Elemental Moon: The Eldritch Files, Book Three

by Phaedra Weldon

  I watched his face as I spoke, careful to avoid those eyes. I thought I saw a few twitches now and then, especially when I said transmogrify.

  "And you assumed a Ceremonial Magician is responsible."

  Kyle took over. "We have worked with the police a few times, and discovered it's best to go to the most obvious answer and eliminate from there."

  "And Ceremonial Magicians have been notorious for transmogrification." I shrugged, hoping I could make myself look non-threatening. I mean, as far as he knew I didn't have magic.

  "You mean our need for turning lead into gold," Blackwood nodded. "We were alchemists at one time. A long time ago." When he brought his finger up to his lips he looked thoughtful. "There was one of my order. A woman with a long and questionable past. I took her in when she showed up on my doorstep. Back then I didn't covet my privacy the way I do now."

  I took that to mean he was hiding now. "Did she try things like this? Turning people into animals?"

  "She was very interested in it, yes. She insisted she knew a secret to the transforming of man into beast. But that wasn't the direction we wanted to go. A few things went missing. Ritual things. Art. Items from a few collections. And then one of our own disappeared."

  Kyle and I glanced at one another.

  "Disappeared?" Kyle prompted.

  "She was young and in love with some boy. A Cowen. We assumed she ran off with him."

  "I'm sorry but what does this have to do with—"

  "Don't interrupt and listen." Blackwood sat up and clasped his hands in his lap. "Several weeks later, a member of my order found a creature in this Circe’s house, the woman I took into the order. Its screams brought him into the basement and he found her notes and realized she was making a potion to turn humans into animals. And she was using Arcane to do it."

  My face must have betrayed my revulsion because Blackwood pointed at me and nodded. "That was our reaction. We may see a lot of things differently, Miss Hawthorne, but on this we can both agree. The work she was doing was an abomination, and to use something as profane as Arcane Magic? This was intolerable. Once used, Arcane is uncontrollable in a warlocked Witch."

  I swallowed and ignored the look Kyle shot me. "She was warlocked?"

  "Oh yes. We knew that, which was why I invited her to join. She was a student of one of the more powerful of the God Mother's children. I believed she would tell me secrets, like the one she claimed she knew about transmogrification. But most of her rambling was madness. And once I learned she used Arcane, the pieces all fell into place and we banished her."

  "What happened to this creature? Was it that girl that went missing?" Kyle asked.

  "Oh yes. It was her. I have contacts in a DNA lab so we were able to confirm."

  The irony of transmogrification and the name Circe wasn't lost on me. Neither was the fact this guy'd just reaffirmed what Crwys had told me. That warlocked Witches couldn't control Arcane. "She chose the name Circe?"

  "This is why we always caution those who want to take magical names to understand the ramifications of those names. Names have power. The fact Circe turned Odysseus's men into swine was one of those ramifications. I cautioned that the name could manifest her need to dominate men or her need to make people subservient to her, which aren't bad qualities in my opinion," he smiled and it made my skin crawl. "But I never saw any of my order actually wanting to physically transform humans. There are ramifications to this on a spiritual level that I could not make her understand."

  I swallowed. "I assume you never turned her over to the police?"

  He shook his head and winced. "Of course not. These matters are best handled between those of us who can see."

  "Well, well, well," said a male voice behind us. "Look who got to you first."

  I turned and saw Crwys and Levi moving around crowded tables. They were both dressed for business, Crwys in his jeans, shirt and leather jacket and Levi in his suit and coat. Crwys smiled at me, winked and then leaned in to kiss my lips. He pulled back just enough so our eyes met and he was frowning. If he meant to communicate something in that moment, he failed as he straightened and faced Blackwood.

  "Ah…the NOPD," Blackwood looked at me. "I assume this wasn't part of our conversation?"

  "Oh no, it wasn't. I didn't even know they would be here."

  Levi pulled up two seats from a neighboring table and the detectives sat down. Levi held out his hand first. "I'm Detective Levi Tulose, Mr. Blackwood. This is my partner, Crwys Holliard."

  Crwys reached over after Blackwood shook Levi's hand. When Blackwood's eyes widened at Crwys's touch, I worried. Was it possible that this Magician could sense by touch that Crwys wasn't human? He didn't have that reaction when he touched Levi's hand, but then Revenants weren't always that easy to detect without knowing what you were looking for. They resided in living bodies, with heartbeats, warm temperatures, and they could eat if they wanted.

  Crwys pulled his hand back first and smiled. "So, you three have any interesting information on the mutilated bodies?"

  Blackwood didn't answer. He was staring at Crwys a little too hard.

  "Ah, we have a name to look for," Kyle said. "Mr. Blackwood, do you have her birth name?"

  He nodded and tore his gaze from Crwys. "Yes. Olivia Graham. I believe she still has a house in Louisiana, or just over in Mississippi."

  Yeah, I was sure this Circe kept her power base as close a secret as Blackwood.

  "Detective Holliard?" Blackwood frowned at him. "Crwys is a very interesting name. It means cross, doesn't it? Welsh?"

  "Yeah, that's it. You know about names?"

  "I do indeed. I specialize in them. And eyes…because eyes tell us a lot of things. And you have very unusual eyes."

  Crwys leaned back. "Are you hitting on me, Mr. Blackwood?"

  Kyle, Levi and I watched the interchange like a ping-pong match. There was something very subtle going on here but I just didn't get what. I wasn't that sure Crwys knew either.

  Blackwood placed his hat on his head, stood and slipped into his coat. "I believe our meeting is over, Miss Hawthorne. Mr. Kendrick. I hope my information proves to be of use. Please, enjoy your beignets and café au lait."

  Crwys stood up fast, his chair scraping along the floor. "Mr. Blackwood, we're not done."

  "Yes we are, Detective. For now." He nodded, tipped his hat to me and shoved his hands into his pockets, whistling as he left the café.

  When Crwys sat down he grabbed a beignet and bit into it, getting sugar all over his face and jeans. I watched him for a few seconds, pondering his eyes. "You do have very odd eyes, Crwys."

  "That's because he's an asshole," Levi said. "So that's the name you got from him?"

  "Yep. Olivia Graham." I filled the two of them in on what little Blackwood said.

  Crwys wiped his mouth with a napkin and drank some of my coffee. "We can run her name through the system. No address?"

  "Nope."

  Levi said, "We'll need to find out if this woman's legit and not someone Blackwood has a vendetta against."

  "Is he known for doing that?" I looked at Levi as I took a bite of a beignet. OMG…so good!

  "Yeah, he's got a hate streak as long as this county. Don't ever get on his bad side," Levi smacked Crwys's arm. "Hear that?"

  "Yeah. But that guy doesn't scare me," Crwys leaned in close to me. "You're hot."

  I swallowed the beignet and laughed. "You're hot too."

  "No, I mean you've got a fever."

  "No I don't."

  "Trust me, babe. You have a fever. The transformation is starting. That means less than twenty-four hours left. We need to get this rolling. We'll run this woman's name through the system. You need to get back to your apartment."

  "No," Bastien said as he and Jack joined us at the table. I hadn't sensed Bastien at all. Was it because Crwys was near? “Ma petite needs to stay close to me. The fever is starting and other wolves will be attracted to it."

  I nearly choked on my coffe
e and set it down, splashing it on the table. "What? Say that again?"

  "Your shift is going to attract other wolves," Bastien smiled and I didn't like it. "Like a bitch in heat."

  I didn't like this at all.

  TWELVE

  Ivan was at the shop, running what looked like a diagnostic on the computer. The screen was flashing up numbers and graphs and stuff that made my head hurt. His eyes were closed as he sat on his stool with his hands out on his thighs, palms up. I could see the different flashes of colors as data came and went.

  He'd told me once what the colors meant to him and for the life of me I couldn't remember what he said. I kept smelling…

  Bastien.

  Sweet Lady this was not good!

  I looked past the counter to the locked shop doors. People walked back and forth along the sidewalk, on their way to LaFitte's or staggering home.

  Kyle filled Ivan in while I heated up left over Chinese. I'd eaten all my beignets and drank all that coffee, but I was still starving and needed tea. Something to kick-start my brain. It was actually nice not having Crwys or Bastien around. Their absence gave me time to think and try to get a bearing on what the hell was going on. While sucking in noodles, I retreated to my seldom-used office with Grey at my side. She plopped down on her oversized dog mattress in the corner while I sat at my desk. I noticed a thin layer of dust over the surface and on the mounting stack of bills I hadn't paid yet.

  My phone buzzed and I worked it out of my pocket. It was Arden Vervain. Pfft. Screw that. I declined the call and tossed it on the desk. I turned to face my computer and wake it up, and I realized I forgot my password. This was telling of my lack of computer knowledge. I wasn't actually on this computer enough to remember the password. I stared at the screen saver and angrily chewed.

  The screen saver flipped off and dots formed along the input line on their own and my computer was unlocked. All by itself. I realized Ivan had helped me out. I kind of wondered what it would be like to be able to actually look into the Cyber World and peer into other people's unprotected computers. Speaking of which, I eyed the camera built into the top of the screen. "Are you looking at me?"

  An IM program launched and a window came to the front. Not really, came the letters next to an icon that looked like the letter I in a Superman logo.

  "Think you can find this Olivia Graham, aka Circe?"

  Not sure. I found some candidates. Kyle thinks we should ask his aunt.

  "No. Tell him he'd better not call her. I don't want to go near Arden."

  A few minutes passed while I ate more noodles and then I turned and opened the small fridge under the desk. I had a six-pack of Evian, two yogurts that were way past their expiration date and…I honestly wasn't sure what was in the Tupperware. It had already transmogrified into something other wordly.

  My screen flickered as several windows popped up in the browser. They were local articles and business pages from five years ago. As they each showed up, the same name was apparent in bolded font.

  Olivia Graham.

  And in two of the articles with pictures, she was standing beside none other than—

  "Holy shit!" I dropped my chopsticks.

  Inamorata Devonshire.

  My "aunt." The woman who raised me. I gripped the sides of the desk to steady myself as the room started wavering and my chest ached where the mark was now on fire. I didn't need a mirror to know it was sparkling a bright red.

  A Leviathan made a deal with the Obsidian Queen of Alfheim to make my mother disappear. I was eight at the time. And from what I learned eighteen years too late, that Faerie took my mother and turned her into a paladin, a wolf of the wild hunt. And that's where she remained while my father and I believed she had died.

  Enter my mother's best friend, Inamorata Devonshire. She came to my father and offered support. Moved in. And became our surrogate mom until my dad found Pauline and wanted to remarry. Then there wasn't enough room for Ina. Ina was the only mother I remembered, so I moved with her to New Orleans when I was fourteen. And here I lived with her, worked with her and admired her.

  Until a few months ago, when I realized Ina was possessed by the very Leviathan that got rid of my mother. My mother's destroyer had raised me, taught me magic, knew everything there was to know about me and manipulated me into taking a human life so she could take its soul.

  When the demon inside of her, the Leviathan called Dionysus, got what it wanted and it tried to drain me of blood. Luckily for me, Crwys and Grey, my mom, arrived and stopped it. But it was still out there.

  And here it was, smiling in a picture with a woman who may or may not be a Ceremonial Magician responsible for two deaths, not counting the one Blackwood mentioned.

  The door to my office opened and Kyle came in. "You okay? Ivan said to check on you."

  "You…you saw the pictures he found?"

  "Yeah. And I'm not surprised. Ina had, or has, money, Sam. It seems natural she'd be in the Society pages."

  "And this woman?" I pointed to the screen. "This Olivia woman?"

  Olivia in the picture was older, elegant in a slim fitting gown with perfectly coiffed golden hair. Gray strands accented the upsweep at the roots and the effect made this woman look handsome. Powerful. In both pictures, the caption called the two best friends and fellow philanthropists.

  "You're going to have to realize that Ina wasn't exactly a nice person. Or the Leviathan that took her wasn't," he said as he shrugged. "Ina was also a powerful Witch, even as a Hedge Witch. I'm not surprised she attracted someone like Olivia Graham."

  "You think Olivia knew she wasn't human? You think maybe she knew Ina was a Leviathan?"

  Kyle shrugged again. "Who knows? Right now we need to concentrate on finding Marilla and André."

  "Are those their names?" I already knew the answer to that. The pack link vibrated when Kyle spoke them.

  "Yeah. Ivan's got an address. It's the last known mailing address for Olivia Graham. One of those big houses in the Garden District. It's not far from Ina's house."

  "Is she there?" I set the noodles down. "I mean is Olivia at the Garden District house?"

  "We're not sure. Ivan's looking into her security to find out," Kyle moved to the side of the desk. "We've got to see her tonight. Ivan said it was easy to find her, so that means Crwys and Levi will find her too."

  I kept my gaze on his face. "And you're pretty sure Jack's going to look her up as well and tell Bastien."

  Kyle touched his nose. "Jack's fast, but he's not as fast as Ivan."

  "So you're saying we've got maybe what…an hour on them?"

  Kyle nodded as he looked at my phone as the message for a voicemail showed up. He pointed to it. "You need to call her back. She said she had bad news and needed to talk to you. She's also got news on this Codex."

  I glared at him. "You told her."

  "She really does have a wealth of knowledge, Sam. You know that. And she told me the Codex was created by a crazy Witch to bring Arcane into the world. It’s supposed to tap into the God Mother’s connection and infuse it with Arcane.” Kyle shook his head. “You really need to call her. She wants to talk to you."

  Given what Arden had weighing on her, I assumed what she wanted to talk to me about was the Faerie Queen's payment. The fact she was calling me made me think Brendi had demanded me. And if Arden didn't deliver on that price, then Brendi had already said she'd take Arden as payment.

  No one wanted to be taken by the Faerie Queen into Alfheim. I looked over at Grey in her bed. The current Faerie Queen likes to turn people into wolves, too. I took in a deep breath. "No. I can't help Arden this time."

  "You think Brendi's told her she wants you."

  "Why else would she call me with bad news?"

  "Sam, she made a deal with the Faerie Queen to find those children. You owe her."

  Excuse me? I stood at that moment and stared him down.

  Sam, don't. Grey's voice was a soothing, cool compress on my heated temper. He's ju
st worried about his aunt. She's really all the family he's got that he can trust.

  Which wasn't saying a lot. So I backed down and sat on the desk. "Look, do you want me to go see Arden so she can somehow capture me and send me to Alfheim?"

  "No. But I don't want her being taken either. You think you can get Brendi's dad to vouch for my aunt too?"

  I snorted. "I doubt Brendi's dad and Arden would get along. He'd be lying if he vouched and you know how much the Faeries hate that." Truth was very important to the Faeries. They themselves couldn't lie, especially when asked a direct question. "Look, let's find the two wolves, get the unborn baby back to the pack and worry about this later."

  "What if she set a deadline?"

  "Kyle, I'm on a deadline. And I don't want to be that damn wolf's mate."

  Can I? He's hot.

  I rolled my eyes. "Mom!"

  Sorry. Just trying to lighten the mood.

  My phone went off again. Arden Vervain. I declined and blocked her number. For now.

  Ivan came through the door, rubbing his eyes. They were still just a bit green. "Circe's at her house in the Garden District. She attended some fundraiser earlier in the day. I've downloaded everything onto your phone. It's all in PDFs, so you should be able to read or reference it when you want. I've added her address and her financial history. I can get her LUDs (local usage details) too if you want, in case you want to know who she's been calling."

  "No, no," I held up my hand. "That's fine. I'm sure Crwys is looking into the same thing and he can do it legally."

  "So are you guys going to see her tonight?"

  I agreed we needed to get ahead of Bastien on this. Even with Ivan being faster, Jack would be able to find the information, so it could mean the pack would show up in the Garden District. And that would be bad.

  "I can see from the look on your face you're puzzling it out. So," Ivan pointed behind him. "I'm gonna head home. Just ring me if you need anything?"

  "Sure." I watched him go. I was pretty sure he was going to see his girlfriend again.