Read In Death 05 - Ceremony in Death for Free Online Page A

seem to come from nowhere and everywhere. Windy flutes and plucked strings, a soothing female voice that sang with impossible sweetness in a language Eve didn't recognize.
    She saw couples in earnest conversations, others laughing quietly. No one flicked an eyelash when a woman in a sheer white sheath rose to dance alone. Eve ordered water and was amused when it was served in a goblet of simulated silver.
    She tuned in to the conversation at the table behind her and was further amused to hear the group's sober discussion on their experiences with astral projection.
    At a table in the next ring, two women talked about their former lives as temple dancers in Atlantis. She wondered why former lives were always more exotic than the one being lived. The only shot a person had, in her opinion.
    Harmless weirdos, Eve thought, but caught herself rubbing her still tingling palm on her jeans.
    She saw Alice the minute the girl walked in. Agitated, Eve thought. Nervous hands, tensed shoulders, jittery eyes. She waited until Alice scanned the room, spotted her, then she inclined her head in acknowledgment. With a last backward glance at the door, Alice hurried over.
    "You came. I was afraid you wouldn't." Quickly, she dipped into her pocket and drew out a smooth black stone on a silver chain. "Put this on. Please," she insisted when Eve only studied it. "It's obsidian. It's been consecrated. It'll block evil."
    "I'm all for that." Eve slipped the chain around her neck. "Better?"
    "This is the safest place I know. The cleanest." Still darting glances around the room, Alice sat. "I used to come here all the time." She gripped the amulet she wore in both hands as a server glided to the table. "A Golden Sun, please." She took a deep breath as she looked back at Eve. "I need courage. I've tried to meditate all day, but I'm blocked. I'm afraid."
    "What are you afraid of, Alice?"
    "That those who killed my grandfather will kill me next."
    "Who killed your grandfather?"
    "Evil killed him. Killing is what evil does best. You won't believe what I tell you. You're too grounded in what can be seen only with the eyes." She accepted the drink from the server, closed her eyes a moment as if in prayer, then slowly lifted the cup to her lips. "But you won't ignore it, either. You're too much a cop. I don't want to die," Alice said and set her cup down.
    That, Eve thought, was the first sensible statement she'd heard. The fear was genuine enough, she decided, and unmasked tonight. At the viewing, Alice had been careful to slick on a layer of composure and calm.
    For her family, Eve realized.
    "Who are you afraid of, and why?"
    "I have to explain. All of it. I have to purge before I can atone. My grandfather respected you, so I come to you in his memory. I wasn't born a witch."
    "Weren't you?" Eve said dryly.
    "Some are, and some, like me, are simply drawn to the craft. I became interested in Wicca through my studies, and the more I learned, the more I felt a need to belong. I was drawn to the rituals, the search for balance, the joy, and the positive ethics. I didn't share my interest with my family. They wouldn't have understood."
    She dipped her head and her hair flowed down like a curtain. "I enjoyed the secrecy of that and was still young enough to find the experience of going skyclad at an outdoor celebration slightly wicked. My family..." She lifted her head again. "They're conservative, and a part of me simply wanted to do something daring."
    "A small rebellion?"
    "Yes, that's true. If I had left it at that," Alice murmured, "if I had truly accepted my initiation into the craft, and what it meant, everything would be different now. I was weak, and my intellect too ambitious." She picked up her drink again, wet her dry throat. "I wanted to know. To compare and analyze, rather like a thesis, the contrasts of white and black magic. How could I fully appreciate the one without fully understanding its antithesis? That was my rationale."
    "Sounds