Free Circle of Blood by Debbie Viguié Page A

sprayed over the glass that was still intact.
    She sat for a moment, stunned. The eyes flickered briefly. The man wasn’t dead, at least, not yet.
    She leaped from her car and spun around, her eyes sweeping the street, searching for whatever had caused the man to land on her car.
    “Help me!” came an agonized cry. There, a few yards away, she spotted a small figure. She lifted her hands, prepared to fight, but a moment later recognized Nala. She quickly scanned the area for other signs of life but saw none.
    She moved over to the girl. “What happened?”
    “I don’t know,” she said. She was crying and shaking. “He attacked me. I freaked out and I felt this burst of energy as I pushed him away. He went flying and hit your car.” She looked up at Samantha with anguished eyes. “Is he dead?”
    Samantha turned and walked back to the car. The man’s wounds were extensive, difficult for even a seasoned witch to heal, and he was bleeding excessively from a dozen cuts from the glass, but he was still breathing.
    She reached out, yanked the power from him, and let go just as he died.
    “He is now,” she said, turning back to the girl.
    The girl collapsed on the sidewalk, looking as though she was going to be sick, and began to cry harder.
    Desdemona wasn’t sure exactly what to do. Since it didn’t look as if she was going to get Nala to move anytime soon, she turned and put a glamour up around the car and then around herself and Nala so that any passersby would avoid them but would see nothing unusual.
    Then she sat down next to the crying girl. Though Nala claimed not to be a witch, she had lost the equivalent of her whole coven just a few hours before. Desdemona understood how that felt and knew the girl must be feeling alone and frightened.
    Don’t trust her,
that other self whispered deep inside.
    Desdemona rolled her eyes. “You say he attacked you?” she asked.
    Nala nodded.
    “Can you tell me what happened?”
    “He was like us, you know? I felt someone coming and I thought it was you, but then I turned around and it wasn’t. He smiled, acted friendly, wanted to know if I was okay.”
    “Then he got close to me, and he—he grabbed me, tried to kiss me. When I told him to get off me, he tried to grab my chest. He was ripping my shirt. I freaked out and pushed him as hard as I could. That’s when I felt the energy surge and he went flying.”
    She broke down sobbing.
    Liar!
    Desdemona blinked, startled. That other self was usually so kind and compassionate, but the word came with such vehemence that it shook her.
    She looked at the girl and then at the body of the man on the car. Why would she make a story like that up? It wasn’t as if the world wasn’t filled with predators just waiting to get their hands on young girls.
    Liar!
the inner voice insisted again.
    Desdemona gritted her teeth, wondering what Samantha wanted her to do about it. After she had saved them at Martin’s house, though, maybe it was best not to ignore her.
    She glanced around. It was far from an ideal place to be having this conversation with Nala, let alone try to be still enough and vulnerable enough to have a conversation with her other self. That would just have to wait.
    She got up and walked back to the car. The dead man was wearing a dark suit with a shirt and tie. He looked like a businessman.
    Check his pockets.
    She grimaced but went ahead and did it. She found nothing, not even a wallet or any kind of identification. That seemed sort of odd to her, especially given how he was dressed.
    She pulled the body off her car, letting it slide to the ground. She stared intently at his face, but there was no recognition whatsoever. He was a stranger to her.
    And now he was just another body to dispose of.
    No, wait!
her inner voice pleaded, but it was too late as Desdemona dropped a fireball on his body as she had on the one in the alley that morning. Her thoughts flashed to the man she had been following then, the one who