If that was the case, Tony's cleansing spell wouldn't help. We needed Cormac back. If for no other reason than to warn him.

Chapter 12

Twilight settled over the forest, clear and stark. The sky turned the beautiful deep blue of prize sapphires. The first star shone like a diamond against it. That clean, organic pine forest smell permeated everything.

Ben and I sat on the front porch and waited, watching Tony make preparations. He'd parked his truck at a national forest trailhead a few miles up the road, and moved it to my driveway during the afternoon. He pulled a box of supplies out of the back and got to work. First, he leaned a broom against the porch railing, then placed unlit white votive candles along the porch and around the clearing. Moving around the clearing to the four quarters of the compass, he drew something out of the leather pouch he carried and threw it into the air. A fine powder left his hands, and the smell of home cooking in a well-kept kitchen hit me. Dried herbs. Sage, oregano. I felt better.

“You think this'll work?” Ben said.

“I've learned to keep an open mind. I've seen something like this work before. So, yeah. I think it will.”

“You look better already.”

I felt a smile light my face. “What can I say? The man inspires confidence.”

“Do you know in some regions it's traditional to pay a Curandero in silver?”

I blinked, then frowned, suddenly worried. Would the ironies of my life never end? “Well, that's unfortunate. He knows I don't let silver get within miles of me if I can help it, right?”

Grinning, Ben leaned back against the wall. “Maybe he'll take a check.”

I reveled in the moment of peace. Ben was getting his sense of humor back.

The sound of a driving car hummed up the road, then crunched onto the driveway that led to the clearing. Marks's patrol car, a pale ghost in the twilight, moved into sight, then pulled in behind Tony's pickup.

Wary, I stood. Ben stood with me. I felt that same sense of foreboding and invasion 1 had every time Marks had come here. I understood it, now: the spite he brought with him, his part in the curse that had been cast. Now, though, I felt something else: like a wall stood between us, a defensive barrier. This time, I had protection.

Sheriff Marks, Alice, and Joe got out of the car, and Tony walked out to meet them. They all shook hands, like they'd come for some kind of dinner party.

“Sheriff, Joe, I'm going to have to ask you to leave your guns in the car,” Tony said.

“Like hell,” Marks said, as expected.

“This is supposed to be a peacemaking. Kind of misses the point if you bring guns.”

It was asking a lot, telling men like that they couldn't bring their guns. The whole thing might have come to a screeching halt right there.

Alice said, “Please. I really want this to work. I want to make this right.”

They listened to her, and Tony led them into the clearing.

“Everyone ready to get started?” he said. No one gave a particularly enthusiastic affirmation, but no one said no, either. Tony went around and started lighting candles. Golden circles of light flared from them, warm spots in the night. They wrecked my night vision; I couldn't see anything past the clearing now.

“Gather in a circle. Blood has been spilled here, in malice. There must be atonement for that.”

The others did so, then looked to me. I hesitated—they needed atonement, and as the wronged party here I had the power to forgive, or not. In Tony's ritual, as I saw it taking shape, that gave me control.

But it wouldn't do any of us any good if I withheld that forgiveness out of spite. This ritual seemed to be less about magic than it was a mechanism for reconciliation. Get us all in one place, make us willing to talk it out. The actions themselves were as important as the result.

I stepped off the porch and into the clearing. Ben followed me.

Nervously, we looked at one another, because nobody but Tony knew what would happen next. Alice seemed sad but resigned, her face pulled into a deep frown, her eyes staring. Marks's frown was different, suspicious. He kept looking over his shoulder. Joe simply stood, stoic as ever.

Tony snuck up behind me. I flinched, startled, because I hadn't heard him. I'd been too distracted by the strange mood settling over the area—a kind of suspended, timeless feeling, like the air itself had frozen.

“Sorry,” he said, smiling, and handed me something. A tightly bound bundle of some kind of dried plant. Sage, it smelled like, about as long as my hand and as thick as my thumb. He went to each of us in the circle, until everyone had a bundle.

1 assumed he'd tell us what to do with it. I tried not to feel too silly just holding it. Alice clutched hers in both hands, held it to her chest, near to her heart, and closed her eyes.

Then Tony picked up the broom and began sweeping the dirt in front of the porch. Slowly, he made his way around the circle, clockwise.

An owl called. This wasn't a calm, random hooting, the low-pitched, hollow whisper I'd heard the first time Tony came to the cabin. This was rushed, urgent—a note of warning, rapid and increasing in pitch. Branches rustled—there was no sound of wings, but the owl's cry next sounded from the roof of the cabin, above where Tony stood. I still couldn't see the bird. It hid itself well in the shadows, or my eyes weren't working right.

Tony looked around, searching for something.

Something wasn't right. I'd have sworn I hadn't heard anything, hadn't noticed any scent on the air, but the smell of herbs and candles might have covered up anything else. Still, an all-too-familiar tingling wracked my spine. A sense of invasion. My sense of territory being violated.

It was out there. Tense to the point of shivering, I looked out, trying to see into the trees, beyond the light of the candles.

“What is it?” Ben breathed. He'd moved—we'd both moved, until we stood apart from the others, back to back, looking out, ready for danger. I hadn't noticed it because it had happened so smoothly, instinctively, unbidden. Even our little pack circled in the face of whatever danger lurked out there.

This was driving me crazy. It was like the mornings I'd found the rabbits and dogs all over again. If something was out to get me, why couldn't it just show itself, let me face it down?

Ben grabbed my hand and nodded over to a spot north of the circle. The sky had deepened almost to black now, and the trees were lost in darkness.