Arcane Circle c-4

by Linda Robertson

  They unhappily obeyed.

  For each of my slow steps toward the hood of the Avalon the griffon countered, hobbling to the trunk. When he was clear, he took to the air. I hurried outside to watch; he went back to the grove.

  They were sentient creatures of magic. While they couldn’t speak, I was certain they were able to reason and think in ways that typical animals could not. Therefore, I wasn’t worried that the griffons would fly off and eat little children, but I was concerned that they might migrate to a ley line in a warmer state.

  Sounds of car doors shutting brought my thoughts back to the sentinels in their Audi that Mountain thought was so terrific. The women were approaching me. The one that had been ready to tackle me was a platinum blonde; the other a lovely Asian woman with dark hair.

  Being gorgeous was a requirement to be an Offerling, but they had toned that down with the stern effects of their tightly bound hair. The brunette wore her hair in a low ponytail. I was delighted that she was dressed in a suit of battleship gray with a black silk blouse and sensible shoes. She settled her gun into a shoulder holster. The blonde wore a camel-colored double-breasted suit with a black turtleneck. Her pale hair was in a prim bun.

  No Menessos monkeyshines. Yay!

  As the blonde walked, she lifted the jacket to put her gun into a waist clip holster. “What the hell was that thing?”

  “A griffon.”

  “You’re shitting me,” the Asian said.

  My expression said clearly that I was not. “Right now I have many unusual animals running around here. Don’t shoot any of them.”

  “What else can we expect to see?” the blonde asked.

  “In the house is a fast-growing Great Dane.” Who, I remembered, wasn’t fond of Beholders. Still barking though the griffon had gone, Ares clearly wasn’t fond of Offerlings either. “Out in the back there’s … the unusual livestock.” I left it vague.

  The blonde nodded, conveying that she was an accept-what-you’re-told-and-worry-about-what-it-really-means-later type. That didn’t mean she wasn’t able to think on her feet. I was willing to bet that, if I had claimed to be Mae West and asked her to set my hair on fire for me, this lady—without losing her unshakable and in-control demeanor—would have simply poured something on my head and told me it was flammable while she texted the higher-ups and ordered a psychiatric evaluation for me.

  She extended her hand to me. “My lady, I’m Maxine Simmons. This is Zhan Hong. We’ll check the house, then take up our positions for watch.”

  I introduced the women to Nana while holding Ares’s collar as he acquainted himself with them. They must have been carrying some residual scent of things undead, because Ares was unimpressed. I shut the garage door before any more griffons found the dog food, and let the behemoth pup help me clean up the kibble while the women satisfied themselves that no one was hiding under my bed, in my pantry, or under the sink.

  I left Ares in the garage and joined Nana in the kitchen, where she was watching out the window. The permits from the manila envelope were on the table; she’d been looking them over.

  “About those runes.” It was, after all, my intended goal for the day. “That wasn’t exactly a reading, and it wasn’t for me. It was for Johnny.”

  “How so?” Her forehead wrinkles deepened.

  “I used Great-El’s slate.” My great-great-great-grandmother had been named Elpis, but Nana had always referred to her as Great-El, so I did, too.

  “Lord and Lady, I haven’t thought of that eccentric old thing in years.”

  I hoped she meant the slate, not Great-El.

  “What were you trying to do with it?”

  “I wanted the name of whoever gave Johnny his tattoos.”

  “I’m sure any tattoo artist can touch up the scars he might end up with. Look up tattoo parlors in the phone book.”

  “It’s more than that, Nana.” I moved closer and lowered my voice, not sure I wanted the Offerling-sentinels to hear. “We’ve learned that his power as Domn Lup was magically bound into the art. We have to find the artist and make him unbind it so Johnny can change at will without so much effort.” I raked my fingers through my hair. “And fast.”

  “What’s the hurry?”

  In whispered tones I told her about the Rege coming on Wednesday. “So I tried Great-El’s slate thinking if I could tap into his subconscious—some part that remembers—and get an answer, we’d know who did this. We could start searching. Instead, I got some cryptic rune reading.”

  Nana stood at the end of the dinette and twirled my note page to her. “That changes everything, and yet … the reading isn’t without truth.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Because it came out like a reading, indicating reversed meanings and such, you thought of it like a reading. If you think of them like letters, though … this rune, Ansuz, may look like an F, but its alphabetical equivalent is an A.” Her finger tapped along the row as she mumbled, “Uruz is a U and Mannuz is an M …” Then, more clearly, she announced, “You got your answer, Persephone.” Nana passed me the paper. “You got a name. Arcanum.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Arcanum?” Theodora Hennessey asked, the warmth of her alto voice coming through the phone. She was one of the wærewolves who kenneled in my cellar during full moons. Her day job was owner and sole employee of Revelations, a service providing background checks on anyone from a possible employee to potential spouses.

  “Yes.” I spelled it to make sure there was no miscommunication.

  “Male or female?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She asked more questions and got the same answer. Theo sighed. “I’m good, but honestly, finding someone via a pseudonym, without a full, real name and a birthday is seriously iffy. Finding it without an address or even a confirmed city or state is next to impossible. Do you have anything else?”

  “This person is a tattoo artist and probably a witch.” At least I was hoping one person had accomplished this. If we had to track down two …

  “Well that’s something. I’ll do my best, but no promises.”

  “Thanks, Theo. And hey, Beverley’s birthday is Thursday, will you come for dinner? We’re having a big kid party on Saturday, but I’d like to have all of you who were friends with her mom over on Thursday.” I heard pages shuffling.

  “I can do that. Just promise me Johnny is making the cake.”

  I grumbled.

  “What?”

  “I can’t promise that. I doubt he’ll have time to bake. The Rege is coming to meet him on Wednesday.” Over the next few days the whole pack would know, so I didn’t fret about telling her.

  “Hell, that was fast. The Rege himself, you say?”

  “Yeah.” I had a thought. “What do you know about him?”

  “Keep your head down and stay the hell out of his way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You ever see The Godfather?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You see The Terminator?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about the Nightmare on Elm Street movies?”

  “The scary guy with knives on his fingers? Yeah.”

  “Combine them. That’s the Rege.”

  The well-drilling team was hard at work in the field when semis and trailers carrying two more backhoes, a crane, and some large sections of concrete were brought in. It seemed someone had quickly decided where the buildings would go and had measured and marked the areas, and the machinery was barreling around the cornfield.

  As the first trucks left and the crane began unloading the concrete chunks, another arrived with prefabricated barn sides, trusses for the roof, and more. Some logistic genius was at work here.

  All the hubbub was making Nana nervous. She announced that she was going to the store. Though she no longer had a hairdo that required gallons of Aqua Net and regular salon maintenance, she still tied a babushka under her chin before taking my car and fleeing.

  Now t
hat the runes had been deciphered, I could get some work done on my column, but I wanted to call Johnny first and tell him about Nana’s interpretation. While my computer booted up, I hit speed dial. Expecting to leave him a message, it surprised me when he answered.

  “’Lo?”

  “I thought you’d be busy,” I said.

  “I am. But I wanted to hear your voice.”

  “Aww … Well, thanks to Nana we’re making a little progress on those runes.” I told him the name and he was ecstatic, until I added what Theo had said. “On top of that, even if this person is found, convincing them to undo the binding may take time.”

  “We’ll go with the vamp’s backup plan, then. I’ll try to get the forced-change spell scheduled ASAP. It’ll reassure the men if I’m participating with them.” I’d promised to perform a ritual for pack members who had volunteered to fight the fairies. The spell would force a painful and out-of-cycle full transformation on them, but afterward they would be able to retain their human minds whenever the full moon hauled their wolf form to the surface.

  “Good point. I’ll get my supplies. And, I was going to ask you to make Beverley’s cake for the family party Thursday, but you’re going to be busy so I’ll order two from the bakery. One for us, and one for the kid party.” The idea of the Domn Lup baking was ridiculous, yet the first time he met Nana he’d brought her the most marvelous Macadamia nut cookies. There wasn’t anything Johnny couldn’t cook.

  He was silent. “I wanted to make her something special, but you’re right. I can’t commit to that. I don’t know what to expect from this dog-and-pony show with the Rege.”

  Maxine, the blond sentinel, entered the dining room where my computer and desk were set up. “Another car has pulled into your driveway,” she said, drawing her gun. “A woman is approaching your door.”

  “I gotta go,” I said to Johnny. By the time we spoke brief good-byes, whoever it was had knocked. “I’m sure you can put that away,” I told Maxine on my way into the living room.

  She followed me.

  I stopped.

  She stopped.

  I spun on my heel. “You don’t have to escort me to the toilet, do you?”

  “No.”

  “A little space, please?”

  “You’re not going to the toilet now. You’re answering the door.”

  “Not usually a dangerous thing.”

  “It can be. Do you recognize the older blue Corvette?”

  I glanced out the picture window. “No, but this isn’t the haven.”

  “You are the Erus Veneficus of the Regional Vampire Lord now. Like it or not, your world is changing.”

  I was already irritated with her, and those words didn’t help. “Back off.”

  Maxine retreated two steps. At my arched brow, she relinquished one more step and arched her own at me.

  This was going to be annoying.

  “I answer my own door, okay? I’ll call you if I need help.”

  Maxine took a pose of readiness behind the opening from the dining room to the living room, just out of sight from whoever was on the porch. Stepping into the hall, I opened the door.

  And was totally unprepared for who I saw.

  In black jeans and a light-blue long-sleeved T-shirt, she stood an inch shorter than me, even in her snakeskin cowboy boots. As she stared at me, her lips moved soundlessly, saying my name. Her hair was the same dark brown as my own, but hers was lightly streaked with gray and fastened into a loose braid. She was me, with twenty-four extra years and twelve extra pounds.

  Eris. My mother.

  She reached for the screen door and clumsily jerked it open, hands shaking. The smell of menthol cigarettes hit me hard. “I saw you on TV. I traced you through an online people finder.” She swallowed hard; her voice was shaking as well. “I thought you might be living at the haven now, but I had to try here before I went traipsing into a place like that.” She forced a smile. “And—what luck!—here you are, my girl.” Her dark eyes welled up with tears, imploring me to say something.

  After sixteen years, she’s standing on my doorstep.

  I was too stunned to speak.

  I opened the floodgates—the reservoir of anger I’d saved for this moment. I let that anger flow free … only to find the reservoir had dried up. All the words I’d meant to say were gone.

  My heart recognized this was a critical moment, a remarkable chance, but my brain sent a signal down my arm and, without breaking my stare, I slammed the door shut in her face.

  “I was such a fool,” she pleaded from the other side.

  I flipped the lock. This is how things are supposed to be. The barrier of a door between us, me locked in.

  The knocks become angry pounding.

  I’d felt those fists on my body, once. I turned and walked away.

  How dare she show up here.

  Why now?

  The news coverage. Was she worried about me now? That would be ironic. It was more likely she thought I’d acquired some status that might benefit her somehow.

  She didn’t say she was sorry.

  I don’t know how long I stood there in the kitchen or how many times Maxine prompted me by calling my name. When the car’s motor revved, it snapped me out of my astonishment. I found I could breathe again when the sound of the tires throwing gravel was followed by an engine’s roar as it rocketed up the road.

  “Get out,” I said. The women sent here to protect me couldn’t shield me from this pain.

  No one moved.

  I grabbed the Lady of Shalott coffee mug from the counter and pitched it at the wall. It shattered. “Get out!”

  My favorite mug was in pieces all over the floor. With my vision blurry from tears, the cleanup process was more troublesome than productive, and it wasn’t until my fingertips were bloody from multiple little nicks that my emotional fog dissipated enough for me to remember a broom and dustpan were ideal for this kind of chore.

  I wiped my face on my sleeve and turned toward the pantry to see Zhan silently shutting it. She held the broom and dustpan. “Allow me, my lady,” she said. Her voice was so soft.

  “I can get it,” I snapped, grabbing the broom from her. I wasn’t mad at her, I was just mad and I’d told her to get out and she hadn’t. But it wasn’t like me to be so rude. Even as I rejected the basic human kindness she was offering and got back to the mess I’d created, the tears welled up again. It wasn’t like me to be angry with an innocent bystander over something I did myself.

  But it was like my mother.

  Suddenly I felt so ashamed. “I’m sorry.”

  Zhan took the broom back with a gentle smile and I fled to my bedroom. With the door locked, my shaking fingers sprinkled an imperfect circle of salt around me on the floor. I sat.

  “Mother, seal my circle and give me a sacred space,

  In which to think clearly and solve the troubles I face.”

  My meditation switch flipped “on” and I hit the alpha state. In my visualization, the lakeshore stretched before me, and the familiar willow tree was at my back. The sun was blazing, the breeze anxious. “Amenemhab!”

  The jackal, my totem animal, did not answer.

  I stomped around the shore looking for him, but normally he appeared after I’d dipped my toes in the water and let my chakras cleanse. Realizing I was wasting my time searching, I jerked my shoes and socks off and sat where the lapping water would ebb and cover my feet. It took an effort to relax my chakras into opening and releasing my negativity—no surprise—but several minutes later, I had achieved it.

  Letting go of all the negative energy made me calmer and more in control of myself … but my pain wasn’t resolved when the rumble of the garage door opening invaded my meditation and I knew Nana was home. I left the tranquil vision before I could get my totem’s counsel and awoke in my room.

  I was grateful for something to do, even if it was hauling in the groceries. I met Nana in the driveway, Maxine on my heels. Nana climbed from the car
humming to herself. As she loaded my arms and Maxine’s with bags, she was grinning.

  In the kitchen, I saw Zhan had cleaned up the mess. I was unpacking box after box of Twinkies when Nana entered. “Leave them in the bags,” she said. “It’ll make carrying them out to the men easier.”

  Out to the men?

  I couldn’t imagine the big, burly Beholders eating Twinkies, but Nana could. She wasn’t naïve about what these men were, but she’d seen the building permit for her new bedroom: Nana was grateful they were going to build it. She was walking on clouds right now. I didn’t want to ruin her mood by telling her that my mother—her estranged daughter—had finally shown her face.

  Eventually, though, I would have to tell her.

  Nana had gone upstairs to quilt and I’d herded Ares into the room with her. Neither of them seemed to care for the women in suits. For the next several hours I worked on my column. Maxine interrupted me when the gravel trucks showed up, when the electric company arrived to put in poles, and again when men came to measure the back of the house. Since a noisy backhoe was about to commence digging up the area destined to be Nana’s room addition, I decided my work for the day was done, saved the document, and went to watch out the window.

  The prefab walls of the first barn were going up, and gravel was being dumped into the footer spaces around the second. I noticed some of the odd concrete chunks had been deposited near the house. “Any idea what those are?” I asked Maxine.

  “Mountain said they were precast panels for the footers. You can build on them right away, don’t have to wait for the concrete to cure. He said it was a miracle the right sizes were in stock, but we lucked out.” She handed me a paper with a rough drawing of the layout for the addition. “Mountain brought that earlier, while you were upstairs.”

  “Wow. This is bigger and much sooner than we’d anticipated,” I said.

  “Might as well get it done while the equipment is already here,” she replied.

  I had to agree. Nana’s knees had failed her before, so I wanted to spare her from my staircase as soon as possible.