I sat on Fang under the blazing sun at Evil Evie’s and sweated, smelling the stench of old blood, sickly sweet and rotting. The early cold spell had melted away into Indian summer, and the jeans and denim jacket were too warm for the high eighties and humidity, but were much preferable to the riding and fighting leathers I would have needed for a vamp hunt. I wasn’t sure what Evangelina’s witch-magic problem would require, but protection from vamp fangs wouldn’t be one of them.
I hadn’t wanted anyone to be able to track me, so I left the cell and the SUV with their GPS locator devices at the hotel. I had no idea how the sisters would banish the demon in the basement and free the weres and Lincoln, but it would involve lots of magic, and I wondered if there would be anything left of the old homeplace when they were done.
I studied the odd lines inside the garden’s witch circle. The blood-splattered rocks looked like broken alphabet letters, something archaic. It hit me. Runes. Evangelina was using runes. I felt really stupid. Lots of witches used runes; their ability to craft raw power into something useful had some special reliance on runes. So if I took a tree branch and batted away the rocks that made up her circle, and knocked the runes out of place, it might—
Molly’s van pulled up beside me before I had a chance to try it, which was probably a good thing for my state of health. Witch magic that got interrupted might go bang. I pulled off my jacket, tossed it on the seat, and set Fang’s kickstand. Boots crunching on the gravel, I stood by Mol’s open window. Her face was grief stricken, her eyes on the witch circle with its coating of dried blood. She took a breath, and her throat tissue quaked audibly as she swallowed, tears in her eyes. I patted her shoulder through the window, knowing the gesture was not nearly enough.
“Blood magic,” she whispered, shaking her head. “Son of a witch on a stick.” Visibly, she gathered herself and opened the van door. From the passenger seat, she handed me a heavy wicker basket covered with a kitchen towel. I held it while she climbed from the van, her face now set and resolute. When the van door closed, she tilted her head, the motion reticent. “Evan told me about Shiloh. About how she was kidnapped in New Orleans. I think . . . I think I knew it, already. I think Evangelina told us when she spelled us all.”
I almost told her about the body in the rug upstairs, but something stopped me. She’d had enough bad news today. “Where’s Evan?” I asked, instead.
“The kids are napping. He’s watching them. I don’t need him for this.” Which was a lie. Major witch workings required five witches. They had only four. But I didn’t argue. This was her sister they were going up against, the leader of the Everhart coven. They would handle it alone. “Turn off your cell,” she added. “It might interfere with the working.” Which was news to me. I’d have to be more careful.
Two all-wheel Subarus pulled in beside the van, and the other sisters got out, Carmen Miranda carrying a basket from the blue car, the twins Boadacia and Elizabeth from the green one—Cia with a small trunk, Liz with a weighty cloth tote over one shoulder. Molly looked at me. “Do you have the scarf and hairs?” I nodded. “Cover your head and shoulders with the scarf and stick the hairs in a pocket. Stay here.”
Molly didn’t issue orders often, but when she did, I listened. The sisters converged on the witch circle in the garden and I turned off my throwaway cell, pulled the trapped hairs from the scarf weave, and pocketed them just as Molly had required. Feeling stupid, I covered my head with the lavender scarf and watched as the sisters stepped clockwise or sunwise, each taking her place where a pentagram point would have touched the circle had one been intended for a group working. Boadacia and Elizabeth sat with their backs to me. Molly and Carmen faced me. That left one spot empty, the one pointing at the house. That spot faced the rear door, the location from which I had seen Evangelina’s back when she was pouring blood all over herself. The place where she entered the circle and closed it before working with blood. How the sisters knew where she had sat, I didn’t know, but they all stared at the spot she had been sitting. I hadn’t told them. It was sorta eerie, until I realized they could see where the dried blood was thickest. Maybe the outline of Evangelina’s body.
They got the implements for a working out of their containers. Carmen was an air witch, and she lifted a necklace of wing feathers and leaves out of her basket. Molly was an earth witch with an unusual affinity to death, meaning that like most earth witches, she could influence plants and some animals, could draw power for workings directly from them, but unlike most earth witches, she could also sense dead things. Mol took a rosemary plant out of her basket and set the pot at her feet. One of the twins was a moon witch, her magics tied to the lunar cycles, and would be particularly strong this close to the full moon, but only when the moon was high. She looped a long necklace of huge moonstones around her shoulders over and over. Cia was a stone witch—minerals were her gift—and did the same thing with a necklace made of mixed, faceted gems in shades of purple, yellow, green, and clear. They sparkled in the sunlight.
Each of the women were wearing flowing dresses, and in unison, they sat on the ground outside the circle, in half-lotus positions, dresses covering their knees. They closed their eyes. Molly placed her rosemary in her lap, and I could smell the rich sun-heated scent. The one empty place looked like a hole ripped in the reality of their family. Evangelina was a water witch; with her the sisters had once been part of a perfect coven. Without her they were weakened.
I sat on the ground, in the shade of a tree, sweat trickling down my spine under my tank top, and waited. The women didn’t look like they were doing anything, and the lack of sleep pulled at me. My eyes fought to close and I ground my molars together to keep alert. Watching the Everhart sisters was like watching paint dry or grass grow.
Ten minutes later, about the time my jaw started to ache, I heard a faint explosion of air, like a vamp disappearing from a room at supersonic speed. A pop-whoosh. I blinked, wondering if I had missed something. The sisters stood as if nothing untoward had happened and started kicking the stones that composed the circle, scuffing at the little trench, throwing the rocks that made up the runes. I caught Molly’s eye and stood, grabbed the ends of the scarf to hold it in place over my head, and walked to the circle.
Molly cocked her brow in question. “That looked easier than I expected,” I said.
“It was easy. We just knocked out the ward that protected the circle and deactivated the circle she used to draw power from us. Now,” Molly started toward house, “is the hard part.” I moved in front of her and opened the door with my scarf-covered hand. The interior of the house glowed with magical energies, the air itself seeming covered with a pink haze, snapping with black sparks. The smell of the magic was so strong I rubbed my nose. The working was getting stronger, even with Evangelina not here. Even with the circle outside deactivated and physically displaced. Still holding the scarf over my head, I led the way to the basement.
With each step down, I felt the pull of the demon below, the thing that knew my darkest wants and fears and needs. Willing me to join him in his witch-spelled cell. Beast woke, pressing down on me with her claws, watching through my eyes, not happy that I had come back here. Jane is foolish kit. Silly kit. Stupid kit to come back here, to den of bird predator.
I know, I thought back. But I have to be here for Molly. Even though there was nothing I could do to help Molly deal with what she would find in the basement. Nothing to lessen the impact. But as her friend, I could be there first. Leading the way, I turned on lights to dispel the strength of the hedge of thorns’ red, bloody glow. I was first in the basement, the electric sparks of the hedge pricking over me. The first to see the demon inside.