backed off just a stitch. Lightning tended to draw too much attention, at least in the middle of the afternoon.
She laughed as a tail of air spun her in a circle. Wanna play, do you? Her left hand circled, drawing the air closest to the ground into a funnel. Her right hand circled the other direction, keeping the funnel short. Hurricanes also tended to attract attention, even baby ones.
Then she leaned back into the whipping wind of the funnel, spinning around, hands out as far as she could reach. Funnel dancing had been one of Momma’s favorite things. Sierra closed her eyes and imagined, just for a moment, that she didn’t dance alone.
And then she reached for the sky one more time, pulling down the torrent of rain that wouldn’t attract any notice at all as it washed away her tears.
~ ~ ~
“Holy crap!” Govin spun his chair around and yanked TJ’s earphones off his head. “We have a bloody hurricane brewing up in Oregon, and it came out of nowhere.”
“Weather does that.” His partner took one look at the blinking orange alert and turned back to his own workstation, pulling up multiple screens on their bank of big monitors.
Govin watched, power itching to be let free. However, he knew his limits. Unless TJ could figure out exactly where to act, he didn’t have enough magic to make a difference from this far away. When a flea wanted to turn an elephant, it had to hit precisely the right spot.
The muttering from their resident math genius increased to a dull roar. And then went totally silent, except for the insane clacking of the keyboard. Silent was TJ in genius mode.
Then he jumped up, grabbed a sheet of paper from the printer, and headed for the barn at a dead run. Govin knew better than to ask. He just ran.
As the helicopter took off, heading out to sea, TJ handed over the piece of paper. Govin jammed his headset down. “What do we need?”
“A bolus of heat to those coordinates. And don’t miss.”
Which was mathematician-speak for “this is a tricky bugger of a storm.” Govin looked at the data points. They were at the far end of his reach—not exactly the best range for accuracy. “People in the vicinity?”
TJ shook his head. “It’s a really small storm, very localized, but strong. If you’re going to miss, do it on the high side. That way we don’t get a full-blown funnel, just some big wave action. We’ll be over the right ley line in about ninety seconds.”
Govin readied his spell as he hung his feet over the edge of the helicopter, doing his best imitation of a special-forces weather witch.
“I call on Fire, a tinder blast
A white-hot shield, flat and fast.
I call on Air, a package to blow
Vectoring north on ley line flow.
Carry heat into the storm
Letting loose, disperse the form.
Just wind and rain, no funnels see,
As I will, so mote it be.”
At TJ’s 3-2-1-mark, Govin released his spell—a stingray-shaped fire shield, wrapped in a layer of air to minimize impact on weather between here and its destination. It should trigger when it met with the storm flow. TJ’s job was to pick a ley line that connected here and there without any other weather obstacles along the way. Most of the time, he got it right.
Slight tremors of spell kickback signaled that the fire shield had released and done its job of heating a layer of air. It had either dispersed the funnel, or made it worse.
TJ scowled at the tablet computer plugged in by his copter dash. “No funnel, but weird readings. Dunno what’s going on. We need to get back to headquarters to figure it out.” The tablet was cool, but it lacked the power of their main computer stations. Even TJ couldn’t jam a supercomputer into a digital toy.
No funnel was probably good news. Govin leaned back against his seat. Weather witches had to live with uncertainty, even in this day and age of satellite feeds and monster computing power. It was the nature of the beast. “Nice job finding a free ley line.”
TJ shrugged. “Hopefully that part will get a lot easier when we get set up with WitchNet.”
They both hoped so. In the last fifteen years, they’d learned a lot about how to dampen a storm or adjust an ocean current, but it all hinged on having a witch in the right place at the right time.