When it was time to begin, they stood and admired the altar against the backdrop of the misty forest. Draped with a dazzling saffron scarf courtesy of Jones, yellow candles burned to signify the sun that would dissipate in the coming months. A cornucopia of freshly harvested produce—hazel nuts and pinecones, crazy knobby gourds, striped squashes, Indian corn, fat apples, and juicy grapes collected from the local farmers’ market—was strewn about the altar. Incense smoked on the brazier and spread into the dusky sky. After the ceremony, all would be donated to the local food bank. That was the coven’s way of giving back to the community.
They took their positions and Sensara cast the circle to claim their sacred space. Three times, she walked clockwise around the outside, while pointing her crystal-tipped wand and chanting:
I conjure this circle as sacred space.
I conjure containment within this place.
Thrice do I conjure the Sacred Divine.
Powerful goodness and mystery mine.
From East to West and from South to North.
I cast this circle and call Magic forth.
After returning to her place at the altar, she said: “We will now call the spirits of the four directions into our circle.” Having acted as her high priest for three years, Estrada understood it was a position of trust that legitimized him in the eyes of the coven. Though he was known as a player around town, mostly because of his liaison with Michael Stryker, he had never crossed boundaries within the sanctity of the coven. Not that it had ever come up. Jones frequented the club, but the others respected his right to privacy, as he respected theirs.
For this ceremony, each of them had created an invocation to call in the spirit of the direction they represented. Dr. Sylvia Black, a professor of Celtic mythology, stood in the East, the place of intellect. She placed her glass jar with its flaming yellow candle on the ground. Then she stood facing out and drew an invoking pentacle with her athame as she spoke: “Powers of the East, of wind and air, of thought and breath, I invite you into this sacred circle. Aid and protect us with light and love.”
Jones followed. Swirling his bright orange cape, he mimicked the fire he invoked. “Powers of the South. Force, passion, and heat, enliven our spirits with power and magic. Hail Fire Spirits of the South!” His candle exploded in a flash of smoke and fire. He’d obviously sprinkled a pinch of magician’s flash powder on the flame again.
Estrada rolled his eyes and wanted to smack him. He hated the way Jones used parlour tricks like pyrotechnics and reamed him out regularly for cheapening the rituals with dramatic bullshit. “Harry Potter,” he muttered. Jones ignored him, too caught up in his own spectacle to notice. A subtle act of revenge for this afternoon’s mockery? Perhaps. That was his style. After the stench cleared, the ritual continued.
Dylan was to call the Spirits of the West. His violet candle glittered in a cobalt blue jar. Estrada watched the kid’s hand tremble as he set the candle down on the ground and the earth lit up in its circumference. As Dylan etched the invoking pentacle with his willow wand, its silvery threads conjoined like sparklers. Estrada felt his anxiety and sent him a visual wave of peace. Flowing across his sapphire robe in lilac shimmers, a sense of calm enveloped him, and the invoking words flowed from his lips:
Powers of the West, please hear my refrain.
Powers of water, of ocean, of rain.
Powers of dreamtime, of pleasure and pain.
Join in this circle and with us remain.
Dylan glanced at Sylvia and caught her subtle smile. He’d obviously sweated to create a quatrain of rhyming iambic pentameter that conveyed the essence of his element. A witch took time and pleasure in creating ritual pieces, especially words, as they held such power.
At last, it was Daphne’s turn. She was the quintessential earth goddess, so it was fitting that she would invoke the Powers of the North using her brown candle. A landscaper by trade, her hands were dry and etched with dirt from long hours spent digging and planting, tending and beautifying the gardens of the planet.
“I call the Ancient Earth Powers, spirits of fertility and all creation, spirits of mountains, valleys and plains, of rich soil, cracked rock, and desert sands. Be with us in this time of equal day and night. I welcome you into our circle of light.”
Sensara nodded. “Our circle is cast. We are between the worlds.”
Like ancients, they settled cross-legged on the ground. Language and symbols transported them to places unreachable in the mundane world. That was what drew Estrada to Wicca and kept him enthralled. That, and the power.
“Tonight we celebrate the Sabbat of Mabon,” she said. “The Autumn Equinox. This is the second of only two days in the year when light and dark is in perfect balance. Tonight also, we celebrate the second harvest of all the food that grows in our fertile land. We have all brought produce from the local market and are grateful to live in a place where we can grow so much to nourish us body, mind, and spirit. Mabon is a time of thanksgiving.
“We will begin with a silent meditation. You may invite the gods and goddesses of your choice into the circle. You may ask for blessings, help, or guidance from the appropriate powers, whatever you feel is needed at this moment.
“A few cautions before we begin. Be careful what you ask for, and pay attention to your words. Remember the Wiccan Rede: seek to do no harm. And, the Law of Three: whatever you cast out will return threefold. Blesséd Be.”
When Sensara roused them, she was distracted, off-centre in the grey mist that was rapidly descending on the darkling wood. The others did not notice, but Estrada caught the subtle twitch in her eyelid, and that glassy stare that meant she was looking beyond them into waters only she could navigate. Perhaps, she was still feeling ill, or perhaps she had seen something disturbing in her reverie. She may even have caught sight of something just outside the circle; or worse still, something within. He observed warily, as she called on Dylan to play some music.
As he adjusted his bagpipes, Dylan’s anxiety faded. “I wrote this tune for my grandfather, Dermot Dylan McBride.” Estrada was baffled by the kid’s ability to manage the complexities of the ancient instrument. A magician was adept at sleight of hand, but Dylan’s fingers danced with real magic. “I am named for him and inherited his passion for the pipes. Grandad can play a tune on a whiskey bottle. I can’t do that yet.”
The boy was humble. He travelled the world with the university pipe band. Estrada had recently watched him perform at the Highland Games and razzed him about his tartan kilt, knee socks, and the furry rodent that bounced between his legs.
“Grandad’s a kitchen player, born in Tarbert. That’s a fishing port in Argyll, on the southwest coast of Scotland. He’s seventy-seven years old, but you wouldn’t know it. He’s white-haired, weathered and tough, a Presbyterian, but we can’t hold that against him. He was there for me when I needed him. So this tune is for you, Grandad. I can see you now, standing on your front lawn, staring out over the harbour at Loch Fyne.”
The drone began rich and low in the belly of the pipes, then swelled as the music flowed into a realm of its own; a pagan terrain of lilting trills that emerged from some past blood memory. The spirits of Dylan’s ancestors swirled around them like grey ghosts in the trees, as the pipes conjured memories of ancient rebels charging into battle; as well as, modern heroes revered in ceremony and planted in the earth to that same gut-wrenching sound.
Daphne cried. Jeremy looked overwrought, but then, judging by his ginger hair, he likely had Celtic ancestors of his own. Really, it didn’t matter where people came from, Dylan’s music could catch the human heart and wring it inside out. He finished the tune and put his pipes away as they all sat stunned in the wake of his magic.
Estrada flinched as something brushed against his thigh, but then Sensara called out: “Time to dance. Time to raise the power. Time to make the magic happen.” And jumping up, they prepared to dance.
“We all come from the goddess and to her we shall return, li
ke a drop of rain flowing to the ocean,” she chanted, then grasping Estrada’s right hand, she pushed him off in the rhythm of the Grande Allemande.
He greeted Daphne with his left hand and began the counter chant: “Corn and grain, corn and grain, all that falls shall rise again. Hoof and horn, hoof and horn, all that dies shall be reborn.”
They danced around the circle, singing the contrary chants, feeling the energy build with the sound of their voices and the rhythm of their footfalls. Panting and touching, swimming in the musical breath, they built to a climax and then fell, laughing in the dizzying vortex of their creation.
“We have raised the power in the sanctity of our circle,” shouted Sensara. “Libations and blessings for all!”
This was Estrada’s cue to join her at the altar. The others stood pensively as Sensara held a silver chalice in both hands and he filled it with red wine. The rich aroma of sunburnt grapes and spices filtered through the twilight. After setting down the bottle, he picked up a medieval dagger encased in a black sheath and tipped in silver. Holding it in his right hand, he unsheathed the six-inch blade and held it aloft to salute the moon.
“As the chalice is to the goddess,” said Sensara.
“So the blade is to the god,” he said, and plunged it into the cup.
“United the god and goddess create blessings for the earth and for all,” they chanted together. Sensara leaned forward to meet him in a swift sacred kiss, as was customary, but as their lips touched above the chalice and the blade, Estrada grew aroused. Sensations magnified. Sparks exploded from his skin. Blood tingling, pupils dilating, his flesh hardened and he stood electrified: the Horned God.
As Sensara held the cup to his lips, he sipped and stared into her coppery eyes. Part of him shouted: this is wrong. While the other laughed, enthralled: you are the god and she is the goddess. It was all he could do not to pull her to the ground. He waited for her to speak, but she turned her back to him and passed the cup to Daphne. Standing rigid, wanting, like a wolf poised to spring with every ounce of blood pulsing in just one place, he glimpsed the too obvious protrusion beneath his black cloak.
Daphne mumbled something about ecstasy and Dionysus being in the circle and passed the chalice to Dylan.
Estrada crossed his arms over his chest in a feeble attempt to control the pounding of the blood and the shuddering desire that would not dissipate. Skin tingling, the vibration careened through his palms, rushing up and down his body in dazzling waves. He watched Sensara remove the lid from the dish that contained the corn cakes. If she felt like this and could still maintain control, she was something other than human. Dylan passed the chalice to Jones, but before he could speak, Estrada caught Sensara by the shoulders and spun her around.
Grasping her cool cheeks in the palms of his blistering hands, he brushed his lips against hers. Lowering his heavy lids, he screamed, I want you. I want you now.
Arching her back, she opened her mouth and caught his invading tongue with equal passion. He felt her fingers crawl up his back beneath his cape. Grinding her belly against him, she caught and held his erection between her thighs and they danced to the beat of some silent blood rhythm.
“Hey! Get a room,” yelled Jones.
Estrada ignored the sniggering, the delicious scent of her urging him on. As his passion deepened, he loosened her dark silky hair and drank the wine from her tongue. Her spine arched like a cobra as he backed her up against the golden altar and laid her down, covering her body with his. Pausing for what seemed an eternity he stared into her eyes and sang of his love. Then, running his hand up her leg beneath her gown, he pushed aside the flimsy fabric that barred his way, clutched, and growled. She gasped, then moaned. Catching her bottom lip with his teeth, he reached inside his robe—”
“Remy!”
The urgent cry caught his attention, as in the periphery a great black shadow careened across the circle, straight at them.
“Rem-ing-ton!” A girl appeared chasing something. A dog—a big black dog that was wolfing down their cakes. Grasping it by the collar, she dragged it from the circle and dashed into the woods.
Then Dylan bolted.
In the after-second, Sensara shoved Estrada off with a vicious thrust. Careening over a log, he fell on his back with a thud that knocked the wind clean out of his lungs.
“You can’t break the circle!” she shouted after Dylan.
“She’s been watching us,” he yelled back. “She’s scared.”
Estrada fought for just one breath.
3: Thrice to Thine, and Thrice to Mine
MAGGIE RACED THROUGH THE FOREST, leaping mossy logs and boggy spots, flying with the force of the encounter. Witches! There were witches, right here in her forest at Buntzen Lake. Suddenly, the amazement that Macbeth had felt became very clear and very real—and these witches hadn’t even melted before her eyes. But they had made out.
That man in the black cape with the long black curls and Egyptian eyes—he could be a rock star. She couldn’t shake the image of him bending that white-robed woman over the altar; had never seen anything like it, or like the others in their brilliant cloaks…like movie stars only a million times better because you could smell them, and they smelled like earth and exotic spices and sweet September smoke, and she had almost touched them…and the dancing and the music and the sex. If Remy hadn’t run into the centre of it all, they would have done it right there on the altar.
No one at school would ever believe this.
One of them was chasing her now. She could hear him tramping through the bush behind her, breaking branches and panting like a tired dog. Why was he chasing her? What would they do to her for what she’d seen? Hurt her? Hex her? Irrevocably change her in some wicked way?
Yet in all this trepidation, she felt something brilliant, something she had never felt before and therefore couldn’t name. All she knew was that she wanted this feeling to go on, wanted to be like them, to dance and sing, wanted to make love in the forest with a beautiful man who had nothing on his mind but her—a man who would spin her, and bend her body like a willow branch, and paint her lips with cinnamon.
She could hear the slow ragged breaths of her pursuer. If she kept running he would lose sight of her. Once safely inside, with the door to her prison barred, the memory of this experience would fade. But, if she let him catch her, maybe she could become a witch—learn to wind up charms, raise vengeful storms or perfect sunny days, appear and disappear at will.
Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine, and thrice again to make up nine.
She could learn to foretell the future, maybe even change the future. And, if witches could harm people, surely they could heal people too. My father? She stopped running and raised her arms to the sky. What should I do?
Blood pounded through her heart in answer; words spun like ancient chants and threaded through her brain. The trees danced in the wind, and as she smelled their twilight sap, she realized she was alive with the earth, more alive than she had ever been.
She whistled sharply for Remy, and the dog turned and raced toward her, bear bells jangling. Might as well show her pursuer exactly where she was. She waited until he was only a few paces away, and then ambled on.
At the top of the hill, the terrain levelled out and the path merged with the short dead end lane. Father Grace’s truck was gone. That was a relief. How would she ever explain to the young Catholic priest that she had allowed a witch boy to follow her home?
She ran up the front steps of the veranda into the kitchen and searched for signs of her parents. Her mother was in her bedroom watching television with the door shut. Her parents had always had separate rooms, something that made her wonder how she’d ever been conceived. Once, she suspected, there must have been love between them. Love in the time before. She leaned against the wall, twirled her hair, and tried to slow her pounding heart.
Her dad was not in the house. Perhaps Father Grace had taken him out on one of his jaunts. It was important not to
isolate someone with a brain injury, he said, knowing that Shannon had kept John locked away for years, like Edward had imprisoned poor mad Mrs. Rochester. Maggie could not understand how someone with Shannon’s skill as a nurse made such a lousy wife and mother. Lately, the priest had been taking John out more often and for longer periods of time; for gelato at the Italian place, or for country drives, or for hot chocolate at the café. With any luck, they would be gone a long while.
Confident that she would not be caught, Maggie slipped back outside. She sat on the top step and stared at the bushes beside the driveway, where she knew the boy was hiding. His shiny cobalt cloak was visible through the leaves.
When he did not venture out, she said, “Hey!”
“Oh, hey,” he echoed. Emerging with a casual wave, he sauntered by the driveway.
“Thirsty?”
“Parched.” His cheeks were stained red, his short brown hair curly with sweat. He pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket, unfolded it, and swiped it across his forehead.
She stood and gestured to the steps. “Have a seat. I’ll be right back.”
After returning with two blue bottles, she handed him one, and sat down beside him on the step.
He cracked the cap and took a swig that half-emptied the bottle, then tipped it in her direction. “Cheers.”
“Matches your cloak.” She ran her fingers over the fabric. It was embroidered in spiralling Celtic knots of silver thread. Elfish. “This is beautiful. Where did you get it?”
To Charm a Killer (Hollystone Mysteries Book 1) Page 3
