Kyle’s heart pounded as he followed Amanda around the house. In every direction, they could see someone standing or sitting next to the fence. A van and an SUV were outside the front gate, parked in the grass on either side of the driveway. So far, they weren’t blocking access to the property.
Amanda ran downstairs and locked all the doors.
“Are they coming onto the property?” Kyle asked, panic in his voice. It would figure that right when things were starting to look good for the exorcism, the Pack was going to interfere again.
“Not yet,” Amanda answered. “I would feel it if any of them penetrated the ward.”
After rushing to lock the doors and windows, they had ended up in the kitchen by unspoken agreement.
Kyle eyed the knife block, but he hoped they wouldn’t get close enough for him to need a knife. “Do you have a gun somewhere?” he asked. “And maybe some silver bullets?” he added jokingly.
Amanda nodded absently. “There’s a shotgun. We’re fresh out of silver bullets, but double-ought buckshot should slow them down.” She was silent for a moment, and then shook her head. “I can’t figure out why they’re here.”
“Well, the Order sent you onto Foundation property to retrieve Sherry and me. Maybe this is their idea of payback.”
“I don’t think so. The Pack has never been particularly vindictive in the past. Something else is going on. The car crash, kidnapping you, and now this all add up to something important. Something that makes them willing to take big risks.”
Kyle shrugged. “Maybe they’re afraid you’ll succeed tonight.”
Amanda stared at him. “They haven’t been worried about that up to now.”
“That’s true. But everything changed when—”
“When we went to get the skull,” she finished for him.
“You now have what it takes,” Kyle concluded.
They both jumped at the sound of car engines roaring up the driveway. Was the Pack making its move? Amanda leaped for the broom closet and withdrew a shotgun that was hidden at the back. She pumped it once to chamber a shell and ran for the front door. Kyle grabbed a big knife from the block and followed her.
Some of the people pouring from the three vehicles in the driveway were familiar. Noreen and Jonathan exited the lead car and strode toward the screen door while others took up positions around the house. The cars were parked in a semi-circle centered on the front door, much like circled wagons in the Old West.
Amanda set the safety on the shotgun and leaned it next to the door. Kyle took the hint and put the kitchen knife down on an end table. Turning the doorknob, Amanda barely had time to open the door and step out of the way before Noreen breezed in with Jonathan on her heels.
“Lucille warned us of the siege,” Noreen said. “What is your current status?”
“Status? We have nothing to report yet. We just found out about the Pack being here. How did you manage to assemble a team and get here so quickly?”
Noreen frowned at Kyle. He got the impression that she wanted him to leave so she could talk privately with Amanda, but there was no way he was missing this. Pressing her lips together, she turned back to Amanda.
“Your little project has attracted a lot of attention over the past week. The director has taken notice.” She mentioned the director’s interest as if it were not necessarily a good thing. Judging by the way Amanda’s face went pale, Kyle guessed she was concerned as well. “The teams were already assigned and on alert when our observers warned us the Pack was mobilizing.”
“What’s the plan?” Amanda asked.
Noreen folded her arms. “The plan is to help you complete the exorcism. If you are unsuccessful, our job is to contain the danger and see that the demon is returned to its kind.” The finality of her tone showed that she anticipated no other result.
Amanda’s face tensed in annoyance. She leaned forward. “And if I succeed?”
Noreen’s shrug, clearly discounting the possibility of a successful conclusion, infuriated Kyle. “We will make sure that the Pack does not attempt some kind of retribution on you or the victim.”
Kyle was starting to feel like some kind of lab rat. To Noreen, he wasn’t a person with real feelings and a real name who was standing right in front of her; she had demoted him to “the victim.”
Amanda narrowed her eyes at her coven leader. “You said the plan was to help me complete the exorcism. What kind of help are you talking about? Are you summoning the entire coven?”
Jonathan interrupted by throwing up his hands in exasperation. “That’s exactly what I suggested.”
Noreen waved a hand in dismissal at Jonathan and continued to address Amanda. “Absolutely not. I will not put the entire coven at risk. I can protect myself well enough, and you have chosen to ignore the danger.”
Seething, Kyle couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “How can you stand this?” he asked Amanda. “Can’t you join a different coven with a more reasonable leader?”
Noreen folded her arms and raised her eyebrows, watching Amanda with a bemused expression and waiting for her answer.
Amanda took a deep breath and blew it out. “Kyle, please stay out of this. I don’t have time to explain. Just be glad we’ll have Noreen’s help.”
Chastised, Kyle frowned and tried to temper his dislike for the arrogant older witch. Amanda was right. Any help was probably better than no help.
Jonathan started toward the kitchen. “You got anything to eat in this place?”
With the brittle moment behind them, Noreen pushed between Kyle and Amanda on her way toward the stairs. “We’ve wasted enough time. If I’m going to help, I need to understand what we’ll be doing tonight. Show me your research and the exorcism you’ve crafted. I’m sure I can find ways to improve it.”
Kyle turned an incredulous expression toward Amanda. How could she work with this woman?
Amanda shrugged apologetically. “I know she’s a pain in the ass, but believe it or not, she’s worth it.”
“I heard that,” Noreen called in a singsong voice as she ascended the stairs.
Kyle rolled his eyes and Amanda put a placating hand on his shoulder. “Trust me,” she said, her hazel eyes staring into his.
He nodded his head and sighed. “I do. You know I do.”
Chapter 18
Bad Moon Rising
Kyle spent most of the afternoon downstairs with Jonathan, who was responsible for coordinating the hunters on the farm grounds. The older man brought in a radio unit and set it up on the big table in the dining room. All of the hunters wore ear pieces and checked in regularly. It was like being surrounded by the Secret Service.
Nothing much happened for most of the day. Pack members moved around the perimeter, appearing and disappearing at various points along the fence, sometimes in human form, sometimes as wolves. It kept the hunters on their toes, but the Pack seemed content to watch the farm from the outside.
Kyle had the disturbing feeling that the Pack was waiting for night to fall or for some other signal to attack. He moved Amanda’s shotgun from the front door to the dining room so it would be closer at hand. Jonathan seemed amused by his caution.
Noticing Jonathan’s smile, Kyle asked, “What? You don’t think it will do any good?”
“Sure it will. You probably won’t kill any of them unless you put the barrel right up against their head, but it will definitely keep them back. It’s just that I doubt you’ll need it with all the support we have outside.”
Kyle had remained quiet for most of the day, lost in his own thoughts and trying not to interfere with Jonathan. The man initiated a few friendly conversations about their shared passion for sailing, but the distraction was only partly successful.
Kyle’s anxiety increased as the afternoon wore on. Amanda and Noreen thumped around up in the moon shrine preparing for the evening’s activity. All of the werewolves disappeared for a short while and then returned, putting Kyle and Jonathan’s entire team on edge. Since the
n, things had calmed down, but Kyle continually had to remind himself to breathe and unclench his hands. He decided to try distracting himself with conversation again.
“May I ask a few questions about the Order?” he ventured.
Jonathan turned away from the radio set and leaned back in his seat. “Go ahead.”
“I’m confused about how it all fits together. Amanda is part of a coven, but she’s also a hunter. There’s a director somewhere, but most of the action seems to be coordinated by team leaders like you. Is the Order some kind of military organization?”
“Not exactly. Most of us have normal private lives, but we’ve pledged to protect humanity from rogue paranormals.”
“Like the werewolves?”
“Truthfully, the werewolves rarely cause trouble. They contribute to the community and keep a low profile.” He motioned toward the window. “What we’ve been seeing lately is unusual. If they hadn’t alarmed the director by kidnapping you, we wouldn’t have been prepared to respond today.”
Kyle estimated that the Order had at least eight hunters on the farm. It was hard to imagine all of those people having lives that they could drop whenever the Order called. “So the director gives the orders and all of the hunters report to him or her?”
Jonathan chuckled and shook his head. “Not quite. Few of us meet with the director. He works through master hunters. The master hunters manage the crisis teams, each of which is led by a journeyman hunter. The team members are mostly apprentice hunters and a few journeymen mentors.”
“That makes you a journeyman hunter,” Kyle surmised, and Jonathan nodded. “Where does Noreen’s coven fit into the order?”
“It doesn’t, at least not directly. Noreen and Amanda are the only hunters in their coven. The other three witches know about the Order but haven’t chosen to take the hunter pledge. That’s partly why Noreen doesn’t want them involved here tonight.”
“As the leader of the team, couldn’t you force the issue?”
Jonathan laughed. “Setting aside the difficulty of getting Noreen to do anything she doesn’t want to do, there’s the problem of her outranking me. Noreen is a master hunter. My authority extends only to the tactical team outside. She leads the transcendental team, which is only her and Amanda at the moment.”
It reminded Kyle of how the project teams were sometimes organized at his former employer. Programmers reported to their managers in the information technology group, but they were occasionally teamed up with business analysts from other departments for the duration of a specific project. A project manager usually led these intra-departmental teams. Kyle explained what he was thinking to Jonathan.
The blond sailor pursed his lips and nodded. “That’s fairly accurate. Our crisis teams combine members from all three disciplines and we select a primary leader based on who has the most relevant experience. Noreen is in charge of this conflict because it falls under her area of expertise.”
Jonathan turned back to the radio to ask for an update from the hunters posted outside. The consensus was that nothing had changed.
The dining-room window gave Kyle a view of the front gate. The meadow between the gate and the house was turning golden from the sun sinking lower in the sky.
Only one vehicle was parked outside the gate now. A man stood leaning against the front of the car with his arms and legs crossed. He wore a cowboy hat and a long-sleeved shirt. To passers-by, he probably looked like a rancher kicking back for a rest before going back to work on his fence. “How many of them are out there?” he asked Jonathan.
“They keep moving and shifting, so we can’t tell for sure. We know that eight live in this area, and I’m betting every one of them is here.”
Kyle almost asked him if the eight included him, since Clarissa’s demon had become his demon, but he didn’t want to have that conversation.
Footsteps thumping down the creaky stairs announced Amanda’s arrival. She was dressed in her dark-blue kimono again and looked breathtaking. “We’re ready for you, Kyle. We went over the timing of the spell, and decided that we’d better get started soon.”
Kyle’s heart seemed to stop for a moment, and then it pounded in his chest. When he stood, his knees nearly gave out and Jonathan grabbed Kyle’s arm to steady him. Amanda came forward and took his other arm, nodding to Jonathan that he could let go.
As Amanda led Kyle to the stairs, they exchanged a long glance. Although she spoke no words, her eyes and face said plenty. Her wide eyes spoke of excitement mixed with fear. Her tight smile was meant to be reassuring, but it also admitted to the danger of what they were about to do. She would do her best, but there was no guarantee that she would succeed.
The moon shrine might as well have been called a sun shrine, Kyle thought when he entered. The setting sun bathed the space in warm color, making everything in the room seem mundane and rustic. Sunlight emphasized every speck of dust and overwhelmed the sparkle of the various gems and glass objects around the room. The dark and mysterious atmosphere imparted by the stars and moon was washed away in a haze of golden light.
Shocked by the change in ambiance, Kyle stopped just inside the doorway.
Amanda twisted her lip up in a half-smile. “The room feels pretty ordinary in daylight, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. How strange.”
“Amanda, come here for a minute,” Noreen called to her. Amanda joined her at the concrete pad, where Noreen pointed and talked in a hushed voice about where they would place the tools needed for the exorcism.
A glint on the altar caught his eye. It was the bone-handled knife Amanda used to cut up herbs and other ingredients for her magical workings. He had intended to grab a knife from the kitchen in preparation for his backup plan, but in all the excitement, he’d forgotten. Lifting his feet carefully, he sidled over to the altar. Two small piles of leaves sat on the cutting board next to the wickedly curved, six-inch blade. Kyle guessed that she was done with it since the blade had been wiped clean and Amanda had said they were ready for him.
He reached out and plucked the knife from the altar, cupping his fingers around the end of the hilt so the blade was held against the back of his forearm. Hoping that Amanda wouldn’t notice it was missing, he took a step away from the altar a moment before the two women turned to face him.
Amanda smiled and motioned for him to come over to the circle. “Have a seat, Kyle. We’re ready to start the purification ceremony.”
Kyle took a roundabout course to the chair so he could keep the knife hidden. Both witches apparently thought he’d chosen his path to avoid going near Noreen. Amanda rolled her eyes and Noreen huffed impatiently.
Once seated in the chair, it was easy for him to conceal the knife between his arm and his leg. He had a moment of panic when Amanda went to the altar to sweep the chopped herbs into a small bowl, but she didn’t seem to notice his theft.
A moment later Amanda was in the circle with him, putting the bowl down next to his chair. “You know the drill,” she said. “We won’t be able to talk once I get started. Is there anything you want to say or ask right now?”
Kyle gave her a wry grin. “Are you asking me for last words? You make this sound like an execution.” The disturbed look that came over her face made him regret that he’d teased her. “Sorry. Bad joke. Thank you for doing all this.”
Amanda leaned forward and surprised him by kissing him on the lips. “Good luck to both of us,” she said as she pulled away.
Kyle hadn’t been prepared for the brief kiss. His lips tingled and his heart swelled in a way that made him want to stand and take her into his arms for another try. But Noreen’s disapproving frown and narrow-eyed glare kept him pinned to his chair.
Amanda prepared for the exorcism using the same purification ritual he’d seen her perform before. She banished the dark spirits using her new crucible, purified the circle with holy water, and raised a protective column of air around them with her feather fan.
While she worked, Kyle felt
the demon stirring in the recesses of his mind. Amanda’s ritual was putting pressure on him as it had before, and the demon was reacting.
To make matters worse, Noreen was positioned outside the circle directly in front of him. She watched his every move and change of expression, looking ready to strike him dead should she decide it was the right course of action.
When Amanda called upon the earth spirits, the chest-constricting boom that followed made Kyle sway in his chair and nearly pass out. He shook his head to break out of the swoon and took deep breaths while he tried to focus his eyes. He knew instinctively that it would be fatal to lose consciousness with the demon clawing at his mind for control over his body.
And this was just the purification ceremony! He began to wonder how he could possibly keep the demon at bay through the exorcism.
For the final step of the purification, Amanda stood in front of him with her back to him. It was a much better view than staring into Noreen’s angry eyes. Kyle tried not to stare at the way Amanda’s silky outfit draped over her shapely bottom, but then decided that he didn’t care. Hers might be the last he would ever see.
Noreen took over for Amanda when it was time to call the fire spirits. It was the first time Kyle had heard Noreen put a respectful tone into her strong voice. When the spirits responded, all four of the candles around the circle flared up like gas-powered jets for several seconds. Amanda stepped back from the candle in front of her, nearly stumbling on Kyle’s feet. He quickly moved the knife to the side of his leg in case she accidentally fell into his lap. He was mildly disappointed when she regained her balance.
Noreen’s contribution seemed to do much more than make the candles go wild. The protective column of air had become so strong that its shimmering obscured the details of the room. For the first time, Kyle felt something other than confidence and hunger from the demon. It became silent and watchful, even as it continued its assault on his will.
First Moon (The Ternion Order Book 1) Page 23