by Faith Hunter
There was no reason for it, but I did not like Loriann Ethier.
Rick watched her, letting the silence swell, an uncomfortable stillness that built and intensified, growing so thick it had weight and mass and density. Finally, his voice a low purr, he said, “Loriann. It’s been a long time. You look well.”
It was so quiet I could hear her breath when Loriann drew it in to speak. “You look old.” She blinked, as if surprised to hear her words.
Following Rick’s fast orders, Tandy tapped one finger on his cell. True, appeared on my cell phone screen and on all the others in the room.
A twisted smile settled itself on Rick’s face. “Yeah. My father went silver in his thirties. Why are you here?”
“I think if I go to the sites, I might be able to ID the witch by magical signature.”
On my cell screen appeared a one-word text. True.
“But I need to read the actual sites of the black magic to be sure.”
Lie.
Rick said, “Your liaison position hasn’t been approved.”
“No. It hasn’t. But it will be.”
A single word appeared on my screen. Uncertain. That meant either that she was uncertain of the truth, or Tandy was uncertain. Rick hadn’t had time to finesse the communications with our resident lie detector.
A quote from Shakespeare rose in my brain. ’Tis best to weigh the enemy more mighty than he seems. There was nothing about Loriann that looked dangerous, but Loriann had multiple motives and lots of secrets. I looked at the faces around the table. The unit knew that.
“Tell me what you know about the witch circle,” Rick said.
“Black witches commonly use Circle of the Moon workings three days of the full moon. The workings are a curse. From the photos, it’s one of the most complicated circles I’ve ever seen. It’s not only a curse, it’s a summons. It has properties of binding to it. And even though I don’t know all it does, I’m pretty sure if it’s invoked on the dark of the moon, all hell will break loose.”
True. Beneath it appeared the word Uncertain. Mixed messages from Tandy, resulting from mixed messages from Loriann. She was still standing in the doorway like a supplicant. This didn’t feel like the Reid interrogation technique. It felt like something else.
“Summons?” Rick asked. “For what?”
“I don’t know.”
Lie. Uncertain.
“T. Laine?” Rick asked. “Evaluate.”
“Nonspecific,” T. Laine said in her best cop voice. “Ambiguous. And comprising little we don’t already know. Who will be cursed? Who will be summoned? Who will be bound? And what part of hell will break loose?”
“I don’t know.” Loriann’s fists bunched.
Lie.
Loriann knew a lot more than she was telling us.
“We don’t need you here for this,” T. Laine said, her tone insolent, a shade from insulting.
“You do. You’re a lone witch. You need a coven to fight this, even if it’s only a small coven. A coven of two is better than none.”
True.
Rick said, “Step out into the hallway. Close the door. Wait.”
Loriann opened her mouth to argue, closed it. Followed orders. The door shut with a soft snap. “Secure us,” he said to T. Laine and JoJo. Our witch nodded, withdrew a small moonstone from a pocket, and tapped it three times on the table. A small hedge of thorns leaped up around us, tingling on my skin. The hedge made sure our magical visitor couldn’t hear. JoJo switched off Clementine so there was no recording.
“I don’t know if she can be believed about anything relating to this case.” Rick sat back in his chair, relaxing for the first time since he woke. Thoughtfully, he shifted his eyes around the table. “Assessment. Kent?”
“If it was up to me, I’d set her tail on fire and put her on a flight back to New Orleans,” T. Laine said.
“I’m not rich, but I’ll pay her way myself,” JoJo grumped. “That girl sets my teeth on edge.”
“Occam?” Rick asked.
The werecat shook his head, his eyes still haunted. “We got some bad stuff happening, boss. Too much bad stuff. If she has a snowball’s chance in hell of helping out on even a portion of it, then let her stay.”
“Tandy?” Rick asked.
“Loriann Ethier is lying. She is so full of anger, guilt, and jealousy that the emotions swirl around her like a slow-moving, dark tornado. But—” Tandy looked at JoJo, and she nodded at him to continue, as if there had been some silent communication between them, question and answer. “But I think the tornado is destroying her inside, rather than a landscape outside of herself. I think she’s profoundly self-destructive and utterly, dreadfully dangerous.”
Rick nodded slowly, his head moving against the windows. “Yes. Yes. She has always carried those emotions, always been turned against herself. I think it started when she couldn’t protect her family from Isleen. Nell?”
“If she stays, someone has to watch her. And I don’t want her at Soulwood.”
“Why?” Rick asked.
Because the land will view her as a threat and eat her. But I didn’t say those words. Instead I said, “Because Soulwood will magnify everything she’s feeling and it will affect everything that we do.”
A single word appeared on my cell phone. True.
I looked at Tandy. “Stop assessing me.”
Tandy tilted his head in a tiny shrug.
Rick sighed and said, “Open the door, please.”
I was closest so I stood and opened the door. Loriann stepped from the hallway lights into the darkness of the unlit room, blinking.
“You have a car?” Rick asked her.
Loriann bobbed her head. “Yes. Rental.”
“If a liaison position is approved, you can stay,” Rick said. “JoJo, you have her number. Make a hotel reservation and text her the particulars.” To Loriann, he added, “We’ll see you at four p.m. For now”—he gave her a heartless, unamused smile and rested his arms on the chair arms, a king at ease—“you are dismissed.”
I held in my grin. Rick had learned a thing or two from vampires and dismissing a lesser being was one of them. It put Loriann in her place. She frowned at us, whirled away, and left the building.
Rick’s shoulders relaxed as he looked us over. “Well done.” Everyone blew out a breath and the overhead lights came on, making us all squint into the brightness. Rick stood and slid the donut box around the table. The others tossed in a few dollars and took a donut.
I took another of the fantastic pastries and bit in, studying Rick even as he studied us. The vampire kidnapping and murder had to be triggering memories. Loriann’s reappearance had to be triggering memories. Occam’s distress had to be affecting his cat. Yet the boss didn’t look freaked out. He met my eyes and gave me a twisted smile. He tapped his ear, and said, “Music. It helps.” I realized he was listening to the spell music, which was why he was okay.
The day shift poured coffee. I took a water bottle from the fridge, the label marked with an X and my name. It was a reused bottle filled with Soulwood water. When we were all settled again, Rick said, “JoJo, track Loriann’s cell phone.”
JoJo’s eyebrows went up. “Can do. But do you want a warrant first?”
“Soul is getting papers. Once you get the cell tracking, I also want the photos of the circles enhanced and enlarged as much as you possibly can. T. Laine, I want you to search the photos of the enhanced circles again, looking for anything we might have missed. Anything, no matter how small. And when Loriann joins us, someone needs to take her to the most recent sites and observe her. Whatever she’s hiding, it’s at the circles.” The IT tech and the witch both agreed. “Occam,” Rick said. “You went to a crime scene. Report.”
* * *
• • •
Occam was on the phone to someone in lo
cal law enforcement. He looked tired, despondent, and sounded frustrated. He was focused on his call and lifted a hand to me when I came by, but didn’t try to flag me down. I got a small potted rosemary plant from my cubicle and brought it to him. I placed it on his desk and when he looked up at me, quizzically, listening to the masculine voice on the other end of the phone, I captured his fused fingers and guided them to the soil. Soulwood soil.
Occam took a slow breath and blew it out. He focused on me as if he had never seen me before and said, “Hold on.” He tapped his cell, set it down, and reached for me. I placed my fingers into his unscarred hand and he closed it around mine. He was werecat-warm. “That’s . . . Thank you.”
I bobbed my head, slid my fingers free, and left him to his call, satisfied that I had helped.
I was late leaving work and Margot Racer drove up just as I got into my C10. She lowered the window of her car and waved a listless hand at me. I was pretty sure she was wearing the same shirt from the day before.
I walked over. “You just left the Blalock girl’s crime scene?”
“Yeah. It was bad. Crimes against children always are. Now I’m heading to talk to Jim Paton again, after letting him stew in a cell all night.”
“He was watching the girl?”
She nodded. “There was a lot of porn on his PC, and a lot of it was photos of young girls he had taken himself.” A look of sly, repressed fury settled on her face. “Then someone took her.”
“She was his,” I said softly. “He couldn’t stand that. That’s why he got involved. Why he reported it.”
“Yeah. I can’t see any evidence that he physically abused girls since the one time he was caught, but I’m still on him. If he has secrets, I’ll find them. And I’ll find the vamps who killed Raynay Blalock.” Margot sped away, her tires screeching on the pavement. I wasn’t sure why she had come by, or why she hadn’t gone inside HQ. Unless she had been looking for me. Like a friend might. That made me feel oddly warm inside.
I went home to a house that was already miserably hot. Mud was staying with her half sibs and true sibs, these last weeks before school started. Knowing I wouldn’t be interrupted, I took a short shower and fell into bed. But sleep was elusive so I grabbed the computer and stretched out on the hammock on the back porch. It was stiff and covered in cat hair, but the porch was cooler than the stuffy house. I made a few calls to my local bank and started filing information online for a loan, for what turned out to be a line of credit on the house and land. When I was done, I closed my eyes. I was turning into a townie. Mud and me together. Sleep took its own good time finding me.
* * *
• • •
To make up for the two donuts, I made a sizable fresh veggie and greens salad from the garden, enough to share, if a certain cat-man happened to stay over for a while after he got off work. I got to work early and put the salad in the break room fridge, beneath Rick’s takeout and on top of a pizza box. The entire second floor stank of fast food, and the sound of voices, both from video footage and from the office cubicles, was everywhere. I locked up my gobags and my weapon and eased into my seat for the end-of-day debriefing, listening to catch up on where everyone was.
Occam slid into his chair, cat-fast, finishing off a burger. Rick’s hair was tangled and flyaway and his clothes were wrinkled. He looked tired and poorly groomed and irritable again. Everyone took places for the meeting except for Loriann Ethier and Margot Racer. Loriann was due in an hour. Margot was busy with the Blalock investigation. Rick pointed to the overhead screens and I saw footage of Margot and the sheriff giving a news conference on the body they had found. There was no mention of vampires as the killers. Not yet.
Rick said, “Clementine, record.” He gave a list of the agents present and then said, “Occam, report.”
“At some point, Nell should talk to Ming of Glass in person, since I can’t get past the human security team without Maggot.” He grinned at me, teasing. I tried an eye roll and wasn’t sure how successful I was. It wasn’t a gesture I’d grown up making, since it showed a lack of respect. He went on. “For now, the humans at her compound say that Ming and her fangheads did not leave their lair yesterday or last night. After the attack at her council chambers I tend to believe them. Ming’s had all the locals locked down tighter than a drum, to keep them safe.
“We do have an update on the van used in the kidnapping. Local sheriff’s deputies—who are going to be calling us personally in the future with anything paranormal related—found the van in a drugstore parking lot between Kingston Pike and Old Kingston Pike. They found Raynay Blalock’s sneakers in it. It was a bloody mess and it’ll take time to process all the blood spatter.
“One of the local ‘humans only’ hate groups has promised lethal retribution to the local vamps. Other right-wing wack-job hate groups are joining in. It ain’t pretty. Seems Detective Hamm—former detective Hamm—was a member in good standing with one. His face was plastered all over social media today, attending a meeting. It cost him his job.”
“We’ll send flowers,” T. Laine muttered.
I raised my hand, more to get attention than to ask permission to speak. “Ming of Glass has people looking for Godefroi de Bouillon.” I stumbled over the foreign pronunciation. “His humans could be, possibly, the ones who took the Blalock girl. A source identified that the people who took the Blalock girl smelled like Ming’s enemies,” I said, speaking of Yummy’s reading of the abduction site. “I’ve texted Ming’s security, requesting that they send us all the info they acquire on invading vampires and the location of their lair when and if they discover it. I told Yummy that if the local vamps take out the attacking European vampires, it will be the word of one vampire trying to convince the public that the bad guy is down, but that if SWAT and PsyLED take them down, it will be believable. I haven’t heard back.”
“Good move, Ingram,” Rick said. “Let’s hope Ming agrees. Jones, Kent, bring us up to date on the circles and Loriann Ethier. What did you find?”
JoJo said, “Circles first. Nothing on the photos. Once I got them big enough to see small things they were too pixilated. But when Lainie went back to the most recent circle”—Jo’s lips widened into a grin that somehow said gotcha—“she found something.”
T. Laine leaned in and took over. “Kent here. The storm that came through was spotty and didn’t affect it, and the dry weather is good for preserving evidence. There are . . . let’s call them slits in the soil, narrow, hair-thin slots or slashes beside every single rune, so small they aren’t visible without getting on my knees, my nose a foot from the soil. I stepped on some doing the workups, but most are still there. The slits are uniform in size, and in the same placement in regard to the runes. I’m theorizing that they held something the witch took from the circles when she left, something more important than the focals and runes in the circle.”
“Which leads us to Loriann,” Rick said, sounding grim.
“I took Loriann to one of the circles,” T. Laine said, “without telling her about the slits. And she got on her knees. She was looking for the slits. She’s paler than a vamp to start with, but she visibly paled when she saw them. And then she acted as if nothing was there. Said not one word about them.”
“So, she knows more than she’s saying,” I said.
“Correctamundo,” Tandy said. He glanced up at me. “Old, out-of-date slang for ‘that’s a big yes.’” To the group he continued, “After T. Laine let her off at her hotel, Loriann drove to three other sites, locations listed on the sheriff’s reports. And then she went to the medical examiner’s office and had a long discussion with the forensic pathologist who was working up Blalock’s body. She asked some very pointed questions, and the main one was, ‘Were the vamps who attacked the Blalock girl feeding responsibly or in a feeding frenzy?’ She explained the difference to the ME and even provided photos of a victim dead from a feeding frenzy.”
>
“Photos we did not have in our database,” JoJo said, “until the ME sent them to us. It’s pretty graphic. On screen three.” She punched a button and a photo of a body appeared on the screen. It had been ripped to shreds, almost as if the body had been attacked by wild animals. But his face looked peaceful and happy. Vamps could mesmerize. Vamp saliva took pain away.
“Did the Blalock girl’s face look so peaceful?” I asked.
“Yeah. But her body wasn’t torn to ribbons, just well bitten,” JoJo said, her voice hard.
Rick brought it all together for us. “Early on, we knew that vampires were being called to the circles at some point in the working. It seems that Loriann drew that same conclusion, but based on the slits in the soil, instead of a maggoty feeling.” He looked at me and took a slow breath. The lines in his face grooved deep, as if carved by a steel chisel. “The spell Loriann used to ink me . . .” He stopped, as if saying the words hurt. “The spell—” His words cut off. When he tried to speak again, his voice was raspy, and pained.
Occam sniffed as if there was something wrong with Rick’s scent. Tandy watched them both, his face lined with worry and what I thought was compassion.
Rick swallowed painfully and went on, his voice harsh. “The spell relied heavily on the presence of a special deck of tarot. One that had been in her family for generations. It’s possible that it was an original Blood Tarot deck.” Rick looked down at his hands, which were folded on the table, fingers laced together.
“Blood Tarot?” I asked. “What’s that?”
“Halfway mythical decks created with blood sacrifices and black magic, the ink in the drawings made with the blood of witches, were-creatures, humans, and vampires, long before the general public knew that paras existed,” T. Laine said. “Among witches there’s oral history about the tarot decks, claiming the cards contain long-forgotten workings and spells and curses in the artwork. In this century, covens have been searching for old magical relics, icons, and amulets, along with any remaining Blood Tarot decks.”
