Ruby Shadows Read online

“Oh!” I looked at it uncertainly and then sniffed it.

  “It’s wine—a very good wine, I think,” Laish murmured. “Now you must add a single drop of your own blood as well.”

  “Why?” I wasn’t sure why he wanted me to—it wasn’t the usual ritual. In fact, the only ritual I could think of that required a drop of each of the participants’ blood in a cup consecrated to the Goddess was the handfasting rite. It was a binding together of the male and female spirits—a kind of marriage in a way. But I was certain that wasn’t what Laish was after—was it? “Why do you need my blood in the cup too?” I asked again when he didn’t answer.

  “Because mortal magic in Hell is tricky,” he said, clearly catching my confused look. “You must bind yourself to the spell to make it work, just as I have. Blood is binding.”

  “Well…all right.” Lifting the athame, I pricked my index finger and let a single droplet of blood fall into the ruby red wine. Laish nodded in satisfaction.

  “Very good. Now raise a cup to the Goddess, mon ange, and let us continue.”

  I shrugged. “Fine. Though I doubt she’d be able to hear us or help us in Hell—or even that she’d want to.” Then I raised the cup and spoke a blessing, calling on the Goddess to hear us and bless our efforts that night. I took a sip and handed it to Laish. He also sipped and for a brief moment, I thought I saw his eyes glowing a bright, ruby red, almost like two red stars. Then they subsided and he placed the chalice back on the altar.

  “All right,” I said. “It’s done. Who do you want me to summon?”

  “You will not be doing the summoning tonight, my little witch.” His eyes gleamed. “I will.”

  Then with a wave of his hand and a word of power so strong it made my eyes sting and my eardrums throb, he brought someone else into the circle.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Gwendolyn

  For a moment, I didn’t recognize the figure crouching on the sand in front of us. Then he lifted his head and I saw the gleam of a single golden tooth in the front of his mouth.

  “Oh my Goddess…” I took a step back and the chalice fell from my nerveless fingers, red wine gurgling over the thirsty sand which soaked it up immediately. “What have you done, Laish?”

  “Where the fuck am I?” the man demanded. “Hey…” He squinted at me. “Ain’t you Keisha’s big sister? The one always tryin’ to get her to leave me?”

  “You…you…” I took a step back but I needn’t have bothered. Laish pointed one finger at the man and uttered another word of power.

  The man—Ray, my little sister’s pimp—was suddenly frozen in place. I saw his muscles tensing and twitching under the dirty baggy jeans and stained white wife-beater t-shirt he wore. But he clearly wasn’t going anywhere. There was nothing wrong with his voice, though.

  “Hey, let me go! What did you do to me, you bitch?” he demanded, clearly thinking I was the reason for his immobility.

  “I’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head when you speak to my consort,” Laish told him, coming around to stand in front of the crouching man. “Or you risk getting it cut out.”

  The silver athame was suddenly in his hand but instead of using it on the pimp, he held it out to me.

  “Come, Gwendolyn,” he said in a calm voice. “You have called the circle and we have summoned a known criminal—a corruptor of souls and a defiler of innocence—into our midst. This will be a justified kill—it need not stain your soul forever, not now that the proper precautions have been taken.”

  “What…what are you saying?” I backed away from him, refusing to take the athame.

  “I’m saying that this man, who has hurt your sister so deeply for so many years, needs to die. And you need a way to pay the Sin Tax and break the barrier between us and the Abyss. All your problems can be solved in one fell swoop if you will only wield the knife.” He held it out to me, more insistently this time.

  Finally my numb brain thawed and I understood.

  Laish hadn’t had me call the circle to perform a summoning…no, what he wanted was a sacrifice.

  “I…I don’t know.” My words came out as a croak.

  “Come, you were more than ready last night when you saw him harming your sister in the mirror.” Laish took my hand impatiently and put the knife into it, curling my numb fingers around the handle. “Do it, Gwendolyn,” he insisted in a low voice. “I cannot do it for you—you must make the stroke that ends his miserable life to pay the tax.”

  Feeling like I was moving in a dream, I took a tighter grip on the knife and moved in to stand by the man who had caused my little sister so much grief and pain. He’d hooked her on drugs, beaten her, used her sexually and whored her out to other men like she was nothing but an object to be bought and sold. He’d treated her the way I wouldn’t treat a dog I didn’t like and I hated him for it—loathed him for it.

  Laish is right, I thought grimly. He deserves to die.

  I took hold of his mop of greasy brown hair and yanked his head back, baring his dirty throat.

  “Hey, now lady—don’t do that! What the hell, I mean—”

  Laish spoke another word of power and Ray fell silent. His mouth was clenched tight, his jaw muscles bunching as though he was still trying to speak but nothing came out. Not that I would have cared what he said, even if he’d been able to talk.

  I raised the athame high, intending to bring it down and cut his throat in a single, savage slice. I would kill him for all he had done to Keisha. I would sacrifice his life and in so doing, save my own—save my power from being halved.

  Then I heard a little voice, speaking in my ear.

  Not like this, Gwendolyn! it cried. He deserves to die but not like this—not by your hand! You’ll never be the same person if you do this—you’ll never be able to look at yourself in the mirror again. Don’t lower yourself to this level. Don’t stain your soul. Don’t!

  The strange, dream-like state I’d somehow fallen into abruptly shattered and I realized what I’d been about to do. I’d been about to kill a man—to commit murder. Call it what you want—a sacrifice…a justified killing…but what it boiled down to was murder.

  I’d wanted Ray dead for years—wanted him out of Keisha’s life. The revenge spell I’d been working on would have caused him to wither away as long as he was with her. He would have wound up an old man in a matter of months and if he continued to harass her, he eventually would have died. But working a spell of revenge from a distance and actually slitting his throat and watching the ruby streams of blood pump out onto the sand were two different things. I hated this man with my whole heart but could I actually kill him in cold blood? Could I let myself go that far into the darkness? A darkness from which I might never return?

  Last night I had been willing. But then I had been under the influence of the HellSpawn, manipulating me through the mirror, and the darkness had nearly swallowed me. I had called the evil into myself, willing myself to be able to kill. And I understood now that was the only way I could commit this act—the only way I could take his life. Should I open myself to the evil again? Could I do it again?

  My answer came when the athame fell from my hand to thump harmlessly on the sand at my feet.

  “I can’t,” I whispered, backing away from the straining Ray, whose eyes were rolling crazily in his frozen face. “I can’t do this—I’m sorry.”

  “Think before you make your decision, Gwendolyn,” Laish said softly, picking up the athame. His eyes were glowing like two red stars and I thought I had never seen him look so handsome…or so demonic.

  “You’re tempting me,” I accused him breathlessly.

  “No, I am trying to save you grief. You have only two choices here,” he murmured. “Either surrender your innocence to me and lose half your power, or sacrifice the hornless goat and kill this man who has wronged your sister. No other sins are strong enough to pay the tax and pass through the barrier into the Abyss.”

  “I know,” I whispered, backing away.