Blue Moon Rising (The Patroness) (23 page)

With his eyes playing ping-pong between Kylian’s and my face, Mathieu continued, “Err, I found more of them. Checked out every place with a black board that came to mind; clubs, gyms, universities, churches and so on. And I went to two of their meetings.”

Whoa, stop right there! Hands planted on my hips to keep them close, I tried to keep my tone light. “Come again? I’m pretty sure I got that wrong, since I imagined you saying you went after a probably people-abducting psycho group all on your lonesome although I explicitly told you to stay put.” To hell with the light tone! “What the fuck is going on in that thick skull of yours? You’ve never pulled a stunt like that before. Is that some kind of rebellious pubertal aftermath?”

“Ha-ha.”

“No ha-ha, I’m serious, Mathieu.” I turned and added, with my anger now directed at Philippe, “And where the fuck were you? You’re supposed to come to me when shit like that goes down.”

“I wasn’t there. I had no idea of what he did until now. Maybe you’ve forgotten but I’ve been hunting ghosts like you wanted me to!” Philippe retaliated.

Damn. I concentrated on Mathieu again. “You should have listened to me, trusted me. Goddamn it, Mathieu, you could have been hurt.” Or worse.

Now I saw his own anger boiling up. “Jesus Maiwenn, I’m not a child anymore. I’m not in that fucking basement anymore. I can take care of myself!”

I was sure I wasn’t the only one who found herself snapped back into that filthy basement, where I found him three years ago. Maybe I was a sitting hen, but how could he blame me for that? We were family and all I wanted for him was to be safe. Last night clearly showed though that I couldn’t. I couldn’t always be there.

Calmer I continued, “You’re right, you aren’t a child anymore. But you don’t know a damn about fighting, shooting a gun or anything else. Before you’ll ever again set a foot outside to go after some psycho you’ll train with me, you’ll learn how to defend yourself. Deal?”

His face brightened and a smile widened his lips. “Deal.” Mathieu looked directly into my eyes, “Besides, I didn’t attend the meetings, I just hid outside and just watched. And noticed that more people went in than came out. At both meetings.”

That little revelation was followed by three pairs of eyebrows climbing their owner’s foreheads and a few silent moments of Damn!

“Nice work,” Kylian said. “Though next time, clear it with Maiwenn and keep her posted about your whereabouts. Wouldn’t be cool to not know where to start looking for you, if you’d disappeared!”

Frowning and still trying to wrap my mind around Mathieu’s discovery, I said, “Wait. Where did you say you found those flyers?”

“Well, on campus, and then I checked out some clubs, churches and social associations, stuff like that. Why?”

Clubs, gyms, churches...churches...something extremely well hidden in the back of my mind tried to claw its way out. Churches...then it fell like scales from my eyes.

“Now, I know why those flyers looked familiar,” I muttered under my breath, and then I told the others, “I’ve seen them on the black board in the church Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis.”

Picking up my train of thought Kylian went on, “So, Josianne goes there to check out their meeting place, takes a look at one of those ‘are-you-different-we-can-help-you’ flyers and thinks ‘why the hell not?’. Her relationship with Romaric is practically doomed. He’ll soon turn eighteen and time is running out on them, so she grabs for every straw. Josianne goes, attends one of the meetings, and never returns. Yeah, that might work.”

I nodded in agreement.

Mathieu glanced back and forth between Kylian and me. “So we just have to go to one of their meetings, follow those assholes and see where they take the people, right?”

Huh? “We? There is no ‘we’ in this matter. You two are going to stay here and look after Viviane. She’s pretty shaken after last night, thanks for asking.”

That big mouth Mathieu had opened up while I spoke closed abruptly at my last words and he blushed. Served him right.

Turning my attention to our own little poltergeist, I demanded, “Okay, Philippe what did you find out?”

“Scary stuff. The ghosts are frightened, never seen them like that before.”

“So I take it that five ghost were...you know...murdered?” I was still lacking the right vocabulary here.

“Brutally exorcized, yes.”

“Do you know where?” I asked him, while I grabbed a pen and walked over to the city map still taped to the wall.

“Rue Saint-Sebastien.”

I marked it down and then turned around to look at him. “Thank you, and chin up, we’ll catch those bastards.”

He gave me a small smile. “Yeah, and give them a good kick up their asses for me.”

I smiled back. “Goes without saying.” I took a step back to get a better look at the map, and heard Kylian moving to stand beside me, our elbows touching. Ignoring the heat radiating off him I stared at the map, utterly focused, or trying to. And as my eyes moved from one point to another it finally dawned on me what exactly I was looking at, or to be more precise what I’d be looking at with another point on the map marking five dead faeries.

“Oh, bite me!”

Kylian gazed over at me, arching one brow over those glinting eyes of his, sending shivers down my spine.

I raised my chin. “What? I know it’s a common expression, so don’t look at me like that.” To get away from him I stepped forward and began to draw lines through every point, connecting them with each other in a way they formed a star, only upside down.

“Five and five, in a circle wide.” As Kylian repeated that line, I connected the points in a big circle. “A pentagram.”

“Yep.”

“The evil’s mark,” Chastel cut in.

While turning around to look at him, Kylian explained, “That’s not quite right. The pentagram is actually a rather neutral symbol. And it’s mostly used as a portal in conjuring rituals. Since the last millennium however humans tended to conjure up little nasty stuff, and so the pentagram became falsely connected with evil.”

“Ah, nice to know.”

“Anyone of you guys ever seen a pentagram that big before?” Philippe timidly asked.

Chastel shook his head.

Me neither, so “Nope. You?” I asked Kylian.

“A pentagram nearly the size of a third of a city, reinforced with twenty-five blood sacrifices? No. Can’t say that I have. That’s a first for me, too.”

“Okay, but we know that size and number of sacrifices are directly proportional to strength and power of the conjured entity. So we can assume something very powerful and mighty is knocking on our door.” With a look at Chastel, I added, “Maybe you weren’t that far off after all. Seems to me that portal is most likely created for a devil or a god.”

Mathieu looked at me warily. “Wait a sec, you meant the devil, right? Not ‘a devil’?”

“No, there are several. What most humans call the Devil or Satan is just Christianity’s bad guy, but other religion’s have those, too.”

“And where are they?” Philippe asked.

“Actually, all of them, all the gods and devils, are in one and the same realm. Imagine a really creepy village; every religion living in their house, and every one sucks at neighborly relations,” I replied.

“But their realm will be open to Earth, too, after the Turn, right?” After I nodded, Mathieu frowned as if pondering over something, and then continued, “Then I don’t get it. So why not wait? Why go through all the trouble of painting a pentagram all over the city and killing twenty-five people?”

Leaning against the kitchen counter with my hip, I smiled. “Good questions. Well, to answer the first one you have to know that the words god and patience don’t get along. Gods are gods, devils are devils, and in the end they’re all oversized children holding too much power and following a philosophy of life that sums up to I-want-it-and-I-want-it-now. And as for your last question; neither gods nor devils do the dirty work, they have subjects, minions for that, and besides having twenty-five magical creatures sacrificed in ones name is a real nice energy booster, believe me.”

“You know what might be another energy booster?” Kylian asked and I looked at him intrigued, “No, what?”

“The Blue Moon. According to the gargoyles we have two sets left, but what if they referred to the moon and not the sun. What if our time’s up when the Blue Moon sets, on Friday?”

“Oh Putain, pourquoi j’ai n’y est pas pensez? But of course, you’re right. The Blue Moon reinforces everything that’s magic, like nothing else does, and in a magic deprived world like ours it’d be the best moment for a ritual. Damn, why haven’t I thought of that?” I began pacing back and forth between the kitchen counter and the table in the living room, “Okay. I found the shapeshifters on Saturday, the witches we found Tuesday...Philippe, when were the ghosts exorcized?” I stopped the pacing for a few moments.

“On Wednesday.”

Pacing again, I reeled this over in my head, and then stopped facing the guys, “Wanna bet that the vamps were killed on Monday, and Sunday was their day off?”

“Sunday off, that would mean...” Chastel said.

“We’re dealing with a god,” Kylian finished.

“God, as in Christianity’s God? If their off on Sunday?” Mathieu wanted to know.

“No, way back the other gods got jealous and it was decided that every god is off on Sunday,” I explained, distracted.

Kylian said out loud what’s been trapped in my head. “Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. It would mean that on Thursday they’d kill the last group of the Big Five, which happens to be today.”

I stared at the map and the missing point of the pentagram. “They won’t dump them there, they’ll kill them on side this time. In the Jardin des Plantes. Till the earth is soaked with blood. It’s better for the ritual. The park will be closed at night, they’ll be alone, no witnesses.” I turned and Kylian smiled wickedly, “Unfortunately for them, they won’t be alone.”

“Their own welcome committee. Nice, sign me up.” Chastel smiled, too, now.

“Okay guys, let’s weapon up.”

“Don’t want to kill the mood here, but those assholes took all my weapons.” Chastel pointed out.

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it,” I called out while heading into my storage room to get some chalk and five white beeswax candles. Back in the living room I crouched down, drew a pentagram with the chalk on the pinewood floor and positioned a candle at every point of the star. Then I lightened the candles with my breath, so they burned with a blue-green flame. Sitting down in the middle of the symbol, crossing my legs, I calmed down and concentrated on the magic within me while I chanted. In my mind I went back to the police station, through the door where they kept the weapons they took, and pulled at the image.

Opening my eyes I saw down at my lap, which now was covered and overflowing with weapons; knives, shuriken and ammo.

“Sweet. It’s Christmas.” Chastel grabbed for his weapons which immediately disappeared into and under his clothes. “Thanks, I’ve been feeling weird without them.”

“Pas de quoi. I know that feeling too well. Besides good weapons are expensive so I had to come up with something after getting arrested a few times. Of course they suspect me, but thanks to the teleporting spell, they have no evidence. No signs of break-in, no fingerprints, nothing.” Normally that thought alone was enough to make me smile again, not this time though.

I got out a map of the fifth arrondissement and taped it beside the other one against the wall. Standing a little to the side I showed them the outlines of the Jardin des Plantes. “In that area is a very old altar, fourth century to be exact. It’s a leftover from the Celts.” I tapped with my finger at the point in question. “Plus, a few yards away stands one of the eldest trees of Paris. It’s planted around 1740.” Chastel whistled softly. “Yep, and after having absorbed magic for nearly three centuries that tree’s rather strong.”

Kylian nodded, “Perfect place for a sacrifice.”

“There are a lot of entrances, but three bigger ones. Everyone of us should cover one. We move in, clear the park and meet at the altar. Then it’s just a matter of wait and see.”

“And when those fuckers show up, then what?” Mathieu wanted to know.

“Well, kid, we kill them and get Pauline,” Kylian answered matter-of-factly.

“Logic, simple and probably bloody. I’m okay with it,” Chastel announced.

“Good. Sun goes down after eight o’clock. We’ll want to be in the park before that, so we’ll head out at seven.”

With that I picked my weapons, the three remaining throwing stars, off the floor and went for the winding staircase, heading towards my training shed on the terrace. I settled down on an old swivel chair in front of a small wooden desk and began to clean or to oil my weapons, depending on what was needed. All of them, my daggers, knives, and Cutter, of course. And even a few guns I kept. It was routine and I’d hoped it would help to calm down. It didn’t, not as much as it usually did. Not knowing what else to do, I buried my head between my hands. Then I abruptly stood up, pacing back and forth in the shed to finally sit down again. I looked at my watch. Three hours and twenty-six minutes to go. Great, time was crawling when for once I needed it running. I put my head back down on my arms, resting on the desk.