Waning Crescent Moon

Twenty Percent of Full

Feast of Odin

(All Souls’ Day)

Twenty-Nine

Nashville

Midnight

Taylor was in bed, watching a replay of the late local news. She was fighting sleep, but would succumb at any minute. She’d been awake for thirty-six hours, and even by her insomniac standards, it was time for a rest.

Nashville would never get used to news about dead teenagers. Especially around the holidays and graduation, the nightly news brought stories packed with grief and remorse. Brave girls fighting meningitis. Silly young boys who drank to excess then wrapped their cars around trees. Cheerleaders text messaging their football-hero boyfriends and crashing into oncoming tractor-trailers.

But Nashville had never seen coverage of a tragedy of this magnitude. It was made worse by the extended horrors-nearly two days into the news cycle, when the gaping holes in the collective hearts were beginning to clot and crust, the sweet young face of Brittany Carson, smiling to the masses through the television screen, ripped them open all over again.

Her death had first been reported in a breaking news alert by a teary-eyed rookie reporter, one too young to have hardened to the nearly daily depictions of death and violence that roamed Nashville’s streets. On the 10:00 p.m. news, Brittany’s organ donation was the lead story-some vulture inside the hospital reported that she’d signed a donor registration card during a school campaign and the media seized upon it, getting a confirmation quote from her mother, Elissa, still dressed in the red blouse streaked with her daughter’s blood.

She wasn’t the only one; the entire city had been holding out hope that one of their children would make it through this tragedy alive. Sons and daughters, brothers, sisters, couples, loners, all marked for death. There seemed to be no real rhyme or reason to the victimology, not yet. They had nothing concrete, nothing except the knowledge that a teenage boy gave a teenage girl a pill laced with poison designed to kill her, then masturbated while he watched her die.

Taylor sighed, rolled onto her back to stare at the ceiling.

The images on the screen had been littered with smiling faces, full of hope. It was near impossible to imagine those same boys and girls lying on stainless-steel trays at the medical examiner’s, brutal Y-incisions demarking their virginal flesh.

The ME’s office was overwhelmed. Parents who’d been out of town returned with the knowledge of their children’s deaths weighing heavily on their consciences, needed to say goodbye. They had been camping in the lobby of Forensic Medical until their time came, were ushered one by one into a side room with a closed-loop video feed to identify their dead.

The first official comprehensive toxicology screens were rolling in. All eight victims had high levels of Ritalin, codeine, PMA, MDMA and Valium in their systems, disguised in the small, benign tablet of Ecstasy that Juri Edvin had sold them.

Taylor couldn’t stand it anymore. She flipped the television off. She wished Baldwin was with her, imagined him encircling her with his arms. The blank of darkness enveloped her, and she fell asleep.

Thirty

Midnight

Ariadne glanced at the police car parked in front of her house and sighed. At least they’d let her come home. For a moment there she thought the lieutenant was going to arrest her and toss her in a cell overnight. Instead, she’d been escorted home and instructed not to leave until summoned. That was fine-she had plenty of work to do.

She shut off the lights in the house and prepared herself, taking a long, cleansing bath, rubbing herself with fragrant herbs, allowing her mind to be open and accepting. Once the ritual bath was complete, she went to her drawing room. She built a fire, lit the candles, opened her Book of Shadows and £ot down on her knees in front of her altar.

‘Be true to me, as I am to you. Honor that which I have created, as I honor you. Goddess, hear my prayers. With harm to none, so shall it be.”

She stopped for a moment, let the impact of the words charge through her body. Her deity, the Goddess of the Moon, Diana, was insistent, and she answered. The pulsing energy filled Ariadne, making her gasp.

She’d been chosen early in her practice, when Diana revealed herself during a divination spell. Once Ariadne knew her path, she became stronger. Strong enough to rise to the position of High Priestess of her coven, before she left.

Sole practice worked better for her. She loved to teach the Old Ways, so she maintained a blog, with thousands of daily followers, and kept herself out of the politics that governed their kind.

But the matters of the past two days were too important for her to ignore. While the rest of her followers gossiped and prayed, she felt compelled to help.

Truth be told, the lieutenant fascinated her. She had no idea just how dominant she really was. If Ariadne could only spend more time with the woman, alleviate her skepticism. But no. Taylor Jackson was an empirical being, solid to the core with belief and justice. Even with proof of the otherworld, her mind would find a rational response.

Ariadne lit a candle, stared into the flickering flame, conjured a mental picture of Taylor Jackson. The eyes were what stood out. Athena’s eyes, the gray of a stormy afternoon, clouds roiling in the sky. The right darker than the left, the variation even more pronounced when she’d gotten angry. Her nose, slightly off, and that wide, mobile mouth. There was power, hidden behind the fringe of dark lashes. Power that the woman wasn’t aware she possessed. She was fair without being judgmental, skeptical but willing to accept help. So rare to find in any person, much less a cop.

Ariadne’s cat slid sinuously around her legs, drawn to the energy she was putting out. She picked her up, cuddled her face for a few moments, then blew out the candle. She’d invited her subconscious to bed, would let her dreams tell her what she needed to know. She’d felt dread this afternoon, strong and vivid, and was afraid of the consequences.

Still, she must try.

She must.

Thirty-One

Midnight

Raven stood in the cemetery, Fane at his side. They’d drawn the circle, called the corners, done their spell. They had bound Ember, both from saying anything about their actions, and from leaving. It was a very powerful spell- Raven felt sure Ember would be at his house when they returned.

Raven was worried about Thorn. No word from him, and he was the lynchpin. They’d bound Thorn to them, as well.