Plague Cult Read online

  “I hope not.” But without the distraction of work or eating, anxiety crept through her veins.

  “Okay.” Shawn rolled his shoulders. “I’ll take you with me. I can’t teach you enough in a couple of hours to mask your presence from a ward, but I can mask it for you.” He crossed to the hurricane lamp and switched it off.

  The moon was out now, providing enough light to outline objects and deepen shadows. Ruth blinked to adjust her eyes to the dimness.

  Shawn held out his hand to her. “I can mask your magic while you stay near me, but only if I weave my magic with yours. Can you endure the touch of hollerider magic for a few hours?”

  She thought of the aching cold of its terror. She thought of it leaching into her aura, chilling and dulling it, eating into her soul. Could she? Then she looked into Shawn’s eyes.

  The shadowed porch, lit only by moon and stars, should have hidden his expression, but perhaps her healer magic let her sense the haunted wariness in him. He waited for her to reject his offer, his magic and him.

  She clasped his hand. “Tell me what to do.”

  His fingers closed gentle but firm around hers. Warm. “Give me permission to weave my magic with yours.”

  “You have it.” Like icy drops of rain, his hollerider magic touched the outer edge of her aura. She kept her breathing even, her gaze locked with his, as mage sight showed her the wonder of it. She didn’t let herself flinch as she opened her magic, the essence of self, and let Shawn’s magic enter.

  In mage sight, the rainbow colors of her aura were shaded with gold.

  Shawn’s magic trickled in, so fine that it was no more than a mist.

  She waited for the hollerider magic to dull the gold of her aura, but it didn’t. Nor did the heart-racing terror of it grip her. Her magic stretched out, weaving with Shawn’s, allowing him to combine their auras in a tapestry of silver and gold that flashed with her healer’s rainbow.

  Shawn groaned. His hazel eyes blazed with power, but also with passion.

  Ruth guessed her eyes looked the same. “Is it always like this?” She was feverish. The magic had invaded her body, heated it, so that she wanted to be lost in Shawn in the same way their magic intertwined and pulsed.

  “Never. It’s never like this.” He groaned. “Our magic is joined. For the next few hours I can mask your presence when I mask mine. I should let you go.” But he lifted their clasped hands to his lips and kissed her fingers.

  She stood. Not thinking, just reacting; stepping into his personal space. Moving into the heat of his body.

  His mouth came down on hers.

  Their kiss was devastating. Raw hunger could have been resisted, maybe—his and hers—but the coaxing demand of his honest desire tore her open. She wanted him, recklessly, utterly. She went on tiptoes to give more, and take more.

  He backed up to rest against a column of the porch, and she went into the V of his legs. He cupped her butt, urging her up and into him, aligning them perfectly. And the kiss went on.

  They were filthy-dirty, sweaty from the hard work of the afternoon, and that added a grounding note of reality—and only made it more perfect.

  The kiss finally ended and she simply collapsed against him. Both of them were breathing fast and deep. Shawn ran his hand up and down her spine and she arched into the caress. It felt wonderful just to stand with him. Their magics swirled and played around them.

  Ruth let go of mage sight as she pulled away from him. She smiled at him, feeling shy. They were waltzing on the edge of the Grand Canyon of desire, about to either fall or fly.

  He smiled back at her, such a slight curve of his mouth, but his eyes blazed. He touched her cheek, traced the curve of her face. It was a heart-stopping moment of tenderness after passion, with the passion still there, smoldering.

  She covered his hand with hers, just for a second, and then, they both focused on practicalities; not ruining the encounter with words as they parted. It was a moment to be treasured, not analyzed or forced.

  There was food to be put away, dishes to be washed in the laundry, showers to be had and clean clothes put on. While Shawn was in the bathroom, Ruth sat in her room, cross-legged on the floor. Her hair was wet from her shower, so she’d tied it back. She wore her fleece jacket over a t-shirt with tough hiking trousers and boots.

  She sat in the turret section of her room, with its curving external wall and bare floorboards. The boards needed sanding and polishing—and now was not the time to think of home renovation projects. She needed to ready her magic and her thoughts.

  Healers healed, but the flipside was that their magic could also disable and kill. Doing so violated their gift, but was occasionally necessary. For self-protection or the defense of others, Ruth had hurt two people. She could tear muscle from bone, bringing down an attacker. She could cause a stroke, stop a heart. But she’d never, yet, had to go that far. Nonetheless, she reached for the coiled magic at her center, wanting to be strongly connected to it and prepared for any eventuality.

  Shawn’s magic meshed with hers at the outer edge of her aura, but not here at the center. This was all her, golden fire. When she meditated, she pictured it as a mandala with magic streaming through it.

  She let her magic slide through her body, healing her. It lowered her adrenaline levels so that her muscles would function at an optimum rate, well-served with oxygen and cleared of lactic acid.

  On the edge of her physical, non-magical vision, a woman’s figure flickered. Ruth turned her head sharply, but the window seat built into the turret’s window was empty. “I’m imagining things.” But last night, there’d been a light here, in the turret section of her room, so how long could she go with the “imagining things” excuse?

  “I don’t believe in ghosts.”

  A branch of the oak tree growing near the house bent suddenly, leaves brushing the glass. Like ghostly laughter.

  Ruth scrambled up and stood, poised and uncertain. She didn’t feel threatened, but she was uneasy.

  Shawn looked in from the open doorway. “Ready?”

  “Absolutely.” She dismissed the possibility her house was haunted. “Let me grab a hat.” She’d knitted the black beanie herself. It would hide the shiny red gleam of her hair. She put it on and stuffed her damp hair beneath it.

  In the mirror of the old dressing table, she saw Shawn approach. He was smiling. “I know.” Her hands stilled as she finished tucking her hair away. “I look like a toadstool.” The knitted hat had an odd, puffy shape.

  “You look cute.”

  He looked deadly. The dark gray and brown of his clothes would blend into the night and he moved with an alert, predatory grace. He stroked a finger along the exposed line of her neck to just nudge the open collar of her jacket.

  One little touch and her whole body shivered. She turned to him, and his finger slid along her collar to the hollow of her throat, and paused a moment there, against the fast-beating pulse.

  “We should go.” He withdrew his hand.

  She walked steadily to the door, but inside she felt wobbly. She felt separated: partly in her own body, and partly stretched backwards, all of her attention focused on the man walking silently behind her. Out of habit, she switched off the light in the room, and darkness engulfed them. “Sorry. Can you see?”

  “Easily.” He closed the distance between them, a hand at the small of her back. “Can you?”

  “Yes.”

  A dim nightlight lit the staircase and moonlight filtered in through the stained glass window, colored with the red tones of the stylized rose.

  Downstairs, lights were on in the hallway and parlor, and she and Shawn left them on as they walked down the front porch steps and around to the truck. The wind had the nip of coolness that said Halloween was near. Bonfires and trick-or-treat. Another few weeks and the town would start featuring witches on doorknobs and jack o’lanterns in windows. Ruth wouldn’t be here for it.

  She wasn’t going to consider if Rose House was haunted�
��at least, not tonight—but it would make a fantastic haunted house for a tour. The church fundraising committee would have a blast tricking it out. She could take some holiday leave and join them.

  Shawn put the truck in gear and started down the driveway. Its headlights picked up the oaks at the roadside and divided the world into lit and unlit. “I’ll park half a mile out. Further if I sense a ward. Any idea where to hide the truck?”

  She appreciated him asking. It respected her judgment as well as her local knowledge. “Just past the bridge there’s a space people park when they fish off it. It’s screened from the road. It’s also a place to leave the truck that wouldn’t call attention even if someone saw it. If someone’s there fishing, a bit further on, the Tennyson’s old driveway is overgrown. We could park there. You can’t see it from their house. They put the new driveway about a mile on.”

  They reached the bridge, small and ordinary, that crossed the Bideer River. No one fished from it. Shawn slowed the truck.

  “On your right.”

  He bumped the truck along the short, bumpy track and parked in the clearing. With the engine off, they were near enough to the river to hear the frogs, but the water wasn’t visible through the trees. Nor was the bridge. “Good spot.”

  She flushed, ridiculously pleased by the terse praise, and hid her response by getting out of the truck. She jumped the last couple of inches to the ground and fallen leaves crunched under her boots. It was good the weather was dry. They had a hike in front of them, and it would be both easier and pleasanter without rain.

  “Here.” Shawn handed her the truck’s key. “If anything happens, don’t worry about me. Just go.”

  “Okay.” She’d over-ride her instincts and do as he said. He was a Collegium guardian as well as a hollerider, and freed of the need to protect her, he could unleash magic enough to make anyone who attacked him regret it.

  They cut across country with Shawn in the lead and Ruth doing her best to tread where he did. She could feel his magic, not unmasked, but active as he scanned for wards or other spells. It was a low level vibration at the edge of her aura; something she suspected she sensed only because their magics meshed.

  She didn’t feel as if her presence or magic was masked, but she trusted that Shawn had done whatever it was that generally hid him.

  Since the Moonlit Hearts Club had taken over the old river resort, they basically followed the river to reach it. The quiet burble of water was comforting. As a healer, water strengthened her magic. It purified and cooled, quieting fever and easing pain.

  “Containment ward.” Shawn halted by a cypress pine, its twisted trunk oddly beautiful in the darkness.

  “Where?” Ruth couldn’t sense it.

  “Ahead.” He clasped her hand. “We’re going to cross it. I’ve masked us and as long as you stay close, no one should sense that we’ve entered the compound. However, we’re not invisible. So move quietly and stay in the shadows.”

  “Will do.”

  He squeezed her hand before releasing it and moving forward.

  Since she watched him so closely, she saw him stiffen. He turned to look at her, and there was a warning in his stance, but not a gesture to run. She centered her magic and crossed the containment ward.

  Oh God. It was a prayer, shaken from her heart.

  Death magic crawled over her skin.

  No wonder the witch who’d placed the ward had gone with containment over a look-away or keep-out spell. She or he had needed to hide the evil they’d done.

  Death magic in Bideer!

  Shawn gripped her shoulder, a question in the tilt of his head.

  She nodded once. She was okay. She could cope with this. In mage sight, she could discern the sludgy darkness of the containment ward. It lay behind them, apparently unbroken, which meant Shawn’s ability to mask them was powerful; stronger than whoever had set the ward. That was reassuring. She could see his magic at the edge of her aura, the silver shining in mage sight. It was like a shield.

  Possibly he was even protecting her from the death magic, keeping it from her and keeping her healer’s aura unclouded. She was grateful. Ironic to find a hollerider’s magic a protection, but its terror didn’t touch her. That terror was directed outward, masked at the moment, but if Shawn unleashed it…

  She had to trust he wouldn’t. The cult had gathered vulnerable people. If they weren’t guilty of participation in the death magic, then they really shouldn’t suffer the fear of the hollerider’s passing. It was likely they lacked the emotional resilience to survive it.

  Ahead, a light blinked through the trees. Actually, the light was steady. It was the tree branches that swayed in the night wind. She stopped near Shawn and he put a hand on her waist, moving enough that he blocked the wind from her. She thought the action was automatic, unconscious, but it warmed her more than her fleece jacket.

  The old resort was just visible: seven cabins built around the main building that had a dock out to the river and contained conference rooms and kitchen, plus an office and storage.

  Ruth checked her watch. Ten o’clock.

  “Stay here,” Shawn whispered, nearly soundless, before ghosting away.

  She leaned into the smooth trunk of the oak tree. Its sturdy normality helped her feel secure. In mage sight, she could see the silver of Shawn’s magic still merged with the fringe of her aura, yet stretching out, centering on him, as he scouted the area. Where she couldn’t see him physically, she detected his presence by the silver glow.

  And if I wasn’t connected to him, I doubt I’d see even that. She shoved her hands in her pockets, gripping the can of pepper spray that she carried as a just-in-case. Magic wasn’t always the answer to a problem.

  She forced her gaze from Shawn to study the compound. There were lights in four of the seven cabins, and in the main building. At the edge of its dock, a lamp glowed faintly.

  The river and the woods felt clean. The death magic had rolled out across them before hitting the containment ward, but it hadn’t come from them. Ruth concentrated on the ugliness of the magic, trying to trace it back to its source. It came from the old resort. Not from one of the seven cabins, not even from outside in a scratched circle of dirt. It came from the main building.

  Ruth pressed into the oak tree as a middle-aged man exited one of the cabins, closing its door behind him and rattling the doorknob to check it had locked. Not very trusting. He walked briskly to the main building and entered.

  Lights went on in the far windows. Unless the layout of the building had changed since she was a teenager, that was the large conference room. A couple of her friends had worked at the resort in the holidays, and she’d picked them up on the way to parties, concerts or other events. She wondered if the man was setting up for the meeting Erica had discussed with Jared.

  Or was he setting up for activities that the meeting of a lonely hearts club would hide? The death magic seemed centered in the far end of the building. The longer she stood here, concentrating on the death magic—the opposite of her healers’ talent—the clearer she saw it. Like grey smoke tinted with red lines, yet heavier, as if emptied from a giant vacuum cleaner bag, it clung to the main building and kind of shuddered.

  So far in her healers’ career, she’d been lucky. She’d only encountered death magic twice before, and both times she’d been part of a team with a more senior healer who’d dealt with it. Here, she was the healer. Shawn, guardian and hollerider, could defeat the person using death magic. However, she needed to heal its effects.

  Not that she could bring the dead back to life.

  Death magic, as its name implied, drew its power from sacrifice.

  In its mildest form, and usually called by less ominous names, it could feed on renunciation: the death of a habit, a vow of abstinence, or a surrender could power it. That living self-sacrifice could be immensely powerful not simply for its magic, but because of the intent of the person committing it.

  But the dark ugliness of the deat
h magic here indicated that it was by no means so positive. Whoever had cast this magic had physically killed something. Not a person. The cloud of death magic would have been a roiling storm, a crushing psychic pressure in the compound, if a human had died. Instead, it was relatively weak. A small animal had died.

  The truly evil used death magic because it gave them a sick thrill to kill. The act was as satisfying as the magic raised. However, evil was rare. Most people who used death magic did so because they were scared. They acted out of the viciousness of their fear. It unbalanced them so that they weren’t able to see healthy ways of dealing with their problems, but reached instead for death magic, which would destroy them.

  It always did.

  She and Shawn were here to ensure that it didn’t hurt others, or provide the power boost to jump a curse into a plague.

  Two women walked out of the cabin nearest to Ruth. The compound was lit enough for safety, but they carried torches anyway, and the younger of them flicked hers this way and that, the beam darting to destroy shadows, only to flinch away.

  Death magic destroyed people’s nerves.

  Ruth had to control her instinct to send out a protective, soothing energy.

  The two women were badly distressed. They huddled together as they nearly ran the last few steps into the main building.

  They’d have done better to run away.

  A truck drove into the compound. Ruth heard it first, then saw the headlights. Shawn ghosted back to her as Jared Hill and Erica got out of the truck and hurried to the main building. It was as if their arrival signaled the meeting’s opening. Two more men left their cabins and called greetings.

  Ten to eleven.

  Shawn clasped her hand.

  The warmth and positive energy of him glowed through her, and she tightened her fingers convulsively around his.