Stain of Midnight

by Cassandra Moore

  “It’s both a way to focus the energy, and a buffer between me and whatever is in the circle.” Lindsey tossed the empty blood jug into a bin marked Please recycle. “Focus is important. Just as you would rather hot air not escape your house in winter, I do not want to waste energy. Or corrupt everything around me with escaped power. But the buffer... Many of the less pleasant summoned beings will take a mile if you give them an inch. They will worm their way in however they can. So I keep the energy in a separate container, and give them none of my own that doesn’t go through the container first. They can only get as far as the bowl.”

  Sonja listened with fascination. Her own understanding of ritual magic hadn’t progressed much further than basic knowledge of how the system worked. Lindsey knew far more. “So the bowl protects you?”

  Lindsey turned away before she answered. “Yes. That’s why I use the one you gave me. You always tried to protect me, Sonja.”

  It hit like a punch to the stomach. Sonja opened her mouth to reply, but Lindsey didn’t give her the chance to.

  “Cameron, come over here, please. I’m going to need something from you.”

  “What’s that?” the big man rumbled.

  “A drop of your blood.”

  “Don’t you have enough in that bowl already?” Cameron asked, to cover the queasy sensation that rolled over him. Blood didn’t bother him. This area, this magic, those did. They reminded him too much of the site of Kiplinger’s heart ritual, or worse, of Glenn’s property on the night of the sacrifice. Maybe just a shadow of those horrible places, but shadows meant something blocked the light.

  Lindsey Hodges’s house didn’t feel like light had touched it in a very long time.

  The evoker chuckled. “Just a drop. All that will do is flavor the power. Proof I have you here, so your friend Paul Kiplinger will come out to play again of his own volition. I could probably call him back otherwise, but why waste the energy? He’s more likely to be in a favorable mood if he can feel you.”

  He glanced over at Sonja, who nodded. “A drop won’t do anything when there’s so much there already. It’s just giving Kiplinger a scent to track.”

  “All right,” he said, and hoped Sonja could hear what he really meant. I trust you. Not her.

  He couldn’t read her expression. Not the specifics, anyway. That this place brought up painful memories was written plain as day on her face. And he hated it. He hated every moment he spent here. And I hate that Paul Kiplinger hasn’t stopped causing us all hurt from the fucking grave.

  Lindsey dug into her pocket for a plastic-coated lancet from a blood test kit. Sterile and unused, he noted. Modern tools for modern magic. “I don’t suggest you use your fingertip. Lots of nerve endings. Your palm will do. The power isn’t picky, in this case.”

  “Right.” He removed the protective tip from the lancet and drove the point into his palm before he could overthink the entire matter. A fat, red drop of blood welled up from the tiny wound. “In the bowl?”

  “In the bowl,” Lindsey confirmed.

  Cameron tipped his hand over to let the drop fall.

  He didn’t know what he’d expected. The blood fell into the vessel, the drop in the metaphorical bucket. Lindsey stepped forward, arm lifting as she did so. He didn’t recognize the language she spoke, but the words themselves might have seduced him with their smooth, melodic sounds. Power built around them, rose as if she had seduced it, too, infused it with an irresistible desire to answer her call. His wolf threatened to claim him so it could get at the power. Roll in it, feed on it as it did the power from the full moon. Dismayed, he fought it down. Now is not the time to lose control of the beast. Not again.

  Lindsey knelt down with a graceful bend of her knee to touch the side of the bowl. Lightning that hurt to look at arced over the curved, steel surface and left blackened lines behind. He rubbed his eyes, uncertain if he’d truly seen the forked energy as it danced over the bowl. Mist billowed up from the blood, pink and foul and far too alluring to his senses. Sonja’s fingers laced into his. With effort, he kept himself from crushing her hand as he squeezed it.

  Tendrils of mist swirled around each other, branched out into fractal trees not unlike veins. They filled into an invisible outline that constrained them until Cameron could make out the basic shape. A person, two legs and two arms with a head atop the whole. Details coalesced, as did Cameron’s inchoate rage as the shape became recognizable. Gone were the fussy clothes, the expensive watch, the slick, neat hairstyle. Blood, gore, and twisted flesh remained.

  Paul Kiplinger stood before them, caught between man and otherworld demon, with every warped line of flesh on display. He squinted across the salt border of the circle to see who had called him forth.

  The smile revealed a rotten maw of jagged teeth. “Cameron Roswell. How good of you to come. But you didn’t have a choice, did you.”

  “Kiplinger.” Cameron’s voice had dropped an octave. It surprised him, because he hadn’t felt the wolf creep up enough to change his tone to a growl. “There’s always a choice.”

  “But not much of one, is there, lad? She’s seen to that. Oh, don’t scowl at me. I was as buggered as you are.” Unpleasant, wet laughter wracked him. “Though at the least, I can say my situation was entirely my fault. You are just a victim caught in a riptide you can’t even understand.”

  “If you’re just here to mock me, I’m going to have the nice lady send you straight back to Hell,” Cameron growled.

  That sobered Kiplinger right up. “No, no. No need to be hasty. We were enemies in my lifetime, Cameron Roswell, but consider this a new start. We can help each other now.”

  Cameron’s jaw ached. He realized he was clenching his jaw. “How’s that?”

  “You need what I know to stop Teresa Espina from turning your precious town into a magical cesspit. And I...” Kiplinger rested fingertips against his mangled torso. “I do not want to return to where I have been. Your contentment for my contentment. A fair trade.”

  “I can’t change the afterlife.”

  “Not you, no. But you know someone who can.”

  Sonja spoke up. “No deal. We can figure it out on our own.”

  “Is that you, Miss Carter? You and I had little to do with each other. I always regretted that.” Another smile filled with teeth and malice. “Did you know I’d come after you, the night I captured your friend Derek Anderson? He was not my target at all. Yet there he was, lingering outside your quaint little studio. In hopes of seeing you, I think. There were flowers involved.”

  This time, Sonja almost crushed Cameron’s hand. Cameron could feel her shaking. “When I say ‘go to Hell’, Kiplinger, I mean literally,” she snarled.

  “Will I see you there?” Kiplinger could have been asking if she’d put in an appearance at that afternoon’s tea. “You have a summoner here. Convince her to give me a magical accommodation. Let me be the djinn in the bottle, and I will tell you everything.”

  Sonja said, “Like the demon in the Heart of Darkness.”

  “Rather like, yes.” Kiplinger nodded. “Though not half so powerful, I fear. I have only begun my transformation. I lack the years of rancor to build my strength. Yet I find I can do without them. My last search for power went thoroughly askew.”

  “How’d that happen, anyway?” Cameron asked. Maybe they could convince Kiplinger to part with enough information to avoid the need to give him what he wanted.

  “Teresa Espina outplayed me. She had the years of rancor, and an insatiable desire to accomplish her goals.” Kiplinger caught his gaze. “Wouldn’t you like to know what they are? Before it costs others their lives?”

  Damn. “Lindsey, do you know how to do what he’s asking?”

  Lindsey’s lips flattened to a thin line. “Yes. I know the theory. But making an inhabited artifact comes with responsibility. You put some of yourself into that artifact. It’s a drain on you until the day you die, to keep the prison fed and intact. At the moment of your death, your last en
ergy goes to sealing the prison for good. And in the meantime? Your power is diminished. Your magics are lessened. Permanently.”

  Sonja shook her head. “No. Lindsey, we can figure out what’s happening without Kiplinger’s information.”

  “No, you can’t,” Kiplinger said, sing-song. “Not in time.”

  “Shut up!” Sonja snapped.

  “I’ll do it,” Lindsey said.

  Everyone paused. Sonja was the first to break the silence. “Lindsey—”

  “It’s my choice, Sonja. What’s happening to Tacoma right now will happen to Seattle after. It will spread. And the one doing it will become too powerful for you to stop. You need this. So I’ll do it.” Lindsey turned her face towards Kiplinger, not looking at Sonja. Lindsey’s profile hid half of her expression, but Cameron didn’t need it. He could see the wetness shining in her eye, the guilty lines at the corner of her lips.

  What the hell happened between them? Another reminder of how little Cameron knew about Sonja’s history. He wondered if she would tell him, or if she would keep it as tightly locked away as she did everything else. She’s worth earning my way into her trust to find out.

  Kiplinger laughed again. Cameron hoped never to hear that sound after today. “Fantastic! Do hurry. I am quite eager to share what I know.”

  “No,” Lindsey said in a steely voice. “No, you tell them first. A show of good faith.”

  “Unacceptable.”

  Lindsey shrugged. “Your choice. I’ll send you back now. Though you know no other evokers would bother to make an artifact of you. You’re a pathetic excuse for a... I can’t even call you a demon. Summoners will be throwing you back in the dimensional pond for centuries when they find you stuck on their hooks.”

  Steam rose from Kiplinger’s twisted form. Cameron took smug satisfaction from that. At least we’re all pissed off now. The former vampire snarled. “Fine. It will be just as pleasing to throw a wrench in that bitch’s plans.”

  Cameron snorted. “Glad we understand each other. Start talking. We already know about the Heart of Darkness, and that Espina wants to let the demon out of it.”

  “What Teresa Espina wants is a bit more complicated than that. Teresa wants to make profound changes to her essence. Very few possess the power those changes require. The demon in the Heart does, but one cannot attain such help for free. The demon wants to take a physical form again.” Kiplinger glanced around, as if looking for a chair to sit in, then sighed when he didn’t find one. “Trust me when I say that takes a tremendous amount of energy, too.”

  “What changes does Teresa want to make? She seems pretty damn powerful already.”

  “Teresa wants the power to change her very nature. She was a witch, you know. Vampirism took that away from her. She wants to use the power the demon possesses to change her nature and give back her magic.”

  Lindsey stole a glance at Sonja, but looked away when she saw Cameron watching her instead.

  He stowed that to ask about later. “All right. So she wants to tap into the energies in the mountain to pay the demon’s price. She lets the demon free and gets it a physical form, it makes her a magical sparkle vampire fairy.”

  Kiplinger rolled his eyes. “Sparkle vampire. Crude, but yes. It is a very delicate balance they strike. Never quite a détente, but a working relationship. The demon has been augmenting her power for centuries to help her achieve its ends. Only now, her time has grown short. Her agreement with the demon has a deadline, you see.”

  “What kind of deadline?”

  “A long one, at first. When she took up the Heart, she agreed that she would get the demon what it required within three thousand full moons. A convenient way to mark time, and one with some power, as you would best know.” Kiplinger spread his hands. “Her time is up tomorrow night.”

  Many things fell into place. Teresa’s sudden push. Her desperation. And Kiplinger’s possession of the ability to create the shadow wolves. “You were working for her. She loaned you the power you used to make the shadow wolves.”

  “I could hardly have done it myself.” Kiplinger sounded sour. “The trouble with love, Mister Roswell, is that it blinds you to certain truths, as does jealousy. I’ve always had a soft spot for werewolves. My father was one, as was my older brother, from the day of his birth. That birthright passed me over. I was merely human.”

  Merely human. The words dripped with bitterness. Cameron had no trouble imagining a young Kiplinger as he struggled to live up to the expectations of a proud werewolf father who had a native werewolf heir. “Why not get yourself bitten?”

  “Because I wanted to be better than they were. My father ignored me. My brother mocked me. Righteous indignation became diligent research as I sought the way to become more. I thought I’d found it.”

  “How did you think you could become more than a werewolf? Or a vampire? Those are two of the big three in the supernatural world.”

  “It has not always been so. What knowledge we ‘supernaturals’ have lost utterly eclipses what we have retained. A shameful circumstance, as you must realize.” Kiplinger shrugged. “Besides, I was wrong. Wrong, and a fool.”

  “You do seem to have a problem with that.”

  Kiplinger snorted. “Would I could disagree. In defiance one night, and in arrogance, I allowed myself to be turned.” The contemptuous smile twisted his lips. “It was a profound mistake. One I spent centuries attempting to either correct or capitalize on. Then I met Regina, and together, we concocted such ideas. My second mistake was ever falling for her.”

  “Peter would agree with you,” Cameron murmured.

  “I imagine so. By the time Regina and I became ‘an item’, as the ignorant youth of today put it, I’d long since begun to butt heads with Pirelli. Then Teresa Espina came into town. A reasonable, confident woman with great power at her disposal. All she wanted was Mount Rainier. The rest of the city could be mine, as could werewolves of my design. She would give me the ability. The answers I had sought for centuries. All I had to do was bring the local pack under my thumb. Remove them, put my own in its place. She did not want to rule here. She just wanted you gone.”

  Cameron frowned. For more than a year, they’d thought Kiplinger was their greatest enemy, and he’d been as much a pawn as they were. “What about the jars?”

  “Tools. She said they had magic stored in them. Enough to do what I wanted, provided I powered them with sacrificial hearts and did the ritual she provided. I never questioned it. Magic was never my forte. Hence my very imperfect results.”

  Lindsey said, “She used him as a test case. A guinea pig. Those jars are her intended focus for the ritual. Like my bowl. I don’t use that much power, so I could use an ordinary object. Given the amount of power those jars will have to hold? They had to have taken her hundreds of years to make. If the ritual had backfired, your friend there would have caught it in the teeth. If it worked, she had a foothold.”

  “I thought she would be pleased when it succeeded. Only, I did not entirely succeed, and I did not follow her precise specifications.” Kiplinger enunciated every syllable like a petulant child. “She had provided me the names of several wolves local to the city, as well as neighboring cities, that she wanted turned into my shadow wolves. A couple of them proved elusive. Another was utterly unacceptable. I couldn’t imagine working with him, so I passed him over.”

  “So you didn’t use her suggestions, which pissed her off, and then, you fucked up taking the city over.”

  “Not my finest hour. When that chav Kayla killed Regina, I left town. My lover was dead, and Teresa would be livid about my failure. I thought to simply disappear. Better obscurity than facing her wrath. She found me and dragged me back to finish the job. That ended poorly.” He gestured down his mangled form.

  “None of this tells me why she wanted to get rid of the pack.” That bit still confused him. It made no sense at all that a powerful vampire would bother with the dogs pissing on her turf. “What the hell did it matter
what we did? What I did?”

  Kiplinger stared at him. “Because the local pack are the custodians of a territory. And the pack enforcer is the guardian of it. The white knight protecting crown and country. All the local energy answers to you, that you might protect its source. You are literally the key to the power Teresa needs from the mountain. You didn’t know?”

  Thoughts tumbled through Cameron’s skull, rolling around like ball bearings in a bucket. One surfaced again and again. All the local energy answers to you. The shadow-tainted vampires hadn’t infected him as they had Noah. None of the corrupted energy had turned him. And each time he had fought the swell of power that surged to his command, every time the sudden rush of energy had unnerved him with its capacity to take him too far or send him out of control...

  I was in control all along.

  The revelation shook him to his core. He’d held back out of fear. But he should have let go.

  Kiplinger mistook Cameron’s silence and poleaxed look for an invitation to expound. “Seattle claims a good deal of superiority over the Washington area, but the true seat of power is to the south. Rainier. Saint Helens. The latter less so, since it vented some of its power, but Rainier? Pristine, simmering power, just waiting to be tapped. I always thought your pack knew, since you met up there, but it seems you had no idea at all what you had on your hands. Teresa must have the territory’s Guardian, appointed by the alpha wolf of the pack. Like a king and his knight protector. Without that, she can corrupt every ley line in the vicinity, and has to, but she will never unlock the source of the power to control it. You might rather give over before she does that. The entire area would suffer.”

  Cameron found his voice. “What happens if she doesn’t get it?”

  “Then the demon takes her. She is playing a game with very high stakes. But I assure you, she will not let it come to that. She will stop at nothing to achieve her goals.” Kiplinger smirked a nasty little smirk. “That is why I suggest you use that power you did not know you had to kill her before she becomes any more desperate.”