T. Laine turned and walked away. Moments later PsyLED received a message on the public info e-mail. It included a video that JoJo put on the overhead screen, a video of Jason. “Hey, PsyLED, see this?” He angled the cell phone away and we saw a vampire behind him, dancing with a naked, limp,human teenager, holding the boy up, drinking from him. It was Godefroi de Bouillon. He was killing the teenaged boy.
The reaction washed through HQ and through all of us. Horror. Shock. Fury. Helplessness.
Jason said, “Tell Ricky-Bo LaFleur that his cowardice did this. And that when he’s mine, he’ll suffer like I did. Like this boy did.” The video ended.
I watched the footage again. And again.
•••
Before I left to get some sleep, I read the EOD and SOD reports, paying close attention to everyone’s summations. Tandy’s read:Through the witch Loriann Ethier, the two different aspects of our case have collided: LaFleur and vampires and the eighteen-year-old male witch Jason Ethier. We need teams tracking each group. I recommend Jones and myself track Jason. LaFleur and Occam track the movements of the European vampires and Godfrey of Bouillon, while staying close to the silvered cage in case Rick is called again. I also recommend Loriann be kept in the null room until Jason is in custody or otherwise neutralized.
The wordsotherwise neutralizedsent a chill up my spine. They meant dead. And keeping the witch in a null room when she had not been convicted of a crime, was illegal, a painful punishment.
JoJo had created a file on Jason Ethier’s backstory and her summation read:At seven years of age, he went into therapy. He was diagnosed with cancer—acute leukemia—at age nine due to the fact that he was a male witch. Loriann went to Katie Fonteneau (whose scion drank from the child and sexually abused him), and Loriann pressured Katie into saving her brother from the cancer. But Jason’s vision of vamps was blood and sex and this treatment set his addiction deeper—blood and sex violation, blood and healing, both felt good. Jason, in therapy, was fine for a while. It didn’t last.In her “Comments” section, JoJo had written two things:How did Jason find Godfrey?andLaFleur deserves a commendation for maintaining security and confidentiality protocols while under a working.
T. Laine had already typed in a comment.There is aworking for vampires. It isn’t very specific, but if you have a little vampire blood you can search for it.
T. Laine submitted her summation as I was reading the others:Jason and magic. Blood Tarot magic was part of the Ethier family. Loriann had her grandmother’s deck, said to have been owned by Torquemada himself. Per Loriann Ethier, Jason stole the rare deck. Using tarot, Jason practiced the Circle of the Moon and ways to alter it for unknown purpose. Note: Blood Tarot decks can be used in demon worship and demon summoning. Note: LaFleur’s binding likely contained what witches sometimes refer to as a confidentiality clause, keeping him from talking about the tats or the experience. The working might have even kept him from remembering much of his experience. I’ll be turning this all over to the witch council for evaluation and judgment. Loriann deliberately put a protection order and a restraining order against speech into the flesh of a human being, neither of which was part of the working she was forced to ink by the vampire Isleen. She did that of her own volition. And her brother is now, possibly, summoning vampires, which may be how he ended up with Godfrey.
T. Laine’s summation ended with two conclusions,Jason’s one goal seems to be to find and kill Rick LaFleur, who—according to his sister’s lies—didn’t want to save him, or was willing to sacrifice Loriann and Jason to save himself.And,Now that Rick has learned he had amutecompulsion inked into his skin, he seems to be able to force himself to speak through it. I hold out hopes that he can overcome the other bindings too. I see no indication of security breach in LaFleur.
My teammates were working to protect their boss and his job.
Here, just like in the church, everything evil seemed to have its feet planted in secrets and lies, control and abuse.
FIFTEEN
I went home, got some rest. When I woke, Sam was at the door with Mud and Brother Thad, the boxes of equipment behind them. I wrapped a robe around myself and opened it. “Hey. Is it a party?” I asked.
“Nope,” Mud said. “I’m here for the next two nights, me and Cherry. I got nowhere else to stay.” Mud seemed awfully pleased about that.
I spotted the dog in the yard on a long leash, racing back and forth and up and down, smelling everything, peeing and marking territory everywhere the leash would reach. I hadn’t had a dog since the churchmen had shot and killed my three. A strange thrill raced through me at the sight, not one I’d have predicted. I was unexpectedly happy to have a dog here again. Cherry was long-haired, liver, white, and tan, as agile and fast as a racing dog. I turned my gaze back to Mud, who was not mine yet, according to the courts. “You can’t stay here, sister mine. I don’t have anyone to stay at the house with you yet.”
Sam pushed Mud through the door. “At the Nicholson house, Mama and Mama Grace’ve got the stomach bug, along with five of the littles. Projectile vomiting. It’s spreadin’ like wildfire. Esther and Jed have it too.”
“And I can’t stay with Sam on account of SaraBell jist gave him a boy.”
“You’re a father?” I squealed and grabbed Sam, hugging him, the first time I’d hugged my brother since before I left the house at age twelve.
Sam laughed in delight and hugged me back, his blue eyessparkling. “Eight pounds, seven ounces and a head full of dark hair. SaraBell named him Sam Junior.”
“But Mud can’t stay here.”
“Sam Junior is too little to be exposed. SaraBell has him in quarantine. And Mama Carmel’s got her hands full. Sorry, Nell, but you’un get her back.”
“I’m a big girl,” Mud said. “And now that I got me a watchdog, I’ll be right as rain here alone.”
Mud could not stay here alone, but I wasn’t going to argue in front of guests. “And Brother Thad?” I asked.
Brother Thad held out a hand to Sam and introduced himself. I had a feeling that Sam hadn’t known that the Brother Thad I talked about being my friend and who had asked me to attend his church was a black man. “Pleasure to meet you, Sam. Nell says kind things about her brother.”
“Mr. Rankin,” Sam said.
Brother Thad dropped Sam’s hand and extended a folded sheet of paper to me. “Your estimate, with breakdowns. There’s one for the upstairs bathroom and water heater, a separate estimate for a redesign of the downstairs bath, and a third detailed estimate of central heat and air. There’s a labor quote at the bottom to install the solar panels. If you do all the upgrades, there’s a discount, but the estimate doesn’t take into account any problems we might find when we tear into the walls and plumbing.”
“And there’s always problems,” Sam said. “Nell, Mr. Rankin, I’d love to stay, but I need to get home. Nell, let me know if you want me to look over the numbers.”
“I’m pretty capable of looking over numbers on my own, brother mine, despite being female and too dumb to understand basic math.”
