Raven Cursed

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX Sharing the Moon-Call

Heard voices up stairs. Good acoustics, Jane thought. Listen.

“Tell your mama and me about this angel, Angelina.”

“He takes care of aminals, him and Thuriel, Mtniel, and Jehiel. He’s my protector, my guardnan’. He’s right there.” Voice grew sad. “Don’t you see him? Why not? Oh. He says you can’t see angels anymore. Or hear them. Why not?”

“Mmmm . . . Evan?” Molly sounded confused. Worried.

“Tell us what he looks like, darlin’.”

“He’s got black skin and golden eyes like Aunt Jane and golden wings with brownier, redder spots on them. Like the hawk mama likes. He likes Aunt Jane biscause he takes care of the aminals. I mean an-i-mals. He’s her guardnan’ angel too. Weeell. He was her guardnan’ first, and then my guardnan’ angel biscause of what she prayed when she became my godmother.”

“Oh, my God,” Molly whispered.

“And this angel—”

“Hayyel.”

“Hayyel. Will he help us bind the demon?” Big Evan asked.

“Yeeees.” The word was drawn out into many notes like a song.

“What do we do?” he asked.

Moments passed, and Angie Baby laughed. “It’s easy. Aunt Jane and me puts three drops of blood into a glass and you dip the knife into the blood and say, ‘Bíodh sé daor, le m’ordú agus le mo chumhacht.’ ”

Evan’s voice sounded choked. “That’s Irish Gaelic for, ‘Be he unfree—or bound—by my command and power.’ And I know before all that’s holy that she has never heard that before.”

Angie laughed. “Hayyel thinks you’re funny.”

“D-Do we have guardian angels, honey?” Molly asked.

“Daddy does. He has two. You used to, Mama, but you stopped believin’ in ’em and they left.” Smell of grief came down stairs. Molly grieving loss of angels.

Loss of faith, Jane thought at me. Molly’s faith in God has suffered. So they left her.

Lincoln raised his head and opened his mouth, scenting-tasting Molly’s anguish. His killing teeth snapped down with little click. Long fangs. Longer than Beast’s fangs. I growled low, held him with my eyes. I will kill. I will eat. I have not hunted.

He seemed to understand predator stare. Fangs slowly went up into Shaddock’s mouth. So slow no click sounded. “Nice kitty.” I hacked and hissed at him. He closed his eyes and lay down on the floor. “I’ll be good. I am, after all, a guest in this here demon-ridden place.”

“Okay. The angel will helps us,” Big Evan said. His voice flowed downstairs like echoes down cavern walls. “And we have the ceremony. All we need is enough to make a coven.”

“Cia will be back shortly. That gives us a full coven . . .” A long silence trailed Molly’s words. “If we use the children.” Her words sounded sad. Resigned, Jane thought.

Big Evan said slowly, “Angie hasn’t been totally bound by our wards in months. She’s used her gift several times, even untrained. But Little Evan—”

“Is asleep. Maybe he’ll stay asleep. We can put his car seat in place and rout power through him.”

“If we wait until dusk, Cia will be at her strongest.”

“So will the thing in the circle,” Molly said.

“But I bet angels are stronger than demons.”

Molly sighed. “Yeah. I guess I’ll have to rethink my growing lack of belief, huh?”

“Up to you, darlin’.”

Kissing sounds came down stairs. Lincoln made snorting sound but did not open eyes.

“And what do we do about your sister? And the werewolf in the circle? Assuming he’s still alive when we get to him.”

“Leave her asleep until we get the demon bound. Then we have to turn her over to the witch council and—and I don’t know what they’ll do to her. For the wolf, we can call Jane’s friend Kemnebi to take care of him.”

Kem-cat not friend, I thought.

“I have his number written down somewhere,” Molly said. “Evangelina’s landline phone is still working. Only the cells are ruined.”

“This day is turning out to be an expensive one,” Evan said, growl back in his voice.

Just after sunset, Kem and Rick drove up in their rattletrap truck. Within minutes, Boadacia parked behind them, van headlights casting odd shadows in the dead garden, which was still shedding desiccated leaves.

I was back in human form, my long hair loose and in the way, wearing some of my own clothes, and some things Molly had scavenged from Evangelina for me. I didn’t like wearing her clothes, but I liked even less wearing jeans shredded by Beast’s claws and showing a lot of leg. I was in my own tank and undies, and Evangelina’s elastic-waist, green and yellow skirt. It was a sixties granny skirt and looked weird with my boots, and I had no idea how I was getting home on Fang in a dress, but that was a problem for later. I was also wearing various knives strapped to my thighs under my skirt, and felt better for their presence. The jeans and the thrice damned blood-diamond were in a confiscated travel tote, hidden under the couch. Not a safe place, but it was all I had.

I was starving and shoveling in brown rice and grilled veggies from the fridge while cleaning up Evangelina’s kitchen. Beast had made a mess. I had washed and put the ruined plastic in the recycle bin, and was mopping the floor while eating when everyone came in.

Rick wandered over to me, staring while I ate. His long black hair waved and curled around his jaw, his black eyes sparkled with amusement, and his lips pressed together, twitching. “Shtop ih,” I said, through a mouthful of rice. It was seasoned with something wonderful, bits of herbs and stuff, and it tasted delicious. I spooned in another scoop, chewing, mopping.

“You shifted, didn’t you? Kem eats like that after a shift.” When I grunted in affirmation, he said, “You’re cute.”

“Nah cue.” I swallowed. “Too tall and gangly to be cute.”

He took the mop from my hands and finished the floor while I finished off the meal. He was wearing black jeans that cupped his butt like happy hands, and a white tee. The eyes of his cats seeming to glow through the knit. Beast rose and stared as I ate. She approved of a man who could look as sexy as a calendar model even with a mop in hand. He jutted a chin at the floor. “Your cat did this?”

“Yeah. She was hungry. And Molly wouldn’t let her eat Evangelina.” When Rick arched an eyebrow at me I shook my head and said, “For dinner, Ricky Bo.”

“Of course.” He wrung the mop out in the sink and set it aside.

He moved to me and pushed the food away. Took my hips in his hands, his thumbs on my lower stomach, turning my body to his and pulling me close. “I have ideas what you can eat for dessert.” He kissed my jaw. I laughed silently as his lips nuzzled along my jaw, and up to my ear. Heat moved in the wake of his lips, spreading and settling low in my belly. His cheek brushed back and forth along mine again, scent marking me. Cat-like.

I tilted back my head to give him better access to my neck, wondering if he even noticed what he was doing. My laughter faded, and the warmth in my belly grew heavy, thrumming, where his thumbs made slow circles. Mine, Beast purred. “Mmm,” I echoed the sentiment. The full moon was soon, very soon, and while skinwalkers aren’t moon-called, we are closer to our beast-selves at full moon. Beast was often hard to control then. Okay, impossible. I was usually along for the ride, not the other way around. Full moon? Beast was alpha.

I dropped my spoon and slid my hands up Rick’s arms, over the scar tissue of werewolf bites, toward his shoulders. And jerked away. Leaped back. Hard. “What?” Rick said, eyes wide. I looked at my palm. Two spots were red, not blistered, but close. Through his shirt the eyes of the cat-tats on his arm and shoulder were glowing golden. I held out my other hand, fingers close to the four glowing spots, two for the mountain lion, two for the bobcat. Heat came off them. Not enough to scorch the shirt, but—

Rick rolled up his sleeve and said, “This isn’t good.”

“Why not?”

“We’re ready,” Evan said. Rick and I looked at him. Big Evan’s eyes were on the tats too. “You have spelled tattoos?” Rick nodded. “We need to talk sometime. For now, we need Jane in the basement.” To Rick he added, “We’re going to call an angel to bind a demon.”

Rick dropped his sleeve. “No good Catholic schoolboy would miss that.”

We started down the stairs after Big Evan when my cell rang. It was Aggie One Feather. I gathered all the formality around me that I had. Softly, I said, “Aggie One Feather. Elder of the Tsaligi. Please tell me you are the cavalry coming to the rescue at the last minute.” Evan stopped and turned to me.

With a wry tone, Aggie said, “The cavalry usually slaughtered The People, but yes, I know what your witch summoned.” I put her on speakerphone, her soft tones whispering clearly in the stairwell. “I fear it may be one of the Sunnayi Edahi, the invisible night goers. The most fearsome of these evil beings is Kalona Ayeliski, the Raven Mocker.”

The thing in the basement screamed and thrashed in its trap. Kalona Ayeliski. We had its name. That gave us power over it. Big Evan smiled at me, a real smile, maybe the first one I’d ever received. “According to most of the stories,” Aggie said, “the Mocker was a male Cherokee . . . witch is the European term that matches most closely. He could take the shape of a raven and fly to the bedside of a dying person. If the patient wasn’t guarded by holy men who could drive him away, the Mocker would magically remove the dying one’s heart and fly off with it. The patient would die. The mocker would eat the heart and grow younger by however many days he had stolen from the patient. The theft would leave no scar, but if the dead man’s chest cavity was opened, there would be no heart inside.”

I remembered what the demon had said about killing Cherokee on the Trail of Tears, and gaining many years of life. “The evil-deed-doing, big-bad-ugly is a shape-shifter and a witch and a demon. That covers three of the supernatural angles all at once.”

“Yes. It cannot be killed, only bound and banished, as I feared.”

“Yeah,” I said. “That part we got. Thank you, Aggie One Feather. I’ll call later.” I thumbed off the cell and went down into the basement, standing with Rick in the corner. Kemnebi, in human form, studied the demon from across the room, paying particular attention to the sole surviving werewolf. Lincoln Shaddock had disappeared earlier and reappeared now in a burst of vamp speed and displaced air. He looked pinker and more spry, clearly having fed well. I didn’t ask who he snacked on. He brought Pickersgill with him, the vamp placed in a comfy chair upstairs to guard Evangelina while we worked.

The basement room had been rearranged. All the paintings had been removed from the walls and stacked in the other room. There were a lot of us, five witches, a were-cat and a were-cat in training, a vamp, and a skinwalker. In the witch’s circle were a sleeping, spelled werewolf and parts of a dead werewolf. And the demon, of course. The guest of honor.

There were talismans at each place of the pentagram: Molly had a holly branch that was still green. She must have spent some time foraging down the street, because nothing alive was left in Evangelina’s garden. Big Evan had a flute carved of pale wood. Cia had a huge moonstone, something a museum might display, bigger than two fists held together, like an oval crystal ball, its surface catching the light in rainbow hues. The toddler was wide awake, strapped into his car seat, kicking and saying disconnected words about bananas. Molly seemed to understand what he said, but most of it was gibberish to me. He had a feather and a holly leaf tucked under one of the straps. Dad was an air sorcerer, and Mama was an earth witch, so they were logical choices.

Angelina had a pile of stuff: a black rock, a withered leaf, a piece of bark, a wilting daisy, a silver earring, a hawk wing feather, and a doll. It was Ka Nvsita, a Cherokee doll I had given her. It had been in Molly’s van. Nothing in the pile made sense, especially the doll. All witches have an affinity to magical energy in one area or another: moon, earth, water, stone, air, sometimes to fire. Some witches can use other energies, but they all have one area of particular strength. Angie Baby had metal, stone, the daisy for earth, two dead things, the feather, and a man-made doll. I looked at Molly, who was watching me. When she saw my puzzlement, she lifted a shoulder and went back to her conversation. Molly wasn’t worried. Angie was a witch whiz kid; kids weren’t supposed to have magic until puberty. No one knew what was about to happen with Angie’s gift.

The demon—the Raven Mocker—was standing as far away from the stairs as possible, hissing, looking more real and solid than ever. And more like an anzu than I expected—bigger, blacker, more wicked, but similar. Maybe all supernats had their good and evil forms, the polar opposites of each other, like skinwalkers and liver-eaters, witches of the light and blood-witches, civilized vamps and rogue vamps. One group that helped humans, one that thought they were tasty when grilled with onions. Or raw.

I slid away from them, to the floor in the corner, my back to the wall. This wasn’t my gig, and there was nothing I could do to help except give blood, but, like Rick, I wasn’t gonna miss it. He joined me on the floor, his thigh against mine. His eyes widened when he felt the knife belted there. I let my smile grow. “Better safe than sorry.”

He grinned back. “I got thirty-eight silver reasons to agree.” Meaning that he had a .38 handgun loaded with silver strapped to his ankle or in a boot sheath. We made a good team.

We stayed out of the way while the witches discussed the ways and language they would use to call the angel and planned out the working they would use to bind the demon. The Raven Mocker got more agitated, emitting whistles and chirps and setting the red motes in the hedge of thorns flashing. Almost as if they reacted to his tension. Almost as if they were alive.

Outside, the moon rose, and Beast rose with it, flooding me with the urge to hunt, to mate, to roam the dark, free and powerful. To feel the air in our pelt, scenting and tasting and hearing the life of the world. Kem looked at me, sharing the moon-call, Rick was feeling it too, his heart rate a little fast, his sweat smelling of excitement. The reddish wolf in the circle felt it the most—panting in his sleep, paws running.

Big Evan came to me, holding a cut-crystal bowl and an athame, a ceremonial knife. I held out my hand and with no warning, he grabbed my thumb and stabbed downward. I couldn’t help my hissing indrawn breath. My blood welled, scarlet. Evan whispered the name, “Kalona Ayeliski.”

The witches all sat. The Raven Mocker screamed.