“Why?” I said, then paused, slightly taken aback, as Luna shot me a look. I needed to know these things, didn’t I?
“We are calling upon the elements for protection. Water is for water, incense is for air, candle is for fire, and salt is for the earth. This will help to strengthen our circle.”
I nodded and waited for her to continue.
Luna bent to her bag, setting down the bowl of water and incense and pulling out what looked like a stick. I realized it was a wand.
“I will now cast the circle with my wand – please step inside,” Luna ordered. I hopped forward, stepping close to the pentagram.
Luna raised her arms and I saw a low white light begin to pulse from her hands. Aiming the wand at the sand, she made one circular motion and for a brief moment, a circle lit up in the sand around us.
“Circle of power, I do charge you to be a sacred space and meeting-place between the worlds of the mighty and the worlds of man on a day that is not a day, in a time that is not a time, in a place that is not a place. Oh circle of power, I charge you to be a meeting-place of love and truth and joy…a strong rampart against all evil and harm, and a strong container for energy which is raised until we choose to send it out. In the name of the god and goddesses, I do consecrate you! So mote it be.”
I shivered at her words, my nakedness forgotten as a hum of energy began to pulse around me.
“First you consecrate the circle. Then you invoke the elements,” Luna explained. I nodded – surprised to find that a touch of energy seemed to brush against me – within me.
“I invoke the east, the watcher of the air,” Luna intoned. I stayed quiet as she moved to the south for fire.
“I invoke the west for water,” Luna said.
Just then my cell phone trilled from my bag and I jumped, startled out of the ceremony’s atmosphere and ashamed that my own carelessness was interrupting Luna’s lesson. Reacting on instinct, I stepped from the circle to reach for my bag to silence my phone.
“Thea, no!” Luna yelled at me.
A flash of light out on the water startled me and I watched in confusion as a wash of energy seemed to flow from the water into the circle. A huge plume of white smoke puffed out of nowhere, causing us to cough and wave the acrid smoke away from our eyes and mouths.
“Well, well, well! A lovely sight for my sore eyes,” a voice crowed through the smoke. I squinted, unsure of what I was seeing, wondering if the drinks had been stronger than I’d thought.
Because sure as my breasts need a bra, there was a real life floating pirate, leering at Luna and me in all our naked glory.
See? This is why I don’t play with magick.
Chapter Ten
“Jesus H. Christ,”I swore. Well, kind of swore. A cuss if you’re a Christian, I suppose.
“No, I am not He, but you may address me as Rafe,” the pirate leered, his eyes drinking in my nakedness.
Rafe seemed short for a pirate, at least from what I could tell. Things got a little blurry around the point where his legs should have been meeting the ground and weren’t. He wore a pirate hat – no eye patch though – and a white shirt open to the waist. Dark flowing hair and a broadsword completed the picture, and Rafe tugged on his beard as his eyes flitted between the two of us.
“Luna, what the hell?” I whispered to Luna, moving closer to her.
“You broke the circle while I was invoking water. You can’t break the circle. Ever,” Luna hissed at me. “Now we’ve pulled this ‘Rafe’ from the water.”
“So send him back,” I hissed back.
“I can’t. You can only undo what’s been done at theprecise time and moon phase. We need an entire month before the next almost-full moon cycle,” Luna said angrily.
“Get. Out.” My mouth hung open in shock.
“I willnot‘get out,’ not when I have two such beauties at my fingertips. Though I much prefer you, my curvy wench. A man likes to run his hands over aseñorita’s soft curves when the nights are long.” Rafe winked at me and I shuddered.
“That’s it, clothes are going back on,” I said.
“Stop. I have to close the circle,” Luna ordered and I paused, waiting on her. My eyes followed Rafe as he floated around us, his delight in our naked bodies clear on his face.
“I give thanks, harm none on your way.” Luna put her hands down and stepped back from the circle, eyeing Rafe.
