by Faith Hunter
Kem-cat not friend, I thought.
“I have his number written down somewhere,” Molly said. “Evangelina’s landline phone is still working. Only the cells are ruined.”
“This day is turning out to be an expensive one,” Evan said, growl back in his voice.
Just after sunset, Kem and Rick drove up in their rattletrap truck. Within minutes, Boadacia parked behind them, van headlights casting odd shadows in the dead garden, which was still shedding desiccated leaves.
I was back in human form, my long hair loose and in the way, wearing some of my own clothes, and some things Molly had scavenged from Evangelina for me. I didn’t like wearing her clothes, but I liked even less wearing jeans shredded by Beast’s claws and showing a lot of leg. I was in my own tank and undies, and Evangelina’s elastic-waist, green and yellow skirt. It was a sixties granny skirt and looked weird with my boots, and I had no idea how I was getting home on Fang in a dress, but that was a problem for later. I was also wearing various knives strapped to my thighs under my skirt, and felt better for their presence. The jeans and the thrice damned blood-diamond were in a confiscated travel tote, hidden under the couch. Not a safe place, but it was all I had.
I was starving and shoveling in brown rice and grilled veggies from the fridge while cleaning up Evangelina’s kitchen. Beast had made a mess. I had washed and put the ruined plastic in the recycle bin, and was mopping the floor while eating when everyone came in.
Rick wandered over to me, staring while I ate. His long black hair waved and curled around his jaw, his black eyes sparkled with amusement, and his lips pressed together, twitching. “Shtop ih,” I said, through a mouthful of rice. It was seasoned with something wonderful, bits of herbs and stuff, and it tasted delicious. I spooned in another scoop, chewing, mopping.
“You shifted, didn’t you? Kem eats like that after a shift.” When I grunted in affirmation, he said, “You’re cute.”
“Nah cue.” I swallowed. “Too tall and gangly to be cute.”
He took the mop from my hands and finished the floor while I finished off the meal. He was wearing black jeans that cupped his butt like happy hands, and a white tee. The eyes of his cats seeming to glow through the knit. Beast rose and stared as I ate. She approved of a man who could look as sexy as a calendar model even with a mop in hand. He jutted a chin at the floor. “Your cat did this?”
“Yeah. She was hungry. And Molly wouldn’t let her eat Evangelina.” When Rick arched an eyebrow at me I shook my head and said, “For dinner, Ricky Bo.”
“Of course.” He wrung the mop out in the sink and set it aside.
He moved to me and pushed the food away. Took my hips in his hands, his thumbs on my lower stomach, turning my body to his and pulling me close. “I have ideas what you can eat for dessert.” He kissed my jaw. I laughed silently as his lips nuzzled along my jaw, and up to my ear. Heat moved in the wake of his lips, spreading and settling low in my belly. His cheek brushed back and forth along mine again, scent marking me. Cat-like.
I tilted back my head to give him better access to my neck, wondering if he even noticed what he was doing. My laughter faded, and the warmth in my belly grew heavy, thrumming, where his thumbs made slow circles. Mine, Beast purred. “Mmm,” I echoed the sentiment. The full moon was soon, very soon, and while skinwalkers aren’t moon-called, we are closer to our beast-selves at full moon. Beast was often hard to control then. Okay, impossible. I was usually along for the ride, not the other way around. Full moon? Beast was alpha.
I dropped my spoon and slid my hands up Rick’s arms, over the scar tissue of werewolf bites, toward his shoulders. And jerked away. Leaped back. Hard. “What?” Rick said, eyes wide. I looked at my palm. Two spots were red, not blistered, but close. Through his shirt the eyes of the cat-tats on his arm and shoulder were glowing golden. I held out my other hand, fingers close to the four glowing spots, two for the mountain lion, two for the bobcat. Heat came off them. Not enough to scorch the shirt, but—
Rick rolled up his sleeve and said, “This isn’t good.”
“Why not?”
“We’re ready,” Evan said. Rick and I looked at him. Big Evan’s eyes were on the tats too. “You have spelled tattoos?” Rick nodded. “We need to talk sometime. For now, we need Jane in the basement.” To Rick he added, “We’re going to call an angel to bind a demon.”
Rick dropped his sleeve. “No good Catholic schoolboy would miss that.”
We started down the stairs after Big Evan when my cell rang. It was Aggie One Feather. I gathered all the formality around me that I had. Softly, I said, “Aggie One Feather. Elder of the Tsaligi. Please tell me you are the cavalry coming to the rescue at the last minute.” Evan stopped and turned to me.
With a wry tone, Aggie said, “The cavalry usually slaughtered The People, but yes, I know what your witch summoned.” I put her on speakerphone, her soft tones whispering clearly in the stairwell. “I fear it may be one of the Sunnayi Edahi, the invisible night goers. The most fearsome of these evil beings is Kalona Ayeliski, the Raven Mocker.”
The thing in the basement screamed and thrashed in its trap. Kalona Ayeliski. We had its name. That gave us power over it. Big Evan smiled at me, a real smile, maybe the first one I’d ever received. “According to most of the stories,” Aggie said, “the Mocker was a male Cherokee . . . witch is the European term that matches most closely. He could take the shape of a raven and fly to the bedside of a dying person. If the patient wasn’t guarded by holy men who could drive him away, the Mocker would magically remove the dying one’s heart and fly off with it. The patient would die. The mocker would eat the heart and grow younger by however many days he had stolen from the patient. The theft would leave no scar, but if the dead man’s chest cavity was opened, there would be no heart inside.”
I remembered what the demon had said about killing Cherokee on the Trail of Tears, and gaining many years of life. “The evil-deed-doing, big-bad-ugly is a shape-shifter and a witch and a demon. That covers three of the supernatural angles all at once.”
“Yes. It cannot be killed, only bound and banished, as I feared.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That part we got. Thank you, Aggie One Feather. I’ll call later.” I thumbed off the cell and went down into the basement, standing with Rick in the corner. Kemnebi, in human form, studied the demon from across the room, paying particular attention to the sole surviving werewolf. Lincoln Shaddock had disappeared earlier and reappeared now in a burst of vamp speed and displaced air. He looked pinker and more spry, clearly having fed well. I didn’t ask who he snacked on. He brought Pickersgill with him, the vamp placed in a comfy chair upstairs to guard Evangelina while we worked.
The basement room had been rearranged. All the paintings had been removed from the walls and stacked in the other room. There were a lot of us, five witches, a were-cat and a were-cat in training, a vamp, and a skinwalker. In the witch’s circle were a sleeping, spelled werewolf and parts of a dead werewolf. And the demon, of course. The guest of honor.
There were talismans at each place of the pentagram: Molly had a holly branch that was still green. She must have spent some time foraging down the street, because nothing alive was left in Evangelina’s garden. Big Evan had a flute carved of pale wood. Cia had a huge moonstone, something a museum might display, bigger than two fists held together, like an oval crystal ball, its surface catching the light in rainbow hues. The toddler was wide awake, strapped into his car seat, kicking and saying disconnected words about bananas. Molly seemed to understand what he said, but most of it was gibberish to me. He had a feather and a holly leaf tucked under one of the straps. Dad was an air sorcerer, and Mama was an earth witch, so they were logical choices.
Angelina had a pile of stuff: a black rock, a withered leaf, a piece of bark, a wilting daisy, a silver earring, a hawk wing feather, and a doll. It was Ka Nvsita, a Cherokee doll I had given her. It had been in Molly’s van. Nothing in the pile made sense, especially the doll. All wi
tches have an affinity to magical energy in one area or another: moon, earth, water, stone, air, sometimes to fire. Some witches can use other energies, but they all have one area of particular strength. Angie Baby had metal, stone, the daisy for earth, two dead things, the feather, and a man-made doll. I looked at Molly, who was watching me. When she saw my puzzlement, she lifted a shoulder and went back to her conversation. Molly wasn’t worried. Angie was a witch whiz kid; kids weren’t supposed to have magic until puberty. No one knew what was about to happen with Angie’s gift.
The demon—the Raven Mocker—was standing as far away from the stairs as possible, hissing, looking more real and solid than ever. And more like an anzu than I expected—bigger, blacker, more wicked, but similar. Maybe all supernats had their good and evil forms, the polar opposites of each other, like skinwalkers and liver-eaters, witches of the light and blood-witches, civilized vamps and rogue vamps. One group that helped humans, one that thought they were tasty when grilled with onions. Or raw.
I slid away from them, to the floor in the corner, my back to the wall. This wasn’t my gig, and there was nothing I could do to help except give blood, but, like Rick, I wasn’t gonna miss it. He joined me on the floor, his thigh against mine. His eyes widened when he felt the knife belted there. I let my smile grow. “Better safe than sorry.”
He grinned back. “I got thirty-eight silver reasons to agree.” Meaning that he had a .38 handgun loaded with silver strapped to his ankle or in a boot sheath. We made a good team.
We stayed out of the way while the witches discussed the ways and language they would use to call the angel and planned out the working they would use to bind the demon. The Raven Mocker got more agitated, emitting whistles and chirps and setting the red motes in the hedge of thorns flashing. Almost as if they reacted to his tension. Almost as if they were alive.
Outside, the moon rose, and Beast rose with it, flooding me with the urge to hunt, to mate, to roam the dark, free and powerful. To feel the air in our pelt, scenting and tasting and hearing the life of the world. Kem looked at me, sharing the moon-call, Rick was feeling it too, his heart rate a little fast, his sweat smelling of excitement. The reddish wolf in the circle felt it the most—panting in his sleep, paws running.
Big Evan came to me, holding a cut-crystal bowl and an athame, a ceremonial knife. I held out my hand and with no warning, he grabbed my thumb and stabbed downward. I couldn’t help my hissing indrawn breath. My blood welled, scarlet. Evan whispered the name, “Kalona Ayeliski.”
The witches all sat. The Raven Mocker screamed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Threw Her Over the Railing
I jumped in my spot against the wall. Rick laughed under his breath. “Not funny,” I muttered. Big Evan glared at me. “If you can’t be quiet, we’ll ask you to leave. We have enough problems with the baby talk and the demon shrieking.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled. Rick’s chest moved fast, quivering, as if he were suppressing silent laughter. I wanted to punch him, but I figured that would get me expelled from the room.
“We gather,” Evan said. My humor disappeared as if blown away by a hurricane. It was similar to the words uttered by vamps when they gather for some important event. The witches started talking in a foreign language, in unison, like recitation. Irish Gaelic, I thought, the language Molly and her sisters use when they do a major group working. It was a beautiful and barbaric language, flowing like a stream down a narrow cleft, full of tshhhushhs, and odd-sounding Fs, and long, sibilant Hs. I found myself leaning in, closer to the mesmeric sound.
There was no drum or flute, as there might have been in a Cherokee ceremony. There was nothing but the purity of the voices, Big Evan leading the phrases, the others repeating them. Evan Junior was silent, his mouth moving as if he wanted to join in, his pudgy hands gripping the straps of the car seat. I was reminded of the toddler climbing up into my lap at the café, demanding that I help his spelled family.
And then I heard the word Hayyel fall from Evan’s mouth. And the others repeated it. “Hayyel. Hayyel. Hayyel . . .” Over and over again, the syllables falling like a drumbeat, or a heartbeat, rhythmical, musical, and lyrical, as if the flowing stream of their words bounced against boulders and fell in a long arc. My heartbeat found the rhythm of the words of the angel’s name, and, silently, I joined in the calling, for it was a calling, a repeated prayer. “Hayyel. Hayyel. Hayyel . . .”
Evan leaned forward and took the flute in his hands. The others each took up their talismans, and held them, even the toddler, who was holding both the holly leaf and the feather, one in each fist, his arms pumping up and down in excitement. Molly picked up the bowl of blood, mine and Angie’s mixed. Angie Baby’s eyes were wide, her lips parted, face flushed. “Hayyel. Hayyel. Hayyel . . .” they all said. She was holding the doll, the other things forgotten. And . . . The doll’s eyes were glowing. I shrank back against the wall. The doll’s eyes were glowing golden, like mine when Beast is rising up in me. There was no way that the black glass eyes could— But this was magic. Magic, ancient and foreign . . .
Inside the hedge of thorns, the werewolf woke up, eyes wide and mouth open in horror. I was vaguely aware of Lincoln Shaddock as he left the room, moving fast, the air of his passing like a faint, dry wind. “Hayyel. Hayyel. Hayyel . . .”
As the others repeated the chant of the angel’s name, and Evan played a haunting melody on his flute, Molly added words to the chant, like a descant sung in soft minor notes, “Kalona Ayeliski. Kalona Ayeliski.”
The Raven Mocker stood in the center of his cage and screamed.
A flash of light hit the hedge of thorns like lightning, pure and brighter than the sun. I shrank back, covering my eyes with both forearms. The images burned through my arms, my bones, my lids, into my eyes, into my brain, into my soul. I saw a winged being attacking the demon. Light and darkness. The light of an exploding atom bomb, the light of the sun’s core, the light of the center of the universe. And the darkness of a black hole, empty beyond all understanding, full of nothingness. The sound of bells, high winds, roaring waves. Echoes and echoes of a perfect, pure note sung for eternity. Screams of agony. Trapped for a long moment together, in combat.
In the glare, Molly stood and dipped her fingers into the blood in the crystal bowl and flung the mixture over the hedge. Above it all, I heard Molly start the binding words, “Hayyel, bíodh sé daor, le m’ordú agus le—” The light went out. The burn on my retinas leaving me blind. After a stutter, Molly finished the binding. “Mo chumhacht, Kalona Ayeliski.”
But the light had disappeared. The fighting angel and demon were both gone. Just . . . gone. The dead body was gone. Hedge of thorns was gone. The blood was gone. The salt composing the circle was gone. The black paint on the floor was gone, leaving a circle of concrete, seared pure white. And silence. No one moved except to blink against the retinal burn.
A werewolf lay on the floor in wolf form, asleep or dead; not the wolf he had been, not reddish brown and wild, but a huge, pure white wolf, with only a hint of gray in his ruff. Kem was on the far side of the room, in cat form, blacker than night, none of his spots visible after the blast of light. Rick was holding my hand in his, crushed against me in the corner, his eyes unfocused and wide. He smelled of cat, wild and musky. If he knew how to shift, he’d be a black leopard right now, only his tats holding him to human form. Everyone two-natured was affected. Except me. I just felt curiously . . . empty. I reached for Beast . . . Beast?
Upstairs, a door slammed. A door? Dazed, I shook my head to clear it. “Crap,” I said. I shoved away from the wall and raced up the stairs, stumbling over Evil Evie’s skirt, blinking away the afterimage of holiness and evil.
In the living room, Pickersgill was skewered to the floor with a stake in his belly, bleeding like a stuck pig. Evangelina was no longer asleep on the floor. And Lincoln, who had torn out of the basement, was missing as well.
An engine raced. The sports car fishtailed
out of the drive. I landed on my knees and shoved the couch over to get my bike key and go after her. It landed with a heavy thump. There was nothing underneath the couch. My travel tote, torn jeans, and the pink blood-magic-diamond were all gone. I raced outside, but the night breeze off the French Broad River was already carrying the scent of her car away. I went back inside, standing in the corner, staring at the chaos.
Pickersgill was bleeding out, the witches were falling all over themselves, panicked, and Angie Baby was crying. Pickersgill, hissed between his fangs, furious and scared, “My own master staked me!”
“Yeah, but he staked you to keep you alive or he’d have aimed higher and to the left,” I said. I bent at his side, one knee on the floor. “I’ll pull out the stake. Try to bite me and I won’t be so nice.” I pulled the stake from his gut and he disappeared to feed. I figured he’d live, if the undead can be said to live. Wiping Pickersgill’s blood from my fingers onto the rug, I took Angie in my arms and stood in the corner, hugging her to my chest, her legs wrapped around my waist. The reek of vamp blood and magic polluted the air.
Evangelina had the diamond. And Beast—Beast? The word echoed through me.
Big Evan asked, “Did the banishing work? Did we bind the Raven Mocker?”
“I don’t think so,” Molly said. “I think Evangelina disrupted the spell.” Which was her right as coven master. Then she ran away. With the diamond.
I wasn’t thinking right. Not thinking clearly. Not thinking much at all. Because the disrupted spell and the appearance of the angel Hayyel had stolen my Beast. I was alone inside my own head. “Beast?” I whispered. I rocked Angie, holding her close.
The weres left together, Rick, silent and acting like a twitchy cat, driving fast. Having a first encounter of the third kind with an angel had to be a major wakeup call for a lapsed, or at least lackadaisical, good Catholic boy. The white wolf and Kem, stuck in black leopard form, were both sleeping in the bed of the truck, in cages borrowed from Evangelina’s back room. I didn’t know what would happen to the wolf. I wasn’t even sure what the wolf was now.
