about her appearance. She worked hard on the farm. Her arms, legs, back, all showed her strength, and her belly was tight and narrow.
GreenSpirit stepped naked from the shadows and raised her arms before them.
Oh my God, Forensia almost exclaimed aloud. It’s her. It’s really her.
Heart Warrior had intimated that a high priestess would conduct the initiation, but GreenSpirit herself? The rumors about her being around had been true, after all. GreenSpirit had been known to suddenly appear at such ceremonies, but Forensia had refused to let herself hope that the Wiccan leader would show up at her own initiation.
The tall woman stepped into the circle of power, her back to the altar. Her eyes roamed the gathering: almost two dozen devoted followers. She was naked but for a beaded necklace with a wooden ankh, the same symbol Forensia had tattooed on her shoulder. And GreenSpirit’s face glowed in the moonlight, lean as her long limbs, and as serious as the spiritual practice she had long embraced.
“Shall we begin?” With a brief wave of her hand, GreenSpirit drew Forensia and Sang-mi into the circle and made them kneel before her. With another gesture, she banished the Pagans who were not witches, including Richtor, to a natural amphitheater hidden in the trees beyond the far side of the clearing. Heart Warrior had instructed them to conduct a silent ritual in support of the two young initiates.
Forensia felt the lingering intensity of the woman’s gaze even after GreenSpirit turned to study Sang-mi. She thought the witch had a handsome face, a commanding presence. GreenSpirit had reportedly spent her adult life moving from coven to coven, nation to nation, making mysterious visits to powerful men and women, and occasionally speaking in public of the threats to Gaia. “Gaia is an organism as alive as you or me,” she’d often said, “and it has its own survival foremost in mind.” Now she repeated those cautionary words as the ceremony began, adding, “Gaia is magic. And magic is the science of the control of nature. Someday, science will understand what we know in our hearts: that other worlds thrive within and without.”
She looked back down to Forensia and Sang-mi. “Have you studied the Law of Threefold Return?”
“Whatever action a person takes, good or bad,” the two answered in unison, “will return to them with three times as much force.”
“Do you know this in your hearts?”
“Yes,” they said.
“And the eight virtues?”
“Beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence.”
GreenSpirit turned from them, raised her eyes to the pentagram, whirled back around—arms reaching up to the night sky, as if imploring the moon. Then she lowered her hands so that she could cup Forensia’s face and draw her close. The initiate closed her eyes in anticipation of a kiss.
“Open your eyes,” GreenSpirit whispered.
Forensia complied, staring into the witch’s large green irises, eyes that were wild with an exuberant, entrancing spirit. The Pagan leader remained only a sweet breath away, so close that Forensia could indeed have kissed her. Wanted to kiss the swooning seductive power of belief, not body. For the first time that night, Forensia fully sensed the lush world of mysticism and magic that awaited her.
The witch’s hands warmed, quickly becoming as hot as stove pads. GreenSpirit drew away so slowly that seconds passed before the tips of her fingers lost contact with Forensia’s cheeks.
GreenSpirit repeated these actions with Sang-mi. She and the Korean woman were locked in an intense union when the night’s silence was suddenly broken by the snapping and trampling of nearby branches.
CHAPTER 8
Jason and his teammates froze. They had crept down from the ridge and slipped behind a thin curtain of parched forest that encircled the clearing. They’d stood there in silence until Bert lost his balance while beating off and fell into some tinder-dry and noisy bushes. Now the boys stared through a wicket of branches at the eerily silent witches, who were staring back.
“Step out from behind those trees,” the older witch called.
Jason wanted to kick Bert’s horny ass for giving them all away. GreenSpirit started forward.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Ryan said, no more raidin’ on his mind. “They’re doing some spooky shit, man, and I don’t want any part of it.”
“That shit’s shit,” Jason said. But he might as well have been talking to the trees—the whole team was scuttling off.
Hell with that. Jason watched the witch walk toward him, moonlight on her sweet spots.