Circle of the Moon

by Faith Hunter

  I had missed something and looked back up to see Rick’s hand drop. “You know what the spells are,” he said softly to Loriann. Because until now, we hadn’t fully known how to classify them.

  “Yes. Maybe. I think so. I don’t know for sure. But I think I can help. I’ve requested to be assigned to Knoxville to assist you. My boss said there’s no crossover with NOPD and KPD or PsyLED Knoxville. But if PsyLED DC asked for me, and offered to pay my salary while I’m there, he would let me go.”

  The home office of the Psychometry Law Enforcement Division of Homeland Security was located near the District of Columbia. She was asking for help from the main PsyLED office. She had already worked out the knots in her request. “Go on,” Rick said.

  “Soul could ask,” Loriann said. “And I’d be there to help Tammie Laine Kent if you needed spell casting. Since the local coven has gone in hiding.”

  Loriann knew a lot about what was happening in Knoxville. A lot about our agents. She’d had access through NOPD CLE channels and she hadn’t wasted the opportunities. She’d done her research. I wondered if she had gotten all that from our employee sleeves or was a hacker like JoJo. Of if she had a contact in Knoxville. And who that might be. Perhaps Margot Racer?

  Working at PsyLED had made me a suspicious woman.

  I didn’t like that about myself.

  Rick promised to talk to Soul, though he didn’t promise to request that Loriann be loaned to the Knoxville PsyLED field office, an oversight I caught even if Loriann didn’t. After the call ended, we sat around the table, three of us silent and thinking, JoJo tapping away like a madwoman, jerking on her earrings between attacks on the tablets and laptop. Rick watched us, the green glow in his eyes diminishing slowly. I caught him reaching up, several times, to rub the mangled tattoos, to touch the amulets hanging around his neck, to rub his throat, and I wondered if he was aware of the gestures. Abruptly, he turned and went to his office.

  Softly, I said, “She has access to the magic in Rick’s tattoos.”

  No one responded.

  I excused myself and went to my cubicle, where I stuck my fingers into the soil of the plants in the window boxes, trying to decide how I’d research curse circles, tattoo magic, and my boss. Because no matter how much we hid it from ourselves, Rick LaFleur could be a security risk. A big one. Propped against a basil was a small envelope. I tore it open to read a note from Occam. Nell, sugar, no matter what time you read this, you should know I’m missing you something fierce. An unfamiliar emotion, soft yet intense, swept through me, and I tucked the note in my gobag to take home.

  THIRTEEN

  I didn’t really know what I was looking for, so I started with Rick’s NOPD sleeve, the parts that my clearance level allowed. This was not the same as a personnel folder, but the kind of information that other law enforcement officials had access to. A lot was redacted, but I refreshed my memory on his history.

  Richard LaFleur graduated from high school in three years, started university at seventeen in prelaw, and got his degree in criminal justice in two years. He was spotted early on, recruited and fast-tracked into undercover, researching the New Orleans vampires, which was where he met Isleen and Loriann Ethier. At the age of twenty-one he started living on the dark side, where he stayed for nine years, far longer than the one or two years for most undercover operatives. He had been in the public, visible side of law enforcement for only about three years, since he was bitten. His long history undercover explained his willingness to accept JoJo’s less-than-lawful talents. And perhaps my own, much darker, gifts.

  I buried myself in research on curse spells, on blood-magic bindings and tattoo magic, and into Loriann Ethier, digging as deep as I could, saving reports to study later. Sadly, the magic stuff looked apocryphal, like boogeyman stories, not like reality. Loriann’s sleeve and social media presence were sparse to nonexistent. I was getting nowhere.

  JoJo left to sleep, giving me a wave of her hand on the way past. Rick went into his cage soon after, taking a mattress and a fluffy comforter. The office went quiet. Lights low.

  At three a.m. Tandy buzzed my desk phone. “What’s up, Tandy?”

  “Get up here. I just heard a report on official police radio frequencies that the body of a young girl has been found in a ditch. Passing motorist, grisly crime scene, according to the chatter.”

  I raced to the conference room. “We’ve got voice-to-text,” Tandy said, pointing to a screen that had text across the bottom, dedicating it to KCLE—Knox County law enforcement.

  “Is it the Blalock girl?”

  Tandy shook his head, his pale skin and Lichtenberg lines picking up the glow from the screens in the darkened conference room. “I don’t know.”

  I got coffee for us and waited with him, the volume on the radio chatter turned low, watching the screen. We sipped, listened, read as things were updated, Tandy still tapping away on his tablet, his body mechanics currently a lot like JoJo’s. It made me wonder if he was picking up more than just an intro into information gathering—hacking—from JoJo, but also taking on her personality and habits. I wondered if that meant the empath was losing bits of himself, of his own personality. Taking on bits of everyone else. Wondered if that was common to all empaths or something peculiar to Tandy.

  Most of what Margot had put together about missing girls and our suspect would be incorrect if the body was ID’d as Raynay Blalock. There was no way creepy Jim Paton could have taken her, stashed her, banged on her mother’s door, and killed her. The timeline was impossible. And Paton was in custody now. He wasn’t the killer.

  Within half an hour, we saw text from the investigator who had taken over the scene, calling for the chief forensic pathologist and the chief medical examiner of Knox County.

  Tandy muttered, “Odd that both were called.”

  Having both the forensic pathologist and the ME on-site was a rare event under any circumstances, TV and films notwithstanding. “What does it mean?”

  “At a guess, it implies that the crime scene is so bad, or so weird, that the top brass are needed personally to handle the body at the scene and direct the evidence collection.”

  “If it’s weird, then PsyLED should be there,” I said. But the phones didn’t ring.

  I drank too much coffee and ingested too much chatter that told me nothing, but in my rooty gut I had a feeling that the girl—the body—was Raynay Blalock.

  The coroner’s van arrived. KPD set up a live-feed camera and Tandy put it up on the screens. More lights lit the scenes.

  A woman in a white Tyvek uni with mask and gloves stepped into a ditch. We got a view of the body from the camera on her suit. I looked away.

  “Someone from PsyLED needs to be there,” Tandy said.

  “Yes,” I said. “And the officers at the scene had to know that. They didn’t contact us.”

  “I’ve got their names and the name of the investigator who showed up first. Detective Emery Hamm.”

  He punched in a number on the official line and Occam answered, “What’s up?” his voice carrying over the speakers in the conference room. He sounded groggy. Voice rough. The way a man did when he was waked from a deep sleep. Something warmed in me at the sound and Tandy sent me a look that said he had picked up on my reaction. I looked back at the screens, finding them suddenly fascinating.

  “Hate to wake you, Occam,” Tandy said. “We have an incident. Deceased human female, vamp bites, and no one in PsyLED was notified. Nell shouldn’t handle it alone. Rick’s in his cage.”

  “Is it the girl who went missing today?”

  “Unknown.”

  “Is Margot Racer on scene?” Occam asked. “She was in charge of the abduction earlier,” the werecat said, suddenly sounding alert.

  “No. So far as we’ve been able to detect, she wasn’t notified either.”

  “Already tarred with the brush. I’ll cal
l her. Send the particulars to my cell. I’m on my way in five.”

  “Copy that. Info going out now.” The connection ended and Tandy activated additional screens overhead as the officers and investigators on scene sent active video to their headquarters, something that would not have happened only a year past. Tech was making everything at crime scenes an instantaneous matter of record. Because of the same changes in tech, Tandy was also able to put up shots of the crime scene as they were uploaded to the coroner’s files and local law enforcement. All of which was supposed to be “eyes only” and encrypted.

  I didn’t ask how Tandy got access to all the info. I also didn’t study anything too carefully. There were parts of being an investigator that I would never get used to, and seeing crime scenes involving children, even children who were seventeen and older, children I had once been accustomed to viewing as adults of marriageable age, was one of them.

  Within an hour, Occam and Margot Racer were an active part of the investigation, though the conversation when the two special agents met with Detective Hamm was off the record. Hamm left the scene; minutes later a tentative ID went on record. The body was believed to be that of Raynay Blalock. Preliminary COD was exsanguination. She had been drained of blood from multiple vampire bites. PsyLED and the FBI were now lead on the case.

  I wanted to contact Yummy. I wanted to track down every single aligned and rogue vampire in Knox County and fill them with silver, but I was bound by laws and protocol and, as probie, governed by Tandy, who levered a look at me each time I thought about investigating on my own or contacting Knoxville’s vampires. He was right. I wasn’t a private citizen, so I stayed put until I received orders otherwise. If a Knoxville vamp killed the girl, if that was even halfway provable, that vampire would be judged and punished by Ming. Punished in this case being a vamp euphemism meaning killed true-dead. If the vampire or vampires who had killed Blalock were Ming’s enemies, then . . . I didn’t know what happened in that case, but it still wouldn’t be me who dealt with it. Occam called in to HQ and discussed the lack of official communication with Tandy, who called the sheriff and complained. Again.

  At four thirty, I peeked in on Rick, who was sleeping too hard, his breathing fast, too deep, his chest heaving up and down, as if he was chasing prey or racing for his life. The moon had risen around three a.m., and I wondered if the moon had affected his sleep. I decided that waking him would be dangerous and left him sleeping. I checked my plants again, this time looking for dead leaves, letting my mind wander through bits and pieces of information and memories, alighting on this or that, to no specific purpose.

  As daybreak began to gray the world outside, a white female walked up to the exterior door and knocked. Tandy adjusted the camera to get a good look at her face. It was Loriann Ethier. From New Orleans. Tandy’s hands flew over the keys as he determined how she’d gotten here, and he said, “She took a red-eye direct. Go wake up Rick. Occam’s on his way. The others will be here in half an hour.”

  “What about her?” I asked, staring at the screen with Loriann’s face on it.

  “She can wait until Rick says to invite her up.”

  Almost as if she had heard the words, Loriann looked into the camera, pointed to the side, and walked into the coffee shop that had opened at five for the morning’s business. Coffee’s On had the best coffee in the city, though I might be prejudiced. I was a regular. The security video from Coffee’s On appeared on the next screen. I looked at Tandy, who wore a defiant expression. “JoJo’s work. We have an in for Yoshi’s Deli’s security cameras too. In case someone goes after the neighbors.”

  “And do they know we’ve invaded their privacy?”

  Tandy might have flushed just a bit, though it was hard to tell in the darkened room.

  “We’re too kind,” I murmured, indulging in unfamiliar sarcasm. I shook my head and went to wake Rick, who was sleeping better as dawn approached. With a thick, darker-than-once-before fingernail, I tapped on the cage, the tone both woody and metallic. Rick rolled over, the motion all cat, lithe and languid, in contrast to his wrinkled clothing and scruffy, unshaven human face. “Nell,” he said. He seemed in control.

  I unlatched the cage and said, “You have a visitor. Loriann Ethier is in Coffee’s On.”

  Thoughts and reactions crossed Rick’s face. He rolled to his feet and stretched. “She didn’t wait to be invited.” He raised an arm, sniffed, and made an awful face.

  “Shall I go let her in?”

  He reached around his cage, grabbing his four-day gobag from the corner. “I need to shower.”

  “What if you get called to your cat while we make her wait?”

  He grimaced. “If I meet her looking like this, the initial interview shifts in her favor. Remember your Reid method. I’ll lock myself in and I’ll be fast.”

  The Reid interrogation technique was a method that got subjects to talk, and included a behavior analysis interview. Rick needed to be dominant to use Reid against a potential danger.

  Back in the conference room, I made a pot of coffee and opened the box of Krispy Kremes that an early arrival had left on the table. The box contained eleven donuts and appeared to be half lemon-filled and half raspberry-filled. I left a five and two ones, because I’d have more than one, chose a lemon, and bit in. It was scrumptious.

  Occam came in behind me, walked to the tinted windows, and stared out at the sky. His eyes were hollow and dark with visions of the crime scene. He didn’t speak, but stood so still he might have been a vampire. Something about him suggested restrained violence, a need to break something . . . or kill someone. I started to reach out to him, but Tandy shook his head, eyes wide, telling me to leave Occam alone. I dropped my hand and walked from the conference room.

  I stayed in my cubicle, finishing up my EOB—end-of-business—report and snipping dead leaves out of my hairline, listening to the soft murmur of voices as Tandy guided Occam to talk and they caught up on the night’s events. I heard enough to know that Occam was talking about the crime scene, and though I wanted to know everything, there was pathos in his tone. Occam needed this time with the empath. When he had talked himself out, I went back to the conference room, passing Rick in the hallway. He was dressed in clean black slacks, starched white shirt, cuffs folded up, and black shoes. Fancier than the usual casual black he normally wore. He was freshly shaved, his hair wet and slicked back. His badge and ID were clipped at his waist and he was wearing a shoulder harness with his Glock GDP-20 in its Kydex holster. I had expected him to look tired or upset, but he looked steady and oddly excited.

  “Call her,” he said to Tandy as he strode into the conference room. “Tell her to come on up.”

  “Call who?” JoJo asked. She was standing in the middle of the hallway, vibrant in orange and purple, hues that looked perfect on her.

  “Loriann Ethier,” Rick said. “She’s in Coffee’s On, having a croissant and a cup of coffee.” He tilted his head at the screen.

  “Well. That’s ballsy,” she said, skirts swirling as she whirled into the conference room.

  Tandy dialed and held out the office phone to Rick. The boss shook his head and Tandy shrugged, saying into the phone, his tone emotionless, “Someone will meet you at the door.”

  Rick made a slashing motion across his own throat and Tandy ended the call. Quickly, Rick gave us instructions.

  “I’ll let T. Laine know.” Tandy rose from his chair and went to the door, down the steps, his fingers texting as he moved. JoJo took his place and shifted the overhead screens until we could watch as Loriann exited the coffee shop and entered the door Tandy held open. Rick sat, taking his usual chair at the head of the room. He was a silhouette in the brightening windows, the overhead lights still in nighttime mode. Occam placed a cup of coffee in front of him and put the box of donuts aside, clearing the expanse of table. “Sit,” Rick ordered. “Face the entrance.”

&nb
sp; Occam, JoJo, and I sat, spinning our chairs to face the doorway, our cells where we could see them but no one else could. T. Laine appeared from the locker room, glanced at the overhead screens, cursed succinctly, and took her seat, aligning her chair like ours, to face the door. She placed three pens on the table. Working for the cops, Loriann would surely know what they were. A threat.

  We were going for impact. For first impressions.

  The mamas talked about starting out as you intend to go forward. That discussion had been about marriage and the heady, frightening, upsetting, exciting days of a new marriage. Loriann was like a new wife entering an established home. Margot’s presence had done the same thing but without the bleakness I sensed in the room today. I guessed that the FBI agent was still at the crime scene, but that thought was for later.

  Together Loriann and Tandy climbed the steps, Loriann talking about her flight. About the weather, which was “as hot as New Orleans, though not as humid.” I might have expected her to sound nervous, but she didn’t. She sounded . . . not exactly arrogant. She sounded what the mamas in the church referred to as disagreeable, which was a combination of pushy, opinionated, and thoughtless. The kind of person who would say things just to cause trouble. Which was a really terrible thing for me to think of a woman I hadn’t met yet.

  And then Loriann was inside, walking down the brightly lit hallway, Tandy leading her. He entered the unlit room and took his seat, his chair facing the doorway, and held his cell in his lap where it couldn’t be seen. Loriann stopped, standing in the doorway, facing the unlit room. She looked from silhouette to silhouette, though it was clear she couldn’t really see us. No one spoke. Loriann’s eyes adjusted and she focused on Rick, the silver of his hair shining bright in the stark light of the screens, his eyes glowing cat-green.