Taint of Shadow

by Cassandra Moore

  Her skin tingled with energy.

  The moon touched the top of the sky but hadn’t reached the center.

  Paul’s eyes widened, and his gaze turned wild with disconcerted fear. But his chant did not falter as he called upon Todd in that strange, awful language. If he would break, he would break now, and even through the dizzy haze of energy, she prayed he would. Todd, who liked chocolate chips in his vanilla ice cream. Who helped Noah carry their couch up the stairs when he and Kayla moved in together.

  Todd answered, his voice clear if uncertain. The third jar flared red. His eyes did, too. Fur erupted in bloody clumps over his arms. Beneath it, muscles contorted, fighting to shift their shape to a form between the man and the angry beast. He snarled, caught in the primal rage.

  The hairs on her arms and neck stood on end.

  Closer, closer. The wolf inside her crouched, ready to spring.

  One quarter remained. Kiplinger almost shouted now, his words harsh and guttural. Behind her, Kayla heard Specter falter. “Fuck this shit,” he muttered under his breath. Her last hope turned on a coward in designer tennis shoes. Kiplinger’s head snapped around so he could stare, steel-eyed, at the vampire behind Kayla.

  Specter hesitated. Kiplinger glared. Specter’s courage found inspiration in certain death at the hands of an angry leader, and the ritual words poured out in a rush. The last jar flared to light and threw Kayla’s shadow on the ground in front of her. It mingled with the shadows of the others, warped into shapes that did not resemble the victims who threw them.

  As Paul chanted, louder now, strong, confident, the magical charge in the air built to a painful intensity. A shrill cry strangled and died in her throat. Bloody red light surrounded him, so bright and intense she felt her eyes sear in their sockets. Darkness, all she wanted was darkness, a life where she never again had to look upon the light.

  He brought his hands down. Power poured into her and raged, trapped without a conduit out. Her eyes rolled back into her head.

  The moon reached its peak.

  The wolf went berserk.

  Now, she could scream.

  Three

  Darkness came late in May. Stars speckled the sky long after young children had gone to bed as the summer sun reigned supreme and darkness retreated to wait for winter. People walked the streets, full of laughter, happy to shop in the diverse little stores that lined the sidewalks. The city loved summer, and it showed.

  By the time she arrived at Moon Blessings on the typically busy Tacoma avenue, the crowds had thinned and most stores had closed their doors. Inside the shop, the incense burners no longer smoked, though the scent still lingered in the air. The door wasn’t locked, but the neon Open sign had been turned off. A bell tinkled when she opened the door.

  The lights were still on. She didn’t remove her sunglasses.

  “We’re about to close, I’m afraid,” came a voice from behind one of the counters, friendly but firm. “We open back up at-”

  An older woman, crowned by a silver-shot mane of red hair, stood up, her words faltering as she stared at who had come in. A breathless pause caught in her throat, until at last she forced out one word. “Kayla?”

  “Hello, Moira. I guess I could come back tomorrow morning, when you’re open...”

  “Don’t you dare!” Moira laughed, a loud, boisterous sound that said just how happy this visit had made her. She rushed around the counter. “It’s been too long already, phone calls or not. Here, just a minute.”

  Kayla watched as her friend bustled to lock the door. Moira’s tiny metaphysical shop hadn’t changed at all over the years. How much time she’d spent here, Kayla didn’t know, but the distinct smell of the incense soothed her, brought her back to something a lot like home. A place of calm, rest. A spiritual haven where even her battered soul could find peace.

  Moira hadn’t changed much, either. She’d added a few more pounds, sported a few more gray hairs, but still had the same smiling Irish eyes and merry grin that Kayla had known for fifteen years. After the last year, this woman made her feel normal, sane.

  “How’s it been?” Kayla asked as the woman pulled the metal security grate down from the ceiling.

  “Bad. But all things considered, not as bad as it could have been.” The latch on the grate clicked into the floor. “Fights broke out between the fangs and the fur after it all hit the fan, and we nearly had open violence. Come along.”

  She followed the redhead into the back. “What stopped it?”

  Surplus incense, crystals, books, and other odd inventory items lined the metal shelves. Used to the clutter, the older woman wound her way through the stockroom to the back. “What else? Peter. He got with Vincenzo Pirelli in secret one night. When they came out of the meeting, Peter told the pack to back off, watch and wait. He had to take one challenge that night, and three the next full moon. No one was happy, but he’s the alpha, and eventually, everyone agreed that he had to have a reason. Especially after what happened to Regina.”

  “What happened to Regina.” Kayla’s voice was flat.

  Moira mistook it for a question. “That’s right. You wouldn’t know. Those wounds Kiplinger gave Regina before she escaped? They got worse after they found the ritual site you mentioned on the phone. Her cuts seeped blood for a week. The bruises looked positively unholy. Peter wanted to drive her up to Seattle to consult with their werewolf doctor, but Regina wouldn’t hear of it. She was too concerned about finding you.”

  So that was the story Regina had spun, when the ritual had resulted in unexpected side effects. Kayla had wondered how Regina had explained the consequences of her flirtation with dark magic. “I’ll just bet she was. So Pirelli convinced Peter to call off the attacks? Was Peter tampered with?”

  “I can say with confidence he wasn’t.” Moira reached up and pulled a rope to expose the attic’s access stairway. “They met here.”

  Kayla nodded. Moon Blessings was neutral ground, and Moira could guarantee a magical safe space. If they’d met here, the no-nonsense Irish woman would have made certain both sides played by the rules.

  It also spoke volumes for how bad the situation had gotten. Moira and the other magic slingers kept well out of the fray between fangs and fur. Tragedies during Tacoma’s past violence had driven the magical community to an enforced remove, on pain of action by the local magical leadership. That she’d let the vampires and werewolves come here to talk meant the situation had gotten very dire. “What did Pirelli say?”

  “You know I can’t tell you that.” They walked up the stairs to the furnished upper space. Comfortable armchairs with high backs and rugs in rich colors decorated the small sitting area nearest the hatch. Behind it sat neat piles of wooden chests and crates that dominated the rest of the attic. The good stuff, Moira called the contents of those boxes. The things she only sold to the paranormal community.

  Kayla grunted. “What can you tell me?”

  “That his argument convinced even me. The coterie at large had nothing to do with the attack.” She gestured for Kayla to sit.

  Instead, Kayla leaned over the back of the other chair, supported on her elbows. “That’s not much of a surprise to me. What about now?”

  “Tense. Very tense. Pirelli may have convinced Peter that his crew had nothing to do with it, but biters are biters, and barkers are barkers, and never the twain shall agree.” Moira shrugged. “The alpha hasn’t been open with the pack, so your friends are looking to bring someone down. Your alpha female is the loudest voice for it, against Peter’s wishes.”

  “And the vampires?”

  She snorted. “Doing what they do. They’re using the hostilities to push for an end to the truce, an end to the moratorium on new progeny, more troublemaking, the usual. It’s only Lord Pirelli and the alpha that are keeping things in line.”

  Kayla took a deep breath, conflicted but unable to stop the next question. “What about Noah?”

  “He misses you.” Moira’s answer was immediate. “H
e pushed for war harder than anyone, and almost got it, all by himself. He was the one who challenged Peter the night he met with Lord Pirelli.”

  It hit Kayla like a blow to the gut. He’d fought for her, tried to take on a city full of vampires. I shouldn’t have asked. Fuck. “I’m glad he didn’t win.”

  “Me, too. It would have been a free-for-all.” Moira stared at her, hard. “You’re going to see him, aren’t you? Kayla, you have to see him.”

  “I have to leave him out of it.” Kayla shook her head. “He doesn’t need to get involved with me again. Not now.”

  “Why not? He loves you.” Her old friend leaned forward. “You can’t come back here and not talk to him. That’s not right.”

  Warmth in the cold of her emotions hurt. He loves me. And that’s why he can’t know I’m here. Please, drop it. I don’t want to think about it. “It’s not right to take him where I have to go. He deserves a life and a future.”

  The redhead narrowed her eyes. “He won’t get either without you. Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

  “Into the abyss. Where they dragged me.”

  “You’re going to break the fight wide open, aren’t you?”

  Her hands clenched in front of her. “No. I’m going to cut a cancer out of this city before it kills anyone else.”

  Quiet stole over them, tense, full of unasked questions. “You can’t do this. It’s more than you. It’s the pack. The city. The people in it. Get Peter involved. Or Sonja Carter. They can talk to Pirelli--”

  “I have to do this. You don’t understand.”

  Temper flared in the Irish woman’s eyes. “You’re damn right, I don’t. You haven’t said a word to help me understand. Take off your glasses and look at me!”

  Angry, riled, Kayla ripped the glasses off her face.

  Moira gasped. The color drained from her face. “God in Heaven... What did they do to you?”

  “Made the monster they thought they wanted. They were wrong.” The light from the pair of lamps burned. Kayla squinted. “Bad enough that they did this to me, but they know how to do it to other people. They will do it to other people. I can’t allow that.”

  “What did they do? What happened that night?” Moira’s voice was gentle. “Please. Tell me. Let me try to help you.”

  Kayla shook her head. “I can’t. It would compromise your neutrality. I’ve already said too much.”

  She set her lips into a line. “Maybe it’s time I took a side.”

  “Whose side were you going to take? Biters? Wolves?”

  “Yours.”

  Friendship, concern, and affection all gleamed in Moira’s eyes. A year of hell had hardened Kayla’s heart, but under that look, it began to soften. More than she ever had, she wanted to kneel down, put her head in the older woman’s lap, and cry like a heartbroken child. Help me. Fix me. I’m so tired of the cold. I’m afraid of the dark.

  But she couldn’t. Not yet. Maybe not ever. “I don’t know if you can help, Moira. Not unless you have an industrial-strength cleansing ritual to purge magics I can’t begin to understand. Maybe one that comes with one of those cute animal-headed bath scrubbers.”

  Moira’s chuckle contained no humor. “I wish I did. Peter talked me into visiting the spot the ritual took place. What happened there was so foul, so powerful, I’ve never seen anything like it. I intended to cleanse the land. Instead, I threw away the shoes I wore there because I couldn’t even cleanse them.”

  Even though Kayla hadn’t bothered to raise her hopes, she still felt them sink. “That’s what I thought. None of the other witches know how, either, I take it.”

  “No. I’ve written to some I know in other countries, but they’re stumped. One old friend suggested a reverent, if we could find one, but it’s been a young forever since I’ve even heard of one.”

  Kayla raised an eyebrow. “A reverend? Like a priest?”

  “Reverent. With a T. But close.” Moira made a triangle out of her thumbs and index fingers. “You know the main paranormal triad.”

  “Yes. Vampires, werewolves, and witches.”

  “A very long time ago, it wasn’t a triad. It was a tetrad. The reverent were the fourth leg. Each piece of that tetrad drew their energy from different sources.” Moira shifted the positions of her fingers so they formed a square instead.

  In all the time Kayla had spent learning from Moira, this topic had never come up. “How do you mean?”

  “Vampires draw their energy from others, specifically in the form of blood.” Moira’s hands dropped into her lap. “Werewolves draw their energy from more nature-based sources. The moon. The land. Their inner beasts. Witches pull energy from the ley line energies inherent in the world. Which is why werewolves can’t be undead, vampires can’t use magic, and so on. You’re pretty close to breaking one of those rules in ways I don’t understand yet.”

  “And the reverent?”

  “Faith. The divine. The reverent draw their energies from the light.”

  Kayla’s brow furrowed. “Is that even possible?”

  Moira gazed heavenward. “The woman with glowing purple eyes who ends up howling at the moon once a month asks me if something is possible.”

  Kayla coughed. For the first time in a year, she felt like her old self, as Moira’s affectionate but pointed commentary skewered her. “All right. That was a dumb question. But how does it work?”

  “Better question.” Moira spread her hands. “Not one I have an answer to, either. I was never a very devout person. My belief is in myself, and my own abilities. Whether or not I believe in a supreme being, or beings, I don’t have enough faith to implore them to do miracles at my behest. The light doesn’t do anything but keep me from falling down the stairs. And there aren’t any reverent around for me to ask.”

  “Why not?”

  “The practice died out a long time ago. There are myths and stories about why, but the truth is, no one knows. All that knowledge is lost.” Moira’s tone turned didactic, as it always did. “We do know that at about the same time, diabolism and the appearances of demons fell off to near nothing. Correlation doesn’t necessarily equal causation, but when your demons disappear at the same time faith-based magics die off, you wonder if there isn’t a natural connection. Anyway, I haven’t ever seen a verified reverent. Just one I suspected, and I never saw him again.”

  No wonder Kayla had never heard of the practice. It didn’t exist anymore. “Can I ask a totally irreverent question?”

  Moira made a face. “Only if you don’t abuse the language for puns like that one.”

  Kayla smirked. “No promises. So, if the slang for werewolves is barkers, and vampires are biters, and witches are energy slingers, what are the reverent?”

  “Smiters.” Moira made a gesture like a lightning bolt. “Barkers, biters, slingers, and smiters.”

  Kayla snorted a short laugh. “I guess I should have seen that one coming. It even rhymes.”

  “The paranormal community always strives for style. The truth of it is, Kayla, there are old, lost ways in each of the legs of that tetrad. Practices we’ve just got legends or rumors about. Stories we’ve dismissed as fanciful. Shapeshifters who call to other animals than wolves, each with their own strengths. Dead folks without fangs who don’t prefer blood. There’s some of those old tales I wish like hell were true, right now, because they could tell me how to help you.”

  Silence descended. Before the ritual, when Kayla’s life had shifted on its axis to look on a darker face of life, she would have asked another question. Learned more. Asked Moira if she wanted to grab a cup of coffee, or come back to the apartment for supper. Except now, Kayla had no apartment to go back to. No kitchen to cook in. Nothing to offer an old friend who wanted so much to help.

  Instead, Kayla put her glasses back on her face. “Thanks, Moira. Do you know where Paul Kiplinger is?”

  “I’d be a rich woman if I knew that. Vincenzo Pirelli has put money on his head. He’s a wanted man in this ci
ty.”

  She clenched her teeth. “Miles and Mason Bristol still in town?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know where they are, either. But...” She held up a hand to forestall Kayla’s frown. “...I do know where DJ Specter is playing tonight. Everyone knows who he belongs to, no matter what he says.”

  “Do you suppose he’ll tell me?”

  “That’ll depend on how you ask, I think. He’s playing that dive club where the Rusty Nail used to be.”

  Goal in sight, Kayla straightened. The worry in her friend’s eyes was almost enough to undo her, but it was too hard to forget the sobs of an innocent woman, or the sound of a heart as it dropped into a jar. Or the lost lives – hers, that woman’s, every one of Kiplinger’s other victims’. “Do you have any stakes?”

  For a moment, Moira looked old. Laugh lines around her eyes seemed to deepen. The wrinkles from a million smiles became traces of twice as many frowns. “I don’t ever want to get caught between the fangs and the fur,” she’d said once over glasses of iced tea. “I’ve been there. Before Peter. Each side tries to play off the witches to get to the other. No, better that I stay out of it. Besides, what happens to a fly between the swatter and the wall?”

  And now Kayla asked her to violate that rule. Briefly, she felt guilty, even as she knew that the rivalry had taken a more sinister turn. Moira would not be safe from Kiplinger’s crew. No one would be.

  The redhead stood and walked to a wooden crate. She lifted the lid to reveal a collection of sharp wooden stakes. “They’re enchanted,” she told Kayla. “Take as many as you need. I started stocking them last year. Just in case.”

  She moved across the room and picked out half a dozen of the pointed rods. “Thanks, Moira.”

  “I have plenty if you need more.” Green eyes fixed on her. “Revenge doesn’t just hurt the people on the receiving end.”