"You're entirely too pleased about all this."
"Of course I am! I've never done anything like this before. I'm usually cooped up in a TV studio or a book signing. But this—running around, investigating, spying . How cool is it?"
How did I get myself into these situations? "So, Jeffrey—you want to be a guest on my show?"
"Um—just what exactly would that involve?"
Inside the caravan, nothing happened. If this had been any other church's revival meeting, there would have been singing, shouting, praying. I wouldn't have minded hearing some speaking-in-tongues.
But there was nothing, except Jeffrey and me sitting in the dark and the cold, under a tree, waiting.
Enough time passed for me to think that Stockton had set us up. Somewhere, hidden cameras recorded us, and any minute now actors dressed as bogeymen would leap out of the woods, screaming and carrying on. I'd freak out, adrenaline would push me over the edge, and I'd turn Wolf, because that was what happened when I panicked in a dangerous situation. Stockton would get it all on film and broadcast it in "A Very Special Episode of Uncharted World : Kitty, Unleashed." I didn't know what Jeffrey would do. Get out of the way, I hoped.
Except the caravan of the Church of the Pure Faith was parked in front of us, and I wasn't going to take my eyes off them. The bogeymen would have to wait.
Jeffrey tapped my shoulder and pointed at the road. A car pulled up—Stockton's. The headlights were off, to draw less attention to it. I hissed a sigh of relief.
A few minutes later, he rejoined us, carrying a plastic bag. "Hi. Anything happen while I was gone?"
"Nothing," I said. "They've been quiet."
"Too quiet," Jeffrey added happily.
Stockton pulled items out of the bag: a loaf of sliced sandwich bread, a shaker of salt, a bottle of Saint-John's-wort herbal remedy, and a pill crusher.
"I figured we'd crush the pills up and sprinkle the powder," he said. "I don't think you can get Saint-John's-wort any other way these days."
I deferred to his supposedly greater knowledge, because I didn't have any better ideas.
"Jeffrey, you take the salt. Kitty—" He handed Jeffrey the salt, and me the loaf of bread. While he took the pill crusher out of the package and dug into the Saint-John's-wort, he explained. "We start at the north end of the caravan. Just sprinkle this stuff as we go, and that's that. Which way's north?"
The moon, a little over three-quarters, was rising. That marked east. I pointed to the left. "There." It was just off from the entrance of the caravan.
Stockton exhaled a deep breath. "Right. Here we go, then."
The reporter led us. He had the bottle of pills in his jacket pocket. Two at a time, he grabbed pills from the bottle, put them in the crusher, turned the knob until it crunched, then emptied the powder out on the ground. Jeffrey followed behind him, sprinkling salt. I tore the bread into pieces and dropped them. Just call me Gretel.
Stockton was whispering. I had to listen closely to understand the words.
"Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name…" Prayer. A bit of verbal magic to bind the spell.
We walked around the caravan, clockwise, far enough away from the wire boundary to avoid drawing attention. Even the guards had gone in to Smith's service. I crumbled bread, afraid to say anything. Jeffrey pursed his lips in a serious expression, watching Stockton and the ground ahead of us. Stockton developed a rhythm, pill-crunch-sprinkle, his lips moving constantly.
Completing the circle seemed to take forever. We moved methodically, and therefore slowly. We didn't even know if this was going to work.
Finally, we returned to the north side of the caravan. We passed the entrance, which was blocked off with chains secured with padlocks, making the place look more like a prison than a religious camp. Stockton reached the spot where the trail of bread crumbs began. I closed the circle.
"… and deliver us from evil. Amen." He sighed and licked his lips.
Nothing happened.
"What's next?" I said, trying to keep the anxiety out of my voice.
"I don't know," Stockton said. "That was supposed to be it. I can't be sure I even did it right. I mean, who knows what other shit is in those pills."
That was it, then. We did what we could. Maybe we could go back to town, do some more research, and try again later.
"No, no. Something's happening. The light's gone all funny."
Jeffrey didn't elaborate. From my perspective, nothing had changed. Who knew what he could see?
Then, inside the caravan encampment, two figures approached the entrance. They were large, male, and stalked with long, smooth strides, predators in hunting mode—Smith's werewolf bodyguards.
"Guys?" I said, backing away. "We might want to get out of here."
The two bodyguards put their hands on the chains of the gate and hopped over, leaving the chains rattling. They continued on, right toward us.
Drawing together instinctively, we moved away quickly, stepping back, unwilling to turn away from the werewolves.
They crossed the line of the circle we'd made, then stopped.
For a moment, outside the circle marked by the bread crumbs, they stood frozen. Then one of them stumbled, as if he'd lost his balance. The other one put his hand to his head and squinted. They looked around, expressions confused, like they'd just come out of hibernation. They glanced at us, then at each other.
"Oh, my God," one of them murmured.
"Spell broken," Jeffrey said.
I moved toward them slowly—let them get a good look at me, get my scent, prove that I wasn't a danger. "Hi. Are you guys okay?"
"I don't know," said the one who'd spoken. "I—we were stuck. What happened? I'm not sure what happened."
They both looked back at the gate, their faces long and sad, nostalgic almost. The chain they'd jumped over a minute before was still swinging.
"Do you want to go back?" I said.
The other one, shorter, quieter, said, "It's not real, is it?"
"No," I said.
"Shit," he muttered, bowing his head.
Now all we had to do was get everyone else to leave the caravan and cross that line.
I wondered what would happen if Smith crossed that line.
A crowd had gathered, Smith's congregation leaving the tent and filling the space behind the gate. Dozens of them stared out with earnest, devout gazes.