J.T. Ellison - The Immortals

That got Taylor’s attention. “Where was the party supposed to be?”

“At his friend Theo Howell’s. Evelyn and Harold are friends of ours. They’re actually traveling with Amanda’s parents now. But we know them well. We’ve always trusted Xander to be at their place without supervision.”

Taylor made a note. With any luck, the party was still going on, or at least had a gathering of kids who might have a better handle on the victims. She couldn’t push the thought from her mind that they might be a target too. She couldn’t take that chance, but she didn’t want to alarm the Norwoods.

“Do you have the address? I’d like to talk to Theo, if I could.”

“Certainly. I have Theo’s numbers too, home and cell. I’ll get them. They’re in my purse.” Mrs. Norwood straightened out of her chair and disappeared, returning a moment later with a handwritten note and more tissues. When she sat, Taylor noticed the woman looked gray. It was time to wrap it up for now. This family needed a chance to grieve, and Taylor was itching to get someone to the party, to get more information from the living. To protect them, if need be. She stood and shook their hands.

“Ma’am, sir, I’m going to leave you now. I need to get back to another scene. If you think of anything that might be relevant, please don’t hesitate to call.”

They seemed smaller, less consequential than when she had first walked in. It was always that way—reality set in and sapped their strength, their air, their very being.

Mr. Norwood looked at his wife, pale as a ghost, and said, “Are you sure we can’t see him?”

Taylor touched him on the shoulder, light and reassuring.

“I’m sure. It’s for the best, believe me. I think you and Mrs. Norwood need to go home to Susan now.”

Defeated, they struggled to their feet, arms wrapped around each other. Holding themselves together. “We’ll be at the house if you need anything.”

Taylor was terribly relieved. Sometimes families fought her harder on this, insisted on sticking at the crime scene, even going so far as to sneak into the scene for a last peek. It was never a good idea. At least at the medical examiner’s office, the visual identifications were done on a closed loop feed, so parents and loved ones wouldn’t be face-to-face with their dead. The little bit of distance sometimes helped.

Sometimes.

Lincoln escorted the Norwoods out the front door. The moment they were out of earshot, she called McKenzie, ordered him over to the Howells’ house with four patrols to stand guard. Protection for their case, and the innocent lives, all in one swoop.

She just hoped she wasn’t too late.

Samhain

Moonrise

They were four—the points of a compass, the corners of the earth. North, South, East and West. The elements of their worship: Earth, Air, Fire and Water. Wraiths dressed in black, scurrying through the graveyard one by one so they weren’t seen from the road.

This was a desolate place, far from the safety lights that peppered the modern landscape, astride a pitted country lane. A family cemetery: the husband and wife were buried at the head of the path. The road cut through their progeny, one side of the path for the man’s family, the other side for the woman’s. It had started as a cow path, centuries before, wormed its way into the earth gradually, until it was a clear demarcation. The people who took the earth felt it was prophetic, a way to walk amongst their dead without trampling on their spirits. They were considerate thinkers, these hardy men and women. The intent to travel, to wander, was stamped on all who sprang from the loins of this family, permanently marked by the meandering path through their consecrated land that allowed travelers to disturb their eternal rest.

Balance was necessary. That’s why he’d chosen this cemetery in the first place. He’d spent hours combing the countryside, looking for his sacred place. Once he found it, he claimed it as his own, drew an invisible circle, grounded his body and cast his spell, making a sacrifice to the land—three drops of his blood mixed into the earth beneath the tall, stately oak that bounded the west border of the graveyard. The oak had responded in kind, accepting his offering and allowing a limb to drop at his feet. It was exactly the length of his arm from his elbow to the point of his middle finger, already smooth of bark and leaves, tapered slightly at the end, which created a perfect place for his hand to grasp.

The branch became his wand, and he used his athamé, a two-sided blade with a hilt of the blackest obsidian, to carve his name into the oak in sigil letters—the witches’ alphabet—each corresponding to a point on the numerological chart, giving the wand incalculable powers at his hand. The athamé had cost him a year’s allowance, the wand cost him blood, but it was well worth it. They were the tools of his religion.

He worshipped alone at the base of the oak, calling on the Goddess to bless him, the God to give him strength. He danced in the moonlight, cast harmless spells against his enemies carefully, followed close to the Wiccan’s Rede—First, do no harm. He knew that whatever he cast forth would return to him threefold, so he didn’t seek to maim, just annoy. He worshipped with joy, with despair, with love in his heart, with pain in his limbs.

When he felt the space was so completely attuned to his nature that it greeted him when he returned, the oak dropping leaves or bending to the whispering breeze, he brought his friends.

They were four—the corners, the watchers. North, South, East and West. Two boys, two girls. Balance.

The older of the two girls belonged to him, six feet of creamy, milky skin so pale she almost didn’t need to use makeup to make herself disappear, with tumbling black locks that reached nearly to her waist. She was green-eyed, thin as a whippet but with womanly curves in all the right places, and if it weren’t against all his beliefs he would worship her as the Goddess. But she was flesh and blood. His flesh and his blood. They shared everything, every fluid, every waking moment. He felt incomplete when she wasn’t near, and as such kept her close always.

The boy was his closest friend and his occasional lover. He was handsome, with tousled blond hair and brown eyes, short and stocky and incredibly strong. Their youngest member had dark hair too, uncontrollably curly. She was a good physical match for her mate, small and solid, with thick calves and a cleft chin.

He trusted them with his life.

The four shared blood; through sacrifice, through a common vision, through the Great Act. Sex was their most powerful union, the blessing on their worship. They had been handfast, in the tradition of the Old Ways, declaring themselves for one another. They were looking for a Wiccan high priest who would do the official ceremony, legalizing their marriages in the eyes of the Goddess. They would go as couples, then as a quadrant.

While his magick was powerful, with his corners he could shift the very earth. His corners were his friends and lovers. His coven. They would follow him anywhere, and he would sacrifice himself for them in turn.

So when he told them the nonbelievers must die, they believed. They were The Immortals, and the night was theirs.

They had come tonight, the first night of the new moon, to cast a spell to Azræl, the Angel of Death. The last new moon, they had congregated, taken earth from the graveyard, said their spells and magickally charged it to allow the earth time to open, to allow a rift in the universe to form. Tonight they sought Azræl’s blessing; a celebration of their wondrous evening.

Samhain, what the Christians and Jews called Halloween, was a sacred night, when the veil between the two worlds was at its thinnest and spirits walked openly between the afterlife and the living. Samhain marked the Wiccan New Year, a sober celebration, a time for reflection. Messages were sent, ancestors honored, blessings bestowed. He had chosen Samhain as the night of the cleansing, the night when they would rid the world of their enemies. If they received the proper blessings tonight, he could put the rest of his plan into action.