jeebers. Realm was Jamie’s baby, and she’d
just mortally insulted it. Cheeks flaming, she looked at her
screen. “I’m so sorry. This isn’t about the game, really. I’m sure
it’s a lot of fun, but…” She trailed off. No point digging herself
in deeper.

Jamie looked at her seriously. “Will you try one
more test for me? I’m pretty sure that will help all of us
understand why this is important.”

He held up a flower bud. Elorie ground her
teeth. More parlor tricks.

Jamie snickered. “That’s the same look Aervyn
gives me when he thinks I’ve asked him to do something dumb.”

Elorie tried to get a grip on her temper, well
familiar with witchling faces. Surely she could act a little more
mature than a four-year-old. “What do you want me to do?”

“There’s a blooming spell popping up on your
screen. Can you activate that and push it to me?”

Easy, peasy. Elorie grabbed her mouse and
shoved. Jamie laughed as petals flew off his flower. “I’d say
that’s bloomed.”

Elorie blushed. Gran would have her head for
de-petaling flowers, with magic or otherwise. There were no excuses
for magical temper tantrums.

Marcus held up a spellshape on his palm. “I
assume this is what you want for step two?”

Jamie nodded and held up a second bud. “Try the
exact same thing, Elorie, but this time push Marcus’s blooming
spell to me.”

Okay, she was still having a temper tantrum.
Next time she bloomed flowers, she planned to be in a freaking
garden. Looking at the off-screen version of Uncle Marcus, she
yanked Net power, grabbed his spell, and hurled it through the
computer at Jamie. He yelped as the flower in his hand
exploded.

Oh, cripes. Temper evaporated as she realized
what she’d done. What on earth had gotten into her? Control of
magic was the first lesson preached to every witchling. “I’m so
sorry, Jamie. I’m tired this morning, but that’s no excuse. Are you
okay?”

His smile was full of sympathy. “You’ve got a
far better reason than that, little sister. Ask Moira about the
joys of being a pregnant witch. Nell was a wreck with the
triplets.”

He glanced at Marcus. “Teach her how to cast a
training circle. Pregnant mama magic can be a little unpredictable.
No point scorching the furniture.”

Her babies were the cause of all this? Already?
Elorie laid a hand on her belly, overcome with emotion.

Jamie grinned. “Yeah. Nat says the upswings are
pretty good, too. Keep Kleenex handy.”

She sniffled. Her emotions hadn’t been this much
of a mess since she was thirteen. “Are we done with the magic
tricks now?”

“It’s about time we got back to that,” Marcus
said. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done, girl?”

She wasn’t a total idiot. “Sure. I took magic
from you and pushed it to Jamie.”

She froze as realization set in. She’d pushed
magic—real magic—across thousands of miles.

Jamie winked. “Not parlor tricks any more,
huh?”

She shook her head slowly. “I can be a conduit
for magic.”

“Aye,” Marcus said. “You can push or pull magic,
real or virtual, and distance is no barrier.”

No witch raised in Gran’s sphere of influence
could fail to understand the significance of that. Magic could only
help what it could reach. If Uncle Marcus was right, the witching
community’s reach had just gotten a whole lot bigger.

The thrum of her pulse picked up speed. She
could send magic to any witch, anywhere. As could any Net witch.
Elorie felt the truth of it running through her veins.

Finally.

Joy stormed through her soul. Gran always said
that witches didn’t
have
magic—they
did
magic. Now,
she knew what she was meant to do, why
she
had been gifted
with this new form of magic.

She knew the witch she needed to be.

Until now, her magic had seemed to lean on her
every weakness, push against everything she believed. But there was
a reason she, even as a non-witch, had functioned as Gran’s right
hand. She was a born organizer.

She beamed at Marcus and Jamie. “We need to
convene a meeting.”

~ ~ ~

Jamie looked around Realm’s new, hastily
assembled witch meeting room. No castles or moats anywhere, just
comfortable couches and some pretty cool art. Good thing he hadn’t
been in charge of decorating.

He’d heard rumors that Elorie had been having a
tough time with the technology required for her magic. Whoever
believed that hadn’t spent the last several hours on the receiving
end of her orders. When it came to organizing witches, he’d thought
Nell was untouchable. He’d been wrong.

He leaned over to his sister. “This is the woman
who is scared of the virtual world?”

Nell shrugged. “She didn’t know how to power up
an iPhone two days ago.”

Jamie snorted. Elorie had taken over Realm,
issued very polite orders for an online meeting space, and shuttled
four-dozen witches into virtual reality. This was not a woman shy
about using technology.

Or at least getting everyone else to use it for
her. Shay and Mia had spent three very busy hours coding the new
online witch hangout. And he’d kidnapped Ginia and Aervyn
practically as they stepped off the airplane so they could figure
out how to bottle a transporting spell. Good thing he had lots of
minions.

Once serious witch business was over, he was so
going to beam himself into the Realm gaming levels. Hot damn, that
was going to be a game-changer.

For now, Elorie had a meeting room and a witch
shuttle service. He couldn’t wait to see what she did with it.

He wasn’t the only one waiting. Moira sat on a
comfy blue couch, Aervyn snuggled on her lap and the triplets at
her feet, watching her granddaughter with pride.

Jamie knew the look—all witch trainers did. It
happened when you watched your trainee step out of the nest.
Whatever her path to get here, Elorie at this moment was a woman
confident in her power and her purpose.

She stood up at the front of the room, and every
head turned in her direction. “I wanted to thank all of you for
coming. I know it was short notice and not much explanation.”

Sophie smiled. “You asked, we came.”

Jamie nodded, as did many others. It was the way
of witches. Elorie had put out the call for spellcoders, and they
had come. No questions asked.

“As many of you know, we’ve discovered a new
kind of power source—and those of you who spellcode can all use
it.”

“But we can’t do what you can with it,” said
Govin, one of Realm’s best players.

“True. Some of us can use Net power differently,
and we’ve spent the last week learning a lot about what’s possible.
I think Jamie and Uncle Marcus have briefed you on what we’ve
learned.”

Govin leaned forward. “You can push magic to any
of us through the Internet, right?”

Elorie nodded, and murmurs started. She held up
her hand. “We can also pull magic. It gives us a lot of freedom to
put the right magic in the hands of any available witch. I asked
you to meet here today to talk about how we can best use that in
service of those around us.”

Govin considered for a moment. “It would really
help with witchling training. We often have a mismatch with
available trainers, especially when new talents emerge
quickly.”

Moira beamed. “Just so, Govin. And you can
definitely use it in your weather work.” Govin and his partner
spent countless hours working to minimize the devastation of some
of the planet’s harsher weather patterns.

Sophie spoke next. “There are things I can’t do
in Colorado because I’m a solitary witch.” She touched Mike’s
shoulder. “Or I was. Last month, one of the little ones on my
street got lost. It would have been a true blessing to call on
Jamie or Aervyn for a seeking spell. It’s not a talent I have.”

Nell nodded. “We lack healers in California.
There are times it would be very handy to have one available.” She
frowned. “This sounds like a pretty big organizational challenge,
though. Hard to have the right people on call all the time to make
the spells that are needed.”

Elorie’s eyes gleamed. “That’s just it. For a
lot of the things you’ve mentioned, we don’t actually need to have
the right people available at the exact right time. We just need
their spells.”

Ah. Jamie connected the last of the dots. Now he
knew why she’d asked for spellcoders. She was freaking
brilliant.

Her energy danced through the room. “Witches
like Aervyn and Ginia and me can push magic to witches who need it,
but we don’t need a live witch making the spell. We can use one
that’s already spellcoded. That’s what I’m hoping all of you can
help with.”

Jamie nodded, already making plans in his head.
“You need us to code a library of spells.” He could see the
eagerness in the faces around him. Finding volunteers was not going
to be a problem. He sensed a witch code-a-thon in the making.

Govin grinned. “We already have a pretty good
library, but I’m guessing turning moat waters into fiery flames
isn’t what you had in mind.”

Elorie laughed. “If any of you have moats in
real life, we can give it a try, but no. Mostly I’m thinking about
the everyday kinds of spells—simple healing, bringing rain,
seeking—the ways most of us help our friends and neighbors now, but
it will give us all a wider range of options.”

Mike looked serious. “This could be used for
more than just the everyday. We could save lives with this.”

Elorie slowly swept the room. “Yes, we can, and
we will. I’m hoping to start with the everyday aid. It will help us
work out the kinks and the logistics, to figure out how to be a
community in a different way than most of us are used to.”

She took a deep breath. “But where we can bring
small magics, we can also bring much larger magic.” She looked
straight at Marcus. “I dream of a world where far fewer are lost or
hurt because we couldn’t get the magic there in time.”

She stretched her hands out to the group. “We
are witches, and service is our highest calling. I’m asking each of
you, as you wish and as you are able, to help.”