And yet, somehow, it was good. We all got to see her, see the new and strange shape of her without her watching us back, judging the pity and tears that inundated us. It would have been worse for us all if she had to endure our first reactions.
In time, weariness set in for everyone. I reasoned with Lance and, though he resisted at first, he eventually relented and agreed to go home. Zhan went to get the car for us.
Lance kissed Eris’s forehead and whispered something to her, then let Nana lead him slowly from the room.
I glanced from my mother to Nana walking down the hall, arm in arm with Lance.
This was the family I was born into.
Some families you join by way of vocation, location, or spiritual preference. And others are forced upon you when Fate decides to throw you into a niche societal group.
None of them are ever perfect.
I could see now that, for whatever reason, Eris had yearned to be valued by the opposite sex. She was the kind of woman whom men like the Rege chewed up and spit out. She sought her validation in the eyes of men when she should have looked inside—but she hadn’t trusted her own judgment. She wouldn’t back up and choose a different path, either. She kept stumbling forward, blindly. She chose a life that was awkward and thorny … a life fueled on nicotine, eyeliner, and alcohol … a life that made her travel the long road, the hard road, and it had quickly worn the soles right off her metaphorical shoes. But in the end—with nothing and closing in on self-destruction—she’d kept going. I had to respect that she did, if not the methods she’d used.
In spite of all that was wrong with the choices that led my mother to the brink of suicide, Fate gave her a fighting chance. And she fought.
I wondered what thoughts actually occurred to her when she had all that cash—payment for the terrible things she’d done to Johnny. I doubted reclaiming her life was the first thought, or even the second. But it had occurred to her at some point and she’d recognized it as the right thing to do.
Successful self-employment had taught her how to have self-worth, as opposed to believing her personal value was determined by the opinion of whatever man she was currently with. But that self-value had been bought with someone else’s life. She’d carried the guilt, and because of it, doubt.
I had to believe that guilt over all the damage she’d done to me as a child was in there, too. And now she’d been absolved on both counts. It cost her, literally, an arm … the one that had made her alter ego, Arcanum, famous.
But I had seen in her eyes, as she gave back to him whatever it was that she had taken, that she’d finally proven to herself that she had her own value and deserved her own respect.
About damned time.
The drive back to their apartment was silent, and long enough that I began to wonder what Eris had given back to Johnny and whether I would detect a difference. Will he be different with his powers free?
When we arrived, we saw that a new door had been installed, the Rege’s carcass had been removed, and his blood cleaned from the floor. The wæres and Omori were camped around the kitchen table playing poker. A bottle of whiskey sat open and everyone had a glass.
But my boyfriend wasn’t with them. “Where’s Johnny?”
“Kitchen,” Kirk said, pointing. He had an impressive stack of quarters in front of him.
I stepped around the table and was surprised to find that Johnny wasn’t cooking. He was leaning against the counter, staring into a glass of whiskey he held. I stopped in the doorway. Without looking up he asked, “She gonna be all right?”
I told him the news. I kept it brief. He nodded, but still didn’t meet my eyes. It was beginning to worry me.
“The Rege put a tracer in your satellite phone.”
I removed it from my purse.
“Inside the battery cover.”
When I opened it, there was a little square of a feltlike material with wires running through it. I jerked it free, dropped it to the floor, and ground my heel on it. I picked it up and dropped it into the garbage can conveniently right next to me.
Johnny swirled his glass, making the ice cubes clink together, then finally his chin lifted. “Any chance my memories will kick in later?”
I remembered the golden key snapping in the lock. Damn it. “That tattoo was denied,” I said. “It wouldn’t unlock, but not because of us. The phoenix’s claws must have damaged the magic.”
He drained the glass. “That’s what I was afraid of.” He put the glass down and motioned me over to him. I approached, expecting a hug.
Instead he took me by the shoulders and turned me around. The wall I couldn’t see because I had been standing in the doorway now filled my sight. My jaw dropped. My face stared back at me, made of, I think, ketchup and mustard.
“I dunno what came over me,” he said. “But it’s a good likeness, huh?”
EPILOGUE
Monday morning, we returned to the hospital. Since it was a new moon, I’d packed up a few of Eris’s ritual things—a goddess statue and a few stones—and took them to her so she could commune with her deities that night. She wouldn’t call spell energies—you never know who’s in the hospital—but she could meditate. I figured it was always therapeutic for me.
My mother was groggy and kind of spacey from her medication, but all in all she wasn’t surprised her arm was gone. The doctors said they’d never seen anyone simply accept such a life-altering trauma so easily. They cautioned the rest of us repeatedly to be wary of a rebound, and informed us of the signs to watch for concerning depression, post-traumatic stress syndrome, and other possibilities.
After talking privately with her, however, I was certain she’d be fine. Not that she was happy about losing a limb, but she said she’d “rather give her right arm than carry that guilt forever.” She’d gotten what she wanted. As the justice-minded Lustrata, I could accept it. The only thing she cried over was not being able to drive her Corvette because it was a stick shift.
She told Lance the car was his now. That didn’t make him nearly as happy as it would have under any other circumstance. Lance was taking this much worse than she was, though he put on a brave face for her. Nana and I had a private conference call with Celia and decided to stay for a week, to help Lance and Eris deal with this and make adjustments. That ten grand I’d packed wasn’t used as bribe money, but it was useful.
The famous tattoo artist Arcanum had exceled—but on borrowed talent. Now I knew what she had taken from Johnny, and what she had given back. While the wæres have big plans for Johnny, he’s going to be taking his guitar painting skills to another level. That, I’m sure of. And, since Nana, Zhan, and I were planning on staying here for a week, I was also certain that he wouldn’t complain when we offered to let him take the Audi home.
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Arcane Circle c-4 Page 31
