Circle of the Moon

by Faith Hunter

  The blood guided me through Oliver Springs and Oak Ridge into Knoxville and toward the Tennessee River. And past the city into the countryside on the far side of the city. I didn’t know where I was at first. And then the feeling of the earth, of the soil, hit me, slamming solidly into me like a big fist. The sensation rattled my teeth. Magic. Blood. Death. I had been there today. The stockyard.

  Jason Ethier was less than a mile away from his witch circle, sleeping in the arms of a vampire. Sex and magic and darkness. Need and rage. Sickness eating away at his body. Secrets and pain eating away at his soul. Dark and bloody and twisted things in his mind. Things I didn’t want to look at.

  The sorcerer was protected by magical hedges so strong they raked along my consciousness like electric cacti, burning, stabbing, cutting. The hedges were tied to the vampires and the moon, the working powered by the blood of humans. I couldn’t touch his blood through them, couldn’t drain him into the earth. I tried. It was like trying to pick up sewer water in an open hand. Jason had tied himself to the thing beneath the stockyard and its foulness had coated Jason’s soul. The smoky fist of filth.

  It was lethargic in the daylight, and from the safety of Soulwood, I studied the ring on its colossal finger. Engraved into the red stone was a stretched-out, flattened-looking X. Below that were the initials B, K, a lowercase u, and an L, like gang signs, except they glowed with what looked like black flame. B’KuL.

  I slipped away from the thing in the earth, away from the sickness of Jason Ethier, out of the house where he slept. It was at the end of a long drive less than a mile, as the buzzard flew, from the Knoxville Livestock Center and all that putrefying meat and drying blood. And the wrong thing in the earth.

  I started to tug myself completely free, back to my body, but contact with Soulwood had jarred something loose in my brain. I paused and tried to bring it to my conscious mind. Some little something. Some tiny inconsistency. A single question unanswered. What did Jason really want? He could have killed Rick at a calling circle. In the office with the gun. And he hadn’t.

  I eased my hands free of the plant mittens and the leafy socks. We were missing something. Interpreting something incorrectly.

  I stood and shook out my faded pink blanket. Yummy and Ming and the vamps didn’t give us an address because they wanted the op all to themselves. They didn’t want their hands tied when they killed everyone on the premises. They wanted medic primed to go into action just in case. But. If they killed Jason Ethier, that might set the demon free. How did one stop an almost-free demon?

  I put on my shoes and stood, carrying my blanket to the house, thinking as I walked, carrying with me the peace I always felt when I communed with my land. Before I reached the edge of the trees and the grassy acres where my home and garden were, I stopped and found my cell phone and accessed a map. Located the land and house where Jason slept. It was a house on Roseberry Road. Dialed T. Laine.

  She didn’t answer hello. She answered with a sleepy, grouchy, “This better be good, Ingram.” Clearly I had waked her.

  “Two things. One, the demon hand was wearing a ring.”

  “Already established, Ingram.”

  “I just figured out what it looked like. It was an X, squished, so the sides were longer than it was tall.”

  “Gebo, merkstave,” she said, coming awake, “well, not merkstave. Gebo can’t truly lie in merkstave, but it can lie in opposition. Gebo properly indicates balance in all matters like exchanges, contracts, personal relationships, and partnerships.” She fell silent.

  “What happens when Gebo is in opposition?”

  “Greed, privation, obligation, dependence.” She added, “Bribery, loneliness, oversacrifice unto death.”

  I described the other initials and said, “Bukul?”

  T. Laine said, “Son of a witch on a switch. Don’t ever say that out loud.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s its summoning name,” she said. “We can use B, K, L—just the initials. And I can use the summoning name to . . . do something. Good. Yeah.” She was fully awake, lit by excitement. “I’ve been reporting to the U.S. witch council, and they’ve been trying to adapt a shoot to kill working for this situation.” Her mouth clicked closed on the words as she heard them. Shoot to kill a kid with cancer. T. Laine took a slow breath, her excitement dissipating. She cursed softly. “Attempting to summon a demon is a death sentence.”

  “Will they be here to help?” I asked.

  “No. They can’t fight demons. They told me to evacuate. They say me killing Jason is the best they can do.”

  “Why? I don’t understand.”

  Lainie took a slow breath. “My species tends to run from demons. With good reason. A demon can run through a family blood line like lightning, using us all.”

  I hesitated, thinking about what I had sensed when I found Jason in the arms of a vampire. He had been broken as a child. He had taken that brokenness and built a house of hate and fury around it. He had shaped himself into a creature of utter darkness. The brokenness had not been a choice. What he did with that brokenness was. And Jason was legally an adult now. Giving Lainie the address assured Jason’s death, and Lainie might have to carry out the death sentence herself. Alone. Not giving it meant a vampire war and Jason might get away in the battle and also free the demon. Or share his sister with it by accident. Like me, Lainie might have to learn to live as a killer. And then I remembered that one master vampire would be awake, the daywalker, Godfrey.

  T. Laine could not take on a blood-witch and a master vampire alone.

  I said, “The other reason I called? I know where Jason is. A house on Roseberry Road, under a hedge of protection, with a lot of vampires. Probably the rogue vampires and Godfrey. We know what he’s calling. He has to be stopped—now. We can storm the place while most of the vampires are asleep. Call the witch council and get your permission.”

  Not that we needed it. If I could get close to Jason, inside his magical defenses, I could feed him to the earth. I had his blood.

  “Later,” T. Laine said, disconnecting.

  I still didn’t have an answer to my question What did Jason really want? Another possibility, half-seen from my communion with the land, crawled up from the dark and rooty recesses of my mind. I dialed Ayatas FireWind. He sounded alert and reserved, as always. “What can I do for you, Ingram?”

  I told him what I had learned about Jason’s location and magical protections, and asked, “Do you know a lot about demons?”

  “Too much.” The words sounded tired and beaten.

  “In Spook School, I learned that when a witch calls a demon, they contact the demon, make a bargain, and slit the throat of the sacrifice. The blood frees the demon into the circle with the sacrifice and seals the bargain with the blood. When the demon drinks or absorbs the blood, the demon is then free. And that gives the witch rule over the demon and his powers for a specified time period. Yes?”

  “More or less. Though the bargain Jason negotiated required a blood sacrifice to even contact the demon,” Ayatas said, his tone pedantic, impassive. “That contact and bargain was what you saw in the review working cast by Kent.”

  “Who will be the sacrifice that gives the demon freedom?”

  “Vampire prisoners dedicated to that purpose and Rick LaFleur.”

  “What happens if Jason dies now? Before he frees the demon?”

  “It would be a half finished summoning. Anyone could take over and free him, and the agreed upon bargain would no longer be in play. It’s what demons hope for in the first place—getting free, having access to the earth and the humans in it, unrestricted by bargains.”

  “And if Jason is dead and the demon is still trapped in the circle?” I asked.

  He hesitated, a slight hitch in tone. “There may be those in our government and military who think they can control a demon, can rewrite the
bargain if Jason is gone and the demon is still trapped in the circle.”

  “So we have to finish this fast, and tie up all the loose ends.”

  “I fear so.”

  “And if we take Jason out after the possession?” I asked.

  “It will be difficult to kill Jason with the tools we have on hand once he’s possessed by the demon. That’s usually part of the bargain. Magical protection from attack for the duration of the contract.”

  Tools we have on hand. That was an interesting phrase. I took a slow breath and said, “I know where Jason is. And our timeline window is small. We have to take him out today before Ming gets to him at sunset. Do containment vessels have a size maximum?”

  There was a short, sharp silence on the other end of the connection as FireWind processed my question. “You think it’s a Major Power.”

  “Yes. When I read the land, I got a good look at the ring on the demon’s hand. The red stone was embossed with a rune. T. Laine says it’s Gebo in opposition.”

  The reserved, unemotional FireWind took a hissing breath.

  “We have its calling name, based on the initials B.K.L. I think it’s huge and powerful and tied to the magma working its way up through the earth’s crust,” I said.

  “Hmmm. There are hot springs and other signs of geological activity in the Appalachians. In answer to your question, yes, containment vessels do have a maximum suppression and restraint assessment, but no one knows how to measure demonic energy, so PsyLED labs haven’t tried the systems with anything larger than your garden-variety flesh-eating imp.”

  “So we can’t contain it, and we can’t kill it, and Jason is under the magical protection of a powerful hedge of thorns until he lets it drop to free the demon. And we have to act before sunset and the vamps rise.”

  “Yes. But until the bargain is completed, the demon’s power is fundamentally and effectively limited.” I could almost hear the frown in his voice when he added, “We thought Rick was being called for two reasons: revenge, and to power the working to call the demon. But something is off.”

  “Right,” I said. “Why shoot Rick? Why try to turn himself into a werecat?”

  “Best guess is blood spatter for the calling, and were-taint to heal his cancer. Jones found a diagnosis of leukemia in his history.” He made a ruminative sound. “Tonight is the total dark of the moon. The new moon rose around dawn. It is up but invisible all day, and will set around seven p.m., before sunset in Knoxville in summer.” He made the pensive sound again. “Since nothing magic happened when it rose, the curse must be timed for the interval between moonset and sunset. Thank you, Ingram. This is invaluable information. We have a great many logistics to work out, and our timeline to stop Jason may be a very narrow window.”

  “From the time Jason starts the spell and drops the hedge, to the moment he’s killed enough sleeping vampires to free the demon, but before the demon is actually set free. And then we have to figure out a way to send the demon back,” I clarified.

  “I suppose that’s correct. Anything else, Ingram?” FireWind asked.

  “Has anyone thought about putting Rick on a plane for the Vatican?” I asked.

  “Several times. It’s still in discussion.”

  “Last question. What if the vampires with Jason don’t know what we do about the demon and its summoning? Godfrey is an old vampire who probably knows a lot about magic, but this is a brand-new curse-working. What if Jason is using them for more than we think?”

  I felt FireWind’s attention narrow onto me. “I’m listening.”

  “What if the curse part of the spell isn’t just for Rick, but also is directed at the other group that hurt him? What if the curse is directed at all the vampires in Knoxville? Or even all the vampires in the state? Or think bigger. What if the curse is directed at the life force, or un-life-force, of every vampire in the world all at once? Just causes them to bleed to death like the cattle did at the stockyard.”

  FireWind went quiet and the silence stretched out. “What you’re suggesting is, or should be, impossible. But . . . a vampire kidnapped him and killed his grandmother in front of his eyes. Yet he’s working with a vampire now.”

  “If Jason starts the curse after moonset and before sunset,” I said, “in the last ninety minutes of day, before the vampires rise, he’ll have sleeping vampires available to bleed into his curse, the way he bled the cattle at the livestock center. He wouldn’t even have to cut them. That narrows our timeline even more.”

  FireWind muttered something that might have been cussing in another language. “He gets revenge on Rick, kills him, is healed by vampire blood or the were-taint, kills large numbers of vampires, and has a demon at his disposal for as long as their agreement lasts. The little sorcerer is brilliant.” There was reluctant admiration in FireWind’s voice.

  “If we miss our window,” I said, “Jason will have the demon to grant him power for as long as he lives, which might be a long time as a werecat or a vampire.”

  FireWind agreed thoughtfully. “Logistics will be a nightmare and we don’t have much time to prepare.”

  “And that narrow window,” I said.

  “The unit is exhausted. New-moon set is less than an hour and a half before sunset. This will be tricky. Get a nap. Be at HQ by four p.m. And, Nell, see that Mud is elsewhere. This will not be the safest place on earth.”

  The connection ended. The safest place on earth. As far as I was concerned, that was Soulwood. I wondered if I could get the vampire tree to babysit. I needed sleep, but my family was more important. I needed . . . I needed to claim the church land. I needed a sacrifice.

  I shook my entire body like a dog shakes its fur. No. I was not killing someone to claim the land. At my feet a tendril pushed through the soil, and a single thick, green leaf uncoiled, resting against my ankle.

  In the yard, Mud screamed with laughter and rolled on the ground with Cherry. Overhead, a bird sang, long and sweet. I smelled wisteria and the grape Kool-Aid smell of kudzu in bloom. The vampire tree tendril coiled up my ankle and wrapped around it. Not trapping me. Just . . . making me aware. Reminding me, as if it had access to my mind. And maybe, on some level, it did.

  Larry Aden had been wounded by the vampire tree. The tree had his blood. The tree could . . . sacrifice Larry, and I could claim church land through it.

  And that would be murder. Not self-defense to protect myself. But premeditated, cold-blooded murder. An icy thrill rushed through me like a broken dam of glacial water. My body clenched. Goose bumps flew across my skin, pebbling my arms and legs and up my chest.

  I looked out over Soulwood, over land that was almost holy. “I’ll find another way,” I whispered, staring at the sprig of the vampire tree on my ankle. It now had three leaves and was about six inches long. I bent down and plucked the sprig. I carried the vampire twig to the back porch and tucked it into an unused pot of soil.

  Today was the total dark of the moon, and though the moon was up now, and would actually be above the horizon all day, it wouldn’t be visible at all. The darkness of the night sky would be brightened only by stars. And whatever curse and demon-summoning Jason had planned.

  Inside the house, I showered and crawled into bed. I fell fast asleep. I still didn’t know what I’d do with Mud when I went back to work, but my brain needed sleep and I could problem-solve after some rest.

  * * *

  • • •

  I dropped Mud off at Esther’s, though I didn’t get to see my older sister. Esther didn’t come to the door when Mud and I knocked. Jed opened the door, a man at home in the daylight, when by church codes he should be working.

  “Jed,” I said.

  Jed looked tired and angry and had a three-day beard. He didn’t meet my eyes. “Nell.”

  I remembered Esther’s fingers at her hairline, so much like mine when my leaves were trying to grow. If
being plant-women ran in the family, as I believed, Esther was likely to grow leaves too. But she hadn’t talked to me.

  He pushed open the door, but I caught Mud’s shoulder. “If Esther needs my help keeping things trimmed back, you let me know.”

  Mud laughed and skipped inside. Jed’s eyes flashed fire and he closed the door in my face.

  “Hospitality and peace to you too,” I shouted through the door. I probably shouldn’t have stirred that pot. But if my sister was growing leaves . . .

  I got back in my truck and took off for HQ.

  * * *

  • • •

  It was just past four, and T. Laine was talking as Tandy put the last pencil traces on the sketch of the smoky fist of the devil trapped in the earth. “The New Orleans coven and I agree. The spell Ethier is likely using to summon his demon is a shared power spell. It can be called totality. It’s a bargain type of spell, one where a witch and a demon share witch and demonic strength and power at different times and for different purposes. For instance, the demon might use the witch’s strength and youth to power itself to the surface, in which case, the demon steals years, the witch ages, the demon gets free. Then the bargain reverses as the demon extracts more power from the deeps along his pathway, which he then gifts to the witch. The witch ages, but he ends up with one major power/working/curse/whatever. That’s the way it’s supposed to work.”

  “Except that Jason isn’t aging. Rick is,” I said.

  “Jason added levels in a working so complex I may never understand it. Jason sacrifices Rick—maybe from a distance, since Rick’s blood is now mixed with his own—and maybe sacrifices all the vampires in the house with him too. With such a big sacrifice, he survives handling and channeling the evil of a Major Power through his body and his circle. The demon possesses Jason, enacts the curse, and—if Ingram is right—destroys all the vampires everywhere. After that, unaged, healed from the leukemia, healed from vamp-blood-addiction, Jason will have whatever years are left to him, riding a demon—to use Ingram’s term. Perfect spell. And scary as hell.”