Circle of the Moon (Soulwood #4)

Rick said, “Clementine, record.” He gave a list of the agetns present and then said, “Occam, report.”

“At some point, Nell should talk to Ming of Glass in person, since I can’t get past the human security team without Maggot.” He grinned at me, teasing. I tried an eye roll and wasn’t sure how successful I was. It wasn’t a gesture I’d grown up making, since it showed a lack of respect. He went on. “For now, the humans at her compound say that Ming and her fangheads did not leave their lair yesterday or last night. After the attack at her council chambers I tend to believe them. Ming’s had all the locals locked down tighter than a drum, to keep them safe.

“We do have an update on the van used in the kidnapping. Local sheriff’s deputies—who are going to be calling us personally in future with anything paranormal related—found the van in a drugstore parking lot between Kingston Pike and Old Kingston Pike. They found Raynay Blalock’s sneakers in it. It was a bloody mess and it’ll take time to process all the blood spatter.

“One of the local ‘humans only’ hate groups has promised lethal retribution to the local vamps. Other right-wing wack-job hate groups are joining in. It ain’t pretty. Seems Detective Hamm—former detective Hamm—was a member in good standing with one. His face was plastered all over social media today, attending a meeting. It cost him his job.”

“We’ll send flowers,” T. Laine muttered.

I raised my hand, more to get attention than to ask permission to speak. “Ming of Glass has people looking for Godefroi de Bouillon.” I stumbled over the foreign pronunciation. “His humans could be, possibly, the ones who took the Blalock girl. A source identified that the people who took the Blalock girl smelled like Ming’s enemies,” I said, speaking of Yummy’s reading of the abduction site. “I’ve texted Ming’s security, requesting that they send us all the info they acquire on invading vampires and the location of their lair when and if they discover it. I told Yummy that if the local vamps take out the attacking European vampires, it will be the word of one vampire trying to convince the public that the bad guy is down, but that if SWAT and PsyLED take them down, it will be believable. I haven’t heard back.”

“Good move, Ingram,” Rick said. “Let’s hope Ming agrees. Jones, Kent, bring us up to date on the circles and Loriann Ethier. What did you find?”

JoJo said, “Circles first. Nothing on the photos. Once I got them big enough to see small things they were too pixilated. But when Lainie went back to the most recent circle”—Jo’s lips widened into a grin that somehow said gotcha—“she found something.”

T. Laine leaned in and took over. “Kent here. The storm that came through was spotty and didn’t affect it, and the dry weather is good for preserving evidence. There are … let’s call them slits in the soil, narrow, hair-thin slots or slashes beside every single rune, so small they aren’t visible without getting on my knees, my nose a foot from the soil. I stepped on some doing the workups, but most are still there. The slits are uniform in size, and in the same placement in regard to the runes. I’m theorizing that they held something the witch took from the circles when she left, something more important than the focals and runes in the circle.”

“Which leads us to Loriann,” Rick said, sounding grim.

“I took Loriann to one of the circles,” T. Laine said, “without telling her about the slits. And she got on her knees. She was looking for the slits. She’s paler than a vamp to start with, but she visibly paled when she saw them. And then she acted as if nothing was there. Said not one word about them.”

“So, she knows more than she’s saying,” I said.

“Correctamundo,” Tandy said. He glanced up at me. “Old, out-of-date slang for ‘that’s a big yes’.” To the group he continued, “After T. Laine let her off at her hotel, Loriann drove to three other sites, locations listed on the sheriff’s reports. And then she went to the medical examiner’s office and had a long discussion with the forensic pathologist who was working up Blalock’s body. She asked some very pointed questions, and the main one was, ‘Were the vamps who attacked the Blalock girl feeding responsibly or in a feeding frenzy?’ She explained the difference to the ME and even provided photos of a victim dead from a feeding frenzy.”

“Photos we did not have in our database,” JoJo said, “until the ME sent them to us. It’s pretty graphic. On screen three.” She punched a button and a photo of a body appeared on the screen. It had been ripped to shreds, almost as if the body had been attacked by wild animals. But his face looked peaceful and happy. Vamps could mesmerize. Vamp saliva took pain away.

“Did the Blalock girl’s face look so peaceful?” I asked.

“Yeah. But her body wasn’t torn to ribbons, just well bitten,” JoJo said, her voice hard.

Rick brought it all together for us. “Early on, we knew that vampires were being called to the circles at some point in the working. It seems that Loriann drew that same conclusion, but based on the slits in the soil, instead of a maggoty feeling.” He looked at me and took a slow breath. The lines in his face grooved deep, as if carved by a steel chisel. “The spell Loriann used to ink me …” He stopped, as if saying the words hurt. “The spell—” His words cut off. When he tried to speak again, his voice was raspy, and pained.

Occam sniffed as if there was something wrong with Rick’s scent. Tandy watched them both, his face lined with worry and what I thought was compassion.

Rick swallowed painfully and went on, his voice harsh. “The spell relied heavily on the presence of a special deck of tarot. One that had been in her family for generations. It’s possible that it was an original Blood Tarot deck.” Rick looked down at his hands, which were folded on the table, fingers laced together.

“Blood Tarot?” I asked. “What’s that?”

“Halfway mythical decks created with blood sacrifices and black magic, the ink in the drawings made with the blood of witches, were-creatures, humans, and vampires, long before the general public knew that paras existed,” T. Laine said. “Among witches there’s oral history about the tarot decks, claiming the cards contain long-forgotten workings and spells and curses in the artwork. In this century, covens have been searching for old magical relics, icons, and amulets, along with any remaining Blood Tarot decks.”

“Why remaining?” I asked. “Were they destroyed?”

“There were claims that the decks had been confiscated in the Inquisition and used by Grand Inquisitor Tomás de Torquemada, to lead his assault against Jews, Muslims, witches, pagans, were-creatures, and other paranormals and ethnicities.”

“And anyone who owned property he could confiscate in the name of the Roman Catholic Church,” I said. T. Laine looked surprised. “I know my church history, especially the evils done in the name of God.” God’s Cloud of Glory Church had been eager to share with its conservative congregation the “evils” of other religions, without looking at the sins perpetrated by its own members and lifestyles. I frowned. “The leader of the Inquisition used black magic to track down light-magic users? That sounds like fighting a campfire with a wildfire.”

“The oral histories suggest he was using magical amulets and other items, yes, and that most of the items he confiscated are still stored in the Vatican,” T. Laine said. “It’s also suggested that the apparent psychopathy he presented was demon based.”

I thought about the summoning part of the witch circles. “A witch summoned a demon?”

“No one really knows except the Vatican, but we know he tortured witches and there are reports that sound as if he got his claws into some vampires and were-creatures too. And he got their estates. Ergo, he got magical grimoires and amulets and blood from paras.” She punched a button on her laptop and said, “And there are some reports that suggest he became a vamp himself.”

I frowned, pulling up a Wikipedia entry and memories gained by the education provided by the church. Thomas Torquemada had been a Castilian Dominican friar, and the first grand inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition, established in 1478 by Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic monarchs of Castile. Thomas had started out a perfectly normal priest of his time but quickly developed a psychopathology that was deeply steeped in torture and death. Because his methods had enriched the Catholic church and the ruling monarchs of Europe, the church itself had embraced the cruelty and barbarism. If Thomas had been using magic and had taken vampire blood, then he might even still be alive.

T. Laine looked up from her tablet and said, “I’ve done a search on Blood Tarot decks. I’ll have to talk to some coven leaders to affirm it, but a few histories indicate that three of the decks still survive.”