Circle of Blood (3 page)

“I won’t,” she said. “There are people here, people I need to see.”

“People. They once were.”

“What does that mean?” Desdemona demanded, tired of the cryptic nature of the entity speaking to her.

The sky suddenly darkened and she could smell a storm coming. Her driver’s head twisted slowly toward her, as though turning on the neck instead of with it. The eyes were still wildly flitting about, and when the mouth opened again he looked like a marionette whose lips were being pulled upward with invisible strings.

“Only death waits for you here.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

Suddenly the driver collapsed, all his muscles going loose at the same time. His fingers slipped off her wrist and he half fell against her. Startled, she barely managed to keep them both from falling. Finally she managed to push him back down into the driver’s seat. His head lolled forward onto his chest.

She took a step back and looked around. A wind had come up and was blowing trash around the abandoned parking lot. The dark skies seemed to grow darker, more ominous.

Maybe I should come back another day.

She clenched her fists, furious at the cowardly thought that had overtaken her. She stepped backward, determined more than ever to go.

The driver groaned and began to twitch. She paused, curiosity building in her. Finally he lifted his head.

“What happened?” he asked.

“You tell me,” she said, warily, wondering if he had any idea what had just happened to him.

“I don’t know. I had this terrible feeling that you shouldn’t go into the park. I got out of the car to tell you and then—”

He stopped talking as he saw the bag that had fallen from his pocket. He reached down and snatched it up as if it were the most precious thing in the world. Hastily he stuffed it back into his pocket.

“What is that?” she asked.

“I—I didn’t say anything to you, did I?” he asked, refusing to meet her eyes now.

“Maybe, why?”

“What—what did it—I say?” he asked, licking his lips.

“Not to go into the amusement park.”

“Then you should listen!” he burst out so vehemently that he startled them both. He hunched his shoulders and buried his face in his hands. “Please, miss, I’m worried for you.”

“Well, like I told . . .
you
 . . . before, I can take care of myself,” she said.

She turned and walked away.

“You were warned,” she heard him say behind her. Then she heard a door slam and a moment later the squeal of rubber as he floored the gas pedal.

Each step that she took across the parking lot to the park entrance felt heavier than the one before. The air was growing hotter and muggier and she struggled to breathe as she felt the pressure building around her. A storm was coming. It might be safer to be somewhere else.

But she was Desdemona Castor and she feared neither man nor spirit nor nature. She squared her shoulders and continued on. The wind that had been blowing trash around grew stronger until it was pushing against her so hard that it became a struggle to continue walking forward.

She glanced up, wondering what kind of storm was coming. She could feel the electricity in the air and she told herself that was what was setting her teeth on edge and making the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She could practically feel the electrical charge build up on her fingertips as though racing back and forth among them. The wind began to lessen and her red hair began to fan out around her as though lifted by an invisible hand.

Everywhere there were signs of destruction, flood damage, rot, decay. Mother Nature had had her way with this place and it looked as if she was about to let loose again.

Desdemona bared her teeth. She had nothing to fear here. She lifted her hands into the air and pulled some of the electricity out of it and into her body, giving her a supercharge. She could feel the energy coursing through her body and she was sure that her eyes were actually glowing with it.

She reached the front gate and the turnstiles. Gates had been pulled across behind them, but one sagged open. She easily climbed over the turnstile and then walked through the open gate beyond.

The streets were littered with all manner of trash and debris from the decaying buildings, including a large silver ball that must have once been raised high. The stench of decay and death hung in the ionized air, making her wrinkle her nose.

Buildings lined both sides of what had been the park’s version of a main street. To her right was the Carriage House Mercantile, its two front doors flung open wide and half the glass panes missing. She could feel more than see something scurrying about in the darkness just inside.

A few bits of graffiti stained the weathered paint.
Gimme that ol’-time religion
had been scribbled on one of the walls. She felt a smile twisting her lips. Just which religion had the writer been referring to?

Next to that building was another one, trimmed in purple. , the sign declared, though a couple of letters were missing. There was considerably more colorful graffiti on that building. A large round planter had been tagged with the words
NoLa Rising
. Optimism for a decimated city, or something darker?

She walked down the street, weaving around the piles of debris. She could still feel the ripples of power in the air, evidence that a great many people with abilities were somewhere nearby. That feeling, though, was practically overwhelmed by the spiking energy in the air around her as the storm continued to brew.

She saw a sign that had been spray-painted over. Instead of welcoming people to the park, it now proclaimed .

She reached the end of the short street and hesitated, debating whether to turn right or left.

Don’t go right.

She turned, swearing that the whispered voice had come from behind her. There was nothing there, though. She hesitated, wondering what was telling her that and what its motivation was.

After a moment she turned and took a step toward the right.

No! If you go right, you will die!

The voice was louder, more insistent, but still disembodied.

She didn’t know what to do. Once upon a time she would only have listened to a voice coming from inside her, but now that voice belonged to the hateful one, the other. She didn’t want to trust the voice coming from without, though, because she didn’t know whether it meant her good or ill.

Clenching her fists, she strode resolutely to the right, shutting out the sound of the voice wailing behind her.

Something hard and cold settled in her stomach, and her back tensed up so tightly that her spine actually hurt. She forced herself to keep walking.

To her left was a swing ride. A sudden gust of wind caused the swings to move, rattling their chains and bumping against one another. She spun toward the sound, nerves on edge.

There was no one there. Before she could relax, though, the entire ride began to move, to spin slowly as it must have done once long ago. The wind wasn’t strong enough to do that. Something else was pushing against the canopy holding the swings.

You are not welcome here.

This voice was different. It came from in front of her and it made the blood in her veins feel as if it had turned to ice. She thought of what the entity had told her in the parking lot, how it had reminded her that she had gone sixteen years without study, without practice.

She had thought she had learned everything there was, knew all that she needed to know.

As laughter exploded in the air around her, she knew now that she was wrong.

Desdemona took a few steps ahead, forcing her eyes away from the spinning swings, and she came face-to-face with a carousel. Sudden images came to her crystal clear. Her other self was in an amusement area, after dark, and something happened at the carousel.

She hadn’t wanted to know anything about the other self, Samantha, and the things that she had done with her life, because they were hateful to Desdemona. She was in mortal danger, she knew that, but what terrified her more was she didn’t know why or how she was even aware. Clearly the knowledge was coming from that other self. Now as images of blood and dead witches rushed through her mind, she realized that might have been a tactical error. A potentially fatal one. If she made it out of here alive, she vowed to fix that.

Knowledge was power. That had been one of the first rules she’d learned, and she’d let her own disgust and mistrust get in the way of that.
Fool!
she cursed herself even as she spun around, sure that someone was creeping up behind her.

Only rot and decay met her eyes. The swing continued to turn, taunting her, challenging her. It felt as though it was warning her to go back.

She forced herself to keep going, to walk past the twisted merry-go-round. Beyond that was another decaying building and next to it a bathroom that someone had spray-painted to indicate which side was for female roaches and which side was for male roaches.

She wrinkled her nose. To her left were the remains of a Coca-Cola Cool Zone. She passed by it and realized she’d arrived in Mardi Gras land. A deranged clown peered over the top of one of the buildings, and another clown head lay smashed on the ground.

Suddenly the earth beneath her seemed to shake and she felt a rush of power swirl around her and then pass by as if driven before a violent wind. She gasped and went icy cold all over. She felt as though something were trying to pull her out of her own body, rip out her very essence, and she lifted up her hands in a vain effort to ward off whatever it was.

She was literally being torn apart and she could feel the energy, the power, her very abilities traveling through her body, down her arms until shafts of golden light were shooting from her fingertips.

Something was trying to rob her of her power. She screamed in defiance and struggled to force the muscles in her arms to respond to her. They had gone rigid, pulsing with the energy that was flowing through them and out of them. It was unlike anything she’d ever known. She had fleeting images of her other self being used, drained like a battery, but this was different. The force behind this wasn’t just taking her energy. It was taking her ability to wield magic at all, ripping that part of herself away from her.

Around her she heard other screams, rising in a chorus from a hundred unseen voices. The giant clown head began to roll across the ground, the mouth gaping open as though intent on swallowing anything in its path. It was heading straight for her, and unless she could move it would ram her. Given how heavy it looked, she worried that it might crush her.

Images flashed through her mind of what going through life without the ability to manipulate the energy around her would be like. A life without magic was unthinkable, but as pain began to shoot through her chest she realized that would never happen, because if she lost the magic here and now, her body would be too damaged to survive it.

Still, her arms were flung out straight before her and there was nothing she could do to stem the tide of magic flowing out of her. Behind her the screaming grew more intense and she twisted her head just enough to see an army of people emerging, staggering, from the various buildings. They were moving stiff-legged, arms similarly thrown out in front of them, and their screams gradually turned to hideous moaning sounds.

Zombies, that’s what they resembled, and she realized that she did, too. They staggered toward her, faces contorted in pain, eyes rolled back in their heads. They were young and old, some in tatters, some in regular clothes. They had to be the teen runaways and the homeless people Claudia had told her lived here. They were being stripped of their magic just as she was.

She had to stop it. She had to find a way to move her arms, redirect the energy flowing from her fingers back into her own body, set up a feedback loop. But how could she do that when she couldn’t unlock her muscles?

Break your arms.

The voice came from inside and she knew it was that other self whispering to her. She was beginning to panic. “How, when I can’t move them?” she shouted.

Look down.

She looked down at the concrete beneath her feet. Her legs were beginning to stiffen and she was starting to feel a compulsion to walk forward, just as the others were doing. The clown was nearly upon her.

Desdemona threw herself forward onto the ground as hard as she could. The bones in her arms broke on impact and tore the muscles. The pain was blinding, but her arms collapsed beneath her and she fell on top of them on the ground. Her arms were still just as useless, but now they were pinned beneath her body and she contorted her chest so that her fingertips were touching her own stomach.

She felt a zap of electricity, as though she was being electrocuted, and then she could feel the energy flow out of her and right back in. She had trapped it.

Something slammed into her side and she realized it had to be the giant clown head. It pushed against her, shoving her slightly across the ground.

It served as a barrier, though, and the others parted around it, then streamed past her on either side, headed for wherever it was their magic was being pulled to. It was going to kill them. She could see the faces as they passed by. Skin was shriveling, like dead, dried fruit, and clinging to the skulls beneath. Skin on the outstretched arms was bleaching white and black; oozing gashes were appearing like lesions all over. The loud moans were becoming more hollow, empty sounding.

She looked up at one woman and saw that her eye sockets had shrunken and she looked like a walking skeleton.

Desdemona had used, relied on magic her entire life. Until this moment, though, she’d never realized how integral a part it was of the body and spirit of someone with the power. She was seeing the results of the loss of that power right before her eyes.

She herself was weak and shaking, nauseated from the pain, and after a moment she realized there was something terribly wrong. Her injuries hadn’t started to heal. With injuries this extensive the healing part was automatic, requiring no thought on her part.

Maybe she was too drained of energy. She felt the concrete where it touched her cheek, and she reached down past it to the earth below and pulled some of its energy into her. She could feel the surge and she breathed a sigh of relief.

And moments later realized that what was wrong with her had nothing to do with energy levels. Her body still wasn’t healing. She looked at the people around her, who were decaying as their magic was stripped from them, and realized she’d lost too many of her own gifts, her own magic, to be able to heal anymore.

Blind panic filled her and she began to thrash about until she realized that she was in jeopardy of letting go of more of her power. Then she forced herself to lie still as she tried to figure out what to do.

Deep inside she could feel the other one stirring. She was probably happy. She had hated the magic, hated the power. She would have given anything to rid herself of it. But Desdemona couldn’t, wouldn’t live without it.

The energy flowing from her own fingertips into her body gave her a sudden idea. A man was passing right behind her. She stretched out and tripped him. He fell next to her and she scooted her body next to his, careful not to let her trapped hands lose contact with her abdomen. He was flailing on the ground, but his leg muscles had seized up like his arms and he didn’t have the flexibility required to stand. She got as close as she could and then she contorted her leg and pressed it against the fingertips of his left hand.

She felt the magic flowing into her, foreign, different from her own, and at first she jerked away, freaked out by the sensation.

It’s the only way,
she told herself. She forced her leg back into contact with his hand and flinched as his magic poured into her. She couldn’t help wondering if this was what a transfusion felt like, only on a far more intense scale. She doubted the blood felt so foreign to the recipient as his magic did to her, though.

Her body began to spasm and she wondered if it was rejecting the foreign magic. Someone was taking it from everyone, though, and he must have found a way around this problem. She gritted her teeth and tried to calm her mind, center her energies.

Liquid fire felt as if it were pouring through her veins, and the guy on the ground started moving less and less. He was dying. Better his magic went to her than to whoever was trying to bleed them all dry.

Let go before he dies.

It was that inner voice. Desdemona refused to listen.

The man was just taking his last breath and suddenly her leg jerked away from his body. She hadn’t done that. She wondered if she was losing more control to whoever was sucking people’s magic. It couldn’t be that the other self was exerting that much influence, could it?

She didn’t have time to figure it out. The man was dead. She took a deep breath, reached out, and tripped a woman.

“Help me,” the woman groaned, her words barely intelligible, as she fell on top of Desdemona.

“I can barely help myself,” Desdemona hissed as she tried to remain still and let the woman’s magic, her very essence, pour into her. The fire coursing through Desdemona’s veins intensified and she felt as if her eyes were burning from the inside out.

Again, when the woman was breathing her last, the inner voice urged,
Let go.

Desdemona broke the contact, not sure if she had been the one to do it. The pain was all she could feel. The zombie people had nearly passed her. She could see them walking, some half dragging their bodies forward to whatever fate awaited them.

One final set of feet began to shuffle by her, and she tripped what turned out to be a young girl. The girl rolled over on her side, her legs and arms useless. The girl’s eyes pleaded with Desdemona.

There was nothing she could do to save her. All she could do was ensure that no more of the girl’s power, her essence, went to the one who was trying to kill her.

Again, Desdemona let go a moment before the girl died.

Her body had stopped spasming at some point during the last transfer, and now as she lay still she could feel herself starting to heal. She was relieved but then a moment later wondered what would happen when her arms could push up off the ground and move of their own accord again, sending her power to the unknown witch who was trying to take it.

She’d just have to break her arms again, she realized.

She turned her head and saw the army of the walking dead. They were beginning to drop like flies, and she could feel death all around her in the air. The last few teetered on their feet and then collapsed.

And a moment later, whatever was trying to pull energy from her stopped.

Desdemona blinked in surprise, then slowly, cautiously sat up, hands still pressed to her stomach. Her body was reacting strongly to the magic that she had pulled into herself, but it felt as though it was sorting itself out, merging the new with the old.

She’d never known it was possible to take a person’s power from him. Energy, yes, power, no.

She got to her feet, hesitant to move her hands. After a few more seconds she finally moved one hand. It was healed enough to be more functional and there was no power pouring out of her fingertips, no rigidity of the muscles trying to force the arm straight.

It must be truly over. Whoever it was must have sensed when the last of the magic flowed to him and stopped pulling. He couldn’t sense Desdemona because she had interrupted the flow of her power outward.

Thanks to the help of the other self that she hated.

She walked slowly forward, approaching the first few of the other bodies, the ones that had collapsed on their own. They were dead, faces almost unrecognizable as human, lesions covering their arms and necks. She didn’t touch them.

This was a type of magic that was strange and new to her, and despite everything she had seen and done, it even sickened her. Outright killing these people would have been kinder than what they experienced, but that wouldn’t have accomplished the goals of the one who had done that to them.

How powerful must a witch be in order to suck the life force from so many at once? She kept walking by the bodies, marveling at the various states of decay. With weakened power she hadn’t even been able to heal herself. The relationship between the life essence and the ability of the person who had power was clearer to her than it had ever been before.

Looking at the decayed flesh, she also couldn’t help wondering if something like this had been what had inspired stories of zombies in the beginning. The way they had walked, the decaying of their flesh, the moaning sounds they had made all screamed
classic horror movie
to her. All that was missing was a desire to eat brains. She shuddered just thinking about it.

“Frickin’ New Orleans,” she muttered.

She heard something and she froze, wondering if the witch had come to survey his or her handiwork. It could even be an entire coven of witches; that would make more sense than one witch wielding all this power.

Desdemona looked around, expecting an attack from any quarter. None came.

The sound came again, barely a whisper.

She turned and surveyed the dead at her feet, wondering if it had come from one of them. Finally she spotted a teen boy with dark, curly hair. His body seemed to be in less disrepair than the others. As she watched she caught the barest movement of his chest.

She walked over and carefully knelt down beside him, making sure not to touch him in case this was some sort of trap.

His eyes were open and he looked up at her, in pain that was so real, it actually made her hunch her own shoulders in an effort to ward it off.