Circle of Blood (19 page)

“I didn’t want to,” he said. “I know that sounds like a stupid answer, but it’s true. When your mother and I were married, we both had the power. I came from a Druid upbringing. She was Wiccan—well, in name only really. She didn’t believe in anything, no higher power, nothing beyond herself. But she was funny and passionate and before I knew it I was in love, we were married, and you were on the way.

“I’m not sure if she started to change at that point or if I just started to notice things that I hadn’t before. You know how they say love is blind? Sometimes that can be true. She was very greedy and obsessed with power. She kept wanting more and more even though there was no good reason for it. We were happy, comfortable, and we had an adorable little girl.”

He closed his eyes as if reliving the memories, and for just a moment Samantha felt she could see the images, too, the young happy family. Although clearly not so happy as he had thought.

After a moment he continued. “The more power she had, though, it seemed the more she wanted. It’s always a slippery slope and it’s especially dangerous for those who don’t have a strong moral code, an authority other than themselves that they’re answering to. She met a few other people and joined their coven over my objections.

“She became more and more paranoid about your powers, about the ease with which you used them, like breathing. Then, one day, I met her high priestess, a woman named Abigail, and I knew she was evil. I told your mother straightway afterward, but she wouldn’t listen.”

“Mom never listened to anyone, except maybe Abigail,” Samantha said softly.

He nodded. “That’s when I began to sense those currents of danger flowing around me. I knew it was only a matter of time before she decided I was in her way. I decided to take you with me. I was sure she would agree, given her paranoia, but she refused. There was a fight, and she won. I refused to harm her and I barely escaped with my life.

“A few weeks later I tried to come back for you, to take you, but Abigail was waiting for me. She knew how much power you had, and she was intent on using it. By the time I woke up in the hospital, four weeks had passed. I still don’t know why she didn’t kill me or if she thought she had and I miraculously survived. When I got out, you, your mother, Abigail, and the others had all vanished. I searched for months, but they had powerful spells to hide you all and eventually I had to give up. I didn’t learn until years later that they’d taken you to Salem.”

Samantha blinked. “So, where was I born?”

“Right here in New Orleans. So was Lilith. Her father was part of that coven from the start.”

Samantha took a deep breath. It felt as if her entire life was a house of cards that had been crashing down around her the last couple of days. Everything she had known or thought she had known about her life was either an outright lie or a distortion of the truth.

“I’m sorry. I really am. By the time I found you, you were with the Ryans and you seemed happy. I wasn’t about to interfere with that.”

“Thank you,” she said. She was truly grateful that he hadn’t. The Ryans had helped her find God and build a semblance of a normal life. She could only imagine what would have happened if Thomas had come to take her away at that point.

“It seemed the best thing I could do for you. I tried to keep tabs on you from afar, but it was difficult to do because I didn’t want to pull you back into the world of magic when it was so clear that you wanted nothing more to do with it. I resigned myself to what little I could glean. I was proud that you became a detective, that you were building something with your life.”

“So, what else is it I should know that I don’t?” she asked.

He shrugged. “It seems like you’re pretty well caught up.”

“So, that day in the alley, you knew who I was?”

“Of course. It wasn’t exactly how I’d wanted our first meeting to go. Then there was the dead body, and I could tell that there was something seriously wrong with you. Glad to see that’s been taken care of.”

“Good as new,” she said. “Actually, better, I guess.”

“Fantastic. So, nothing like I’ve been planning, but, yes, hi, I’m your father,” he said with a sheepish grin.

Samantha stepped forward and threw her arms around him. She was going to need a bit of time to process how she felt about everything he’d told her, but it sounded as though he’d truly done his best. And she remembered how much her two-year-old self had loved him and wanted to go with him. That was enough for now.

He hugged her back and she could feel his surprise and gratitude. His emotions were threatening to overwhelm him and they started to get to her as well.

“Hey, I’m your daughter,” she whispered.

She could feel his tears on her cheek and that was just fine. After a long minute she finally pulled away, wiping at her own eyes.

He cleared his throat. “I have to admit. All the times I thought about this moment, I never imagined it going that well.”

“I guess it’s your lucky day. If we live through this, maybe I’ll even introduce you to my boyfriend.”

“That guy with the dark hair, no powers whatsoever? Not the cop, the other one.”

“That would be him.”

“Seems nice enough.”

She thought of how compassionate and forgiving and patient Anthony had been with her. “You have no idea,” she said.

He nodded. “Good to know. Although somehow I have a suspicion that he’ll be the one giving me the ‘hurt her and I’ll kill you’ lecture.”

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”

“Understood,” Thomas said. “Now that that’s settled, let’s get down to it.”

Samantha nodded. As much as she wanted to spend time with her father catching up, getting to know him and learning more about the rest of her family, if there was one, there was business at hand that couldn’t wait. Lilith was almost there.

“Whatever you need me to do, I’ll do it,” he said.

“I’m so glad you said that,” she said.

“I mean it.”

“Lilith has my cross necklace. It’s what’s connecting her to me. It has a few drops of my blood that I placed in it the day I turned my back on magic.”

“Then that necklace has to be retrieved so the connection between you can be broken.”

“But only once she gets here, which is soon,” Samantha said. “Who knew? The thing that she meant for my harm will ultimately work for my good and be her undoing.”

“Put another way, ‘The Lord works in mysterious ways.’”

She glanced at him.

“What? I’m Irish. You think I grew up and didn’t go to Sunday school?”

She shook her head. So many questions, so little time. Hopefully they’d both survive this for there to be answers to those questions.

“I’m proud of you,” he whispered.

“Thanks for being here,” she said.

Around her she could feel the others, their nerves strung tight, nearly to the snapping point. Everything hinged on what happened in the next few minutes, because as Lilith drew closer, as Samantha felt the connection with her more strongly, she became more sure that she knew the other witch’s plan and if they didn’t stop her now, tonight, the whole world would burn.

She threw back her head and waited. That was all that was left to do. Around her the crazy Mardi Gras floats stood, eerie in their size and stillness with their macabre depictions of people and creatures, a symbol of all that was wild and decadent about the city.

And if tonight didn’t go as planned, there would never be another Mardi Gras ever again. Somewhere on one of the floats somebody coughed. The sound echoed like thunder through the warehouse and she could feel the tension ratchet up another notch.

Just what they all needed.

In the silence that followed she could actually hear Thomas’s heart pounding. He was terrified, but he was standing his ground. She should be frightened, but she wasn’t. Instead, an unnatural calm settled upon her. Maybe it was her accepting her destiny. Maybe it was reassurance from God that she would be victorious.

Or maybe it was the relief of knowing that the waiting was finally over.

Because just then a wave of energy rippled through the building, strong and powerful.

Lilith was there and she had brought hell with her.

The front door of the warehouse flew off its hinges and Samantha felt the ground shake as it crashed somewhere outside. It was an impressive use of force. Lilith had to be really ticked off. Samantha smiled at the thought.

Lilith stormed into the warehouse. “How dare you summon me!” she shouted.

“Oh, hello,” Samantha said. She lifted a hand into the air and suddenly all the moisture in the air condensed and baseball-sized hail pelted the witch, who fell to one knee, startled.

Samantha followed it with a dozen fireballs, which flew off her fingers effortlessly. Lilith worked hard to extinguish a couple and was forced to deflect the rest. One landed on a parade float and set some of the decorations on fire.

Samantha stomped on the floor, sending a massive tremor through it to Lilith, knocking her off her feet.

Samantha ran forward just as she heard the sounds of many feet running. She looked past the witch and saw people coming out of the darkness, racing forward, eyes wide with terror.

Lilith had compelled those with power to come, just as Samantha had feared she would.

The first dozen streamed into the warehouse, flowing past Lilith.

Then several shapes hurtled out of the darkness, tackling others to the floor before they could make it inside. Ed, Anthony, and their team.

Samantha hissed, wishing they weren’t as close to Lilith as they were.

The witch leaped in the air, twisted, and made a yanking motion. Ed came sailing into the room and ricocheted off one of the floats before hitting the floor with a grunt. Samantha made a similar yanking motion to pull Lilith to her. Lilith laughed and hit herself in the shoulder, sending shock waves of pain to Samantha’s injured shoulder and driving her to her knees.

From all around her, agents began to drop from the floats and were literally tossing the people arriving inside the warehouse up onto the floats as requested. Thomas leaped forward and sent fireballs at Lilith, which she deflected.

Samantha reached up and pulled lightning out of the sky and through the open warehouse door. Lilith spun out of its path and it hit the giant jester on top of one of the floats right in the middle of the forehead.

Suddenly a familiar figure staggered through the open door. It was Martin. Samantha blinked in surprise. “You have to stop her! I saw what she’s going to do!” he was shrieking. She couldn’t tell if it was him or his demon.

Before she could react, Lilith snapped his neck. Something black and foul began to slither out of his nose and ears, and Samantha rained fire down on the body, destroying it and the demon as well.

More people came streaming in. Anthony and the three agents were losing the battle outside to keep them there.

And then Samantha felt the energy suddenly being sucked out of her. Lilith was pulling energy so hard and so fast that it nearly sent Samantha to her knees. She’d worried the witch would use them all as human batteries, but she was so much better at it than her lackeys in Salem had been. As everyone else grew weaker, she visibly grew stronger. The witch laughed and walked past her with a little wave until she was a few steps beyond her in the warehouse.

Samantha saw Robin run into the warehouse with some of the others and she screamed in frustration because there was nothing she could do about it.

The agents on the floor were scrambling back on top of the floats. She had told them not to risk themselves and they were listening.

Samantha tried to move, tried to fight, but it was as if she were frozen. Finally she discovered that she could slide one foot slowly ahead of the other, though it took all her willpower and concentration to do so.

Around her people started to collapse, dropping like flies. She prayed that outside Anthony was able to run to safety. She dared not spare a glance at Ed. She didn’t know what she’d do if she saw him die that way.

She saw Robin fall and she cried out, but there was nothing she could do for her. Trina saw, too, and she leaped down from the float. The moment her feet touched the floor, Samantha could see her start to crumple as the energy was pulled out of her. Still, Trina fought her way over to Robin. She picked the girl up and moved back to the float, where hands reached down to pull them both to safety.

Samantha returned her attention to Lilith.

The witch had a chalice and she was chanting and throwing various ingredients in it. She might not have come willingly, but she had come prepared. It all looked too familiar and Samantha knew her hunch was right.

Not again!
something screamed in the back of Samantha’s mind.

“You’re crazy! Did you learn nothing from the past!” she shouted at Lilith. Lilith was about to summon a monster she didn’t understand and had no hope of controlling.

Lilith looked at her. “I learned long ago that those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. I had hoped you could help me learn from the past, but then I found out you didn’t even remember that night, so how could you help me figure out what went wrong when they raised the demon?”

Samantha kept silent, refusing to admit that she now knew the truth. She was also focusing on being able to move her feet forward, one step at a time, in a painful shuffle. It was, nonetheless, bringing her ever closer to Lilith even though the witch seemed oblivious of it.

“That’s when I knew I might as well kill you. I mean, what use were you to me at that point?” Lilith asked.

“Why did you stop trying?” Samantha asked as she continued to slide ever closer. She wanted to weep because of how long it was taking while around her she knew people were still dying. But she had to at least be grateful that Lilith either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

“When she woke up the hoodoo woman was very helpful. At least, she was until I killed her. She was able to tell me what you couldn’t.”

“And what was that?” Samantha asked, sliding ever closer. She was not surprised that Lilith had killed the woman after she had gotten what she wanted from her. At least she, Samantha, no longer had questions that were unanswered.

“She told me that the only person who could control the demon once it was summoned was you.”

Samantha hissed under her breath, wishing that Lilith didn’t know that. Of course, it could have been worse; the hoodoo woman could have told Lilith that Samantha was directly responsible for killing her father.

“That’s when I knew I had to keep you alive, that you still had a purpose for me,” the witch said. “With your necklace I control you and you control the beasts.”

Beasts.

Lilith had used the plural, and something told Samantha it hadn’t been an accident.

“What do you mean
beasts
?” she asked, desperate to keep her talking if nothing else.

Lilith cackled. “That’s the best part! The demon Abigail tried to raise? The thing chained under the mountain in Santa Cruz? They’re brothers! There were twelve originally. One was chained, eleven slain by magic users ages ago. Abigail only tried to raise one. Then again, she always lacked vision.”

Samantha’s blood felt as if it had turned to ice in her veins. “You’re trying to raise all of them!”

“That’s right. And you’ll help me use them to destroy the world.”

Samantha felt sick inside. She’d always worried that Lilith would try to use the necklace to control her, and now it looked as though she might actually accomplish that. It was too horrible to even think about.

Lilith dropped in the last item she was holding, and the chalice began to boil and bubble. All she needed now to complete the spell was a sacrifice.

And as Samantha glanced behind Lilith, she had a terrible sinking feeling she knew who it was going to be.

Thomas was also managing to move slightly and had been sneaking up behind Lilith. Suddenly Lilith spun and threw him to his knees. She yanked an athame out of her robes and held it to his throat while with the other hand she pulled something else that Samantha recognized all too well out of a pocket.

The necklace was dangling from the witch’s hand. She was prepared to use it to compel Samantha to control the demons as she poised the tip of her knife above Thomas’s throat.

Samantha looked around frantically. There was no one who could reach them in time. She was so weak, she couldn’t snatch either athame or necklace from the witch’s grasp from where she was.

Suddenly a black blur streaked past her and she stared in amazement as a giant black panther slammed into Thomas and Lilith, sending both dagger and necklace flying.

The panther jumped after the necklace and picked it up in his teeth and turned to Samantha. Only then did she realize that it was Freaky. How he was there and how he had changed himself back into a panther she didn’t know; she was only grateful that he had.

And the impact with the panther had been just enough to break Lilith’s concentration and she stopped pulling energy from everywhere.

Samantha sprang forward just as Freaky bared his teeth and Thomas snatched up the athame and both turned toward Lilith.

“No! No blood will be spilled. Blood is the final ingredient in the spell,” Samantha shouted. She came to a halt in front of Lilith, who was rising onto her knees, and she stared down into her eyes. “So I rob you of your final act of terror.” She put her hand over Lilith’s heart and took her power. Before her eyes the witch withered and turned to dust with a scream echoing in the air all that was left of her.

Samantha ran to the chalice. She plucked a strand of hair from her head and dropped it into the mixture, anything to throw the mix off, ruin the reaction.

It worked; the liquid ceased to bubble. She waited a moment and then hurled the chalice onto the floor, shattering it and sending the contents leaking into the floor.

Above her, the jester head teetered for a moment, fell, and smashed onto the floor at her feet.

“I think that pretty much sums it up,” Ed said drily.

Half an hour later they were all sitting in the sanctuary at the church except for the wounded. The pastor and a few other volunteers were tending to them in the other room. Once they had made it back there, Samantha had destroyed her cross necklace. It had been a little bit sad, but she could never risk it falling into the wrong hands again. On top of that, she realized the vow she had made when she had sealed her blood inside was obsolete. As she destroyed it she promised God instead that she would no longer fear her magic and that she would use it to help others.

Finished, she joined the others and sat down, surrounded by Ed, Anthony, and Thomas. Both Ed and Anthony were eyeing Thomas warily as though expecting him to suddenly turn on them.

For her part Samantha felt a little bit as though she were floating. It was over. They had saved the world.

Again,
she thought with a shake of her head.

“You should call Vanessa and tell her that everything’s okay, and that you’ll be coming home,” she told Ed.

His face lit up. “Yeah, I can.” He stood up and pulled his phone out of his pocket and called.

“Hey, no, don’t worry—everything is great. We saved the world. Yes, again.”

Samantha bit her lip. She always had liked Ed’s wife.

“When will I be coming home? Tomorrow if I can manage it. I might have to stick around and help a bit with the cleanup, but the FBI’s here and I’m hoping I can slough that job onto them.”

Samantha certainly thought he should. He had done more than his part.

“Yeah, Samantha will be coming back with me. What? I miss you, too,” he said.

He moved off quickly as the conversation clearly started to take a more personal tone. Samantha was so relieved that he was okay and that he was going to be getting back to Vanessa soon. She was a good woman and deserved to have her husband by her side.

“You are going back to Boston, right?” Anthony said.

“Of course,” she answered. She had no idea if it would be permanent, if the police department there really wanted her back, but she had to try.

She wanted to see her adoptive parents, and frankly, she needed a very long rest.

Connor had been sitting quietly, his head in his hands, still trying to absorb everything that had happened. Finally he looked up at her with tired eyes.

“You ever want a job working for the bureau—” Connor began.

“I know who to look up.” She smiled.

He nodded. He stood, weaving slightly on his feet.

All of them were exhausted beyond belief.

“I’m going to go grab a section of floor and get some shut-eye while I can,” he admitted.

“Sounds like a good idea,” Samantha said. Personally she was still a little too wound up, but she knew that when the crash came it would be hitting her hard. Better to get wherever she wanted to be when that happened. And she, for one, was not looking forward to grabbing crash space on the floor.

“I think I have just enough energy to drive us all back to the hotel,” Anthony said. “I’m still not sure how Freaky got out of the room.”

“At least you have the answer to your question of whether or not he can track me,” Samantha said.

“And it’s a good thing he did,” Anthony said.

The kitten was back to his regular self and passed out on one of the pews, lying upside down on his back, his belly exposed, as though he had not a care in the world. She had no idea how he’d managed to transform himself into the panther form, but she was intensely grateful that he had. Maybe the bond between them was growing. Maybe he could access some of her powers because of it.

“Take care of your pets and they’ll take care of you, that’s what I always say,” Thomas said with a gentle smile.

“You heading out?”

Samantha turned and saw Trina. “Yeah, I’ve got to get some sleep,” she said, standing up.

Trina hugged her. “Thank you for everything. I’m sure I’ll see you before you go back to Boston.”

Samantha nodded.

“And don’t worry. I’ll make sure Robin gets safely back to her mom in California.”

“I’d appreciate it,” Samantha said, stifling a yawn. She turned to Anthony. “We’d better get going quick before I fall asleep here.”

He took her hand and started to lead her toward the back of the sanctuary, where Ed was still talking on the phone to Vanessa.