Hallowed Circle c-2

by Linda Robertson

  She hesitated. "Local vampires are customary."

  He gestured at Sever and Heldridge. "This territory falls under my jurisdiction."

  She stamped her staff on the dais floor; it cracked like thunder and the orb atop it began to glow with a white light. "Why have you come?"

  "It is my right to attend." Menessos stopped perhaps ten feet from our contestant line. "Do you yet begrudge me the past, Eldrenne? Will your bitterness never cease?"

  They had history between them. Curious.

  "You give me no cause for anything but bitterness, Menessos." She spat his name.

  "What benefit could I seek in aggravating the wounds of decades past, Eldrenne?"

  "Your motives are ever your own. To guess at them is to relinquish myself to thoughts just as depraved and selfish. I will not sully myself to venture there."

  "Your words sting me, Xerxadrea."

  The other Elders gasped in unison; he'd addressed her by name. WEC had only a handful of Eldrennes and once they became Eldrenne, that was their name in public.

  "Good," she replied. "It may not be the stabbing vehement agony you deserve, but a sting implies pain and if I have hurt you even a little, then I will relish it."

  Menessos took three steps forward, hand out, palms open in a show of nonaggression. "If my pain pleases you, Xerxadrea, if you delight in hearing of it, then come down from your dais, witch. Come down and make me bleed of your own hand, that you may be happy once more."

  Before I could even turn back to her, the Eldrenne glided past me to accept his offer.

  Chapter 18

  "Blood Oath!" Desdemona whispered. The other Elders took up the words and repeated them until they had a soft chant, each hammering their staff when they said "oath."

  Menessos lifted his arm and bared his wrist.

  The Eldrenne took his hand in both of hers. With a cry of victory, she shoved it upward as her raven swooped in. The bird beat its wings and hovered in the air, talons raking his skin over and over.

  "By my blood," he said, standing calmly while the bird tore his flesh open. "I am here to harm none. I am here to participate fairly in your Eximium. And I am here to give you this moment, Xerxadrea. Let your bitterness be gone."

  When the bird flew away and returned to rest on the high back of her throne, the Eldrenne pulled a black handkerchief from the folds of her robes and covered his forearm with it. She whispered and chanted words I could not make out. When she was done, she said over her shoulder, "Contestants to the kitchen to wait. You will be called shortly for the next lottery."

  I was so glad for the chance to remove myself from Menessos's presence I had to force myself to keep to a sedate pace and not to run to the stairs and out of the hall.

  The six of us had to grope most of our way to the kitchen in the dark. The candles in the wall geodes had either burned out or were unlit. We had only the fluorescent glow from the open kitchen door to guide us. I wondered where the police—and the portable lights they'd brought in to illuminate the alcove—had gone.

  Between the walk in the dark, the scene we'd just witnessed, and the insecurity aroused by the combination of death, drama, and vampire presence, the six of us seemed somewhat shell-shocked.

  Holly was the first to speak. She opened the refrigerator and, seeing apples, asked if anyone else wanted one. No one took her up on it.

  "Coffee?" I asked. That's what I wanted.

  "Good idea," Maria said, and came to help me while the others took seats at one of the long tables.

  "Damn, but that was intense," said Lehana, sinking onto a folding chair. She spoke with an accent more pronounced than Suzanne's.

  "Is that Jamaican?" Holly asked. I turned, thinking she was inquiring about the coffee I was spooning into the filter, but saw she was intent on Lehana.

  "No. Haitian."

  Holly rummaged in the drawer for a knife and took it to the table where she began neatly slicing her apple. Maybe she was too young to understand the glory of good coffee. Then I realized she had just armed herself with a sharp knife. Again.

  "So what flavor is your witchcraft?" Hunter asked.

  "Why do you ask?" Lehana asked back, her manner cool but her eyes darkly serious.

  Maria and I exchanged wary glances.

  Hunter shrugged. "Just curious."

  Lehana stood and peered down at Hunter, who sat across from her. "You think I am a Vodoun, a priestess of Santeria, and you have a problem with this?"

  Amber, at the head of the table, wordlessly rose and went nonchalantly to the refrigerator. If I'd been sitting with them, I'd have retreated too.

  "I didn't say that," Hunter replied. She crossed her legs and draped one arm across the back of the adjacent vacant seat, all with an unruffled, you-can't-make-me-uneasy expression.

  I noted her sense of ease, her body language. It reinforced her just-curious response; any other pose might have disqualified her defense.

  Lehana's eyes slitted. "You want to find out what flavor my magic is? Come with me somewhere private and I'll give you a taste."

  "Can't just tell me here?" Hunter tsked. "Secrets, hmmm? Afraid to expose yourself? Worried someone might pick up on the power-stone you're faking your way through this with?" Hunter stood abruptly. "I notice a lot of things, Lehana. Like your hand going to your pocket often during the tests. I noticed you holding something in your hand when you chose your scorpion—even caught a quick glimpse of it. A vinculum isn't easy to come by. I have to wonder, which Elder gave it to you?"

  The fluorescent lights overhead flashed and went out.

  Plunged into darkness, the underground kitchen became a blackened cave. Someone squealed. Someone else swore in a mutter.

  "Does this mean bad things have happened in the Great Hall?" Amber's voice came from my left.

  "Maybe it's just the lower level circuit or just the kitchen," Maria offered from my right.

  Hunter said, "I'll go find out."

  Remembering the dark hallway, I said, "Shout for the police. They've got to be somewhere out there and they will have flashlights."

  I heard Hunter groping along the wall. "Door should be here somewhere." Crack! "Ow!"

  "You okay?"

  "Yes," she hissed. "Door's open, I walked into it!" A second later she shouted into the hallway, "Hello?" Her voice echoed down the corridor.

  "If bad things are happening in the Great Hall," Amber pressed, "is announcing our exact location a good idea?"

  "If the vampires wanted to find us," I said, "they wouldn't have any trouble locating us in the dark even if we were silent."

  "Thanks. I feel much better now," Maria added sarcastically.

  "Don't worry," Hunter said from the doorway. "An Eximium massacre would ensure bad PR, and neither VEIN nor WEC would sabotage the other politically. They may have their rivalries, but they understand that if they give mundanes a reason to turn against one group, the others will shortly suffer the same fate." She didn't pause before her voice resounded down the corridor again, "Hello? Anyone there?"

  "Vein?" Maria asked.

  "The Vampire Executive International Network—VEIN," Hunter said.

  "Of course. What else could it be?" I said, crossing my arms and leaning against the counter. The solidity of it was nice in the dark.

  "I see a light," Hunter said.

  "Hello? This is Officer Moore. Who's calling?"

  "The contestants!" Hunter answered. "We're in the kitchen. What's going on?"

  "Not sure. The electric's out all over the building." His voice was closer now. "Everyone okay?"

  "Yeah."

  I could see the faint blue glow of an outline on Hunter and knew the officer was getting close.

  "I'm sure the emergency candles are here somewhere," Hunter said, "we just aren't familiar with where they'd be." She backed into the room as Officer Moore entered with a flashlight held over his head.

  "Well, we'll find them," he said and moved toward the cabinets, flashing the light arou
nd to take in the room. "Oh my God!" He rushed to the tables. "No one move. Everyone stay right where you are!"

  In the glow of his flashlight, I saw Lehana in a chair, eyes wide and vacant. A large dark stain covered her chest.

  Lehana was dead.

  Holly, and the knife she'd been cutting her apple with, were missing.

  She had evidently killed twice. Giving her the presumption of innocence when she was missing just wasn't logical. But neither was killing to get ahead in a competition, then disappearing and not being able to compete anyway. It made no sense! Except, she had exhibited some signs of militant extremism. Maybe she wasn't here to win either, but to ensure the placement of a certain kind of priestess. We might actually be after the same thing—but with decidedly different ways of achieving our goals.

  I paced, angry and hoping Morgellen would poke her head into the room for just a moment. She'd pressured the officer to let us continue, and she might have even used magic unethically to ensure his cooperation. And another life had been lost.

  The lights had not come back on, but Lydia had appeared with Officer Detrick and a flashlight and located the candles. While Detrick briefly questioned us—I think he took my pacing for nervous energy—by candlelight in the kitchen, Lydia and Moore disappeared into the hall. I could hear Moore on the radio calling for backup. And I heard the beginning of the reply, "Negative."

  When our statements had been taken, Moore called Detrick to the hall while Lydia joined us. "I've replaced and lit the candles in the hall's geodes," she said. "We're going to take you back to the holding room. It has only one entrance, so you'll be safe there. The officers are insisting we lock you in for your own safety. One of them will remain posted outside the door." Seeing I was about to protest, she added, "It will be brief, I promise."

  The halls seemed colder as we returned to the holding room, and the shadows that had at first seemed like appropriate ambiance had become frightening areas demanding scrutiny.

  When we arrived, Officer Detrick went in first and quickly searched the room. Declaring it secure, he gestured for us to enter. We wordlessly gathered inside the door and watched it swing shut, then heard the crisp metallic sound of the bolt sliding shut.

  The sound had a finality to it. Something all prisoners must feel when they hear a lock engage.

  While I was glad our safety was taking precedence, I'd already decided that if I had to, I would call on the ley line and force that door open. I silently started plotting a spell-rhyme.

  Maria, Hunter, and Amber sat on adjoining cots, each holding a candle. Another flickered near the door. I sat on my cot with my own candle. In the wavering shadows, I could just make out the pillow on the head of Holly's empty cot next to mine.

  Maria and Amber were murmuring to each other. Hunter stood and crossed the short distance to my cot and sat next to me.

  "You okay?" Hunter asked.

  I reached under my cot for my sweatshirt, intending to put it back on. "Yeah, you?"

  "Yes."

  It had been my hope to basically ignore her. Since I had told her off earlier, being buddies wasn't something I expected to happen. Now though, Hunter's voice seemed less authoritative. I studied her.

  She wore a goose-egg bruise on her brow where she'd walked into the door, but her expression was calm and blank. Still, her hands were trembling as she smoothed over her hair.

  "You sure?" I asked, letting her see in my face that I didn't believe her.

  Her expression softened, almost as if it relieved her to know she didn't have to put up a front for me. She took a deep breath, let it go. "No," she whispered.

  Amber, her head down and fingers raked deep into her hair, said, "I can't figure out why Holly would kill Lehana."

  That was such a «duh» statement, surprise and confusion must've shown on my face.

  Maria clarified, "As in why her and not one of you two." She pointed at Hunter and me.

  "Me or Hunter?"

  "We all know you're the top two contenders." Amber's voice was shaky. "It would make more sense to take out one or both of you than any of the rest of us." She put her head back down, resuming a pose of misery.

  She had a point, even if it was oddly flattering and disconcerting at the same time.

  I wondered if I should voice my thoughts about how Holly might be eliminating contenders for political reasons.

  "The vinculum Lehana had would trump any contender's efforts," Hunter said.

  "What is that?" Maria asked.

  "It's a small object, like a stone or a ring, that's bespelled to link to another person. They're highly dangerous to create but, if successful, anyone could use the item to see into the other's mind and gain answers. Handy in social settings and tests."

  "How do you even know about a thing like that?" Amber asked.

  "In my hometown, a local politician got busted with one a few years back."

  Hunter stared off toward the door; Amber's line of reasoning regarding Holly's motive clearly bothered her. "Holly is probably hiding somewhere in the Covenstead," she whispered.

  Though we were locked in with a guard outside the door, I wanted to search for her. And stop her.

  "Could she have convinced herself she'd win and then realized she wouldn't and decided to retaliate by… doing this?" Maria stood, tossed her braid back over her shoulder, paced a bit before realizing that walking made her candle shine too unsteadily. She sat again. "She can't actually think she can win this way."

  "They wouldn't give it to her now," Hunter said.

  People willing to take a life usually aren't thinking clearly, but I couldn't judge too harshly. I'd been willing to take a life, albeit the life of a murderer. I considered myself a rational person, with the added perk of being willing to make tough decisions. I decided to tell them what I was thinking. I couldn't risk silence and let anyone else die. "I talked to Holly only a little, but it seemed very clear in that small amount of conversation that she was highly concerned about WEC politics. Remember, Suzanne said, 'We must be vigilant for our cause, before she was killed?" That elicited nods. "And we've now learned that Lehana had a tool that insinuated she was planted by someone of power." I thought of Holly's suspicion of Hunter. "Can you fight? Can you protect yourself, Hunter?" I asked.

  "From a knife in the dark? Hardly."

  Why didn't I feel as threatened?

  It hadn't occurred to me to feel that threatened. I knew I could fight. Even Johnny would admit—

  No, couldn't think of him.

  "Then we just stay together," I said. "Until this is over."

  We heard the door bolt slide open. Lydia entered carrying a candle. She moved wearily, making her way over to join us and sit on an empty cot. "I must tell you the truth. Only two police officers now remain in the building. The rest have taken their equipment and left."

  That seemed highly inappropriate for a place with a murderer on the loose.

  "Two?" Amber asked. Her voice was thin as a thread.

  Lydia nodded. "When Officer Moore called for backup he was told the electrical failure was due to a power station outage. The whole damn county seems to be out." She shook her head. "All other officers are needed to deal with the emergency. They will get back to the Covenstead eventually, but Officer Moore and Officer Detrick are on their own for the time being."

  "Are the doors still secure?" I asked.

  "Yes. If Holly had tried to flee up any of the staircases, the Elders and the vampires would have detected her. We believe Holly is still somewhere inside." She added ominously, "But she's not getting out."

  "Good," I said.

  "Good?" Amber nearly shrieked. "How is that good? We're in here!"

  "It means she won't get away with what she's done. She can't hide forever. Why don't we search for her?" I pressed. "Use the vampires and their keen senses—"

  "Bah!" Lydia smacked her hand on her thigh. "They would never deign to be our bloodhounds. They think this is all very funny, watching us scramble on
account of one young woman. Nor do we want them feeling we owe them for anything. Besides, we need them for the next test, which will take time—night time—and that's something we're running out of fast." She hesitated, then continued. "Here is the plan. We will go upstairs to the Great Hall and continue the Eximium. The officers remaining are moving furniture to block access to the hallway on either side of the office area. On this level, we are to confine ourselves to that area and use only the stairway near it. The elevator has been shut down."

  Considering the Elders intended to get through this no matter what, and if the vampires were running out of night, that was as reasonable a solution as we could get. We'd likely be safe anyway as Holly must still be hiding in the lower levels.

  If any of us had questions, we didn't ask them. We simply filed out of the room, candles in hand, following Lydia.

  The Elders sat on their thrones, and the three vampires stood to the left of the dais. I tried my best to ignore Menessos, but his presence undeniably beckoned to my awareness and shaped my perception of the moment. Even without being visually focused on him, my body knew where he was, knew when he turned or shifted his weight. My aura prickled with every blink of his eyes, discerning even the finite movement of air his lashes created.

  Nana had to find something in the Codex to minimize this. Or I had to develop a shield or something. I wasn't willing to believe that I had to deal with this supercharged awareness permanently. There had to be a way around it.

  To the right of the dais sat several dozen bread box-sized chests. They were all different, from wood to metal to cardboard, some decorated or carved, some plain. I hoped there were no scorpions inside.

  "Since Holly is missing and Lehana is dead, there are only four of you to compete," the Eldrenne said. "Despite this, in order that we may maintain the testing schedule, only one of you will be eliminated this round, and three will proceed to the next round." She gestured to her right. "Desdemona."

  Pointing a gnarled finger down our short row, Desdemona spoke in that slow, squeaky voice that made me think of the Wicked Witch of the West. So long as she didn't call us "my pretties," I'd be okay.