Lightning coursed down from a clear sky and exploded against the mage’s circle. It lit the dome of energy surrounding the girl and the mage with incandescent fire as the shield tried to withstand the energy. For a moment it held. Then there was a cry of surprise and pain from the mage as the shield collapsed. I focused the energy onto the mage. He dropped his knife and staggered back from the girl. She continued to stand, not even flinching as the lightning coursed through the person at her side.
The ground beneath me shuddered.
The earth split beneath my feet and I leapt sideways away from the growing crack as it spread outwards from the demon to me and beyond. The demon emitted a subsonic hum that I hadn’t noticed earlier and beneath me, the ground danced in rhythm with its hum.
I dropped my concentration, my tat faded, and the lightning ceased, leaving an afterglow on my retinas and the sharp tang of ozone in my nostrils. The mage knelt on the ground staring at me.
The hum changed frequencies before I could respond. The ground erupted beneath me and I rose twenty feet on a column of earth a half dozen feet across. I stopped rising and saw the earth was falling back all around the column even as more earth and stones pushed upwards from below. My feet sank into the geyser and I was buried waist deep in a flowing mass.
I struggled to remain afloat but continued to sink as the earth swept upwards around me. I combined the same four fingers and triggered the tat again. Lightning flashed down and into the demon, outlining it with a corona of electricity.
I heard it sneeze, but my spell drew no other reaction.
I sank up to my chest and had to use both arms to stay afloat.
The demon’s hum changed again. As suddenly as the geyser had started, it stopped flowing and hardened against me. In an instant, I was buried to the chest in a twenty-foot tall column of earth as solid as it had been in its natural state. It pressed against me and I couldn’t breathe.
An earth demon. Damn it to hell. What did I know about earth demon weaknesses? There weren’t many.
There was a sharp exclamation from behind the demon and I saw the mage stand up, the knife in his hand.
“Damn you! Don’t do it,” I screamed with the last of the air in my lungs.
I struggled to free my hands, anything to allow an offensive spell.
The mage gazed up at me and I heard a chuckle. A feminine chuckle. While the mage’s face was still hidden within the hood of her robe, it was definitely a woman.
She stepped behind Marsha and raised one hand to the girl’s chin. She tilted Marsha’s head back, exposing a creamy white expanse of skin. A second later, the blade reflected light as the mage drew it across the exposed throat. Blood darkened the blade and then Marsha’s torso. The mage held her upright for another moment until Marsha’s legs went limp; the mage stepped back and let Marsha’s body crumple to the grass.
“You bitch! I swear I’ll see you dead.” Is what I was thinking, but all that came past my lips was a muted growl. I activated my wristwatch shield and the shell of energy forced the dirt back away from me a few centimeters. It wasn’t much and I needed more, but at least I could breathe again. I sucked in air.
The earth demon was impervious to my lightning, but the ground around me was not.
I forced more energy into my shield and then combined the four fingers of my left hand and activated the tat. Its golden radiance was overpowered as lightning cracked down with an ear-shattering thunder of superheated air and struck my shield. The ground around me split and exploded outwards in all directions. I saw the mage duck as rock and debris rained down around her.
I fell toward the solid ground, canceling the lightning as I fell.
Rolling to get my feet beneath me, I heard the demon start to hum.
“Fuck that,” I said.
I invoked the wind tat on my right forearm. It glowed blue and the glade was filled with wind. I poured power into the tat and focused the wind against the earth demon. Its squat shape leaned into the gale as it continued to hum. The ground beneath me began to crack open. As long as an earth demon has firm contact with the ground, it is near unbeatable. Wind alone couldn’t rip it from the earth. I turned the wind around me. It lifted me from the ground as the crack beneath me suddenly opened wide and then slammed shut with a clap that swayed the trees around the glade.
As the wind left me, I dropped back to the glade.
The demon’s hum changed and another earth geyser began forming beneath me.
I directed the wind into a funnel and aimed it at the stream I’d crossed entering the glade.
The funnel darkened with water as it sucked up the stream. Fish and even a turtle swirled above me as I pushed more energy into the spell.
The earth leapt upwards around me, but my shield was still active. The geyser impacted against my shield and pushed me higher, bobbing me atop it like a ball.
I moved the water-filled funnel over the demon.
It made a plaintive cry as I squeezed the funnel into a tube and forced its contents into the ground at the demon’s feet. A fire hose of water a dozen feet across tore the earth from beneath the demon.
The earthen geyser beneath me collapsed as the demon lost contact with its power source.
With the stream of water, I pushed the demon into the air and then moved the wind back into its funnel shape. The demon disappeared into the water-filled maw of my tiny tornado. Its humming died away as the swirling water separated its body into a miasma of mud, stones, twigs, and the insects that squirm beneath the surface of the earth. I pushed the funnel back over the streambed that was refilling from somewhere farther up the mountain. I released the water back into the flow and dispersed the wind as I fell earthward.
My feet touched the grass; I sagged and nearly dropped to the ground. The fight had taken a lot out of me, mentally and physically. I stumbled across torn and muddy earth to the scorched grass that marked the mage’s circle. My lightning had incinerated the grass along the edges of the circle, but farther out it was merely blackened. Inside the circle, the grass was still green, except where it was darkened with the young woman’s blood. I knelt beside her. Rage and sorrow filled me. Sorrow for my inability to save her. Rage for the mage who desired power so much that she resorted to sacrificing this young woman to get it.
I pushed her eyes closed with my fingers and then scooped up the robe that lay in a pile at her feet. I shook it out and then laid it across her body, covering her from the mournful gaze of the moon.
CHAPTER 18
I stood beneath the accusing moon, fully aware of my incompetence in dealing with this mage and its demon. Because of me, the girl was gone. Gone on to whatever awaits us at the end of life’s journey. For me it will be a long and eventful journey; it already has been both. For Marsha Bering and Jessica Spelling, the journey had been short and bitter. I would avenge both these women or lose my life trying, but could I do it before more young girls died at the hand of this maniacal mage?
Twice the mage had lured young women to participate in her summoning. What was their inducement? You can’t just ask a Wiccan to join you in summoning a demon, even without revealing that a life is to be sacrificed. Wiccans are the most anti-demon of any magic users with the obvious exception of the white magic users. I hadn’t seen the other girl killed, but this one had been mesmerized, spelled to keep her compliant while the mage completed her summoning. Compliant while the mage spilled her blood to seal some deal. There was much I wanted to know. And I would have answers.
Beast idled near me and growled a warning.
I listened.
Car doors shutting nearby, back the way I’d come. Was it someone else reacting to the summoning or just visitors to the park?
I was reluctant to leave Marsha’s body, but as voices came down the path toward me, I knew I had to go. I’d already been exposed to police questioning and the feds were involved for some reason that I didn’t quite understand. Their attention were I found at another murder, would increase t
o the point of interference.
I slipped onto Beast’s back and idled toward the far side of the glade where the path continued into the woods. Once out of sight, I shut off the engine and turned back toward the meadow. I wouldn’t leave until they found Marsha’s body.
I triggered a glamour of concealment as three people entered the glade less than a minute later. The glamour formed a globe that bent light around me without distortion. As long as I was motionless, I’d be invisible from every direction. Two women and a large man. The man carried a large flashlight and shone it on the path ahead of them. I didn’t need my enhanced vision to recognize Cynthia’s walk. That meant Cris and Daniel had brought her.
I remained quiet as they neared Marsha’s body.
“What happened here?” Cris said as they crossed the torn and mangled earth.
Daniel said, “Looks like some kind of explosion, but there’s no crater…what the hell?” He pointed the beam of his light onto a still flapping fish.
“There’s another one,” Cris said.
“I don’t get it? Where the fish come from?” Daniel asked.
“Forget the damn fish. Put your light over there,” Cynthia said and pointed toward Marsha’s body.
The light swept across the ground and picked out the bloody robe.
“Ah, geez. Is that what I think it is?” Daniel asked.
Neither woman answered as Cynthia ran the last few steps toward the body. She knelt beside it and then drew the robe back enough to reveal Marsha’s face.
Cris made an involuntary cry and then said. “I know her. She was in your coven.”
“Coven? What you mean like witches?” Daniel asked.
Again they ignored him. Cynthia said, “she still is...was. She was at the last meeting. What was she doing out here?”
“Cris? When you said you were a practicing Wiccan, I thought you were talking about a religion. You’re a witch?” Daniel asked.
“Daniel, dear, this isn’t the time or the place. We’ll talk later,” Cris said.
Cynthia dropped the robe back over Marsha’s face and stood up.
Cris motioned toward the ground around them. “Look how the grass is burned.”
“Yes, someone invoked a power circle, but last night they had to use a rope to inscribe the circle. Why’d they change methods?” Cynthia asked.
“More power?” Cris suggested.
“What do you mean last night? You mean that girl who was killed at the party was killed like this?” Daniel demanded.
“Yes, Daniel,” Cynthia said. She knelt in the blackened grass and ran her fingers across something on the ground.
“Hell, I ain’t having anything to do with witches. I thought you were just some kind of pagan nut, but a witch and involved in a murder, no, two murders. No way, woman, I don’t care how good a lay you are.”
Cris turned toward Daniel. She raised one arm and pointed a finger at him. “One more word out of you and you’ll regret it.”
“Cris, don’t, you’ll hurt him,” Cynthia said.
“He’s being rude,” Cris answered, still pointing.
“Rude? You’re a fucking witch and you’re calling me rude? You can kiss my –”
Cris invoked a spell. A green bolt leapt out from her finger and struck Daniel in the face. The big man shut up.
Cynthia cursed. “Hell, Cris. When are you going to learn to control yourself? You can’t go around spelling people just because they’re rude.”
Cris lowered her arm and tilted her head to one side. “Why can’t I? You know I can’t abide rudeness. Besides, he was starting to rant. He was distracting.”
“None of those warrant being paralyzed. Release him.”
“Each bit of rudeness warranted being placed in stasis and I won’t release him until we’re ready to leave.”
The cousins faced each other for a moment, neither seemed willing to give ground, but then Cynthia said, “All right then. Let’s go, we’ll need to call the police.”
“You’re going to call the police for a witch’s murder? Isn’t this something Abigail should handle? Marsha was a member of your coven.”
“I know, but last night Abigail had us call them out. She doesn’t want to interfere with the police. She’s trying to keep the coven low key,” Cynthia said.
“Low key? When one of your members has been murdered, no…sacrificed. This isn’t the seventeenth-century; we don’t have to be afraid of being burned at the stake just because we’re witches. We can handle our own crimes.”
“Cris, it’s Abigail’s coven. You weren’t willing to follow her direction, fine, I get that, but you left. The rest of us consent to Abigail’s lead.”
“Humph. Rule is more like it. A coven doesn’t have to be a monarchy,” Cris said.
“Oh, for crying out loud. Cris, it’s our coven and we’ll run it the way we want.”
“You mean the way Abigail wants,” Cris said.
“Yes, as long as we agree to her leadership; it’s our business. It stopped being your business a long time ago.”
They stared at each other for a few more seconds, and then Cris relaxed. “You’re right, Cuz. I left and it is your coven. What do you want to do?”
“Thank you. I’m going to call Abigail and let her know what’s happened. I’m sure she would have felt this and she may want to investigate before we summon the police. Besides, she’s going to want to know Rafe was involved again.”
Uh-oh. I didn’t like the sound of that.
“What do you mean?” Cris asked.
“There are tire tracks in the dirt. Motorcycle tire tracks and he left the concert before the summoning started.”
“You can’t be sure of that,” Cris said.
“He was gone before either of us felt the spell. What else would you believe? Last night he reached the murder before anyone else and now tonight he might have been here before it happened.”
“But you don’t suspect him of killing her. He’s not like that.”
Cynthia turned on her. In the moonlight, her face was drawn. “That’s right; you read him. You know what he’s really like. You’re going to have to tell me, Cris. I need to know what he’s hiding.”
“Can’t.”
“Cris!”
“Look, I promised, okay? Besides, he wouldn’t kill her.”
“Prove it,” Cynthia said.
“I can’t. You’ll have to trust me.”
“I’m fresh out, Cris. Why are you siding with someone you met less than twenty-four hours ago against your flesh and blood?” Cynthia asked.
“I have my reasons,” Cris said turning away from Cynthia and following the tire tracks I’d left in the mud.
“And you’re certain he had nothing to do with these murders?”
“Other than trying to prevent them, just like you did last night?”
“Yes,” Cynthia said.
“Yes, I’m certain he had nothing to do with them,” Cris said. Cris stopped twenty or so feet from me and stared at the place my tracks ended. I avoided her eyes; for all I knew that damn ability of hers might even work through a glamour.
“All right. I won’t tell Abigail that you read Rafe, but damn it, Cris…”
“I understand.”
I wish I did, but understanding women has never been my strong suit.
“All right, wake Daniel. He can give us a ride to Abigail’s,” Cynthia said.
“You sure you want me to? I could get his keys out of his pocket and we could let him wake up after we’ve gone.”
“Now you’re just talking smart. You know you wouldn’t do that, Cris.”
“But it would be so well deserved,” Cris added.
“Wake him up.”
Cris walked back toward Daniel. She raised a hand toward him and muttered the reverse of her stasis spell.
Daniel jumped back a step as he saw the two women standing several feet to one side of where they’d been when he’d last seen them. “What the hell?”
&nbs
p; “Daniel, we’re through here. We need a ride downtown, are you able to drive?” Cris asked.
“Drive? I...weren’t you over there a moment ago?”
“Was I? Daniel, do you really want to know?” Cris asked.
The big man shook his head.
“I didn’t think so. Come on, Daniel, it’s time to go.”
The trio left the glade the way they came. When I heard car doors shut and an engine crank, I rode back across the meadow to the path they’d taken. There I stopped and considered the scene. The demon-disturbed ground would not point a finger at me, but the tire tracks were a bother. I summoned the wind once more and used it to erase my path across the field, then, considered and erased the footprints Cynthia, Cris, and Daniel had left. If the police came, they would find the crime scene undisturbed, or so it would appear. It was finer work than I usually attempt with wind but, in this case, it didn’t matter if I sandblasted a few trees. The police would have no more luck finding evidence at this scene than they had at Marian’s farm last night.
Finished, I pointed Beast toward downtown.
I drove past O’Brian’s. It was busy. Couples were coming and going from both the bar and the adjacent restaurant. I didn’t see Daniel’s car, but I gathered he wasn’t willing to associate with witches once he understood what they were.
Less than half a mile later I pulled Beast to the curb near where I’d first met Cynthia.
“Stay out of trouble,” I said and started toward the lake.
Beast rumbled subsonically causing a couple of pedestrians to shake their heads and glance around for the source of a sound they could barely hear.
I went to the shore and moved along it until I found a spot where trees shaded the water from the lights. I crouched in the shadows, the toes of my boots almost touching the water. I dipped an index finger beneath the surface and triggered a pulse of energy. A single ripple moved away from me, flying across the surface of the lake to reach the far shore in seconds.
I stood up and took a step back to lean against the nearest tree. I was tired, hurt, and confused. Why the second sacrifice? Hadn’t the mage been able to accomplish everything she needed with the first one? A single blood sacrifice of a human life provides more power than any demon should need in return for his services. Had the demon tricked this woman into making multiple sacrifices? Surely, she wasn’t that stupid. Witches that stupid usually didn’t survive their first demon summoning.
Wanderers: Ragnarök Page 17