Circle of the Moon (Soulwood #4 )- Faith Hunter Page 0,12
weapon was under the seat, which, while not locked in the gun safe in his trunk, was put away, not in plain sight on the car seat. His memory is spotty until he woke up at the circle site, still in cat form, bag and flip phone beside him.”
“That preparation suggests he was in his right mind,” T. Laine said, in agreement with me, “though not remembering the drive suggests something else.”
“At the scene he thought the cat had been dead about three hours,” I said. “When you discount our drive time, that leaves about two hours and twenty minutes from the time the spell was at its zenith to the time Rick was sane enough to call for help. It takes him something like twenty minutes each time he shifts shape. So that takes away another forty minutes, leaving an hour twenty or so. How long did it take him to get to the spell site?” I asked. “Did he smell vampires when he got there?”
“He didn’t know, and he doesn’t remember anything about vamps,” JoJo said, her mismatched earrings swinging silvery in the light of her laptop screen as she tapped keys. “But he was alone each time he shifted. Good questions, probie.”
I ducked my head in pleasure. “In that case I have another one,” I said. “If the purpose was to call Rick, then the spell succeeded. Why wasn’t the witch waiting for him? Why do the spell and leave? By not being there, that suggests coincidence, not causality.”
T. Laine brightened and said, “Yeah. My gut feeling is that this blood-magic caster didn’t know Rick would come.” She pointed a finger at me approvingly. “Our blood-magic witch initiated the spell in the inner circle, slit the cat’s throat, closed the inner circle to let the spell run its course, and then stepped outside the outer circle and reclosed it too.” She took a long draw of her iced drink through the straw, trying to combat the heat of my house. The tiny window-unit air conditioner was straining. Come full dark, when the temps outside dropped lower than the temps inside, I’d open the windows and doors and let the winds sweep out the heat, but for now it was just miserable. “It’s a freaky working,” the unit’s witch continued. “I still don’t know what it’s supposed to do, but I think the spell was a fast one. She killed the cat and once it was dead, the spell ended and she left.”
“And the maggoty feeling Nell got?” JoJo asked the witch.
“I’m spitballing here, but I think the vamps showed up and left before Rick arrived. And no, I have no idea if vamps were there for the working, or were summoned, or if that’s an accident too.”
JoJo adjusted the elastic waist of her sweat-damp skirt, plucking at the thin cotton fabric printed with big aqua blooms, smaller bright pink flowers, and small green leaves. “Dear God, I’m hot. Nell, this place reminds me of my great-grandmother’s place in Georgia.” Jo took off her turban, which was a one-piece thing like a toboggan, tossed it to the kitchen table like a Frisbee, and gusted a hearty sigh. “Great-Gramma had AC but never used it. Said her bones were cold all the time. Her place was a sauna too.”
I almost said that I was sorry, but it wasn’t my idea for the unit to invade my home, so … no apology. It was nearly August. It was hot.
“Yeah, I know,” JoJo said, reading my face the way Tandy could read emotions. “I have to deal.”
“According to the calendar,” Tandy said, hiding a grin, “last night was a waning half-moon, days after full. It wasn’t a moon working, which would take place on the full moon. It didn’t look like an earth magic working or a water working. It wasn’t any recognizable or standared magical working. Which adds to the possibility that this was an accidental summoning. A deliberate summoning of a were-creature would most likely be on the full moon.”
“What do we know about the circle?” JoJo asked T. Laine. “Anything expected and ordinary? Anything we can use as a jumping-off point?”
“The circle was downright strange,” T. Laine said. “Nothing traditional about it except the starting point aligned to magnetic north. Most circles that big need multiple witches to invoke. This was a one-woman circle. Most are geared to the element the witch is called by. I’m a moon witch, so I’d only attempt a big circle on the