Wicked Circle c-5

by Linda Robertson

  “I remember the first time I ever saw you. You and my daughter were teamed up for a class project. I’d just gotten home from work, and you arrived shortly after. I’d passed you on the road and thought, ‘What’s that kid doing out now?’ It was cold and night was falling. Then you showed up on my porch. My daughter brought you into the kitchen to introduce you, and I thought, ‘That poor kid.’ You’d walked in the snow in your sneakers. Your jeans had holes in them and were wet from the knee down. Your hair was a mess—it still is, I see—and you barely made eye contact. I set out some cans of soda and a bag of chips and started dinner. You finished off the chips and paid very little attention to the project.”

  Johnny’s legs had become gelatin. He staggered into the pew and sat.

  “It was a subject she struggled with, and she was frustrated with your half-ass effort. I remember her words exactly. ‘Maybe nothing matters to you, but this grade is important to me, so either man up and help or go home.’ You stood up to leave. As she saw you to the door, I heard her tell you that she was going to do something with her life, she was going to college and needed a good high school record. She said she wouldn’t let you ruin her GPA so she’d just do the whole thing and put your name on it, too. You answered with a sarcastic ‘Gee, thanks.’ She said you should thank her, because it’d be the best grade in your whole high school career.” Toni shook her head at the memory. “I didn’t like the idea of you walking home in the snow when you’d barely just arrived, but I was so proud of her, standing up and fighting for something she wanted.

  “You see, after her father died . . . she’d been lost for so long. But she’d fought above her sorrow and depression, and she had goals again.

  “I told her how proud of her I was. She said you were a loser anyway.” Toni tilted her head. “Then the doorbell rang.”

  “I came back?”

  “You did. You promised you’d man up. I could have cried, because I knew whatever you had at home, it was worse than the wrath my little girl had just poured on you. The next time you showed up to work on the project, you had nicer jeans on, though still wet to your knees, and your hair had been combed. The time after that I gave you a ride home and was appalled at how far you had to go. You said it was shorter to go through the woods. It explained why your pants were wet up to your knees.”

  “What kind of house did I live in?”

  “A modest older two-story on the side of a hill. It was an odd little place, kind of in a hairpin curve of the road. There were no houses around it, and the woods stretched right up to the back door.”

  She knows where I lived. “What city? What state?”

  “Saranac Lake, New York.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t remember. Even hearing it, it sounds foreign.” He paused. “What’s your daughter’s name?”

  “Francine. Her daddy called her Frankie from day one, and I always said he would have gotten such a kick out of the two of you, Frankie and Johnny.”

  “Do you have a picture of her?”

  Toni flipped into the book again, offered him another photo. This one was not from school. It was of a girl curled up in a recliner with a book. She was looking into the camera as if to say, You’re interrupting a good part.

  Frankie was beautiful. Her light brown hair was straight; it hung to her shoulders, and wisps curled lazily under her chin. Her skin was pale, and her blue eyes were like deep seas. “Where is she now?”

  “She’s dead.”

  “Dead?” Johnny repeated, head snapping up.

  “Three years ago, some of her high school friends had come home from college for the weekend. They were about to graduate and wanted to go out for Cinco de Mayo. Frankie wasn’t going to go—”

  “Wait, her friends came home? Wasn’t she in college?”

  Toni shook her head. “She didn’t go. She was hired as a cashier at the grocery and stayed home to raise Evan.”

  Johnny swallowed hard. Evan. His gaze fell to the picture of the boy. His name is Evan. . . . He’s . . .

  “She wasn’t going to go,” Toni said. “You see, she always thought about you on Cinco de Mayo.”

  “Why? Am I Mexican?”

  Toni almost smiled. “Not that I know of. Eight years ago on Cinco de Mayo I was working late. You weren’t supposed to be at my house, but teenagers don’t listen to those kinds of rules when a school project has blossomed into first love. Shortly before I was expected home, you left . . . your usual route of going down the road then crossing into the woods as always. You were attacked, and somehow, you made it back to the driveway and collapsed. That’s where you were when I pulled in. We called an ambulance. You were in the hospital for three days. Frankie was guilt-ridden because she hadn’t known you’d been lying there in front of our garage—injured. She wouldn’t leave your side. They said it was a wild dog or a wolf. It was too soon to do a check for the virus, but they had you tested for rabies and signed you up to get tested for the wære virus before the next full moon.”

  A shadow of painful memory shaded the woman’s face. “So, five years later, when her friends wanted to go out, she was reluctant, and I knew she was thinking of you. I encouraged her to go.” Her expression hardened, fell. Tears welled up. “Four of them went out dancing. Only two of them survived when a drunk driver hit their car on the way home.”

  Toni tugged a tissue from her purse.

  She shoved the diary at Johnny. “This was her diary. She kept it sporadically during high school. It tells the story of you ‘the loser’ becoming you ‘the boyfriend’ across the spring, and there’s more after . . . after you disappeared.” Toni swallowed and crumpled the damp tissue. “She didn’t know she was pregnant until after you were gone. She was so scared when she told me. Evan was born on Valentine’s Day.” She valiantly met his eyes and said, “He’ll be eight this February. It’s the last birthday of his that I’ll see.” Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she dabbed the tissue at them again. “Then he’ll have nobody, John. Nobody but you.”

  Suddenly the puzzle that was his past had new pieces that changed the picture entirely. With all the instincts he’d been struggling to control, Johnny sat there oddly aware of the absence of them. He was numb.

  He made himself think the words: My son.

  Was it possible? Comparing his school pictures and this child’s, yes it was. Not just possible, but probable.

  So why didn’t an immediate course of action spring into his mind?

  I’m not father material.

  A wanna-be rock star lived a selfish kind of life. A wærewolf could be dangerous. A political leader lived with constant danger.

  I should tell her to put the kid into children’s services. Let a normal family raise him.

  His heart skipped a beat at the thought.

  He’d only traveled his rock-star path searching for a sense of belonging, and didn’t family provide that? He knew plenty of wæres who were fantastic parents. Who were the political leaders trying to make the world better for if not their own offspring?

  All he’d wanted since waking in the park was to know his past and to find his family. This wasn’t a possibility he’d ever considered, but he had some leads now that could help him find his parents.

  That was still a goal in his heart.

  Recognizing that, he knew that his own need to find that truth would never leave him. He couldn’t leave this kid—his kid—to grow up with the same need to know. He couldn’t let him grow up without real family. He couldn’t cut him off like he’d been cut off.

  Johnny stood, and his voice was as unsteady as his legs. “Toni, if you’ll ride back to the den with me, I’ll get my car and drive you home.” He tucked the pictures into the diary and put it in the inside pocket of his sport jacket.

  “It’s a very long drive.”

  “I want to meet him.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  I’d drifted in and out of sleep so many times and was so hungry and thirsty that I couldn’t be sure if
only minutes had passed, or hours. My body was stiff and sore, and my shoulder still felt hot and swollen. My right fingers, however, weren’t prickly like before.

  I hadn’t felt Menessos awaken, so it must not be night yet . . . but with this barrier up, I might not feel him rise.

  If Liyliy’s sisters killed him . . . would I be able to tell the difference in the ache a master feels and all the pain I feel now?

  Damn it, what if he’s gone? Johnny can’t help me.

  I’m all alone.

  Something creaked overhead and suddenly half of the ceiling slid open, retracting into itself with a terrible metallic clang. Dim evening light flooded into the darkness. I’d begun to think maybe I was in one of those domes where the Department of Transportation kept salt for the roads, but this was not like being inside of an upside-down bowl. In fact, the walls actually sloped in at the bottom.

  I took in my surroundings. The place was a long rectangle with metal supports placed at regular intervals along the walls like ribs in—a ship? A cargo hold!

  I wonder if she read me while I was unconscious?

  Welded onto the far wall was an odd ladder with half-moon footholds. It rose toward the catwalk below the roof-door, where the silhouette of a giant owl suddenly appeared and dropped through. As she landed, Liyliy tossed a plastic bag to the side and resumed her human form. Her silken gown flowed down to her ankles. Quicksilver flowed and formed an owl-motif bracelet. She extended her arm, pointing a finger at me as she advanced; a crude knife formed in her grasp.

  I said nothing as she neared. Creepy had said she needed me to do something; I had to assume that meant she needed me alive. I’d be doing very little if I was incapacitated any further, so I managed to counsel myself and keep my fear in check.

  Until she poked me with the knife tip.

  The first two or three pokes I could ignore. “You are brave,” she whispered, and jabbed harder. I felt the skin on my forearm tear with the fourth. She hovered over me to lick the blood. The tips of her hair brushed my skin, and even that was painful. I sucked air through my teeth.

  She laughed and slapped the flat of her blade on my shoulder.

  I screamed.

  Liyliy dropped the knife behind me. “Now your blood has the flavor of fear and pain.” Her hands sank into the salt as her lips touched my skin, skimming between my neck and my swollen shoulder. When she bit me, there was no euphoria easing the sharp sensation, as when Menessos fed.

  Menessos.

  I hadn’t felt him rise. She had risen, so surely he had too. Unless they staked him.

  Have I lost them both? Is our triangle well and truly broken? Loss and despair crept over me.

  Liyliy drew back and licked her lips. “This is the side he feeds from, isn’t it? I can taste him.”

  She hadn’t drunk much, but my energy was as low as my mood, and I was famished and dehydrated. The world swam before my dizzy eyes.

  Liyliy grabbed up the knife again and I whimpered when she jostled the rope and began cutting. It occurred to me she hadn’t yet touched me with her hands. In fact, it seemed like she was trying very hard to touch only the rope, but then she was probably trying to keep from draining me too much.

  When she had finished cutting, she backed away, keeping the knife pointed at me.

  She’d severed only the portion of rope connecting my bound wrists to my equally secured ankles; I wasn’t free. In the dim light, I noticed the rope had silvery threads running through it. Remembering the pieces of her and her sisters that had floated up to cover the lights at the haven, I wondered if these were also portions of her, like the silver that adorned her leg.

  “Sit up. Slowly.”

  Keeping my arm against my body, I sat stiffly up. The light-headedness made me fear toppling over, and sitting made me aware my dress was a dirty, tattered ruin. Seeing it, I couldn’t help trying to smooth my hair. After a hundred miles an hour on the broom—where is my broom?—my hair must have looked like a fright wig.

  My muscles complained and threatened to cramp; I lowered my arms. I swallowed hard. “When I blacked out at the amusement park there was enough night remaining for you to drag me back to the haven. Why didn’t you?”

  She studied me but said nothing.

  “If you didn’t need me for something, you would have drained me.”

  “You should be grateful I did neither of the things I could have done.”

  “I am grateful.” A wave of dizziness struck me and I leaned too far and nearly fell over. “I just want to know why,” I said firmly, as if I hadn’t just almost fainted. “It wasn’t an act of kindness.”

  From the bag Liyliy produced a bottle of Coke, a Snickers candy bar and a bag of Sun Chips. She dropped them beside me. The Coke fizzed inside the bottle. “Eat.”

  Famished and fully aware I had only myself to get me out of this mess, I worked at the bag of chips, holding it with my teeth and pulling. I was bearing the brunt of the lifting in my left, compensating to minimize the motion of the right. I poured a few chips into my mouth, where they promptly turned pasty with my great thirst. As I chewed, I wedged the bottle between my knees, slowly opened it and drank. It was warm, but it was liquid. The caffeine and sugar would help, too.

  Liyliy paced about. “You are an Erus Veneficus who mastered your master, so you are very powerful. Having mastered Menessos, I count you doubly powerful.” She took a pose before me. “He believes you are the Lustrata.”

  I had the distinct feeling she was waiting for me to confirm or deny it. “Look, I have to be honest. If we’re trading flattery here, I’m gonna have a hard time coming up with compliments for you.”

  She leaned in close, squinting evilly, and smacked my shoulder.

  I screamed again and fell over on my side.

  Liyliy pounced, punching her fists into the salt on either side of my head. “He could be wrong. You don’t seem like much of a threat.” Underneath those slitted lids, her eyes yellowed, grew bigger and rounder. Her nose elongated like a beak.

  Putting every ounce of confidence I could muster into my tone, I said, “Okay, I’m intimidated already. Just tell me what you want me to do.”

  She tossed her head like she was flouncing her hair and sat up. Her face resumed a human form. Reaching back and under her hair, she produced a golden necklace with a small pouch on it. It didn’t seem like much, but then neither did the charm Beau had given me. In magic, the shiniest wasn’t always the most powerful.

  “Unmake this.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Mero awoke with an agonized groan. If he remained completely still, the pain would subside faster. However, a few feet away, Menessos screamed his way into life.

  Mero opened the door of his bed and climbed out. A servant had lit candles around the room, and, as promised, his clothing had been cleaned. He tugged the elastic band from his long hair, finger-combed his dark curls and regathered the ponytail.

  Menessos was still panting from the pain of transfer, so Mero tried to be quiet as he dressed. For all the torment I experience, torment he never warned me about, there is no comfort in knowing his is worse.

  When Menessos emerged from his bed, he was still panting. “Have they found Persephone?”

  “I don’t know,” Mero answered. “How are your legs?”

  Menessos ignored his question and pointed at the altar near the main door to his chambers. “The table. Is there a note upon it?”

  Mero stepped closer to inspect. “Four bottles, a few candles, no note.”

  “Damn it!”

  The mournfulness of his words struck Mero. “If she is the Lustrata, my friend, she will be fine.”

  “I have taken a risk, Mero. A terrible risk. But it had to be done.”

  “What did you do?”

  Menessos stared at the floor. “There was no other way.”

  “Menessos?”

  “I exposed her to . . . to someone far more dangerous than Liyliy.”

  “Who?”

&
nbsp; A cry resounded from the rearmost chamber. The sisters had awoken as well, and were quite unhappy about something.

  “I cannot say.” Menessos moved somewhat stiffly, but he managed to dress quickly. His legs were obviously well on their way to being healed. Bestowing two of the bottles on Mero, he carried the other two and walked to the wide door at the rear chamber. He spoke a chant to nullify his spell. Mero followed him inside; this room also had candles already lit. The sisters were seated on the bed.

  When they entered, Ailo stood and demanded, “What are these ugly things?” The mist that became clothing for them was a vapor lingering around her neck, trying to slither between the necklace and her skin, but power radiated like a breath from the links of the chain, and the mist could not waft close.

  Menessos offered Ailo one of the corked bottles. She snatched it away. There was no pride in Menessos’s voice as he said, “The power Meroveus once held over you now belongs to me.”

  “Betrayer!” Talto cried, spitting at Mero as he tried to offer her one of the bottles.

  Menessos, whispering, made a fist and squeezed it so tight his hand shook with the effort.

  Talto collapsed in pain and curled like a fetus as she cried. Ailo thrust the bottle back into Menessos’s arms, forcing him to release his magic. She wrapped her arms around Talto. Though she glared at Menessos, she said nothing.

  “I would have you consider your words more carefully, Talto. Meroveus is our guest, and he bears your dinner.”

  Talto continued to cry, and Menessos set the bottles on the mantel and drew close to them. “You were both weak and tired after your long interrogation last night. I drank of you and let you drink of me . . . do you remember?”

  Ailo frowned as she thought back. “You mesmerized us! You made claim to us!”

  “I did.”

  Talto wailed. “We did not want this,” Ailo said.

  “You are mine now. I will protect and provide for you. Be obedient and you will find that I am a just master.”