Circle of the Moon (Soulwood #4)

by Faith Hunter

  “Any extra gear that won’t fit in the unit’s van will be transported in Ingram’s vehicle, along with the silver cage.”

  I blinked. The silver cage? Rick’s cage?

  “Kent,” he continued, “shackle Loriann Ethier. Since Soul is AWOL, she and Rick will ride with me.”

  “You’re going to let Rick be there?” T. Laine said, frowning, her eyes narrowed in disagreement. “Close to Jason and the demon?”

  “Loriann broke out of the null room. Do you really think it will hold a were-leopard?” FireWind asked.”If he’s with us and in a silver cage, Occam can shoot him in the leg with silver to stop a shape-change.” FireWind looked at Occam. “Do not let him free of the cage. No matter what.” Occam dropped his chin in agreement.

  Feeling numb, I went to my cubicle and gathered my weapons. In my gobag I secreted extra magazines, some marked silver-lead, the others loaded with standard ammo. In a plastic zippered bag I placed the bits of bloody tissue. My secrets. In my truck was a shotgun and a plant in a clay pot—the sprig of the vampire tree.

  Occam stopped at my cubicle. “Nell, sugar,” he said softly, “okay if I ride with you?”

  “Fine by me, but you need to know that I’ll likely be doing some B and E this afternoon.” B and E meant breaking and entering and that statement made Occam pause.

  After an uncomfortable length of time, he said, “You can take care of yourself, I know that. But … I’m thinking you might need backup if you’re breaking the law.”

  I met his eyes, glowing a soft golden brown with his cat. “Oh. Well. In that case, I’d like you to ride with me, very much.”

  • • •

  We detoured to Rick’s house and found the new, hidden key. I didn’t have to resort to the threatened B and E and shatter a windowpane to get in. Unfortunately, I knew my actions were going straight to JoJo at HQ from Rick’s security cameras. All I could hope was that my illegal entry and theft would be forgiven. Or maybe the footage would disappear.

  Later than we wanted, we cruised in to a prearranged address on Roseberry Road, at a small sign that said, FOR SALE. BANK OWNED. I motored down the drive, winding in until my C10 was deep in the scrub, well hidden from the street. At the back, there was a house, overgrown, ramshackle, windows and doorway boarded over. I got out, into the stifling heat, to overhear FireWind say to T. Laine, “We have the bank’s permission to use the property. Were you able to get any of the local witches to assist us with a working here?”

  “No. They haven’t responded to texts, e-mails, voice mails, police stopping by with requests for help, or notes tacked to their front doors. They’ve gone to ground. I’m the only witchy woman on-site unless Loriann becomes suddenly trustworthy. And that’s not going to happen, so why don’t you tell me why she’s really here, and not some silly hostage-negotiation tale.”

  FireWind glanced at the van. The side sliding door was open and Loriann was sitting on the bench seat, her legs dangling in the sunlight. Loriann was wearing a green dress with bright blotches of purple and red on it. Her hands were bound in front of her with dozens of thin twisted strands of silver wire. Among the strands were traces blood.

  “The reason,” FireWind said crisply, “is that I was hoping to turn her over to the local coven until Jason is taken down. Loriann broke the lock on the null room. Jason destroyed the outer door. We can’t secure her in HQ. Jones will be alone handling comms and I don’t want her to have to step away from comms to shoot a prisoner during an interagency op.”

  T. Laine blew out a breath. “Yeah. There is that. And we can’t leave Rick there for the same reason. Here you can shoot his legs full of silver if he starts to shift.”

  “Precisely.”

  I got out my gear. Per FireWind’s orders, I was going on a short hike, close to the house where Jason Ethier and a group of invading vampires laired. In the back of the C10, Occam snapped a blue tarp over Rick’s empty silvered cage. I made sure the shade covered my little vampire plant. It was cute, and if the tree didn’t eat puppies and try to take over the world, I’d market it.

  It was still daylight, hours before the local vampires would show up at the address to attack the invading vampires. More unmarked cars and a few Highway Patrol cars drove into the deep, abandoned lot. A big SWAT vehicle, the shape of a bread truck, but heavier, bounced up the rutted drive. The bigwigs were gathering for the operation.

  All across Knoxville and neighboring counties, Homeland Security and FEMA were on alert. The governor’s office was flying in an observer. The public had been notified that an unspecified threat had been detected and citizens were being asked to stay off the streets.

  I thought about Mud. About my family. About leaving Mud with Esther. I’d had no other sensible choice. I’d just left my sisters there, together, protected by Jedidiah as best he could. If there was a major earthquake, no place in Knoxville except the heart of Soulwood would be safer than a compound full of hillbillies, supplies, and weapons.

  I tossed my faded pink blanket over my shoulder and tied the laces of my field boots. I was going to read the land and see what I could see. And my cat-man was going with me.”That’s close enough, Nell, sugar.”

  I stopped, the weeds up to my knees, beggar-lice all over my jeans, along with a few ticks. Beggar-lice were traveling seeds, hitching a ride on any convenient cloth or pelt or fur. I flicked them and the bloodsuckers away. “They’re vampires, cat-boy. With the exception of Godfrey, who would have to slather sunscreen all over himself to step outside, they’re asleep.”

  “The witch might be awake. Demons never sleep.”

  “Sure they do,” I said, before I thought.

  “And you know that how?”

  Oops. I didn’t answer, suddenly concentrating on a particularly insolent little tick who seemed to like denim. “I love every creature on God’s earth, except ticks and roaches,” I said. “Why can’t ticks drain roaches and roaches eat ticks? That would be perfect, don’t you think?”

  Occam’s voice dropped, all silky and dangerous. “Did you read the land alone? Go looking for a demon? Alone?”

  “I was on Soulwood. I was safe.” But even I could hear the defiance in my voice.

  “When I’m hunting on Soulwood, you’re there to protect me,” Occam said. “I’m not trying to protect the little woman. I’m watching my partner’s back, not trying to keep you from doing your job. When an evil is in the land and you read the land, you need backup.”

  Stubbornness welled up in me, not wanting to give in so easily, but … but, Occam wasn’t talking about being dominant over me. He was talking about being my equal, about mutual dependence. Feeling guilty, I said, “Yes. I did it alone.” I scowled up at him. “I promise not to do it again.” Occam raised his mismatched eyebrows in disbelief. I turned away and stomped off through the brush. It grew thick and green right up to the road, which I crossed to trees on the far side. The shade was deep here and the soil loamy enough for there to a springhead nearby. I was on the same side of the road as the house where Jason was supposed to be, assuming he was still with the vampires. “Stupid man,” I grumbled.

  “Say again, Ingram?” he said to my back, a hint of laughter in his voice. Ingram. Not Nell, sugar. He had heard me perfectly with his cat hearing.

  I positioned the pink blanket on the slightly damp soil and sat on it. Touched a single fingertip to the ground, glanced once at Occam, and dropped deep and fast, like plunging a knife blade into the dirt. I was mad at my partner but still trusted him to have my back.

  I didn’t look for the demon or the circle, but I knew they were both there. I could feel the filth in the earth at the livestock center, like used motor oil mixed with clotted blood and grains of rotted wood and rat feces. It was a nauseating sensation and I stayed away.

  Closer to me, partially overwhelmed by the sensation of the demon, maybe three hundred feet ahead, I felt … maggots. Thousands and thousands of maggots. They were all over the property but mostly on the left sid
e of the house, in the basement. Avoiding the hedges, using the smallest hint of power, I eased my attention up through the gravel and the concrete of the slab foundation, trying to see how many vampires there were. I couldn’t get close enough, but I hesitated, feeling something familiar. I pressed up just a bit. And touched wood in the walls. Local wood. The house had been built with local wood and I could feel through it, into the house. And I felt maggots. True-dead vampires. Undead vampires. Vamps in cages. Blood. Lots of blood. Rotting flesh.

  Gagging, I heaved my mind away from the house. Accidently dragged myself through a mound of freshly turned earth. More rotting flesh. Human. I yanked away from the fresh graves. Seven of them. I wrenched myself out of the land and wriggled my cell from my pocket with shaking fingers. Called JoJo.

  She answered with, “Ingram. Where are you? You and Occam aren’t with the others.”

  “Looking for Jason. How many humans lived at the lair?”

  “Five family members and two full-time help. The estate is forty acres of horse pasture and timber. The Blounts are a quiet, unassuming millionaire family who made their fortune in railroads and coal.”

  “Were.”

  “Huh? Were what?”

  I said, “I just found seven graves.”

  • • •

  “Drink some water, Nell, sugar. You don’t breathe enough when you’re underground, and you might not know it, but you ain’t exactly yourself for a while after you read the earth.”

  “What kinda ‘not myself’?”

  He put a bottle of water in my hand and bent over me as if to speak quietly. Instead I felt him clip the leaves in my hairline. No need to advertise I wasn’t human to the local LEOs.

  Chagrined, I said, “Oh. The leafy kind.”

  Occam chuckled quietly, as he worked to slice through a vine on my thumb. “And the grouchy kind. And the bossy kind.”

  “If I was a man, it would be called taking charge or alpha male or something else good.”

  Occam tossed my leaves to the ground and squatted down beside me, his throat exposed in what might look like submission, but I knew better. His eyes were laughing. “You trying to lecture me about women’s rights and misogyny, sugar?”

  “No. I’m trying to say being bossy or an alpha isn’t a problem if I’m right. I needed to be on that side of the road to read the house properly.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause tar tastes bad.” I drank down the water, crushing the bottle.

  His eyebrows went up again, his burned one a little lower than the other. “Oh. I didn’t know that. And maybe I should have.”

  “Yeah. Let’s go find Rick and tell him.”

  “You’re in charge.”

  “Now you’un jist messin’ with me.”

  “Pretty much,” he agreed.

  Rick wasn’t surprised when Occam and I showed up, all hot and sweaty and covered in beggar-lice. I told him about the vamps and the graves. The sheriff’s department had shown up and launched an RVAC, a remote-viewing aircraft, one with advanced cameras and sensors, and had seen the turned earth. They had also skimmed around the house and acquired infrared images through all the windows, giving them a head count of the living humans—fifteen. He and FireWind put their heads together, muttering, and wandered away, toward a group in front of the abandoned house.

  The brass were standing around a makeshift table covered with house plans (which were on file with the county) and the security system (which had been provided by the company once a warrant had been delivered). They included the sheriff, the chief of the Highway Patrol, a TBI investigatory agent wearing suit pants and a jacket, and six SWAT team members in camo and laden with gear, most of it lethal. All of them were sweating in the heat.

  The SWAT captain—Gonzales—was former military and opened the discussion with the words, “Listen up, people.” He held up four fingers. “Ends, ways, means, risk. Strategy is like a three-legged stool, with ends, ways, and means balancing a plane of varying degrees of risk. We create strategy based on known variables and face risk depending on how we use our resources and what the enemy does. We have weapons, we have tools, we have floor plans, we have personnel. What we will not have is military backup before sundown. This is on us. Gather around!”

  I yawned and ate an apple. SWAT and local LEO brass discussed ingress and egress and potential barriers and the proper times and places to use flashbangs, which were the perfect weapon against vampires, affecting their light-sensitive eyes and their better-than-human hearing. A well-timed flashbang was enough to knock an ordinary vamp on his butt for several minutes.

  They also covered strategic choices such as bait and bleed, which would have meant letting Ming’s people attack and the vamps fight it out among themselves. This would have let the demon loose and maybe killed Rick. They decided to keep the local vamps out of the picture and go in before sunset, which was a good thing, as I’d have gotten myself fired warning Yummy. To no one’s surprise they decided on a blitzkrieg offensive with SWAT as the sole offensive wave.

  Despite the fact that this was a paranormal crime scene, SWAT determined that PsyLED wouldn’t be going in until the scene was contained and the house was cleared, because the hallways were too narrow and the chance of getting in the way of people with lethal weapons was too great. I listened long enough before I shouted, “What about sleep spells?”

  The SWAT captain looked my way and saw a skinny female in jeans and a T-shirt, with a pink blanket over her shoulder. He grinned, one of the patronizing expressions a big man sometimes gives a woman who he perceives as a lesser being.

  I didn’t like his grin at all, and maybe I was feeling a little too prickly, but I scowled at him and said, “Kent, how many combatants did you take down last week with one spoken wyrd?”

  T. Laine said, “I think it was twelve.” That got Gonzales’ attention. The captain looked from me to T. Laine and back, his grin fading.

  “Magic keeps our side from getting hurt,” I said. “You walk into a magically protected site with mundane weapons and you may not come out again.”

  T. Laine moved through the crowd, saying, “I’m Kent, a PsyLED witch. My intel says the vamps lairing in the basement have at least one very powerful sorcerer with magical protections and one daywalking vamp with purperior mesmeric capability. Wyrd workings like the sleep spell are not the only offensive or defensive weapons in my arsenal.”

  Gonzales asked, “How long for my men to develop proper techniques with your arsenal?”

  “Tell me, Cap,” T. Laine said, halting in front of the group. “You go to an operation and turn your weapons over to someone with less training and experience?” Gonzales scowled. “I didn’t think so. I’m a witch. I’m not giving you my weapons.”

  I glanced at Rick and FireWind, their faces carefully blank, observing.

  “Your whole, entire plan,” she said, “is mundane weapons against paras. You want a dynamic entry, rush in, fire a few silver rounds, round up everybody, and toss Jason to us. You have no contingencies except Unit Eighteen to deal with paranormal defenses and combatants. What if there are magical workings protecting the entry to the basement? What if they’re prepared to repel boarders with any and all magical means? Godfrey de Bullion is a daywalker capable of clouding human minds. What happens if he stops your men cold? You guys ready to be munched on? What if the demon gets free ahead of schedule?”

  Every eye was on T. Laine. Her head was back, shoulders back, her nearly black hair catching the light. “FireWind? You got something to say? You just came from an interagency confab to discuss exactly these types of problems.”

  The SAC East moved smoothly to the front of the group. “SWAT-Knox are top-notch against humans. But our evaluation suggests there’s a blind spot in your training. All your previous military experience was in the Middle East, where there are very few witches due to ethnic cleansing of anyone with the trait.” FireWind stopped about ten feet out from the SWAT team, his business casual clot
hes contrasting with the single long braid down his back, and with the military-style uniforms on the SWAT team. “All your paramilitary training since has been directed toward human targets and human situations. Here you have a mixture of human and para and you need Kent and the rest of us to meet your objectives.”

  “So what’s your strategy?” Gonzales asked.

  “Limited incursion from front and back doors. Take it slow. Clear the humans in the upper part of the house before entering the basement. Let Kent detect any magical defenses. Take it slow. We have the time.”

  Gonzales asked, “Former military?”

  “In another lifetime.” That was code for classified.

  Occam hummed under his breath, then said, “New boss man’s got him some style.”

  “Listen to FireWind and Kent,” Margot said, loud enough to be heard across the grassy clearing. “Special Agent Margot Racer, FBI,” she said, still speaking loud. Margot sauntered to, and then past, Rick. Margot was wearing long sleeves in the heat, covering up her flesh wound, the one that might turn her into a wereleopard. She was trailed by four feebs, one of them my cousin.

  Surprise slapped through me. I hadn’t seen Chadworth Sanders Hamilton, my third cousin from the townie side of the family, since before I was a tree. He looked different, but I didn’t have time to figure out how exactly because Gonzales was staring at Margot as she walked into the mix of the big boys. They stepped back. The … maybe I’d call it the “balance of power” shifted fast and hard. I had to wonder who Margot Racer really was in FBI lore.

  Again drawing the attention of the group, T. Laine stepped up with Rick, Margot, and FireWind, the four making a neat row of authority. “Considering your plans and the flashbangs, I suggest we add three offensive weapons. A unidirectional null spell, to proactively knock out magical defenses and any wyrd spells he might throw, a sleep spell to put any humans to sleep, and, if we have to retreat for any reason, I have one omnidirectional spell in a grenade-shaped device that makes sentient beings dizzy in a radius of twenty feet from point of impact.”

  “Do they work?” Gonzales asked our witch.