Molly looked up at me from where she sat and shivered, her eyes on my hands holding the power her death magics desired. She was sitting in guru position, her legs in full lotus, back straight, arms relaxed. She took a slow breath, her smile widening. All by herself, like a solo portion of a concert, she said, “In carceribus incarcero. In carcerem condidit ignis.” Something about fire and jails and—
Scarlet fire shot up from the inner concrete trough in the earth, so hot it blazed against my skin before it settled into simply uncomfortable. I started to sweat. Usually wards weren’t hot, but this was a different kind of spell. Stronger than any I had seen before and reaching up to the heavens and the storms that brewed there.
Danger, Beast murmured to me again.
Yeah. I noticed. From every corner.
Are no corners. Circles.
I didn’t laugh, though she hacked at her own humor. My big-cat had a point.
Overhead, lightning flashed and broke apart into splinters of power. It quaked across the sky in fractals of energy, throwing the cemetery into stark white and night black.
Several things happened in a single instant. The vamp-angels atop the mausoleums seemed to move and shift in the lightning light, feathered wings lifting. Illusion—eerie, but illusion. The air smelled of ozone and force, as if gathering to be used.
The blood diamond I was holding in my left fist took on the color of the circle, glowing the shade of blood. This was the moment I expected Molly to try for the diamond, but instead, she blinked and fell back, catching herself on her hands, palms flat to the earth and arms locked. She looked surprised, but I didn’t know why.
Power from the diamond expanded and shivered through me, unexpected, shocking, prickling like a thousand needles into my flesh. I gasped as the pain went deeper, and my right hand and arm began to quiver, the hand that had been burned and scarred by the wyrd of Joseph Santana. The lightning faded as I switched hands and shook the diamond in my left palm like dice, to keep the gem from burning me.
Over her shoulder, Molly said to Sabina, “I’m ready.”
Beyond the outer circle it started to rain, the drops splatting and drumming and sliding down the outer ward where it closed overhead. Not that it mattered, but I had never figured out how magical energies were constructed to allow air for the witches to breathe and light for them to see by—which was energy and would seem to be an interference—but not allow anything else through. The witches had created the concept of semipermeable in their wards long before science had discovered it. Outside the wards, Bruiser was getting soaked. And so was the cat in her cage.
Sabina nodded to me. I juggled the sliver of the Blood Cross into my right palm, held the diamond in my fingertips, and pulled out a small throwing blade, one so pointed-sharp it would pierce flesh before I knew it had touched. “I hate this part,” I muttered as I rearranged the diamond again, careful to keep a firm grip on it. I didn’t want to see what might happen if I dropped it and it hit a witch circle. I stabbed the tip of my thumb. In the same instant, lightning slammed down. Hit close by, a white flash of light as pain shot through me, an electric shock that skittered along my skin, up my neck and across my scalp, down my spine to my toes. I flinched at the dual sensations. Blood welled. I wiped the knife off on my leathers and sheathed it, taking the diamond in my right hand, holding it out of the blood.
My blood slid down the pad of my thumb, stretching into the creases of the inside of the knuckle, where it pooled, welled up, and slid down my proximal phalanx, toward my palm and the sliver of the Blood Cross. My blood spread through the creases of my palm to puddle in a growing pool. When I had about a quarter-sized pool, I nudged the sliver of ancient wood into it.
Nothing happened. Five seconds went by. Then ten. Twenty. At half a minute I said, “Nothing happened.” Since it was supposed to harm or kill vamps, were-creatures, and even my species, I had expected the sliver of the Blood Cross to react to my blood. I looked up from the bloody pool to Molly, who shook her head in confusion. I transferred my gaze to Lachish. “Suggestions?”
“None. Sabina?”
“None,” the priestess said. “Clean the weapon and secure it safely.”
Meaning keep it handy to use in case the SoD showed up, but not so close that I dropped it. Making sure I didn’t get my blood on anything important, I threaded the sliver through my gorget, hooking it in the links. I’d worn it that way once before and it worked fine.
Wind swirled through the circles, sending the candle flames jumping and dancing, like captured djinns. The wind smelled wet, clean, rainy, and strongly of the ozone of lightning.
From my right pocket, I pulled the iron discs and carefully set them into the congealing, cooling blood of my left palm. A jolt of energy passed through me, too fast to analyze, a sizzle of icy heat, like mainlining pure menthol, potent and prickly. And just as quickly as it passed over me, the sensation died.
Lightning blasted into the earth close to the Rousseau mausoleum, and I closed my eyes against the glare for a moment. Glanced up to see the outline of Eli still in place, being pounded by the rain. He lifted a hand to show he was fine. Bruiser stood just beyond the outer circle, soaking wet, in his leathers. He was holding KitKit in both hands, as close to Molly as he could get without breaking a circle.
I took two slow breaths to settle myself and lifted the iron discs out of my blood. Heedless of smearing my own blood on my fighting leathers, I stuffed the discs into a pocket. Keeping my head up and half an eye on Molly, so I could see every threat possible, I took the blood diamond in my right hand and dropped it into my palm, into the blood pooled there. Time changed. Slowed. Stretched. The raindrops hitting the ward seemed to move like warm honey instead of water. And I wasn’t causing the time shift this time. The diamond was. I felt a distinct tug back across the Mississippi River, in the heart of New Orleans, a pull so strong I could have followed it like a dog with a scent. Santana. A moment later, time sped up again and Sabina nodded.
Yeah. It had been suggested that I could sense Santana, that we were connected by way of the diamond in my hand and the crystal on his bracelet. Well, it seemed that was true, though whether I could call him to me was another matter. I was bait or I was useless. And if I was bait, I might be dead. I blew out gathering tension and tried to relax.
Together the witches called out in unison, “Voco, Yosace Bar-Ioudas! Joseph Santana, excieo!”
Directly overhead, lightning struck.