Circle of the Moon (Soulwood #4)

Tandy asked, “What would it mean if the witch who is working the Circle of the Moon is using a Blood Tarot deck?”

Rick made a small sound and closed his eyes. One hand massaged his tattooed shoulder as if reliving the pain. I looked away. It was impossible to watch.

T. Laine tapped the table with a fingernail. Quietly, she said, “Nothing about Blood Tarot would be good. But that would explain why the calling on Rick is so specific and so powerful. He was tattooed with a tarot working. With a Blood Tarot, a witch could probably easily cast a curse, maybe something worse, maybe several somethings all at once. That would explain why the local coven has run like scared cats. Pardon the pun.”

“What about …” I stopped, knowing I was drawing on church scary-tales from when I was a child. “Someone mentioned a demon? Summoning a demon?”

T. Laine’s forehead wrinkled into horizontal lines and her lips pursed as she thought. “We read the circles with the psy-meter 2.0. We got one and four. So far as we know, no one has ever actually read a demon with the updated psy-meter model—only the space a trapped demon occupied before he was banished. We don’t know what a new psy-meter reading would show. Maybe it’s a one and four. Maybe not.”

The churchwoman in me shivered. “According to Spook School gossip, PsyLED’s got a demon in a containment vessel.”

T. Laine swiveled her head to Rick. “I heard that too. Some say that Rick LaFleur was in school when the demon was called. And was part of the crew who captured it.”

I had heard gossip about my boss at Spook School. I’d also heard about the demon that had been summoned on school grounds and had been fed students as dinner and sacrifice. It was redacted in his sleeve. No one here had mentioned it and so I had thought it was rumor.

Rick pinched the bridge of his nose with finger and thumb and laughed, a cynical, injured, grieved sound that spoke of old wounds that still bled, though the roughness of his voice had eased. He dropped his hand. “Yeah. I was involved. But I only saw it feeding, and this looks nothing like that. I was also there when the demon was contained. But that’s it. And this is not then.”

“Can the psy-meter 2.0 read a demon through a containment vessel?” I asked.

“Not that I’ve ever heard,” Rick said.

T. Laine shook her head, her eyes on Rick. “I’ve never heard either. There’s only one person might know the answer to that. Soul. She was a teacher at Spook School when you were there. Her meeting you is the reason she left teaching and went back to fieldwork. And before you say it, no. I am not going to talk to her about a demon. That’s your job,” she said to Rick.

We had watched Rick as we discussed the possibilities directly involving his past and present. He looked despondent. Grief stricken. But he wasn’t totally down and out. His voice heavy and coarse, he said, “I didn’t know much about … tarot when I was inked, but I researched after I got free. I think the cards Loriann used were ancient. Something special. If Loriann used a Blood Tarot deck on me,” he said, addressing the pink elephant in the room, “and if the witch calling and cursing me now is using a Blood Tarot deck …”

He fell silent for several breaths and the lines in his face deepened, dark grooves of pain. He stared at his hands as if they contained all the wisdom he needed in life but he couldn’t reach it without cutting them off. “Because the decks are so rare,” he said, his voice gravelly and hoarse, “then it’s possible, even likely, that it’s the same deck used on me when I was inked.” He looked up from his hands, to each of us around the table, and back down. “Loriann knows more than she’s telling us. Which means she’s hiding information necessary to a law enforcement investigation. Even before I knew all this, I’d spoken to Soul and FireWind. We got our warrant. When Loriann arrives, she’ll be stripped of all her amulets.”

T. Laine’s head came up. “And how do you want that accomplished?”

“When she gets here, she’ll be taken into the null room,” Rick said. “I’ll be waiting for her there. If she wants to work with us, she’ll agree to having her bags and her person searched. She’ll answer our questions with full transparency.”

“But why the null room?” T. Laine asked.

Rick said, “I want her in a position where she can’t use magic of any kind. And I want to make sure that anyone who is tracking her can’t find her.”

“You think she’s being monitored? Tracked magically?” Tandy’s mouth opened in a faint O. “You think she’s the witch cursing you?”

“Not Lori. But I have a guess. No evidence to back it up.” Rick didn’t look up from his hands, grief and resolution warring on his face. “If I’m right, I want to make sure that witch can’t hear us.”

Ruminating, I said softly, “You forgave Loriann for inking you. For spelling you. You got her a job in law enforcement. But … The witch trait runs in families, an X-linked genetic trait. Her grandmother, who was killed by the vampire, was a witch. And another family member was being forcibly drank from by the vampire. Who was that? You never said.”

T. Laine had placed her moonstone bear amulet on the table and was watching Rick with an active seeing working. Occam was leaning forward, his body tense, as if he was about to leap into battle over territory. Something was happening and I didn’t understand.

Rick’s hands tensed tight, forming fists. He was staring at them as if he was afraid they’d be stolen if he looked away. He took shallow breaths and finally managed, “Isleen killed Loriann’s witch grandmother.”

Leaning forward, reaching out a hand to Rick, I said, “You think Loriann’s sister is the witch cursing you. She’s here in Knoxville. Loriann’s sister is targeting you?”

“Not her sister,” Rick said, choking. “Her … her brother, Jason.”

“Brother,” I whispered. A brother, who, if he had magic, was a sorcerer. Things began to fall into place, as if shattered crystal tinkled to the conference room table before me. Gently, I asked, “Loriann had a brother who was kidnapped and drank from by a vampire as a child? Abused by an insane vamp?” Vamp blood and saliva did sexual things to the person being drained. “The boy was physically and sexually abused?”

Rick didn’t look up from his hands. They were fisted so tight they looked bloodless.

“Boy witches grow up fighting cancer all their lives.”

“Nell,” Tandy said, the word sounding like a warning.

I held up a hand at him, stopping him. “The homeless thief at the Pilot gas station, the one who disappeared behind the Walmart, near the circle we found, looked sick. The person who bought the white rats wasn’t a skinny female under a glamour, wasn’t Loriann herself, or someone she was working with, but was a very skinny, possibly sick, teenaged boy. He was Jason, wasn’t he?” I studied Rick, his pale skin, the deep lines in his face, his silver hair. His pain. Why hadn’t he told us? Asked us to look into this possibility?

Rick put a hand to his throat. “It didn’t occur to me … until Loriann showed up. But yes. Possibly.”

“And Loriann possibly inked you with a Blood Tarot?” T. Laine asked.

“Her grandmother was the owner of a very old, very special deck of tarot, used in my inking, in the spell Loriann cast to try to bind me to Isleen.”

I said, “Clementine. Stop recording.” The mic like went off. “Boss, I know you have a right to privacy, but if we had known about the brother, we could have raided the homeless tent camp the night I found the circle and maybe caught him.”

“Yes.” The word was rough, full of regret and pain. He rubbed his shoulder as if it ached. “Yes. I know. I should have told everyone. But … I—” His words stopped as if cut by a knife.

“Son of a witch on a switch,” T. Laine cursed. “That’s what I’m seeing. Loriann included a nondisclosure spell in your inking.”

Rick’s whole body tightened. “Is that what this is?” He gripped his shoulder. “I thought it was PTSD … a heart attack. That’s the reason my chest and shoulder and arm ache when I try to talk about it?”

“Coercion spell,” Occam said, “keeping you from understanding or speaking about it.”

“Witch bitch,” T. Laine said, her own face hard and cold.

Rick’s eyes went wide and greenish as he considered the effects of this revelation on his security clearance and his future in law enforcement. “That’s why you shut down Clementine,” he said, his voice easier.

“Yes. Oh,” I said, as something occurred to me. “That was why you weren’t spell-called the night I was behind Walmart. The witch was still setting it up. He heard me arrive and he grabbed what he could and took off. If he had stayed around and seen you—” I stopped.

Rick nodded, the motion jerky, sending silver-black strands flying.

“A coven of two is better than none,” I quoted. “She was talking about her brother and her. Loriann taught him all she knew about spell casting and he refined it. Now he’s coming for you. Why?”