Feeling the easy vibration of the charged gemstones in the palm of my hand, I lifted the necklace up. It was like a three-row choker of pearls, but the round stones weren’t pearls. “It’s moonstone.”
“Yes.” She smiled happily that I’d recognized it. “May I?” She put it on me. “I’ve empowered it for protection,” she whispered.
It covered the parts of my neck that a vampire would most like. That made me happy enough to forget that it was much too fancy to wear with a Superman T-shirt.
“Everything you need is on the tray,” Nana gestured, “or at the foot of the bed.”
She’d made a makeshift altar out of a bed tray and wedged it against the foot of Theo’s bed, which had been pulled far enough from the wall to allow me to circle Theo, and someone had been brilliant enough to duct-tape the monitor cords to the floor. The book sat open to the proper page, with the translation page atop it. Various altar items were placed around it. Practical, my nana. “Thanks.”
Dr. Lincoln had removed Theo’s oxygen and feeding tubes and cut the temporary casts down the front. Everything had been removed except the IV, which he’d said he wanted to leave in to continue giving Theo fluids.
Aware that the others were intently watching me, I lit a tall white pillar candle. Nana reached in and flipped off the electric switch. I took up the pentacle incense holder and, lighting the incense, I began blessing the space with the elements. First with the incense representing the element of air. Next, a red candle representing fire, and then a bowl of crystal-water—water that has sat out under the light of a full moon with a charged crystal in it—to represent the element of water. Last, I sprinkled grains from a bowl of sea salt to represent earth. I circled the room in a manner that witches call “deosil”—pronounced jessel—which simply means clockwise or sun-wise. I walked the circle once with each representation of an element to cleanse the area, then faced the door. “Enter now this sacred space. Let all who enter here bring with them only harmony and peace.”
The doctor entered first and took a position just to the right side of the head of the bed. Nana and Beverley came next, leaving a space where the moonlight was shining through the skylights.
Celia and Erik headed toward the stairs. “Where are you going?” Menessos asked.
“She’s going to call the quarters next. We have to avoid the energy,” replied Celia.
“If you want your friend restored, you need to stay here.” Menessos shifted his weight and blocked them from the stairs with Vivian’s body.
“It won’t do any good to save Theo if it costs the rest of us our lives,” Celia pleaded.
“I have already promised Miss Alcmedi that no one will be harmed. I would not negate that now.”
“But the energy—”
“I know this spell, dear, skittish wolf. You will not be harmed.”
Celia and Erik stepped into the bedroom and backed into the corner nearest the door. Johnny stayed with them.
My room was rectangular, longer than it was wide, so Menessos had room to lay Vivian down beside the closet. “Move not and make no sound,” he said to her in a voice so kind and loving that the words that followed—“or your suffering will triple”—seemed even more terrifying. He stood and stepped nearer the bed. Behind him, Vivian turned her face to the carpet.
Goliath moved to his master’s side.
Three deep breaths to ground and center. It’s like taking a minute to check a map of the universe and find out exactly where your soul lives, and then feeling yourself connected to every molecule of matter and antimatter filling up that enormous universe.
With everyone in place, I lit two white taper candles in gargoyle candleholders placed on either side of the book. Then, with my old ritual broom in hand—the newer one now hung above my front door—I chanted and swept a tight deosil circle just around Theo’s bed, containing all of us in the room except the wærewolves and Vivian. My sweeping became faster when I moved between the vampires and Vivian. When I returned to my starting position, I said, “As above, so below, this circle is sealed, so mote it be.”
Nana repeated the last part: “So mote it be!” Menessos repeated it after her.
After I drew an equal-armed cross in the air to further seal the circle, my eyes closed. I called up the sub-alpha state.
This was the point in the ritual where things became truly magical.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I took the first of four saucers from the tray. The saucers were prepared for the element invocations, each complete with an appropriately colored candle ringed in small stones. Each element had its own reaction, an undeniable physical presence that confirmed it was with me. This first saucer represented the element of earth and had a green candle and hematite stones. I lit the candle and held the saucer carefully aloft.
“Hail and welcome, element of earth!
Bring your stable strength and witness this rite.
Protect us and aid us as much as you might.”
Immediately I felt a tingle, as if glitter were raining onto my skin. The elements never seemed affected by my clothing; they could pass right through. Flexing my aura with a mental command, I embraced the energy to me, keeping it from drifting over Theo; it had a gritty, rooted feeling to it, and I knew earth was present. I placed the saucer opposite me, in the northernmost position of my circle.
The second saucer bore a yellow candle and green aventurine stones.
“Hail and welcome, element of air!
Bring your experience and witness this rite.
Protect us and aid us as much as you might.”
This time, a warm breath swirled around me, exploring. A breeze lifted my hair, but no one else’s. With air present, I placed the saucer to the east.
The red candle ringed in bloodstones was next.
“Hail and welcome, element of fire!
Bring your transformability and witness this rite.
Protect us and aid us as much as you might.”
Fire touched me in nips and little gnawing bites. It could be painful, but it wasn’t angry with me. It understood my respect, and I understood its volatile, consuming nature. I placed this saucer to the south, behind me.
Last was a blue candle ringed in coral.
“Hail and welcome, element of water!
Bring your life-giving womb and witness this rite.
Protect us and aid us as much as you might.”
Feeling pressure and current flowing against me, I stood firm until water’s greeting was done, then placed the saucer to the west. I remained there and combined my statement of purpose and deity invocation, saying:
“Persephone and Isis, goddesses whose names I bear,
Artemis, Inanna, and Ishtar, your lunar purpose I share.
Hathor and Hera, come to me, be present here tonight,
Hecate! Come to me now, give credence to my rite.
Encourage the elements to participate
And return Theo’s life from the Summerland’s gate.”
The wolves watched with interest and a healthy amount of wariness, but they didn’t really know what I was doing, so I didn’t feel judged. Neither Nana’s nor Beverley’s observance bothered me. Their approval surrounded me like a bath of warm light. But Menessos stared coldly, evaluating the ceremony and the reverence I gave to the ritual. He studied every gesture, considered every inflection, surely creating a mental critique. I had the distinct impression that he was gauging my performance of the ritual against that of someone else he’d seen perform it. I regretted letting my sweeping speed up when I had been near him. Maybe he didn’t like my statement of purpose or the fact that I called on eight goddesses, but to my thinking, it fit perfectly: eight is the number of transformation.
Lifting my hands above my head, I put my index fingers together and my thumbs underneath, forming an open triangle. Keeping my arms straight, I lowered them before me. I imagined the light of the moon shining through that triangle and onto the third-eye area of my for
ehead. I wanted Theo to live. I wanted to undo the damage done because of me. I focused on those goals, seeing my will like a blue spiral and my emotion like a red spiral; they slithered, entwining and undulating, joining and forming, until I had one purple spiral.
Straightening the spiral into a glowing violet rod, with the force of my mind I shot it like an arrow at the lunar surface, visualizing it landing in the presence of the goddesses I called on, being passed hand-to-hand as each aspect of the Goddess examined it and considered my plea.
As I held on to perfect trust in divine will, the violet arrow shot back to me, through my triangulated fingers and into my third eye.
Suddenly my body vibrated from within. My throat opened. My mouth opened. I began to sing.
The words weren’t mine, weren’t even my language, but they came in my voice and the melody rose and fell in crescendos along musical scales that were foreign to my ears, yet beautiful.
In some religions, people speak in tongues—glossolalia, mystical unintelligible utterances that sound like fluent speech—and this singing must have been something akin to that. But how was I going to conduct the ritual if I couldn’t stop singing?
After struggling with this, I decided to trust in the goddesses I’d invoked. The song felt good and right. Maybe the odd words were Akkadian—a gift, conducting the spell in its original language.
Turning to face the group and letting my voice fill the room, I continued with the ritual as if this were how it was supposed to be. Though I stepped closer to Theo in preparation to release the moon-energy, I channeled it upward to flow deosil at the ceiling. Drawing a hexagram in the air above Theo, I invoked all the elements at once. The gritty earth energy scrubbed abrasively over my body like a sand bath to join with the moon energy. The heated breath of air rose next, followed by the churning, nibbling fire energy and, finally, the buoyant current of water.
Menessos suddenly commanded, “Imagine what energy you will offer to this rite, imagine it forming like an orb between your hands!” He glanced at Goliath, who readily took a deep breath. He focused next on Beverley and the doctor. Both looked to Nana. She signaled her approval of this with a single nod.
“Rub your hands together to warm them,” Menessos demonstrated. “Feel the tingle and imagine it growing with the energy you’re releasing.”
In sub-alpha, I could see golden sparkles emanating from between Nana’s hands and smaller sputters of light as the doctor and Beverley summoned energy. Goliath formed a nice round sphere as if he did this every day. The vampire’s orbs were a brassier color. Beverley’s orb—pure white—grew suddenly.
Menessos instructed, “Now, everyone, lift your hands up.”
It was awe-inspiring, seeing the alpha-enkindled glow of these energies.
I pushed my offered energy out like fireworks trailing from my fingers, while still holding the triangle shape. Then the flow began to pull on me. It was as if my energy was a kite caught in a wind current, tearing more and more string from the spindle. Fighting against it, the flow from me slowed.
“More, Persephone. For a full transformation, you must give more,” Menessos whispered.
His words drew out of me a sum of energy that I knew was unwise, but I could not deny the spell or Theo’s need.
Arms of light shot out of the swirling mass above our heads, capturing the energy offered up and pulling it into the mix, blending and kneading it until the top swirled and deepened to form a spiraling funnel, an upside-down tornado. This cone of power, unlike any other I’d ever raised, appeared like a galaxy of shining solar systems spinning. Every imaginable color flashed sporadically within that cone. I couldn’t tear my eyes from it.
“More.”
I resisted.
“More!”
My focus wavered. The flow of my energy sputtered.
“You need more to turn her! You know where it is! You must call to it! Take it!”
Mentally, I reached out to the wards surrounding my home. The energy, once set, reawakened. It leapt to my spirit hand, and the strange heat erupted inside my arm. Immediately, I yanked this energy up into the room. It rose through me and out with my voice, swirling into the flow. The tingling-burning overwhelmed me for a fraction of a second, but now it faded.
The energy above sang back to me, a sustained high note, beckoning, daring me to sing that note with it. But I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. It would surely call to the ley line again, and I wanted no more power searing through me, no more risk of losing my focus.
But that insistent call carried on, slipping beyond me anyway, beyond the circle. I felt it reaching, crying, begging for more.
Beyond the cornfield, in the little grove…the ley line answered.
The ley pulsed and fell into a steady thrumming beat. Enticed, it reached across the field toward me as I had reached for it to power my wards. With each pulse it drew nearer. I could feel the enormity of it, crackling all along the line and arcing forward. I tensed.
I’d dared touch it with my fingertips, and—out of dire fear and need for safety—I’d dared to dip my hand into it. That handful had given me a taste of the immense power and the rush that mortals are rightly meant to fear…but this was searching me out, answering the need of the ritual, the need inherent in my song. And I could not stop it from finding me.
“Now!” Menessos whispered.
The energy of the ley line leapfrogged. A bolt jumped to the ward-circle, then into me. It wanted to fling itself outward through my voice, to fill the room and spill beyond as I sang that note…but it couldn’t filter through fast enough. I sang an octave too low.
In that instant, my body numbed. I could feel nothing—not the vibration of my vocal cords, not the floor under my feet. It felt as if I didn’t exist. The energy took me and became tangible—touching, running, roiling inside of me, searching for its purpose so it could have a task and a form. But I could not speak, could not command it; my voice was taken by the song, and I could not keep from singing; I fought to no avail.
Through it all I heard Menessos whisper, “Give in, Persephone. Now!”
I stopped fighting it. My voice rose higher, a flurry of notes rising soprano-high. When the peak tone was hit, when I matched the note my swirling wards had created, it held.
Finally unblocked, the ley-line energy shot out of me and joined with the energy we’d each given.
Menessos stepped forward, hand lifted, and shouted the command:
“Partake of this energy, elements four,
Swallow it down and return to us more!”
The swirling mass split into four arms reaching from the center. The arms reached down, blue and red, yellow and green, touching the candle placed at each compass point. The arms swirled and lowered, stretching until the circle was a cage of colored energy being consumed by tiny candle flames.
Above us, the center exploded. The colored arms shot into the candles like the length of a metal measuring tape recoiling with a snap. But my note did not end.
Menessos said, “Goliath.”
Goliath lowered his head some, extended his open arms imploringly, and said, “Theodora Hennessey…forgive me.”
Energy bolted from the candles like lightning, arcing in crackling jolts until they met over our heads where the center had once been. It scoured my skin as well as the others’. Beverley cried out and hugged Nana tight.
Menessos said:
“Rise, cone of power! Rise to our call!
Deliver lunar energies to one and all!”
With that command, I knew he’d betrayed us.
In my mind, I screamed, NO! but my single note continued uninterrupted.
He added something in Latin. I only understood lux et tenebris, “light from darkness.”
The candle flames sank down to minimal embers, and the room darkened. Light burst around me like a spotlight held at my back. The final note of my song tapered off, and my knees gave way. Moonlight, like a sharply focused sunbeam, shone through the skylight and e
ncompassed my circle.
Menessos continued:
“Search for the wolves, caress these beasts,
Loose them now, moonlight increased!”
Celia stared at the darkening hair on her arms. “No! Persephone, no! I’m changing! Stop this!”
“Feel your wolf inside you,” Nana called to her. “Stroke it, pet it, keep it calm, and turn it away!”
It sounded like good advice, but it didn’t work. Celia grabbed Erik and buried her face in his chest. He held her tight, sharing an angry look with Johnny. Johnny turned to Menessos and started forward, then stopped. His eyes had gone yellow, and his skin rippled as if a wave were crashing around underneath.
All the wærewolves began to change. Skin split like thin fabric as bones elongated, snapping like dry sticks. Brought to their knees by the power and pain of the transformation, the wæres emitted anguished cries that were piteous half-howls. Beverley screamed. Nana turned Beverley away and covered the girl’s eyes with her old hands.
“Come. Come to me, Persephone.” When Menessos said my name, I faced him squarely, looking him dangerously in the eye. He extended his hand. “Come to me.”
Unlike the time just before, his power flashed forth and imprisoned me. My conscious anger was like a smaller me locked inside a Mason jar. I heard my own thoughts distantly, as if from a radio playing in another room. They were separate from me, distanced and muffled. Though I was seething, my fury at his betrayal could not affect me or get through the bondage confining my will to Menessos.
Vicious Circle Page 21
