Evil Ways (32 page)

Colleen O'Donnell was about a third of the way through the Sisterhood's most powerful anti-black magic ritual when she saw the man in khaki burst out of the back gate and run, very fast, off to the left. She put down the religious implements she held (she could not bring herself to drop them; her training had been too thorough for that) and grabbed the rifle, but the man was out of sight even before she could bring the weapon to her shoulder.

Fuck! Cocksucking motherfucker. SHIT!

She heard several fast gunshots then, but they were too far away to have anything to do with the guard she had just, through her own negligence, let through.

Colleen O'Donnell put the rifle back down, got to her feet, and ran.

Hannah Widmark had approached the north gate at an oblique angle, in the dark, wearing her usual black clothing. The group of guards milling around just inside the gate, wondering what to do next, had no idea she even existed until she casually walked through the gate and stood facing them, hands on hips. "Hello, boys. How's everybody tonight?"

No one knows what might have happened if they had just continued to stand there, dumbfounded, and let her pass. Because some fool decided to go for his gun.

The twin shoulder holsters that Hannah wore each had a thin nylon cord that hung down from the bottom. This was designed to be tied to the belt of the wearer, to prevent the holster from snagging when the gun it held was drawn very fast. Hannah had both those cords fastened securely to the wide belt she wore, and her holsters did not snag the twin .45s as she drew them, very fast indeed.

The guard who had gone for his weapon was the danger man, so Hannah shot him first, aiming for center of body mass, just as Cranston had taught her. The big .45 slug caught him in the sternum, sending the man to the asphalt as quickly as if the hand of God had reached out and pulled him down.

By then, of course, the other five guards had no choice. No choice at all.

Hannah took the two on the outside first, left and right, one round from each of the .45s doing the job nicely. Then she dropped the next two, who had yet to clear leather with the Walther PPKs they wore on their hips. Then there was only one man left; he had actually managed to draw his weapon, and was bringing it to aim when two of Hannah's slugs blew his heart out between his shoulder blades.

Without any hesitation, Hannah turned left and ran, toward the area where the aerial photos showed the sacrificial altar to be. That was where she would find Pardee. She changed clips as she ran, replacing the half-expended ones in her guns with fresh clips containing the full eight-round combat load. Hannah had no idea what she was going to encounter on her way, but she was not interested in running out of ammunition when she dealt with it.

And she wanted plenty of ammo left for when she saw Pardee
again.

Libby Chastain was forced to face the fact that, for reasons either temporary or permanent, Pardee was stronger than she was. That meant she was going to die in the next few minutes, unless she did something extraordinary.

She decided to do something extraordinary.

White magic does not employ blood sacrifice. Unlike its black counterpart, which is dedicated to death and destruction, white magic is about life, and nature, and growth. Thus, no grisly symbolism plays a role in its practices.

With one exception.

White magic does allow for one kind of blood sacrifice
—when the practitioner deliberately offers up her own blood. Since this does not involve doing harm to another, and instead represents the voluntary giving up of one's own life essence, it is consistent with the philosophy, laws, and practices of those who follow the Right-Hand Path. It can, done properly, temporarily increase the practitioner's magical power as much as tenfold. Of course, if too much blood is sacrificed, the practitioner dies. And the sacrifice may be made only in the direst of circumstances.

Libby Chastain regarded her present circumstances as
pretty fucking dire.

Libby had never done a blood sacrifice, only read of it in the Sisterhood's books on magic theory. Plus, she tended to be something of a baby about pain. But she had never turned away from grim necessity in her life. She was not about to start now.

Which is why, without ever taking her eyes off Pardee, or lowering the wand she held in her dominant right hand, Libby seized the sharp ceremonial dagger with her left, quickly brought it down to the inside of her bare left thigh, and with one get-it-over-with-before-I-lose-my-nerve movement, deeply slashed her leg, severing the femoral artery.

Quincey Morris approached the south gate cautiously. It appeared unattended, but there was no way to know, until he was inside, whether any guards were lurking in the vicinity. Morris hoped there weren't any around. He didn't want to kill anybody tonight
—but time was running out. He was going to find Libby, if he had to do it over the bodies of Grobius's entire security unit, then that's just what he would do.

He was nearly at the gate when he heard gunshots from inside. Nobody was shooting at him
—there were no muzzle flashes, and no bullets went whipping past. And he thought he recognized the distinctive report of a .45. It would appear that Hannah had gotten tired of waiting, too.

When Morris cautiously poked his head around the corner of the gate, he saw that the few guards in the vicinity were running hard toward the north gate. He slipped inside then, keeping to the shadows as much as possible, and headed for the altar of sacrifice. At first he went at a fast walk, looking everywhere, prepared for trouble. But soon, encountering no challenge, he began to run.

Colleen O'Donnell was in the undergrowth for about thirty seconds when she realized that her eyes weren't going to help her much. Despite the full moon overhead, it was impossible to track the man's passage in this light, through this undergrowth. Then Colleen did something smart. She stood still. And listened.

There was crashing through the brush, ahead of her and maybe ten yards to the right. She quickly developed a technique that worked. Move twenty or thirty feet ahead. Listen. Catch the noise the guard was making. Adjust course, if necessary. Move forward. Repeat as needed.

Then she heard a voice. A man's voice. Moving slowly, pistol drawn, she followed it.

"Lady what the fuck are you doin' here?" the voice said. "Coming around, upsetting Mister G. and all that. You can't do shit like that, lady. Not and keep livin'."

Colleen was close enough to hear the click of a hammer going back. She ran forward now, yelling, "FBI, hold it!"

She broke through the last of the brush into a small clearing. One of the Sisters, Colleen couldn't remember her name, was kneeling on the ground, her magical implements arranged around her, clearly terrified of the man who was holding his gun on her, even though he was now looking at Colleen.

"FBI!" she said again, pointing her Glock at him. "Drop your weapon! Do it!"

The man seemed to sneer in the moonlight. "FBI, yeah right. Where's your fucking ID, Miss FBI Man?"

Her ID was back at her firing position.
Shit!
"I'll be happy to show you my ID in a second. But, put your weapon down now!"

The man was shaking his head. "I don't think so, sister. You ain't taking this away from me. It's my big chance." Then he pivoted at the hip and pointed his pistol, some kind of automatic, right at Colleen.

She double-tapped two rounds into his chest, and killed him.

Libby Chastain, stark naked, sat in a growing pool of her own blood and felt the magical power within her grow stronger, even as her body became weaker. Pardee was staring at her, his eyes wider than Libby had ever seen them. The shit-eating grin was gone now.

Although she was starting to feel light-headed, Libby forced herself to concentrate, to focus on the sacrifice she was making.
O Goddess, I make you this gift of my blood, my life force, my very essence, I make it of my own free will, and I beg of you to give me the power to defeat this Son of Darkness. Then, if you would have my life as recompense, it is yours to take.

Libby could feel the power swell within her. Pardee was driven a step back, then another, then, in a final surge, Libby could feel her power wrap around Pardee's, wrap around it and smother it and crush it until it lived no more.

Pardee lowered his hand and just looked at her. He knew it too, she could tell: his magic was gone. Maybe for an hour, a day, forever. But as he stood before her now, he had no magic whatever.

Libby's vision began to blur, and she saw Pardee's face twist as he started toward her. He might be without magical power, but soon Libby would be so weak that any mortal man would be able to kill her. And Pardee seemed to think that he was just the man to do it.

Libby tried to keep the wand raised, tried to focus, tried to stay alive. Her vision was fading and there was a roaring in her ears now, but it did not prevent her from hearing the voice that spoke from behind her, a female voice, beautiful as an angel's, that said, "Looks like a fun game, kids. Can anybody play?"

"Hannah!" Libby cried, although her voice came out as little more than a croak. "I took his magic, Hannah. He has… no… power…" Then Libby lowered her hand, her eyes closed, and fell over, into the pool of bright red, arterial blood that continued to grow larger by the second.

Pardee and Hannah stared at each other. Then recognition, or
something,
seemed to dawn in Pardee's eyes
—which may have been why he turned and ran.

Hannah started after him, but, after a second's hesitation, stopped and knelt next to Libby Chastain, whose eyes fluttered open.

"Libby," she said, in that voice of heartbreaking beauty. "What can I
—"

"Go," Libby croaked. "Go get him. My life's… with… Goddess now… her will. Now,
go!"

Hannah looked at Libby for just a second longer, but a great deal passed between the two women in that brief space. Then Hannah whispered, "Goodbye, Sister." Then she was gone, sprinting off into the night.

Quincey Morris had finally reached the place of sacrifice. Most of the black witches were still busily engaged in their ritual, although a few had broken off and were staring, wide-eyed, toward the big altar that looked like it was made of marble.

Although everyone else in the world who owned a handgun seemed to have gone over to automatics, Morris perversely stuck with a revolver, maybe as a
homage
to certain of his forefathers, one of whom, it was said, had ridden with the Dalton Gang. Morris carried a Colt Python chambered for .357 Magnum, and when he aimed it over the heads of the black witches and fired, it sounded like a small artillery piece going off.

At the first shot, the witches looked up, startled. By the second, most of them were on their feet. When he fired a third time, they began to scatter
—several, Morris noted, without bothering to put any clothes on.

He turned toward the altar then, and saw the still figure lying in an impossibly large pool of blood. Three seconds later, he was kneeling in the gore, next to Libby Chastain.

Her skin was cold, so cold. But he found a heartbeat. It was slow, but it was still a heartbeat. Morris saw that the blood was coming, although slowly now, from a deeply slashed artery in her leg. He whipped off his belt and used it to tie a hasty tourniquet at the point where Libby's leg joined her groin. He felt briefly creepy about putting his hands there, but then figured that Libby was in no condition to feel outrage at being groped. She was almost certainly unconscious, anyway.

The tourniquet working as well as it was likely to, Morris tried to figure out what to do next. He considered an impromptu blood transfusion, but he had no equipment, and was embarrassed to realize he didn't even know Libby's blood type.

Morris held back a sob. Libby was going to need a miracle to
—

Then he blinked rapidly a couple of times. He happened to know some people who specialized in miracles.
And they were not far away.

Morris gathered Libby into his arms and tried to regain his feet, slipping on the blood. He finally managed to stand, then gingerly stepped off the altar and clear of the blood pool. Clutching Libby Chastain tightly to him, he began to run.