by Faith Hunter
Instead of answering, I asked a question. “And Leo was going?”
“At first, yes. Then he changed his mind. Why. Do. You ask?”
I closed my eyes. “I ask because Evangelina had you spelled and open to suggestion. She set this whole thing in place, to get Leo here, in her hometown, where her coven gave her power to draw on. And she thought you could force the issue.” The main reason Leo had agreed to the parley was because of the location of her coven, though he never knew that.
I heard Bruiser’s slow intake of breath. I almost felt his shock through the airwaves. My cell beeped. It was Molly’s number. “I’ll get back to you.” I cut Bruiser off and said, “Hi.”
“I’m sorry,” Molly said. Before I could reply she went on. “For not believing you about my sister. For not trusting that you knew what you were doing. For not standing up to Big Evan when he was an ass about you.”
I heard Evan in the background, say, “Hey. No fair.”
“Jane is my friend. You were an ass. Don’t let it happen again,” Molly said, her words muted, her mouth turned away from the phone. I heard Evan grumble in the background. To me she said, “The ass says he’s sorry.” I didn’t believe that Big Evan had apologized, but I would accept it.
“My sisters and I are meeting at two p.m. at Evangelina’s to take a look at the demon she trapped, and bind it back to darkness if we can. Evangeline is teaching a cooking class at the Biltmore House all day, and won’t be back until after dark. Big Evan analyzed the photos you sent and he thinks that daylight is the best time for us to neutralize the working. Can you be there?”
I thought about taking Derek and the boys to take Evie out, and about all the collateral damage that might result if she fought with demon-backed witch spells. I discarded the idea. “I’ll be there at one forty-five,” I said. “And Molly? I used Evangelina’s hair and one of her scarves to get inside without the spell taking me over.”
A long silence followed before Molly sighed into the phone. “I still can’t accept that she used blood magic,” Molly said. “But if you got in with her genetic material then, well. Oh hell.” Her voice was clotted with tears. “See you soon, Big-Cat.”
Satisfied that I had done all I could, I set my phone to wake me by twelve thirty, pulled the covers from the foot of the neatly made bed and fell asleep. Hard.
I sat on Fang under the blazing sun at Evil Evie’s and sweated, smelling the stench of old blood, sickly sweet and rotting. The early cold spell had melted away into Indian summer, and the jeans and denim jacket were too warm for the high eighties and humidity, but were much preferable to the riding and fighting leathers I would have needed for a vamp hunt. I wasn’t sure what Evangelina’s witch-magic problem would require, but protection from vamp fangs wouldn’t be one of them.
I hadn’t wanted anyone to be able to track me, so I left the cell and the SUV with their GPS locator devices at the hotel. I had no idea how the sisters would banish the demon in the basement and free the weres and Lincoln, but it would involve lots of magic, and I wondered if there would be anything left of the old homeplace when they were done.
I studied the odd lines inside the garden’s witch circle. The blood-splattered rocks looked like broken alphabet letters, something archaic. It hit me. Runes. Evangelina was using runes. I felt really stupid. Lots of witches used runes; their ability to craft raw power into something useful had some special reliance on runes. So if I took a tree branch and batted away the rocks that made up her circle, and knocked the runes out of place, it might—
Molly’s van pulled up beside me before I had a chance to try it, which was probably a good thing for my state of health. Witch magic that got interrupted might go bang. I pulled off my jacket, tossed it on the seat, and set Fang’s kickstand. Boots crunching on the gravel, I stood by Mol’s open window. Her face was grief stricken, her eyes on the witch circle with its coating of dried blood. She took a breath, and her throat tissue quaked audibly as she swallowed, tears in her eyes. I patted her shoulder through the window, knowing the gesture was not nearly enough.
“Blood magic,” she whispered, shaking her head. “Son of a witch on a stick.” Visibly, she gathered herself and opened the van door. From the passenger seat, she handed me a heavy wicker basket covered with a kitchen towel. I held it while she climbed from the van, her face now set and resolute. When the van door closed, she tilted her head, the motion reticent. “Evan told me about Shiloh. About how she was kidnapped in New Orleans. I think . . . I think I knew it, already. I think Evangelina told us when she spelled us all.”
I almost told her about the body in the rug upstairs, but something stopped me. She’d had enough bad news today. “Where’s Evan?” I asked, instead.
“The kids are napping. He’s watching them. I don’t need him for this.” Which was a lie. Major witch workings required five witches. They had only four. But I didn’t argue. This was her sister they were going up against, the leader of the Everhart coven. They would handle it alone. “Turn off your cell,” she added. “It might interfere with the working.” Which was news to me. I’d have to be more careful.
Two all-wheel Subarus pulled in beside the van, and the other sisters got out, Carmen Miranda carrying a basket from the blue car, the twins Boadacia and Elizabeth from the green one—Cia with a small trunk, Liz with a weighty cloth tote over one shoulder. Molly looked at me. “Do you have the scarf and hairs?” I nodded. “Cover your head and shoulders with the scarf and stick the hairs in a pocket. Stay here.”
Molly didn’t issue orders often, but when she did, I listened. The sisters converged on the witch circle in the garden and I turned off my throwaway cell, pulled the trapped hairs from the scarf weave, and pocketed them just as Molly had required. Feeling stupid, I covered my head with the lavender scarf and watched as the sisters stepped clockwise or sunwise, each taking her place where a pentagram point would have touched the circle had one been intended for a group working. Boadacia and Elizabeth sat with their backs to me. Molly and Carmen faced me. That left one spot empty, the one pointing at the house. That spot faced the rear door, the location from which I had seen Evangelina’s back when she was pouring blood all over herself. The place where she entered the circle and closed it before working with blood. How the sisters knew where she had sat, I didn’t know, but they all stared at the spot she had been sitting. I hadn’t told them. It was sorta eerie, until I realized they could see where the dried blood was thickest. Maybe the outline of Evangelina’s body.
They got the implements for a working out of their containers. Carmen was an air witch, and she lifted a necklace of wing feathers and leaves out of her basket. Molly was an earth witch with an unusual affinity to death, meaning that like most earth witches, she could influence plants and some animals, could draw power for workings directly from them, but unlike most earth witches, she could also sense dead things. Mol took a rosemary plant out of her basket and set the pot at her feet. One of the twins was a moon witch, her magics tied to the lunar cycles, and would be particularly strong this close to the full moon, but only when the moon was high. She looped a long necklace of huge moonstones around her shoulders over and over. Cia was a stone witch—minerals were her gift—and did the same thing with a necklace made of mixed, faceted gems in shades of purple, yellow, green, and clear. They sparkled in the sunlight.
Each of the women were wearing flowing dresses, and in unison, they sat on the ground outside the circle, in half-lotus positions, dresses covering their knees. They closed their eyes. Molly placed her rosemary in her lap, and I could smell the rich sun-heated scent. The one empty place looked like a hole ripped in the reality of their family. Evangelina was a water witch; with her the sisters had once been part of a perfect coven. Without her they were weakened.
I sat on the ground, in the shade of a tree, sweat trickling down my spine under my tank top, and waited. The women didn’t look like they were doing anything, and the lack of sleep pulled at me. My eyes fought to clos
e and I ground my molars together to keep alert. Watching the Everhart sisters was like watching paint dry or grass grow.
Ten minutes later, about the time my jaw started to ache, I heard a faint explosion of air, like a vamp disappearing from a room at supersonic speed. A pop-whoosh. I blinked, wondering if I had missed something. The sisters stood as if nothing untoward had happened and started kicking the stones that composed the circle, scuffing at the little trench, throwing the rocks that made up the runes. I caught Molly’s eye and stood, grabbed the ends of the scarf to hold it in place over my head, and walked to the circle.
Molly cocked her brow in question. “That looked easier than I expected,” I said.
“It was easy. We just knocked out the ward that protected the circle and deactivated the circle she used to draw power from us. Now,” Molly started toward house, “is the hard part.” I moved in front of her and opened the door with my scarf-covered hand. The interior of the house glowed with magical energies, the air itself seeming covered with a pink haze, snapping with black sparks. The smell of the magic was so strong I rubbed my nose. The working was getting stronger, even with Evangelina not here. Even with the circle outside deactivated and physically displaced. Still holding the scarf over my head, I led the way to the basement.
With each step down, I felt the pull of the demon below, the thing that knew my darkest wants and fears and needs. Willing me to join him in his witch-spelled cell. Beast woke, pressing down on me with her claws, watching through my eyes, not happy that I had come back here. Jane is foolish kit. Silly kit. Stupid kit to come back here, to den of bird predator.
I know, I thought back. But I have to be here for Molly. Even though there was nothing I could do to help Molly deal with what she would find in the basement. Nothing to lessen the impact. But as her friend, I could be there first. Leading the way, I turned on lights to dispel the strength of the hedge of thorns’ red, bloody glow. I was first in the basement, the electric sparks of the hedge pricking over me. The first to see the demon inside.
He was sitting on the floor of his cage, nibbling on the smaller werewolf, beak tearing and ripping flesh. I was pretty sure the were was dead, as there was more blood sloshing in the circle than there was inside of him. What skin he still wore over his muscles and viscera was bluish. The man was missing both arms and most of one leg. What is it about supernatural creatures needing to eat humans when they go to the dark side?
The larger werewolf, the one I called Fire Truck, looked as if he’d lost a third of his considerable body weight. His ribs were clearly visible beneath his thin skin and thick body hair, breathing, smiling, eyes closed, apparently napping in the congealing blood of his wolf-buddy.
The demon stood as I entered, wings half spread as if to cover and protect his dinner. His similarity to an anzu was marked, yet wrong somehow, as if an anzu had mated with a shadow and given birth to this monstrosity. His beak opened and he trilled softly, as if pleased to see me.
Molly stopped at the foot of the stairs, her eyes wide. Carmen stopped behind her, mumbling air witch curses damning storms and fire winds. Behind them, one twin was crying, the other was red-faced with anger. The angry one said, “Evangelina should be whipped for this. Cast out.”
Cia said, “Evangelina should go to jail for this.”
I hadn’t told them about the body rolled in the rug upstairs. But eventually I’d have to report it to the police. Even if he’d died of natural causes, I rather doubted he’d rolled himself in the carpet and tucked it behind the couch first. So the cops were in Evangelina’s future one way or another.
“Come to me,” the trapped demon said to Molly. “I will show you true freedom, true power.”
“Don’t talk to that thing,” Carmen warned.
“Your sister has found freedom and power with me,” he said.
Molly whispered, to her sisters, not to the demon, “Our sister has been cursed. Not freed.” To me she said, “Where is the vampire?”
I walked around the room until I could see the back of the hedge of thorns. Lincoln Shaddock lay on the black-painted floor—sleeping the sleep of the undead, or maybe really dead—against the wall that led into the kennel. I nudged him with my foot, but he didn’t react. He didn’t look so good; he looked true dead, pasty, shriveled, and maybe a little blue. I bent over him and took a sniff. The usual vamp smell of dry herbs, bark, flowers, and earth was missing. But so was the smell of death. He smelled like . . . nothing. Part of the room.
I walked back to the other side and realized that the sisters were already sitting on the floor at the points of the pentagram that was painted inside the hedge, their talismans in laps or around necks. “Molly?” I asked, alarmed.
“Black magic works best at night and is weakest with the sun overhead.” She checked her watch. “We hope to bind the demon and send him back to the place he came from.”
“Where’s that?” I asked.
“No idea,” Molly said. I didn’t know much about witch power, but I did know about evil, and you didn’t go up against pure evil, absolute not-of-this-world evil, alone. You needed help, big help. Better-than-human help. They needed faith and a full coven.
“Some things we don’t need to know,” one of the twins said.
“Don’t want to know,” the other twin said.
Carmen Miranda pulled a silver cross from her shirt and dangled it over her chest in the necklace of feathers and leaves. “It’s someplace without air and warmth. Someplace without light. Without the sun. Without the breath of life. Without God.”
With the last word, the demon threw himself at the hedge. Light exploded out, bloody, and cloudy, murky black. A boom sounded, slapping off the walls. I jumped back, hitting the white wall. A mushroom cloud of heat blossomed out. A painting fell, dislodged by the concussion of sound and my body. I reached out, Beast-fast. Caught the corner of the frame as it tilted out into the room. Toward the hedge.
I dropped my body and shoved upward, high, hard. I landed on the floor with a dull thud, stabilizing the painting in both hands. Balancing. Lifting even as I rolled beneath it. Gingerly, I set the painting against the wall, where it couldn’t break the circle. The room was hot and stank of a sulfur compound.
I twitched my head around, my hair scraping on the floor, and met Molly’s horrified eyes. There was a red place on her cheek, as if she had been burned. Carmen was worse off, blisters rising on her skin. The twins were out of place, standing in the corner, holding hands. Fire Truck, inside with the demon, was shifting into his wolf, reddish hairs sprouting, bones sliding with sickening cracks and pops. Eyes open, he screamed. A crack, black and sooty ran down the sides of the dome of the hedge. The demon had damaged it.
“Get out of here,” I whispered.
The demon threw himself at the hedge of thorns again. The crack spread, a dirty, dull crack in the energies that caged him. A widening fracture filled with darkness, a dripping blackness. The sound was a sonic boom, tearing air from the room. Heat crazed along my flesh, burning. Scalding. Branding. The scent of burning sulfur ballooned out. I screamed. My spine bowed, lifting me from the floor, only my head and feet touching down. “Get out!” I screamed to the witches. “Get out!” They ran up the stairs, feet pounding.
My bones slid. Skin abraded, splitting. The gray light of the change slid over me, sparking with black lights. But mine sparked like black diamonds reflecting the sun, my own bright magic called forth. Pelt spilled out. Killing teeth erupted from my gums. The magics of the hedge seared and singed pelt and skin. I screamed. Pushed out of my clothes, claws ripping cloth. Still shifting, I leaped free.
My Beast magic shoved back at the rift in the hedge’s energies. Bright and cool as a mountain stream. Beast filled my mind.
Beast is better than Jane, better than big-cat. Beast knows what to do. Spread claws. Swiped a paw down Lincoln Shaddock’s arm, drawing vampire blood. Not two-natured. But powerful.
I/we threw undead blood at crack in hedge of thorns.
It landed like spats of water on hot stone. Black light blew out. Beast was thrown like kit swiped by mother’s paw. Into air. White light shot out. Pulled crack in ward together. Beast hit wall. Paintings fell. Frames cracking. But none fell into hedge. None broke circle.
Demon inside circle threw back beak and screamed. I shook head and snarled. Gathered feet under body and backed away, pawpawpaw, silent. Good hunter. Backed to stairs. Stood and studied demon. Studied reddish wolf in ward of hedge. Sleeping wolf. Skinny with hunger.
How did you know? Jane asked. Fear filled her mind. Kit fear, afraid of shadows, leaping at leaves as if at prey. How did you know how to stop the hedge breaking? How did you know when I didn’t? And why aren’t you being pulled toward that thing?
I backed up stairs. Whirled, to face up stairs, tail spinning slow for balance. Landed facing away from trapped death. Raced up fast. Hunger tore at belly. Need to hunt! I raced through Evangelina’s house. Out open door. Into light. Eyes blinked against sun, dazzling in garden.
Witches were standing in garden, staring at house. Staring at Beast. Hands out, fingers spread like killing claws. Power built in their hands. Against Beast. Black storm cloud in Carmen’s hands. Cold air gusted through garden, around her, into her hands. Leaves and trees talked with leaf sounds. I chuffed. Warning.
“No!” Molly said. “It’s okay.”
“No it’s not. It’s a were-cat,” twin Liz said. “It’ll bite us!”
I showed killing teeth. Snarled. Not were! Am Beast!
Twin Liz shaped her power, sparkling like gems. Twin Cia shaped hers, glowing like face of hunter’s moon. Twins spun energy like balls of power, captured in hands.
“She isn’t a were!” Molly shouted. She stepped between witch sisters and Beast.
Carmen blinked. “No. She isn’t.” Smell of surprise, shock, fear—flight or flight scent—and something human filled garden. Awe? Didn’t understand human awe, but Jane felt awe sometimes. It smelled like this. “It was you,” Carmen said. “In the cave. You saved me.”
