Once again the ten witches joined hands and began moving deasil, beginning the final power chant, the one that should leave them feeling energized and peaceful for the next couple of days. Patrice began it, and one by one the other witches joined in, their sopranos, altos, tenors, and basses all weaving together like a tapestry of sound. To my eyes, Celia and Robin and perhaps two or three others looked a tiny bit hesitant, but no one refused to participate. Everyone joined in, and like a well-rehearsed choir, their voices fitted seamlessly together in a beautiful expression of the joy of magick.
This was confusing. I just didn't see what had concerned Celia and Robin, yet I had trusted their instincts and feelings. Was this the one night Patrice was going to skip whatever it was that had made them nervous?
But wait. I frowned and angled my little scope so I could once again see the whole circle. A new note had entered the song, a thin line of meaning underlying and circling and flitting in and out among the other voices. Quickly I determined that it was Patrice's full, attractive voice-and just as quickly my eyes opened wide as I recognized her song as one of the basic forms of a «hypnotic» spell. Her dark blue eyes seemed a bit more focused on the coven members as she sang. Over the next two minutes the other witches slowly began to seem glassy-eyed. All of them, including Celia and Robin, were smiling, moving comfortably, keeping pace with the circle, continuing their song in a kind of circular reel that often helps invoke the most energy.
Patrice wasn't even pretending now to be part of the power chant. She held hands with two members and kept moving in a circle, but she wasn't singing and her eyes were clear and intent. Her mouth had lines of tension around it, and her face looked more set than it had earlier. In the next moment I saw her lips move in an actual spell, and I cast my senses as strongly as I could to make out what she was saying.
Oh, Goddess. My mouth opened and I held my breath, training the scope on Patrice, zooming in so I could see her closely. I wasn't mistaken. Patrice was casting a spell on the coven, a spell that would gather the energy they were raising now and refocus it on her so that she would absorb all of it. Not only that, but some of the phrasing she was using indicated that this would gather not only the energy raised here and now, but also whatever energy could be pulled without too much force from each person there.
This was dark magick. If Patrice had been ill herself and had asked her covenmates to direct energy toward her, to aid in her healing, that would be fine. People did that all the time. This was deliberately taking something not offered from a living being, doing it without permission. To hypnotize an entire coven and sap their energy was completely wrong, and any initiated witch would know that.
After several minutes Patrice once again joined her voice into the power chant, and I heard her weave a spell of forgetfulness, of trust, of safety into the last round. Then voices raised to a crescendo. I looked up quickly to see that the sun was just setting at this instant, that it had gotten dark as I had sat on the roof, and my knees were completely numb from being knelt on for two hours.
My eye back on my scope, I watched as the last note was cried. Instantly each witch sank to the ground, crouching on their hands and feet, as if to ground themselves. This was unusual. I hadn't seen a coven do this before. I looked at Patrice and saw that she was hunched over, her shoulders shaking, her head bobbing. I assumed she had absorbed so much excess energy that she felt sick and needed time to assimilate it. At least four of the witches on the ground seemed to be leaning against others, as though they would fall over without support. Robin was also hunkered down on all fours, her shoulders heaving as if she felt ill.
I shook my head. Having your energy taken from you against your will is an ugly thing. No wonder Celia and Robin had forced themselves to overcome their loyalty and trust of Patrice to seek out help. Patrice had driven them to extraordinary lengths.
Slowly people began looking up, either sitting down cross- legged or trying shakily to stand. Two women walked unsteadily to the kitchen and reappeared a few minutes later with fruit, fruit juice, tea, and cake. They put these on the floor, and witches literally scooted or crawled over to them, helping themselves to the food. This was horrible. Virtually every coven has snacks after a circle-there's something about making magick that seems to deplete one's blood sugar-but to see these initiated witches on the ground, too weak to stand up, turned my stomach. The food helped them, however. After eating and resting, they began standing up, grinning sheepishly at each other, as if embarrassed to be left so weakened by a circle. Patrice was the last one to stand, and I saw Celia and Robin watching her.
When she stood up and I saw her face, I saw that she too had been transformed by the circle, but in quite a different way than her coven. She looked terrific, as if she'd just had sixteen hours' sleep. She seemed to be glowing with good health and energy, while all the others still seemed a bit wobbly and sluggish.
I had seen enough. I sat back and folded up my scope and was just putting it in its case when the back of my neck prickled.
"What are you doing up here?" a man's voice demanded.
I turned around and gave a nonchalant nod. He was obviously the janitor. "Cable guy," I said in an American accent, patting my little case. I glanced around, and bless the Goddess, there was actually a black cable running right by my feet. I took out a pair of wire strippers and picked up the cable in a professional matter. "Emergency call. It's too much to let a guy eat dinner, right?" Go away. Everything's fine. Someone on the second floor has called about a dripping sink.
"Oh," said the man. "Okay. Lock the access door when you leave."
"Will do," I said, not looking up. As soon as he closed the access door behind him, I stowed everything in my small backpack and shimmied down the ladder to the fire escape. Within seconds I was walking briskly to my car. The neighborhood was quiet and approaching twilight.
The truth was, I didn't know what I was going to do. If I were still a Seeker, I would recommend that Patrice be stripped of her powers. But I wasn't a Seeker, and I had promised Celia and Robin to try to think of some other less drastic way to stop Patrice. What Patrice was doing was egregiously wrong-no question. But Celia and Robin seemed so certain that Patrice was, in fact, a good person at heart, just someone who had been pushed to do extraordinary things because of difficult situations.
I would have to find another option.
I waited in my car until I saw Patrice's car pass mine. As soon as she did, I frowned: Robin was with her. Maybe Patrice was just giving her a ride home. But there was something about the tilt of Robin's head-I couldn't pin it down, but something felt off to me. After a minute I pulled out and followed her, keeping a good distance between us.
I followed Patrice to a state park not far from there called Highgate Woods. I hung back far enough to make sure Patrice didn't pick up on my presence, then followed her into the parking lot. There were maybe twelve other cars here, people jogging, walking dogs, but nowhere did I see Patrice's SUV. I parked and got out, strolling past every car, mentally doing reveal spells so that if Patrice had set some kind of magickal camouflage on her car, I would notice it. But though I circled the lot twice, I saw no sign of Patrice or Robin or the car.
This couldn't be-I had followed her right into the park, right past the welcome center, dammit. Had there been another turnoff there?
I sprinted back to my car and started the engine. Rookie move, Niall, I thought as I wheeled my car around and headed for the park entrance again. I went slowly this time, and there was, in fact, another turnoff. And beyond that were another two forks. I swore under my breath. I was wasting time I couldn't afford. Though I cast my senses, I couldn't detect Patrice's signature and so had to search the other two turnoffs by sight. Of course, she wasn't at the first parking lot I checked-that would have been too easy. I retraced my route again and tried the right turnoff. This time, among the few other cars parked there, I saw the SUV.