Circle of Blood (15 page)

“It must have been a shock,” Samantha acknowledged.

“It was an abomination!” Lilith thundered. “How could you betray me like that?”

“I didn’t betray you. I remember very little about that night,” Samantha said. “What I do remember comes in flashes, in nightmares, all the death, the blood, the screaming.” She took a deep breath. “I thought I was the only survivor. I didn’t even remember until yesterday that you weren’t killed in the massacre with everyone else, that you were away.”

Lilith closed her eyes. “You thought I was dead?”

Samantha nodded.

“But the graves—”

“I didn’t even see them until I came back from San Francisco. The witch there kept saying something about the last grave, so I went because that was the only thing I could think of, and I found the last grave in the row, and it was mine. I had no idea one was even dug for me. Then I found what you left inside for me.”

“So you never knew to look for me.”

“No,” Samantha said, grateful that it was the truth.

Lilith sat down suddenly and Samantha blinked.

Bloody tears streaked down Lilith’s face. Samantha hesitated, not knowing what to do. Could it really be this simple? She took a couple of steps closer, keeping her guard up. “I was alone and I was twelve. I didn’t know how to live in the world. My mother kept me so isolated, you remember. I had to adapt. I had to survive. And whatever happened that night, everyone dying, it was too terrible to remember.”

“My father was killed that night,” Lilith said.

“As was my mother.”

Lilith sighed deeply. “My father always said you had the makings of a great high priestess, but he was worried you would never get there because you couldn’t find the balance. You were wild, unpredictable when you were little. Then as you got older you were so hesitant, cautious.”

“My mother was a brutal teacher, not an easy woman to live with or learn from,” Samantha said. She didn’t volunteer that Lilith’s father had been equally to blame, just as harsh and capricious.

“You really don’t remember what happened that night? Because I’ve been trying for years to get answers about what went wrong,” Lilith said.

Samantha took another step closer. “Like I said, snatches of memory in flashback. I know that they succeeded in raising a demon and then the demon killed them all.”

“All except you.”

“Yes. I wish I knew how, why it spared me.”

“You probably think it was your God protecting you.”

Samantha was silent. She’d never really thought that, since it was long before she knew God or had the right to claim His protection for anything. Perhaps it had been, though. Maybe she’d never know the truth. “I wish I knew.”

“Me, too.”

“Was that why you went to see the hoodoo woman, to try to find out?” Samantha asked.

Lilith looked at her and shook her head. “No, I never even thought about asking her that.”

“Then what did you ask her?”

“I asked her what happened to you.”

Sorrow knifed through Samantha’s heart and for the first time she truly felt sympathy for what Lilith must have gone through, just as lost, just as alone, but with no one to help her, no adopted parents to swoop in and show her a better way.

Samantha took another step forward and stretched out her hand. “Maybe together we can find out what really happened that night. Maybe we can make things . . . right.”

Lilith gave her the strangest look, as though she actually was having a moment where she pitied Samantha. Then she sighed heavily. “Oh, Desdemona, Samantha, whatever you want to call yourself, that’s sweet. It really is. But we are way beyond that.”

“What do you mean?” Samantha asked.

Lilith stood up. “There’s no going back for either of us. Recognize this?” She pulled something out of her pocket, dangling it from her fingertips.

It was Samantha’s cross necklace, the one that had been stolen from her.

“Give that back,” Samantha said.

Lilith smiled at her. “Why on earth would I do that? You see, by creating this, by keeping it, by wearing it where anyone could take it off you, you gave me a precious, precious gift.”

Lilith closed her hand around the cross, and her smile turned cruel. “You see, I had your names, all of them, but thanks to this, I have your blood.”

The thing that Samantha had feared since the moment she lost the cross. She’d known a practitioner of magic could use that blood against her, and it had finally come to that. She wondered what Lilith was going to do and how she could protect herself against it. Her biggest fear was that Lilith would use her to kill other people and to cause untold evil. She poised herself, wondering how she could regain the necklace before it was too late.

“What do you intend to do?” she asked, trying to buy more time to think.

“You know, I thought about setting your blood on fire, but that seemed too easy, and frankly, it didn’t quite suit the situation. And then it hit me. The hot-blooded witch you could have been had her blood cooled by this weak, pale imitation. And I had begun to fear that you were indeed dead and ash somewhere. Now, this cross has your blood all right, but not hot, not even cold. It’s old and dried and, frankly, dead. Just like you’re about to be.”

Samantha lunged forward, made it two steps, and then fell to her knees. Something was desperately, dreadfully wrong.

Her heart stuttered and pain shot through it. It squeezed tightly, painfully, and then shut down completely. Blood began to pool in her extremities as it ceased to pump through her body. Pain roared through her, nearly blinding her. She could feel the moment the blood stopped moving altogether. It just sat, stagnant as the water in the swamp behind her.

And then it began to harden, thicken, pressing against the sides of all her blood vessels until she wanted to scream and scream.

She fell on her side. She came face-to-face with one of Lilith’s intended victims, an older black man who was wearing a cross on a chain around his neck. Samantha struggled, trying to move her arm. Now it felt as if her veins were shriveling. She could feel the blood congealing in them and then drying, dying. Just as she was.

She managed to push her pinky finger against the cross. She wanted to speak, but her mouth wouldn’t move. She could feel her organs shutting down, and even the pain lessened as one by one her nerves began to die.

By the power of Christ’s blood shed on the cross, help me,
she thought, the most desperate prayer she’d ever prayed.

The man’s eyes flew open and he reached out and gripped her hand, pressing the cross between his hand and hers. He flooded her with energy, trying to jump-start her body, get it to heal itself.

But how could it when Lilith controlled her blood?

Destroy. Necklace. She. Has
. She tried to think to him, barely able to make the words form.

He twisted his head to stare at Lilith. His lips moved, but if he was speaking out loud she couldn’t hear it. Everything was fading for her.

She heard a scream and she saw the necklace fall from Lilith’s hand. Then she felt the ground shake and people raced by. She didn’t know who. She hoped they were there to help, because all she knew as darkness claimed her was that she had failed.

Samantha struggled, fighting to come back. There were people who needed her. Around her she could hear a roaring sound and eventually she realized it was screaming.

She forced her eyes open. People were running past her in all directions, panic flowing off them like water. She wondered how it was that she wasn’t being trampled to death. Then she realized that the older man was still holding her hand, his cross pressed between their fingers. He was not only channeling energy into her; he was also creating a bubble of safety around them so that people were shying away.

She could see dimly through the mist. There were dozens of fires all over, but they weren’t doing much more than sputtering out because of the wetness of the ground. She could see FBI agents running back and forth, some of them trying to direct people off the island, presumably into boats, while others were clearly looking for Lilith or any of her followers.

Samantha was certain the witch would have had an escape route planned. She opened her mouth to try to speak, to get someone’s attention, but all that came out was just a squeak.

“You need to gather your strength. You’re still in danger,” the older man said, his voice strained from the effort of helping her.

I need to stop her,
she thought to him since she couldn’t speak.

“And you will, but not today.”

I can’t let more people die.

“It’s not up to you to save them all.”

It’s because of me that she’s doing this.

“Any man can only take responsibility for his own actions. She might blame you for something, but what she does, she does for herself, because she chooses to.”

My friends need my help.

“You can’t help them if you’re dead, and you’re not out of the woods yet.”

She had no argument to give. He was right and he was connected to her; she could feel that he was taking on some of the damage to her body himself. He knew exactly how injured she was, and there was no hiding that fact.

She laid her head down, beginning to be able to pull energy from the earth for herself.

“Good,” he said approvingly.

The blood was moving again in her veins, but it still felt slow, sluggish, and somewhat toxic. She winced at the discomfort. Her body was healing, but oh so slowly, and it nearly drove her mad lying there while all around her were people who needed her help.

A thousand questions crowded her mind. Had the FBI agents arrived because they, too, had been lured by the siren song or had they been following the crowd? If so, how had they managed to block the effects of the song?

She watched people scurrying to and fro. Lilith was still on the island; she felt it with a certainty that had to mean something.

The healing process began to speed a little more and finally she opened her hand and freed it from the man next to her. She heard him groan in grateful relief and knew what it had cost him to have saved her life as he had. When this was over she would have to find him and thank him.

She lay still for another minute, watching everything that was happening around her, willing her body to heal faster. They had cleared most of the people off the island now. They were still searching frantically, though, for any sign of Lilith.

She watched as they searched and after a few minutes it became clear that everyone was avoiding a small area behind some trees to the back left of the island. She watched as yet another agent turned away from it.

She had to check it out. She pushed up slowly from the ground, her arms shaking but ultimately holding her. From there she stood slowly, her legs wobbling and barely able to hold her. She took one step at a time, moving agonizingly slow. Her feet had been asleep and as they came back to life the pain was like being jabbed by a thousand red-hot needles. She gritted her teeth against it and forced herself to keep moving forward, convinced that there was something back there the agents weren’t seeing.

Finally she made it back to the spot where everyone had turned aside, and in a flash she knew why. She had an intense desire to turn away, an unshakeable belief that there was nothing back there. It could only mean one thing.

Someone very powerful was hiding someone or something.

She took a step forward and the urge to turn aside became stronger. She took a second step and she could swear someone behind her was shouting her name, telling her to come look at something. It was a lie, she knew. It was just like being back in the basement of Abigail’s old house with voices telling her things, whispering them. They weren’t real. They were just phantoms designed to keep people away.

She pushed forward, hands at her side, ready to strike if a target presented itself. A moment later she heard a whisper of cloth moving. She parted the leaves of one twisted old tree and saw Lilith, sitting in a boat. On the shore was a person dressed in a suit, and the person was handing the unconscious body of the hoodoo woman down to Lilith.

Samantha raised her hands, preparing to strike, praying that she could do so without hurting the hoodoo woman. Her knees gave way beneath her and she slipped and fell against the tree. The figure in the suit turned, there was a blinding flash of light, and then nothing.

•   •   •

Samantha woke up with a scream.

“Easy, now, you’ll be okay,” an older male voice said soothingly.

She opened her eyes and the first thing she saw was a cross on a wall. She twisted her head and saw the speaker, an older black gentleman with kindly eyes and white hair. It was the man who had saved her in the swamp. There was power coming off him and after a moment she realized he had his hand on her arm and was sending healing energy through her.

“Where am I?”

“This is my church. I’m Reverend Johnson, but most folks call me Raymond.”

“What happened?”

“You were injured in a fight with that devil woman. I was worried. I tried to go after you when you got up, but I was too weak. I saw a flash of light and you fell. That’s when I shouted for someone to go get you.”

She struggled to sit up as everything came flooding back to her.

He pushed firmly down on her shoulders. “No, you need to rest still.”

Fire knifed through her left shoulder and she cried out. She brought her hand up. “What’s wrong with my shoulder?”

“It is a very strange wound. I’m not yet sure what she did to you or how I can help heal it. Believe me, I’ve been trying.”

“My cross necklace, the one that you knocked from her hand?”

He shook his head. “I think she took it with her. No one was able to find any trace of it.”

“Then why hasn’t she killed me?” Samantha wondered out loud.

“Maybe she believes you’re already dead. Or maybe she has other plans for you. Or maybe God has smiled upon you.”

“I certainly hope He has,” Samantha said. “What happened to everyone else?” she asked.

“Some are here, recovering. Some are beyond our help now,” he said, looking sad.

She closed her eyes. “We failed.”

“You lost a battle, but the war rages on. I am confident that you will be victorious in the end.”

“She’s so much stronger than I am.”

“That’s not what I heard. More versed in magic, more diabolical, but not stronger.”

“I let everyone down.”

He chuckled. “They think it’s the other way around. They believe they let you down.”

He stood up. “There was someone who wanted to see you once you were able.”

“Thank you for saving me, again,” she said.

“God wished it. Why else would He have woken me when around us the rest continued to sleep?” he asked.

She couldn’t argue with his logic.

He got up and exited the room and a moment later Connor came in, looking ragged. “How are you?” he asked.

“I’ve been better. I’ve also been worse,” she said. “You?”

“About the same,” he admitted.

Something was wrong other than the obvious, she could tell. “Has something else happened?” she asked.

“Yeah, while we were still clearing out of the swamp, someone hit our base of operations. Killed four agents and burned the place to the ground.”

“Do you think it was Martin’s demon?” she asked.

“No, but they’ve disappeared. It was definitely an attack by witches. I just have no idea how they found us.”

“I think I do,” she said, remembering what she’d seen right before being hit by the flash of light. She quickly filled him in about Lilith and the person in the suit handing the unconscious body of the hoodoo woman to her.

“We didn’t find the hoodoo woman, but we figured she made her own way off the island. A lot of locals did,” he said. “I just can’t believe who you saw was one of my people, though. Could have been any number of businessmen.”

“You said it yourself; how did they know where your safe house was? And it’s awfully convenient that it was hit so soon after I saw them together.”

He shook his head, clearly not wanting to accept it.

“You’ve put how many moles into other people’s covens and organizations and yet you really can’t conceive that someone in your organization has been compromised?” Samantha asked.

“It’s impossible,” Connor said, scoffing “All my people have gone through intensive training in every area, including fighting mind control. There’s no way one of them is being used by Lilith.”

“The fact that you’re that certain makes me more nervous,” Samantha admitted. “I’d like to personally question everyone.”

“It’s a waste of time.”

“Yeah, well, Lilith got her information from somewhere, and it sure wasn’t from me.”

“What about your partner?” he asked.

“Ed’s clean. I’ve checked. And besides, I’ve taken a page from Lilith’s playbook. If anyone tries to enter his mind,
anyone
, for any reason, they’ll get one heck of a shock and I’ll be instantly alerted,” she said, making sure Connor got the point.

“Sound plan,” he muttered.

She smirked. He’d been considering doing exactly that, and now he would certainly think twice.

“Did all your agents make it back from the swamp?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Are they’re all here?”

“Yes.”

“Do they know I’m okay?”

“No, why?” he asked. “Your injuries were extensive. We weren’t sure if you were going to make it.”

“Excellent. Here’s what we’re going to do. First off, I want you to tell all of them that I died of my injuries.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “Why on earth would I do that?”

She smiled. “Because we’re about to play a little game of chicken. It’s all a matter of who blinks first,” she explained. “Is there anyone whose whereabouts on the island you can account for at every second?”

“Yes, Albert was by my side the entire time, never left it once. We were working to get the people to safety and he was working overtime trying to calm people down enough to prevent them from stampeding into the water.”

“Okay, I want you to tell him that in a few minutes you need to see everyone, one at a time. Make up a reason that would be logical to your people. Have him send them in one at a time, but do not have him come in with them.”

“I think I’m starting to see what you’re getting at. It’s clever, but like I told you before, it simply couldn’t be one of my people.”

“Well, then, prove me wrong and we can both sleep better tonight,” she said.

He nodded reluctantly. “I’ll set it up.”

Half an hour later they were sitting in a small Sunday school room in two folding chairs. Samantha was still far from one hundred percent and her shoulder was killing her. She’d give anything to know what Lilith had done to it. Maybe if they found her accomplice she’d get her chance. She’d also love to find the old hoodoo woman and ask her some more questions before Lilith killed her or got more answers herself.

The door opened and the first agent walked in, someone she’d only seen once. He closed the door behind him, took three steps into the room, and stopped, clearly startled as his eyes fell on Samantha.

“So, tell me,” she said coldly. “How much did the hoodoo woman weigh and where is Lilith taking her?”

“Excuse me?” he said, clearly still hung up on the fact that she was alive when he’d heard otherwise.

Next to her she could feel Connor pushing into the man’s mind. The guy winced but took it.

“He’s fine,” Samantha said, and Connor nodded.

“Go out the back door and speak of this to no one,” Connor instructed.

The man nodded and did as he was directed.

Two minutes later the door opened again and a woman walked inside. The door had scarcely closed behind her when she gasped. “You’re alive?” she asked wonderingly.

“No thanks to you. Now tell me where Lilith’s taking the hoodoo woman before I kill you,” Samantha said, calling a fireball to her fingertips.

The woman’s eyes flew open wide and she took a step backward. “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“She’s telling the truth,” Connor confirmed.

They went through ten more agents in rapid succession. After the tenth left, Connor glanced at her. “I told you this was a waste of time. My agents are all highly trained and loyal.”

“We’re not stopping until all of them have been checked,” Samantha said flatly.

“What if it was one of the agents killed at the safe house?”

“How would they have gotten back in time?” she asked.

He scowled. “Okay, let’s keep going.”

The door opened a minute later and Trina walked inside. She stared at Samantha for a moment and then broke into a smile. “They told us you were—”

“Traitor! I saw you working with Lilith to put the hoodoo woman in her boat. Did you think I wouldn’t recognize you?” Samantha burst out, leaping up from her seat.

Trina just stared at her slack-jawed.

Samantha sat down in relief. “It’s not her.”

“No—no, it isn’t,” Connor said, raising an eyebrow at her.

“What is going on?” Trina demanded.

“There’s a spy,” Samantha said. “We have to check everyone.”

Trina’s hand flew to her mouth. “That’s impossible.”

“Nevertheless,” Samantha said, shrugging, “don’t talk to anyone until we’re finished.”