[Kassandra Lyall Preternatural Investigator 03] - Bloody Claws

by Winter Pennington

  I thought I understood what she meant. In a pagan or Wiccan ritual, the elemental representations usually went on a witch's altar. When a witch cast a circle, she would go to each of the four corners and use words of invocation to summon the guardians of each element. Zaphara wanted to use the elements to anchor the spell, so to speak. Each corner, or direction, corresponds with an element. I went to the eastern edge of the circle, placed the shell on its back, removed the tiny cork stopper, and poured the water into it.

  I turned to find Zaphara placing a large crystal at the northern point, symbolizing the earth element. I was about to stand when she, without turning to look at me, said, "Visualize, Kassandra. Do not be hasty."

  "What do you mean?"

  She shook her head, murmuring something about witches and sloppy. She knelt beside me, touching my shoulder. "Lower your shields," she said.

  I drew in a deep breath and lowered my shields when I exhaled. The night became more vibrant, thrumming against my skin.

  Zaphara shut her eyes, lips parting slightly. I watched as she breathed, slow and steady, hearing her breath like lapping waves.

  The water in the shell rippled as if she'd dipped a finger into it.

  "Call the element," she said. She put a hand over her heart. "Feel it here, in your body, your breath, your blood. When it comes to your aid"-she swept her hand high above the shell of water, and a tiny wave splashed some of it over the edge-"you'll feel it…like a quiet click."

  A quiet click was a good description. With my shields lowered, I felt the small energy that unfurled as if someone had traced wet fingers across my skin.

  Lenorre, Rosalin, and Eris stood off to the side and I could feel them silently observing. Zaphara handed me a bowl made of some kind of stone and a piece of charcoal. When she headed back toward the northern edge, I asked, "What am I supposed to light this with, exactly?"

  "Consider it a test of sorts." She knelt in front of the crystal. "Use your will." She touched the crystal and it seemed to come to life beneath her fingers, glowing ever so faintly. I realized if I looked at it straight on, it looked like nothing more than a crystal, but when I caught it out of my peripheral vision, I could see the faint amethyst light of her energy igniting it. It was definitely weird, but then again, I'd seen her bless a wooden stake and draw a faerie star in the air above it like it was a neon sign. The gift of sight, she'd called it. Rosalin had been in the room and though she admitted she couldn't actually see anything, she was a lycanthrope and she'd felt it. I had no doubts that she and the vampires standing outside the circle could feel what we were doing.

  I sighed. Perhaps Zaphara was merely amusing herself or maybe she was trying to prove a point…that she could do things I couldn't.

  I placed the items on the ground at the southern corner and sat back on my heels. I'd had years to practice visualization and working with the raven energy and the wolf within over the last few months had given me even more practice to fine-tune it. But when I visualized fire, the images had their way with me, coming to me without much of a conscious thought. I saw Lenorre's moonlight skin, kissed by firelight, the flicker of it darkening her stormy eyes, sketching shadows across her features. The heat was low in my belly, spilling outward toward my limbs. Desire, passion, a dancing fire. I forced myself to hold the image, to make it clearer.

  Hold the coal, Zaphara's voice in my mind was smooth and flowing. Push your magic into it.

  The vision was so vivid that I didn't dare open my eyes, for risk of losing it entirely. I placed my hand over the coal and curled my fingers around it.

  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I could hear wood popping and crackling, the fire eating its way through. The image encouraged the energy, pushing it, feeding it, until the warmth of it spilled down my arm, my fingers pulsing with it.

  The coal in my hand hissed to life as a tiny plume of smoke rose to tickle my nostrils. Only then did I open my eyes and place the coal down carefully, safely sheltered by stone to prevent it from going out or starting a fire.

  I heard Rosalin whisper, "Hell yeah."

  Zaphara had returned to kneel beside me, overseeing, I guess.

  "I didn't know I could do that."

  She cocked her head in a manner that would've made any crow proud. "Had you ever tried?"

  "Well, no."

  Her expression was a wily one. "Now you know."

  "What else can I do?"

  "We will get to that, eventually," she said, sounding rather furtive about it. She offered a hand to help me up and I took it. "Shall we proceed?" I realized everything was in its place. The small points of her amethyst lights glowed like will-o'-the-wisps, marking each element she'd invoked. She'd called all of them except for the one I had, except for fire. Where the charcoal piece was placed, a soft emerald glow burned.

  Was that my energy? Holy shit.

  A bundle of feathers hung from a tree branch in the east, marking the element of air. How long had I been visualizing? It hadn't seemed it'd been terribly long, but I couldn't remember Zaphara invoking the other element. Zaphara returned to her bag, picked it up, and knelt in the center of the circle we'd created. Inside the circle, the cold night seemed warmer. I couldn't actually see the circle, only the marker points of it where Zaphara's and my energy shone like dim lights, infusing the items and staking the point into the ground.

  She used her boots to kick clear an area of dirt, drawing an athame from the tuck of one and tracing something in the dirt itself, the thin metal blade sliding through the dirt with ease.

  I stood slightly to her side, watching her work.

  When she sat back on her heels, she curled her fingers around the blade. "The chalice, Kassandra."

  I found what appeared to be a silver chalice in the bag and tucked my hand inside my sleeve, not touching it with my bare fingers. The knife hissed through Zaphara's skin and blood fell freely to the ground. She snatched the chalice and held her hand over it.

  The chalice itself didn't surprise me, as many witches and wiccans would've used a chalice in ritual to symbolize the mother's womb, the divine feminine. The athame didn't surprise me either, symbolizing all that was male, phallic. It wasn't sexual. It was simply polarity at play. And though it was made to pierce, a witch's ritual dagger was often never used to draw blood.

  But that was the lighter side of Wicca and witchcraft; that was the human idea.

  Zaphara guided her hand over the chalice, her blood splashing down into it. The air inside the circle seemed even hotter, making it more difficult to breathe, as though I was drawing things thicker than air into my lungs.

  The wound closed in her hand, nearly as quickly as it had opened, and she split her skin again, and again, until the chalice was over halfway full of her blood.

  The symbol she had drawn in the dirt was similar to the sigil I'd seen at the crime scenes. The same eight-pointed star, the same symbol in the middle, but it was the outside symbols she'd adjusted. And none of them looked familiar to me. I hate not knowing what I'm looking at. Especially when whatever we were calling could potentially kill us.

  She murmured something and every freaking hair on my arm stood straight up.

  Zaphara drew her hand back and flung the contents of her chalice out over the symbol.

  The sound following the lash of power she flung outward thundered through the woods like an angry sky that had just opened up above us.

  CHAPTER twenty-six

  he atmosphere inside the circle crackled with energy. I wasn't sure if I was actually hearing it or if I felt it and by feeling it, imagined I'd heard it. While the air was abuzz, Zaphara took out a length of white braided rope. The earth seemed to swallow her bloody symbol, burning deeper trenches where her drawing had been. She set about folding the rope in a neat circle around the symbol, a circle inside a circle. I thought I understood what she was doing. When she was done, she held the double-sided dagger in her hand, took my wrist between her fingers, and slashed the blade across my open palm.
The cut stung, making me hiss through my teeth.

  "I need you to combine your power with mine," she said, as if explaining, but she didn't really explain anything. She slashed her palm again.

  "Quickly," she said, "before our wounds close. Take my blood into your body."

  "You want me to drink your blood?" I asked.

  "There is no time for qualms, Kassandra. I've summoned the Hag."

  She raised my hand to her mouth and I felt her tongue tracing the wound, licking my skin clean as my body healed it.

  Zaphara didn't offer her hand as much as shove it in my face.

  I frowned, but raised my hand to cup hers, bringing it to my lips. I licked the blood that had trailed down her fingers to the center of her palm where the original cut had been. The taste of Zaphara's blood was smooth and velvety, only lightly metallic. Without the taint of cinnamon from Lenorre's mouth, the taste was fresher, richer. I found it odd.

  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I felt the wolf agreeing with me. Good, but odd.

  Before I could ask, "What next?" Zaphara grabbed the back of my head and kissed me, her tongue delving between my lips. I staggered and was about to push her away when I felt it. She pushed her power into my mouth and it felt like honey sliding down my throat. She held me against her tightly, her arms like shackles, her lips locked on mine, sending warmth into my belly. At the touch of her lips and power, the magic awakened.

  I pushed into the kiss, taking control of it, and forcing the energy that rose from me into Zaphara's lean body.

  She stepped back, breaking the kiss. I could suddenly feel every movement ripple through her, her spine when it straightened, her foot being placed slightly behind her. The movement vibrated through me, as if we had been caught in a web and every time she moved, I could feel the strands pulling at my skin. But it wasn't my skin her movement tugged at, every chakra on my body felt like it had been fixed into hers. Zaphara stood before the circle she'd created, fingering a milky stone in her hands. She mumbled more words, harshly accented. I had a second to wonder if she was speaking Gaelic when she threw the stone into the middle of the circle. The stone sparked, as if holding a cloud of lightning inside it before I could taste smoke and ashes on my tongue.

  Inky blackness formed above the stone. It was the same blackness I'd seen at the police department. I was sure of it. I'd thought she would've invited the others into the circle, but she did not. I stayed close to Zaphara as the black mist shaped itself. The slitted eyes I'd seen at the police station stared at us from within the veil of mist. Limbs began to form and take shape, until I could make out the silhouette of a body nearly as tall as Zaphara's, with mimicking human arms and legs. The figure's hands and feet were tipped with curling talons like some ghoulish bird of prey.

  By the silver light of the moon, the creature became whole. Hair the color of dark wood fell to her knees. Her eyes were slitted and narrowed in contempt as she gazed at Zaphara. The dark mist settled over her long body like a continuously moving cloak, sliding over and around her, allowing glimpses of what was clearly a female body underneath.

  "You called, Daoine Maithe?" There was a dangerous purr to her tone.

  Zaphara's voice when it came was as sharp as steel, less honeyed, more cold. "I, Zaphara, Daughter of Danann, call you and command you. Tell me your true name."

  "My name," the being mused, "my name spins on the tip of a needle, is etched within ancient stone. It can be heard in the sighs between lovers."

  I felt Zaphara's fingers curl into fists.

  "You'll not hear my name from my lips, Daoine Maithe."

  "Then I will cast you back to the black lands." Zaphara drew the dagger from the belt at her waist.

  Before she'd raised the dagger high enough to place it against her palm, the being said, "Wait."

  We waited.

  "Why do you call?"

  "Kassandra, tell her."

  The being looked at me then, and it was as if she'd just seen me. She'd been so focused on Zaphara, maybe she did.

  "I remember you, little one," she said, lips curling as if she were pleased.

  "I don't care about your name," I said, even though I knew Zaphara sought it to gain power over the fey. "I want the name of the witch that's been helping you."

  She was moving to the edge of the circle closest to us. When she reached the white rope, she looked down, stopping in her tracks.

  The expression on her face when she looked at me was dark and calculating. She moved close enough to us that I stepped back.

  Her nostrils flared as she inhaled a sharp breath, her face contorting into an expression more animal than the human form should have allowed.

  "Make me whole," she said. "I'll not only give you the witch, I'll take you to her myself."

  I shook my head. "I don't know how to make you whole, and considering the possible repercussions, I'd rather not."

  She shrugged her shoulders. "Then you'll not gain anything from me." She glared at Zaphara. "You, Daoine Maithe, you know how to make me whole. Give me what I ask, and I'll give you what you ask in kind."

  "You were exiled for a reason, harpy."

  The fey laughed bitterly, her voice ringing throughout the woods. "You think?" she asked. "And what reason was that other than for the satisfaction of an envious queen?" She spat on the ground.

  Zaphara was utterly quiet, her only response the steely blankness of her features.

  "What does she mean?" I asked.

  "She hasn't told you?" The fey crossed her arms over her chest, looking none-too-happy as she stared down Zaphara. "Her kind would have wiped out our entire existence, if they could have. As it was, they could not. Lesser though they view us, we are not so easily killed, and so her queen banished us to the black lands, the land of eternal night, out of her own jealous spite."

  "She banished you for a very good reason, hag."

  "I am one of the Leanan Sidhe, Daoine Maithe. Use my title," she snarled. "Your precious queen had a horde of Leanan lovers and when one, her favorite, betrayed her by sleeping with one of her elite, she cast us all into the hell she'd created."

  "She banished you because you were killing our people."

  "You're a fool," she said. "We didn't begin killing until we were thrust into the dark world and only then for means of survival."

  "I saw the corpses," Zaphara said. "You'll not fill my head with lies and illusions. I was there when the queen exiled you."

  "Queen's corpses!" she retorted. "She killed her own brethren and used us as scapegoats. Easy to believe, for those who do not know that the Queen is part Leanan herself."

  "Zaphara, what the hell is she talking about?"

  "She's implying the Queen of the Daoine Maithe is part Leanan and murdered her own people."

  "Implying?" Her chestnut brows rose high on her elegant brow. "I do not imply. I know it to be fact. I saw it before I was banished."

  "So what you're saying is that you've been framed?" I asked, not bothering to conceal that I wasn't quite buying her story.

  "Yes, witch."

  "Why should I believe that?" I asked, holding up a finger. "One, you've murdered on this plane." I held up another finger. "Two, you attacked me." I held up another finger. "Three, you attacked another woman. And four," I said, "you attacked me again. If you were so wrongfully accused and you are not a creature of ill intent, why the track record?"

  "I have no other choice," she said. "I want out. We were a peaceful people once. Don't you remember, Zaphara?" Zaphara seemed to be thinking very hard.

  "Who had you known or heard of that had been murdered by our kind before the mass death among the Daoine? Who had you known before your queen went on her killing spree?" she asked. "No one, I assure you. We are lovers, not fighters or murderers." She looked at me. "Release me and I will prove it to you."

  I was unsure what to do. My own internal idea of justice seemed to be battling it out with my caution and distrust. What if it were all a trick?

  Za
phara remained silent and so I asked, "Do you believe her?"

  "I do not know," Zaphara said and I was pretty sure it was the first time I'd ever truly heard her sound uncertain about something. "I'll not fall for any tricks. If you want me to believe you, if what you say is true, then give me your true name."

  "So you can command me for all eternity? I think not."

  "Then your mind will rot in the black lands. We're done here. If you'll not give your name or the name of the witch that's leashed you, we have nothing to gain from each other."

  "Wait! Wait!"

  Zaphara lowered the blade again. "Yes?"

  "I want your oath you'll not make of me a puppet thing."

  "I do not seek your name to make of you a puppet," Zaphara said. "You know why I seek it."

  The Leanan Sidhe waved a hand in the air. "Yes, yes, to ensure that I do not go on a murderous rampage, as your queen did centuries ago."

  "Tell me your name."

  The Leanan raised those eerie inhuman eyes and said, "My name is Avaliah."

  Zaphara said, "Shit."

  Avaliah grinned widely in response.

  Zaphara moved, but she was too late. Avaliah stepped out of the circle and grabbed me. The world went black.

  *

  I hit the ground with a heavy thud, feeling hard rock beneath my hands and knees. If I had fallen, I didn't know where exactly I'd fallen from.

  Avaliah's voice crept from the darkness.

  "Welcome to Oíche," she said. "Land of eternal night. Beautiful, isn't it?"

  A white flame flared to life in her cupped palm, illuminating the impenetrable darkness.

  As far as I could see, there was nothing, nothing but mountains and black sky.

  "Can you imagine spending all of an eternity here?" she continued. "No food, no water, no sustenance, no life, no death. A vast nothingness, a meaningless existence."

  The shadows that had been cloaked around her figure became a black cloak in truth. Owl feathers decorated the long brown waves of her hair. She turned to me, and her eyes had changed, reminding me more of Rosalin's honeyed gaze.