Vicious Circle

by Linda Robertson

  I shut my eyes and let the tears fall.

  All I could do was cry for Theo and pray for her. With careful attention not to invoke any power that might affect Theo, I said,

  “Goddess hear my humble appeal,

  Grant Theo strength enough to heal.

  Restore her body; give grace to her.

  Make her aches and pains fewer.

  With perfect love, make her new.

  Right this wrong, I beseech you.”

  After repeating it thrice, I ended with the standard, “As I will, so mote it be.”

  Johnny’s boots sounded on the steps; a soft creak came as he leaned on the door frame.

  “Your grandma is such a cool old lady.”

  I snorted. “I never knew she had a split personality.”

  “Huh?”

  “She likes you. I’ve always been a burden.”

  He came forward a step. “But she’s staying with you, right? Not vice versa.”

  “Tables have turned, I guess, but she doesn’t want to acknowledge it.”

  “Old people never like things to change. It’s like when they can’t move fast anymore, they can feel the world moving past them more and more. They’re afraid of being left behind.” He paused, easing further into the room. “I want to stay and help too, if you’ll let me.” He put his hands up innocently. “I’ll behave. I swear.”

  “Of course.” I shifted to face Theo.

  He stepped closer. “Red? What’s with the cash?”

  I turned back with my eyebrows high and my mouth open. No words came out, though. Just a sigh that thought about turning into a maniacal giggle.

  I couldn’t just casually say, “Oh, it’s money for an assassination hit on a vampire.” He’d never believe me. He’d laugh and ask for the truth. I shut my mouth and turned back to Theo without answering. My arms folded over my chest.

  All threads and all guilt aside, what had I been thinking, agreeing to a hit on a vampire? I’d decided to do it for Beverley, for that sweet little suffering girl, but noble ideas weren’t good enough here. I am an idiot. Goliath had tried to kill someone who had only researched him a little.

  My gut was so cold and I was so mad at myself.

  “I guess I shouldn’t have left it on the bike,” Johnny said, joining me at the foot of the bed. “I figured it was like Avon or something.”

  It took me a heartbeat to grasp that he was still talking about the duffel.

  “I thought if I left it out there, you’d walk me out to the bike to get it when I left. I was hoping to steal a good-night kiss while we were out there.”

  I spun around, ready to give him a big-worded lecture about unacceptable times for come-on lines. With his lupine speed, though, he grabbed my arms and moved in. “If you’re in trouble, Red, be honest with me,” he said. “I will help you.”

  “I’m not in trouble, J-Johnny,” I stammered, wondering what he would categorize under the heading of “In Trouble.” The cedar and sage smell of him was strong. His grip was tight. I wanted to feel his arms around me and hear him tell me everything would be okay, that I hadn’t fucked everything up. But in order to take any comfort, I’d have to tell him everything. That was a risk I wasn’t willing to take.

  “If you’re laundering it, and you’ve spent more than your take, that’ll get you in serious trouble.”

  I laughed nervously. As I looked up at him—this close—his stern, fearsome eyes peered right through me. “I’m not laundering money.” That would have been so much easier and safer than what I was doing.

  “Then what?”

  I wanted him to let go of me. And I didn’t. “I can’t tell you.”

  He snorted. “I knew you’d say that.” He released me and brusquely turned to leave. He stopped at the door. “If things change, my offer stands.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Sitting at my dining room desk, the unused oak dining set behind me, I typed the title of my column—Wære Are You. I wondered how many people got the pun. Probably not as many as I hoped. I should ask the editors how many letters and emails they were getting from furious English teachers thinking I couldn’t spell.

  By Circe Muirwood. My pen name. To protect the innocent me.

  Profile of a Wære-parent: Part One

  It’s a well-known and well-publicized fact that wæres cannot have children. However, there’s a segment of this once-human populace made up of people who were already parents when infected. Yes—normal, everyday people with real jobs and families can be wæres in secret. Maybe that’s why your best friend and her husband didn’t double-date with you and your honey last weekend—your best friend’s husband was furry and kenneled securely.

  What I’m getting at is this: They’re people. Furry or fanged, they were once normal human beings like you. If you’re a single mom with an ex-husband who is a deadbeat dad who ran and pays no child support, think what it’d be like if you added the concern of monthly furriness to your list of worries. It’s not just painful in the physical sense of changing bodily, it’s painful because you find out so many things…who your friends are, who you can and can’t trust, who will ridicule and harass you, who will help you hide…

  I saved it and shut the laptop down. I began massaging my temples, not sure I could use any of it. Maybe it was stupid to think I could write a lucid column with all this going on.

  I heard Celia and Erik come in the front door. Erik started quietly up the steps, but Celia stepped into the living room and followed the light to where I sat, still rubbing my temples.

  “Headache?” Celia asked, coming in. “I’ll get your ibuprofen.”

  “No. Thanks.” I stretched as she passed me en route to the kitchen. “Just had to get some thoughts out. You get all your stuff?”

  “Yeah.” She’d traded her New England-chic outfit for a more relaxed jogging suit. It was sage green and matched her eyes. “Erik’s setting up your air mattress in the spare bedroom now.” She paused. “He wants to take the late watch with her tonight, so if I stay on watch until ten in the morning, and then Johnny is on watch until four—that’ll clear him up for cooking dinner. If you’ll take four until ten at night, Erik will take over after you.”

  “Glad someone among us can think up a workable shift plan.” I hadn’t given it any thought and would’ve just winged it.

  She smoothed her hair, obviously tired. “I brought a clipboard and made up a medicine schedule so we know when she gets what and how much and who gave it. We have to be organized. We can’t afford a mistake.” Her eyes welled up with tears.

  That she was unsure made me unsure. I didn’t like it. In denial of that thought, I said, “She’s gonna make it.”

  “I don’t know, Seph,” she said softly, leaning against the door frame. “Twenty-five days is a long time in this little half-assed hospital we’ve had to construct.”

  Firming my voice, I said, “She’s a wærewolf and—like you did, Celia—she’ll pull through. We just need to keep her as comfortable as possible for now.”

  Celia wiped her eyes.

  “So what’s this about Johnny cooking?” I asked.

  A laugh burst from her, as I’d hoped it would. “I can’t figure him out. Looks like this Goth prince, sings like a siren”—she came in and sat in a chair so she was across from me—“and there’s nothing he can’t do…except, apparently, woo you.”

  “Hold on, there,” I said.

  “He asks me about you all the time. Like he’s a teenage boy with a crush. Can’t you go out with him just once and get me out of the middle here?”

  “He had dinner here today.”

  “Dinner?” She sat straighter.

  “Yeah. Before all this started, of course.”

  “That’s why you two came together! Oooo, and a clingy motorcycle ride. Well, that’s something.” She paused. “What’d Nana say about him?”

  “She actually liked him!”

  “No way!”

  I giggled. “Listen to us! Now we s
ound like teenagers.”

  Celia teased, “Well, forgive me for thinking you’re lying! Your nana never liked any guy, let alone one with tattoos and piercings who rides a motorcycle.”

  “No others walked in with a carton of Marlboros, macnut cookies, and General Tso’s Chicken.”

  Celia chuckled. “Wait till I tell Erik that! No wonder Nana let him talk her down when she was set to protest. No offense to your witch abilities, but that man’s got magic, I tell you. Voodoo stuff or something. He just knows the combination to unlock any door barring his way.”

  “He told me he’d had a plan to steal a good-night kiss from me.”

  “Duh. He’s been nuts about you since he started kenneling here.”

  What was I supposed to say? The truth, I guess.

  “Look, Celia, I’ve been really…stupid. I let the tattoos intimidate me until I saw only them, not him. It took me this long to realize I was being stupid about that, but still, he’s frontman for a techno-metal-Goth band. That’s awesome, but realistically, as far as relationships go, that lifestyle seems ill-suited to monogamy, y’know?” I studied the floor. “You and Erik are an exception to every rule that’s ever tried to apply to you, but how often can that kind of dream partnership come true?”

  “Erik’s known him for three years now, Seph.” Celia had told me about how Johnny left Darkling Dose, a Detroit-based hard-rock band, to start his own. Erik had asked to audition for the drummer position but, she’d said, it was more like an interview. Johnny wanted people of similar ideas and ideals. Erik fit the bill, as did bassist and programmer Philip “Feral” Jones. “In all that time, nobody has interested him—not that the former band lacked groupies who wanted his attention. Nobody caught his eye. Until you.”

  For an instant, I wondered if that meant he slept with the groupies and just didn’t get attached. Was that a jealous pang I felt? I counseled myself sternly to stop it. “Celia. Please don’t make me feel obligated.”

  “I’m not trying to. You know that. It’s just that everything’s coming together now.” As a trio, called Lycanthropia, they were the hottest band in the tristate area. “You ought to hook him while he’s still available,” Celia said.

  “I’m sooo not fishing.” I leaned my chair back on two legs to stretch again. “I don’t have time.”

  Celia smiled wistfully. “Seph…I know Michael hurt you.”

  My heart seemed to stop when she said the name of my old boyfriend.

  “And I know that you’re going to take care of yourself,” she went on. “But you don’t have to be alone.”

  Denying the old pain, I went for humor. “I’m not. Nana’s here.”

  “That’s not what I meant, though you are busy being invaded right now, huh?” She stretched and yawned. “I’ll ask Johnny to make a brunch tomorrow—”

  “Damn!” I slapped the desk.

  “What?”

  “I’m supposed to go to Columbus tomorrow. High school friends gathering for a brunch.” I paused. “I’ll cancel. They’ll understand.” I wasn’t sure Nancy would understand, but Olivia and Betsy wouldn’t likely even notice.

  “No. I think you should go. We can hold the fort. If it’s a brunch, you’ll be back by four, right?”

  This was going to be a big deal for Nancy; I knew it. “Yeah. Earlier, probably.”

  “Then go, Seph.” She put a hand on my arm. “That’s why we’re all here. Tending Theo has to be done, but if we all pitch in, it doesn’t have to totally interrupt anybody’s whole life.”

  Celia stood up. “I’m going to check on Erik and Theo, but I want to know one thing before I go.” She stopped at the doorway.

  I stiffened, afraid she was going to ask about the duffel. “What’s that?”

  “Would Johnny have gotten that kiss he was after?”

  I put my head down on the desk and groaned.

  Celia giggled all the way down the hall.

  * * *

  “What is the devil, really?”

  Betsy and I exchanged a quick glance when Olivia asked the question of Nancy.

  Nancy, in a very conservative navy-blue turtleneck and sweater, blinked at Olivia, clearly stunned by the question. She looked so pale since she’d stopped wearing makeup, and her dark hair was in a bun under a little lace doily—her look was positively severe. At the realization that the question was meant derisively and not seriously, Nancy set her after-brunch coffee down with a harsh chink of china on china. She didn’t answer.

  “Well. Apparently you’ve memorized only a portion of the witnessing methods. No doubt you’ll read up on unbelievers with this question tonight, right?” Olivia tossed her head, a motion that would’ve flung her long peroxide-blond hair bouncing over her shoulder if it hadn’t been so overprocessed that it hung flat and lifeless around her face. She wore a bright red T-shirt with an acid-washed denim shirt over it. Her fire-engine–red lipstick had worn away while she’d eaten, and now she seemed haggard with it missing.

  Nancy swallowed hard and gazed at me imploringly. She was wrong to trust me to know what to say, because I didn’t.

  “German chocolate cake,” Betsy said, adjusting her glasses. “German chocolate cake is the devil.”

  Olivia laughed.

  I’d always thought of Betsy as Velma, from Scooby-Doo. She’d had the same hairdo, a short bob, for as long as I’d known her. She wore round-framed glasses and couldn’t see a thing without them. Though she did wear short skirts, she’d never been a fan of orange like Velma—thank goodness. With her carrot-colored hair, it would have been a disaster.

  I leaned forward, pointing a finger at Betsy. “I knew it. I knew coconut was evil. Anything that comes from something that looks like a shrunken head has to be.” I glanced at Nancy. Play along, I willed her mentally. But there was only reproach in her tight and sharp expression. It was entirely accusing.

  “Go on, Seph. Make fun of me too. Persecute me. Disregard the past we’ve built.”

  “Seems to me the only one disregarding the past is you.” Olivia was not being diplomatic.

  “Wait a minute.” I didn’t like how this was going. “Your choice is yours, Nance. I’ve always respected your choices. I still do, but you’re not respecting ours. We all have different callings.” And how. “Aren’t you allowed to have friends who aren’t of your faith?”

  Nancy’s eyes teared up.

  “Of course not,” Olivia snapped. “She must socialize with her own and cut ties to all the nonbelievers, for they will weaken her. Sounds like a cult to me.”

  I glared at Olivia. She glared back, daring me to defend Nancy. It was clear she could cut her ties with both Nancy and me because she had all of the friends she needed in one: Betsy. They worked at the same factory, and they both had bar stools at their local dive that had been molded over the years to fit their backsides perfectly. I would have said that aloud, but they had become the kind of women who would think it was a compliment, the kind of women we had used to mock in high school.

  “Well? Doesn’t it?” Olivia pressed.

  “You take everything so personal, Nance. You’ve become a real downer,” Betsy said gently. “Stop judging us and let things be how they used to be.”

  “Things will never be how they were.” Nancy reached for her purse.

  Olivia sighed as if she were the one being slighted. “Can’t you just be one of those people who gets saved and only acts different on Sundays?”

  “Olivia—” I started.

  Nancy stood. “I believe in it! That’s why.” Nancy tossed her napkin to the table and proceeded to the coffee shop door with confident steps, but she hesitated at the door and looked back. At me. I couldn’t tell if the look was hostile or remorseful. I was watching her go—letting her go, but watching. I didn’t want it to end this way, but it was her choice. Who was I to stop her? My gaze fell away.

  These people were the reason I had a pen name. In school, I’d kept my beliefs secret. Every other time I had trusted someone wit
h the truth, it had been used against me, so I took no chances with this group. Without them, I’d have been a complete social pariah. For a long time I’d known that if Nancy learned that I sympathized with wæres, she’d hate me; moreover, if she knew I was a pagan, because of her new beliefs she’d have to hate me more than she hated Olivia and Betsy.

  I respected her for walking out. I knew how she felt all too well.

  “I believe in java,” Olivia said loudly, raising her cup to Nancy in salute.

  Betsy couldn’t hold in her giggle. Nancy had always been melodramatic, always said things like “persecute me,” but it could have ended some other way. This was…snotty. We could have parted without Olivia’s belittling manner. But that was Olivia. If you weren’t with her, you were against her.

  The bells on the door jingled loudly. Nancy had left.

  I stared into my flavored espresso. I was Nancy’s friend. I’d just failed the biggest friend test ever because I hadn’t gone after her. My inaction meant I didn’t care about her. But I did care about her. That was why I’d let a good friend just walk out of my life on her own terms. I hoped she held her head high.

  And I—I who hid my pagan roots like a vain woman with a bottle of peroxide—my religion wasn’t something I put out there to get a reaction with, like some of my peers did. That wasn’t the point. But fear of rejection, rejection like Nancy had just experienced, had kept me from it for years. If I’d ever told Olivia and Betsy, they would have reacted with “Ooooo” and would have thought it was all fun like the sitcoms made it out to be. They were the types who would see “An’ it harm none” as a free license.

  But not Nancy. She cared. She would have tried to talk me out of it as if I were merely a confused little girl with the wrong directions to the candy store. She would never have understood. My comfort with it would have tweaked all her taboos and set her on a righteous indignation trip.