Blackmail Earth (12 page)

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Forensia stared at Jason’s panicky departure, and vowed to herself to work even harder on spells. She had never seen one executed so effectively. Everything she’d ever heard about GreenSpirit was true. She had amazing power. Jason and his friends had violated the Pagans, a sacred ceremony, and GreenSpirit—and he had paid a high price.

Forensia was so mesmerized by what she had witnessed that she didn’t notice GreenSpirit walking back to the circle of power. The witch startled her by touching Forensia’s shoulder, then told her and Sang-mi to remain on their knees in the circle while everyone chanted.

Forensia turned her thoughts away from what had just happened and lost herself in the lulling rhythm of the Wiccan chants. Soon she felt herself lifted high above the forest, flying over the scorched, prickly canopy. The surge of sensation proved so intense, so intoxicating, that her feeling of flight—of swift, ethereal remove—superseded her other senses: The whole of her being was imbued with the spirit’s own sway.

Now GreenSpirit blindfolded both Sang-mi and Forensia, and in the darkness behind the cloth Forensia heard a creak as the boline was drawn from the rough pine plank of the altar. The priestess pressed the flat of the blade down on Forensia’s head, then against first one cheek and then the other, angling it just enough to give the younger woman a keen sense of the weapon’s edge. But fear had lost the battle with trust high above the clearing, when Forensia had looked down from the depthless night sky and seen her vast unfurling future, a world bereft of blood and death.

When the tip of the knife touched her lips, she opened them wide as a mother giving birth. And like legions of women before her, Forensia’s belly tightened and twitched in a harsh labor of longing. She accepted the symbolism of the harrowing blade, and tried mightily not to flinch or shake.

The boline withdrew slowly, touching her tongue with intention, leaving a metallic trail along her taste buds. Next the buds of her breasts felt the blade’s insistent tip and, strangely, stirred in tender defiance.

Had she been cut? She couldn’t tell, and the weapon traveled like a sharp shadow to the base of her spine before rising over every vertebrae—a peculiar if ancient blessing—before returning to her tongue, as if to sever Forensia from the chains of her own flesh. But she tasted no blood, and this surprised her.

Minutes passed. Forensia assumed GreenSpirit was blessing Sang-mi. At last, the young woman heard footfalls as the other witches gathered around them inside the circle of power. A knotted leather whip suddenly burned her back. She smelled risen dust, thought of Calvary and steel—old religion and new—and filled with the unwavering power of pain as the whip changed hands. But she did not bleed.

A new chant, dark and unfamiliar, raised the hair on her arms and neck: The animal in her heart unleashed torrents of terror in her retreating mind. Fear blackened her belly and she abruptly felt the claustrophobia of blindness, dense and graven as the black borders of the eternally shaken universe.

GreenSpirit drew close to Forensia and Sang-mi. “If it harms none?” she asked in an urgent voice.

“Do what ye will,” the two young women said.

“And will you guard the Craft, the Secrets of the Craft, and all your brothers and sisters, no matter their age, no matter their state of grace?”

“I will,” Forensia yelled, hearing Sang-mi’s softer voice echo her response: a marriage vow to all of Gaia’s creations.

GreenSpirit bade them stand. The blindfolds came off and the two new witches embraced their sisters of faith, who held them gently, avoiding the new welts on their backs.

Richtor and the other Pagans raced from the trees like moonlit sprites. All of them—initiated and uninitiated alike—joined hands. Forensia took Richtor’s with a smile as full and rich as any she’d ever offered him or anyone, then reached for Suze Walker, the sheriff’s oldest daughter. Sang-mi stood across from her, linking GreenSpirit and one of the older witches who’d driven down from Ithaca.

They danced, counterclockwise, never losing contact with one another. The candle flames flickered wildly in the draft of their movement. It threw shadows everywhere, licking color across the boline, back in place on the altar.

Forensia felt intensely aroused by Richtor’s touch. She wanted to remember him always like this, with his hair flying, and his hand warm and soft and tightly grasped in hers. She squeezed her eyes shut in delight, then snapped them open as she heard someone crashing through the woods. A new light revealed a reporter and cameraman marching toward them with Jason close behind.

“Paul Kellison, CBS News. I’m looking for GreenSpirit. I have just a few questions for you, GreenSpirit,” he added, as if he’d already spied her, but that wasn’t possible because they’d closed their circle around the altar, concealing their leader, and their faces, from view. After a moment, as naturally as the circle had closed, it opened, unabashed as a flower.

GreenSpirit had vanished. It was as if they’d rehearsed, but what Forensia found inspiring and dauntingly mysterious was that they’d reacted instinctively, almost primordially, to protect her. G
uard the Craft, the Secrets of the Craft, and all your brothers and sisters.

Then she realized that every second of her life had been preparation for these moments.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Suze whispering “Oh, shit” over and over, as if profanity were the only mantra that mattered. Forensia realized why—it was inevitable now that Suze’s father would know that she and Christy had been here, naked and with other Pagans. Even if the news report blurred Suze’s features, Jason Robb would tell everyone.

Kellison said, sharply, “Where’s GreenSpirit?”

“What are you talking about?” Forensia quickly stepped in front of Suze, blocking the camera’s view of her friend. “If you mean that woman on the news, she’s not here.”

The other Pagans agreed.

“You said she was here.” Kellison turned to Jason.

“She was. I saw her. I
talked
to her. But that was,” he glanced at his watch, “an hour ago.”

“He’s a liar,” Forensia said. “A total bullshitter.”

“Everyone knows that,” Richtor said, “except you, I guess.”

“He probably made you pay him to bring you down here,” Sang-mi chimed in. “We’re here once a month, and he’s done this kind of thing before.”

“Most of the time he just takes money from perverts,” Forensia said. “We just wish he’d grow up.”

Kellison and his cameraman hurried along the perimeter of the clearing, shining the strong camera light into the woods. Then they stormed off, taking their gear and their anger but not their discredited guide: Jason stared at Forensia.

“You fucking lying bitch. You fucked me royally.”

“Just leave and
don’t
come back,” Forensia said.

“You’re not gettin’ away with this, you fucking bitch.”

“You’re an asshole just like…”

She stopped herself, but not soon enough to quash the memory of Jason’s dead brother—or to hold on to the magic and mysticism she’d felt during her initiation.

Jason lunged for her neck, nearly seizing her. Richtor pushed him down and the other Pagans crowded the young man on three sides.

“Go,” Richtor shouted. “Get out of here.”

Jason scrambled to his feet, brushed himself off, and glared at them. After a moment, his gaze focused on Forensia. She felt the heat of his anger as if he were clawing at her skin; she had to force herself to stand boldly before him. Under his stare, her ankh, long revered as a symbol of life, felt like a target, teeming with the imminent dreadfulness of violent death.

CHAPTER 9

Jenna’s stomach started to swirl the second she spotted the black Ford Fusion waiting outside her building. She loved the silence of the day’s awakening hour, when she’d rise at three thirty to a strangely subdued city, but that stillness vanished with synaptic speed when she spotted the shiny beast that signaled the beginning of the morning blur.

Before she made it to the curbside, the spry driver was holding open the rear door of the hybrid. She eased into the backseat, more intensely awake than usual because Dafoe had promised to meet her at five by the unobtrusive side entrance that everyone on
The Morning Show,
including visitors, was expected to use. In the spirit of reciprocity, Jenna had offered Dafoe her guest room. But he said he’d get up just a little earlier and drive down; Forensia, he’d explained, would be fresh from her initiation and wouldn’t be able to take over for him until “the cocks crowed.”

“Can she handle the whole operation?” Jenna had asked him on the phone.

“Forensia can handle anything,” Dafoe had answered. “Plus, she’ll have Bayou keeping his eye on the herd. She’ll be good to go.”

But would Jenna be “good to go” with Dafoe watching her race through all her primping and prep for
The Morning Show
? Not until this instant, driving toward the studio, had she realized that she’d never invited a love interest to the set.

Just be on time, Dafoe.
It would be a huge hassle with security if he ran—

Ah, there he was, standing by the entrance, chatting to one of the black-suited security staff. About …
cows,
she overheard as the network’s doorman helped her out of the Fusion.
That subject sure could get old fast,
she worried. A friend had married a prominent rock drummer, who’d talked about nothing but drumming for the first five years of their marriage. Jenna’s friend had told her that when her husband had suggested bedroom spanking, she couldn’t help wondering if he’d wanted to replace his tom-toms with her buttocks.

Dafoe saw her and smiled: toothy and ear to ear with the sweetest crinkles around his eyes. Jenna’s doubts fled. His swift, head-to-toe glance made her happy that she’d chosen her outfit with him in mind: a white, crinkled poplin dress with a scoop neck. As summery as the weather, the dress flattered Jenna in all the right ways.

They approached metal doors two stories high. Stage hands used this entrance to roll equipment, including cranes and cherry pickers, into the building. Each door was reinforced with steel plates to stop bullets and bomb fragments. To the right stood two security officers by a standard-size metal door that had the same steel-plate reinforcement. Jenna told the men that Dafoe was a friend.

As soon as they entered the building, they came to the network’s second line of defense, two security officers who worked behind four inches of bulletproof glass. The “two Joes”—Joe Santoro and Joe English—smiled broadly, which gave away their thoughts as readily as Jenna’s blush revealed her own fizzy feelings.

She swiped her ID card and looked into a screen that read her eyes. Dafoe slid his driver’s license through a narrow slot, then watched Santoro study the license, type on a keyboard, and stare at a computer’s screen, waiting to see if a crime report started flashing. Seconds later he announced, “He’s clean.”

The other Joe handed Dafoe a clip-on badge, warning him not to take it off in a heavy, put-on New York accent. “Someone, he sees ya widout it, youse goin’ down for a cavity check, and I don’t mean youse teef.” The two Joes laughed.

“Real jokers,” Dafoe said to Jenna as they hurried to the elevator along with other new arrivals.

“I don’t know about that. They’ve given me three cavity searches so far. They keep saying it’s for security purposes, but I’m beginning to wonder.”

Laughing quietly, they walked past the show’s glassed-in, street-level studio, where fans could watch the proceedings from outside. The glass was deceptively thick—seven inches that could stop bullets
and
bomb fragments—and extended all the way up through the third-floor set. Television in the age of terror.

Jenna led Dafoe into an elevator with the same two-story metal doors. Massive, especially by the claustrophobic standards of the city. They stepped off on the third floor, bearing left to go through another standard-issue metal door that took them into a long hallway.

“We’re entering the brain trust,” Jenna joked.

“Meaning?” Dafoe still walked with a big smile.

“This is the floor with the greenroom and all the offices for everyone on the show.”

“And there you are,” Dafoe said, pointing to her photograph, one of the many familiar faces that lined both sides of the hallway.

“How was the drive down?”

“No problem. I even found a parking spot on the street for Bessie.” His ridiculous name for his old International Harvester pickup. “I doubt anyone’s going to want to steal her.”

“You never know,” she said cheerily, smitten not by the prospect of the truck’s theft, of course, but by her own feelings for the vehicle: She liked the musty smell of old hay, and the memory of Dafoe’s arm around her shoulders when she cuddled up to him on the bench seat.

They came to yet another set of metal doors that led them past the third-floor studio, even larger than the one below. Jenna’s weather set was in view, but they hurried past the studio almost as quickly as the grips and stagehands and gaffers who raced to ready the sets. Four of them darted past the couple and ducked into the greenroom, where food for staff and guests was provided. The buffet was delicious and included something for every taste.

“You can help yourself whenever you want to,” she told him as they moved on. “Your little badge gets you in there, too.”

The really big names were never taken to that greenroom. VIPs, like Brad or Angelina, or the president, were hustled directly to a special, exclusive greenroom.

The Morning Show
had more than fifty staffers, and the bustle at this hour equaled the energy of any other busy studio at midday. Jenna noticed the looks that she and Dafoe were garnering, even a few hellos from staffers generally more taciturn, and knew that she’d be prime gossip on the network grapevine.
Comes with the territory,
she reminded herself.

Her office was at the end of the hall. As they approached, Nicci called out, “It’s a fatty,” and thrust a thick packet of papers into Jenna’s hands—a set of computer modeling data on worldwide weather. The report was generated by the show’s assistant meteorologist, who worked the overnight shift and was often gone by the time Jenna came in. Years of experience let Jenna usually guess the report’s length within a few pages. Seventy-two, she figured, then looked: seventy.
Not bad.