He grinned back. “I got thirty-eight silver reasons to agree.” Meaning that he had a .38 handgun loaded with silver strapped to his ankle or in a boot sheath. We made a good team.
We stayed out of the way while the witches discussed the ways and language they would use to call the angel and planned out the working they would use to bind the demon. The Raven Mocker got more agitated, emitting whistles and chirps and setting the red motes in the hedge of thorns flashing. Almost as if they reacted to his tension. Almost as if they were alive.
Outside, the moon rose, and Beast rose with it, flooding me with the urge to hunt, to mate, to roam the dark, free and powerful. To feel the air in our pelt, scenting and tasting and hearing the life of the world. Kem looked at me, sharing the moon-call, Rick was feeling it too, his heart rate a little fast, his sweat smelling of excitement. The reddish wolf in the circle felt it the most—panting in his sleep, paws running.
Big Evan came to me, holding a cut-crystal bowl and an athame, a ceremonial knife. I held out my hand and with no warning, he grabbed my thumb and stabbed downward. I couldn’t help my hissing indrawn breath. My blood welled, scarlet. Evan whispered the name, “Kalona Ayeliski.”
The witches all sat. The Raven Mocker screamed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Threw Her Over the Railing
I jumped in my spot against the wall. Rick laughed under his breath. “Not funny,” I muttered. Big Evan glared at me. “If you can’t be quiet, we’ll ask you to leave. We have enough problems with the baby talk and the demon shrieking.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled. Rick’s chest moved fast, quivering, as if he were suppressing silent laughter. I wanted to punch him, but I figured that would get me expelled from the room.
“We gather,” Evan said. My humor disappeared as if blown away by a hurricane. It was similar to the words uttered by vamps when they gather for some important event. The witches started talking in a foreign language, in unison, like recitation. Irish Gaelic, I thought, the language Molly and her sisters use when they do a major group working. It was a beautiful and barbaric language, flowing like a stream down a narrow cleft, full of tshhhushhs, and odd-sounding Fs, and long, sibilant Hs. I found myself leaning in, closer to the mesmeric sound.
There was no drum or flute, as there might have been in a Cherokee ceremony. There was nothing but the purity of the voices, Big Evan leading the phrases, the others repeating them. Evan Junior was silent, his mouth moving as if he wanted to join in, his pudgy hands gripping the straps of the car seat. I was reminded of the toddler climbing up into my lap at the café, demanding that I help his spelled family.
And then I heard the word Hayyel fall from Evan’s mouth. And the others repeated it. “Hayyel. Hayyel. Hayyel . . .” Over and over again, the syllables falling like a drumbeat, or a heartbeat, rhythmical, musical, and lyrical, as if the flowing stream of their words bounced against boulders and fell in a long arc. My heartbeat found the rhythm of the words of the angel’s name, and, silently, I joined in the calling, for it was a calling, a repeated prayer. “Hayyel. Hayyel. Hayyel . . .”
Evan leaned forward and took the flute in his hands. The others each took up their talismans, and held them, even the toddler, who was holding both the holly leaf and the feather, one in each fist, his arms pumping up and down in excitement. Molly picked up the bowl of blood, mine and Angie’s mixed. Angie Baby’s eyes were wide, her lips parted, face flushed. “Hayyel. Hayyel. Hayyel . . .” they all said. She was holding the doll, the other things forgotten. And . . . The doll’s eyes were glowing. I shrank back against the wall. The doll’s eyes were glowing golden, like mine when Beast is rising up in me. There was no way that the black glass eyes could— But this was magic. Magic, ancient and foreign . . .
Inside the hedge of thorns, the werewolf woke up, eyes wide and mouth open in horror. I was vaguely aware of Lincoln Shaddock as he left the room, moving fast, the air of his passing like a faint, dry wind. “Hayyel. Hayyel. Hayyel . . .”
As the others repeated the chant of the angel’s name, and Evan played a haunting melody on his flute, Molly added words to the chant, like a descant sung in soft minor notes, “Kalona Ayeliski. Kalona Ayeliski.”
The Raven Mocker stood in the center of his cage and screamed.