When the nausea and shock wore off, I released his waist and realized that he’d teleported us to a hill at the edge of a stone ruin. One side of the horizon was inky black, the other was pink and gold with rays stretching mightily; in this place the sun was rising.
“Walk with me,” he said. He was still holding my hand as he stepped away. I walked with him but removed my hand. He flashed me a sad look, then noticed my socked feet and led me off the pebbly pathway. We strolled through the grassy yard around the old structure. My feet were wet with dew, but, tender footed as I am, I appreciated the softer place to tread.
“Where are we?”
“Just a place I like.”
He guided me to a spot with gigantic boulders rising out of the ground. I turned slowly in a circle to view it all. The ruins were sad in the predawn light.
When I faced him again, he was atop one of the boulders. “The dawn is lovely from up here.” He offered me his hand. Begrudgingly, I took it. He hauled me up beside him and slid his arm around my waist to steady me.
My arm didn’t slide around his waist in return, but I stood without protesting his touch.
The countryside was misty below. The growing light glistened here and there in the moist air, making it twinkle like a gauzy blanket on which someone had scattered diamonds.
Long minutes pulled the sun higher, until I had to lift a hand as a shield against the glowing brilliance.
“This is a beautiful time,” he said in my ear, then pulled back to gaze at me. “The warm light is kind to you. Like summer’s caress. But I prefer the night. The moon does not burn the eyes.” He smiled and ran his fingers gently over my cheek.
His dark eyes were adoring and kind. A soothing sensation filled me as I peered into them.
“But I have seen how the cold silver light touches you. Your splendor cannot be dimmed by any celestial radiance, only enhanced by it.”
Oh my God. What girl doesn’t want to hear eloquent praise like that?
However, that encomium was met by my silence. I could not pay him a compliment as kind or as lovely, but I felt compelled to do something that would please him like his words had pleased me.
“I would call you by any name you like if you would tell me what you intend to do if I choose to do things your way.”
“I cannot reveal this to you, Persephone.”
With a sigh I glanced into the valley below.
“What concerns you so? What is it you fear I will do?”
“You spoke of balance. I do not want you to hurt others or take from innocents in order to secure the safety of my family and friends.”
“May I take from the guilty?”
I squinted at him. “I don’t like it. This is all on me. Even if it is your action, the blame will rest with me. It’s my doing, through you. My karma. And I’ve learned that two wrongs don’t make a right.”
“The purity of your purpose is noble and endearing, but you are asking quite a lot, you know this?”
I nodded.
He considered it for a moment. And another. He turned away, paced a few steps along the boulder top, hopped to the next one, took a few more steps, then stopped. His hand tapped thoughtfully at his lips, then gestured as if he was making mental bullet points. Then he strode back.
He snapped his fingers and a stone slate appeared in the air from a shower of black dust. An ornate hammer and chisel appeared hovering above it.
“Do you want me to aid you with this rudimentary idea you have with the stake, or far more thoroughly and safe in my own way?”
I frowned.
“So you want me to help you in this situation with the Excelsior, but only if I can secure the safety of all those you hold dear, without harming others, and without taking anything from others be they innocent or guilty.”
After repeating his words silently to myself, my answer was “Yes.”
“Then decide: my way or yours. I can only truly guarantee all this if we do things my way.”
My frown remained. “If your way can achieve my aim with all the security you have promised, I have to admit it must be a better way. But . . . ”
He waved his hand and the tools began striking the stone.
My brows flew up and my mouth opened to protest.
“And you agree to my price?”
I clamped my mouth shut.
“I have required less of you by doing things my way.”
“True. But.”
He put his hand under my chin. “Have an open mind, Persephone. Let me show you who I am. Not who the vampire has told you I am.”
I pulled from his grasp. “I just don’t do casual sex. There have to be feelings involved for me.”
“Why?”
“It’s slutty otherwise.”
He laughed. “You are a grown woman of above-average intelligence. How can you not recognize that the behavior of adults is always about give and take. You work, you earn money. Give and take. You take the money and purchase things. That’s take and give. It’s all an exchange. It is only sentimentality that draws the line at sexual relations.”
“No. It’s morals.”
“Yes, that, too.”
“You want me to know who you are, but you’re asking me to do something against every fiber of who I am.”
“But for what you are getting in this instance, I believe it is fair.” He gestured and the stone turned in the air to show me what he’d said was written on it.
He stepped close to me and slipped his arms around my waist. He nuzzled his chin against the side of my head and whispered, “Give yourself to me. You cannot leave otherwise. You cannot stay here forever. Your body will die without you, and faster than it would out of want for food and water.”
Staring at his chest, I sighed. The trapped feeling was overwhelming. Agreeing to sex with him was the only way out. He could have raped me and been done with it, but that was part of the psychological game he was playing. He was making me choose in spite of the ridiculous connotations it held for me. It was petty. It was part old-world, women-are-property. It was part under-the-table-political-dealing. And a whole lot of it was guerrilla-tactics-forcing-situational-ethics.
It made me mad.
But anger didn’t change the fact that I had no options.
His hands moved to the sides of my face and lifted, to make me see him. “Bend your morals for me, Persephone. Let me show you what I can do.”
I swallowed hard and told myself, Here in my meditation world it’s not really real.
Yeah, the situational ethics galled me. It was not who I believed myself to be. It was not who I wanted to be. But there was no other way out. I wanted to kick and scream that I simply would not and that he was a pig for even intervening in my meditation.
But I didn’t want to die.
I also didn’t want to live with knowing that I’d given in.
Was this what leadership like Johnny was achieving—and like Menessos had lost—was all about?
No wonder Johnny was changing. Compromising one’s personal ethics had to have a negative impact. I didn’t want to think about exactly how this would change me.
I looked up at him and nodded.
Immediately, Creepy was kissing me again, sucking on my bottom lip—and biting.
I jerked. “Ow!” I tasted blood. “What in Hell do you think you’re doing?”
He reached up and wiped blood from my lip. The floating stone drifted close and he wiped the blood across the base. He flashed me a sordid smile. “Sealing the deal.”
He jumped down from the boulder, dragging me ungracefully after him with a grip on my upper arm. He pulled me with him as he headed for the ruin. I could barely keep up as he hurried across the grass, across the pebbled walkway, and into the main structure.
My jaw was shut tight to make sure he didn’t get the satisfaction of hearing me protest or whine about his speed, his painful hold on my arm, or my poor feet.
He crossed the interior without hesitating, passi
ng the darkened alcoves of the shrine and heading to the rear. There, a stone stairway descended into the dark. He gestured and a light radiated from his other hand. He drew me down the steps, strewn with shards and debris fallen from the arches above. One cut into my foot and I tripped.
As I fell, he tossed the light upward and swung me around somehow. For an instant I wondered if we were teleporting again as everything spun, but the next thing I knew I was draped across his arms like a bride being carried to the honeymoon suite.
The light hovered in the air to brighten our way. Ahead, the pathway had been walled up with mortar and stone.
He glared at it, then blew air through his lips like a silent whistle.
The stone groaned like a deep-voiced specter, then cracked and fell in on itself like so much powder.
It was incredible. There had been no tug on a ley line. No sense of any surge of power from him. Even in this meditation world, when I’d used magic I’d felt the discharge of it.
“Who are you?”
Starting forward through the haze, he said, “Call me Aidon.”
My heart sputtered in my chest. My stomach iced over.
With that, I knew who he really was.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Johnny drove. He hated the fact that Red had learned about Evan because of Aurelia’s mean-spiritedness. He’d hoped that the revelation was not any part of the reason for her current condition. Mentally, he began beating himself up.
Brian had sat silently beside him for miles, then the Omori commented on the Maserati’s handling of the country roads and the two of them talked about cars until they neared downtown.
“Dropping off the package first, sire?”
“Yes.”
Mero, still bound and gagged, was in the trunk.
The late-night foot traffic in the immediate vicinity of the May Company building was sparse. They pulled up to the curb in front of the haven. Johnny opened his car door and stood, then whistled once.
Out of the shadows, two fierce-looking vampires emerged. One could have modeled for Viking history books and the other could have been a Zulu warrior—except that both were dressed for more modern intimidation in a cold city.
As these outside guards strolled close in nonchalant gaits, Johnny reached into the car and pressed the button to release the trunk lid. “I have something that belongs to you.”
Viking peeked into the deep compartment. Zulu maintained a ready stance and kept watch on Johnny. The Viking stood straight. “We’ll take him.”
“Keep him out of the suburbs,” Johnny said, then slid back into the driver’s seat.
The vampires removed Mero from the trunk and shut the lid. Johnny drove away, purposely going in the direction of the den. He stopped at the entrance. After a quiet moment Brian said, “I don’t know what you’re doing, but I get the feeling you don’t want me around.”
Johnny nodded.
“I’m down with being your backup.”
“Gregor gave you his trust. Any other time, that would be enough for me.”
Brian reached for the door handle, but halfway he switched and reached behind him. He offered Johnny his service weapon. “With all you can do, sire, a gun may seem like a rudimentary weapon, but I’d feel better if you took this with you.”
Johnny stared at it. His first thought was to wonder if there was a tracer in it.
His second thought was disgust at the idea he’d be living the rest of his life suspicious of everyone. He took the gun.
Brian got out.
Ten minutes later, the Maserati was parked at the RTA Flats East Bank station and Johnny was walking. He had left the gun in the car under the seat. He also had decided to drive well beyond the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel in case there was a tracer in the gun. Hopefully no one would think he’d backtrack.
Zipping up his leather jacket, he turned off West 10th Street onto St. Clair Avenue, passing a few other pedestrians as he walked. At the farmhouse he’d gotten some clothes from his old room that weren’t torn or bloody or scorched. He’d chosen black denim jeans, a thick pair of clean socks, and an old pair of Harley-Davidson riding boots. The top shirt in the small dresser he used was one of the shirts they’d had made up for his band, Lycanthropia. This one was faded; he’d proudly worn it as much as he could to advertise the band.
While all of his clothing was comfortable, none of it was particularly warm. The way his heart was pumping, however, he was anything but cold. The coming northeast winter didn’t faze him. He had lived in Cleveland a long time. Sure, he’d taken off to Detroit for a stretch. Pittsburgh for a while. But he always returned to Cleveland. He’d often wandered these sidewalks at night. As a wærewolf, in the company of Ig or other pack mates, he had marveled at how prowling the streets as a pack or a pair felt good and right.
Tonight, it didn’t feel good or right.
Perhaps it was because he was alone. Ig had always made a lesson of their outings. He never failed to learn something when he walked with the others in the pack.
He tried to figure out the lesson of this walk.
He thought of what Celia had said earlier about Erik. Johnny wanted to resume playing as a band. He wanted to get on stage and rock, to pour out the emotions he was bottling up inside through the song lyrics and power chords, and to sweat out anything that was left underneath the colored lights.
It felt like all that had slipped from his grasp.
He walked a few blocks on St. Clair, then turned on West 6th. He wanted to avoid as much of Public Square as he could; the vampires kept a tight watch on that area. As he neared Superior, a group of four young men were approaching on the sidewalk ahead. He pulled up the collar of his jacket and huddled into the leather as the wind brought their scents to his nostrils. Sweat. Beer. Pot. Cheeseburgers. They were loud, laughing, and moved like they thought they were tough.
The muscles in his arms tensed, loosened. He was ready.
They passed by, talking among themselves as if he weren’t even there.
He sighed, relieved.
What was wrong with him?
His collar had come up because he’d expected them to either recognize him or start something. It didn’t bruise his ego that they didn’t know him, but it did make him feel like an arrogant ass for fretting about it.
He proceeded across Superior, angling left onto West Prospect. Beyond the parking deck for Terminal City he could see the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel. He didn’t want to go in the main entrance, though. He kept walking, passing an alley, then the Tower City Center valet parking service.
When he’d walked with Ig, he was just another face in the crowd, another punk on the city streets. Now, his face had been flashed all over the national news. He’d craved fame via the band, but he had not craved this. This was clearly a sporadic kind of recognition, which was okay, but the potential for less fame and more notoriety—if ODOT had their way—made this brand of celebrity even less desirable.
He scolded himself. All this suspiciousness wasn’t like him and it was taking a toll. There were plenty of people he could trust.
Trust.
By the time he was approaching the Higbee Building, he’d figured out that that was what was wrong with him. He’d lost his trust for people in general. He’d always had a healthy sense of caution and while he only let a few people get close to him, he’d felt confident that most of the people he had to interact with were open about their motives. Promoters and groupies, guitarists and fellow employees at the music store and the small guitar-making facility—he knew what to expect with all of them. They wanted music from him, in one way or another.
But they had all passed out of his life to be replaced almost entirely with pack.
Aurelia had been right. He’d kept this family at arm’s length.
Prospect curved slightly, then he made the turn onto Ontario, his eyes lingering on the blue awnings of the Ragin’ Cajun restaurant across the street.
He knew Todd wanted to rule. H
e knew Cammi—one of the dominant females of the pack—wanted to be on the arm of someone ruling. They had always been that way. While Kirk and Hector had always treated him well, they hadn’t gone out of their way to aid him until it was clear what he was. Those in management-supportive positions in the pack were definitely obedient and proficient in his brief experience, but were they always as on the ball for Ig, or were they hoping to make an impression on the Domn Lup? What about the Omori? Gregor had befriended him, but how much of that, truly, could be chalked up to Gregor doing his job?
Everyone he had to deal with lately made demands on him. Not the usual requests like “level these frets” or “change out my DiMarzio pickups for these Bare Knuckle ones” or “which do you like best, Charvel or B.C. Rich?” Those entreaties had clear solutions he was confident he could handle. He missed that certainty.
Out of necessity and the achievement of power, his mind-set was changing and his faith in others—in their honesty, integrity, and sincerity—was dying.
Erik had been his best friend for years. He’d lost that friendship essentially because of his power. From afar, he’d counted on Ig as his father figure. Ig was dead; he’d given the life he was losing anyway to put Johnny into power. Red was new to his life, but he had attacked her because he’d lost control of his beast, then his assistant had tried to murder her because she saw Red as a threat to his power.
Since he’d accepted his fate as Domn Lup, his relationships with the few people he did trust had been shattered.
He was going to have to find a way to fix things with Red and with Erik. He needed to have a few people he could still confide in, who’d give him advice without being affected by the politics of his position. Also, he was going to have to stop the suspicious paranoia, and let his faith return.
He turned off Ontario onto South Roadway and walked past the impressive ionic columns and huge arched windows of Tower City Center. Ahead was the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel.
When he passed through the revolving door and neared the lobby, the opulence stunned him. Vaulted ceilings with huge chandeliers harkened back to a bygone era. He actually stopped and did a full circle to see it all. Then he noticed that the concierge was watching him closely. He wondered if the man was simply doing his job, or if Aurelia had paid him to be her eyes and ears. Johnny made sure to approach the elevators with the key card visible in his hand. It would show that he belonged here. When he stepped into the elevator car he stared at the floor until the doors had almost shut. At the last second he shoved his hand between them, forcing them to reopen.
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