Blood Moon (8 page)

The bell above Ben’s door jingled as Zelda
entered his shop, and the smell of old books and burning incense
engulfed her. Shelves reached up to the ceiling, holding rows of
leather volumes and wicker baskets stuffed with various goods. A
curtain in the back corner had been tied off, giving a glimpse of a
small, round table featuring a crystal ball. A psychic rented the
spare room and did readings during weekends.

Ben looked up from the front counter, his
eyes twinkling over his low spectacles. “Good morning, my dear.
Shopping for a new stone today?”

Zelda smiled and fingered through a spinning
rack of boxed incense sticks. “Just a few herbs.”

“
Are you sure?” Ben found
his cane and stood with a grunt. He hobbled over to the display
case of crystals and gemstones, keys jingling in his free hand. “I
just got a new lump of barite in—a real dandy. The Native Americans
used it for shapeshifting, but it’s also good for healing and
enhancing memory.”

Zelda bristled. “I don’t
need help with memory. But thank you,” she added, noting Ben’s
disappointment. “I
could
use some belladonna though.”

He frowned. “Having trouble sleeping? The
amethyst should be helping with that. Maybe it needs a salt
cleanse.”

“
It’s for a patient,”
Zelda said.

As far as Ben knew, she was a
run-of-the-mill doctor who dabbled in holistic treatments.

Ben pulled a basket down from a shelf behind
the display case and shuffled through its contents, squinting
through his glasses to read the labels.

Zelda took an anxious breath. “I also need
black hellebore, celandine, and a bundle of asafetida.”

Ben froze and looked up at
her slowly. “For your
patient
too?” His eyes narrowed, daring her to lie a
second time.

Zelda shrugged. “My new friends have
enemies, and now they’ve become my enemies.”

Ben set the basket on the counter. “There
are better herbs for that—if you’re just fixing tea.” He raised a
shaggy gray eyebrow. “But you’re not having a tea party, are
you?”

Zelda folded her arms. “Do you interrogate
all of your customers about the things they buy?”

“
Just the ones I care
about.” Ben sighed and fished through his baskets until he found
everything she had requested. He slid the bags of herbs across the
counter toward her. “On the house,” he said, just as she reached
for her pocket.

His sincerity stabbed at her conscious, but
Zelda refused to spill her secrets. As nice as Ben was, she hardly
knew him, and living in Spero Heights meant that he had a secret of
his own. Maybe they would eventually sit down over tea and trade
tales, but not today.

“
Thank you,” Zelda said,
taking the herbs. “If you still have that barite next week, I’ll
come take a closer look.”

“
I’ll do you one better.”
Ben twisted his keys in the display case lock, and the door popped
open. He scooped up a peach colored stone and pressed it in Zelda’s
blistered hand. It was heavier than it looked. She held back a gasp
and gave him a pained smile.

Ben’s eyes were still full of questions, but
he kept them to himself this time. “Take it for a test drive.”

Chapter
Fifteen

Logan woke to the sound of a door closing.
He was alone in Zelda’s bed, faint light from the hallway shining
down on the spot where she had been. He sat up with a start, his
heart leaping with panic, then he heard her stirring in the
apartment.

“
I brought coffee,” she
greeted him as he came into her small kitchen.

Logan blinked at the harsh florescent
lights. The studio apartments, having once been projection rooms,
didn’t feature windows. The lack of natural lighting made it feel
like they were in a basement, not three stories up.

He yawned and trained his eyes on Zelda as
she unpacked one of the shopping bags on the kitchen table.

“
You’ve been busy this
morning. Feeling better?”

“
Much.” She smiled, but
there was a tightness around her eyes. “Thank you for watching over
me last night, Logan.”

He snorted softly. “You have no idea how
good it is to hear you say my name instead of Theo’s.”

Zelda’s fragile smile crumbled and her eyes
went wide. “I am so sorry, Logan—”

“
No, you were sick.” He
shook his head. “You weren’t in your right mind. Think nothing of
it.”

Zelda smiled again, but it looked even more
forced than before. She handed him a paper cup of coffee and turned
away from him, digging through another bag on the table.

“
I have some things I have
to do today, and then Phil is supposed to be coming over to bid the
place.”

Logan took a long drink of coffee and then
sat down at the tiny kitchen table. His massive frame made the
furniture look like it belonged in a preschool classroom, but there
wasn’t much room for anything bigger. The studio apartments were
functional, not comfortable.

“
What can I do to help?”
he asked, rubbing a hand over his short hair.

Zelda bit her lip and frowned, as if she was
trying to think of a polite way to tell him to piss off.

Logan locked eyes with her. “I’m not leaving
your side until this Raymore business is cleared up.”

She gave him a cocky grin. “I can take care
of myself, sweetie. I just went out and fetched coffee without a
bodyguard, didn’t I?”

Logan’s eyes narrowed. “And you Zeused the
shit out of that mutant bastard yesterday too. But you also got
yourself bit—attempting to do the very thing I’d just told you not
to,” he finished with a growl.

Zelda threw her hands in the air. “What was
I supposed to do? Just ignore the naked body on my lawn?”

“
You should have waited
for me to check on him.” Logan slammed his fist on the table,
causing her to jump.

Zelda blushed, as if embarrassed she’d shown
some sign of fear around him. “Waiting for you to check out every
potential patient is not a reasonable option. A lot of these wolves
need immediate attention, or they’ll die.” Logan opened his mouth,
but she cut him off. “—and so help me, if you suggest I should let
them, I will Zeus the shit out of you,” she snapped.

Logan huffed and leaned back in his chair.
“I’m still not going anywhere. You’re being targeted, and I won’t
feel right leaving you here alone until Phil has that security
system in place.”

“
Fine,” she
snapped.

“
Fine.” Logan folded his
arms. “So what are we doing today?”

“
We
aren’t doing anything.
I’ll
be performing a ritual, in the woods at the edge
of town.”

“
I’m coming with
you.”

Zelda glared at him. “Fine,” she snapped
again. “Just stay out of my way and be quiet. This ritual is
sensitive. I can’t have you distracting me.”

She sat down across from him, and they
finished their coffee in silence. The caffeine seemed to improve
both of their moods, and by the time they left, Zelda actually let
him carry some of her supplies. Although, that might have only been
because she had so many.

“
What do you need all of
this for? Can’t you just wiggle your nose to cast a spell, like
Samantha?” Logan grumbled.

Zelda took a basket of herbs and stones from
him and loaded it into the cab of the truck. “I said I was doing a
ritual, not a spell.”

“
What’s the difference?”
he asked, climbing in the driver’s side.

“
A spell is like a prayer.
A ritual amplifies it.” Zelda climbed inside the truck and slammed
her door.

The sun was bright in the clear sky, quickly
sucking up the moisture from the storm. The grass was greener and
the birds more vocal, as if to say that spring was coming one way
or another. Everyone’s problems be damned.

Logan drove them the two miles to the
stretch of woods Zelda’s wolves liked to frequent. It was rocky,
and there wasn’t a lot of room to cut loose and run. Still, there
was a nice creek on the property. It ran past a grassy clearing,
where Zelda decided she wanted to have the ritual.

“
What should I do?” Logan
asked, setting the rest of the supplies in the grass.

“
Take a nap?” Zelda
shrugged. “I don’t care. Just don’t talk to me, and try to stay out
of my line of sight.”

Logan rolled his eyes and backed up to the
edge of the woods around the clearing, where he found a fallen tree
and sat down to wait. Zelda glanced nervously over her shoulder at
him a few times, but he behaved, remaining perfectly still and
quiet.

First she walked in a wide circle, several
times, humming softly as she sprinkled salt and placed rocks and
candles on the ground. She struck a match and lit the candles,
setting fire to a small cluster of herbs when she was done. Then
she followed the circle again, waving the smoky bundle in the
air.

Logan breathed deep and caught the stench of
sage, mixed with something even worse. Like someone had wiped out a
sweaty armpit with a gym sock. He felt bile rise at the back of his
throat and tried to breathe through his mouth. He wasn’t sure how
Zelda was still conscious, as close as she was to the source.

When his eyes stopped watering, he watched
as she stacked three stone slabs—the heaviest of her
supplies—creating a low table in the center of the circle. Then she
knelt before it and pulled out a bronze bowl.

Her lips began moving again, but Logan
couldn’t make out the words. They whispered over the grass,
sounding foreign and threatening as they bounced off the trees and
surrounded him. From his angle to Zelda, he caught a glimpse of her
left eye and shuddered. It glowed a soft blue, the same color her
lightning had been.

She lifted a small knife and slicked it
across the palm of her injured hand, letting her blood drip into
the bowl. Then she added herbs and other things Logan didn’t
recognize, her mouth still moving the entire time.

A high pitched ringing buzzed through the
air, growing louder and louder. Logan couldn’t recall when it had
begun, but it was starting to split his skull in two. He ground his
teeth together and pressed his hands over his ears.

When he looked back up, blue smoke drifted
from the bronze bowl. And Zelda was gone.

Chapter
Sixteen

Zelda hadn’t counted on the grand jury of
the goddess. She should have known better. The cut on her hand
stung, and her blood dripped and disappeared into the glowing
nothingness that surrounded her.

“
You dare to call on us
again, oath breaker?” a million voices asked at once, making her
head throb.

Zelda swallowed. “Not for myself,” she
answered meekly.

“
Always for yourself,” the
voices replied. “Have you not learned that yet?”

Zelda wanted to refute them, but she
couldn’t. In their presence, she saw the truth for what it was.
Everything she did was for herself. Even the wolves she helped—it
was all done in penance, to pacify her guilt.

“
Tell me what to do,” she
begged, her eyes burning in the divine light.

“
Sacrifice. It is the only
way to right your path.”

Zelda took a trembling breath. “I’m yours to
do with as you please.”

“
You are your own, and
time will reveal your altar soon enough. Make peace with it, or
never call on us again, Zelda Mae Fulmen.”

“
I will,” she
promised.

“
Then let it be done.
Blessed be.”

The voices faded off, and Zelda felt the
pull of her ritual circle tugging at her aura. The spell surged
forward more easily than she expected.

First, her connection with Hazel released.
It was an easy, comfortable detachment, as if the witch had been
anticipating her psychic visit and had prepared for it. Then
Maggie’s tangle of blond curls flashed through Zelda’s mind,
accompanied by a sharp gasp.

Sarah was last. She felt Zelda coming, and
she resisted. Steely gray eyes pierced into Zelda’s as Sarah’s hot
anger boiled over. A scream echoed through the void that separated
them. Zelda’s final tie to the coven broke like a rubber band, and
she dropped to the center of the ritual circle, panting until her
chest and throat burned.

Her eyes watered and a sob slipped past her
lips. Two years, yet the severance ritual left her feeling raw and
vulnerable, as if she was really, truly alone now, without a soul
in the world to lean on.

“
Zee, are you all right?”
Logan paced nervously around the circle, looking frazzled and
confused. “Do you need help?”

“
No,” she wheezed, pulling
herself into a sitting position. “I’m almost done here.” She wiped
a hand across her face and picked at the grass clinging to her
dreadlocks.

“
You sure?” Logan pressed
a fist into his opposite palm and squeezed it anxiously.

She nodded and used the altar to steady
herself as she stood. “Give me five minutes.”

Zelda walked counterclockwise around the
circle, thanking the elements and snubbing the candles out. When
the circle was open, she invited Logan in, but he refused to enter
the formerly sacred space. Zelda rolled her eyes and handed the
altar slabs to him. Then she packed up the rest of her supplies,
and they headed back to the pub.

The Crimson Moon was closed on Mondays, but
it was almost lunch time, and her wolves liked to gather in the big
back kitchen to eat together on their day off. Logan never joined
them, and Zelda wondered if he even knew about their weekly
potluck. He was in for a surprise.