Circle of Blood (6 page)

He set the beer on the table. “Why, did he tell you something?”

“Perhaps,” she said, not wanting to reveal what she knew just yet.

He nodded slowly. “I keep seeing a figure in black in front of a grave.”

Maybe the creature had been telling the truth about where she could find the witch she was hunting for that night.

“Was it daylight?” she asked.

“No, dark. Moon was shining, though.”

She nodded. “Can you tell me who Marie Laveau is?”

“You’re joking, right?”

“No, why?”

“She was known as the Voodoo Queen, very famous. Her tomb’s in St. Louis Cemetery One.”

Desdemona sat back, contemplating that bit of information. “What can you tell me about her?” she asked at last.

“She died over a hundred and thirty years ago, but people still make pilgrimages to her grave. They draw three
X
’s on the side and ask her for things, hoping her spirit will grant them what they want.”

“Does it?”

“I don’t know, but I’m a guy who has his own private demonic curse. I tend to believe in just about anything. Personally, I don’t know anyone who has tried.”

“I’m hunting a witch.”

“Okay.”

“He told me she’d be there at midnight tonight.”

“Don’t listen to him. Don’t go. It could be a trap meant to kill you or capture you. It could also just be a huge waste of your time, but I wouldn’t trust a thing he said.”

“Nothing else he said to me was a lie.”

“That doesn’t mean anything when dealing with spirits. They have their own motivations and we cannot always fathom what they are. They don’t look at things the same way as we do. Life, death, people. It’s all just a big game to them. We’re the pawns they push around the board to amuse themselves, and they think nothing of sacrificing us on a whim.”

“This is the best lead I’ve had. I can’t pass it up.”

She didn’t know why she was telling him, confiding in him. Maybe it was because she already knew she wasn’t going to kill him. Maybe knowing how screwed he was made her feel a sort of connection with him. She hunched her shoulders. She didn’t need anyone. She was a witch without a coven, and she was just fine with that.

Covens only got in the way and got themselves killed.

She stood abruptly. “I have to go. I have a lot to prepare for.”

“You don’t have to do this,” he said.

“Yes—yes, I do.”

She headed for the front door, eager to end the conversation. Once in her car, she set the GPS to head back to the house she was using. She had no idea where she even was, let alone how to get back after all the crazy turns she’d had to take.

The trip looked as though it was going to be much shorter returning. In her head she started playing scenarios for her meeting that night in the graveyard. She would plan to get there at least an hour early so she could get the lay of the land and be prepared for anything the witch could throw at her.

The more she thought about it, the more she was tempted to drive straight to the cemetery. There were things she wanted to get from home, though, and she needed a few minutes of quiet to center herself and reenergize after her experiences with Martin and his demon.

That was exactly what she needed, a few hours alone to recharge and just focus on the task at hand with no outside distractions.

She turned down a street. Her GPS was telling her she was less than ten minutes from her house.

A sudden pulse of energy rippled around her. Before she could react, a man’s body came arcing through the air and crashed into her windshield.

Desdemona slammed on her brakes as glass exploded inward, showering her. The body stayed lodged in her windshield, brown eyes wide-open, staring at her. Blood had sprayed over the glass that was still intact.

She sat for a moment, stunned. The eyes flickered briefly. The man wasn’t dead, at least, not yet.

She leaped from her car and spun around, her eyes sweeping the street, searching for whatever had caused the man to land on her car.

“Help me!” came an agonized cry. There, a few yards away, she spotted a small figure. She lifted her hands, prepared to fight, but a moment later recognized Nala. She quickly scanned the area for other signs of life but saw none.

She moved over to the girl. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” she said. She was crying and shaking. “He attacked me. I freaked out and I felt this burst of energy as I pushed him away. He went flying and hit your car.” She looked up at Samantha with anguished eyes. “Is he dead?”

Samantha turned and walked back to the car. The man’s wounds were extensive, difficult for even a seasoned witch to heal, and he was bleeding excessively from a dozen cuts from the glass, but he was still breathing.

She reached out, yanked the power from him, and let go just as he died.

“He is now,” she said, turning back to the girl.

The girl collapsed on the sidewalk, looking as though she was going to be sick, and began to cry harder.

Desdemona wasn’t sure exactly what to do. Since it didn’t look as if she was going to get Nala to move anytime soon, she turned and put a glamour up around the car and then around herself and Nala so that any passersby would avoid them but would see nothing unusual.

Then she sat down next to the crying girl. Though Nala claimed not to be a witch, she had lost the equivalent of her whole coven just a few hours before. Desdemona understood how that felt and knew the girl must be feeling alone and frightened.

Don’t trust her,
that other self whispered deep inside.

Desdemona rolled her eyes. “You say he attacked you?” she asked.

Nala nodded.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“He was like us, you know? I felt someone coming and I thought it was you, but then I turned around and it wasn’t. He smiled, acted friendly, wanted to know if I was okay.”

“Then he got close to me, and he—he grabbed me, tried to kiss me. When I told him to get off me, he tried to grab my chest. He was ripping my shirt. I freaked out and pushed him as hard as I could. That’s when I felt the energy surge and he went flying.”

She broke down sobbing.

Liar!

Desdemona blinked, startled. That other self was usually so kind and compassionate, but the word came with such vehemence that it shook her.

She looked at the girl and then at the body of the man on the car. Why would she make a story like that up? It wasn’t as if the world wasn’t filled with predators just waiting to get their hands on young girls.

Liar!
the inner voice insisted again.

Desdemona gritted her teeth, wondering what Samantha wanted her to do about it. After she had saved them at Martin’s house, though, maybe it was best not to ignore her.

She glanced around. It was far from an ideal place to be having this conversation with Nala, let alone try to be still enough and vulnerable enough to have a conversation with her other self. That would just have to wait.

She got up and walked back to the car. The dead man was wearing a dark suit with a shirt and tie. He looked like a businessman.

Check his pockets.

She grimaced but went ahead and did it. She found nothing, not even a wallet or any kind of identification. That seemed sort of odd to her, especially given how he was dressed.

She pulled the body off her car, letting it slide to the ground. She stared intently at his face, but there was no recognition whatsoever. He was a stranger to her.

And now he was just another body to dispose of.

No, wait!
her inner voice pleaded, but it was too late as Desdemona dropped a fireball on his body as she had on the one in the alley that morning. Her thoughts flashed to the man she had been following then, the one who claimed to be a Druid. What was his part in all of this? Why had this man attacked Nala?

She felt she could only see half a dozen pieces of a giant puzzle, and it was frustrating. She had once heard that if you put too many rats in a cage together, they would shortly turn on one another. Was the same thing happening here with people with powers?

If that was the case, though, how did that explain how the teens and homeless had been able to live together at the theme park before they’d been slaughtered? Maybe it was because they weren’t alpha types.

When the body had finished burning, she turned back to Nala, who was staring, openmouthed, in horror at her. “Why—why did you do that?” the girl stammered.

“I wasn’t in the mood to answer a bunch of questions for the police. Were you?” Desdemona asked.

Nala shook her head fiercely.

“All right, then.” She crossed back over to the girl and sat down again. “Did he say anything else to you?”

“No.”

“Were his movements natural or more jerky?”

Nala frowned, as if concentrating. “I think they were natural. Why?”

“Just making sure he wasn’t being controlled by someone.”

“What do you mean?”

Desdemona sighed. “It’s possible for a very powerful witch to puppeteer another, even from a distance.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No. I’ve seen it.”

Or, at least, her other self had, and the images had been horrific enough that Desdemona had had a couple of nightmares about them. It seemed like a strange attack, especially given that it had happened to Nala and so close to Desdemona’s home. Then there was the fact that her other self kept insisting that Nala was lying about what had really happened.

The girl seemed sincere enough, though, and given the burst of power she’d accidentally shown when panicked, Desdemona didn’t want to risk terrorizing her more or triggering that power again by taking a walk through her memories of the event.

The sun was starting to set. It had been a long, crazy day and it was nowhere near over yet. She still needed time to focus and recharge before heading to the cemetery. She struggled with trying to decide what to do.

With Claudia it had been simple. Once she’d decided to let her live, she just needed to scare her. With Nala it was more complicated, though, and she had a feeling if she tried to scare the girl she would just make things worse. She couldn’t just ignore her, though, not until she got to the bottom of everything. That guy going after her on the same day that the witch had killed everyone else who was part of Nala’s group couldn’t be a coincidence.

It was possible that the witch wanted Nala or her powers.

“We need to talk tomorrow. Do you have someplace you can go tonight?” Desdemona asked. Just because she wanted to keep an eye on the girl didn’t mean she wanted her in her home, particularly with what the night might hold. If she was lucky, she’d kill the witch tonight and she’d never have to see Nala again.

Nala wiped her eyes and nose on the back of her sleeve. “Yeah, I know a place.”

“Good,” she said, feeling relieved. “Do you need help getting there?”

Nala shook her head. “It’s not that far.”

“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow, then, all right?”

Nala nodded and stood shakily. “Thanks for . . . everything,” she said.

Desdemona couldn’t help noticing that Nala was avoiding looking at her car or the pile of ash on the ground next to it.

Watch her,
the inner voice urged.

Desdemona shook her head. She didn’t have the time. She had bigger goals in mind for the evening than babysitting some kid who had just contributed to killing some guy.

“Okay, then. Be safe,” she told Nala.

She waited until Nala turned and began walking down the street. Then she moved around to her car, opened the door, and moved her hand in a sweeping motion. All the broken glass flew outside and deposited itself on the ground. After a moment’s thought she blew the remaining glass out of the windshield and it made a tinkling sound as it, too, fell to the ground.

She got into the car, grateful that she didn’t have far to go. She held her hands up to where the windshield had been and pushed energy out of them, creating a simple ward that would block the wind from coming through and stinging her eyes. It wouldn’t last at freeway speeds, but fortunately she didn’t need it to at the moment.

She made it into the house and Freaky leaped toward her. He planted his back paws on the floor, stood, and put his front ones on her shoulders and licked her.

“Down,” she said, wincing as his razorlike claws dug into her skin. He was bored. He needed to be let out so he could run, maybe hunt and kill something he’d never eat. That was the one problem with a big cat in a house, not enough space to really stretch his legs.

“Should I take you with me tonight, boy?” she asked.

The panther made a rumbling sound deep in his throat.

She looked down and realized there was dried blood on her clothes that must have splattered there when the guy crashed into the windshield. She headed upstairs and took a shower, trying to let the hot water soothe her as she attempted to clear her mind of all the distraction and clutter. It wasn’t as easy as she would have liked.

By the time she stepped out of the shower, she was still keyed up. She was going to have to do some serious work to get herself centered. The last thing she needed when going up against that witch was to be thinking about Claudia or Nala or Martin or the Druid. They were all distractions she needed to be able to free herself from. She glanced into the mirror over the sink and froze.

It wasn’t her reflection that was staring back at her. It looked like her, but it wasn’t. She was wearing a towel, her wet hair hanging free down her back. The image in the mirror was wearing a white dress, hair braided. Then she realized she was staring at Samantha as she had seen her earlier in her mind.

“What are you doing here?” she snapped. The lips in the mirror remained still.

“Nala was lying.” The lips in the mirror finally moved, forming the words that Desdemona heard as a breathy whisper.

“So what?”

“It’s important.”

“What was she lying about? And why would she?” Desdemona demanded.

“I don’t know why, but he did not attack her, not in the way she described.”

“Oh, expert on perverts, are you?”

“If he was attacking her sexually, and they both had powers, he would not have come at her with brute force. He would have tried to overpower her with magic. Or more realistically he would have tried to manipulate her mind and seduce her,” Samantha’s voice whispered.

“It makes no sense for her to lie about that.”

“She did not want you to know.”

“Didn’t want me to know what?” Desdemona asked. “What really happened?”

The image in the mirror nodded.

“But why? What could have really happened that she would want to hide?”

“Much,” came the whispered reply.

Desdemona could feel her frustration building. Samantha was the better detective, but how could she really use her without giving her more power? It wasn’t good that she already had enough to make herself seen in the reflection. That was more than Desdemona had ever been able to do all those years she’d been trapped, ignored, and forgotten.

“I can’t deal with this right now. I have to prepare. Hopefully, after tonight, I won’t have to care what did or did not happen to Nala and whether or not she’s a liar.”

“You should not go to the cemetery,” Samantha whispered to her.

Desdemona laughed. “Oh, I’m going, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

She turned her back on the mirror and left the room. Inside the bedroom she glanced at the mirror and was relieved to see that Samantha hadn’t been able to follow.

As she contemplated the work ahead, she dressed in black clothing that would move easily with her. When she was done she went downstairs and opened her bag of supplies. She took out her athame and sharpened it. She probably wouldn’t need it, but she didn’t want to be without it in case she did. Next she removed a long black cloak that she could wear to help her blend even more into the shadows.

Regretfully she closed the bag, realizing that nothing else in it would likely be able to be used quickly enough to help. Growing up, she had learned a lot about sympathetic magic—the use of candles and poppets—but the time it would take to put those items into play would likely find her dead.

Then she went and sat down cross-legged in the living room and closed her eyes. She could hear Freaky patrolling the perimeter of the room, protecting her from any unwanted intruders. She slowly and deeply breathed in and out. With each breath she exhaled she envisioned exhaling fear, confusion, uncertainty, exhaustion, and chaos. With each breath she inhaled, she envisioned breathing in energy and power and fresh air, which cleared the cobwebs from her mind and helped her to focus only on what was actually true and important.

After about half an hour she could feel herself achieving a sense of calm and strength. She felt centered, focused, ready for the task at hand. She stood up slowly and Freaky padded over to her side.

She put a hand on his head. “You and me, boy, we’re going to finish this witch tonight,” she whispered.

She pulled up a map of the cemetery on her phone and was able to locate the tomb that she was looking for. The Voodoo Queen was supposedly interred in the Glapion family tomb, number 347.

When the time came, she and Freaky walked outside. Freaky jumped into the backseat and dutifully lay down. Desdemona created a new windshield for the car out of energy, similar to how she had created Freaky but simpler because it was an inanimate object. They arrived at the cemetery a little before eleven and parked where the car was likely to go unnoticed.

Saint Louis Cemetery Number One was the oldest of three Catholic cemeteries bearing similar names. The cemetery was only one square block, but it was crammed with tombs.