Circle of the Moon (Soulwood #4)

I remembered Rick saying that part and added, “Pulling over, securing his weapon, and then his cat taking the gobag took critical-thinking skills and problem-solving ability.”

“Right,” Occam said. “He felt something was coming and got ready for it. He was driving, and though he doesn’t remember it, he drove himself two miles closer to the circle, shifted in the car, ruining his clothes, and went on overland. We still haven’t found his new cell, his car key fob, or his right shoe, but his weapon was under the seat, which, while not locked in the gun safe in his trunk, was put away, not in plain sight on the car seat. His memory is spotty until he woke up at the circle site, still in cat form, bag and flip phone beside him.”

“That preparation suggests he was in his right mind,” T. Laine said, in agreement with me, “though not remembering the drive suggests something else.”

“At the scene he thought the cat had been dead about three hours,” I said. “When you discount our drive time, that leaves about two hours and twenty minutes from the time the spell was at its zenith to the time Rick was sane enough to call for help. It takes him something like twenty minutes each time he shifts shape. So that takes away another forty minutes, leaving an hour twenty or so. How long did it take him to get to the spell site?” I asked. “Did he smell vampires when he got there?”

“He didn’t know, and he doesn’t remember anything about vamps,” JoJo said, her mismatched earrings swinging silvery in the light of her laptop screen as she tapped keys. “But he was alone each time he shifted. Good questions, probie.”

I ducked my head in pleasure. “In that case I have another one,” I said. “If the purpose was to call Rick, then the spell succeeded. Why wasn’t the witch waiting for him? Why do the spell and leave? By not being there, that suggests coincidence, not causality.”

T. Laine brightened and said, “Yeah. My gut feeling is that this blood-magic caster didn’t know Rick would come.” She pointed a finger at me approvingly. “Our blood-magic witch initiated the spell in the inner circle, slit the cat’s throat, closed the inner circle to let the spell run its course, and then stepped outside the outer circle and reclosed it too.” She took a long draw of her iced drink through the straw, trying to combat the heat of my house. The tiny window-unit air conditioner was straining. Come full dark, when the temps outside dropped lower than the temps inside, I’d open the windows and doors and let the winds sweep out the heat, but for now it was just miserable. “It’s a freaky working,” the unit’s witch continued. “I still don’t know what it’s supposed to do, but I think the spell was a fast one. She killed the cat and once it was dead, the spell ended and she left.”

“And the maggoty feeling Nell got?” JoJo asked the witch.

“I’m spitballing here, but I think the vamps showed up and left before Rick arrived. And no, I have no idea if vamps were there for the working, or were summoned, or if that’s an accident too.”

JoJo adjusted the elastic waist of her sweat-damp skirt, plucking at the thin cotton fabric printed with big aqua blooms, smaller bright pink flowers, and small green leaves. “Dear God, I’m hot. Nell, this place reminds me of my great-grandmother’s place in Georgia.” Jo took off her turban, which was a one-piece thing like a toboggan, tossed it to the kitchen table like a Frisbee, and gusted a hearty sigh. “Great-Gramma had AC but never used it. Said her bones were cold all the time. Her place was a sauna too.”

I almost said that I was sorry, but it wasn’t my idea for the unit to invade my home, so … no apology. It was nearly August. It was hot.

“Yeah, I know,” JoJo said, reading my face the way Tandy could read emotions. “I have to deal.”

“According to the calendar,” Tandy said, hiding a grin, “last night was a waning half-moon, days after full. It wasn’t a moon working, which would take place on the full moon. It didn’t look like an earth magic working or a water working. It wasn’t any recognizable or standared magical working. Which adds to the possibility that this was an accidental summoning. A deliberate summoning of a were-creature would most likely be on the full moon.”

“What do we know about the circle?” JoJo asked T. Laine. “Anything expected and ordinary? Anything we can use as a jumping-off point?”

“The circle was downright strange,” T. Laine said. “Nothing traditional about it except the starting point aligned to magnetic north. Most circles that big need multiple witches to invoke. This was a one-woman circle. Most are geared to the element the witch is called by. I’m a moon witch, so I’d only attempt a big circle on the full moon, using moonstones as focals. An air witch would use feathers and fallen leaves and even carved wood amulets from wind-downed trees. This circle had focals from all the elements and some of the focals were totally unfamiliar to me. There was a branch freshly broken from a black walnut tree, the leaves wilted, and is the only thing that might point to an earth witch. There was a lump of unformed clay, probably from the nearby riverbed, which might point to a water witch. A golf ball and golf tee, both new looking. I got nothing for them. There were two glass vials full of black liquid that stinks like old blood. A rotten scrap of gauze or cheesecloth stained with what might be blood. There was a small steel paring knife. A cheapie.”

“I’ve sent everything off for analysis,” JoJo said, “but it’ll all go on the back burner since there’s no crime involved with the circles and I have no favors I’m willing to call in yet. It could take weeks.”

“No witch would combine all the things she did and then add steel to it,” T. Laine said. “Steel is disruptive to magic. And no witch leaves behind focals. When the working is done, they end the circle and take all the goodies away.”

“Steel. Black walnut,” I said, trying to make sense out of it. “That wood is somewhat toxic. Is it possible that she was going to go back later to gather the focals and make sure the working was really completed, but we got there first?” I asked.

“That’s as good an idea as any,” T. Laine said, sounding grumpy. “Too bad I didn’t think to put up a freaking camera or two.”

“Occam, what can you tell about the gauze?” JoJo asked. “Is it blood?”

“Yes,” Occam said, “but what species I can’t tell. It’s years old.”

“So why did she leave all her focals behind? This stuff has to be hard to gather. Was the witch a novice,” Jo asked, “untrained and trying to make it up out of nothing?”

“Maybe she didn’t know she was calling a black leopard and Rick scared her off?” I suggested.

“Hmmm. I don’t think so. The circle was powerful. All the power had been emptied out, used up, but the traces of the working were there, so strong they practically sizzled. For all I know, more powerful focals may have been taken when the witch left. But the strangest part of the circle is the runes.” T. Laine propped her tablet on its stand so we could see the rendering on the screen. The unit’s witch had re-created the circle but made it of dotted lines, so there was no way to accidently invoke it. “Every single rune was merkstave—reversed—and none of them are traditionally used together. There were twelves spokes on the circle and four runes, each used three times. There were merkstave versions of Uruz, Fehu, Thurisaz, and Wunjo, all of them calling for awful things to happen to the person being spelled. For instance, Fehu reversed means greed and slavery and bondage and failure.” T. Laine looked around at us, making sure she had our attention. “It was a curse circle. It was powerful. And Rick happened to be nearby. If the working had been intended for him, he’d never have called us because he’d have been dead. This is why I think Rick’s attraction to the circle was an accident of proximity.”

Occam asked, “What happens when the local witch coven finds the caster?”

“She’ll be put in a null room for a long time. This circle was very, very bad business,” T. Laine said.

“Rick’s hair looked whiter this morning. Did this spell age him even more?” JoJo asked. Rick’s hair had been turning white for the last few months, and no one really knew why.

“I don’t know,” T. Laine said. She scrubbed her head with both fists as if trying to knock something loose from inside her brain. “I don’t know about the witch or her focals. I don’t know much of anything. Rick’s been aging, but he’s only been emotionally weird off and on for the last few months. I can’t tell what’s causing the aging, or if the problems with his magics have resulted in the white hair and made him more likely to be called.”

“Did you scan Rick for latent magic, something left over from the spell and not part of his own magics?” Jo asked.