Reign of Evil

“That’s true. What’s his motive?” She eyed Walker speculatively. Perhaps he was more than the sum of his handsomeness and muscle. “I did find it interesting that he was so quickly able to deflect my power. He’s either shielded or a warlock. I don’t recognize any of the warlock tells I’m familiar with, so my bet is that he’s shielded. How and why is what I’d like to know.”

“How does one go about being shielded by a warlock? Is there a section in the yellow pages? Craigslist?”

“I don’t know what either of those is, but I think your attempt at humor referred to something available to the common man. To answer your question, no. A warlock, or a witch, for that matter, wouldn’t advertise. We prefer our privacy. No, whoever is involved with Sir MacDonald was involved from well before this day.”

“Could it be someone from the Red Grove?” Walker rubbed an itch in the center of his chest. “Perhaps we should see where he goes. I wonder if Preeti couldn’t develop an algorithm which would allow the CCTV cameras to trace his comings and goings.”

She raised an eyebrow. U.S. Navy SEALs weren’t the knuckle draggers she’d believed them to be. It seemed the selectors valued intelligence. And to think that there were more coming. Yum.

“I’m going to go see if she’s still awake.” He took a few steps, then paused. “Do you need anything?”

“I’m fine, Mr. SEAL.”

He stared at her a moment, then shook his head. Soon he was out of the room and headed down the hall.

She leaned over the box and stared at the book he’d picked up. Beneath it was another book bound in human skin titled L’Esprits des San Ignacio Mini. Although she’d never seen the book, she’d heard of it. Who hadn’t heard of it? Written in 1613 by a Jesuit priest who was also known to be a practicing warlock, it was the record of life and death and daily events at a small mission run by Spanish conquistadors in the northeastern corner of present-day Argentina. Father Jose Cataldina finished writing the book in 1721, then had the skin from his back removed and used it to bind his work. For years it passed from hand to hand. It wasn’t until 1852 that it was found once more when Vicar John Baptist Miège, Vicar Apostate to the American Indian Territories east of the Rocky Mountains, came into contact with the book. As he wrote in his own private ledger, he discovered a simple Elizabethan substitution cipher hidden within the text of the book, which revealed a series of resurrection spells of such complexity that they could never be replicated. Many a coven had rumored that a spell of forgetfulness had been placed over the tome to discourage copying. To Sassy’s recollection, no one had ever decoded any of the spells believed to be in the book, much less been able to incant them.

She opened the book with the tenderest hands, letting her finger linger on the pages as she turned them. She felt power here. Substantial and ancient. She’d fiddled with Elizabethan ciphers before. As an apprentice witch she’d passed notes to other witches, their true nature hidden behind replaced letters and numbers. The real genius, of course, of an Elizabethan cipher was that it still had to make sense to better hide what it contained.

With the Wild Hunt once again returned to England and the Holly King successfully resurrected, it was likely that the spell that made that possible was hidden away in this nasty piece of work she now held in her hands.

Knowing the spell would allow her to unmake it.

The question was, did she really want to unmake it? If King Arthur had indeed returned, did she want him there?

She wasn’t sure what she wanted, nor would she be until she determined exactly what the reasoning was for bringing back the Hunt. Until then, she’d work on breaking the code and search the remainder of the warlock’s materials for a link to the Red Grove.

CHAPTER 21

C-17 GLOBEMASTER III. ST. JOHN’S, NEWFOUNDLAND. NIGHT.

SEAL Team 666, Genie, a tied-up Van Dyke, and three crew chiefs stared wearily into the brightening day outside the windows of the giant plane. They’d had to stop for refueling and were ready to get to their destination. When the plane took to the air once more, everyone found a comfortable position to rack out except YaYa. The constant tingling in his body because of the presence of the spirit inside Van Dyke was a constant reminder of the obour.

He’d never considered that a forest could be haunted before. He’d always attributed ghosts to places like houses or graveyards. But it made sense. The world was covered with more open space than not. It was just his bad luck to run into one during his first mission in the forests of Myanmar.