“I shall be west,” Clara said, taking that place.
“And so south shall be vacant,” Bedelia said. “I’ll place the calling items in the center of the circle.” Taking the pillowcase from her bag, she went to the very center of the buried circle and upended it. The two items landed together, the bra wrapped around the hairbrush, and she took her place at north. North meant she was the leader of thiscallingworking. She said, “Thrice around the circle we go, sunwise, each time dropping an item of our power at south.”
“Sunwise,” they repeated, and Clara added, “deosil, sunward, the path of power.”
The women dropped a sweater or blanket and anything they didn’t want to carry at the moment. Then, as if on the same beat of an unheard drum, they began the trek clockwise around the buried circle, feeling the path with their feet. And each time they passed the cardinal point of south, they dropped something they had planted in the yard and gathered just now.
None of their actions werenecessaryparts of magic. Magic simplywas. It was everywhere, a part of the universe, a part of all life, a part of every stone and flower. It was energy and life and the beginning of all creation.
Unless one had direct access to leyline energies and had the ability to work raw power without getting drunk and falling over to sleep it off, one had to gather the energy of the universe slowly through meditation, and then channel that power through the math of geometry and a little calculus and physics, while adjusting one’s own inner energies to merge with the will and purpose of the group. Tapping into the power of the Earth and stars and sun and moon and water and air and stone, and binding it to one’s will was difficult, but that hard work had been done, sealing the circle here, years ago. Now they had only to claim the energies through the treading of their feet.
The three sunwise trips were done quickly and they retook their places. As one, they sat and got comfy. That part wasn’t as easy as it used to be. The ground, even with the ugly sweater beneath her, felt a lot harder than it had been last time, though Bedelia had more backside padding now than back then. They all closed their eyes. Their power rose. The witch energies raced through the buried stones, freed after bound so long. Released, the circle sent images of other witches who had crossed this land. The last time, the strongest time, was last night. Seven paranormals had gathered here, three of them both witches andother. Theotherparanormal energies were unfamiliar, sharp and slivered, cutting and cold, like broken obsidian lying on frozen ground. Bedelia’s eyes popped open and found Mabs and Clara staring at her. They had seen the same wrong energies—witch andother. The four non-witch magic users were alsoother.
Bedelia felt through the ground the vibrations of the witches who had tried to find and claim the circle. They smelled the witches on the breeze, tasted their magic in the air.
“Foul,” Mabs whispered.
“Abomination,” Clara Anne said.
“Can we trap all three of the witches?” Bedelia asked.
“We only need to call one,” Clara Anne said, reminding her. “When she drives up, the vampires can grab her and put the null cuffs on her. From her, your vampires can find the other two and claim them. One at a time.”
Clara meant that Lincoln and his vampires could bleed and read the captured witch. If she hadn’t tasted the abomination in the witches’ magic just now, she would have thought the suggestion repugnant. Now, anything that cleansed the earth of these foul creatures would be the right thing to do.
She linked to the skin cells on the personal items and said, “By the Power of Three, we call the witch.” The others echoed her.
Lincoln
He was watching Bedelia speaking the words of a summoning when the stink came to him on the air. Wet dog. Odd sweet-sick scent overlaying its primary scent. Female dog, in heat. The scent of sweetness and blood and… insanity.
Female werewolf. His hunter’s mind knew it.
Quickly, he sought his Mithran scions through their fresh blood bond and directed them into different positions. Through that bond, he felt their reaction of shock as the scent reached them all, and he directed calm into them.
A howl shivered through the air, plaintive, desolate, aching. Lost and lonely.
A creature stepped from the darkness of the trees. It stood there, limned in the night in his Mithran vision. A silver wolf in half-form—bipedal, standing upright on clawed paw-feet, naked except where wolf-pelt covered her, she carried a silver athame in each half-paw/half-hand, and an amulet necklace of wood beads lay around her half-wolf shoulders, marking her an earth witch. She had a full-wolf head, ears pointing high, wet nose, lips drawn back in a snarl.
Had he not seen Jane Yellowrock achieve a half-form of a panther/human hybrid, Linc might have been tempted to spin away and run for his life. But he could handle this werewolf witch just fine.
Out of the woods behind her, another werewolf stepped. Then a third. All female. All in heat. All insane. And three were witches, wearing the amulets of their power around their necks. The Rule of Three as Bedelia had spoken it, but perverted, evil. They were here to claim the Coraville circle and kill anyone who stood in their way. Kill Bedelia if she fought back. And his Bedelia would always fight back.
The wolves raised their wolf heads and howled. His skin shivered.Holy hell.
Lincoln glanced back. There was no protective ward around Bedelia and the witches. Nohedge of thorns. The circle was defenseless. If the witch-wolves attacked the circle, the rising circle of power where Bedelia sat, it was likely they would break it. The rising energies would backlash. The sitting witches would be injured. They would be unable to protect themselves. They would be killed easily or infected by the attacking werewolves.
Rage thundered through him. His heart beat. Beat.Beat.
He drew on all the power gifted him as Master of the City. Drew on the connections he’d made through drinking the blood of his people, from allowing them to sip of him. All the things Bedelia had hated about his life as a vampire clawing his way to the top of a vampire clan, all these things would now save his love. His family. Raising his head, Lincoln Shaddock screamed the battle cry of his old human self, an ululation of rage. He called his people to war. “To me! To me! Silver. Fire at will!”
Shotguns blasted. But the werewolves were as fast as his kind.
Muzzle open, fangs dripping with the contagion of were-taint, the gray wolf leaped at the circle. Stretched out. Claws sharp as knives and black as the night sky.
Bedelia
“To me! To me! Silver. Fire at will!” Lincoln’s battle cry echoed over the grassy land and rolled down the cliff to the water. At the sound, something brittle as glass shattered within her. Icy power rushed through her and back out again, leaving her cold as the undead. His fear and fury pounded through a bond she hadn’t known was there. Fear, fury, and…love.
