Queen of Wands-eARC Read online

  “Brooke, eat it or throw it away,” Allison said. “Moving it around your plate doesn’t count. Jason, three bites then head for the room.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Jason said, sarcastically. She really had sounded like Barbara, who had gotten her parenting skills from a military spouse and her officer husband.

  “Mom, what’s really wrong?” Allison asked as soon as the younger kids were gone.

  “Not something I can explain, honey,” Barb said, sitting down at the table.

  “Mom, I know, okay?” Allison said, gesturing with her chin at the cat still perched on Barbara’s shoulder.

  “No, you don’t ‘know,’ Allison,” Barbara replied, tartly. “You suspect some things and you think you know others. If the time ever comes, I’ll explain as much as I can. But you do not ‘know’ anything.”

  “I know where that cat came from,” Allison pointed out.

  About six months ago, Allison had fallen into bad company. The bad company in this case being a softball coach with almost “magical” abilities. Barb had at first feared that there was hanky-panky going on when the coach started taking the girls off for “team-building exercises.” Then, after using her connections in the Foundation to get background information, her more paranoid side had starting ringing alarm bells. The coach had previously been associated with both Satanic and Santeria sects. And the change in the team had been…demonic. Metaphorically.

  Barb had charged in in full demon-slayer mode: battle gear, bell, book and cross, ready to take on demons or acolytes with mundane or magical weaponry.

  In fact, the coach had been a poseur. He used the trappings of Satanic rites to convince the girls they had magical backing. When Barb burst out of the darkness he’d literally wet himself.

  What had Barb charging in was a “magic rite” involving the sacrifice of a young cat. She’d gotten there just a bit too late to save the black cat’s life, but not too late to save the souls of some young girls. They got the immediate impression that playing Satanist was not in their best interest.

  And then God had given her a greater gift than she had ever imagined; the ability to raise that cat from the grave. Lazarus came back not as some sort of zombie but as a fully functional cat, albeit one that could not be far from Barbara. Will she, nil she, Barb now had a familiar. Another thing the Bible was unquestionably dead set against. It got confusing.

  And Allison had proof positive, every single day, that Mommy was something special. Barb had been in full-fig down to the balaclava, but there was no way that a daughter wasn’t going to recognize her mother’s voice. And when Mom had turned up at home, there was that same cat. Seeing God’s power manifest tended to change a person, and it had changed Allison immensely.

  “I mean, ‘Lazarus’ is a little obvious, isn’t it, Mom?” Allison continued.

  “It seemed appropriate,” Barb said, realizing that she was for the first time admitting she had been the battle-armored figure in the night. “What on earth got you to bring that up now, of all times?”

  “I think it took me this long to work up the courage,” Allison said.

  “What I do on these trips is not open for discussion,” Barbara said and then held up a hand to forestall a reply. “It’s simply not. Among other things, there are aspects that are really and truly legally classified. And there are things I just don’t want you to know. There are things I don’t want to know. But the current problem is…complicated. I’m not going to discuss it with you, but I am going to get help. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Allison said, biting her lip. “You are going to be okay, right?”

  Barb stopped considering blouses and decided to get it over with. Digging into the back of the closet, she finally found the Black Bag.

  The bag had at first resided in the back of the Honda. But as she came to accept that her place was in Algomo, not slaying demons, it had crept slowly through the house and eventually been covered by shoes in the back of the closet. Pulling it out was a wrench, the final statement that it was time to go be Other Barb.

  She didn’t like that side of her. It was more than the fear of pride, one of the deadliest sins. It was that that side of her awoke an anger she fought every day. She had tagged that side of her Bad Barb and, at first, she had mentally translated Bad as Evil.

  Over time she had come to realize that the words were right, but the meaning wrong.

  “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,” Barb said, pulling the bag out and setting it by the bed.

  “Because He comforts you?” Alison asked, tearing up. “Because that’s not a comfort to me, Mom.”

  Barb reached down and slid open the zipper of the bag, throwing back the cover.

  Only the top layer of the materials in the bag were revealed but that was enough. One side of the bag held a katana, a long, curved, Japanese sword that had already slain one demon. The other side held an AR-10 carbine that had helped slay another. Between the two were a cluster of stakes, knives, bottles of holy water and a King James Bible.

  “No, sweety,” Barbara said, kissing her on the head. “Because I am the baddest bitch in the valley.”

  * * *

  “Sharice,” Barbara said, hugging the woman.

  Coming to the Foundation had been a good choice. Apparently the mystical barriers that protected the fortress of the Foundation were proof even against the voices. They’d stopped the moment she drove through the gates.

  The Center for the Foundation was located in the western North Carolina hills, not far from Asheville. A collection of buildings from several different architectural styles, it rambled through a fifteen-acre wooded park.

  The main parking area was by the administrative building, which was a Chinese pagoda. It was flanked by the Asatru House, a mostly traditional Norse longhouse. There were Swiss chalets, Japanese teahouses, a small Gothic chapel and still more buildings on the rambling walkways.

  Sharice Rickels was a plump, bright-eyed, silver-haired woman in her late sixties. She was dressed for work in a paisley patterned dress and wearing her normal collection of gobs of silver jewelry; the woman lugged around at least ten pounds of metal. One of the most notable Wiccan High Priestesses in the United States, she had been a field agent for FLUF for over thirty years before going into semi-retirement. Given that the normal lifespan of a field agent was less then ten years, she was both a survivor and a powerful and fey mystical fighter. She hugged Barbara back then looked her in the eye.

  “You are a mass of energy, girl,” the witch said, frowning. “Your aura is out of control. What have you done to yourself?”

  “I didn’t do anything!” Barb said, almost crying. The relief at finally having the voices stop, and being able to talk about it with someone who wouldn’t think she was crazy, was almost overwhelming.

  “You need tea,” Sharice said, nodding firmly. “Everything else will wait.”

  * * *

  “You’re not crazy,” Sharice said after Barbara’s, to her own ears, unintelligible report of the recent events. “You’re just getting new Gifts.”

  “Gifts,” Barbara said with a snort, sipping the herbal tea. “Gifts.”

  “Gifts,” Sharice replied, nodding. “Gifts aren’t easy, girl. That’s why the All doesn’t give them to everyone. You already had Channeling and Projection, which is so rare it’s almost unheard of. I had to look it up in some really obscure tomes.”

  “Projection?” Barbara said.

  “When you shot The Dark One in Louisiana,” Sharice said, refusing to use the demon’s name. “You Projected your White God’s power into the bullets. Very rare.”

  “And the sword in Roanoke,” Barbara said, nodding. “But this is…”

  “Oh, these are normal Gifts, dear,” Sharice said, chuckling. “I think you might have gotten more than your fair measure, as usual, but they’re quite normal. Sight and The Ear.”

  “Sight?” Barbara said. “I don’t see…” She paused and reali
zed that she could see a glimmer around Sharice. She shook her head and it went away. “At least I don’t think I see auras.”

  “You’re able to suppress that one, I see,” Sharice said, dryly. “But, yes, you’ve got the Sight. I’ve heard its common for the White God’s acolytes to see the lesser infestations. That’s what you’re seeing.”

  “The…things on people?” Barb said. She’d seen even more in the trip to North Carolina. In one restaurant they seemed to be on every shoulder.

  “Lesser demons,” Sharice said. “Ever heard the term ‘I’ve been wrestling with my demons’?”

  “But that’s…”

  “Not always a metaphor, dear,” Sharice continued. “In far too many cases it’s quite real. They are drakni, the lesser demons that possess people all the time. They come in a variety of flavors and can be a real nuisance. They can even be deadly if they work through humans. Ted Bundy was covered with the things, what your people refer to as a Legion. And more had sunk into him. Most serial killers are their playthings. But drakni have to have something to latch onto in the first place. There must be the psychological and mystical equivalent of a shoulder. Most people have them, but for drakni, it needs to be…broad. They can’t work with nothing.”

  “And they can’t be stopped?” Barb said, aghast. “I saw dozens of them just in this one trip! Are you saying…”

  “Thousands, millions of people who are possessed?” Sharice said, sadly. “Yes. I am. And, no, there is nothing we have found to wipe them out short of killing them one by one. And that requires something that’s very hard to get; full Belief and agreement on the part of the possessed. Try going up to one of those people you saw and saying, ‘You have a demon on your shoulder and it’s getting into your soul. I can get rid of it, but only if you give your soul to the Good Lord Jesus…’”

  “Ouch,” Barb said. She was not a proselytizer. She believed in the doctrine of Witnessing, being the best Christian you could be every single day and converting by example.

  “I’d suspect that more than one of your Christian screamers truly has the Sight,” Sharice said, sighing. “They are quite serious in their intentions if they do. The problem is separating them from the ones that simply use it as a metaphor. But that is your one new Gift.”

  “That I can see demons and not be able to do anything about them?” Barb said. “How is that a Gift?”

  “Well, you can see demons, even if they’re not manifest,” Sharice pointed out. “Remolus would have left a visual clue to someone with Sight. You would have been able to detect him in Krake the first time you saw him.”

  One of her previous investigations had involved a serial killer who was stalking science fiction conventions. She had had to deduce who it was at one convention by a process of elimination. When the killer decided that she was closing in, the elimination had been of lives.

  “You say it’s fairly common,” Barb said. “Why not send someone with Sight on the investigation?”

  “Sight is a tricky power,” Sharice said. “All of them are. People, even very good mystics, tend to suppress them. To repeat: Gifts are not easy. Most of the operatives we have with Sight can see auras well enough but have a hard time with demons. Admittedly, as deeply as Remolus was possessing Krake, it should have shown up in his aura. But we didn’t know that at the time. But you’re backwards, as is usually the case with Christians. You can’t suppress the sight of demons yet, but you can suppress auras. You’d have spotted him almost automatically. And when you do get to reading auras? Fully possessed individuals, their auras will be almost black.”

  “Nice to know,” Barbara said. “Not. The Ear?”

  “The only drakni you’re going to see are those that have attached,” Sharice said, carefully. “There are far more that are not.”

  “I’m hearing demons?” Barbara asked.

  “Demons, ghosts, which are often associated with demons, psychic echoes,” Sharice said, shrugging. “You’re hearing mystic voices. The good news is that if you learn to tune it, The Ear can do many things for you. You can find out what a demon’s True Name is. There is an undercurrent to the voices, like data in a router packet that tells the system what the origin of the packet is. It repeats the True Name of the demons. It’s also sometimes an audible channel to your God and his servants. You might just be able to hear angels, although they rarely have anything more complicated to say than ‘Wheeeee! Look what I can do!’ We’re going to have to do some serious work on you, girl. I’ll be fascinated to see the limits of your Gifts. If you have them.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “I see a light purple,” Barbara said, looking at the monk who was bent over a scroll. “Tinges of orange, but that might be from his robe.”

  It had taken two days of very careful practice for Barb to learn to open up her ability to see auras. It wasn’t a matter of concentration, quite the opposite. It was more a matter of opening up a part of her mind. She had to obtain a nearly Zen state to see one consistently. They had also practiced closing off her Sight with small, inoffensive neutral entities that Sharice conjured. Today was the day of practicing on the real thing.

  They’d gone to the Foundation’s extensive library to find some subjects for aura reading.

  “And I’m seeing a coral color,” Sharice said, sighing. “Very pure. And there we go with the fun of aura reading. Different people see different auras…differently.”

  “What’s purple mean?” Barb asked, flipping through the tome on her lap. “Vanity? That doesn’t seem right. Chun Chao is one of the least vain people I know.”

  “Which is the problem with reading auras,” Sharice said. “Most people see them one way, but others see a completely different spectrum, if you will. Demons are the same way. I might see a spider. You see a snake. Chun Chao might see a snarling traditional Tibetan demon. Nobody sees these things the same.”

  “Why?” Barb asked.

  “Isn’t it your Holy Book that says the mind of God is ineffable?” Sharice asked back. “Ask Him. The guesses are all over the map. My favorite theory is that it has to do with the mind of the viewer. What your Sight is Seeing gets translated by your brain into something that you can recognize, the same way that a hallucination converts images into something your brain can recognize.”

  “So if the book’s useless,” Barb said, tossing it lightly onto the side table, “how do I figure out what auras mean?”

  “By watching them,” Sharice said. “You just watch auras and deduce from what you know about people and their actions what the auras truly represent. What do you know about Chun Chao?”

  “Studious,” Barbara said. “Meticulous. Intelligent. A serious researcher…”

  “Cowardly,” Sharice added. “Afraid of his own shadow. Unwilling to leave guarded premises unless he’s in the company of someone like, well, you. He came here with a group of more powerful monks and hasn’t left the grounds to so much as take a walk.”

  “So…purple…” Barb said carefully. “That’s probably related to his studiousness and intelligence. And the flashes of orange…are nervousness?”

  “Very well hidden, mind you,” Sharice said. “And that’s just for you. Me, I see mostly coral. You don’t, by the way, See with your actual eyeballs. Once you become accustomed to it, you can See with your eyes closed. It’s one of the really advanced techniques in martial arts, when the Master puts on a blindfold and still wipes the floor with all the rookies.”

  “Seen that,” Barb said, nodding. “I figured he was just hearing them.”

  “Nah,” Sharice replied, grinning. “It’s cheating, really. He can still see their auras. And when you get good enough, auras can tell you what a person’s actions are going to be much better than body language. So not only can he See them right through the blindfold, he can tell what they’re going to do before they know.”

  “That would be a useful skill,” Barb said, nodding thoughtfully.

  “And you develop it the same way you get to Carneg
ie Hall,” Sharice said. “Practice, practice, practice.”

  * * *

  “See this box?” Sharice asked, pulling an elaborately carved wooden box out of a niche.

  They’d moved from the library to a building Barb had previously never even seen. If she’d been asked, she would have said that the path to the building looped back to the main path to the rear of the grounds. But there was a small side branch that led to the heavy stone building. Thinking about its position, she realized it was very close to the center of the compound and flanked by the prayer houses of four major gods. The doors of the building were heavy wood and steel with mystic symbols inscribed all over them and a massive lock.

  The interior was simply one large room lined with niches. Boxes filled most of them, and above each niche were more mystic symbols. There were four tables set at the cardinal points of the compass, and in the center of the room was a large pentacle, the sort of symbol that always made Barb very uncomfortable.

  “Okay, I don’t need to look in it,” Barb said, backing up. “I can feel the evil radiating off of it. Don’t let the EPA know about this place.”

  “We have a permit,” Sharice said, setting the box on a table. “The feeling of evil comes from buildup more than anything This is, in fact, a very unpleasant but minor drakni. It’s a gluttony demon, a demon that is, alas, common in the United States. They’re damned hard to catch, by the way. You have to have someone who is willing to be exorcised, and pull the thing out in this plane, then capture it. Much, much easier to dispel them back to their own. Now, I’m going to open the box. Even with the lid open, the drakni cannot escape. It’s in a different sort of box. However, you’ll be able to See it. A person without Sight would just see an empty box. Ready?”

  “Ready,” Barb said, raising her hands into a panther position. She wasn’t particularly worried about the demon attacking her. Gluttony had never been one of her weaknesses. But if it got out, she wasn’t planning on it just going back in the box, tough to collect or not.