I smiled, showing him crooked, yellow teeth. “You know you aren’t such a prize yourself.”
We had agreed to look like a middle-aged couple who were, shall we say, functioning on the outside edge of society. His disguise didn’t include any fat padding but the warts on his chin were particularly off-putting.
“I really like the cut of your pants. Very appealing.” The aforementioned fashion disaster were a brown shade that, most unfortunately, reminded me of a certain biological function. They hung dangerously low off his narrow butt, bagging unappealingly in the seat. The shirt he had carelessly tucked into them didn’t fit across the middle, leaving gaps between the buttons and had sleeves that stopped just short of his hairy wrists.
He waggled dark eyebrows at me that seemed at definite odds with his newly bleached hair and said, “Wanna have sex?”
I grimaced. “You should have bleached the brows to match you know.”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”
Just like a man.
Raoul stopped his air vehicle on the edge of a wide, grassy field beyond the Devil’s Glenn city limits and dropped it into hover.
We sat staring at the flickering lights of a huge fire and the robed figures that gathered around it in the distance.
The light seemed especially bright given the fact that the moon was new and the night was very dark.
We both took a large breath and then he turned to me. “Ready?”
I nodded and we stepped out onto the dense carpet of soft grass.
Raoul reached back inside the vehicle and pulled out a soft bundle.
He handed me a robe. “I hope it fits,” he said with a grin.
I smacked his inadequately clad arm.
We slipped the scratchy brown robes on over our clothes and lifted the hoods to obscure our faces.
Considering how we looked that was a kindness to the other celebrants.
Standing outside the air vehicle we could hear the rumble of light conversation from the coven members around the fire. In direct contrast to the last ritual I’d attended, courtesy of Raoul, these coven members seemed happy and carefree. I doubted there would be any demons from Hell at this party.
But there would be a couple of really ugly witches.
Raoul grabbed my elbow and then grimaced at me. “It feels like a cooked sausage.”
I laughed. “Deal with it bony boy. At least I don’t have warts.”
“Where’d you get this fat suit anyway?”
I shrugged. “I’ve had it for a while. Nobody pays attention to you when you look like this. It comes in handy.”
He nodded. “I can see why. I’m trying not to notice you right now myself.”
“Har, har.”
We made our way carefully toward the flickering fire. As we drew closer all activity stopped and dozens of faceless celebrants turned toward us.
We stopped at the edge of the flickering light from the fire and lifted our hoods off our faces. Raoul raised a hand in greeting.
“Blessed Be. We’ve come in search of peace and joy.”
I slanted a look at him, my eyes narrowing. Peace and joy? What the hell was he talking about. I suddenly wished I could invade his mental drawers like I could Emo’s or Dialle’s. But alas. I was shut out. All I could do was nod stupidly beside him. Hoping I was smart enough to follow the playbook since, from my perspective, it was written in invisible ink.
A tall figure stepped forward from the center of the crowd. The figure didn’t give us the courtesy of pushing back his hood but I could see a muscular forearm beneath the robe as he lifted a hand in greeting so I recognized it as a man, probably the coven’s Supreme High Witch.
“Blessed Be. Welcome. Come share our peace and joy.”
Okay. More peace and joy. I resisted the urge to stick my finger down my throat and gag.
Raoul moved closer to the fire and pulled me with him. Two servings of peace and joy coming up.
One by one the members of the coven stepped forward and clasped our hands, murmuring “Blessed Be” at us with a range of inflections, from bored to downright hostile-sounding. I just murmured back at them and tried to peer under their hoods.
Once we’d been greeted by each and every celebrant, the coven turned toward the tall figure, who had situated himself beside what looked like a round table, which was covered by a cloth of a red so deep it looked almost black in the flickering firelight. On the table’s surface were four candles surrounding a pentagram made from what looked like twigs. I strained my brain to remember the lessons in basic Wicca I’d learned from my mother, who’d insisted I understand the practice because you never knew when you would need to deal with a witch.
No kidding
. I thought now as it started to come back to me.
In the northernmost position was a green candle, to represent the Earth if I remembered correctly. The candle to the east was yellow and represented Air. To the south, red for Fire and the fourth candle, to the west, was blue for Water.
The representations of the god and goddess were formed from clay and looked like something a five-year-old or prehistoric human might have created.
Not a fancy altar but one that I assumed would do the job adequately.
The lead witch started chanting and the robed figures around me began to move out of the firelight. I turned in surprise as Raoul and I were left standing alone with the leader, who was looking at the altar and chanting in a deep, hypnotic voice. I looked at Raoul and jerked my head toward the edge of the circle but he gave his head one, quick jerk in the negative and reached into his pocket. He pulled out two crystals and handed one to me.
The other celebrants had started returning. Each of them was carrying something, which they proceeded to place on the altar. Pots of flowers and bunches of berries joined leaves and even a few vegetables on the altar’s surface.
When everyone else had placed their gifts Raoul nodded at me and we approached, placing our crystals in an open area at the center of the altar.
I placed my crystal next to a bunch of limp, brownish broccoli. The witch that contributed that was a real hitter. Probably just cleaned out the food prep area and brought stuff he was gonna throw out anyway. Frugal.
As soon as we stepped back the chanting stopped and the lead witch turned away from the now heavily laden altar. He swung his gaze around the coven, ending with Raoul and me. “Our altar brims with life. Our hearts overflow with joy. And our spirits have joined in peace.”
He raised his arms, again swinging his gaze around the entire circle.
He nodded to a witch who was holding what looked like a small caldron with a pouring lip on one side. The witch walked to the edge of the firelight and started pouring a crystalline white substance on the ground. She walked a complete circle around the altar and coven with the salt and then turned back to the lead witch, nodding to indicate that the circle was complete.
Then the lead witch turned back to the altar and placed one hand on each of the god figurines as if in blessing. With lowered head he spoke in a loud and singsong voice. “The moon is new and awaits our claim. All fault is cleared, no more lay blame. Let this our fondest hope it yield, that all our blights and wounds be healed. And all within this clearing see, our souls’ rebirth and blessed be.”
He turned to the coven and raised his arms like a holographic preacher on tour. “As I have said so mote it be.”
The crowd around us repeated, “So mote it be.”
Raoul’s voice rose above the rest as he repeated the incantation with unnatural fervor. I nudged him with a well padded elbow and he struck back with a bony one but the effect was lost in my padding.
The formal portion of the program seemed to be over at that point and everyone started talking and mingling. Some of the witches dropped their hoods and most of the gathered coven had smiles on their faces and a sparkle in their eyes.
I turned to Raoul and murmured softly, “Doesn’t look like a particularly aggressive or power-hungry crowd to me.”
He frowned down at me and picked at his chin warts. “You know as well as I do, Astra, that looks are almost always deceiving. I trust my information on this.”
I shrugged and stepped into the crowd. Time to do some poking and prodding to see what I could come up with.
An hour later all I had come up with was a couple of invitations for tea that I hadn’t wanted to accept and a couple of recipes for dishes that I didn’t want to try. I was having a particularly hard time figuring out how any of the giddy, harmless-looking people within that circle could have even constructed the devious plot Raoul had laid out to me let alone put it into action.
I forcefully extracted myself from a rosy-cheeked woman with perfect hair whose teeth and nails were flawless and polished to a bright sheen and whose very happiness seemed tied to my eventual acceptance of an invitation for luncheon at her house, which I had no intention of ever accepting, and looked around for Raoul.
I saw him in a group on the other side of the altar, conversing with several men who still wore their hoods. Raoul was frowning and he kept nodding his head and looking around guiltily. His eyes met mine and I started forward, only to stop dead at a quick negative shake of his head.
I looked around feeling a little desperate. I was so desperate in fact that I started wondering if anyone would notice if I just stepped right over the little circle of salt and slid away into the shadows. It occurred to me that I was infinitely more comfortable around devils and demons and such than I was around fairly normal, happy people.
What that said about me I didn’t want to examine very closely. But I had a sneaking suspicion that I could blame that particular gene on my mother’s side of the family.
I felt a tap on my shoulder and closed my eyes, wishing I could sprout wings and fly away. But instead I took a deep breath, fixed a smile I didn’t feel on my face and forced myself to turn.
I almost choked.
The Mx. Coltrans stood before me, beaming happily and reaching for my pudgy hand. As they grasped my hand and stepped closer to welcome me heartily to the coven, I closed my mouth and gulped, hoping my disguise was good enough to withstand scrutiny from only inches away.
They
would
have to be close talkers.
I have no idea what they said to me. I just kept nodding silently. I wasn’t sure I could disguise my voice enough to fool them. I just prayed they’d get bored and go away.
But my mind was working at a frenetic pace, trying to make sense of this new development. Obviously the Coltrans were not ordinary human types who got pulled into a vigilante group without realizing what they were getting into. They were members of a coven. A rival coven to Angel City. And they had misrepresented themselves to me.
If they were witches, why had they sent Margaret into the demon’s lair and why had they needed me to get her out? None of it made sense. Some part if not all of it had to be lies.
Which was why I suddenly realized Raoul was right.
These were not the carefree, harmless people they appeared to be, at least not all of them. Some of them had secrets. And I couldn’t help wondering if some of those secrets weren’t destined to give me a serious bite in the ass.
Raoul confirmed that his information had been right about the Devil’s Glenn Coven. The group of men he’d been talking to had admitted they were trying to pull Angel City into their coven. And, while they hadn’t come right out and admitted they were planning on doing it through nefarious means, they had told Raoul the coven members would be taken by surprise when it happened and that some of them probably wouldn’t survive the takeover.
Raoul had, of course questioned them about the use of the word “survive” but they had just clapped him on the back and told him he had nothing to worry about. He was about to join a coven that would be larger than any coven in the country. And, by extension, one that would have more power than any other.
Knowing what I did about the coven’s plans, this did not give me the warm and fuzzies.
* * * * *
The first dead demon was found on the street outside Demonica the next morning. She had been one of my targets. Meaning I’d been hired to vanquish her for one of my clients.
Now she was a fairly large green puddle on the sidewalk.
I learned of her unscheduled demise when my client called to thank me for vanquishing her.
While I was surprised to learn that the dead demon had been on my target list, I was even more surprised when I figured out she’d been vanquished through black magic. I could still feel the magic on the air when I arrived at the scene.
It was extremely rare for a witch to have enough power to vanquish demons so thoroughly. They could, of course, kill dark world types with black magic but it would take a very powerful witch to turn a demon into a puddle.
I’d only heard of it happening once, a long time ago and that had been considered a giant fluke.
A witch of some power had been temporarily inhabited by a very pissed off demon spirit who had vowed revenge on his unfaithful demon girlfriend.
He and his host had found the errant girlfriend in the arms of her new beau and the Paranormal Police had found them both…or what was left of them…a couple of days later when the landlord called in to report a strange green haze in the seemingly abandoned apartment.
When condensed, both demons had fitted into a small glass jar.
I called Raoul on the televisual when I got back to the office. He didn’t know about any coven activity the previous night and had no information that they had targeted any demons.
I hung up feeling like there was something I should know about the whole situation but was unable to put my finger on it.
As I struggled to catch the elusive thought that was banging around in the unreachable depths of my brain, I felt the air around me change and looked up into a pair of beautiful blue eyes, over scored by lustrous, black lashes.
My Dialle looked at me from the other side of my desk. Appearing every inch the great unifier, except for the angry light in his vacillating eyes.