Witching Moon Read online

  “Yeah, I need some advice, so Kipa asked Herne if I could tag along.” I accepted the muffin she pressed into my hand.

  Angel was an extraordinary cook and baker, and she liked it when people ate. I had no more than taken one bite when Herne called us all into the break room. I followed Angel back, waving at Ember, who was over by the coffee pot as usual. I drank a lot of caffeine, but Ember put me to shame. She pointed to the coffee but I shook my head. I had had quite enough adrenaline for the day. Herne was talking in low tones to Yutani and Talia, but when he saw me he walked over and held out his hand.

  “Welcome, Raven. Kipa said you had something happen today that you needed some advice on?” He got down to the point, that was for sure.

  I nodded. “Yeah, actually I think it’s a serious situation and I’m afraid I might not be the only one dealing with the fallout, so I thought I’d come and ask for your advice.”

  “We’re starting up in a moment. You can go first, so you don’t have to sit through all of our old business. I’m going to need Kipa, though, so unless you drove your own car you can either stick around for the rest of our meeting, or wait for him in the reception area.”

  “How long is your meeting going to run?” It occurred to me that, while waiting, I could do some shopping at the deli across the street.

  “Probably about forty-five minutes. We have a couple issues we have to tackle.” He paused, then motioned me off to the corner of the room so the others couldn’t hear. “By the way, Kipa told me you’ve asked to speak to Ferosyn. I passed along the information and he will be getting in touch with you in the next day or so. I think you made a wise decision. He helped Rafé a great deal.”

  I glanced around, spying Rafé over by Angel. He worked for the Wild Hunt now as a clerk. And even though I hadn’t had a chance to talk to him for a while, he looked a lot calmer than he had the last time I had seen him. Rafé had been Ulstair’s brother, and we kept in close contact still. He glanced up, as though sensing my gaze on him, and gave me a little wave. I did the same.

  I turned back to Herne. “Thank you. I thought I could get over it myself, but apparently even the Ante-Fae have our limits.”

  “If you’ll pardon me saying so, and take it for what it’s worth, but it’s also your age. Raven, you may be Ante-Fae, but you’re still young. There’s still so much that you haven’t had time to experience, and there’s a lot of ugliness in this world along with the beauty. Sometimes even the strongest of us need someone to talk to.”

  With that, he placed his hand on my shoulder and guided me to the table.

  Herne and Kipa were two of a kind, and yet they were so different. I knew they were about the same age, but Herne seemed almost older, more mature. Kipa was more passionate and closer to the wild. Kipa pulled out my chair for me and I slid into it.

  “What did Herne say?” he asked.

  “He told me that Ferosyn will contact me as soon as possible.” I squeezed his hand, bringing it to my lips to kiss it.

  “First order of business,” Herne said. “Kipa has asked if Raven could address the Wild Hunt. Something’s happened and she needs our advice. I told him to bring her along tonight.”

  Those who hadn’t had a chance to greet me—Yutani, Viktor, Talia, and Charlie—murmured their hellos. I waved at them in return.

  “Why don’t you go ahead and tell us what’s going on? And then we’ll see what we can do.” Herne motioned for me to take the floor.

  I bit my lip, dreading telling them what I had done, but there was no help for it. I knew I needed guidance on this, and it wouldn’t do to hide it.

  “I’m afraid that I may have woken something up. While it’s certainly no Typhon, I still think it could do a lot of damage.” I quickly proceeded to tell them everything that had happened.

  “Obviously, I don’t think it’s a clown, but whatever it is, it’s dangerous.” I brought out my e-reader, bringing up Lynn’s book. “Here’s a mention of the place in Haunting Seattle. The author herself noted she felt something there beneath the surface. Unlike my smartass self, she had the wisdom not to bother it.” I handed the e-reader to Ember, who was sitting to my left. She scanned it, then handed it over to Yutani, who read the passages aloud.

  Herne just stared at me, shaking his head. “What was your game plan?”

  I shrugged. “I knew there was some spirit trapped there, and I thought maybe she was just bound because of the place or some sort of hex or something like that. I had no idea I was waltzing into spiritpalooza.”

  “What did you do to wake it up?” Talia asked.

  “I have no idea. I didn’t try any rituals. I did cast one spell, but that was after it was already awake and sent a swarm of rats at me. I’m wondering if just my presence woke it up? I have a strong aura, and I am a bone witch. I carry the mark of Arawn in my aura. Maybe that was enough?”

  Angel shifted in her seat. “Well, I hate to tell you this, but you’re carrying some of the creature’s energy with you. It’s not exactly like it followed you, but I can sense that it’s draining off some of your energy even now.”

  Angel was an empath, and I knew she was training in the magical arts with Ember’s mentor. I had learned to trust what she said.

  “Oh, that’s just hunky-dory. What do I do about that?”

  “Don’t you cleanse your chakras regularly?” She stared at me like I had just told her I didn’t bathe.

  I shrugged. “I keep my wards up, but no, I don’t think I’ve ever given my chakras a bath.” I tried to keep it lighthearted, but she rolled her eyes and jumped up from the table.

  “Hold on a moment.” She vanished out the break room door.

  I turned to Yutani, who was already poking through his computer. “I was wondering if you could find out any information on that land. Whatever this is, it feels older than those buildings and older than the veterans who are trapped there.”

  “I think you’re right,” he said. “The Worchester District has always been the most haunted area in Washington state, and quite frankly, from what I’m seeing here, the entire area was considered off-limits to the Native Americans who lived here before the settlers came in.”

  I frowned, about to say something when Ember spoke up.

  “Really? Why?”

  “It appears that there has always been some sort of vortex in that area. It doesn’t extend very far out—only as big as the district itself, but that’s still good-enough size to attract some very negative energies. There were legends here that anyone who lived in that area too long would go mad. In fact, one of the shifter tribes who lived on the land since before Seattle was founded used to lock up their lawbreakers there.”

  “Which shifter tribe?” Herne asked.

  “The Alpha Marta Wolf Clan. There aren’t many of them left; they appear to either have assimilated into other wolf shifter packs, or died out. There are a few descendants who belong to the North Forest Wolf Shifter pack, located in the Greenwood area.” Yutani glanced over the entry he was reading. “The Alpha Marta pack built an enclosure in the Worchester District, right around the area where the veterans home is located. They locked up the worst of their offenders there, basically leaving them to each other. They would occasionally throw food in for them, but the prisoners were never set free, and most of them died of unnatural causes.”

  Kipa grimaced. “What do you mean, ‘unnatural causes’?”

  “Well, legends say that a couple of the prisoners ripped out their own eyeballs and died of the resulting infection. The prisoners turned on each other a lot, but there’s some mention of the Lykren, a shape-changing creature of immense proportions that ate souls and flesh, and fed on fear.”

  Yutani glanced up, his eyes dark. “Ten to one, the legends were real and the Lykren just went into stasis. It says here it would seem to vanish for years and then it would be active for a period of time before going back into hibernation. Let’s see, if it was active when the hospital was there, that was about seventy years
ago. Let me check what happened in that area around 1870 to 1880.”

  I bit my lip, thinking about what he had said. “You mean there’s a chance that I didn’t actually wake it up? That it’s just running on a cycle and I stumbled in at the perfect time?”

  “I think that’s exactly what happened.” Yutani glanced up at me, pointing to his computer. “In 1869, that area was established as a large church and religious school. No sooner had it opened than it burned down in a great fire that was prescient of the fire that would destroy the good share of Seattle twenty years later. But when the church went down, elders of the Alpha Marta pack warned the settlers not to reestablish it. They had been shunted off the land, obviously, but the church and the religious school were directly over where they had kept their prison, so to speak.”

  “Did anyone die in the fire?” I asked.

  Yutani nodded. “Three priests, four nuns, and twenty-eight children who had moved into the religious boarding school. I don’t know if the church believed what the shifter clan told them or not. But they found another place to rebuild and that area was left empty for quite some time.”

  Ember leaned forward. “Do you think that the Worchester District is haunted because of this Lykren?”

  Yutani shook his head. “No. I think the Lykren was attracted by the energy there. Since the area is one big natural vortex, it most likely attracts all sorts of psychic phenomena. It’s chaotic, to say the best. There’s nothing anybody can do to shut it down, I think. That sort of natural convergence of ley lines is best left untouched. What would be best is if nothing was built in the area and it was just left alone.”

  “From what I understand, several developers bought the complex, but none of them have ever developed the area. They just sell it off again. Do you think that the energy isn’t conducive to building new malls or shops? That it’s sort of forcing the developers to give up?”

  “I think perhaps the Lykren is the one who’s doing that. This creature—entity—from what I can find, tries to present itself as your worst nightmare. Are you afraid of clowns?” Yutani gave me an odd look, the corners of his lips turning up just little.

  I blushed. “Who isn’t?”

  “Then that’s why you saw a giant clown face in the window. Hell, given what happened, I’m surprised you didn’t see Pandora’s face.”

  I froze, clutching the edge of the table with my hands as my breath caught in my chest.

  “Think before you speak,” Herne warned, giving Yutani an irritated look.

  Startled, Yutani glanced up, catching my gaze. A stricken look spread over his face and he scrambled to apologize. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t even think—”

  “Obviously,” Ember said. She reached out and took my left hand, holding it tightly between her palms. Kipa put his hand on my shoulder, rubbing gently.

  I fought down a wave of panic. For some reason, the mention of her name like that—from out of the blue—had caught me off guard. I struggled for a moment more, finally letting out a slow stream of breath as I tried to relax.

  “I guess I need to talk to Ferosyn more than I thought I did,” I murmured.

  “He’ll call you by tomorrow at the latest, I promise you that.” Herne again glanced at Yutani and shook his head. “Dude, you have to work on your social skills. You’re brilliant, but you lack even the basic social graces.”

  “He’s also cute,” Talia said.

  “Cute, but stupid.” Yutani rubbed his forehead, brushing his hair back from his face. As he swept it back into a ponytail and wrapped it with a hair tie from his pocket, he let out a slow breath and looked at me again. “I really do apologize. I didn’t mean anything by it, I hope you realize that.”

  “Well,” I said, “if the Lykren appears as your worst nightmare, and it showed up as a clown for me, maybe Pandora isn’t quite at the bottom of the barrel for me. The truth is, when I was little there was an Ante-Fae who lived in the same territory as my father. He was called the Harlequin. And he scared the shit out of me. He was one of those Ante-Fae who makes us all look bad. He was a child eater, and it didn’t matter whether it was a shifter kid or human, or even another of the Ante-Fae, he would lure them into the wooded areas around Hanging Hills and then eat them alive. My father used to scare me with those stories so much that I never misbehaved in terms of running away or going off into the woods alone.”

  “The Harlequin? I’ve heard of him. He’s still out there, isn’t he?” Herne shook his head. “If you lived near him when you were a child, no wonder that’s the image that the Lykren took for you. Pandora may be a psychopath, but somehow I don’t think she’s quite as dangerous as the Harlequin is.”

  I managed to laugh, and the tension in the room broke. “As much as I loathe Pandora, I think I’d rather go up against her again than the Harlequin.” I paused, then continued. “Okay, what do I do about the Lykren? I feel better now that I know that I didn’t wake it up, but something has to be done about it. And I think it’s holding all those souls hostage.”

  “No, the vortex is trapping them. At least some of them. But I agree with you, the Lykren should be addressed. And you can’t do it alone. He’s old and crafty, and like a sleeping lion, something that you should just leave alone if you can.” Yutani bit his lip. “Meanwhile, one of the most important things to do is find where he makes his lair there. Because even though he works on the astral a lot, the Lykren is a physical entity.”

  I perked up. “You mean we can actually kill him?”

  Kipa snorted. “You never really think in terms of trapping something, do you?”

  I shrugged. We had had this conversation before and he never won. “If you have a tumor, you take it out. You don’t leave it around. What the hell would you expect to do with this thing? If you transported it somewhere where there aren’t any people, it’s just going to find its way back to where there are people. It feeds on pain and fear, as well as apparently energy. The Lykren isn’t going to find a buffet in a grizzly bear.”

  Laughing, Kipa shrugged. “Point taken. Okay, how do we destroy this? And who’s up for helping us, because I’m not about to let Raven do this herself?”

  “Right now, Yutani and Talia and I are tied up on another case. I can let you have Ember and Viktor for a few days. Will that work?” Herne asked.

  I nodded eagerly. “Thank you. All the help I can get is welcome. Trinity might be interested in helping as well. Hey, do you think Meadow and Trefoil O’Ceallaigh would have information on this creature? They belong to LOCK.”

  “It can’t hurt to ask,” Kipa said. “If they’re still up when we get home we can talk to them. If not, we can go over there tomorrow.”

  “Did you say that you were going to ask Trinity to help?” Herne gave me a long look.

  I nodded. “We’ve been hanging out a lot since what happened up on the mountain. I get along with him pretty well.” I noticed a look flash between Herne and Kipa, then Herne turned back to me.

  “Just be cautious around him. He’s helped me several times in the past, and it’s not that he’s a dangerous person, but…” He trailed off, then shrugged. “Just be cautious, that’s all I ask.”

  I frowned. “First Vixen warns me about him, now you. What is the deal with Trinity? Why does everybody seem to dislike him and why won’t anybody tell me the reason?”

  Herne shook his head. “Never mind. It’s not my place to tell you who to hang out with and who to avoid. Just be careful how much you get involved with him.”

  I was really frustrated with people giving me warnings and then not telling me why. But I could tell Herne wasn’t going to say another word about it. I would just have to pump Vixen or Trinity himself for the information I wanted. I shrugged, then stood up.

  “All right, why don’t you guys figure out when you can meet with me tomorrow, and then have the rest of your meeting. I’m going to go shopping across the street for some groceries. You have some delis down here that we don’t have near my house.”
/>   Kipa pulled me to him, standing to give me a kiss before I left. I waved at the others and then headed out the door. Angel accompanied me to unlock the stairwell door for me. They kept both the elevator and the stairwell door locked during the time they were in their meetings. I turned to her before I left.

  “So counseling really helped Rafé?”

  She nodded. “If he hadn’t gone, I would have left him by now. He was becoming too volatile and unpredictable.” She paused for a moment, then continued. “If what happened to you is creating a wedge between you and Kipa, please ask for help. You two make a good pair, and I’d hate to see you break up because of what someone else did. You can’t ever erase what happened, Raven, but you can put it behind you. You just need help in learning how to do that.”

  Impulsively, I gave her a quick hug and kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you. Really, I mean it.” And then I turned, and headed down the stairs to go shopping.

  Chapter Nine

  I had just finished shopping at Klein’s Deli and carried my bags out, preparing to cross the street back over to the Wild Hunt, when a sudden chill raced through me and I sensed a spirit run by. I quickly turned, catching sight of the ghost as it dashed into one of the fetish brothels. What the hell? What was a spirit doing downtown in a sex shop?

  I was about to ignore it when I heard a sudden shriek from inside the shop. I didn’t want to deal with anything else tonight, but decided I should go take a look. The shop was called Kink in Boots, and the menu posted on the window promised a wide selection of sexy times combined with leather, high heels, whips, chains, and harnesses. Grinning, I pushed through the door, glancing around.

  The reception area—if you could call it that—was tastefully decorated, with black leather furniture and light oak side tables. On the walls were framed prints, each a picture of one of the available sex workers at the shop. A large framed plaque in back of the counter spelled out the rules, leaving no question as to the fact that they took their safety seriously. The counter ended at a wall, with a locked door to the side leading into the nether regions of the shop.