Weather Witch Read Free Page A

have water …”
    “ Fresh water,” Bran demanded. “They cannot Draw Down properly if they don’t drink. And they can’t drink slime .” He whipped the bucket out at the man, clipping his chin with the bucket’s edge. “Do right by me or your reputation will suffer.”
    The man rubbed his jaw but nodded.
    “As will your face,” Bran added. He shoved out the door and jogged down the last flights, coming out onto Holgate’s main square.
    By night the compound was an eerie sight. Built by a Hessian with a penchant for castles and Old World architecture, it was in stark contrast to almost every other place in the Americas. Which was why it was perfect for Making Witches. Close to a large freshwater lake but far enough inland from the bay to make Merrow attacks difficult (Holgate and Philadelphia being determined not to suffer as Baltimore had), the place provided all he needed. Water to make weather, height to catch air and lightning, and rock so chances were less they’d catch fire and burn.
    Chances being less were, of course, far from a guarantee.
    The base of what the occupants called Tanks and Tower was broad stacked and mortared rock that shimmered when flecks of mica and pyrite caught the moonlight, making the place ripple at night like some otherworldly locale. Bran shook the thought from his head.
    There was no otherworldly anything . He was a man of science. His reputation depended on it. The fairy tales and things that still held sway in rustic churches and around fires late at night had been proven to be of this world.
    Yes, there were things that stole children from their cribs at night and monsters that ate his fellow men. There were misbegotten and misshapen beasts that haunted deep forests and abandoned houses and there were certainly devils seemingly drawn from man’s darkest desires. And magick. Grim, dangerous magick that tore families and empires apart. But none of that magick was here.
    Not in the truly civilized parts of the New World.
    The Wildkin, including the Merrow, Pooka, Kelpies, Gytrash, Oisin, Wolfkin, Kumiho, and a host of others were as firmly of this world as the other natives that called themselves the People.
    And they were just as unwanted.
    Magickers were expressly forbidden in the New World. The only ones that had crossed the ocean were the result of Galeyn Turell’s bizarre Making when the Merrow—naturally occurring beasts only a few distant cousins beyond the normal human family—attacked the ship the girl had been on after an accident that had killed one of their princes.
    If Galeyn hadn’t demonstrated her strange weather-wielding powers as the Merrow slithered their way across the boat’s blood- and gore-slicked deck the winds would never have kicked up and hurled the Merrow away, and the ship would’ve never vaulted into the air and made it to the colonies.
    And there would be no Wildkin War.
    How eagerly since then had foreign authors turned a blind eye to the true nature of the Merrow—Hans Christian Andersen the worst offender, using fiction in an attempt to fashion peace.
    Unbidden, Bran’s eyes went from the well and pump in the town’s square to the descended portcullis, and the lake and bay not far beyond. The Merrow were never more than a heavy flood away from Holgate’s lake …
    He hooked the bucket onto the heavy faucet’s head and, grabbing the pump’s handle, filled it in one long stroke. He was back inside and up the stairs nearly as fast as he’d come down, the burden of the water secondary to the fact that a dead Witch would mar his record.
    Nearly as much as the escape of a previous Witch had.
    The Witches were all he had. For better or worse they were his only go at immortality. His was one of the most important jobs in all of the Americas. His might be a name to continue on along with those of other great men. Like that of presidents or generals, or like his father.
    Or he could be forgotten, leaving nothing of note behind.
    He could