Ruby Shadows (49 page)

“
Hail to the guardians of
the watchtowers of the North,” I said, taking the last candle from
Laish. I used it to light the large white pillar candle on the
altar and then placed it at the head of the circle. “Spirits of
Earth, powers of Stability. I call upon you to lend your essence to
this rite.
I conjure ye, O Circle of Light
to be a temple between the worlds, in the name of the Goddess who
binds us all together. Wherefore do I bless and consecrate thee. So
Mote It Be.”

It’s not always necessary to call the circle
in order to do magic—in fact, it’s mostly just for high rituals
like the Great Rite. But it felt right to do so now, though I
couldn’t have said why. I still didn’t understand why Laish had
asked me to do it but I trusted him when he said it was
necessary.

“
Raise a cup to the
Goddess,” he murmured to me. He was already pouring water from my
battered Zephyrhills bottle into the golden chalice as he
spoke.

“
It would be better if it
was wine,” I remarked.

“
That can be
accomplished.” Lifting the silver athame, he held it out to
me.

I took it automatically, not understanding
what he wanted until he held his hand, palm out, over the cup.

“
I don’t want to hurt
you,” I protested.

“
Do, it Gwendolyn. It’s
necessary.”

He nodded insistently until I very
reluctantly pressed the sharp tip of the athame into the heel of
his hand. A single ruby red droplet welled up and fell into the
chalice filled with water. At once the ruby color spread to the
water and a rich, fruity aroma began to rise from it.

“
Oh!” I looked at it
uncertainly and then sniffed it.

“
It’s wine—a very good
wine, I think,” Laish murmured. “Now you must add a single drop of
your own blood as well.”

“
Why?” I wasn’t sure why
he wanted me to—it wasn’t the usual ritual. In fact, the only
ritual I could think of that required a drop of each of the
participants’ blood in a cup consecrated to the Goddess was the
handfasting rite. It was a binding together of the male and female
spirits—a kind of marriage in a way. But I was certain that wasn’t
what Laish was after—was it? “Why do you need my blood in the cup
too?” I asked again when he didn’t answer.

“
Because mortal magic in
Hell is tricky,” he said, clearly catching my confused look. “You
must bind yourself to the spell to make it work, just as I have.
Blood is binding.”

“
Well…all right.” Lifting
the athame, I pricked my index finger and let a single droplet of
blood fall into the ruby red wine. Laish nodded in
satisfaction.

“
Very good. Now raise a
cup to the Goddess,
mon ange,
and let us continue.”

I shrugged. “Fine. Though I doubt she’d be
able to hear us or help us in Hell—or even that she’d want to.”
Then I raised the cup and spoke a blessing, calling on the Goddess
to hear us and bless our efforts that night. I took a sip and
handed it to Laish. He also sipped and for a brief moment, I
thought I saw his eyes glowing a bright, ruby red, almost like two
red stars. Then they subsided and he placed the chalice back on the
altar.

“
All right,” I said. “It’s
done. Who do you want me to summon?”

“
You will not be doing the
summoning tonight, my little witch.” His eyes gleamed. “I
will.”

Then with a wave of his hand and a word of
power so strong it made my eyes sting and my eardrums throb, he
brought someone else into the circle.

Chapter
Twenty-nine

Gwendolyn

For a moment, I didn’t recognize the figure
crouching on the sand in front of us. Then he lifted his head and I
saw the gleam of a single golden tooth in the front of his
mouth.

“
Oh my Goddess…” I took a
step back and the chalice fell from my nerveless fingers, red wine
gurgling over the thirsty sand which soaked it up immediately.
“What have you done, Laish?”

“
Where the fuck am I?” the
man demanded. “Hey…” He squinted at me. “Ain’t you Keisha’s big
sister? The one always tryin’ to get her to leave me?”

“
You…you…” I took a step
back but I needn’t have bothered. Laish pointed one finger at the
man and uttered another word of power.

The man—Ray, my little sister’s pimp—was
suddenly frozen in place. I saw his muscles tensing and twitching
under the dirty baggy jeans and stained white wife-beater t-shirt
he wore. But he clearly wasn’t going anywhere. There was nothing
wrong with his voice, though.

“
Hey, let me go! What did
you do to me, you bitch?” he demanded, clearly thinking I was the
reason for his immobility.

“
I’ll thank you to keep a
civil tongue in your head when you speak to my consort,” Laish told
him, coming around to stand in front of the crouching man. “Or you
risk getting it cut out.”

The silver athame was suddenly in his hand
but instead of using it on the pimp, he held it out to me.

“
Come, Gwendolyn,” he said
in a calm voice. “You have called the circle and we have summoned a
known criminal—a corruptor of souls and a defiler of innocence—into
our midst. This will be a justified kill—it need not stain your
soul forever, not now that the proper precautions have been
taken.”

“
What…what are you
saying?” I backed away from him, refusing to take the
athame.

“
I’m saying that this man,
who has hurt your sister so deeply for so many years, needs to die.
And you need a way to pay the Sin Tax and break the barrier between
us and the Abyss. All your problems can be solved in one fell swoop
if you will only wield the knife.” He held it out to me, more
insistently this time.

Finally my numb brain thawed and I
understood.

Laish hadn’t had me call
the circle to perform a summoning…no, what he wanted was a
sacrifice
.

“
I…I don’t know.” My words
came out as a croak.

“
Come, you were more than
ready last night when you saw him harming your sister in the
mirror.” Laish took my hand impatiently and put the knife into it,
curling my numb fingers around the handle. “Do it, Gwendolyn,” he
insisted in a low voice. “I cannot do it for you—you must make the
stroke that ends his miserable life to pay the tax.”

Feeling like I was moving
in a dream, I took a tighter grip on the knife and moved in to
stand by the man who had caused my little sister so much grief and
pain. He’d hooked her on drugs, beaten her, used her sexually and
whored her out to other men like she was nothing but an object to
be bought and sold. He’d treated her the way I wouldn’t treat a dog
I didn’t like and I hated him for it—
loathed
him for it.

Laish is right,
I thought grimly.
He
deserves to die.

I took hold of his mop of greasy brown hair
and yanked his head back, baring his dirty throat.

“
Hey, now lady—don’t do
that! What the hell, I mean—”

Laish spoke another word of power and Ray
fell silent. His mouth was clenched tight, his jaw muscles bunching
as though he was still trying to speak but nothing came out. Not
that I would have cared what he said, even if he’d been able to
talk.

I raised the athame high, intending to bring
it down and cut his throat in a single, savage slice. I would kill
him for all he had done to Keisha. I would sacrifice his life and
in so doing, save my own—save my power from being halved.

Then I heard a little voice, speaking in my
ear.

Not like this,
Gwendolyn!
it cried.
He deserves to die but not like this—not by your hand! You’ll
never be the same person if you do this—you’ll never be able to
look at yourself in the mirror again. Don’t lower yourself to this
level. Don’t stain your soul. Don’t!

The strange, dream-like state I’d somehow
fallen into abruptly shattered and I realized what I’d been about
to do. I’d been about to kill a man—to commit murder. Call it what
you want—a sacrifice…a justified killing…but what it boiled down to
was murder.

I’d wanted Ray dead for years—wanted him out
of Keisha’s life. The revenge spell I’d been working on would have
caused him to wither away as long as he was with her. He would have
wound up an old man in a matter of months and if he continued to
harass her, he eventually would have died. But working a spell of
revenge from a distance and actually slitting his throat and
watching the ruby streams of blood pump out onto the sand were two
different things. I hated this man with my whole heart but could I
actually kill him in cold blood? Could I let myself go that far
into the darkness? A darkness from which I might never return?

Last night I had been
willing. But then I had been under the influence of the HellSpawn,
manipulating me through the mirror, and the darkness had nearly
swallowed me. I had called the evil into myself, willing myself to
be able to kill. And I understood now that was the only way I could
commit this act—the only way I could take his life. Should I open
myself to the evil again?
Could
I do it again?

My answer came when the athame fell from my
hand to thump harmlessly on the sand at my feet.

“
I can’t,” I whispered,
backing away from the straining Ray, whose eyes were rolling
crazily in his frozen face. “I can’t do this—I’m sorry.”

“
Think before you make
your decision, Gwendolyn,” Laish said softly, picking up the
athame. His eyes were glowing like two red stars and I thought I
had never seen him look so handsome…or so demonic.

“
You’re tempting me,” I
accused him breathlessly.

“
No, I am trying to save
you grief. You have only two choices here,” he murmured. “Either
surrender your innocence to me and lose half your power, or
sacrifice the hornless goat and kill this man who has wronged your
sister. No other sins are strong enough to pay the tax and pass
through the barrier into the Abyss.”

“
I know,” I whispered,
backing away. “I know it, Laish but I…I can’t. Grams wouldn’t want
me to—wouldn’t want me to go all the way into the darkness.
And…and
I
don’t
want to either. I know you said it wouldn’t stain my soul forever
but it
would.
And
it would
change
me. I wouldn’t be the same person anymore. I’d be someone
else—someone I wouldn’t like. Someone I don’t want to
be.”

He stood for a moment, holding the athame
loosely in one hand and regarding me with a mixture of sadness and
resignation on his face. Then he nodded once.

“
So mote it be,” he said
and plunged the silver athame’s blade directly into Ray’s
heart.

The pimp gave a choked gurgle and then
collapsed on the ground. Before his blood could even stain the
sand, Laish made a violent gesture and spoke another word of power.
As suddenly as he had appeared, Ray vanished.

There was nothing left to show that he had
been there at all but the equipment Laish had brought for the
summoning and the throbbing of my own sore heart.

* * * * *

Laish

I had known that she wouldn’t be able to
perform the sacrifice. Not my tender hearted little witch. As much
as she planned and schemed for her revenge spell, I knew that when
it came to the point, she would be unable to commit murder.

I, as a demon, however, had no such qualms.
This man deserved to die. I had done some quiet checking into his
life before deciding on this course of action and Keisha was not
the only girl whose life he had ruined and whose innocence he had
despoiled. He was not above murder himself, either. A life for a
life has always been the rule from ancient times and this man owed
many. I was happy to make him pay if for no other reason than to
free my beloved’s cherished sister from bondage to him.

I was worried, however, about the way
Gwendolyn was looking at me. There was fear in her green eyes
now—fear and rage. I hadn’t anticipated this, though perhaps I
should have. She was ever a strong-willed woman—it was no wonder
she was angry at me for manipulating her. If only she knew that was
the least of what I had in mind—there were even greater betrayals
in store. But for now, this was sufficient to make her enraged with
me, I could see.

“
You…how could you?” she
whispered, her voice trembling. “How could you put me in that
position? What are you doing—tempting me to stain my soul so
completely I’ll have no chance to go to Heaven when I die? Is that
it? You want me to wind up here in Hell with you
permanently?”

“
The thought had crossed
my mind,” I said, honestly enough. “But no, that was not my plan.”
Little did she know I had more direct methods in mind to tie her to
me.

“
Then what?” She walked
around the sacred circle she had called, blowing out the candles.
“Why make me participate in that…that
perversion
of a ritual?”

“
To give you another way
to pay the tax without losing your innocence,” I said, trying to
make my voice soft and coaxing.

Behind her I could see through the barrier
into the Abyss. It was a vast, bottomless pit filled with evil
creatures older than time—the Ancient Ones. Their long tentacles
were writhing and reaching, searching to clutch any unwary soul
that came too close.