Come to think of it, I could use a little extra mass myself. Coming back from the dead hadn’t taken as much to repair as Tess’s limbs, but it still dropped my surplus fat level.
The hostess came back over and took our order. I let Tess order first and then just told Pam to put a two in front of that.
“I wasn’t expecting you to be that hungry,” Tess said.
“The way things have been going, I need to add a little fat. Just in case.”
Tess nodded, understanding my reference.
“So, straight to training after we eat or did you want to nap?” Tess asked.
“Training. There’s a lot of daylight left, and we might as well make use of it.”
“So, what’s next?”
“More of the same, Apprentice, more of the same. We’ll practice some of the techniques you’ll need to burn your own tattoo, and then we’ll go over the familiar summoning spell.
Tess smiled; wide enough to make my own cheeks hurt. “Great, I’m excited.”
Chapter 5
Raphael
We finished eating and returned to Tess’s Harley. Beast, still behind his hawk glamour, took flight as we mounted up. I sat behind Tess again and directed her up Hill Street and into the mountains northwest of town. A ley line passed across Raton on an east to west heading, and I wanted to be close to it for Tess’s training. Hill Street became Old Raton Pass Road in a few miles and the terrain grew steeper and the trees not much more than small evergreens. After fifteen minutes or so, I had her pull off onto an unimproved road that led along a ridge top. The road dead-ended in a flat area that faced the mountains to the west. The ley line crossed almost directly above the clearing.
I stepped off as Tess killed the engine. Beast lit behind us and dropped his glamour.
“Beast, while we’re training, I’d appreciate you keeping a close eye on the surroundings,” I said. “I don’t want anybody or anything sneaking up on us.”
“Of course,” he growled.
Tess took off her helmet and followed me a short ways to the center of the clearing. There wasn’t any grass, but a little snow lay in the shade of the short pines at the forest’s edge.
I took out my salt bottle, uncorked it, and tossed the contents into the air. As the salt fell, I cast the circle spell and the crystals lined up and dropped into a circle around us.
I sat cross-legged in the dirt and Tess immediately copied my pose, sitting close enough for our knees to touch. We joined hands without speaking, and I concentrated on meshing auras, minds, and emotions with her. In less than a minute, we were totally meshed and ready to start training. Her ability to mesh fully with me so quickly had surprised me at first. I’ve meshed with Wiccans and a few others over the decades, but no one had been able to accomplish it in less than five minutes.
*Close the circle,* I told Tess through our link.
She concentrated and with almost no assistance from me, applied energy to the salt and an energy dome snapped into place above us. In order for her to practice magic inside the circle, she either had to cast the circle or mesh with me before I cast it. Since I also needed to be able to cast magic, we had to mesh. She needed training, so, of course, I’d assign her all of the tasks that she could do. The more she did them, the more natural it was and the faster she could accomplish them.
*Have you been practicing the shield spell?* I asked.
*Yes, yesterday and again today as we rode. I’m pretty good at following orders, if I do say so myself.*
“Okay, then show me,” I said, switching back to verbal. Direct communication over our meshed link was as easy as speaking, but I had a lot more practice at verbal communications. Besides, with our emotions meshed, we could feel a lot more than words could communicate. I’d forgotten that until I tried a little fib about my feelings and Tess had called me on it.
I watched as Tess concentrated and then began to trace the shield spell in the air between us. I mentally counted off the seconds from the time I gave her the instruction to the moment she spoke the two words required to complete her shield spell. It snapped into existence inside our circle in just over twenty seconds.
“That’s good. Keep up the practice without actually speaking the words until you can get it under five seconds.”
“I don’t see why I need to be able to generate the spell so fast. I have your watch, and you said I could start working on my own tattoos as soon as I was ready. I think I’m ready,” Tess asserted.
“Really?”
“You said yourself that I’m progressing very fast. I think I’m ready,” she repeated.
“Tess, while it’s true you’re learning much faster than I expected, I’m still your mentor, and I’ll decide when you’re ready. As for the watch, its shield can be activated faster than you can perform your own spell, but it won’t be as powerful as your own spell. Besides, the shield tattoo is the same pattern as the one you’re learning except with the addition of a little trigger pattern, which will replace the words to the spell.
