Ritual Magic

“Never mind the damn coffee,” Benedict said. “What have you learned?”

Rule looked at his brother. Whether it was the effect of physical movement after hours of immobility or the promise of something, anything, to distract him, Benedict’s patience had evaporated. Without it, he was . . . intense.

Arjenie moved up behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder. Lily looked at him over the rim of her mug and answered crisply. “I’ll give you the key points first. One, the artifact last seen in Friar’s possession was used to ritually kill our John Doe. Two, the icky magic I found on the body, which transferred to Officer Crown, is some sort of residue from that ritual. Three, that magic isn’t just icky. It’s evil. And no, I don’t know what that means exactly, but it matters.”

“Are those suppositions or facts?”

“Expert opinions based on observation. Drummond and Hardy—”

“Drummond?” Arjenie said. “You mean your ghost? He’s back?”

Rule had forgotten to tell Benedict and Arjenie about that.

“He’s not my ghost,” Lily said, “but yeah, he’s back. He, uh, was sent here to help. He says spirit is visible on his side.” Her hand waved vaguely to indicate the nebulous direction involved. “The artifact leaves an obvious spiritual mark or color, which is how he knows it was used in the ritual killing of our unknown victim.”

“No ID yet?” Rule asked.

“No, and we may have trouble getting one. I’ll tell you about that in a minute. Drummond says that the bad magic—the contagion—is evil. Seems there’s a clear definition for evil that he can’t tell me, and he can’t tell me why the contagion fits that definition. But it does. Hardy agrees, if I’m interpreting his hymn choices correctly. Which reminds me—”

Benedict broke in. “Hardy is the supposed saint.”

Lily cocked her head. “You don’t believe he is one? Or you don’t believe in saints?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what the word means.”

“I don’t, either, and no one . . .” Lily used both hands to push her hair back. “No one will define anything for me! Saint, spirit, evil—all that shit’s tossed into the mix and I’m just supposed to guess what it all means! Though Cullen did say a saint was a holy man or woman . . . God, I wish he was here.” The moment she said that she shook her head. “No, I don’t. He’s needed with . . . but his ability to see magic would sure help right now.”

Rule glanced around. Uselessly, of course, but he couldn’t resist the impulse. “Is Drummond here?”

She shook her head. “He hung around awhile, then said he had places to go, things to do.”

“You’re accepting his statement as fact? Even if Drummond’s on the side of the angels now, he isn’t one himself. I don’t think ghosts are infallible.”

“True, which is why I’m calling it expert opinion, not fact. But all three of my experts agree that the contagion is evil, so I’m considering that as established.”

“Drummond’s one of your experts. And Hardy?”

She nodded. “The third is Miriam.”

Rule had met Miriam. She was the head priestess of the coven the Unit called on in this area. “Not Karonski?”

“He said no, not for this. Since spirit, not magic, is the—”

“Discuss their credentials later,” Benedict snapped. “Rule has described the shooting to me in detail. Nettie was not a random victim. She was targeted specifically.”

“So we concluded. We meaning me and Drummond and Karonski. Not Miriam. She thinks the overdose of evil caused Crown to commit evil acts, but without a specific target. In other words, he just started shooting, didn’t matter who he killed. I don’t agree. If all Crown had wanted was to kill people, he would have kept firing at the ones near Nettie. He didn’t, which tells me he had specific targets in mind. He was turning to shoot the next one when I dropped him.”

Had she shot to kill and missed? Probably. That was her training. As she put it, when your target was using deadly force, you did, too. Or, as Benedict put it: In battle, take the easiest shot. You’ll do well to hit at all. Don’t make it any harder to win than it has to be.

“Who was the other target?” Arjenie asked. “Do you know?”

“Drummond thinks it was Karonski. That’s based on his observation of the shooter, not on some special ghostly knowledge, but he was a cop for a long time. He may be right, but another possibility is—”

Benedict broke in. “But Nettie was primary. He had time to select his first target, and he chose her. Why?”

“We think it’s because she’s a threat, and she’s a threat because she’s a shaman. This goes back to the contagion being evil. That’s a spiritual quality, and spirit is what Nettie works with. Wiccan and Native practices both have spiritual aspects, but with Wicca the spiritual part is sort of fenced off.”

Arjenie frowned. “I wouldn’t put it that way.”

“I probably said it wrong. Here’s what Karonski told me. That Wiccan star of yours—Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Spirit? They’re the points or arms of the star, and they’re all tied to the Source, which is represented by the open space at the center. But spirit is only one aspect of the Source. That’s why so many unbelievers can use Wiccan spells. And—again, this what Karonski said—a lot of Wiccans don’t work with spirit that much, except during your major rites, because it’s so unpredictable. With Native practices, it’s different. Spirit is at the center. It’s the way they access power, so Nettie’s used to working with spirit directly.”

Arjenie nodded. “Okay, that makes sense. Not that I know a lot about Native practices, but that fits what I do know.”

“Sam said we needed Nettie.” Lily sighed. “Maybe she could have dispelled the contagion. Karonski can’t. The coven can’t.”

“What?” Arjenie’s eyes widened. “But—but if the usual cleansing techniques weren’t effective, surely Miriam tried an elemental cleansing. Not everyone can handle those, but she’s extremely competent, and she’s got strong Gifts in her coven to channel each of the elements.”

“She did try. It didn’t work.”

Arjenie’s brow pleated. “I don’t understand. I’ve never heard of an elemental cleansing failing. I don’t understand that at all.”

“Miriam doesn’t, either, and she took that failure personally. But she thinks it has to do with the way spirit and magic are all tangled up in the contagion. Spirit doesn’t follow the rules.”

Arjenie nodded. The worried pleat remained in her forehead.

Lily looked at Rule. “I need to ask you something. I said that Drummond thinks the secondary target was Karonski. That fits what I saw, if we assume I fired the second Crown had his target lined up. But if we scrap that assumption . . . if Crown had turned a bit more, he would have had me and the patrol car behind me in his sights. Maybe he was going to shoot me, but Hardy was in that car. If Crown was after the, uh, the spiritual heavy hitters, then I’m betting on Hardy for his other target. I’ve taken him into protective custody. I’d like to park him at Clanhome.”

Rule’s eyebrows lifted. After a moment he nodded. “If we need a saint and Hardy is one, then the other side would be eager to deprive us of him. You’d like me to speak to Isen about this?”

“If you can’t okay it yourself, then yes.”

“I could admit him to Clanhome, but whether he stayed would be the Rho’s decision. Best to just ask.” And speaking of asking . . . “You’ve been unable to learn anything from the officer himself?”

Lily’s gaze slid away. “Officer Crown hasn’t regained consciousness.”

And that told Rule what he needed to know. Half of it, anyway. Lily had shot a fellow officer of the law who’d turned out to be the victim of evil, not a bad guy himself. She’d done what she had to, but she was twisted up about it. If he pressed on that spot, she’d break down.

Would that be helping or taking over? God knew it would piss her off.

Arjenie asked, “What’s been done for him? If the contagion can’t be cleared . . . did you find a way to block it?”

“Crown is here at the hospital, in quarantine. Unconscious, but stable. Miriam advised them on how to—” Lily stopped, huffed out an impatient breath. “I’m doing this out of order. When you left, Rule, we were trying to find out what would block the contagion so the EMTs could work on the poor guy.”