“No, of course not.” Elspeth gave a sharp laugh. She had been one of Angelica’s earliest initiates, and was now at the center of a Circle in Manhattan’s publishing district. “But they did note similarities between this death and that boy in Lubbock. And the New York Beacon mentioned Cloud.”
“Cloud’s death was a—a horrible accident.” Angelica let her voice catch, so Elspeth could hear how the memory still upset her.
“This kid’s death was a pretty bad accident too,” Elspeth said dryly. “Apparently the body was so mutilated they had to use dental records to identify him.” Another pause. “Do you know someone named Annie Harmony?”
Angelica was silent. “Did you hear me?” Elspeth asked after a moment.
“Yes, I heard you,” said Angelica carefully. “I knew someone named Annie Harmon. She was my roommate for a semester at college. Why?”
“Well, someone named Annie Harmony may have seen what happened. She’s a singer with a big gay following; my son says she’s on cable all the time. She did a show in Provincetown last night and according to the club’s owner there were a number of your girls in the audience, he said they disrupted her encore and she was pretty pissed off. Afterward she apparently went to this party and saw something.”
Angelica’s voice was tight. “Did she go to the police?”
“No. But I guess she’s enough of a local celebrity that the news is all over the place—she was hysterical, screaming about black angels and some woman who saved her. Now the police want her for questioning but she’s disappeared.”
Annie! She couldn’t lose Annie, not now! Not after so long—
“Angelica?” Elspeth’s voice came through in an angry burst of static. “Are you listening?”
“Of course—it’s just, well, a surprise, that’s all.”
Elspeth snorted. “Yes, I would say a murder in the middle of a crowded party is a pretty big surprise! Pretty careless, too—a lot of people noticed your girls and boys there, and even though the gay press is trying to make this out to be some kind of queer-bashing, the local media and the national news are talking about ritual murder. They’re talking covens, they’re talking witches, Satanic rites…”
Angelica finally gave in to exasperation. “Well, let them talk. Remember Freedom of Religion, Elspeth? Remember the Santeria decision?”
The distorted scream of a bus’s brakes tore through the room. “This isn’t about freedom of religion, Angelica! This is ritual murder—”
“One man’s mass murder is another man’s high mass, Elspeth. If they summoned the naphaïm no one will find anything.” Her fingers drummed at the phone’s speaker. “I’m expecting a call from my son—”
“Maybe you can suggest to everyone that they cut back on the Circles for a few weeks—”
“Elspeth, I’m not their Mother Superior—there are women all over the world acting on their own now! You know what it’s like—all those splinter groups. I couldn’t possibly contact them all.”
Elspeth’s voice rang out warningly. “This is really bad timing, Angelica! You have a new book out, and the tabloids love this kind of stuff, especially in the middle of summer—tomorrow it’ll be on ‘A Current Affair’ and then you’ll have Laurie Cabot and NPR and everyone else in the country shoving microphones in your face!”
“It won’t be a problem, Elspeth.” Angelica’s voice was disarmingly calm. “All right?”
For a moment she heard only the drone of traffic, and faint music rising from the radio behind her. Finally Elspeth said, “I just thought you should know. Whether or not they can prove anything, the media and the public are starting to link these murders—”
“Offerings, Elspeth, offerings,” Angelica said gently.
“—to link these offerings, with your name. Your publisher is not happy about this at all, not one little bit.”
Angelica reached for the disconnect button. “Thank you for letting me know, Elspeth. I have to go now.”
For a few minutes she sat at her desk, staring at the moon outside. It was high above the cliffs now, its light falling in a shimmering curtain to cover everything, stones and tiles and pool, the twisted limbs of yucca and ocotillo and huisache.
“Four more weeks,” she said softly, and picked up the lunula. It had grown so heavy over the last few months. It drew strength from the waxing moon; as the moon waned, the offerings made by her followers would fatten it once more, until a month from now it would be heavy as though it had been wreathed with the tiny carven images that had been buried with the bodies of the faithful so many centuries before. By then Dylan would have found the missing crescent, the little moon’s lost dark quarter. The lunula and its Mistress would be whole again at last.
Now she felt the gravid curve heavy upon her breast. She ran her fingers across it, thinking of her beautiful son playing in the waves. She began to recite softly to herself, his favorite bedtime verse.
Very early the next morning, Annie Harmon sat on the tiny balcony of the room she and Helen had rented at a B&B in Wilmington, Vermont. To the west stretched the Green Mountains, their peaks gilded with sunrise. Above Haystack Mountain the moon was poised to set, just a few hours past its full. Phoebes and titmice sang from birch trees in the yard below, and from Lake Whittingham echoed the wailing of a loon and its mate’s anguished reply.
“We’ll have to let Vicki and Ed know if we want the room for another night,” Helen said gently She took her coffee cup from the breakfast tray that had been left outside their door. “It’s the Fourth of July weekend; they’ll want to rent it to someone else.”
Annie continued to stare at the western sky. She’d showered seven times since she and Helen had fled the rave on Herring Cove Beach, trying to rid herself of the smell and taste and feel of blood. Now her skin felt as though it had been rubbed with sand, so raw and sore it hurt to move.
“Annie?”
“I can’t go on with the tour.”
“You have to, Annie.” Helen’s voice was soft but annoyed; in the last twenty-four hours they’d had this conversation fifty times, at least. “You’ll be in breach of contract, besides which we still haven’t paid the mortgage—”
“There’s money in my private savings account in Burlington. I’ll write you a withdrawal; take it and pay all the bills.”
“You have a private savings account?” Helen sounded aggrieved. “You never told me.”
“Now you know.”
“But why! I mean, aren’t you going with me?”
“I can’t. I can’t go on with this tour, and I can’t go back home with you. I told you, it’s too dangerous.”
“Dammit, Annie, why don’t you just go to the police! This is ridiculous, you can’t just—”
“The police won’t be able to help me. The police won’t be able to help anyone if this keeps up…”
“And you can?” Helen asked incredulously.