Circle of Blood (2 page)

“No, I don’t think so.”

“He’s not a witch, nor does he have our powers,” she mused.

“I—I’m not a witch.”

“No, of course you’re not. Even if you were, you wouldn’t be very good at it. But still, look at him and tell me what you see, what you feel.”

“I don’t understand.”

For the first time Desdemona looked up and met the girl’s eyes. She saw terror there, running rampant, practically paralyzing her. The curiosity was visible, too, but to a much lesser degree. The memories of Samantha were present in Desdemona’s mind, but it took effort to focus in on them and to pluck out the information she needed.

Back in Salem the dark coven had brought about the resurrection of Abigail, Desdemona’s own coven leader from childhood, killed when Desdemona was twelve. The new coven leaders had not warned all the members what exactly they were doing or that they would be ripping energy from them in order to restore the dead woman to life. The action had killed several of the weaker members and left others badly injured and terrified, suddenly aware of exactly what they had gotten themselves into. Samantha had taken pity on them and, without blowing her cover, had managed to give a few of them a way to escape the coven.

The girl in front of her had been the first to accept Samantha’s offer of amnesty in the graveyard after the resurrection of Abigail. Samantha had given her enough energy not just to rise from the ground but also to run from the place and never look back. She had never known the girl’s name.

That was easily enough solved. Desdemona didn’t bother asking; she pushed her way inside the girl’s mind and took it.

The girl gasped and sank to her knees, a stricken look on her face. She’d never had someone walk through her mind before; that much was clear. In a moment Desdemona knew everything she needed to know about her.

“Claudia.”

“Yes?”

“I want you to look at this body and tell me what you see, not with your eyes but with your powers.”

The girl hunched her shoulders and turned agonized eyes onto the body. “There is a faint shimmer about him.”

“Very good. What else?”

The girl strained but finally shook her head. “I don’t see anything else.”

“If you can’t see, then you should hear.” Desdemona tilted the girl’s head slightly to the side so that she could see what had been standing there the entire time.

The dead man’s ghost was present, a look of terror and confusion on his face.

Claudia tried to jerk away, but she was still under Desdemona’s control.

“It’s a ghost,” she whimpered, fear filling her voice.

“Yes. I’m surprised you’ve never seen one before. Tell us, spirit, how did you die?”

The ghost shook his head, refusing to speak to them.

“Very well,” Samantha said, lifting her hand toward him. “If you will not tell us, you will show us.”

Then the spirit disappeared and reappeared a moment later several feet away. It began walking. It halted, then half turned as though sensing someone behind it. “I did what you asked!” he screamed.

Then he seized up, bending nearly double. An invisible force lifted him about a foot off the ground and then dropped him. He went straight down, and she could tell from the reenactment that he’d been dead when his head hit the pavement.

The spirit lay there for a moment and then got up and repeated the entire thing again.

“Why—why is he doing that?”

“It’s a ghost’s natural function to replay his death over and over like a bad recording. Some grow more sentient and become more creative. He was in shock, those moments just after the soul has departed from the body, when it doesn’t understand what has happened to it. I just pushed him out of that slightly faster.”

“Somebody was following him. They killed him. It was someone with the powers,” Claudia said.

“Very good. Now the only questions that remain are who and why.”

“He said he did what they asked. And yet whoever it was killed him anyway.”

Desdemona shrugged. “He was clearly only a tool and a disposable one at that.”

“How sad,” Claudia murmured.

Desdemona looked up at her and smiled. “How touching you should think so since you, too, are disposable.”

Claudia took one look at her smile and began to scream.

Don’t kill her,
a voice whispered deep inside Desdemona. She scowled. There was nothing that could stop her from killing Claudia if she chose to. As she imagined the girl spontaneously combusting, burning from the inside out, she realized that she really wanted to. It had been ages since she had held life and death in the palm of her hand, another creature’s fate dependent solely on her whim.

Use her. Find out what she knows,
the voice whispered.

She hissed under her breath. That annoying voice that sometimes came to her usually didn’t make so much sense.

“You know how they used to kill witches?” she asked, tilting her head to the side.

Claudia was ashen, trembling from head to toe. She shook her head.

“Oh, come on, of course you do. They’d tie them to a stake and then set them on fire. They’d burn them from the outside until there was nothing left. It’s a terrible way to die, but one of the first things that’s destroyed is your nerve endings, so you stop feeling the pain, the heat, all of it.”

“That’s awful,” Claudia sobbed.

“Yes, but not half as awful as what I’m going to do to you if you don’t tell me everything I want to know. I can burn you from the inside out and I can make the pain last much, much longer.”

“Please, I don’t know anything,” the girl begged.

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

“I don’t, really.”

“How many other witches have you met here in New Orleans?”

“I—I don’t know.”

Desdemona
tsk
ed. “Come, come, you expect me to believe that?”

“I don’t know how many witches, honest. I’m not—not a witch . . . not since you . . . please, don’t kill me.”

Desdemona rolled her eyes. “How many others with power have you met?”

Spittle was dangling off the girl’s chin, and her eyes were wild. The terror coming off her was almost overwhelming in its intoxicating effect. “A lot. There’s a lot here. I don’t know why. There seems to be more every day.”

“Interesting. Why do you think that is?”

“I don’t know. Some of them try to talk to me and I get scared. I want to leave, but—”

“But you can’t?” Desdemona guessed.

The girl nodded, spittle flying.

“Almost as though some invisible force compels you to stay?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Interesting. What type of people are they?”

“I don’t know. All kinds. I don’t know if they’re witches, but they seem to come from all over and be all different kinds of people. Rich, poor, young, old.”

“And there’s nothing tying them together?”

“Not that I can tell.”

It was interesting. If a magic practitioner were calling all these people to him or her, from all different places and all different walks of life, that person would have to be very powerful. It was very indiscriminate as well, which would seem to indicate a need for these people’s powers and not necessarily their will or ability to use them.

Something stirred in the back of Samantha’s mind. Something had happened not that long ago in Salem, where mass numbers of people had been drained of energy, used as human batteries. But if her shadowy memory served, those had been just ordinary people, not ones with power.

Which meant that whoever had called these people here to this place must have much bigger plans than resurrecting a single person.

She felt as though her thoughts were flowing like quicksilver, as if she was almost free-associating rather than thinking. It was as though a part of her, her subconscious, had struggled to work it out and now it was whispering to her—

“No!” she shouted as she realized that it was that other version of her, the one who had been a cop and witnessed those events in Salem, that was trying to talk to her, warn her about something. She wouldn’t listen; she couldn’t. That other self was weak, foolish, afraid. There was nothing Desdemona would take from her.

Isn’t that weakness, too?
the hateful self whispered.

If Desdemona could have figured out what part of her carried that wretched voice, she would have ripped it out days before. The only thing it had to offer her was fear.

And Desdemona had sworn to herself that she would never be afraid again. “Have they seemed to gather in one place? Have you felt a call to any place specific in the city?”

“No, I haven’t. I don’t know about the others, but I heard that some of them, some kids and homeless, are actually camped out at an old abandoned amusement park that closed after Katrina. It’s called Jazzland.”

“There’s a witch in town, a very powerful witch.”

“I’ve heard there’s a witch who lives in the Garden District. Everyone knows about her. I haven’t seen her, so I don’t know how powerful she is.”

“Or even if she has powers,” Desdemona mused. “No, the witch I’m looking for would cloak herself more in secrecy, in shadow. Have you heard any whispers, rumors?”

“No, I swear it.”

The girl didn’t know anything else, of that Desdemona was certain. She still wanted to kill her, but she realized it might be useful to keep her around. The girl had only been there a few months, but she was already far more familiar with the city. She, and her powers, could prove very useful indeed.

“Claudia.”

Claudia jerked at the sound of her name.

“You belong to me now—do you understand?”

“No.”

“You live only because I wish it. If I were to stop wishing it, even for a moment.” She snapped her fingers and Claudia stifled a scream.

“Do we have an understanding?”

“Yes.”

“Good. You will learn for me all that you can about the witches who are already in the city and the magic possessors who are coming here. You have no other role, no other purpose in life, but to serve me.”

“My job—”

“Is over.”

Claudia licked her lips, the distress mounting in her eyes. Desdemona started to think the girl was going to have a heart attack on the spot. In fact, she could actually feel the girl’s heart, skittering out of control, fast, erratic.

“How will I live?”

Desdemona smiled at her. “I’m sure you’ll find a way. Now go. I’ll be in contact with you soon.”

It wasn’t exactly true. She would be in contact with her constantly. Being aware of the fact that Desdemona had that much control over her, that much insight into her every thought, would only terrify her beyond the point of being an effective tool.

Claudia turned and scurried toward the entrance of the alley. She stopped before leaving and turned. “You—you’re different than you were.”

“I was . . . sick. I’m better now.”

She didn’t know why she felt the need to explain. Perhaps it was because she didn’t want the girl to doubt for a minute, to have even a shred of hope that the other personality was coming back.

Because that was never going to happen.

She turned and surveyed the rest of the alley, her thoughts returning to the man she had followed into it. He had claimed to be a Druid. She instinctively felt that doing a summoning spell on him wouldn’t work. She remembered now how to block those. It was complicated magic and she knew her other self would have paid dearly to remember how to do it back in Salem a few months before. Desdemona was sure the Druid had taken precautions. He struck her as the type somehow.

It was possible he was just one of the nameless hoard who had been called to this place. Then again, maybe he was someone of significance. He was powerful, that much she knew. She thought about trying to pick up his trail, but something told her to wait. No, better to deal with him later. There were others she should seek out now.

“I did what you asked!”

Desdemona turned. It was the ghost screaming. While she and Claudia had been talking, it had continued to replay the death of its human body. Pathetic. Just one more ghost in a town crawling with them.

A tinge of something touched her, sorrow perhaps? That was a useless emotion. She made to turn and leave, but instead she found herself lifting her hand and sucking the energy of the apparition into herself. She could feel a spike in her energy, her power. It was actually quite pleasant.

A moment later, the ghost had vanished. She looked down at the body. A police investigation would be one more distraction she didn’t need to deal with, especially since her little minion had left her shattered vase of flowers all over the alley entrance.

Desdemona called a fireball to her fingertips and she dropped it on the body, which ignited in a flash. The smell of burning hair and charred flesh filled the air around her, a reminder of so many events from her childhood. She wrinkled her nose, turned, and left the smoldering ashes behind.

She walked a ways, planning her next move in light of the morning’s events. She was here in this city to find the witch that had called her out when she left the picture of the stolen necklace for her to find. That witch she had been coming to realize had been behind all the events in Salem and in San Francisco even though she had never been present or revealed herself. She had used her, just as she had all the others, but to what end? In both cities the covens had been trying to raise a demon. Something told her that the endgame was much bigger than that, though. The morning had been interesting, but she still had no idea where to look for the witch that had used and manipulated her.

Her phone rang and she pulled it out. The caller ID said Anthony. He had called several times in the past few days. The name seemed familiar to her, but it was part of Samantha’s life, not hers. She ignored the call as she had the others and continued walking.

As she stalked the streets, searching for her prey, what Claudia had told her about the kids and homeless gathering in their own little conclave in the abandoned amusement park kept coming back to her. That much power in one place would tempt any witch to pay a visit. It was also possible one of them held answers that she needed, though she knew with an absolute certainty that the witch she sought wouldn’t be among them.

She hailed a taxi and slid into the backseat.

“Where to?” the driver, a large man with dreadlocks, asked.

“Jazzland.”

“Miss, that was destroyed by Katrina.”

“Jazzland,” Desdemona repeated.

“Okay. Didn’t take you for an urban-explorer type, though. Usually they have big, fancy cameras.”

She didn’t answer, just sat back and watched the city flash by her window. She had never been to New Orleans before, but even she could feel the desperation of a city still half in chaos, struggling to reclaim what nature had taken away. They didn’t understand; nature was a tool, just like everything else. It was a means to someone’s or some
thing
’s end.

A strong enough coven of witches could have prevented the majority of the devastation.
Or they could have caused it,
she thought idly.

At this point, she had no way of knowing if the witch she was looking for had even been in the city back then.

The driver finally pulled up outside a closed-off parking lot. “This is as close as I can get you, but you should know, the city owns the place and they could arrest you for trespassing.”

“I’ll take my chances,” she said, passing her fare through the slot in the window that separated the front seat from the backseat. She opened the door and got out.

There was power here; she could feel it. It called to her like a siren and she could feel herself drinking it in. It wasn’t just the other magic practitioners, of whom there seemed to be quite a few by the way things felt. It was everything. The destruction and decay gave off their own dark energy, and she could feel it infusing her. She could feel the earth beneath all the concrete. This had been swampland and the swamp was still there, slowly eating away at the underpinnings, ready to reclaim what it had once lost to mankind’s ambition.

Her driver started to get out of the car and then froze, one foot still inside. A small red bag of some sort seemed to fall out of his pocket and hit the ground. She took a couple of steps to the side, wondering what was wrong with him. His head was tilted slightly and his eyelashes were fluttering rapidly. There was a sort of frozen look on his face. Curious, she moved closer so she could get a better look at him.

He was staring at the entrance to the abandoned theme park. His pupils were dilated and his eyes were moving incredibly fast, almost as though they were vibrating.

“What is it?” she asked.

He remained still as if frozen except for his eyes, and she couldn’t tell if he’d even heard her. She passed her hand in front of his eyes, but he didn’t react to it. Something in the abandoned park was calling to her, and she didn’t have time to wonder about what was wrong with him.

She turned to go and suddenly he clamped his hand around her wrist, his fingers squeezing tight.

“Don’t go,” he said, his voice deep and hoarse.

“Nothing here can injure me,” she said.

“Don’t be so certain,” he said, his fingers tightening until they were nearly crushing her wrist. She looked more closely at him. His expression had not changed.

“What do you see?”

“More than he sees.”

The hair lifted on the back of her neck. There was something speaking through the man.

“Do you know who I am?” she asked.

“Yes. Do you?”

The question took her back. “Do you know what I am?” she countered, pushing menace into her voice.

“A witch.”

“Yes.”

“A powerful witch. A foolish witch. A witch who did not study or hone her craft for sixteen years.”

Anger flared through her, tinged with fear. She tried to rip her arm out of his grasp, but he was too strong, and whatever had him in its grip kept hold of her as well.

“And how long have you been a witch?” she demanded.

It was the most logical explanation. Witches could puppeteer other people. It made sense that it was a witch who was speaking through the driver.

“Not a witch.”

“Then who are you?”

“Not flesh.”

“Not flesh,” she said, struggling to keep her voice calm. “Then you are spirit. Are you a ghost, a demon?”

“Not for you to know what I am,” the voice said, growing even hoarser. “Only for you to heed my warning.”