Luna's Sokjan (Book one) (24 page)

“I am the embodiment of
Hecate, the Goddess of Witches. I command you to kneel before me,”
she had gotten to her feet, and backed away slightly.

Her voice didn’t have the
manly quality anymore. I laughed out loud.

“The Goddess of the Moon?
The Goddess of Death?” I asked with a laugh, “That’s rich.” I wiped
my eyes, “And I thought that tonight wouldn’t be any fun. Give me
his name you foolish witch, and I may let you and your coven leave
this circle alive.”

There was a loud boom and
my head swam. The witches screamed in pain and grabbed their heads.
My head swam again with the next boom.

“What the fuck is going
on
,
McKenna?”
Gabriel growled.

The ‘master’ might be a
little stronger than I first thought.

“The ‘master’ is testing
the strength of my circle.” I told him.

I was done playing games.
I looked around trying to see where the power was coming from,
nothing. The priestess looked terrified.

“He gave me a message for
you.” She told me.

From an inner pocket of
her robe, she withdrew a letter. With a shaking hand, she held it
out to me. I crowded her as I took the letter from her.

McKenna,

You will come to me when I
call you on the next full moon. You will recognize me as your one
true master as the animal you are.

Was all it said, my rage
rolled through the circle and was trapped by my own spell. Gabriel
touched me, and I handed him the letter, his anger only added fuel
to my rage.

He growled at the
priestess, “Where is he?”

“I don’t know. We were
only given the task of calling her here and giving her that
message.” She was backing away from the Alpha wolf.

Really, he was scarier
than me? Please.

“Did you explain to the
coven members what the true nature of this task was? Do any of them
know?” I demanded.

When she didn’t answer me
I grabbed her arm.

“He’s not the only danger
you face here tonight, you stupid witch.” I told
her
.

“No, no one else knows
just me.” She stammered out.

She told the truth. I
moved away from her. I could taste her fear, and I rolled it on my
tongue.

I filled one hand with the
mixed power from around us and held it out.

“Spirits of the calling
accept this power as payment for coming here this night.” I called
out.

I watched the witches fall
to their knees crying out in pain all around us. I had offered
their meager power as payment to the spirits.

“Spirit of wind I am
willing to pay the binding price in blood. Come to me.” I called
out.

My hand shot out, and one
clawed finger cut the priestess across the face. The wind whipped
around me, before advancing on the woman. Her screams filled the
night air as the spirit claimed its price. Her screams infected the
rest of the witches, and they screamed with her as they watched her
roll around in agony. Ah, it was the sweetest song to my
ears.

“I bind you to me with the
payment of blood. Seek out this master's full name.” I pushed my
power into the spirit. “I need his true name, spirit. Take care not
to be seen or sensed by any creature of Luna’s creating. Find me
anytime day or night. Once I have his true name, spirit. I will pay
your price again in blood.” I told the spirit. “Do you accept my
terms, spirit?”

I felt a breeze against my
skin.

“I accept your request,
Golden Witch, and await a better meal than this one.” Its eerie
voice echoed around the circle
.

“The binding is done.” I
spoke softly, peering down at the crying witch and the spirit was
gone.

“You are a black,
monstrous creature. You use black magic, and I curse you,” she spat
at me.

“Oh yes, I’m a black
monstrous creature but my magic is neither black nor white. Magic
is what you make it.” I stalked her. “Do you know what the Sōkjan
of our world is little witch?”

“No black monster, I don’t
know what the Sōkjan of our world is.” I closed in on
her.

“None in this circle knew
what you were doing this eve? You told no one what the ‘master’
wanted from you?” I asked one more time.

“No, I told no one. I
wanted all the glory and power for myself,” she screamed at
me.

I could taste the truth of
her words. I looked down at the woman lying at my feet and she had
called me a black monstrous creature.

“Good,” I said. My clawed
hand shot out and grabbed her by the throat, “I want you to deliver
two messages for me tonight.” I purred into her face.

Her fear had the most
intoxicating aroma.

“I will never do your
bidding.” She whispered at me.

“Yes, you will.” I moved
quickly taking her head between my hands. “Tell Hecate I said,
hey.”

With a quick snap I broke
her neck, sending the first of my two messages with her to the
grave. If the master were a smart man, he would get it the second
message.

“NO!” The priest screamed
and lunged at me.

Gabriel caught him and
snapped his neck. Two for price of one, I do love
bargains.

I released the extra power
to the wild, giving it freely to any spirit or creature that needed
it. I closed the circle, thanking and releasing the spirits sending
them back to where ever I had pulled them from
.

“Stupid witches! Never
play with the other world if you can’t or won’t pay the calling
price and never call me again or next time I will kill you all!” I
yelled at them in a frustrated rage.

Taking, Gabriel’s hand we
left the place of pain and suffering. Later I would go back and
clean the area, making it healthy and peaceful once
again.

We went to Waffle
House.

Waffle House was filled
with its usual crowd, drunken party goers. The noise level was
incredible, and a perfect place to have a private chat. We sat in a
back booth.

“Why was your circle
stronger than theirs? There were at least twenty members shouldn’t
that make them stronger?” He asked me.

“You would think, but I
use one deity and they had what, thirteen to twenty six? Each coven
member will pick a Goddess and sometimes a God, to worship. When
they all get together like that, it’s not clear which Goddess and
God they will call. As a group, they can build power, but as a
group they don’t know what to do with it once they have it. In the
covens my mother took me to, it was very clear who we were calling
and what we would do with the power once we had it built up.” I
explained to him.

Thinking back to my
mother’s old coven, we had practiced every ritual over and over
until everyone moved and chanted the same way. This was another
reason why I was stronger.

"I've never seen
widdershins, used like that." I told Gabriel as we piled the plates
at the end of the table. At his puzzled look, I sighed. "Sorry,
widdershins, is moving in a counter
-
clockwise direction, this creates
negative energy." The waitress stopped by to pick up the
dishes.

"
Need anything else,
dears?" She asked.

"
Could we have a pot of
coffee, please?" I requested with a smile.

"
Sure thing honey," she
headed off towards the kitchen.

"
I have been thinking
about the way the circles were set up. The outer circle was moving
in a clockwise direction, creating positive energy. The inner
circle was moving in widdershins, creating negative energy. If done
correctly, once we crossed through the positive energy and in to
the negative energy. I believe we could have lost control of our
beasts. If, we had lost control, we could have killed everyone
there. Gabriel it could have been a blood bath." I told
him.

We stared at each other.
The waitress came back with the coffee.

"Why would he do that? Why
would he kill off his own people?" Gabriel asked and poured us more
coffee.

"
He doesn’t look at the
covens as his people; they are pawns or toys, something to use to
get what he wanted." I started moving the salt and pepper shakers
in circles patterns.

"
Another plane of thought
is that he wanted to dispel my magic. If the inner circle had
continued to move after we entered the circle, it might have
dispelled my magic. I did that once to this guy. I walked
widdershins around him the whole time he was explaining how he was
going to take over the world." I laughed out loud. "It wasn't until
he tried to use his magic that he figured it out." We shared a
laugh. "I can't figure why he'd go to all this trouble. I need to
call Ted and let him know what happened this morning." I looked out
across the parking lot.

"Call Ted on the way home,
we need to get back, Jennifer will be getting up soon, and she'll
want to know what happened." He said.

Jennifer was still asleep
when we got back to the house near dawn, and the Celt was nowhere
in sight when we checked on her. A sigh escaped me when I leaned
against the door frame and just stared at her. She was truly
beautiful. Gabriel cupped the back of my neck in his mighty
hand.

“Thank you Gabriel, I know
we can help her.” I told him in a soft whisper, “Maybe you’re
Jennifer’s dark angel also.”

“Come on Tigress. We need
some sleep.” He said with a smile and placed a kiss on my
temple.

Chapter 16

"
Why didn't you kill all
the witches, little Raven?" Ask a voice carrying visions of the
rolling hills of Scotland throughout the room and my
dream.

I jerked awake and sat
straight up. Moving hair out of my face, I stared into the ghost
white eyes of the Celt. He sat at the foot of the bed, watching me.
Letting out a moan I lay back down.

"
What the fuck?" I growled
at the ceiling. He chuckled. "Where's Gabriel? Why don't you go ask
him what happened?"

"
He has gone. Tell me why
you didn't kill all the witches." I felt his little jolt of power
and the quiet command, I pushed back.

"
Quit." I snarled at him.
"Gabriel and I killed the ones that needed to die. The others were
just innocent bystanders. How long have you been sitting there?" I
asked and readjusted the covers.

"
Not long. Tell me where
you got the tattoo from?" He asked.

I felt a hand caress my
leg. Rising up on my elbows, I glared at him.

"
Look Celt, knock it off."
I said and moved my leg away from him. "I imagine being an old
Celtic warrior yourself, that you have plenty of your own tattoos,
so what's the deal with mine?"

"
I haven't seen that
tattoo in over nine hundred years, little Raven. We have the same
tattoo, except yours moves when you sleep. Why is that, little
Raven?" He said moving the left side of his tartan, and I stared at
a carbon copy of my tattoo.

Well wasn't that
marvelous, we had identical tattoos.

I looked down at my hands
sure enough the tattoos had moved to cover the back of my hands. I
was betting it was on my feet also.

"
I learned the spell from
an old woman many years ago, while I was traveling through Wales. I
am not sure why it moves. Personally, I think that the spell is
somehow reacting to the different kinds of magic I use. Well, that
is my latest theory anyway." I answered rolling over on to my side.
This Celt and I needed to have a nice long talk, but now wasn't the
time or place. "Go away Celt, we’ll talk later."

"
Yes, we will, little
Raven, we have much to talk about," he agreed with a laugh, right
before he smacked my ass. "Wake up your pup comes."

I leapt up and swung at it
him, but he was gone. His laughter echoed through the room. You son
of a bitch, just wait, I’ll get you back soon enough.

Jennifer burst through the
door and landed on top of me. I flipped over and rolled her up in
the blankets and grinned down into her shocked face.

"
I heard you coming a mile
away, shewolf. You'll have to work harder if you want to sneak up
on me little shewolf." I told her. "Now the question is what to do
with you?"

Her screams of laugher
filled the room when I started tickling her. I liked the sound. It
helped dispel some the shadows that surrounded my heart.

“Gabriel said to tell you
that you have papers to sign in his office.” She gasped out in
between giggles.

I pulled back and looked
at her.

What papers? What was
Gabriel planning now?

“What kind of papers?” I
asked her suspiciously.

She shrugged, “I don’t
know”, I sighed out loud.

“McKenna, what happened
with the witches?” She asked and as she tried to untangle herself
from the blanket.

“I will tell you
everything while I shower.” I told her as I got off the
bed.