Arcane Circle

by Linda Robertson

  “Errol, get your twitchy self back over here!”

  Mountain’s voice was followed by a whistle. The unicorn hung his lovely head and walked out of view. I’d have sworn he was sulking.

  I needed Dr. Lincoln to accept that he was seeing creatures that weren’t supposed to exist and to give them medical attention. The world had been forced to recognize vampires and wærewolves for over two decades, but a real unicorn was still inconceivable. “You coming, Doc?”

  “Th-that horn …”

  “Was real.” I started walking. “C’mon. You’re going to be amazed.”

  He followed me.

  Mountain waved at me when we cleared the stalks. He always wore sumo wrestler–size major league sports shirts and, like his jean-pocket–length black ponytail, the shirts suited him. At least they did when they weren’t torn and bloody like the Cleveland Browns jersey he presently wore. His shirt was a victim of this morning’s battle.

  Mountain was a Beholder, one of Menessos’s once-marked servants, and though strong as an ox and visually intimidating, Mountain didn’t bother hiding that he was a big softie. He’d struck me as rather shy when I first met him, but shortly after our first encounter he’d told me he grew up on a farm. Now that he was in charge of converting my twenty rural acres into a farm for very non-traditional livestock, he was coming out of his shell.

  He scratched under Errol’s bearded chin and said, “Don’t mind him. He’s harmless.”

  “I doubt that,” the doc muttered behind me.

  After polite introductions and a quick update on Johnny, I asked, “Errol?”

  “Aw, he prances around and swings that horn like he’s Errol Flynn swashbuckling with a sword. You don’t mind me naming them, do you?”

  “Not at all. You’ll be tending them. They’re yours as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Elementals? No way. You’re the witch. They’re yours. I’m just the happy ranch hand.”

  The doc was gaping, taking in the scene, the animals—even Mountain’s obvious vampire bite—when a young dragon slithered forward, sniffing excitedly. The veterinarian backpedaled, but I steadied him with a firm grip on his shoulder. “These animals fought in a battle today. Many of them have minor injuries. Some are worse. Would you check them over?”

  The dragon stopped sniffing and a forked tongue shot out. It tasted the air like a serpent’s tongue before receding back into the creature’s eel-like maw.

  “I don’t even know what to do with a … a … a …”

  I gave the doc’s shoulder a little squeeze.

  “Dragon.”

  Mountain laughed. “Neither do we.” He offered his hand, palm up, fingers wiggling, and the dragon leaned to get some of that chin-scratching for himself. “But we’ll find out, won’t we, Zoltan?”

  I raised my brows at him and repeated the name.

  Mountain chuckled. The dragon raised his head higher and flicked his gill fins straight out. “I don’t really need to explain that one, do I?”

  “How many of them are there?” the veterinarian asked.

  “Fifteen unicorns, twelve griffons, twenty-six phoenixes, and five dragons,” Mountain answered promptly. “I’m going to suggest we need two barns and one aluminum coop. Don’t want anything that’ll burn around the phoenixes. If you want me here tending them, a studio apartment attached to one of the barns would work for me.”

  “What are we going to feed them?” I was willing to accept an answer from either of them.

  The veterinarian shrugged. Mountain said, “We’ll just have to figure that out. I suppose dried corn like chickens eat would work for the phoenixes, and oats and grains for the unicorns. The dragons are water creatures so some kind of fish for them. And griffons … would that be bird food or giant-feline food?”

  “You’re going to need goats,” the doc said. “They’re part falcon or eagle, not the type of bird to eat carrion. Both lions and birds of prey hunt.” He appraised Mountain. “Not sure I’d want the job of feeding them.”

  “They’re all pretty tame, really, Doc.” He pointed over his shoulder at a griffon. “All but that one, anyway.”

  That particular griffon was one of the most beautiful animals I’d ever seen. His feathers were raven-black, as were his front bird-legs, one of which he kept lifted with claws curled in. The rest of him was Bengal tiger, gold and orange and black. The tip of his tail had flaring feathers on it.

  He stood with his hooked beak pointed west at the setting sun, but when Mountain gestured at him, he craned his neck toward us and his golden eye slitted. The other eye was missing, as were the talons from the foreleg he was favoring.

  “You’re losing daylight, Doc.” It was November, and daylight saving time officially changed the clocks last night. In a few more hours, the darkness would be full.

  I left Dr. Lincoln and Mountain to their task and walked back to the house, but that little reminder had slapped me in the face. In a few more hours I’d know for certain the consequences of staking Menessos.

  CHAPTER THREE

  When I returned to the attic bedroom, Johnny was sitting up on the edge of his bed. He’d loosened the adjustment on one of his screaming skull guitar straps and was using it as a makeshift sling. He had just finished the cereal and set the bowl on the floor.

  “Nana and Beverley are going to pick up some pizzas. What would you guys like on them?”

  “Nothing for me,” Kirk said. “I called someone to pick me up.” Our ex-military sharpshooter had been in the battle, too. He hadn’t napped afterward, as the dark circles under his eyes could attest.

  “You wanna eat first?” Johnny pressed.

  Kirk shook his head. “I just want to go home.”

  Johnny conceded and thanked him.

  Kirk walked to the door, gave a solemn nod, and left us.

  Warmer now, I draped my flannel on the foot of the bed and sat gently on Johnny’s not-so-bad side. I had to mind my feet so I wouldn’t kick the bowl, the cereal box, or the empty jugs for both the milk and the juice.

  “You hungry enough for pizza?”

  “Always.”

  “Your appetite’s fine, Frankenstein. I think you’ll survive.”

  “Use my phone. Samosky’s is programmed in. Just press seven and send.”

  Of course he’d have the Homestyle Pizzeria on speed dial. It was the closest one. I lifted his phone from the table and flipped it open. A picture of me sleeping appeared on the screen. “When did you take this?”

  “Days ago,” he said slyly. “When you were sleeping with your head in my lap on the couch.”

  That was right after I’d killed a fairy in self-defense. No wonder I wore a mask of worries, even in my sleep.

  While I placed the order, Johnny tried to study his stitches, groaned, and gave up. It must have hurt his torn muscles to arch his neck that way. When my call was complete, he took the phone back, snapped a picture of his chest with it, and appraised the damage. “Ick,” he said, and put the phone on the table. “I learned something today.”

  “How to make self-portraiture look easy?”

  “Ha. No. It takes a bad chest injury to get you alone in my room.” He sniffed, affecting distaste. “Can’t say I’m keen on doing it again.”

  “Do my ears deceive me? You don’t want to ‘do it’?”

  That lopsided grin flashed once more. “Point for you. I meant I don’t want to have to get my Frankenstein on every time I want to be alone with you up here.” His arm encircled my waist. When he gave me a little squeeze, he grimaced.

  I leaned against him. “There you go again. It’s all connected.”

  “Ain’t connected to my pants,” he asserted. “That part feels fine.”

  “Mmmm-hmmm,” I hummed, unconvinced.

  “If you don’t believe me, I’ll submit to a hands-on inspection.”

  I laughed out loud.

  He lay back across the bed. “Go on, feel for yourself. Tell me what you think.”

 
Slithering down to lean on my elbow beside him, my palm rested teasingly on his thigh. Peering into those deep blue Wedjat-lined eyes I couldn’t help discarding the humor of the moment for solemnity. I’d been so scared of staring into those eyes, once upon a time. Now they had the power to make me melt.

  I couldn’t imagine life without him. “I think I almost lost you today.” Saying those words made my worst fears rise, real again in that instant. My heart lurched in my chest and a big lump swelled in my throat. A long silent moment passed while I reminded myself that those fears had been averted.

  “Kirk told me what you did.”

  Frozen, unable to tear my gaze away, I couldn’t maintain it, either. My eyelids slid shut. My lungs pushed a held breath through my tight throat, and a pair of fast and rebellious teardrops rolled down my cheeks.

  I hadn’t just staked Menessos.

  I’d wrapped him in my arms and kissed him.

  For good or ill, my actions were mine. Own it.

  Eyes opening, I nodded because I didn’t trust my voice.

  Johnny took my hand from his thigh and used it to draw me closer to him. It wasn’t the action of a jealous boyfriend. Maybe Kirk didn’t tell him about the kissing part.

  “Is the vamp dead-dead or undead?”

  “We’ll know in a few hours.” The misery and dread in my voice were as thick as syrup.

  He searched my face. “How are you?”

  “Good, now. You’re going to be fine.”

  “That’s not what I meant. You two were—I mean are—bonded.”

  I tucked hair behind my ear. “I feel fine.”

  “Now. What about then?”

  “It was awful.” In every way.

  “Well,” he said cheerfully, “when that vamp does rise, he’s going to be hungry. When you go to unlock the kennel … be careful.”

  That he’d said “when” and not “if” meant a lot to me. I snuggled down beside him, head on his shoulder.

  It was more than I could expect, to have come so close to losing them both and still have one of them in my arms.

  Is it ungrateful of me to wish that I could still have them both?

  On that Lake Erie beach, where witches, wæres, a single vampire, and his Beholders had put aside their normal antipathy and united, albeit briefly, against a common enemy, we’d defeated the fairies and I’d sealed the doorway between our two worlds. In minutes, when the sun set, I would know whether I’d slain the world’s original vampire and rendered him a normal corpse, or simply ushered him into the realm of being one of the true undead.

  Sitting on my cellar steps, I waited, wringing my hands.

  Behind me, the door was shut. Before me, the cellar was a dark tomb except for the tangerine candle in the center of the floor. The citrus aroma mingled with the smell of cold cement, old hay, and coppery-sweet blood.

  My stomach was in knots and I hadn’t been able to eat dinner. The foreboding was more diligent now, gnawing at me with sharper teeth.

  I had killed a man once, years ago. It was an accident, but it had haunted me. This … this was so much worse. I’d done this on purpose.

  Menessos’s body lay sprawled in the first cage with the blanket that had wrapped him carelessly flung open. Apparently, Kirk had carried him down here and literally tossed him into the kennel.

  The inevitable machismo pissing contest strikes again. It happened whenever vampires and wærewolves crossed paths. The alliances forged for the beach battle had, apparently, expired with our victory.

  It made me mad. No one should be treated that way, dead or alive, least of all the original vampire. Though Kirk didn’t know that tidbit, he and I were going to have a talk about respect in general.

  This kind of thing made me wonder if I would ever be able to succeed as the Lustrata. Balancing these preconceived notions of place and rank seemed impossible. I couldn’t go around and smack each and every wære and vampire in the back of the head, say, “Grow up,” and poof! it would be so.

  Making them open their own eyes and see the value in each other, that was the trick. And it would be so much harder than planting a head slap on each of them.

  But it wasn’t just the vampires and wærewolves bickering among themselves. The witches were in it, too. As were the mundane humans. The old dividing lines of skin color, religion, sexual orientation, and class status seemed to have found some common ground in their hate-mongering against the kind of people in and around my farmhouse. Despite human history being full of caveats about intolerance, one particularly hate-filled TV pundit had recently coined the term “nonsters” to lump witches, wæres, fey, and vampires together— emphasizing that they were not human. Technically, we witches were still human, but sadly, the incorrect term seemed to be catching on.

  I checked the time on the satellite phone Menessos had given me.

  In about a hundred and twenty seconds, the last edge of the sun would officially cross over the horizon. Menessos would rise. Or he wouldn’t. I’d know whether that conspicuously incomplete feeling in my core would ever feel whole again.

  On some level I was aware of a metaphysical absence when Menessos was away from me. Though I sat only a few yards away from his body, that sensation was even stronger here. The best comparison I could make equated this to the way those who’ve lost a limb described their phantom pains.

  Though Menessos was a self-righteous bastard most of the time, on that battle-ripped beach he’d gently placed the slender wand into my hands and told me to take his life so we might win the day. He’d even placed the tip against his chest to make it easy for me.

  The cinema in my mind replayed the moments of his staking repeatedly, seeking some sign that he would come back. I’d placed a second hex on him as he died. That gave me hope. But did that action come too late?

  Menessos had given up his life. Willingly. He’d given up the light of day forever. If he rose, he would evermore be a child of darkness.

  All he’d sacrificed, these hands had taken.

  My knuckles whitened around the phone as if it was the embodiment of hope I was silently clinging to. Menessos had to wake and rise and be the good ol’ pompous asshole we all knew and … Well, I won’t add the L-word there.

  But he had to rise. I didn’t want to revisit the web of guilt that had ensnared me after the stalker’s accidental death. I didn’t want to dream of Menessos screaming blame at me and wake in a cold, shameful sweat for weeks on end. I needed not to be a murderer twice over, mostly because of Nana’s old saying: Once is a mistake, twice is a habit.

  Two witches had lost their lives on the beach, and two wæres. A dozen Beholders died. Those deaths were a weight I couldn’t—and shouldn’t—be freed from carrying. They died pursuing my cause and fighting for what I needed done. I mourned their passing, but that was a pain I could keep in check.

  With Menessos, it was different. My grieving for him had been displaced and tethered to a slim hope. The burden on my shoulders as I sat here waiting for confirmation was so heavy I knew if he didn’t rise it would crush me. It would break me.

  Eagerly straining to see something in the candlelight, I scrutinized his body for any sign. The vampire’s face was angled away. His wavy, walnut-colored hair was strewn across the hay, across his cheek. One arm was thrown free of the blanket and at an awkward angle, not broken, but if it had been me lying there my arm would have been pins-and-needles asleep. But then my heart still beat regularly, maintaining the circulation of blood.

  His didn’t.

  Menessos was dead. Lifeless as a toaster. Like every other vampire when the sun is yet hanging in the sky.

  He hadn’t been like this before. He’d been alive. It was this, his ultimate sacrifice, that had allowed us to win the day.

  Shoving the phone into my pocket, I pulled the sleeves of my flannel past my fingers and let the cuffs dangle. I resituated myself on the step. I re-resituated myself. These were the longest seconds of my life.

  His chest rose, minut
ely.

  Or it might have been the flicker of the candle flame.

  I stared hard, unwilling to blink.

  His chest moved again, this time raising a fraction higher. The hair on his cheek fluttered as he exhaled.

  He lives!

  I had the urge to stand and shout, “He’s alive! He’s alive!” like a parody of Dr. Frankenstein, but I kept my backside planted on that cement stair. I swallowed, hard, and pushed my flannel’s cuffs back up, fingers folding together, knuckles pressed to my lips. Now, will he be the same?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Groaning softly, Menessos stirred. His groan grew louder, rising in pitch. He ripped away the blanket, clawed his shirt and tore it open, screaming in anguish as fingers scrabbled at his chest. He arched his spine until only the top of his head and his heels touched the floor.

  Stunned, afraid, I eased onto a higher step. It felt like I was drowning from the inside, filling up… .

  Menessos’s arms snapped out to the side, palms up, shaking. His fingers closed into tight fists. His scream dwindled away. He sank slowly into the hay and lay still except for the rise and fall of his chest.

  The sensation of emptiness and the phantom pain were gone.

  “Oh, Persephone.” His whisper was raspy and dry.

  He knows I’m here.

  “For a moment it felt like dying all over again,” he said slowly, seductively, “and then suddenly it was as if one hundred thousand volts of electricity were delivered straight into my heart—a heart prickling with thorns, pierced by your hand, and broken by your love for another—and then it beats effortlessly, as if it never stopped.”

  The breath I’d been holding escaped in a rush and I scooted down to the lower stair. My gaze left the kennel for a heartbeat in my repositioning, but when I looked up he stood at the bars and I gasped. This preternatural stealth and speed of vampires still unnerved me.

  The wrinkled suit didn’t diminish him. His eyes were gray, dark, and sharklike. A pentacle of dried blood—the evidence of my second hex—was on his brow, peeking from under tendrils of messy hair. “Are you yourself?”