Sorceress of Faith (2 page)

Sounded
like Marian attended seances and channeling every night.

Hooking
up again with the Denver New Age community might not be a bad thing. In one
way, Marian could even convince herself that her company would be beneficial
for the unknown woman. And there were some good, kind people in Denver society
that Marian would like to see again. Too bad her mother didn’t happen to be
one. Despite her methods, though, Candace was great at raising money.

“I
don’t think so, Mother.”

“I
can make it worth your while,” Candace continued.

Marian
waited for the bribe. Bribes sometimes worked. Marian had to know more about
the situation to figure out whether the favor was worth whatever Candace was
offering.

“I
know you’re studying too hard. Having the rest of your college fund would make
life easier.”

In
Candace’s mind, Marian was always studying too hard. Candace didn’t understand
that learning was a pleasure. Though she understood that knowledge was power,
at least when it came to playing the Denver social game, using secrets.

“Marian,
did you hear me? I told you that I could release the last of your college
fund.”

Good
bribe, and if bribes didn’t work, Candace used the threat: Withholding her
college fund now, Andrew’s welfare when he’d been younger. He was twenty-four,
four years younger than Marian. She’d tried to take care of him, since Candace
was uninterested in her son.

“I’ll
think about it,” Marian said.

“I
need a commitment,” Candace snapped. “I’ll call Andrew. It may take some doing
on his part, but he’ll come.”

“No,
Mother, I don’t want you bothering Andrew.”

Candace
ignored her. “Of course he’ll come. The Colorado Charities Fund disburses money
to the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation of Colorado. I always have an advantage
when campaigning for the Chairmanship of the Fund drive—with poor Andrew being
afflicted with MS, and at such an early age, too.”

Fury
veiled Marian’s vision in a red haze. Good thing that the phone was industrial
strength; otherwise it would have crumbled under her grip. How Candace could
think of her own son that way…

“Andrew
is a person with a challenging disease. Don’t define him as a victim.”

Candace
sniffed. “Believe what you want. Now, about the fund-raiser, tell me whether
the weather will be clear.”

Heat
crept up Marian’s neck. She’d always had weather-sense. She shifted and felt
the connection to Mother Earth, one reason she loved the garden-level
apartment. “Clear and cool,” she said.

“Good.
Your drive down from Boulder should be fine, then.”

Rubbing
her forehead, Marian said, “I’ll be there.”

“I
thought so, and bring that delightful Professor Wilse with you.”

Marian
shuddered at the thought of Jack Wilse.
Mistake
. She admired his body
but deplored his values. He’d manipulated and used her, too, before her mind
got her hormones under control. It was inconceivable to her now that she’d had
a brief affair with him. “He won’t be coming with me.”

“Marian,
you can’t attend alone! How will it look? Speaking of looks, you
have
used that exercise club membership I bought for you so you’d lose those extra
pounds, haven’t you?”

“My
weight is my own business.” Candace would continue to comment on it anyway. “I
will
be coming alone—or not at all. If you want me there, deposit the rest of my
college fund into my account and e-mail me the details.” Marian hung up.

Mistake
. She’d allowed
her mother to manipulate her. Would she ever learn? But this time, she’d gotten
the last of her college fund. With chilled fingers she reached for her
appointment book, flipped to the end where she’d listed her five-year plan. She
inserted Friday’s date as the day she’d receive the money that would set her
free from her mother, and launch her fully on her career path. Ahead of
schedule, but right on track. She wouldn’t allow anything or anyone—especially
her mother—to control her again. Her own mistakes might be bad, but they were
hers
.
Hers to learn from.

She
felt as if she’d been stung, and poison was spreading through her system. Like
so many times before in her life. That’s what happened when you were raised by
an unevolved Scorpio.

Grumbling,
Marian stalked through her living room. A book from the bookshelf-lined walls
thumped to the floor. She stopped and stared. There was a gaping hole on the
second shelf where she kept her Wiccan books neatly alphabetized by author.

She
swallowed. Even before she picked up the book, she knew what it would be:
Craft
Your Own Ritual
, by a well-respected Wiccan. It was the third time this
week that volume had fallen from the shelf.

As
usual, the crisp pages fell open to a full-moon ritual. Rising anxiety made her
pulse race. She closed her eyes and colors swirled behind her eyelids, followed
by a flash of the image of Andrew from her nightmare.

Her
eyelids flicked open. Her chest tightened. All the recent coincidental signs
pointed to her conducting a full-moon ritual. Marian glanced at the yearly moon
phase chart she’d framed. Full moon tomorrow night, Friday—the same night she’d
agreed to attend Candace’s benefit.

A
knock came at her door and a tingle ran up her spine. She pushed aside the
curtain draped over the apartment door’s small window, looked out. Golden Raven
stood on the threshold. She smiled until the lines deepened around her blue
eyes and framed her mouth. Beyond her was an old van packed full of boxes,
ready for a long trip.

With
a sigh, Marian opened the door.

“I
heard you call me,” Golden Raven said.

Jaquar’s Tower,
Sorcerers’ Mue Island, east of Lladrana Late spring, that same morning

J
aquar stood
naked in the alcove that held his magical supplies and looked into the round
ritual room of his tower. A faint blue-green steam eddied and flowed along the
lines of the pentacle carved into the stone floor. His shoulders tensed at the
thought of plane-walking—leaving his body behind to float astrally through
different layers of existence. He was a Circlet—the highest rank of Sorcerer—of
Weather Control and plane-walking, but he’d been focused on the second craft for
the past three weeks.

Putting
off the moment when he’d have to look in the Enhanced Mirror, the last step
before the ritual, he turned back to the work counter and set his hand on the
upper leaf in a huge book.

He’d
made the book himself. Each sheet was a non-physical plane he’d traveled.
Sheets were arranged in the same layers as the planes themselves. A being
existed on many planes, but a good plane-walker like himself could separate
himself from his body and explore one layer at a time.

The
leaf he’d turned to was the plane he’d visit. One of seething, low
emotions—evil emotions only. A plane for monsters, not humans. But he was
tracking a monster. The monster that had killed his adoptive parents three
weeks ago.

A
chime notified him that the ritual should be started within the half hour.
Jaquar inhaled deeply and went to the left end of the narrow alcove. There he
unfolded the three-paneled mirror. To ensure he didn’t get lost amongst the
planes, he had to know himself, and for that he used the mirror.

He
scanned his physical appearance. He was taller than the average Lladranan male,
had filled out in maturity. His strong body appeared nothing like that of the
abandoned street boy Simone and Torrence Dumont had found and raised. But the
awful inner loneliness of the boy before he’d known them filled him now. He’d
once thought he’d never feel that desolation again.

His
body showed a few childhood scars. His eyes were still the hated deep blue that
made him an oddity in a brown-eyed culture. Some ancestor had not been
Lladranan.

He’d
lost weight since the deaths of his adoptive parents, but not so much that it
would compromise his strength. His black hair touched his shoulders and looked
limp, not as shiny as it should. The silver streaks denoting Power had visibly
spread over the past three weeks as he’d searched for the evil thing that had
killed his mother and father. Both had been powerful Circlets, yet the horror
had sucked them dry of magic and energy and life.

As
Jaquar had searched the planes for the killer, he’d grown in magical wisdom and
Power, discovering new layers. These new planes would be valuable in tracking
the horrors that invaded Lladrana.

The
northern magical boundary of mainland Lladrana had been failing, gaping open so
that hideous evil creatures could slither through to prey on the people. First
the smaller horrors would cross, such as armored snippers. Then the greater
monsters would attack in groups—renders and slayers and soul-suckers. And the
sangvile. At the same time, frink-worms had started falling with the rain,
affecting even the Tower community’s islands.

The
horrors had never reached the Sorcerers’ town of Coquille-on-the-Coast where
his parents had lived until Jaquar had led the sangvile there. He had answered
the Marshalls’ call for a Sorcerer, given them information, then left. The
sangvile had attached itself to the flying horse he’d ridden from the
Marshalls’ Castle to his parents’ house. He’d left the deadly thing there,
unknowing. Just two weeks past, the key to restoring the magical boundary had
been found—too late for his parents.

He
met his own hollow gaze in the mirror. “Mental,” Jaquar said. The reflection in
the mirror changed and he saw the white sparkling of his brain, the waves of strong
mental energy. The rhythm of his energy was good. His mind was clear.

“Magical,”
he ordered. The mirror showed his Power radiating out in colorful bands from
his body. Lladranans tended to judge magic by the tones and tunes it made, but
the mirror reflected it visually. There were no breaks, no streaks of
blackness. His Power had never been stronger. Good.

Jaquar
hesitated. “Emotional,” he whispered, and saw his body shrouded in grief. Fury
and vengeance glowed red in his eyes and heart. Not good. But he wasn’t going
to travel to any plane that needed lighter, more uplifting emotions.

He’d
be able to find that ugly lower plane easily, blend in, cruise through it.

“Spiritual,”
he said. Again the darkness, nearly smothering the gold aura tracing his body.
Ragged spikes showed how his spiritual health fluctuated. Perhaps when he’d
destroyed the sangvile he would make an appointment with the Singer for a
personal Song Quest. A Song Quest would tell him how best to manage his grief
and guilt. Later.

“Physical.”
There he was again, face strained, changed since his adoptive parents had died.
He recalled his last leave-taking with his adoptive parents, no more than a
month ago.
Parents
, they would have corrected him, not “adoptive
parents.” They’d been right in that as in so many other things. Though they
hadn’t birthed him, had only taken him off the streets when he was eight,
they’d been his parents.

His
last memory of them was as they laughed at some joke his father had told just
before Jaquar left their home. They were framed in the golden light streaming
from the doorway of their house. His mother, round of face and body, leaning
into his father, the aura of love radiating from her….

Just
the moment before, her sweet breath had caressed his cheek as she’d kissed him
farewell. Her scent had wound around him—the flowery herb fragrance that had
been his comfort from the moment she’d claimed him as her own.

His
father had hugged him hard, as always, and Jaquar had felt the strength of
Power and body that had always meant love and safety.

No
more. Ever. All because of him.

He
had brought their evil killer to them. The odd boy they’d saved from the
streets had ultimately led their deaths to them, far before their time.

“Off.”
His image faded and he was glad.

Unhurried,
he walked to the pentacle, closed the circle with a hummed note, and settled
into a soft pallet in the center to begin his quest to find and destroy his
parents’ slayer. He sang.

When
the Songspell ended, his astral shape slipped from his body with an easy pull
and a tiny “pop.” Hovering over his physical form, he felt light and free.

He
stayed in the same physical plane and rose above his Tower, his island, to
orient and anchor himself. As was customary, his was the only Circlet Tower on
the island, and the island itself was small. Most circlets lived on their own
island in the Brisay Sea, east of Lladrana. He’d wanted one only a few miles
from Coquille-on-the-Coast where his parents lived so he would visit them
often.

On
the physical plane, the sangvile had two forms: one, a black spiderweb, and the
other, a manlike dark energy. Its rudimentary,
nasty
emotions were that
of an evil predator. As strong as it was now, if spread out in spiderweb form,
it would cover a house. The man form would be a giant.

The
monster had gloated over the pain and fear it caused, laughed in malicious glee
at its feast of Circlets and their Power. Those tainted emotions had leaked
through several planes and led Jaquar to it. He had found the horror too late
to pin it down, set it ablaze and watch it die.