The Thirteenth Sacrifice (31 page)

“I’ve left a couple of messages for George. I need to talk to him in a medical capacity. I’ve figured out how they’re causing the rioting. It’s magic that’s infecting
people like a toxin, making them delusional and provoking them.” She hesitated and then continued. “Based on something Ed said to me yesterday, I think he might have been infected.”

Captain Roberts swore. “Can you undo whatever this is?”

“Not without talking to George.”

“I’ll see that he calls you back as soon as possible,” he said.

“Thanks.”

She hung up and stared at her phone. The battery was all but dead. It had had a full charge when she went to bed, but all the magic had drained it. It was why many witches had trouble with technology. With a sigh she plugged it in to charge. She had to do a couple of things and she just hoped she didn’t miss George’s call.

First she stacked the bodies in the bathtub and put a light spell on them to keep them from starting to decay.

Just as she was finishing that task, the phone rang. She picked up, relieved to find that it was George.

“Hi. Thanks for calling.”

“Captain said it was urgent. I don’t have anything new yet.”

“That’s okay. I had another question for you,” Samantha said, sitting down on the bed. “I need to discuss how viruses can be transmitted by touch.”

“Okay. Well, most diseases, such as the flu, are actually transmitted by droplets. A person coughs or sneezes and droplets end up in someone else’s nose or mouth or breathed into their lungs. These droplets can travel up to six feet to infect someone else. By the same token, common items such as doorknobs that have been touched by someone who has sneezed may then be touched by a healthy person who then rubs their eyes or nose or eats
without washing their hands, and the disease is transmitted.”

“What about ways other than droplets?” she asked.

“Other transmission of disease through physical contact is usually incurred through touching of bodily fluids during kissing, sex, sharing of utensils, or touching weeping blisters from diseases such as shingles.”

“And what about cures for viruses or toxins?”

“Do you think you’ve come across some kind of outbreak?” he asked sharply.

She hesitated, not sure what Ed or Captain Roberts had shared with George about the nature of witches and magic. “I just need to know. I can’t explain at the moment,” she said at last.

“For something like a toxin, or poison, you would need an antidote, something that would render it inert. Toxins are something you can absorb right through your skin. The skin is permeable and will absorb what’s placed on it. Some kinds of poisons and even drugs are meant to be absorbed through the skin.”

“Can confusion, hallucination, erratic behavior be attributed to poisons or toxins?”

“Yes, all of those. Those kinds of responses are often seen in hospitals in patients who are allergic to certain medications.”

“How do antidotes generally work?” Samantha asked.

“They’re used to counteract. Something that is particularly acidic, for example, can be neutralized by a base. Charcoal when swallowed can absorb several types of poisons. For many types of poisonous bites, like those from snakes or spiders, antidotes have been created by injecting small amounts of the poison into lab animals. Their bodies create antibodies to fight the poison and we use those antibodies to create antidotes.”

“Thank you, George.”

“Is there anything I should know?” he asked.

“Not right now.”

“If you need anything else, call,” he said, sounding worried.

“I will,” she promised, then hung up.

She put the phone down and stared at the battery-charge light for a minute while she thought. Her five-year-old self had taught her that energy could be shaped into whatever form the magic user wished. Instead of a snake or a cat someone had found a way to shape energy into a toxin. Physical contact imparted a bit of the charged energy to the next person, who was then infected, and so on. It was brilliant. Instead of putting a spell or curse on a single person, you could use a single person to spread that curse to dozens. But there had to also be a cure. Almost all magic could be reversed. And there was no way the coven would have risked putting something so dangerous out into the world if they didn’t also have a means of controlling it if that became necessary.

But the mechanics of it were beyond her. It would take a strong, experienced witch to even hope to pull something like that off. A working knowledge of biochemistry would also be a huge plus so they could know exactly what parts of the brain they were targeting. It was so elaborate it seemed insane. But if you needed a way to cause hysteria in mass quantities of people, it was brilliant.

She stood up. She would find no answers sitting there. Finished with what she needed to do to secure the bodies, she locked the room and left her phone charging.

The lobby was filled with people and she had to shove to make her way outside. The Halloween parade wasn’t
until evening, but the streets were already filling. She gaped in amazement as she walked toward Essex Street.

Throngs of people lined the streets, many carrying signs either condemning witches or condemning the killing of witches. Every couple of blocks a fight broke out among the protestors.

Samantha’s whole body was tingling, overloaded by the passion and energy of the spectators. She had been present when there were massive crowds before, but this was different. The energies were focused instead of scattered.

Her own paranoia was building to impossible levels and no amount of prayer or cleansing spells seemed to help. She was toxic, just another victim of the fever that Karen had unwittingly spread to so many.

Police officers, some on horseback, struggled to keep the crowd under control, but some of them were also falling victim to the toxin. As she hurried toward the Museum of the Occult, she saw one officer trying to arrest an old woman and yelling, “Witch!” She wasn’t one, but given the way she looked and dressed, she certainly wasn’t discouraging this interpretation.

Samantha hurried past. It was taking all of her concentration to move through the crowd unnoticed. She wanted to check on the museum, make sure no one, especially Anthony, was there. Sooner or later she was going to need to remove some of the artifacts he had in the building. They were just too dangerous to be left there. Then she needed to check on Anthony, make sure he was okay and knew to keep away from the crowd.

She was near the museum when she felt a wave of energy rolling toward her. She half turned as it crashed against her. She flailed wildly to keep her balance and
then staggered backward as an undertow sought to pull her in the direction the wave had come from.

She spun to face it, gritting her jaw in determination, but another wave knocked her down and the resultant undertow dragged her six feet across the pavement, scraping her hands and arms.

She was being summoned, but unlike her summoning of Autumn and the others, there was nothing subtle about it. And whoever was doing it had more power than Samantha could ever dream of. There was no way she could fight it, and to try would only delay the inevitable and risk exposing her to the crowd, which was already staring in fascination.

She staggered to her feet, feeling their eyes upon her. She pointed with a shaky hand to the fake witch the policeman was trying to arrest. The woman had dressed in a pointy hat and was wearing her long, straggly gray hair free for a reason. She wanted the attention. Samantha shouted, “The witch did this to me!”

And just like that all attention swiveled away from Samantha and to the old woman and the policeman. Samantha began to run in the direction the wave was pulling her, guilt nearly crushing her. There was a very real chance that she had just given those infected with the toxin a target.

Now that she was heading in the direction she was meant to go, the energy didn’t crash against her violently, but rather flowed around her, gently pulling her in the right way. She expected it to take her to the old house where they had performed the latest ritual. She was surprised when instead of leading her to the end of Essex Street, the energy led her to the right.

She ran past her hotel, and as she came to the harbor,
she tried to slow to a walk. The moment she did, though, the energy smashed against her, and she staggered to keep her feet. She began to run again. It wasn’t enough for the summoner that she arrive at the desired location. Time was clearly an issue.

As she ran past the House of the Seven Gables, a terrible suspicion filled her mind. As she approached the cemetery she could feel waves of power rippling through the air and others came into sight, also running from several different directions. They were all converging on one place.

The grave of Abigail Temple.

She didn’t want to go. She was terrified that whoever was summoning her had the power to compel her to participate in the resurrection against her will. Tears of rage and fear stung her eyes, but still she ran through the open gate, flashing past rows of headstones. And then she arrived at the grave of her former high priestess.

The earth had been dug up, the coffin opened and emptied. The wave of energy that had compelled her forward ceased, and she spun to her left to see that an altar had been erected among the graves and on it lay the skeleton of Abigail Temple. Bile rose in Samantha’s throat as she stared.

There were others present. A few were cloaked, but the vast majority, like her, had been summoned in what they were wearing at the time. One young girl, wearing nothing more than a towel, was quaking and ashen. Her feet were oozing blood into the grass, having been cut when she was forced to run barefoot. An overweight man collapsed onto the ground, wheezing and grabbing at his left arm. Samantha took a step forward to help him and then stayed her hand. She might not have any
control over what happened in the next few minutes, but he was one witch she didn’t have to save.

She looked around to see the faces of the others. A few wore looks of triumph, but far more wore looks of fear. They were accustomed to being asked to join, not forced to. Autumn stood a few feet away, refusing to look at Samantha.
She’s afraid they’ll find out what she said to me,
she thought.

Jace was hugging herself, a look of excitement on her face. As the others showed up, Samantha counted thirty. All of them were staring openly at the skeleton except for Randy, who had been looking steadily at her. She couldn’t read his expression and it worried her.

Ten minutes passed slowly. Samantha took a couple of experimental steps backward only to feel the wave of energy threatening to pull her back, so she stopped. It hadn’t been meant just to bring her; it was also meant to ensure that she stayed.

Finally Bridget stepped up to the altar and raised her hands. Silence fell. Even the birds in the trees ceased their chirping, and though Samantha could see the wind pushing the trees, she could not hear the leaves fluttering together. It was the most complete, most disturbing silence she had ever known.

“My brothers and sisters, the day we have been working for is finally upon us. We are gathered here to resurrect Abigail Temple, high priestess. It was she who led the coven who once occupied this place. It is she we have sought to honor with all of our actions. And now, after we call her back to this world, with her help we will gain the ultimate power and be ourselves gods and goddesses of this world.”

Glancing around, Samantha saw a few skeptical
looks, but the vast majority of those present believed. The light of fanaticism illuminated their faces and they nodded their heads eagerly just as she had seen many people do in church during a particularly moving sermon.

Her hand touched her throat, tracing the outline of the moon necklace she had been wearing in lieu of her cross. She glanced over at Randy and found that he was still staring at her. And for just a moment, she thought he might not be the enemy.

He turned away and the moment was gone.

“Remove your shoes and socks so that we might form a connection with the earth,” Bridget commanded.

Reluctantly, Samantha pulled off her shoes and socks, carefully placing them beside her. She could feel the grass beneath her toes, the energy of the earth and the creatures in it. She closed her eyes. The sensation, the connection with the natural world, and the enhanced abilities in the presence of others of power were overwhelming, addictive. It was one of the reasons so many with the power were drawn to nature-based religions and why others shunned religion in favor of viewing themselves as gods.

“Form the circle.”

The ground itself pushed up against her feet, forcing her to move forward. She looked around and saw fear touching a few other faces, those who were aware that their will was no longer their own. And then they were in a circle ringing the altar. Bridget and those who were cloaked formed a smaller circle inside the large one, each with a hand on the altar.

Samantha’s mind worked feverishly, trying to find a way to put an end to all of this. Her phone was charging back in her hotel room. She couldn’t have called for
backup even if she’d wanted to. She was convinced that the presence of other officers would only result in their own slaughter at the hands of the witches.

Thirty people were present. Only one was under her sway and together they weren’t enough. Autumn had ambition but was unskilled in combat. Samantha reached out, sensing the life of everything around her, the energy of the animals, the people gathering throughout the nearby streets, even the other witches. If she could pull energy from all of them, it might be enough.

She closed her eyes and felt a surge of power rush through her.

And then rush
out
of her.

She opened her eyes in panic and saw from the stricken looks on other faces that it wasn’t happening just to her. Bridget’s skin was actually glowing with luminescence as she and the other cloaked figures together pulled the energy from all those in the outer circle.

We’re feeding them.

She tried to stop pulling energy from the animals and people that she had connected to through the ground and realized with a shudder that she couldn’t stop. All of them were chained together like a battery and they were going to be used to animate the dead witch.