Circle of Blood (16 page)

“Of course not,” Trina said, walking to the back door when Connor pointed at it.

They ran through another seven agents. When the last one left, Connor turned a smug face toward her. “I told you it couldn’t possibly be any of my agents.”

At that moment she shoved her way inside his mind and he shouted and jumped to his feet. She let him go a second later. “You said it was none of your agents, which meant I had to check you.”

“Not cool,” he growled.

“No,” she said, “what’s not cool is that leaves only one person it can be, the one person you swore it couldn’t be.”

She turned and headed out the door. A few feet away was Albert. “That’s everyone,” he said. “Is there anything else—”

Samantha lobbed a fireball at his head. “Did you think you could hide forever?” she hissed.

He ducked. “Have you gone crazy?” he asked.

“No, but I’m about to,” she said. She leaped forward and grabbed him by the throat and hoisted him into the air.

“Drop him!” Connor shouted.

“Not until you scan him!”

“I . . . what the—”

Albert hissed and exploded a ball of light right in front of Samantha’s face. She was ready for it this time, though, and managed to reflect it back right at him. He slumped to the floor, unconscious.

“You never checked him,” she said to Connor.

“He was by my side the entire time.”

“No, you only thought he was. Now let’s hope he can give us some answers about Lilith and her coven.”

“I know just the agent for the job,” Connor said, his lips pulling back in a snarl. “He’ll curse the day he ever crossed us.”

Samantha didn’t doubt that for a minute. She nodded and then went in search of a quiet place. When she had found it she pulled her phone out of her pocket. It was miraculously undamaged.

She called Anthony and felt herself relax when she heard the sound of his voice.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Banged up, mostly,” she said. “I miss you.”

“I miss you, too.”

“We found a mole in Connor’s organization. He helped Lilith kidnap the hoodoo woman and get away.”

“Oh, wonderful,” Anthony said. “Just what everyone needed to brighten their day.”

“Tell me about it. They’re going to be interrogating him here any minute. Hopefully we’ll find out something.”

“Did the hoodoo woman give you any answers?”

“She didn’t have a chance to; we were interrupted.”

“Care to talk about it?”

“More than you know. It will take too long, though, and I need Ed to bring me some things.”

“I could come along.”

“No, it’s still too dangerous. I’m happier with you out of sight.”

“I understand. I don’t like it, but I understand.”

“Thanks.”

“So, what do you need me to send Ed with?”

“Basically my entire tool kit. It’s the gray duffel bag with the red stripe in my room.”

“And just how am I supposed to get in there?” he asked.

“Clever man like you, I’m sure you can find a way,” she said.

“Uh-huh.”

“And if that fails, Ed’s got a lock pick.”

“Better. Where are you?”

“A church. I’ll get the address and text it to him.”

“Okay. Miss you.”

“Miss you more,” she said, then hung up with a sigh.

From the other room she could hear sudden, high-pitched screaming, a sound that should never come out of a grown man. The pastor wasn’t going to like that, not one little bit. Connor would have to deal with him on that issue, though. Neither of them was her responsibility.

She would, however, need a quiet place where she could set up her stuff and work once Ed arrived, and she wasn’t sure she was comfortable doing it within a church.

Ultimately the pastor offered her the use of a small gym on the property. It at least felt better to her than bringing some of her witch equipment into one of the other rooms. Ed arrived quickly and once he was inside the gym he held out the bag to her between two fingers, as if it was distasteful to him.

“What have you got in here anyway?” he asked.

“Oh, you know, the usual—eye of newt, heart of rat, wings of bats, shrunken human skulls.”

“Very funny,” he said.

“I don’t know. I thought your expression when I said ‘heart of rat’ was hilarious.”

“Yeah, just so you know, you pull any part of a rat out of that bag and trust me, you won’t find my reaction funny.”

She smiled. “Don’t worry. If a rat comes out of this bag, I won’t be laughing.”

“Long as we’re both on the same page,” he said with a nod.

He jerked his hand toward the door. “Sounds like someone out there is getting the once-over twice. I take it that’s the spy.”

“If it’s not I’d say we’re all in a lot of trouble,” Samantha said grimly.

“I’d hate to be that guy.”

“I might have been that guy earlier if you hadn’t been there to watch my back,” she reminded him.

He shrugged. “What are partners for?”

She loved the fact that he had just waded back into that role with no hesitation. She unzipped the bag. “Well, right now a partner is for making sure no one disturbs us while we work.”

“Gotcha. I’ll shoot the first guy through that door.”

She rolled her eyes. “Again with the shooting?”

He shrugged. “I’m the only guy here who can’t do magic. What does that leave me with? My charming personality and winning looks?”

“Good point—better get the gun out now,” Samantha said.

“Nice,” he responded.

She pulled out some candles and a poppet.

“What is that thing, a voodoo doll?”

“I wish. I know just where I’d like to stick a needle on Lilith,” she said. “No, it’s symbolic, yes, but that’s not really what it’s supposed to be used for.”

Although back in Salem she had used one to convince a guy that there was a massive spider crawling on his face. She half smiled at the memory. “I’m going to try to use sympathetic magic with the candles and the poppet to help locate Lilith, the hoodoo woman, or any of Lilith’s coven. I’m pretty sure they’re all shielded, but sometime or another someone’s going to slip up, and when they do, I’ll know.”

Ed rolled his eyes. “You should have just said yes to the voodoo thing. I’d be feeling a lot more confident right about now.”

Samantha sighed. “So would I.”

In the background she could hear yet another agonized scream. In her heart she knew that at this point if he hadn’t given up the information Connor was asking for, then he was going to go to his grave with it. From the sounds of things, that would be sooner rather than later.

“They’re going to kill that guy, aren’t they?” Ed asked, clearly getting edgy.

“Yes.”

“And we’re going to let them do it?”

“I suppose—”

She turned around and stared at Ed. “You know what? No, we’re not. There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”

“Don’t say ‘skin,’ because I’m pretty sure that’s what they’re doing to that guy,” Ed said, looking slightly sick.

“Don’t worry, Ed. I’m sure they’re not skinning him. Whatever it is will be much worse than that,” she said.

“Remind me never to give you the job of making me feel better . . . about anything.”

“Deal, but only if you’ll promise to stay in here and watch my stuff after I finish setting up. I don’t want anyone else disturbing it while I’m out of the room. This could take a while.”

“Consider your stuff protected,” Ed said. “I don’t understand it, but if you say it’s important, no one will get near it.”

“Thank you.”

“Now, go do something about all that noise.”

“Just one second,” she said, turning back to her things. She said a few quiet words, waved her hand, and set things in motion. Hopefully any chinks in their armor would be discovered even if it took some time.

Then she turned back to Ed. “Want to see something cool?” she asked.

“Sure.”

She put her head in her hands for a moment, then lifted it after putting a glamour on herself.

He shouted and jumped back, starting to draw his gun.

“Relax,” she said, dropping the glamour and returning to her normal appearance. “It’s me.”

“There for a second you—you looked like someone else completely, hair, face, everything.”

“Exactly. Now, to make sure no one comes in here masquerading as me, I’m going to give you a password.”

“What is that?”

She smiled. “When I come back in here, if it’s me I’ll say the name of my boyfriend.”

Ed nodded. “I think I can remember that. After all, I know whose legs I’m going to break if you get hurt.”

She grinned as she turned to leave the room.

She made her way to where all the screams were coming from. Trina was standing guard outside the door, looking as though she was going to be ill.

“Get Connor for me. I want to let him know what I’m about to try.”

Trina slipped inside the room and returned a few moments later with Connor.

“He’s not going to crack,” he said.

“That’s because you’re not using the right persuasion,” Samantha said.

“You got something better in mind?”

She nodded.

“Be my guest.”

“Pull your other guys out first. I don’t need them freaking out on me and ruining everything. How much pain is he in?”

“Considerable. He keeps fainting and we have to keep snapping him out of it.”

“Good, the more disoriented he is, the better chance this has of working,” she said.

A minute later the room was cleared.

“Good luck,” Connor said.

“I won’t need it,” Samantha said as she donned the glamour in front of his eyes.

Even he took a step back and began to swear under his breath.

Her voice even sounded different when she spoke next. “What did I say about proper motivation?”

He nodded mutely.

She turned and walked into the room. She got up close to Albert, who was strapped to a chair, and she knelt down in front of him. When he opened his eyes they widened in shock.

She knew he wasn’t seeing Samantha. He was seeing Lilith.

“Lilith!” he gasped.

“What have you told them?” Samantha asked, making sure to keep her voice sounding like Lilith’s to match her appearance.

“Nothing, I swear.”

“How do I know that’s true?”

“You know I’d never betray you. I love you.”

So that was how she had gotten to him. It was simple enough to trick somebody into believing he was loved or even in love. She lifted her hand and stroked his cheek, sending soothing warmth into his battered skin.

He closed his eyes and leaned into her hand with a deep sigh. “I knew you’d come for me.”

“Of course. How could I abandon you once they had discovered you?” she asked.

“You really do care,” he muttered.

He was feeling no pain at the moment, glorying in what he thought was Lilith’s presence.

“Now, when we leave here, do you know where you have to go?” she asked.

“Of course.”

“Tell me,” she urged.

“You said never to say it out loud, even to you.”

Lilith had covered her bases, Samantha had to give her that.

She thought about pushing into his mind, but she was certain Lilith would have booby-trapped it just as she did to those at the theme park who had seen her. She was in no mood to be sent flying again, and she was sure her body wouldn’t thank her for it.

“Then show me. Put an image in my mind.”

“You want me to touch your mind?” he asked, sounding somewhat awed.

“Yes.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“You told us, anyone who touched your mind would die.”

“Everyone but you, Albert. Surely you know that.”

“I—I,” he stuttered.

“Go ahead and try,” she encouraged him, stroking his face more.

He blinked and then a moment later his face contorted in pain. “I can’t,” he sobbed.

Samantha frowned. Lilith had set up outgoing blocks as well as ingoing ones so that he couldn’t share the information that way. Samantha would have to take a different approach.

“Do you remember the name of the woman you’re supposed to report to if I’m not there when you reach the coven?” Samantha asked, taking a gamble and guessing that her lieutenant would be a woman since she had chosen women in the other cities.

“Of course,” he answered.

“Tell me her name.”

“I . . . won’t.”

He was starting to shut down and they were never going to be able to crack him.

“Tell me!” she barked.

“Her name is—”

He began to scream in pain.

Something was happening, and she knew instinctively that time had run out. She had no choice. If someone was going to have to go into his mind, it should be her. After all, she knew what to anticipate.

She pushed her way in, expecting to be thrown halfway across the room. It didn’t happen. Albert continued to scream and thrash around and a moment later there was a blinding burst of light inside and it began to fry his mind like a computer.

Samantha panicked. She could feel thoughts, memories linked to Lilith, and she felt she was scooping them up, seeing them without really comprehending them, looking at everything as though through a strobe effect.

He was beginning to convulse and foam at the mouth. His mind was exploding and Samantha gasped and yanked herself out of it, falling backward onto the floor as she did so.

She glanced up just in time to see blinding white light pouring out of Albert’s eyes and ears and then a moment later his body exploded, sending blood and gore flying all over the room.

She jerked up her hands to block herself from the worst of it even as random images chased one another through her mind. She fought to slow them down enough to focus on them, but she couldn’t. She had grabbed everything she could, and her mind was struggling to understand and process the data. It was too much, though, and she felt the images begin to fragment and scatter inside her own mind, as if hiding themselves from her.

She screamed in rage and frustration. This had all been for nothing. Now Albert was dead and the information he could have shared with them was plastered across the walls, floor, and ceiling or else lost inside her own mind.

She pounded the floor with her fist. It wasn’t fair. She had worked so hard to get at that information. Agents were running into the room. She knew they had felt what happened, and from where she was lying she could see that there was a camera on a table in the corner. They’d been able to see as well. There was no need to explain, but still she heard herself screaming.

“She left a land mine in his brain! She killed him instead of me! Lost, all lost!”

Connor was kneeling down beside her a moment later, his face inscrutable. “Did you get a look at anything?”

“It happened too fast. I couldn’t focus on anything long enough to make sense of it. I think some of the images are in my head, but I can’t get at them.”

“Do you want me to try?”

“No!”

The last thing she needed was him walking around in her brain. For all they knew he’d get bits and pieces of her life and bits and pieces of Albert’s and they’d mesh together in some horrific way that would send them all running off on a wild-goose chase.

She could feel tears streaming down her face.

“You’re tired. You’ve been through a lot. You need to stand down, get some rest,” he was telling her.

It was good advice, but how was she supposed to rest after that? All she wanted to do was grab her own head and scream and scream until she couldn’t make a sound anymore.

Trina knelt down on her other side. “Let’s get you to the bathroom,” she was saying. She was white as a sheet, the only indication that she understood just how terrible what had happened was.

“It’s useless,” Samantha muttered.

“No, we’ll get you cleaned up and it will be fine. You’ll see,” Trina said, and Samantha could tell she was intentionally misunderstanding her.

Together Trina and Connor pulled her up to her feet. Trina helped support part of her weight and walked her out of the room. All along the way Samantha could see horrified faces; the other agents weren’t as good at putting on a brave face as Trina was.

“None of you should ever work undercover,” she heard herself reproving them. Even as she did she knew that wasn’t fair of her. None of them could have anticipated, could have prepared for, what just happened.

In the bathroom Trina turned on the hot water for one of the sinks and grabbed a handful of paper towels. “Let’s get you cleaned up,” she said briskly.

Samantha grabbed the paper towels from her. “I want to be alone right now.”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

Samantha gave her a look that must have been terrifying, because Trina turned even whiter. “Okay, but I’ll be outside in case you need anything.”

Samantha nodded. She wanted, needed to be alone. It was her only hope to focus on the memories she so dearly needed to retrieve from her mind, the ones that weren’t hers.

Samantha felt shell-shocked. She took a few minutes in the bathroom to clean her clothes and wash her face. Then she walked outside to try to get some fresh air and clear her head. She’d known that Lilith would booby-trap Albert’s mind, but she’d assumed the booby trap would be aimed at killing or harming the intruder and not Albert. That only proved that whatever information he’d had, it had been valuable.

Her head was awash with images, none of which made any sense. It was like looking at a picture through a kaleidoscope toy where everything bent and refracted and all you saw was a mishmash of color and geometric patterns instead of a real picture that meant something.

She wanted to scream. She felt unbelievably drained and frazzled, as if insanity was clawing at the edges of her mind. That’s what she got for being inside someone else’s head when he died.

She shuddered, refusing to let herself believe that she’d been with Albert in his last moment. That way was madness. No, she had pulled out a millisecond before, else who knew what might have happened?

She rubbed her eyes, wishing she could go to sleep. She thought about Anthony. If he was smart he was in bed now and Freaky Kitty was probably curled up with him. At that moment she didn’t know which of them she envied more.

Still, the faster she sorted all this out, the faster she could see both of them. Her head didn’t want to seem to cooperate, though. No matter how hard she pushed, how she tilted the mental kaleidoscope, it still was just colors and lines. She had the sinking feeling that it could be days before any of it made any sense at all. That was time she didn’t have.

She finally decided to go and check in on Ed, make sure he was okay. If she was incredibly lucky maybe there had been some results on that end. Something had to give soon. She couldn’t help feeling that they were running out of time, and not just because Lilith was going to be undoubtedly killing more people.

If even we could figure out why she was making a huge power grab now,
she thought.

It couldn’t all be about Samantha. Lilith could have killed her half a dozen times easily over the last several months. Heck, if she’d really found her a couple of years ago, she could have killed her anytime she wanted with no one ever being able to trace the murder back to her.

No, Lilith had to have some other plan, and it had to tie in to what she’d been doing in Salem and San Francisco.

Samantha blinked.

Demons.

That was the common denominator between the two locations. In both places covens under Lilith’s control had been trying to summon an ancient demon. Was it possible that there was another one trapped here? Or was this just a good location because no one was going to notice some extra magic and craziness, at least not until it got really out of hand?

She wondered if Anthony or any of his local friends knew of any legends. She checked her phone. It was the middle of the night. If he was actually able to get some sleep, she didn’t want to disturb him. Someone deserved to get some sleep, after all. Plus, if he had to ask his friends, there was no way he was going to be making those calls in the middle of the night.

It could wait until morning. Hopefully by then it would be a moot point because they would already have found the coven. Time to go check in with Ed.

Samantha walked into the gym. Ed leveled a steely gaze at her, a hand on the butt of his gun.

“If I had a boyfriend, it would be Anthony,” she said.

“Just admit you like him already,” he said.

“What good will that do anyone?”

“More than you think.”

“He already knows how I feel.”

“Yeah, but the way I hear it, you’re a heck of a one for mixed signals.”

“Great, now the two of you are talking about me.”

“You girls talk about us. We’re entitled.”

“Guy talk, that’s all I need.”

“Welcome back, Samantha,” he said, letting go of his gun.

“Thanks, Ed,” she said, extinguishing the fireball she’d been hiding behind her back, just in case.

“You look like hell,” Ed commented.

“Is that all? I must be doing well, then.”

“That bad, huh?”

“You have no idea.”

“Enlighten me?”

“And depress both of us? No, thanks. One of us, at least, should be able to live in ignorant bliss.”

He smirked. “I’d say it’s probably a little too late for that in general.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

She glanced over at her candles and poppet. Nothing looked different from when she’d left. “Anything change?”

“Not yet.”

“Nothing moved?”

“Was it supposed to?” he asked with raised eyebrows.

“Yes, that is the general goal. If something moves, then we have a clue, a possible location on where one of the people we’re looking for could be.”

“I’ll make sure to pay more attention, then,” he said.

“I’d appreciate it,” she said with a yawn.

She was tired and it was late. She really wanted to get some sleep, but she was pretty sure that wasn’t in the cards just yet. She did, however, desperately need to get a little bit of peace, a chance to think about the information swimming around in her head. It was scrambled but she was sure that with a little concentration and a lot of luck, she might make something out of it yet.

“You might want to sit down before you fall down,” he noted. “Better yet, why don’t you go get some sleep?”

“Can’t, too much to do.”

“Well, you need to do something before you fall over. Trust me, we’ve known each other for three years. I’ve seen that look before. You once face-planted in a plate of mashed potatoes looking like that.”

“I don’t remember any such thing,” she said.

“See,” he said innocently, “just goes to show how tired you were.”

She sighed. “Do you mind babysitting a little longer?”

“Not if it means you can go get some rest before you fall over or I have to put you down.”

“You’re always a comfort, Ed.”

“Oh, good, because that’s what I always wanted to do with my life. You know, every little kid says ‘I want to be a comfort when I grow up.’”

“Maybe they should,” she said. “I’ll check back in a little later. I’ve got my phone. You can call if you need me or anything changes.”

“Ditto.”

She waved and headed for the door. Once she exited she debated where to head that wasn’t going to be crawling with FBI agents. She wasn’t in the mood to deal with any of them. She just needed to be able to find some quiet and some peace if any still existed in the world anymore. She was seriously beginning to doubt it.

She turned and wandered aimlessly for a minute before stumbling onto the sanctuary. That sounded like a good place to start looking for quiet and peace at any rate.

She walked inside. The lights were on, but very dim, and she could feel herself getting drowsy just standing in there. That wasn’t good. She needed to stay awake, work stuff out.

She saw movement toward the front of the room. Someone was sitting in one of the pews. She walked slowly forward, curious as to who it was.

She finally got close enough to see that it was the pastor who had saved her. He was praying, his eyes closed, his hands folded.