Elemental Moon: The Eldritch Files, Book Three (8 page)

"Lady Darksome…those assholes were supposed to call us." I grabbed my bag off the couch, my twin Smith & Wessons, appropriately named Lord and Lady, and my heavier leather jacket. Well, Crwys's jacket. "I'll drive. Need to swing by to pick up your gear?"

I gave Grey a quick request to stay in the shop for two reasons. First, I wanted someone watching it, and second I didn't want her even slightly involved in anything else that dealt with wolves. I couldn't handle that bitch of a captain storming into my home and taking my mom again.

Kyle shook his head as we went down the steps. "Nope. I keep a starter kit with me lately."

"Good," I said as I shut down the shop and we headed out the back to my Jeep. "Then let's roll."

T
he GPS
on Kyle's phone led us to a monster of a house. There were tons of monster houses in New Orleans, especially in the Garden District. But this one…I might have said it made Arden's Gypsy Gardens retreat appear small. And I knew what the square footage was in that house.

The place dwarfed the two classic antebellum homes on either side and it was literally two streets over from Ina's home. Lights were on inside and I could see Crwys's Mustang parked a few houses down. Jack greeted us after I parked, using my "park fu" to find a good, legal space across the street. Jack wore jeans, a heavy coat, no shirt and no shoes. Shivering, I got out of my Jeep wishing I had gloves as I shoved my guns into my belt at the small of my back. I had hoops stitched in some of my jeans just for this purpose, to give them a bit more stability. I liked keeping them hidden. I had a permit to carry them; I just wasn't sure where I put it. No, they didn't shoot magical bullets, but they were spelled to hit anything I shot at. This little ability wouldn't be considered legal in a shooting tournament, but it'd saved my bacon a few times.

"Jack," I said as I stared down at his dirty, bare feet. "Shoes? You got boots?"

"No. I mean yeah, I have them in the car, but it's hard for me to shift fast when my feet are in shoes," he held up his hands. "Just a quirk of mine."

I laughed, knowing how much Kyle didn't like feet. Really. He wasn't a fan of feet and preferred socks just so he didn't have to look at them. I wondered how this little idiosyncrasy would play out between them.

Kyle came around from the passenger side, his bag of herbs, ointments, tinctures and his version of gris-gris which he called spell-bags, all ready in a bag across his shoulder. "So what's going on?"

"How did you two find this place so fast?" I asked Jack.

"Bastien has friends all over the city. That's something I think you should know. Most of them are what he calls
protégé
. Those he protects for pack favors. They were able to track down who this Circe might be, gave him this address and he ordered the pack to stay alert."

"The Aces are here?" Kyle pointed to the ground.

"Yeah," I said as I felt the nudge on the pack link's door. The voices on the other side seemed agitated. Angry. Worried. Frightened and a bit lost. "They're here. The pack's lost their connection with Bastien." And so had I.

I pulled my phone from my jacket pocket and pressed the call button on Crwys's profile. It rang three times before his voicemail picked up. I waited it out and then said, "If you are in trouble, send me a flare."

Only Crwys would know what that meant. I disconnected and shoved the phone back into my pocket as I watched the house. We waited five minutes. No flare.

"He might not be able to get to his phone." Kyle wanted to sound reassuring, but I was thinking the same thing. If he were injured, or even more unbelievable, unconscious, then leaving a message on the phone would be useless.

"I've got an idea, but I need the two of you to be ready in case I…" I shrugged. "Trigger something?"

"Crap, you're going to use Arcane again?" Kyle hissed.

I turned and glared at him. "You got a better idea?" I hissed. "It's the closest I got to magic."

"Then let me do it. At least mine won't send up a red flare. Literally." Kyle moved to the back of the Jeep and opened up the door. There wasn't much space behind the second set of seats but there was enough for him to work. He set his bag down on the rubber liner, pulled out a green candle about the diameter of my wrist and maybe four inches high. He snapped his fingers and a tiny Salamander sparked a flame. I smiled at his prowess as he thanked the Fire Element and then pulled a stick of incense from a plastic wrapper.

Now here's where an Elemental Witch and a Hedge Witch differ. When I had my Elementals, I used my own essence, power, soul, pick a name, to power the spell and the Elementals were the ones that guided the intent along. They jolted my power to…I don't know. A million? I'm not a gamer so I didn't know how to rank power boosts. It was a lot. And when it was over, I would be exhausted and starving. Much like Ivan was today.

But Kyle had learned how to tap the power of the herbs, potions, tinctures and the organic and sometimes inorganic objects around him. Every potion he made, every spell he wrote, every candle he created, everything had a purpose. He used his energy to guide but he drew the power from the objects.

I pulled Jack closer as Kyle faced the ginormous house, held up the candle and traced a Water invoking pentagram in the air. It stayed there, a brilliant blue against the backdrop of the night. He set the candle on ground just beneath it, then took the burning incense stick and pierced the pentagram's center.

The middle popped like a bubble and abruptly the house looked very, very different as long as we looked through the pentagram's center.

"Holy—" Jack said a little too loud and I clamped a hand over his mouth.

Kyle spoke but his voice was little more than a whisper as he concentrated. "That's a lot of Arcane."

And it was. The entire house was on fire with it. It permeated the wood, the roots of the nearby trees and the very foundation of the place. And just past the flaming, glittering forbidden magic I could make out the outlines of six individuals. They appeared to be… "Are they having tea?"

"Looks like it," Kyle whispered. "I'm not sensing any distress. Not even an emotional spike. They're all in the front parlor."

"Wait," I pulled my hand from Jack's mouth with a warning glare and moved in closer to the pentagram. "You mind if I tweak it?"

"Let me transfer it to you. I love you, Sam, but I don't want Arcane taint."

I snorted.

Kyle knelt beneath the huge floating blue pentagram and pulled a white handled knife from inside his jacket. A Witch's working knife. I could just see the smoke from the candle as it curled up and mingled with the pentagram above. He said something under his breath and sliced the stream of smoke. The candle went out.

"Catch it," Kyle said to me and cleared his throat.

Catch it was right. The pentagram started to float away like a loose balloon. I grabbed the edge of it with my right index finger and thumb. It immediately went from blue to red. Not a fire red, but more like Arcane red. Like blood. I pulled it down and tethered it in place in front of me. What I wanted to do was see this Circe for myself. This Olivia Graham.

Of the six bodies in the front parlor, there was one that didn't reflect the red sparkling Arcane. It looked more like an outline of a void and was seated in a chair in front of a roaring fire.

"Can you tell me what's going on?" Jack sounded frightened.

"I created a window using herbs and colors of the Elements. The candle is green and the wax was made of plants and herbs with powerful Earth connections. Green is the color of Earth. The flame represents Fire, and the incense is made of Air herbs with high potency."

"The blue pentagram?"

"Communication. It's made of Water. We needed to communicate with the wood of the house so I used the other three Elements to create the window, held it in Water and pierced it with Air," Kyle paused. "It's still not making sense to you, is it?"

"No. Not really. But then, I turn into a wolf when the moon's full so sense kinda flew out the window for me a while ago. So, why is it red now?"

"Because Sam is using a different kind of magic."

"The bad magic?"

"In the wrong hands…yes."

I had to shut their conversation out as I concentrated on this void person. I repeated the
dex
spell I'd used earlier and framed it inside the pentagram, hoping the Arcane swimming about in that house wouldn't alert the owner I was probing. The spell bounced around a bit, giving me answers like Revenant, Lycan, Witch, Cowen, Ancient, Cowen—

"Ancient?"

Kyle stepped up. "What's Ancient? You mean this version of the
dex
is saying one of them is ancient? Is that a designation or a description?"

"I—I don't know. There are six people. So that's Circe, Bastien, Levi, Crwys and two more." I pursed my lips. "Maybe Circe's the Ancient?" What the hell was an Ancient?

"I'm betting she's the Witch."

I looked away and stared at him under the street lights. "You mean, she was a Witch and went Magician?"

"Not the first time it's happened. Arden could tell you some seriously scary stories about Witches who were seduced by Ceremonial Magic. It's easier and it makes you more powerful," he snorted. "If it doesn't kill you first."

"You mean if whatever you bind into you doesn't kill you." I looked back though the window at the forms. Ceremonial Magicians have a lot of problems, the worst of them, in my opinion, was their inability to ask. If they wanted something they forced it. Which made the idea of this chick performing transmogrify all the more plausible just as Blackwood said. "I don't see any other bodies in the house. That's it."

Kyle put his hand on me. "Uh oh."

I caught the movement seconds before he touched me. It was to the side, low to the ground and just behind the fence circling the house. I moved the pentagram to see it, or to see what it was. And when I did—

Look out!

I never got a chance to shout those words out but I was thinking it when whatever it was leapt over that fence and came at us. I acted on instinct again which, in hindsight, was both good and bad. I pushed my hand through the center of the pentagram as the shadow zeroed in on me. The skin on my hand and wrist caught fire and it felt as if the window were made of real glass instead of Air and it was shredding my skin as I poked through.

I gathered every Element in every herb, in every color from that pentagram and within seconds the thing shrank and wrapped around my wrist. It burned with a flame that alternated between the Elemental colors and as the shadow made that last leap across the street and charged into the air to attack me, I focused that power on it and released.

Streams of red, blue, yellow and green shot out from my hand, encased the creature and in an instant…it was gone.

The street returned to the quiet night and there was nothing in front of us but the calm appearance of the house. I couldn't see inside of the house anymore, but the light in the parlor was out.

"What…" Kyle said but I held up a hand for him to be quiet.

The front door opened in the shadow of the street lights and a tall, feminine figure came down the steps. The gate opened and she walked, almost glided, across the street toward us. She was tall and too thin. Like rail thin. Quick, get this woman a sandwich! Her hair was white and fell in cascades over her shoulders. She wore a thigh length black dress with matching black pumps. And the face that appeared under the hair, now illuminated by the street lights above, was young.

She looked maybe sixteen. The edges of her features blurred a bit when she talked and I realized she was using glamour of some kind to hide her features.

I knew before she stopped in front of us that this was Olivia Graham, aka Circe. She had the slippery, shimmery feel of a Ceremonial Magician.

The woman with the child-like face held out her hands. "I am Circe. I'm afraid that was a dear pet of mine you just destroyed."

I stepped in front of the other two. "It attacked me."

"It was defending its home."

"We never moved from this spot. We are across the street. Not on your property," I narrowed my eyes at her. "I'd like to see Detectives Holliard and Tulose, as well as Bastien LeBlanc."

"I'm afraid I don't know those names."

"Yes you do!" Jack shouted, letting his emotions get the better of him. "I saw them go into your house!"

I turned and gave him a
Shut The Fuck Up!
glare before I turned back to Circe. She was smiling. "We know our friends are in our house. Will you let them leave?"

"For a price."

Crap. "What price?"

She smiled as she pointed at me. "You."

I
'm not
gonna deny that I suspected for a tiny second this woman might be Brendi in disguise and this was a clever ruse to save her reputation. After all, I was the only human that's ever broken a deal with any of the Faerie Queens and survived intact. But a second later I realized this lady wasn't Faerie. I wasn't sure she was sane. "Why me?"

"I know your aunt. In fact, I met you a few times when you were a child. Ina and I were very good friends at one time. We had a dream, she and I. A dream to bring Arcane into the world."

Uh…

I narrowed my eyes at her. "Ina wanted to bring Arcane into the world?"

"Of course. Because she used it. You had to have known that, Samantha. Because I can sense it within you. And it's concentrated over your heart. It's strong. You're her legacy. She always believed you could wield Arcane as well as your Gifts."

Crwys's words came back to me.
"Don't blind yourself to the possibility that his ultimate goal was to infuse you with Arcane, and then take your body. Think of the power he would have then and your soul to ride."

Oh hell no!

Circe clapped her hands together. "I see in your face you've discovered the truth! And now you see, I have everything I need to bring Arcane into the world!"

I swallowed. "Why? And how? How…do you plan on bringing Arcane into the world?" I've learned through life that there are no coincidences. That paths cross and intertwine for a reason as Destiny sets her fickle-ass plans down.

"I think you already know, Samantha. I know Cromwell is looking for me. And I know he approached you to find this." She reached into her robes and retrieved a small, golden Codex. To most, it looked like papyrus wrapped around a golden shaft with blunted ends to keep the paper in place.

To me it looked as red as a ruby and sparkled just as bright. She had in her hand the one thing standing between me lifting the warlocking.

I reached out for it and she pulled it away. "Oh no, no, no. Ina said you're not allowed to have it."

That stopped me. "You've talked to Ina?"

"Of course. She translated the scroll before she gave it to me."

Lady Darksome! "Circe, do you or don't you have the missing pack members here? A boy and a girl?"

"Interesting change of subject, Samantha. My request stays the same. Only, you can't have the girl."

"The boy?"

"You'll have to catch him. All my transmogrify attempts failed, except for two. One of which you just destroyed, and the other," she said as she raised her shoulders and sighed. "I haven't been able to get him back yet."

"Get him back?" Kyle blurted out. "You mean there really is a monster out there?"

"There's always a monster running around out there," Circe directed her attention at me. "The decision is yours. Come with me and they all live. Or don't and everyone dies."

The door to the house opened and another tall young lady ran out. She wore a similar black dress and brandished a big knife.

Circe looked irritated when she looked at the girl. "Why are you interrupting me?"

"My Lady!" The girl was out of breath and I noticed several cuts on her arms, as well as her face. Her hair was also mussed. "The potion's not working on any of them!"

Oh no. She gave all three of them one of her potions. All I could think about was Crwys being torn apart as some potion turned him into half a wolf.

Wait…she just said it wasn't working on any of them.

Circe lowered her arms. "That can't be right!"

"Nothing's happening. My Lady—"

Circe struck the girl hard across the face. She fell to the asphalt in a heap. "And you left them alone?"

Uh oh.

I looked around the neighborhood at the houses. If Bastien was out of that house, I was pretty sure he was going to call the Aces if Jack hadn't already. As for Levi and Crwys? I wasn't sure what the hell they'd do. Given Levi had been in the sun all day and was probably hungry, and when Crwys got mad he set people on fire, I figured we should be ready for anything.

Circe pointed at me. "You can have the rest, but the girl and her baby are mine!"

I shook my head. This woman was certifiably bat-shit crazy.

The front doors on all the houses on the street flung open at once. Black robed figures came running out of each front door, six doors in all. It looked like black ants marching out of holes in the walls, only sped up. These guys were running.

Kyle ducked behind the Jeep again and I heard his snap and the tiny cry of a Salamander ready for war. The sound tore at my heart as I missed my own Salamander. All of my Elementals. I just wasn't whole without them. A miasma of colorful pentagrams filled the air around us, creating a sphere that encased Kyle, Jack, the Jeep and I. Whatever these things were that were coming out of the houses, they were completely robed, hooded and gloved. From what I could see through the rainbow of pentagrams there wasn't a single piece of flesh visible on any of them.

"Sam! I need power!"

"You sure?" I had my weapons out, safeties off and pointed at the sky. "You want that taint?"

"Just juice the ward."

I was going to oblige him when one of the robed things broke through the pentagram on my right. I fired once at it and the bullet slammed into its head. It vanished and the bullet hit the asphalt with a ping.

-
You'll need more to defeat these creatures.-

I ignored the voice and shot at another one as it broke through close to Kyle.

"Sam!"

"Hold on!" But I couldn't concentrate on sending any kind of power into the shield while I was shooting at black robed zombie things. My bullets were making them disappear, but they were still coming out of the doors. I needed to know what they were in order to actually fight them.

"Sam!"

That wasn't Kyle that time. I shot another black robed dude. "Crwys? You okay?"

It was a few seconds before he answered. He was somewhere outside the sphere in the dark. I could hear him but I couldn't see him. "I will be. What do you need me to do?"

I hit two more. I was going to run out of bullets. "I need you to get rid of these things before they get inside the pentagrams. I need a minute."

"Will do."

Almost immediately, I saw a few of them flame out of existence. I had no idea who else could see that, but I didn't care. I tossed my guns into the back of my Jeep and conjured the
dex
. This time I focused on the black robes. What I got back was…odd.

"Sam?" That was Kyle this time.

I looked at him. Kyle was standing in the center of the pentagram sphere, holding the incense in one hand and the lit candle in the other. He was acting as a grounding line and feeding power directly from the Earth to the wards. But that wasn't going to last forever. The power running through Kyle was going to burn him up. Jack stood beside Kyle, looking at the Hedge Witch as if he were a super hero. "Kyle, these things are registering as something weird."

"Tell me!"

"The
dex
is saying smoke, but it's also got all four Elements and a bit of the fifth."

Kyle looked at me. "Illusion. But it's being siphoned off the people in the houses. She's using an old Ceremonial trick. Arden calls it smoke and mirrors."

I saw a few more of the black robes poof off in flame. "But Crwys is able to ignite them."

"Yeah, I see that. But he needs to stop. He's also igniting innocent people's dreams."

"Seriously?"

Kyle took in a deep breath. He was starting to shake as he held the sphere around us. "She's using the dreams and essence of the neighbors, and every time he ignites one he's probably killing brain cells in whomever's head that particular robed guy came from. She's the one controlling the shapes and directing them, but they're giving her the power. One of the Magician's best tricks is illusion."

"So how do I stop them?"

"You can't, but I can. You're going to have to take my place."

Uh. What?

He gestured me to him with a nod. "Hold up your hands and use that magic of yours to form a sphere around us. Just close your eyes and trace the same outline, same pattern. If you waver and make a gap, one of them can get in and Crwys won't be able to make it burn."

No pressure there. I stood behind him and held out my hands to match his. Then I cupped my hand beneath his so that he could slip his hand away and I'd still be holding the candle. Then we did the same thing with the incense, but before he stepped away, I closed my eyes and called up the power like I would normally. It came fast and with a presence this time, making the mark on my chest burn.

"That's it! Just keep it there. Give me a minute."

I opened my eyes to see the pentagrams had all turned a sparkling red. All of them. I could feel the sphere as it curved over us and then sliced into the ground beneath us. I poured power into it as the robes beat against the edges of the Arcane power.

I noticed something else.

Every time they struck the sphere, they grew a little. Some were bigger than others. And growing. "Uh…Kyle?"

"I know. I see what's happening. They're feeding off it now. Just…hang on."

I glanced back to see he'd dumped everything out of his bag into the back of my Jeep. He set up a small cauldron, poured sand out of a bag into it and then set in three briquettes. I heard someone scream and then the baying of wolves.

The Aces had arrived.

Kyle dumped a whole bag of something onto the briquettes. I was about to tell him he hadn't lit them when he stepped back, grabbed a small mirror out of his bag and then pointed at the cauldron. The briquettes ignited and the incense heaped on top exploded.

Suddenly, the mirror in his hand was multiplied by a hundred if not more. In front of every black robe a mirror appeared. The robe screamed and vanished. I watched as they vanished in batches through the smoke created from the exploding incense.

Sensing no more attacks on the sphere, I let it go and the thing disappeared in a huge cloud of sparkling red glitter. I still held the incense and candle in my hands and turned to give Kyle a thumbs up. That's when something very heavy and moving very fast knocked me on my ass. I went tumbling ass over head and came up on my front. Something grabbed me at my hips, hauled me up and threw me down again. I bit my lip and my tongue as my chin struck the sidewalk. The thing picked me up and threw me into the wrought iron fence of the neighbor's yard. My head slammed backwards against the poles and I saw stars as I slipped down and rolled back onto the sidewalk.

I could see Kyle grabbing my guns from the back of the Jeep right as brilliant warmth injected itself between me and whatever it was that was beating the shit out of me.

The need to get away rolled me over onto my side as I tried to see what was happening. I could make out a hazy Crwys, his arms out at his sides and his hands on fire, as he wrestled with what looked like Big Foot. The thing towered over Crwys, and I saw something else I'd never seen before.

Blood. Crwys wasn't wearing his jacket, just a t-shirt. The scarlet blood stuck out against the white cotton as it trickled down Crwys's back and over his arms. I cried out when I realized the thing had taken a chunk out of his neck. I thought I saw bone but I couldn't be sure. They came together again and this time Crwys ignited the monster's fur.

Kyle came from the right side where my Jeep was parked and raised both of the guns, aiming at the creature. Good. The spells on them would make sure he hit that son of a bitch.

But Jack suddenly came up and grabbed the guns out of his hand. One of them fired but I didn't know where the bullet went.

"No! You can't shoot him!"

Crwys cried out in pain as the thing lifted him up and bit into his side. I could hear the rip and tear of bone and flesh as the monster ripped out a chunk and pushed Crwys past me to the fence. I screamed for him and tried to tell Kyle to shoot it.

Another blur of fur appeared, this one not as big but deep, deep red. Bastien wasn't a full wolf, but more of some half-formed wolf-man, and managed to wrap his arms around the monster as it tried to get to Crwys. I yelled again, or I thought I did, as I watched Bastien pick the monster up and toss him away. With a yellow fiery look at me, the big red wolf-man lunged after the monster.

I moved, a little, enough to see Crwys's boots to my right. They weren't moving. He wasn't moving. I turned to tell Kyle to call for an ambulance.

But Kyle wasn't there. Neither was Jack.

My guns lay on the asphalt by the back of my Jeep.

And as the night came in like a descending angel, I heard the scream of something dying.