The Circle

by Val St. Crowe

  The sound of a throat clearing.

  I looked away from Lev and realized that Phist had left my car and was standing three feet in front of the hedge where we were hiding. He surveyed us, arms over his chest. “My ears are burning from you two talking about me.”

  Lev winced. “We were loud.”

  “We were way too loud,” I said. I stood up, gathering power in my hands to send at Phist.

  “Hold on,” said Phist, raising a finger.

  “No,” I said, raising my sparking hands above my head. “Lev, come on, let’s hit him with everything we’ve got.”

  Phist looked annoyed. He flicked his wrist, and two ropes of green glowing power flew out of it. One wrapped around Lev’s body, binding his arms to his torso, and the other did the same to me.

  I released my power just before it touched me.

  My magic sailed through the air and caught Phist in the stomach. He coughed, doubling over, but his magic held strong. Phist recovered, straightening, and he beckoned.

  I flew through the air, my feet dragging against the pavement. I stopped inches from Phist.

  He looked me over. “Okay, it’s truth time, Suther. What did Enid tell you?”

  “What are you talking about?” I said.

  He reached into the pocket of his leather jacket and got out a pack of smokes. He lit one and slammed his lighter closed. He blew smoke in my face.

  I coughed.

  He laughed.

  “Fuck you,” I said.

  “How did you know about Abbadon and the women?” he said.

  “I didn’t,” I said. “We went there looking for something that would prove he killed Enid, but we found those women.”

  Phist sucked thoughtfully on his cigarette. “I believe you. You stumbled onto it.”

  “I didn’t stumble onto anything. I was doing detective work.”

  “Yes, you’re a regular Nancy Drew.” He surveyed his cigarette. “You have no idea what you’ve done. It was a good gesture, Suther, but it won’t make any difference in the long run. They’ll find other girls.”

  “Well, so what?” I said. “Those women are safe now.”

  “Are they?” He cocked his head at me. “What will happen to their little winged babies when they’re delivered in regular hospitals?”

  I gulped, feeling ill. I really hadn’t thought this through. Anything like that alerted the occultist community, and they shut down any hint of magic in the human world, usually by killing everyone.

  “Well, we can find the women and warn them. We can help them.” I wasn’t sure how, but certainly, I could.

  “If you could find them, then so can anyone,” he said.

  “So, they’ll be locked back up?” I said.

  “It’ll be a question of effort and resources,” said Phist. “If it’s deemed too much to hunt them down, some of those women might get away. Some of those babies might survive. But the wheel will keep turning, Suther. You took out a spoke, but you didn’t come close to breaking the wheel.”

  My face fell. “I just… I didn’t think. I couldn’t think. I didn’t have time to think. When I found them, I knew I had to get them out of there. I did the best I could.”

  “Well, now, maybe you’ll listen to me?”

  “Listen to you?’

  “Leave this school,” he said. “Go far, far away, and never come back.”

  My lips parted. “Wait, what are you saying? Are you letting me go?”

  “I made a promise to your sister,” he said. “She never wanted you here. She wanted you safe. So, yeah, this is your free pass. Get the fuck out of here, Suther. I never want to see your face again.”

  I looked over my shoulder at Lev, who was behind me, also bound by Phist’s magic, listening to everything. “What about Lev?”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s coming with me.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Phist. “My official story will be that he distracted me while you got away. And I wouldn’t worry about little Lev. They won’t hurt him. That would make his daddy really mad.”

  “No, Lev, I’m not leaving you,” I said to him.

  “It’s okay,” said Lev. “One twelve Wickersham Street in Southton. Go there. Talk to my dad.”

  “Suther,” said Phist. “That would be a really stupid idea. Trust me. Don’t do that. It won’t make any difference. You know it won’t.”

  “It’s okay,” said Lev. “I’ll be okay.”

  Phist gestured with his hand and he hurled me across the parking lot. I collided with my car, and Phist’s magical rope untwined itself from around me.

  “Go, Suther!” yelled Lev’s voice. “Go, now!”

  I yanked open my car door. But keys? Did I have…? But yes, they were in my pocket, on a key ring with the key to my dorm room. I fitted the key to the ignition and started the car. And then I looked back at Phist and Lev.

  “Go!” Lev screamed again.

  I went.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The first thing I did was go to the bus station, where I found Abbadon’s car. My bank card was in the glove compartment. I took it, and then I went to a drive-thru and got some food. Breakfast food, because it was dawn now, the sky turning the color of bone as I drove.

  I punched the address for Lev’s dad into my phone, and I headed there.

  Was it as stupid idea?

  Probably.

  I figured the odds of Lev’s dad helping me were about thirty percent. It was way more likely that he was on the side of Abbadon and the Circle and whoever else was part of this demonborn ring. I was probably playing right into their hands by going to Lev’s dad.

  But, well, I knew that Lev had been telling me the truth when he said that his father loved him, and that was the one card that I could play. That Lev might be in danger. I’d lead with that. If he got Lev out of the school, then together, Lev and I could feel out his dad, see if he would help.

  It took maybe thirty minutes to get to Lev’s dad’s house, but I stopped on the way for more drive-thru food, which was calorie-heavy and good for storing up energy for magic. Hopefully, I wouldn’t need it, but I wanted to be prepared. By then, it was midmorning.

  The house was huge and ancient. It had probably been built in the 1700s or something. It had ornate architectural flourishes like pillars and designs around the windows. It was painted white and it was three stories high. I parked on the street in front, fed the meter, locked my car, and stared up at it, feeling like an idiot.

  I should leave. I should go back to my aunt’s and uncle’s house and forget about all of this.

  I didn’t know what had happened to Enid. But honestly, the more that I had discovered about her, the more I had felt that I didn’t want to know. All this investigation was doing was destroying my memory of her. Maybe I didn’t want to know the truth about my sister. Maybe I wanted to believe the lie.

  If I continued down this path, I was going to get myself killed. Hell, it had already almost happened a whole bunch of times in just the past week. Was the truth about Enid worth my life?

  I could leave, and I could get into that state school for spring semester, and I could stop doing magic. I could pretend that magic didn’t exist. Maybe I’d meet a nice guy, one who didn’t smoke or make out with other women in front of me or tell me he never wanted to see my face again.

  Yeah, everything about this world, this life, it was bad for me.

  Get back in the car, I told myself. Leave this place.

  I went to the front door of Lev’s dad’s house and knocked.

  The door was opened by a woman in a starched maid’s uniform. “Hello?”

  “I’m here to see Mr. Belial,” I said.

  “Oh, is he expecting you?”

  “It’s about his son, Lev,” I said.

  “Come in,” said the maid.

  I stepped into a foyer that was all white marble. The floor was marble and the walls had been painted white, and there was a marble staircase in the
middle of the room which ascended to an upper level. The ceiling went all the way up, three stories up, and an enormous chandelier glittered and dangled above us.

  There were white flowers in a white vase on a white table and paintings in muted colors in white frames on the walls.

  It was a nice house.

  “Wait here,” said the maid, and she disappeared out of the foyer.

  I laced my fingers together and chewed on my lip and felt nervous.

  Eventually, the maid returned with a man in a suit. I could see the resemblance to Lev. Definitely his dad. Even though his father didn’t wear eyeliner, his eyes were pronounced and penetrating.

  “What’s this about Lev?” he greeted me with.

  “You have to get him out of that school,” I said.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Lev’s friend. I live across the hall from him in the dorm. We got in a little trouble involving some of the students and one of the teachers there.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “I got away, but Lev didn’t. He said to come to you. He said you’d help. You get him out of there, and you can hear it all from him.”

  Mr. Belial knitted his brows together. “Tell me more.”

  “There’s no time,” I said. “Get your son.”

  Mr. Belial took his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed. He put the phone to his ear. Waited. Then shook his head. “Lev’s not answering his phone.”

  “He doesn’t have his phone,” I said. “They took it from him, or he would have called you.”

  Mr. Belial’s jaw twitched. He dialed something else on his phone and put the phone back to his ear. “Hello? Yes, this is Frederick Belial. I need to know the whereabouts of my son…. I want someone to find him and get him on the phone with me right now. Are we clear?… Yes, thank you.”

  “Listen, you can’t trust his talking to you on the phone,” I said. “They could be threatening him, telling him that he has to tell you everything’s all right or they’re going to hurt him.”

  Mr. Belial’s nostrils flared. He strode across the room and opened the door. “Miles!” he called. “Get the car ready. You’re going to Hellespointe to pick up my son.”

  Now he turned back to his phone. “What?… Well, if he’s not in his room, where is he? Find him now.” He turned to me. “You have any idea where he might be?”

  “The Black Circle,” I said.

  Mr. Belial did not look pleased. “Turn the Black Circle house apart,” he barked into the phone. “Find my son, now.”

  * * *

  They did find Lev at the Black Circle house, passed out on a bed. The school tried to say that Lev was just nursing a hangover, but his father wasn’t having it. By that time, his driver was five minutes from the school. Mr. Belial stayed on the phone while officials from the school loaded Lev’s passed-out form into the back of the car, and then his driver was allowed to leave.

  Anyway, it wasn’t was about an hour later that the driver arrived back at the house with Lev in tow.

  Lev was walking now, wide awake. He was arguing with the driver as he came into the room where Mr. Belial and I were waiting. It was a living room with a fireplace, painted deep blue with white trim and decorated with white and gray furniture. Mr. Belial had been pacing anxiously, trying to get more information out of me, but I figured it was going to be better coming from Lev.

  This way, if Mr. Belial was, in fact, on the side of the Circle, which I was hoping maybe he wasn’t, then I’d have Lev to negotiate for my life. Maybe his father would listen to him.

  “Why the hell am I here, Miles?” Lev was saying. “You can’t just take me from school while I’m sleeping.”

  “Just following orders,” said Miles.

  “I don’t even have my phone. Where the hell is my phone?”

  Lev’s father hurried across the room and caught his son in a hug. “Oh, you’re all right.”

  Lev let his dad hug him for a minute and then wriggled free. “Yeah, I’m fine. What the hell is going on?”

  Hmm. I wasn’t sure I liked how he was reacting. Sure, he should be surprised, but he should have some idea why he was here.

  I waved at him. “Lev. I’m the one who had you brought here.”

  Lev gave me a funny look.

  But his father was talking. “Lev, what happened at school?”

  “School?” said Lev. “I just got to school, like, yesterday. Why am I home again?”

  “Yesterday?” I repeated.

  “This girl, your friend, she says that you two got in some trouble,” said Mr. Belial.

  Lev turned to me. “I’ve never seen that person before in my life.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I sat down on one of the white couches, feeling as though I’d just had the wind knocked out of me.

  “You don’t know her?” said Lev’s father.

  “No,” said Lev. “I haven’t been at school long enough to make friends, and I sure as hell didn’t make any friends last year. I guess it’s cool if I’m back here. Does that mean I don’t have to attend Hellbent Crazy School?”

  “Don’t call it that,” said Mr. Belial.

  “I’ll call it whatever I want,” said Lev.

  “You’ve been at school for weeks now,” said Mr. Belial.

  “What? No, I got there yesterday,” said Lev.

  “They said that he had accidentally ingested a memory wipe potion,” spoke up Miles.

  Mr. Belial raised his eyebrows. “Accidentally, eh?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mr. Belial snorted.

  “Wait, what?” said Lev. “Memory wipe? So I’ve forgotten weeks of my life?”

  I hugged myself, despair washing through me. Lev had completely forgotten me. They had taken him from me. He was the only friend I had in the magic world, and he was gone. I wanted to cry.

  “Sorry,” said Lev to me. “I must have forgotten you.”

  “Yes, that’s very convenient,” said Mr. Belial. He shook his head. “All right, well, the important thing is that you’re safe, Lev. How are you feeling?”

  “Honestly?” said Lev. “Like I have the hangover from hell.”

  “Why don’t you go and rest?” said Mr. Belial. “Maybe take a hot shower? Get something to eat. Your friend and I will talk over what happened and we’ll get to the bottom of this.”

  Lev shrugged. “Okay. Sounds good.” He gave me a little wave and then backed out of the room.

  Mr. Belial eyed me. “You’ll tell me what happened now?”

  I licked my lips. Did I have a choice?

  “Why have you withheld this information from me thus far?”

  “I just… Lev is sure that we can trust you, but he also told me that you tried to get him to lace to a demonborn woman who was being held in stasis somewhere,” I said. “The trouble we got into, it’s connected to all of that.”

  He stroked his chin. “How so?”

  “Lev and I, we found a group of pregnant women being held captive in Dr. Abbadon’s basement. We let them go.”

  Mr. Belial looked very confused. “Why does Abbadon have pregnant women in his basement? Is he some sort of pervert?”

  “No, they weren’t pregnant by him,” I said. “They were pregnant by demons. Those demonborn in stasis, they’re obviously being bred. And they’re doing it to human women that they kidnap. After the women have the demonborn babies, they’re probably killed.”

  Mr. Belial sat down on a gray chair, opposite me. “All right. I think I’m with you thus far. You keep referring to ‘they.’ Who are they?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” I said, “but obviously Dr. Abbadon is involved. And he’s the faculty advisor for the Black Circle, plus he sent some of them after Lev and me when we were trying to get away. I think more people are involved, though. It’s got to be some kind of widespread thing.”

  “Indeed,” he said. “And what’s your name again?”

  I didn’t think I’d
told him my name at all. “Sutherland Astaroth.”

  “Sutherland,” he said. “How are you feeling? Maybe you’d like a hot shower too? Something to eat?”

  “Maybe,” I said warily.

  “I have some calls to make,” he said.

  “Would you feed me and then kill me?” I said.

  “You’re still not sure if you can trust me?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then I imagine you wouldn’t believe any promises I made, anyway. But you’re welcome to my hospitality.”

  I considered. Then I nodded. “Okay. A shower might be nice.”

  He smiled. “Good. I’ll have a room set up for you, and when you’re finished, you can come down to the dining room. I’ll have some snacks laid out for you and Lev.”

  “About Lev?” I said. “Can we get his memory back?”

  “I’m afraid memory wipes are permanent,” said Mr. Belial. “At least, I’ve never heard of one being reversed. I’m not pleased that they wiped the memory of my son, of course. This could have a very detrimental effect on his schooling, to say the least. You can be assured that I have some hell to raise.”

  I smiled too. “Good. That’s very, very good.”

  * * *

  The room that Mr. Belial had made up for me was gorgeous. It was decorated in golds and light blues, and I felt like Marie Antoinette or something.

  I even stood in the shower while I was scrubbing my hair with very expensive smelly shampoo and practiced saying, “Let them eat cake,” in my best French accent, which honestly wasn’t very good.

  The room had its own bathroom and when I came out of the shower, there were clothes laid out on the bed for me, three different options, all in my size, all brand new. Bras and underwear and socks and shoes too.

  Insane. I liked it at Lev’s house.

  I dressed in a t-shirt and corduroys and then headed down to the dining room, where someone had set out trays of vegetables and dip, cold cuts, crackers, and cheese. These were snacks, huh?

  Lev was already there, eating some green peppers and ranch. “So, we know each other?”

  “Yeah,” I said, sitting down next to him.