I stood up, grabbed my box of noodles and chopsticks and scooted Kyle out of my office. I asked Grey to come with me and shut the door. We walked across the break room and headed up the stairs to my apartment. Grey jumped on the couch and watched me. I would never let Arden hand you over to anything Faerie.
I tossed the box of noodles into the trash and sat on the couch with Grey. I hugged her tight. "I know."
Mom's memories of Ina were sketchy. She knew the name, but wasn't sure who it was. A lot of things in her past were like that, and I didn't know if that was part of the spell the Queen put on her or if eighteen years as a wolf had worn those human memories down. What she did remember was her hatred of Alfheim and everything in it.
I didn't know if there was a way to make her human again. Everything I consulted, from tome to Grimoire all said the one who turned her into a paladin had to be the one to turn her back. That would be Medbh, the Obsidian Queen before Brendi. And Brendi now had Medbh's essence, or soul or whatever it was, in Alfheim. I loved my mother but I wasn't going near another Cairn, or Faerie ring, into that realm.
Kyle came up the steps with his coat on. "You ready?"
"You think this Olivia knew what Ina was?"
He pursed his lips. "It's possible. Leviathans and Ceremonials have something in common."
"What's that?"
"Evilness," he grinned as he came into the living area and plopped onto the couch. "Let's speculate that Ina knew Olivia was Ceremonial and she was warlocked. What kind of mutual relationship could the two of them have because of that?"
"All kinds," I said as I rubbed Grey's neck and then hugged her to me. She woofed and then pulled back, put her paws on my shoulders and licked my chin before she settled down on the floor, her upper half in my lap. "Leviathans can switch bodies at will, as long as they're not fused soulless like Ina was. It might be that Ina's use of Olivia was to garner information. I would assume a Ceremonial would know Arcane."
Kyle made a rude noise. "Know of it? Sam, they crave it. Arcane is like the dark side of the force. It's an easy way to power. I've even heard you say how easy it is to give into the power. Look what happened last night in the shop. You broke every fountain we had on display."
"Why is that?" I prompted. "Why did I break every fountain? Why not something else? I only hit water." This hadn't been a point before but now it seemed important. Somehow. I just didn't know the how.
"To make a really long winded schooling on the Ceremonial short, let me point to the old feud with the Hammer."
"Yeah, I know. The Witches stole it from the Magicians to prevent them from using it, only to find out that no one could. Because no one could figure out how it worked."
"Except Ina," he leaned forward. "Remember? It was Ina that used your mother's athame to decipher the words. She already knew how to decipher the Hammer. How is it your mother's best friend, known only as a Hedge Witch, had been able to decipher what an entire Parliament of Witches couldn't? Where do you think Ina might have gotten that information?"
Sweet Lord and Lady! "That would mean Ina and this Olivia are still in contact."
"Maybe. From what I read, Olivia has been a bit of a recluse for the past two years. No one knows why."
I put my hand on his knee. "Let's get going. We need to go check her out ourselves."
My phone rang again and I almost automatically sent it to voicemail. Almost. I remembered I'd blocked Arden's calls so I looked at the face.
It was an unknown number. I showed it to Kyle who immediately grabbed it from me. "Jack, what's wrong?"
I dislodged Grey as I stood up and stared at him, wishing I had Ivan's ability to listen in on phone conversations. I held out my hands as Kyle jumped up.
"We'll be right there," he disconnected and handed my phone back. "Bastien did exactly what you thought he'd do. They found Olivia Graham's house and followed the leads. Now Bastien's gone into her house in the Garden District. He told Jack to stay put, but that was half an hour ago. And he just saw Crwys and Levi pull up."
"Lady Darksome…those assholes were supposed to call us." I grabbed my bag off the couch, my twin Smith & Wessons, appropriately named Lord and Lady, and my heavier leather jacket. Well, Crwys's jacket. "I'll drive. Need to swing by to pick up your gear?"
I gave Grey a quick request to stay in the shop for two reasons. First, I wanted someone watching it, and second I didn't want her even slightly involved in anything else that dealt with wolves. I couldn't handle that bitch of a captain storming into my home and taking my mom again.
Kyle shook his head as we went down the steps. "Nope. I keep a starter kit with me lately."
"Good," I said as I shut down the shop and we headed out the back to my Jeep. "Then let's roll."
THIRTEEN
The GPS on Kyle's phone led us to a monster of a house. There were tons of monster houses in New Orleans, especially in the Garden District. But this one…I might have said it made Arden's Gypsy Gardens retreat appear small. And I knew what the square footage was in that house.
The place dwarfed the two classic antebellum homes on either side and it was literally two streets over from Ina's home. Lights were on inside and I could see Crwys's Mustang parked a few houses down. Jack greeted us after I parked, using my "park fu" to find a good, legal space across the street. Jack wore jeans, a heavy coat, no shirt and no shoes. Shivering, I got out of my Jeep wishing I had gloves as I shoved my guns into my belt at the small of my back. I had hoops stitched in some of my jeans just for this purpose, to give them a bit more stability. I liked keeping them hidden. I had a permit to carry them; I just wasn't sure where I put it. No, they didn't shoot magical bullets, but they were spelled to hit anything I shot at. This little ability wouldn't be considered legal in a shooting tournament, but it'd saved my bacon a few times.
"Jack," I said as I stared down at his dirty, bare feet. "Shoes? You got boots?"
"No. I mean yeah, I have them in the car, but it's hard for me to shift fast when my feet are in shoes," he held up his hands. "Just a quirk of mine."
I laughed, knowing how much Kyle didn't like feet. Really. He wasn't a fan of feet and preferred socks just so he didn't have to look at them. I wondered how this little idiosyncrasy would play out between them.
Kyle came around from the passenger side, his bag of herbs, ointments, tinctures and his version of gris-gris which he called spell-bags, all ready in a bag across his shoulder. "So what's going on?"
"How did you two find this place so fast?" I asked Jack.
"Bastien has friends all over the city. That's something I think you should know. Most of them are what he calls protégé. Those he protects for pack favors. They were able to track down who this Circe might be, gave him this address and he ordered the pack to stay alert."
"The Aces are here?" Kyle pointed to the ground.
"Yeah," I said as I felt the nudge on the pack link's door. The voices on the other side seemed agitated. Angry. Worried. Frightened and a bit lost. "They're here. The pack's lost their connection with Bastien." And so had I.
I pulled my phone from my jacket pocket and pressed the call button on Crwys's profile. It rang three times before his voicemail picked up. I waited it out and then said, "If you are in trouble, send me a flare."
Only Crwys would know what that meant. I disconnected and shoved the phone back into my pocket as I watched the house. We waited five minutes. No flare.
"He might not be able to get to his phone." Kyle wanted to sound reassuring, but I was thinking the same thing. If he were injured, or even more unbelievable, unconscious, then leaving a message on the phone would be useless.
"I've got an idea, but I need the two of you to be ready in case I…" I shrugged. "Trigger something?"
"Crap, you're going to use Arcane again?" Kyle hissed.
I turned and glared at him. "You got a better idea?" I hissed. "It's the closest I got to magic."
"Then let me do it. At least mine won't send up a red flare. Lit
erally." Kyle moved to the back of the Jeep and opened up the door. There wasn't much space behind the second set of seats but there was enough for him to work. He set his bag down on the rubber liner, pulled out a green candle about the diameter of my wrist and maybe four inches high. He snapped his fingers and a tiny Salamander sparked a flame. I smiled at his prowess as he thanked the Fire Element and then pulled a stick of incense from a plastic wrapper.
Now here's where an Elemental Witch and a Hedge Witch differ. When I had my Elementals, I used my own essence, power, soul, pick a name, to power the spell and the Elementals were the ones that guided the intent along. They jolted my power to…I don't know. A million? I'm not a gamer so I didn't know how to rank power boosts. It was a lot. And when it was over, I would be exhausted and starving. Much like Ivan was today.
But Kyle had learned how to tap the power of the herbs, potions, tinctures and the organic and sometimes inorganic objects around him. Every potion he made, every spell he wrote, every candle he created, everything had a purpose. He used his energy to guide but he drew the power from the objects.
I pulled Jack closer as Kyle faced the ginormous house, held up the candle and traced a Water invoking pentagram in the air. It stayed there, a brilliant blue against the backdrop of the night. He set the candle on ground just beneath it, then took the burning incense stick and pierced the pentagram's center.
The middle popped like a bubble and abruptly the house looked very, very different as long as we looked through the pentagram's center.
"Holy—" Jack said a little too loud and I clamped a hand over his mouth.
Kyle spoke but his voice was little more than a whisper as he concentrated. "That's a lot of Arcane."
And it was. The entire house was on fire with it. It permeated the wood, the roots of the nearby trees and the very foundation of the place. And just past the flaming, glittering forbidden magic I could make out the outlines of six individuals. They appeared to be… "Are they having tea?"
"Looks like it," Kyle whispered. "I'm not sensing any distress. Not even an emotional spike. They're all in the front parlor."
"Wait," I pulled my hand from Jack's mouth with a warning glare and moved in closer to the pentagram. "You mind if I tweak it?"
"Let me transfer it to you. I love you, Sam, but I don't want Arcane taint."
I snorted.
Kyle knelt beneath the huge floating blue pentagram and pulled a white handled knife from inside his jacket. A Witch's working knife. I could just see the smoke from the candle as it curled up and mingled with the pentagram above. He said something under his breath and sliced the stream of smoke. The candle went out.
"Catch it," Kyle said to me and cleared his throat.
Catch it was right. The pentagram started to float away like a loose balloon. I grabbed the edge of it with my right index finger and thumb. It immediately went from blue to red. Not a fire red, but more like Arcane red. Like blood. I pulled it down and tethered it in place in front of me. What I wanted to do was see this Circe for myself. This Olivia Graham.
Of the six bodies in the front parlor, there was one that didn't reflect the red sparkling Arcane. It looked more like an outline of a void and was seated in a chair in front of a roaring fire.
"Can you tell me what's going on?" Jack sounded frightened.
"I created a window using herbs and colors of the Elements. The candle is green and the wax was made of plants and herbs with powerful Earth connections. Green is the color of Earth. The flame represents Fire, and the incense is made of Air herbs with high potency."
"The blue pentagram?"
"Communication. It's made of Water. We needed to communicate with the wood of the house so I used the other three Elements to create the window, held it in Water and pierced it with Air," Kyle paused. "It's still not making sense to you, is it?"
"No. Not really. But then, I turn into a wolf when the moon's full so sense kinda flew out the window for me a while ago. So, why is it red now?"
"Because Sam is using a different kind of magic."
"The bad magic?"
"In the wrong hands…yes."
I had to shut their conversation out as I concentrated on this void person. I repeated the dex spell I'd used earlier and framed it inside the pentagram, hoping the Arcane swimming about in that house wouldn't alert the owner I was probing. The spell bounced around a bit, giving me answers like Revenant, Lycan, Witch, Cowen, Ancient, Cowen—
"Ancient?"
Kyle stepped up. "What's Ancient? You mean this version of the dex is saying one of them is ancient? Is that a designation or a description?"
"I—I don't know. There are six people. So that's Circe, Bastien, Levi, Crwys and two more." I pursed my lips. "Maybe Circe's the Ancient?" What the hell was an Ancient?
"I'm betting she's the Witch."
I looked away and stared at him under the street lights. "You mean, she was a Witch and went Magician?"
"Not the first time it's happened. Arden could tell you some seriously scary stories about Witches who were seduced by Ceremonial Magic. It's easier and it makes you more powerful," he snorted. "If it doesn't kill you first."
"You mean if whatever you bind into you doesn't kill you." I looked back though the window at the forms. Ceremonial Magicians have a lot of problems, the worst of them, in my opinion, was their inability to ask. If they wanted something they forced it. Which made the idea of this chick performing transmogrify all the more plausible just as Blackwood said. "I don't see any other bodies in the house. That's it."
Kyle put his hand on me. "Uh oh."
I caught the movement seconds before he touched me. It was to the side, low to the ground and just behind the fence circling the house. I moved the pentagram to see it, or to see what it was. And when I did—
Look out!
I never got a chance to shout those words out but I was thinking it when whatever it was leapt over that fence and came at us. I acted on instinct again which, in hindsight, was both good and bad. I pushed my hand through the center of the pentagram as the shadow zeroed in on me. The skin on my hand and wrist caught fire and it felt as if the window were made of real glass instead of Air and it was shredding my skin as I poked through.
I gathered every Element in every herb, in every color from that pentagram and within seconds the thing shrank and wrapped around my wrist. It burned with a flame that alternated between the Elemental colors and as the shadow made that last leap across the street and charged into the air to attack me, I focused that power on it and released.
Streams of red, blue, yellow and green shot out from my hand, encased the creature and in an instant…it was gone.
The street returned to the quiet night and there was nothing in front of us but the calm appearance of the house. I couldn't see inside of the house anymore, but the light in the parlor was out.
"What…" Kyle said but I held up a hand for him to be quiet.
The front door opened in the shadow of the street lights and a tall, feminine figure came down the steps. The gate opened and she walked, almost glided, across the street toward us. She was tall and too thin. Like rail thin. Quick, get this woman a sandwich! Her hair was white and fell in cascades over her shoulders. She wore a thigh length black dress with matching black pumps. And the face that appeared under the hair, now illuminated by the street lights above, was young.
She looked maybe sixteen. The edges of her features blurred a bit when she talked and I realized she was using glamour of some kind to hide her features.
I knew before she stopped in front of us that this was Olivia Graham, aka Circe. She had the slippery, shimmery feel of a Ceremonial Magician.
The woman with the child-like face held out her hands. "I am Circe. I'm afraid that was a dear pet of mine you just destroyed."
I stepped in front of the other two. "It attacked me."
"It was defending its home."
"We never moved from this spot. We are across the street. Not on your prop
erty," I narrowed my eyes at her. "I'd like to see Detectives Holliard and Tulose, as well as Bastien LeBlanc."
"I'm afraid I don't know those names."
"Yes you do!" Jack shouted, letting his emotions get the better of him. "I saw them go into your house!"
I turned and gave him a Shut The Fuck Up! glare before I turned back to Circe. She was smiling. "We know our friends are in our house. Will you let them leave?"
"For a price."
Crap. "What price?"
She smiled as she pointed at me. "You."
FOURTEEN
I'm not gonna deny that I suspected for a tiny second this woman might be Brendi in disguise and this was a clever ruse to save her reputation. After all, I was the only human that's ever broken a deal with any of the Faerie Queens and survived intact. But a second later I realized this lady wasn't Faerie. I wasn't sure she was sane. "Why me?"
"I know your aunt. In fact, I met you a few times when you were a child. Ina and I were very good friends at one time. We had a dream, she and I. A dream to bring Arcane into the world."
Uh…
I narrowed my eyes at her. "Ina wanted to bring Arcane into the world?"
"Of course. Because she used it. You had to have known that, Samantha. Because I can sense it within you. And it's concentrated over your heart. It's strong. You're her legacy. She always believed you could wield Arcane as well as your Gifts."
Crwys's words came back to me. "Don't blind yourself to the possibility that his ultimate goal was to infuse you with Arcane, and then take your body. Think of the power he would have then and your soul to ride."
Oh hell no!
Circe clapped her hands together. "I see in your face you've discovered the truth! And now you see, I have everything I need to bring Arcane into the world!"
I swallowed. "Why? And how? How…do you plan on bringing Arcane into the world?" I've learned through life that there are no coincidences. That paths cross and intertwine for a reason as Destiny sets her fickle-ass plans down.
Elemental Moon: The Eldritch Files, Book Three Page 9
