Circle of the Moon

by Faith Hunter

  Loriann’s face hardened. “But without me, you can’t find Jason.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. He was chased off one of his last circles. Unit Eighteen has physical evidence. Stuff that hasn’t been entered into NCIC yet.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Slowly, T. Laine opened her clenched fist to reveal the wooden golf tee we had taken from the circle. Or one just like it, which was more likely. T. Laine wouldn’t touch real evidence, not with her bare hand.

  Loriann’s eyes locked on to the wooden tee. Her jaw came forward and her nostrils flared in surprise.

  “You should,” Lainie said. “You need a friend. I’m a witch. I might understand when no one else in the entire city might.”

  “Oh God.” Loriann’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Yeah. Microscopic traces of DNA stuck on a golf tee, after a hot and sweaty round in NOLA heat, can be used in workings and curses by witches and covens. Rick never played golf except with his dad, and not for years now. He didn’t know that Jason was following him around New Orleans, stealing personal things, did he?”

  Loriann rocked forward and back in her hard chair. Rocking, she raked her hair from her face in a gesture that looked as if she was tearing it out. We three watched her, no longer scrolling through Alex’s information on Godfrey, no longer talking. The NOLA witch looked defeated. Paler than when she arrived. She tried to speak, and the sound stopped in her throat, choked off by emotion. She went still and tried again, her words strangled. “It was three weeks after Rick and after the vampires, Leo Pellissier, and Katie Fonteneau rescued Jason.” Her eyes filled with tears and she pressed the back of her wrist against one and then the other to catch the tears. Her mascara stained the wrist feathery black. “He was playing golf with his father. I was . . . I was playing in the group behind them.”

  “Ahhh,” T. Laine said. “You were stalking Rick. To help Jason, right? If I’d been blessed with a sorcerer brother, it’s what I would have done. Protect him. Family comes first.”

  “Yes,” Loriann said, sounding relieved that Lainie understood.

  Shifting subtly, Lainie mimicked her body posture until they were almost mirrored. It was standard Reid interrogation technique, but Lainie didn’t touch the witch, not even in the safety of the null room.

  “Everything I did was for Jason,” Loriann said. “Always.”

  T. Laine’s eyes shifted to the small mic on the table. Carefully, she covered it with her empty hand. “I get that. I do,” she whispered. “But you have to understand that the others, they won’t. Witches, witches stand together. But the mundane, they just don’t get it.”

  Loriann’s gaze swung from the covered mic to the tee in T. Laine’s fingers, her tears flowing freely now.

  “You’ve been alone, fighting to keep Jason safe all these years. Now you have help,” T. Laine whispered. “You’re not alone.”

  Loriann broke down in sobs, her head on the table, her shoulders shuddering. As Rick had said, Loriann was wracked with guilt and anger, but also with loneliness. On some level, I understood that kind of loneliness. I’d been alone for a long time too.

  “And that,” Tandy said, satisfaction in his tone, “is how you turn a suspect. At least until she realizes she’s been messed with.”

  Gently, T. Laine added, “And then Jason disappeared, taking away all the items you had collected with Rick’s DNA on them.”

  “I didn’t know. I swear, I didn’t know.”

  “Lie,” Tandy whispered softly. “Lie.”

  “Added that information to the file,” JoJo said.

  In the null room, the interrogation of Loriann Ethier was ongoing, both witches sitting up now, and the mic uncovered. T. Laine’s cell was on the table beside her and by her next sentence I knew she had checked her messages and was up to date on everything we knew. “Your brother, Jason, tracked Rick to the Appalachians. Did you know he also joined with a vampire named Godfrey of Bouillon?”

  Loriann looked confused. “Vampire?”

  “Godfrey is a known pedophile. He or his people kidnapped a teenaged girl and killed her. And Jason was in the van when she was taken.”

  Loriann slapped the table hard, coming up out of her chair. “No. No, that isn’t true.”

  On her cell phone, T. Laine showed her the doorbell security system photo of the van with Jason’s face visible. Loriann wilted in her chair. T. Laine swiped the cell screen to show the photos of the girl on the side of the road. Loriann, who had to have seen worse photos as a crime scene tech at NOLA CLE, looked away.

  “Jason is a blood junkie,” T. Laine said, her tone changing from understanding to inexorable. “He’s a witch.” Her tone went harder and firmer. “He’s a teenager. He may be sick from one of the cancers that male witches are prone to.” Her tone grew in volume. “You knew all this. And Jason is here in Knoxville. And he’s with vampires who have killed a human. Now. How are we going to find him, stop him from using the Circle of the Moon curse on Rick, and get Jason help?”

  Loriann began rocking again. “The bond I put into Rick’s skin works both ways.”

  JoJo said, “Both ways. That’s not what she said before. Not bad, Lainie girl.”

  “Rick has to come to Jason if Jason calls,” Loriann said. “Jason can feel Rick’s location if he tries. I meant it when I said I can track my brother through Rick’s tattoos. If he’ll let me.”

  “I see,” T. Laine said. She turned her head, breaking eye contact, staring at the wall. “I’ll talk to Rick about this. Maybe he’ll agree. Maybe he won’t. I wouldn’t let my torturer at me a second time if I had a choice.”

  Loriann flinched at the word torturer.

  “One thing bothers me,” T. Laine said. “Why does Jason hate Rick? Rick let you torture him to keep Jason alive. Why hate him?”

  Loriann looked to the side and when she spoke, her voice was faintly different. “Jason blames Rick for not rescuing him in time. For letting him be tortured by Isleen.”

  “Even though Rick had no way to save him?” Lainie clarified. “That doesn’t make sense. Come on. I know you’re leaving out things, Lori. If you want me to help you find Jason before Godfrey drinks him down, you have to tell me everything. I won’t put the team at risk over lies or inadequate information.”

  Loriann’s eyes filled with tears again. There were black smudges beneath them from rubbing her tear-wet mascara. “I . . . I’m not proud of it. I’m not,” she said fiercely.

  “Okay. We all do things we’re ashamed of from time to time. Let me help you make it right.”

  Loriann tilted her head in acquiescence and breathed out slowly. “I couldn’t tell my brother everything about his rescue. Or what happened while he was held captive by the crazy-assed vamp. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but somehow I told him enough that he believes that the cop with the tattoos didn’t want to save him. That I had to use my magic to . . . to force Rick to save him.”

  “Witch bitch,” JoJo muttered. “You selfish witch bitch. And now you want us to fix your stupid mistake.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  In the null room, T. Laine said, sorrowfully, “Oh, Lori. You took the glory of the rescue yourself.”

  “Not on purpose.”

  “Maybe not,” T. Laine said. “But you gave Rick’s name to Jason. And when you figured out Jason was blaming Rick, you didn’t fix it. Even after Rick was out from undercover and living as a cop in the real world. You let your brother keep thinking you had rescued him, not Rick, because it made you look important. And Rick became what? The bad guy?”

  Loriann didn’t deny it. “I didn’t think it was a problem. It was me and him against the world. It gave me some control when he wanted to drink vampire blood again. He was an addict, and the fact that I saved him, me, not Rick, was a . . . a bond of sorts.”

  “But . . . ,”
T. Laine encouraged.

  “When Jason got old enough, he started following Rick as best he could. Rick’s social media presence was minuscule early on. Music stuff from where Rick played in bands. He eventually discovered Rick was related to Tom, Katie Fonteneau’s primo. Katie was the vampire who made Isleen and let her loose into the world before she was sane,” Loriann explained. T. Laine didn’t tell Loriann she already knew that information. She let Loriann talk. “Things only got worse when Jason did Rick’s family timeline back. He discovered Katie Fonteneau was Rick’s way-back ancestor through a child before she was turned.”

  I barely managed to hold in my gasp at that one. How had Jason found that out? All we had were rumors. T. Laine didn’t react, but I had a feeling it was a near thing. Lainie said, “Because of Katie’s decision to let Isleen live, Jason developed post-traumatic stress syndrome. Yes?”

  Loriann nodded. “With emotional and mental problems. That crazy fanghead kidnapped him, drank from him, and forced him to drink her blood. He was a blood addict. He developed paranoia, and he started to believe Rick LaFleur was part of a conspiracy to hurt him.”

  Loriann leaned in, suppliant, trying to create a relationship that was slipping away. “Once I figured out he was going after Rick, I tried to set the record straight. I did. But Jason wouldn’t believe me. He thought I was just protecting Rick and that got me tossed into the paranoid mix too. Jason blames Rick for his captivity. He blames Rick and me for everything else.”

  “Telling Rick he had a teenaged stalker would have been nice,” T. Laine said. “He could have protected himself.”

  “What would I have told Rick? That my brother is mentally ill and fixated on him? I had Jason in therapy and . . . I thought he was getting better.”

  “Until he left twelve months ago. He’s a blood junkie, Loriann,” T. Laine said gently. The words hung in the air like a note tapped on a warped brass bell, ugly and flat. “A magical blood-junkie who has created a spell for things we can only imagine. All of them bad. His magic involves Blood Tarot, just like yours does. And Jason’s been tracking Rick, showing up on the banks of rivers, laying a blood-magic curse on Rick. Rick. Who saved him. A federal officer. Creating a spell that calls Rick and then leaving before Rick arrives, which we don’t yet understand.”

  Loriann gave a tiny shrug. “Jason’s deepening the blood bond in the tattoos until he’s ready to use it.” Loriann waved that away as if it was unimportant. “I know PsyLED is the agency that will find Jason and stop him. That’s why I’m here. To help you bring him in. Alive. That’s the price of my assistance.” Loriann’s face took on a hard cast, demanding, “I want my brother alive.”

  Rick and Occam appeared behind us, silhouetted by the hallway lights. I didn’t know where they had gone, but I was glad they were back. Occam flashed his cell at me and I realized that JoJo had sent the live feed to Occam’s cell and the two cat-men had been following along. Smart move. Rick said, “Jason is a sick little fucker.”

  It was coarse language, words that made me cringe, but he was right. I turned my chair to study him standing in the doorway. Occam stood behind Rick, not touching, but close, like a mouser cat offering comfort, and maybe using his cat magic to keep Rick calm.

  I said, “So is Loriann.”

  “Yeah. She is,” Rick said shortly. “I never saw it. I never realized any of this.”

  JoJo said, “Jason’s eighteen. He’s a legal adult. He’s already helped vampires kidnap, torture, and drain a teenaged girl. There’s no way to return him to his sister. She knows that. No matter what happens, Jason goes into a null room for decades. If he survives the vampires.”

  “So we get him first,” Rick said. “We get him help.”

  JoJo shook her head. “Do-gooder.”

  Rick smiled slightly. “Yeah. I’m trying to be.”

  “Is it the tats talking?”

  Rick shrugged. “I’m not sure it matters at this point.”

  On the screen, T. Laine said, “That’s not all, is it?” Loriann’s eyes flashed down, hiding her expression. “Tell me the rest,” Lainie said.

  Loriann dropped her head, hiding her eyes and her expression. “I had to protect Jason, even from Rick,” she whispered.

  “While you were being forced to ink Rick with a binding to a vampire, you also, voluntarily, inked a restraining order and a protection order into Rick’s flesh,” T. Laine clarified.

  JoJo said to Rick, “No wonder you had such trouble talking about the tats and the Ethier sibs. You were bound against testifying.”

  On-screen, it looked as if steam was coming out of T. Laine’s ears, but she forced it down. Her face smoothed and she said, “Tell me about the curse spell Jason is using. What effect is the curse having on Rick?”

  “I don’t know. The circle is Jason’s design and he never talked to me about it. But I think . . . I think Jason is stealing Rick’s years. Using his life force to power a multipurpose working.”

  “So you think the curse part is secondary to whatever the circle’s real purposes are.”

  Loriann didn’t answer, still keeping her head down. I glanced at Rick, who was now sitting in his chair. He had gone still as stone, his silver hair bright against the black strands in the overhead lights. Jason. Jason was responsible for Rick’s aging.

  “Okay. I’m taking a break,” T. Laine said. “I’ll see you get coffee and a bathroom break in a bit.” Without waiting for a reply, T. Laine rose and walked from the room, shutting the door and securing it with the numeric punch code. She laid her head on the wall and cursed softly, over and over again.

  “Get in here!” JoJo called to her.

  T. Laine’s movements were stiff as she covered the distance to the conference room and practically fell into her chair. I poured her a fresh coffee and JoJo pointed up, saying, “We have an incident. City cops are on scene now and uploaded a vid to us.”

  On the screen overhead was footage of a vehicle, similar to the one the vamp’s humans used to kidnap Raynay Blalock. The van was turning into a convenience store, parking beneath a high, flat-topped, metal roof. The passenger door opened and Jason Ethier stepped out. The sliding side door opened too. The footage was grainy and coarse and there was no audio, but the man with Jason was, without a doubt, a vampire. He was vamped out, his eyes flashing black, his fangs long and curved, his skin pasty, glaring white. This was the first time I’d seen a modern photo of Godfrey, who wore dark pants and a light-colored shirt. And he was walking outside. In daylight. The old and powerful ones, like Ming, could stay awake in their lairs in daylight. But this was something more. Way more.

  It had been posited that the very old ones could go about in daylight if they had heavy oxidized zinc or titanium oxide sunscreen on and stayed out of direct sunlight. Now we had proof of that.

  I watched as the vampire and Jason entered the store. Jason walked up to the clerk at the checkout counter, and they seemed to be speaking. Godfrey walked around the long counter and behind it. Up to the clerk.

  She was a pretty woman, African-American, well rounded in all the right places. She smiled at Godfrey as he walked to her. He bent her head to the side and casually ripped out her throat. Blood shot out everywhere. Godfrey unhinged his jaw, the way the old ones do, and placed his mouth over the pulsing wound. And drank. Jason went to the cash register and emptied it of cash. He also picked up a six-pack of beer and some Slim Jims. Godfrey dropped the woman. The two walked away and got into the black vehicle. Shut the doors. It drove away.

  In sunlight. My mouth was so dry I couldn’t swallow.

  Jo said, “I can guarantee we just got leeway to take out that son of a bitch. With prejudice.”

  T. Laine turned and walked away. Moments later PsyLED received a message on the public info e-mail. It included a video that JoJo put on the overhead screen, a video of Jason. “Hey, PsyLED, see this?” He angled the cell ph
one away and we saw a vampire behind him, dancing with a naked, limp, human teenager, holding the boy up, drinking from him. It was Godefroi de Bouillon. He was killing the teenaged boy.

  The reaction washed through HQ and through all of us. Horror. Shock. Fury. Helplessness.

  Jason said, “Tell Ricky-Bo LaFleur that his cowardice did this. And that when he’s mine, he’ll suffer like I did. Like this boy did.” The video ended.

  I watched the footage again. And again.

  * * *

  • • •

  Before I left to get some sleep, I read the EOD and SOD reports, paying close attention to everyone’s summations. Tandy’s read: Through the witch Loriann Ethier, the two different aspects of our case have collided: LaFleur and vampires and the eighteen-year-old male witch Jason Ethier. We need teams tracking each group. I recommend Jones and myself track Jason. LaFleur and Occam track the movements of the European vampires and Godfrey of Bouillon, while staying close to the silvered cage in case Rick is called again. I also recommend Loriann be kept in the null room until Jason is in custody or otherwise neutralized.

  The words otherwise neutralized sent a chill up my spine. They meant dead. And keeping the witch in a null room when she had not been convicted of a crime, was illegal, a painful punishment.

  JoJo had created a file on Jason Ethier’s backstory and her summation read: At seven years of age, he went into therapy. He was diagnosed with cancer—acute leukemia—at age nine due to the fact that he was a male witch. Loriann went to Katie Fonteneau (whose scion drank from the child and sexually abused him), and Loriann pressured Katie into saving her brother from the cancer. But Jason’s vision of vamps was blood and sex and this treatment set his addiction deeper—blood and sex violation, blood and healing, both felt good. Jason, in therapy, was fine for a while. It didn’t last. In her “Comments” section, JoJo had written two things: How did Jason find Godfrey? and LaFleur deserves a commendation for maintaining security and confidentiality protocols while under a working.