Circle of the Moon (Soulwood #4)

by Faith Hunter

  “That’s good,” I said, feeling out of my depth and uncertain.

  Kindly, Tandy said, “It’s time to go, Nell. JoJo wants us back at HQ.”

  I figured that meant the conversation was over. “Okay. By now, JoJo can probably monitor the place on Rick’s security cameras. Talk about snooping.”

  Tandy chuckled softly. “Come on. We can leave the back door unlocked in case he comes back here.”

  “The doorknob is round. Cats can’t handle round doorknobs.”

  “Rick’s cat is smart. Let’s go.”

  • • •

  Unit Eighteen—JoJo, T. Laine, Tandy, Occam, and me, but still no Soul or FireWind and no Rick, who was presumably still a cat—had gathered around the conference room table, laptops and tablets open. On the overhead screens were the photos Occam had taken at Rick’s accident scene. This was the official end-of-day summation, and Rick’s vanishing act was now a matter of PsyLED record. He was in danger and was potentially a security risk. Even now, he might be a prisoner of the witch. Or dead. We had to find him fast and keep him safe until we caught the black-witch who was calling him, or he would end up on administrative leave with his job on the line. We still had no idea where Rick was or what he was doing, and T. Laine had not managed to scry the location of the working.The sun was setting and the moon wouldn’t rise until around two in the morning. If the boss had been spelled and summoned so early, it was a good bet the spell would only get stronger as night deepened and the waning moon rose. It was shrinking each day, edging to the new moon, and tonight it would have a claw forming on either end.

  Because this was official, Clementine was taking everything down in voice-to-text software. Clementine was much easier to say than CLMT2207, but no matter how cute the software’s name was, we had to be careful or we might give away our personal secrets, and none of us wanted that.

  Unfortunately, no one had any idea who was calling/cursing Rick, or why, or what the calling might have to do with vampires. We hadn’t heard back from Ming about her far-flung scions being called. This was a case that had generated only a minor amount of evidence and no leads, a nice way of saying we had nothing.

  Occam said, “JoJo—Jones—and I have determined no tracker dogs should be brought in for fear LaFleur in cat form would attack the dog and the handler. Cats in the wild do not like to be chased. I attempted to track by scent in human form, but I lost him. Soul, when she returned Jones’ call, instructed us to let him go.”

  Tandy said, “You could chase him in cat form.”

  “I could. With a camera. And he might let me chase him. Or he could kill me. I’m more experienced, but I’d hold back in a fight because I don’t want to kill him. I don’t know what his cat wants and Rick doesn’t dominate it very well in a fight.”

  “Never mind, then,” Tandy said.

  Occam ended his report summation with the words, “My final topic is Special Agent Margot Racer. She showed up at the car crash even though she was off duty. She stood around watching the accident investigators and me work. Spent a long time studying the skid marks on the road and searching through the inside of the car.”

  “What was she looking for?” Tandy asked.

  “No idea, but she informed me that she didn’t find the amulet necklace created for Rick by the local witches, so I assume Rick was wearing it.” Occam rubbed his disfigured hand over his scarred scalp as if they both itched. “I’d judge Racer’s emotional and mental state as calm but pensive, but next time you’re around her, Tandy, get a read.”

  Our empath said, “Copy that.”

  Occam said to T. Laine, “Just so you know, Racer wasn’t wearing the spelled cat necklace she had on before.Did you get a read on her amulet?”

  “So far as I could tell it was a protection working. A charm a witch might give her child. I’m betting all her grandmother’s gifts are charmed the same way. But we didn’t know that at first. I may have overreacted.”

  Tandy said, “It was a magically charged situation. Additional energies might have been dangerous.”

  T. Laine twisted her hand open in a gesture of uncertainty.

  JoJo asked, “Is that all?”

  “Occam, end of report,” he announced to Clementine.

  JoJo said, “Jones reporting. As of the discovery of Rick’s car and his disappearance, Soul made a personal call to PsyCSI and put the testing of the witch circle focals on the front burner. Ten minutes ago, I received a prelim report. We have fingerprints back from the focal objects found at the circle. Some older prints that are too badly smeared to have reliable markers. Also some clear prints. They’ve been run against every database we have and we got nada. No matches. The techs think they have some acceptable DNA from the golf ball and from the outside of a glass vial that contained black liquid. They’ve tested the substance inside the vial and determined it to be decomposed Mithran blood. It was too far gone to get DNA. However, the rotting scraps of gauze cloth were indeed stained with human blood, type A positive—which, by the way, matches Rick’s—and it’s currently being run for DNA comparison, along with fluid from the other vial. There was a trace of blood on the small steel paring knife, and it too is being run for comparison. This may or may not be important, but Rick always played golf with his dad when they were together, so it’s possible—not likely, but possible—that the ball and tees were his. With his DNA. Which could have been used in a circle.

  “The lab also ran mass spec on the clay sample from the circle. The biological and mineral markers put it as coming from the Tennessee River. Local clay. The black walnut tree was also likely local. So we finally are getting something to work on, people.”

  JoJo punched a key on her laptop. “Some really pixelated security camera video of the witch who is doing the spells, or someone who is helping her. These are from the pet supply store where our witch got the white rats and didn’t pull a no-see-me spell over herself. Or her human helper. Whichever. Her face is hidden in the shadow of her hoodie, but she appears younger than T. Laine or I expected, moves like a teenager, eighteen at most. She has shoulder-length dark hair or wears a wig, and we can’t see the face above the chin. Caucasian. All legs and long limbs. It’s summer and she’s in long sleeves and a hoodie. We’re thinking a junkie, maybe? The clerk doesn’t remember her at all.

  “Ingram, you’ve got a strange look going on there.” She made a circle in the air where my face was.

  “What? I don’t …” I stopped as it came to me. “Those are the same clothes worn by the subject who robbed the Pilot Gas and the pawn shop. But the body is different.”

  “Different how?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I think she’s … familiar? Maybe wearing a glamour that throws us off?”

  “Which means we have no idea what she looks like,” T. Laine said.

  “Fine. Dyson”—Jo looked at Tandy—“I’ve printed stills of the few places we get a hint of the face, but I’m guessing that a glamour means there’s no chance of a composite sketch?”

  “It’s unlikely,” he said. “The best information we have from witnesses is a description of her chin.”

  “Occam,” JoJo said, “if LaFleur comes back here in distress, we can use the null room again, yes?”

  “If he’s in human form, yes, if we have to,” Occam said. “I don’t think his cat will come here and I don’t think the cat will go into a null room willingly. I suggest we set up a silver cage. It’s more painful than a silver bracelet or necklace, but more effective, and less likely to result in a fight that spreads were-taint. I have the feeling that a silver cage will stop any calling, even his own magic, because it stops the ability for a were to change shape. Two birds, one cage.”

  Occam had spent twenty years in a silvered cage. Occam knew what they could do and what they might be able to do.

  “You got a cage, CC?”

  Occam smiled at the Crispy Critter reference. “I do. LaFleur’s used it before. It’s familiar, a safe place, so I t
hink his cat would go into it. I can set it up in his office or the sleeping room.”

  Rick, in cat form, here. Having Mud at HQ when I was working was looking like a worse and worse idea. I needed to figure out child care now, not after the court gave me custody.

  “LaFleur’s office,” T. Laine said. “That way he won’t disturb us if he starts yowling.”

  We looked at her in disbelief. “Really?” JoJo said. “Yowl? You’re talking about our boss.”

  “So? Cats yowl.” T. Laine’s face creased in a mischievous grin and she looked at Clementine’s speaker in the middle of the table. “There was a feral cat who actually brought her boyfriends to my front porch and had relations one night. It was loud!”

  Tandy and Occam snickered. I realized this was a joke that would be included in the day’s record.

  “Ingram,” Jo said to me. “Report.”

  I filled them in on the vampire meeting and the few insights I had to offer. It wasn’t much.

  “EOD concluded. Clementine, cease recording,” JoJo said, dumbfounded, shaking her head. A small red light I hadn’t noticed on the mic went dark. “Dismissed. Be safe, people.”

  The team dispersed slowly, JoJo and Tandy going over the files and discussing what to do if Rick came back or called one of us or was spotted in cat form by the public. T. Laine said she was working on something and would be late in the morning. As he left the room, Occam pointed a finger at me, saying, “I’m running some errands, but I’ll pick up dinner and bring it back.”

  My heart warmed at the thought that I’d get to see him again. He walked from the room and my eyes followed him down the hallway, his body moving cat-like, graceful and smooth. It was good to see him being Occam again and not so badly burned and wounded. And my thoughts returned to his … not his proposal. He hadn’t offered one. But he had said he loved me. Loved. Me. Leaves and all. Except that I didn’t know how I felt about loving a man. About giving myself to him. I had done that once before out of desperation and the bargain had been worth it, but I didn’t know if I wanted to bargain for my freedom again. Would that be what I was doing if I loved a man? Bargaining for my freedom? Did I even love Occam? I wasn’t sure about that. The few romance books I had read suggested that love followed attraction and I certainly felt an attraction for Occam. But …

  Brow furrowed, my brain thinking too many things on too many levels to really concentrate on just one—like work—I went to my cubicle. I started putting together a list of spells that had been used against vampires in the past, something akin to the spell that was calling them. I was still wearing jeans and the T-shirt I started the shift in, and since I’d be working in the office, I saw no reason to change just to do paperwork. I had a nicer pair of pants in the four-day gobag should I need them. I took the laptop to my cubicle and called Mama and then Mud, before I started in. Mud was planting herbs in good Soulwood soil and playing with her computer. “Don’t be ordering any more electrical equipment,” I warned.

  Mud giggled. “Nope. Sam, Jedidiah, Daddy, and me are talking greenhouses.”

  “Tell them to not let you break my budget.” My sister was safe with the Nicholsons tonight and I made arrangements to pick her up when I got off work. Unless Rick reappeared, it was shaping up to be a quiet night.

  Two hours later, I heard the door from the stairway open, with a strange metallic banging clanging sound. I got up from my desk and stuck my head out in the hallway to see Occam wedging a stack of metal against the door to hold it open. He whirled and padded down the stairs again, his boots so soft on the steps I could barely hear them.

  I went to the top of the stairs and inspected the flat metal, which turned out to be an easily assembled cage, steel walls and top with a removable, silver-plated steel bottom. Rick’s cage. Occam came in again, this time carrying bags of hoagies and a plastic container of iced tea from Frussies Deli & Bakery on Gay Street. He grinned at me as the outer door closed. “I got a Dirty Bird, a Three Little Pigs, a Turkey Club, and a James Dick’s Favorite. I—”

  Something slammed into the outer door. Faster than I could follow, Occam set down the bag, drew his weapon, and raced back down the stairs. From the conference room JoJo shouted, “It’s Rick’s leopard!” The banging, slamming came again. Even though the outer door was reinforced to withstand a small bomb, I could see the edges give.

  Occam’s lips were bloodless in the harsh lighting. His eyes tense as he mentally ran through his options.

  The banging came again. And again. I looked back at the window. It was dark out but the moon hadn’t risen yet.

  “A grindy is with him,” JoJo shouted. “What do you want to do, CC?”

  Occam, one shoulder against the wall, changed out magazines for silver ammo and said to me, “Set up the cage in Rick’s office.”

  I grabbed the cage, which was heavier than I expected and bulky, and dragged it more than carried it to Rick’s office. It was easy to assemble, with a tab that read, LIFT HERE. I lifted and the cage opened with relative ease. There were steel supports for each corner and for the top and bottom. I snapped them closed. No pawed creature could open them. It would require opposable thumbs. It took me maybe half a minute to set it up, and the booming continued as I worked. I opened the cage door. Satisfied, I raced back to the stairwell. “Got it.”

  “Close all the office doors but Rick’s. Lock yourselves in the conference room,” Occam said. His voice was calm, emotionless, steady.

  Slamming doors behind me, I raced to the conference room. I locked Tandy, JoJo, and myself into safety. Turned and faced the room, my back to the door, so I could watch the camera feed overhead. One camera showed a black leopard throwing himself at the outer door. Another showed Occam slapping open a security baton. The volume was up on the speaker system and the sound of the baton opening was a schink-snap. From the way it moved through the air I knew the baton was heavy-weighted steel.

  Occam braced himself behind the door and opened it. The parking lot’s lights blasted in.

  Rick leaped inside, a black smear in the silvered lights. White fangs bared. His snarl was a growl of menace. The leopard twisted in midair, body lithe, supple, vicious. He reached out with his front claws. Slashing for Occam.

  TEN

  My heart stopped.

  As fast as Rick, Occam spun. Arm back like a batter’s. Brought the baton down on Rick’s front legs just above the paws. Reversed. Rapped Rick’s skull. Fast low thumps while the cat was in midair.

  The black leopard went down with a thud. Rick didn’t move.

  “Wow,” I said. Blinked.

  A grindy jumped from outside onto Occam’s shoulder. Occam petted the grindy, a long swipe down its body. “Hey there, Pea. Or Bean. Whichever you are. We’re all good.”

  Bending, Occam shoved Rick out of the doorway and closed the door. He closed the baton with a metallic click and placed the grindy on the step. Holstering his weapon, he bent and grabbed Rick’s front legs near the chest. He heaved Rick up and over his shoulder, a black weight with front legs that hung at odd angles. Broken. He carried Rick up the steps. The amulet created by the local witches swung from its chain around his neck. I couldn’t tell if it was working, but considering the shape Rick was in, I guessed not.

  JoJo activated different security cams as they moved, allowing us to follow Occam as he carried Rick to the office. He bent and tossed Rick inside the cage in front of Rick’s desk, banged the cage door shut, and secured it. He wasn’t even breathing hard. Occam went back to the stairs and retrieved the sandwich bag and the gallon of tea, made sure the door to the stairs shut properly, and came to the conference room.

  I opened the door. Behind me JoJo said, “My hero.”

  “Anything for the ladies. Hey, Nell, sugar. What sandwich you want?”

  “Looking at her, I’d say to give her the Dick’s Favorite,” Jo said.

  There was something in her tone that made me think she was saying something else, but it was something I had to ignore, mostl
y because I didn’t know how to react to it. “I’d rather have the Three Little Pigs,” I said. “And extra mayo if you have it.”

  Occam gave me a look that I couldn’t interpret, but it might have been tenderness. Or possessiveness. Or neither. He unwrapped the sandwich and passed it to me, then handed out the rest of the food as the others requested. He passed around napkins and paper cups for the tea, which was sweating on the conference room table.

  We ate in silence until JoJo spoke around a bite of meat and bread. “So you broke Rick’s legs. That might piss him off.”

  “It might,” Occam said, laconic, drawing out the last word as if he didn’t care.

  “This part of that dominance thing you two are always fighting through?”

  “Rick and I don’t fight.”

  “Uh-huh. Right.” JoJo gave up and finished her sandwich. Overhead, on the screen from the camera situated outside of Rick’s office, we watched as Rick twitched, spasmed, and made a mewling sound. He was in pain. JoJo turned off the speakers.

  “We oughta do something for him,” I said.

  “No,” Occam said. “He needs to dominate his cat better. Maybe the pain will drive the point home.”

  “Even if he was being spelled?” I asked.

  “Especially then. If Rick can’t control his cat, he’ll lose his job.”

  And the job was all Rick had left. I remembered his house and the way Rick was living. I held in a sigh and took a big bite of pork sandwich. No one else spoke.

  We had finished eating when T. Laine climbed the stairs carrying a bag from Firehouse Subs. She tossed the bag on the table and said, “Great minds and all that. What happened to the door? It looks like a truck hit it.”

  “Rick happened,” JoJo said. “He’s in cat form in a silvered cage. With two broken legs and probably a concussion.”

  “Dang,” T. Laine said. “Was he wearing the amulet created by the local witches?”

  “Yep,” Occam said.

  “I’m guessing it didn’t work.”