InDescent Read online

  “Would you care to elaborate?”

  He set the empty bottle on the table. “No.”

  “Too complicated? Too personal?”

  “Too mysterious,” Jackson said, seized by the imp of the perverse. His gaze flipped up to her. “You’re right. I am different. Let’s leave it at that.” Too close. She’s getting too close… And I’m wanting to get close, but in a different way. And I’ll just be using her. He began sliding out of the booth. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

  Mikaela’s hand locked around his wrist. “Jack…”

  He was afraid to look at her but ended up doing so anyway. Damn, those large, inquisitive eyes wouldn’t let go of him.

  She licked her lips. “Before you leave I’d like to ask you something. It may sound strange. It may be none of my business.”

  Woozy, Jackson stared down at her. “Maybe you shouldn’t ask it, then.”

  Immediately after he said that, he wanted to slap himself. Now he felt like an asshole. The more he took in that face, the more he wanted to ask Mikaela if he could walk her home…but not exactly like a schoolboy. The impulse rattled him. Something was happening he didn’t want to happen—or wanted to happen but didn’t believe in and couldn’t follow through with for very long. Which was why he’d begun acting like an asshole.

  Conceding to her request, he sighed. “Go ahead. What is it?”

  Mikaela’s gaze roamed indecisively over his features. Slowly, she released his arm. “Never mind,” she whispered.

  Jackson couldn’t seem to stop staring at her. He felt buzzed. He felt mesmerized. Foggily, he reminded himself that being buzzed could seem like being mesmerized. Like most people, his defenses slipped when he was drinking, leaving him with a sense of vulnerability. He had to get out of there.

  Only with effort did he finally muster some volition. “Nice meeting you,” he said. “See ya ‘round.”

  “That’s entirely possible,” Mikaela answered quietly.

  * * * *

  “Okay, I’ll do it.”

  Jackson’s hand felt damp as he gripped the wireless phone. He sat at his dining table and stared vacantly at the papers spread out there. Angelina’s words kept echoing in his mind. A bit guiltily, he glanced at the photos sitting on his bookshelves.

  He’d decided to participate in the Passion Celebration of the coven called Artemis-on-the-Crescent. He’d decided to surrender to the lure. Sex magic always provided him with a good outlet. And an impersonal one. Although the coupling could be explosive, it was temporary and largely symbolic—something he could walk away from without feeling burdened.

  “Guess I don’t have to ask who this is,” the answering voice drawled.

  Christy seemed to be gloating. She must have figured she’d triumphed. Jackson didn’t care. He was doing this for himself and the coveners, not for her. So it didn’t much matter what she thought.

  “The next full moon is in eleven days,” he said, “so I know when the esbat is taking place. Now I need to know where and at what time. Then I want some reassurances.”

  Christy gave him an address on the west side. The coven’s meeting place, she told him, was in an addition to the main house. It was easy enough to spot because it had a black door flanked by two lights. She gave him a time—ten to midnight. She told him to dress “scantily” and not bother with any ritual paraphernalia. The coven had all that covered.

  “Now what kind of reassurance do you want?” she asked.

  “Let’s start with birth control.”

  “We’re all on it. And disease free, too. We take that stuff real serious. How about you?”

  “I’m not on birth control,” Jackson said. Her tone made him feel puckish.

  But Christy didn’t seem to have a well developed sense of humor. “Come on,” she said impatiently, “you know what I mean.”

  “I always use condoms, but I still get checked twice a year. So, yeah, I take ‘that stuff’ seriously, too. I’m clean.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  “It’s always good to know. But I’m telling you right now I’ll only have intercourse with one woman. The more unfocused and random the sex, the more diluted the ritual intention becomes. Having a free-for-all fuckfest would render the whole ceremony pointless and ineffective.”

  “Oh really.” The second word sounded like rully.

  She needs to move to California, Jackson thought. “Yes really.”

  “Or is the problem that you don’t recycle fast enough? I know you’re not nineteen, Mr. Spey.”

  Thanks to rigorous training and certain magical formulae, Jackson could “recycle” just fine—at least in terms of erection and ejaculation. His sperm count certainly dwindled from one release to the next. But that, thus far, was a good thing and therefore a condition he’d never bothered trying to correct.

  He decided to let Christy believe what she chose. “I’ve told you my ground rules,” he said. “Either accept them or don’t. I’m not going to piss away my time arguing with you.”

  “Okay, fine. We’ll do it your way.” She paused. “But we’ll do it our way, too.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Don’t worry. It won’t violate any of your precious principles.”

  “Then just for good measure,” Jackson said, ignoring her sarcasm, “I need to see your Book of Shadows.”

  “That won’t do you any good.”

  “Why?”

  “Because this ceremony isn’t in my Book. Not yet, anyway. I’m still working it out. Besides, I’d like some of it to be personal and spontaneous, not a step-by-step thing.”

  “Hasn’t it occurred to you,” Jackson said irritably, “that I need to be clued in about how this is going to come down?” He still treated any occult rite, no matter what its focus, with solemn respect. He sure as shit didn’t get where he was by having a cavalier attitude.

  “Okay, here’s all you have to do,” Christy said. “When you get up to the door of the covenstead, knock twice, pause, then knock twice again. I’ll let you in. The members will already be there.”

  “Will the Circle already have been cast and cleansed?”

  “Yeah, yeah, all the preliminaries will be over and done with. You just come in and follow my lead. After some introductory stuff, I’ll take you to a pair of posts. I’ll put a hood on your head and shackle your wrists and ankles and put a chain around your waist—”

  “Hey, wait a minute,” Jackson broke in. “I told you I don’t do that shit.”

  “Relax, dude!” An impatient sigh came through the phone. “It’s mostly symbolic. You won’t be there for long. And you won’t be humiliated or anything.”

  Don’t trust her.

  “Okay, now it’s your turn to listen.” Jackson hoped he sounded authoritative enough to get Christy’s attention. “Here’s what you have to do. Whenever you see me raise my hand, palm out, you remain still and let me take over. I’m not just going to be at your beck and call while you improvise your way through this thing.”

  “For your information,” Christy said with childish hauteur, “I won’t be improvising.” Her tone altered, became more oily and insinuating. “Except when it comes naturally. What’s wrong with that? I’ve heard about your approach to magic. It isn’t out of a textbook. You’re no slave to tradition either.”

  Jackson couldn’t argue that point. “True. But at least I know what I’m doing.”

  Christy snickered. “So do I, sweetcheeks. So do I.”

  Even after he got off the phone, Jackson didn’t feel reassured.

  Man, this was going to be some wild ride…

  Chapter Three

  Even the trees seemed agitated. Their branches swayed, rustling and clattering, as Jackson parked at the end of a line of vehicles on a horseshoe-shaped driveway. Shadows shifted in a phantom ballet on the asphalt. He got out of his car, glanced around the property, and looked up at the sky. Gray-streaked clouds scudded across the face of the moon like soiled and tatte
red pennants. Between them, an almost liquid neon light glazed the landscape.

  He turned and regarded the residence. The addition Christy had told him about was on the left, its front door indeed marked by two lanterns. Their yellow glow seemed garish compared with the subtler spread of moonlight. Jackson vaguely wondered if Christy owned or rented this elongated ranch-style house or lived there gratis, thanks to someone’s beneficence. She was definitely sugar-baby material.

  The lot was only an acre or so and didn’t seem quite to belong either to city or suburbs. In fact the whole loose neighborhood was like that—a case of urban sprawl encroaching on woods and fields without any methodical development. As a result, Christy’s place had a certain measure of privacy.

  Jackson decided he didn’t like it. The low, sleek building reminded him of a modern funeral home, and its semicircular drive and neat shrubbery only strengthened that impression. A sudden recollection of Bothu, the odious necromancer, made him like it even less.

  Folding himself back into the car, he sat on the outer edge of the driver’s seat and slipped off his shoes, socks, jeans, briefs and t-shirt. Without bothering to fold the clothing, Jackson set it in a heap on the passenger seat. He paused for a moment to enjoy his nakedness.

  A breeze snaked between his legs and caressed his genitals. Jackson smiled. Being naked always felt good to him. It made him feel not only liberated but in command, like some elemental masculine force. As he reached for a small bag on the floor, he knew he was already becoming sexually charged.

  He pulled a green linen cloth from the bag. Standing, he loosely secured the cloth around his hips then once more reached into the bag. This time he lifted out a small bottle. It contained his oleum magicale, specially prepared for this particular rite. Opening the bottle, he coated the fingertips of both hands in blended clove and pine oils and began anointing himself.

  Base of throat to pubis. Inner thighs. Buttocks. Even the ends of his hair. Tongues of electrical current seemed to lap at his skin, following the slick, pungent paths. A current of air simultaneously curled around his body. Jackson sighed and closed his eyes. Lifting his face to the full moon, he raised his arms to shoulder height and turned up his palms. He knew, without having to look, that gauzy green, phosphorescent orbs now rested in both hands. Again he smiled.

  Tonight could very well empower him.

  Even further.

  Wearing only his loin cloth, Jackson walked to the illuminated door. The night’s strong breezes hadn’t touched his hair, which was tied by a single gold cord. This didn’t surprise him. It wasn’t for the wind to loosen and play with his hair, which normally fell to the tops of his shoulder blades. That would happen during the culmination of this rite. Only the “frenzy” could reduce him to a wholly natural state, free of restraint.

  A particle of doubt skipped through his mind. It had been a while since he’d been involved in any rite that had a sexual culmination. The last one was well before…

  Fuck it. Don’t think, just do it. He knocked on the door in the manner Christy had instructed.

  She opened it wearing a thin white robe. The low neckline, which barely concealed her breasts, was embroidered with a chain of pagan symbols and mythological creatures. Just as she’d done when she’d come to Jackson’s apartment, she unabashedly ogled him.

  They stood in a small foyer or antechamber. Coats, jackets and sweaters hung from pegs attached to the two longer walls.

  “Jesus, you look inviting,” Christy murmured. “I could take you right here.”

  “No, you couldn’t.” The refutation was offhanded. Preoccupied, Jackson inhaled the aroma he detected in the air and mentally unwound its intertwined threads. Frankincense. Sandalwood. Saffron. Musk.

  Good. All appropriate.

  “Oh? Why’s that?” Christy’s tone carried mild umbrage with a hint of challenge.

  Impassively, Jackson looked at her. “Because nobody can ‘take’ me unless I’m willing to be taken.”

  “In a little while, you won’t have much choice.”

  “Never underestimate my choices.” Jackson’s gaze went to the inner door, which he was tempted to open. He realized how much he disliked following the lead of this woman. Still, out of deference to the coven and its work, he waited.

  Christy made a quiet scoffing sound and moved past him to the door. As she reached for the latch, her left hand skimmed across his chest.

  It was too big a breach of conduct. His hand shot up and locked around her wrist. “Don’t…touch me.” His voice was low and tight. “No more liberties, Lady Alessandra.”

  Apparently stymied by his sternness, she opened the door without protest. A tramp stamp was indeed visible above her ass, but its precise form was mercifully indistinct.

  Jackson immediately noticed moving patches of white on the left or west side of the room he’d entered. White hoods. Large white hoods that covered the heads and concealed the faces of eleven naked women, standing along an arc. He realized they must be just inside the perimeter of the Circle. Forcing his gaze away from them, he surveyed the covenstead.

  It was a large room whose pale walls Christy had covered with lurid prints. All had fantastical subjects—heavy on witches, of course. A door in the far wall must have led to the rear section of the addition. A couple of loveseats sat against the other two walls. Elaborate candle stands, their red glass inserts all shimmering with soft light, stood at regular intervals around the room. A properly equipped altar, roughly waist high, faced north in the center of the space.

  More or less normal stuff, except for—

  “The god has joined us to join with us,” Christy announced, standing beside him. “When I summon and welcome him into our Circle, it will be complete.” She strode imperiously to the altar and began lighting the white, gold and green candles arrayed across the middle of it from left to right.

  Normal stuff except for the two pair of wood posts set off to the east and west sides of the altar—sturdy posts from which hardware hung—and the lavish bed positioned at the north end of the room.

  Christy turned to Jackson and held out her hand. Thus officially invited into the Circle, he entered it and knelt before the High Priestess. Holding her black-handled athame before her face, she touched the flat of the blade to her forehead, then brought it down and touched Jackson on each shoulder and the top of his head.

  “Priest for this esbat and god forever, now celebrate with us and be our lover.” Lady Alessandra motioned for the mangod to stand. “Reveal your name.”

  Jackson never intended to use his regular witch-name. He was only on loan here, so to speak, and wanted to keep this an isolated experience, divorced from the rest of his life. “Abelard,” he pronounced.

  Lady Alessandra leaned forward and kissed him once on each cheek. When she stepped back, she undid whatever fastener had kept her robe closed and let it slip to her feet. “The other half completes the whole. As above, so below.” Completely nude now, she turned to the altar, lifted a silver bell that sat in the lower right quadrant, and rang it twice.

  Lifting her ash wand, which lay farther to the left, she approached the line of skyclad witches. Their heads were still downturned. As the High Priestess went down the row and touched each woman’s shrouded head, she recited a verse.

  “Lover and lover meant to be

  The life that ever informs the sea

  And earth and air and fire. Strong,

  The bond here made we say belongs

  To all. We claim the passion

  Equally, with no short ration.”

  Returning to the altar, Lady Alessandra rang the bell three times and turned to face her coveners. She raised her arms high. “Blesséd be.”

  Jackson knew Christy hadn’t written this consecration. He just knew that. She either had a researcher at her disposal who’d ferreted the verse out of an old grimoire, or a ghostwriter who’d composed it based on something from an old grimoire. And it was likely one of Lady Alessandra’s own c
oveners who’d made this anonymous contribution to the Priestess’s cachet.

  She’d done enough to turn him off. More than ever, he was determined to find a more worthy partner.

  Before Lady Alessandra could proceed, Jackson motioned with his hand for her to be still and stay where she was. Since he’d already told her he might do this, she resisted only briefly before relenting.

  He began his own perambulation down the row of waiting witches, hoping the sight of them amid the drifting incense and wavering candlelight would soon have an aphrodisiac effect on him. “Speak your name,” he said, “when I stand in front of you.” After each one did so, he kissed her on both breasts—an action the women clearly hadn’t anticipated yet clearly found exciting—then murmured an incantation in Latin that meant, “Only the goddess can return my kisses to me. Only the goddess can claim more from me.”

  This guarantee out of the way, Jackson languidly crossed the Circle to the eastern pair of posts and stood between them. Lady Alessandra looked perturbed. He understood why—he hadn’t kissed her breasts—but didn’t much care. As she came toward him, about to reach for one of the five iron restraints bolted to the pine-trunk pillars, they rose of their own accord and fastened themselves around the mangod’s body. Two pair of manacles snapped around his wrists and ankles. A length of heavy chain that hung from one post looped around his waist like a serpent and attached its free end to the other post.

  Smiling to himself, Jackson faintly heard the Priestess’s stifled yip of shock. Blinking rapidly, she took a few steps to one side and lifted a green hood from a milliner’s form that sat on the floor. Jackson lowered his head. Tentatively, Lady Alessandra placed the hood on him, shrouding his face the way each covener’s was shrouded.

  He saw her bare feet move toward the altar, where she proclaimed in a shaky voice, “The handmaids’ duty is to prepare the god for the arrival of the goddess. But only she shall have him. The union of god and goddess shall begin with a kiss only she can claim.” The bell rang once, a fey sound that itself seemed to carry enchantment. “Come forward.”