Page 175 of Blue Moon Mistress

I slip through the kitchen, silent for completely different reasons, and pull the vegetable oil from where it sits beside the stove.

I have to hope they’ve got what I need. I can’t trust anything in Mrs. Miller’s kitchen, and it would take far too long to search through her cupboards.

But when I open the cabinet with their spices… they’ve all been replaced. I pull out brand new jars… “That was an expensive grocery run.”

Taking the herbs I need—in this case, dried is going to be better than fresh, even if they had it—I set them on the counter beside the oil.

It’s a decently sized bottle, made of glass. I don’t bother trying to find a jar to make a smaller mix. Instead, I pour the entire bottle of ground sage into it, ignoring the green powder that falls down the sides in my hurry.

Basil and dill follow… salt.

There are a dozen other things I would use, but there’s no reason for them to have them. Whispering a spell and a prayer, I screw the cap down tight and shake it as I head back out.

This time, I do take a moment to spell the four-wheeler. A few quick words and a snap… and the sounds of the engine die away.

I have to believe that Aphrodite was in too much of a hurry to lie around Mrs. Miller. Have to believe that all of the signs pointing to the old Boy Scout building are correct.

I take the roads this time. There’s a gully between here and there and the last thing I need is to total this vehicle too.

It’s a five-minute drive to the lodge that backs up to the town’s largest park, and there are a pair of cars parked in the gravel lot out front. The front end of the green beetle is smashed up from her encounter with my car, and I have to assume the other belongs to one of Mrs. Miller’s granddaughters.

I pull the four-wheeler on to one of the heavily used walking paths just to the east of the lodge and listen for any sound that might clue me in to where they are.

They aren’t being quiet.

I hear Aphrodite bark orders and slowly steer the ATV toward them.

There’s a dense thicket close to where I see the four of them moving around, and I stash the ATV there, creeping closer and using the trees for cover.

The trees branches twine overhead, blocking the night’s sky from the clearing she’s using.

And moon magic requires line of sight.

“What are you up to?”

A glimmer shifts beside me and I look down to find Joshua’s wolf pressing close. The other three sit, just outside the clearing, watching.

Aphrodite must have laid down a protective circle if they’re not moving closer.

Because the guys are here.

All four of them sit in the pine needles, eyes tracking Aphrodite’s every movement.

Otherwise, they’re unnaturally still.

Aphrodite ignores them.

Her focus is on the Miller sisters.

The three women who work around her do so in mechanical movements. And as soon as they move, I see what the vampire meant when he said she was going to fake the blood moon.

Like something from a child’s play, two of her acolytes hoist a paper mâché moon into the air, to hang above the branches. The third is crouched by a light projector, fiddling with its connection to a small battery pack.

There’s a pile of stones Aphrodite is using as an altar, and on it… an enormous malachite sphere.

She’s going to use it to channel their strength into her. And she’ll take the magical essence of the wolves with it.

The acolytes finish placing the moon where they want it, and the projector creates a red hue on the paper surface. They walk quickly to sit beside the guys, hands in their laps as Aphrodite pulls a jar of blood up from the ground and throws away the lid.

---