“… driving. Close now … Null … ,” he growled, the sound less human. “Open … doors …”
“LaFleur,” Lainie demanded.
“Rick’s near here. He’s in trouble,” Tandy whispered.
“‘Open doors,’” I repeated. “He wants us to open the outer doors. The grindy is with him so he’s a danger to humans. His cat’s trying to shift.”
“Null room. Move!” T. Laine said.
Tandy and I raced down the hallway. Tandy grabbed up a chair and I took my service weapon in one hand and a potted plant in the other. T. Laine shoved the null room door open behind us, activating the strongest antimagic we could access. She locked it in place, groaning in pain as the null magic that stopped magical workings washed over her. She stumbled back to the conference room. Rick’s antishift music blasted over the speakers.
I blocked open the stairwell door at the top with the pot. Tandy raced downstairs and into the night, blocking the outer door open with the chair. He was going to wait on Rick outside. Dangerous. Very dangerous.
I placed myself in front of Mud’s room and drew my weapon. If I had to shoot my boss to protect my sister I would. The enormity of having her here while I worked fell on me like an avalanche. Saving her from my family had put her in danger. Mud couldn’t stay here.
I heard the sound of a car stopping, tires screeching. A door opening but not closing.
Rick hissed. I heard him stumble at the entrance and I looked down the stairs. My boss’s body was silhouetted in the entrance, his shoulders hunched, only his hands visible where they gripped the metal doorjamb. They were covered in black hair, fingertips clawed and gouging into the paint. He was caught in a partial shift, fighting it. This wasn’t a full moon shift, but Rick wasn’t shifting by choice. This had to be the result of being called to a witch circle.
“Hurry,” Rick growled. “Hurry. Null … room. Now.” But his feet didn’t move. He was caught in a stasis of misery in the outer doorway, panting in pain, fighting what was happening.
Tandy said, his voice soft. Soothing. I could help him to pacify Rick. I slipped off my shoe and touched a toe to the potted plant I had brought to hold open the door. Tentatively, I reached for Soulwood, drawing its calm to me. I had claimed Rick for my land to save his life, and I sought that part of him. Pressed Soulwood’s peace into him. He gasped. Looked up the stairs at me. His eyes were glowing green. His shoulders writhed and the hunched shape resolved into a neon green grindylow. Her claws were out too and they were pressed against Rick’s throat. Because Tandy was right there. In danger.
Grabbing my shoe, I backed away as Rick started up the stairs, his movements unexpectedly lithe and supple, graceful as a cat in the night. He moved up, step by step, his silver hair glistening in the overheads. He reached the top of the stairs and started toward the null room just ahead.
From the stairway entrance a woman emerged. Margot. She was following Rick.
As if he was stepping into hell, my boss stepped inside the null door. T. Laine tossed me something on a chain and said, “Inside with him.” I caught the thing—dark stone, hanging on a leather thong—and tossed it inside the null room to the floor. It skittered across the room and when it stopped spinning, I saw it was a carved stone black cat. The amulet sent by the local witches. We hadn’t tested it. We didn’t know what it did. Rick whirled to me, claws at his fingertips. I shoved the door shut. Through the layers of steel, I heard Rick scream. I slid on my shoe and turned to the woman who had followed him.
Margot was dressed in jeans and a tank, her dark skin glistening with a faint sheen. Her eyes were heavily made up with black liner and mascara; she looked fabulous and … sexy. As if she was on a date, or wanted to be. Had she been with Rick when he was spell-called? She wore earrings and a necklace with an unpolished moonstone on it. The stone was carved in the rough likeness of a sleeping cat and … it was glowing. A moonstone. A magical amulet. And she was still following Rick. I put my body in front of the null room door to stop her.
T. Laine said, “What the hell.” She practically flew down the hall, throwing out her hand. A wallop of magic slapped Margot into a corner and Lainie was on her. Our witch lifted the necklace from the feeb’s neck. “What are you doing wearing a magical cat amulet?”
“It’s not magical. And get your hands off it. And off me.”
“It is magical. I feel the working in it.” T. Laine dropped the cat and backed away. “Forgive me if I say so, Special Agent Racer, but your appearance here when LaFleur is caught in a calling/curse working by a black-magic witch, while wearing a magical amulet in the shape of a cat, is disturbing and too coincidental to be ignored.”
“It. Isn’t. Magic,” she pronounced, her voice a snarl. “You can grill me later. For now, I can help LaFleur.”
“No.”
“I was helping him all the way here,” she said. “I can help now.”
“Is she a witch?” T. Laine asked. “She isn’t in my database.”
I hadn’t included Margot’s family line in my official report, only the report to Rick. I sighed out the words, “No. Not exactly.”
Margot’s head came up and her dark eyes bored into me. “You said you hadn’t included it in your report, but I got a jolt of untruth from you. I assumed you were prevaricating.”
“No. I told Rick verbally. We kept it out of the reports for your privacy, because I didn’t know how it fit in your personnel records.”
“Damn,” she huffed. For an FBI agent, Margot had very expressive eyes, and I could see things passing through their depths. “Cat’s out of the bag now, pardon the pun.” She met T. Laine’s accusing gaze. “The only witch in the family was my grandmother. My mother has some minor talent.”
“And you?” T. Laine asked.
“I can tell when people are lying.”
Tandy said gently, “She believes what she’s saying.”
“The child of a witch family didn’t know she was wearing a renewable amulet?”
“Not—” Margot stopped, one hand sliding around the charm, her face going through an even faster series of thoughts and emotions. “My grandmother was a lapidary. She gave me this in her will. She gave me dozens. I didn’t know.”
“True,” Tandy said. “But you still haven’t addressed the rest of it.”
She took off the necklace and slammed it on the table. “I called Rick to ask about the circles.” She leaned in and glared at us all. “He answered from Bistro at the Bijou, where he was replacing the band’s sax player. Last-minute gig. It sounded like fun, so my date and I decided to eat there and take in the show.”
Rick played saxophone? Had I known that? “Date?” I said.
“I ditched him when Rick took off like a cat with his tail on fire. I followed and talked Rick down from driving away and from shifting. I put his music on despite the fact that it was awful to listen to.” She swallowed and forced back what looked like fury and helplessness. “I helped him stay human, per his request, but he was in a lot of pain. Pain caused by illegal and immoral use of magic.” She stopped and took a deep breath, running a hand over her nearly bald head. It was a strangely masculine gesture and it looked exasperated and confused. She was giving a lot away. Or she was becoming an empath, which I had once thought about her. Or she was a really good actor. “He was being spelled.” Her glare deepened. “Not. On. My. Watch. No one suffers from black magic on my watch. You understand?” she demanded. “I drove him here. In pain. And now I’m responsible for helping him through the rest of it.”
“What happened to the date?” I asked, because while it made sense, it was also too coincidental to be real.
“Gah!” she screamed in frustration, throwing back her head. “You people! My date came after me and found me sitting in the car with LaFleur, holding his hand, talking him down. Stupid man got pissed and took off without me. I have a feeling that relationship is over before it ever got started.”
T. Laine frowned but backed down the hallway with Margot following, as if the feeb was about to attack her. Margot glanced at the door behind me as she passed, seeing the words Null Room on it. “Damn,” she cussed again. “That’s why he wanted to come here.”
In the conference room T. Laine opened a mic into the null room. “Rick. Talk to me. You still human?”
“Yes,” he said, his voice gravelly. “But, God. It’s bad.”
Her hand hovered over the camera controls, but she left them off. “There’s an amulet in there, sent by the local coven. Hold it. Better?”
“Maybe … a little. Yeah. Turn up the music.”
T. Laine turned off the antishift music in the rest of HQ but increased the volume in the null room. “How can a summoning spell reach him through the null room?”
No one replied.
“Put your hand on the speaker,” she directed Rick. “The music magic should work on you even there.”
We heard stumbling through the system, perhaps the sound of a chair turning over. Then Rick groaned out a note of relief.
Margot cocked her head and muttered, “That’s why he was playing that awful music.” She leaned over the table and said into the mic, “Hey, LaFleur. Stop being such a pussy.”
I stepped back in surprise at the crudity. Rick laughed, the sound shocked but less pained and more human.
“Don’t ask me to feel sorry for you,” she said into the mic, as she took a seat. “Injuries are part of the job.”
“True dat,” Rick said, a New Orleans cadence strong in his pain.
“But since I have you as a captive—pardon the pun—audience, I’ll finish the update and debrief your unit. I’ve been going over NCIC files looking for spell/animal-sacrifice sites and crimes and tracking them back for twenty-four months. You were right. Some found in Louisiana eighteen to twenty-four months ago.”
“Year and a half?” T. Laine said. “Two years? Rick was in NOLA then.”
“Yes. And the circles look odd,” Margot said. “I sent photos of the Louisiana ones to the coven leader of NOLA, Lachish Dutillet. She says that some of the early ones look like summoning workings, the kind lonely women do to call a man to their side, except more. More intricate and more vicious, a summoning combined with a curse. It’s peculiar.”
“You know Lachish?” T. Laine asked.
“Not personally,” Margot said. “But her grandmother knew my grandmother. She’s been helpful. So I know stuff. Like despite the fact that Lachish is scared spitless of this circle, not that she said so. You still with us, LaFleur?”
“Yeah. Tell me more,” Rick said, his voice breathy and harsh. “Cuss a lot. Be callous. I’ll try not to be such a wimp.”