Lupi 04 - Night Season

could set a circle a lot more simply, but this was one of the few things within his control, and by damn, he’d do it right. Besides, the FBI would be pissed if any magic leaked and crashed their computers.
    He passed Cynna’s leather-clad back in the third circle. She smelled faintly aroused, which made him smile. The fine webbing of energy covering her took the smile away.
    Not that it wasn’t a damned good spell. Sherry and three of her coven had spun an excellent protection spell on the leather coat. Those subtle filaments should tangle up any spells before they could touch the woman wearing it…any that weren’t too powerful, that is. Enough power would burst those strands.
    Feelings rumbled in him like distant thunder, assorted and strange. A web-spelled coat wasn’t enough. He didn’t want Cynna here.
    But the gnome did. And the gnome kept getting what he wanted.
    No one spoke while Cullen completed his three circuits over the complaints of his unfinished foot. Spell circles were set in two dimensions, but the protection they cast was spherical, so when he finished, he saw a ghostly dome over the lot of them, anchored by the candles.
    Nice and uniform, he decided with a nod. He crossed the blank space left in the glyphs, heading for the altar. “I’ll invoke the elements now,” he told the others. He looked at the gnome. “Close the door.”
    The councilor sniffed, but he rose and moved to the unchalked portion of the circle readily enough. With quick strokes he drew a symbol Cullen knew: the kryllus , an Etruscan symbol for closure or completion.
    Maybe the runt was on the up-and-up. Cullen wasn’t taking bets on it.
    The altar was a two-foot-square slab of granite borrowed from Sherry’s coven. They’d used a trolley and four men to move it here. It held Cullen’s athame, a glass chalice filled with water, a dragon’s scale, a small oil lamp, and a double fistful of herbs sprinkled over a bed of damp earth in a stone saucer.
    Two of the herbs had been beyond Cullen’s resources, so the Feds had pulled strings. The yohimbe came from a lab in Canada; the aashringi had been flown in by Air Force jet from India. There were advantages to working for the government, Cullen acknowledged as he knelt in front of the altar. Not many, but a few.
    The gnome had specified the components, but the manner of invoking the elements was up to him. He kept it simple, whispering the familiar words as he held his hand over each item in turn, moving clockwise, or sunwise: herbs, dragon’s scale, lamp, chalice.
    The others would see the small flame spring into being on the lamp’s wick. They wouldn’t see the colors that danced into life beneath his hand, or the single spot of uncolored intensity that was his diamond. Cullen picked up his athame. He drew a channel from color to color, connecting them—then touched the tip of the blade to his chest and pressed.
    Blood trickled down, warm and liquid. And the colors streamed inside him.
    Rocks fell down the slope of his spine. Wind blew through his skull. Water flooded his lungs. Fire burned his throat and mouth. His penis hardened and his lips pulled back from his teeth as power shuddered through him.
    Dimly through the physical cacophony he heard Lily ask quietly, dubiously, “This is a blood spell?”
    â€œIt’s okay,” Cynna said. “The blood isn’t for the spell. He’s balancing the elements before doing the actual cast.”
    The councilor piped up, so shrill he sounded like Gan. “You is not saying you balance this way! Is—is primitive!”
    You didn’t tell me a few things, either, buddy. But Cullen was too caught up in sensation and sorting to speak.
    Cynna again: “Physically balancing the elements is an ancient and effective tradition, and he’s a dancer. He knows his body.”
    â€œBut he is not telling me he does this! He is keeping secrets!”
    â€œAnd you aren’t? Right. Now shut up.”
    Cullen grinned.
    â€œHis foot,” Brooks said quietly. “Look at his foot.”
    Hey, he was standing on his feet, wasn’t he? Both feet. Flat on the ground. With his eyes closed. So he opened them.
    The infusion of elemental energies had heightened and altered his other vision. Eyes open or closed, he saw color—wild, crashing color. His circle was a sheet of orange flame; the second circle was dull, inactive. And