Fatal Circle

by Linda Robertson

  Johnny crossed his arms. “I won’t cut you off. I won’t abandon you. I have no ties for them to exploit.”

  I had to be honest. “Your career with the band could be ruined.”

  He paused, but just for a second. “I don’t care. That Tarot reading Demeter did weeks ago said I’d have to sacrifice something in order to gain something else of greater value.” He gripped my arms as Menessos had done in the cellar. “I pick you.”

  His gesture, too, was sincere, and I felt protected by him, not protective of him. I expected the Domn Lup to ably protect himself as well as me.

  “How can you be sure about this?” Johnny squeezed just a little more.

  “The witches have absolutely no presence in Menessos’s haven.” I slid the protrepticus into my pocket. “So whether it was an Elder or a contestant, they’re cut off from me and that will keep me from being an easy target.”

  “Red, the witches don’t worry me.”

  “They should. Many of them fear the Lustrata will make things worse for witches. They’ll work hard to stop that from happening. Someone has already taken action, sharing info with the fairies. When I’m inducted into the vampire’s court, that’s a ceremony they have no cause to want to see. If any of them show up, we’ll know something is awry.”

  “Yeah, I know you can handle that. But the vamp will have all the time in the world to manipulate you. Can’t you be safe without having another tie to him?”

  “Johnny, please trust me, he does not have a hold on me.” I tried to let him see in my expression how valid that statement was. “This is a minimal tie, considering. And I have to talk to you about the stain. It’s different than you think it is.” The fewer people who knew it was a hex, the better. “Perhaps upstairs?”

  He brightened considerably. “Alone in your bedroom?” He leaned down for a kiss.

  “Sheesh.” Nana stood and shuffled off to the kitchen with her ashtray.

  Johnny’s lips were soft, but he hadn’t shaved this morning. The stubble was rough on my skin in a good way. My fingers trailed over his cheeks. When the kiss ended, he said, “I am your protector. Where you go, I go.”

  “You’d follow me to Menessos’s court?”

  “I’d follow you into hell, Persephone.”

  My thoughts ran to Nana’s Tarot reading he’d mentioned. Hermes was the Magician on the last card, the final outcome. The Magician was an inner guide that sometimes directs one to perilous and wearisome places, but only to point out the potential one has.

  “Havens probably have rules like covens and dens do. No matter what, we’ll find a way for you to be there. My acceptance of the title will be subject to your acceptance there, too.” In one version of the mythology, it was Hermes who rescued Persephone from the underworld where she was the prisoner of Hades. Maybe Johnny would be the one to get me out.

  “Actually,” came Menessos’s voice from the hallway. “The Erus Veneficus is allowed a pet.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “How the hell—” Johnny sputtered. “Didn’t that old witch tuck you in before she left?”

  “As a matter of fact”—Menessos gave him a sly smile—“she did not.”

  “The sun’s up!”

  “But behind those thick rain clouds.” Menessos wiped at his wet shoulders. As if on cue, lightning cracked like a whip and a boom of thunder echoed. The rain responded: the light sprinkle became a downpour.

  “Fucking great,” Johnny muttered.

  He must have thought Menessos was making a display of his power. And boyfriends generally didn’t like other guys showing off in front of their girls. Yup. I used the B-word.

  “I will have my people make the announcement immediately.” Menessos ran a hand over his rain-damp hair; the waves had tightened into curls. “I’ll see to it they commence preparations immediately. May I use your phone? The battery seems to have died on my cell phone.”

  “In the kitchen.” I pointed. He walked down the hall.

  Johnny turned his back to the painting over the fireplace and crossed his arms.

  “I won’t let him reduce you to a pet,” I said.

  “There has to be a way around this. Living with him can’t be the only solution.” His jaw was set. “The waere aren’t a part of this at all. You’d be safer with them, a neutral party. Besides, they owe you. You’ve kenneled anyone who ever needed it.”

  “Opening my cellar door to protect people on the outside isn’t the same as asking the waere to shield me from the fey.”

  “She’s right, Johnny,” Nana said. She must have vacated the kitchen when the vampire entered. “Waerewolves have no investment in this. Staying out of it costs them nothing, while aiding her might cost them a great deal.”

  Johnny rolled his shoulders and let his arms straighten until his stance held less tension, but I saw it for what it was: a pose. “I could declare myself the Domn Lup.”

  It was not a suggestion he made carelessly, so I considered it. But my heart knew it wasn’t the answer. “That would still only end with forcing them into a situation that would cost them.” Before anything else interrupted my telling him what he needed to be told, I moved toward the stairs. “Come on. Help me pack.”

  My bed was still made from yesterday. The box the costume had arrived in still lay open on it. With a light shove, I pushed the box onto the pillows. I dug my suitcase from the closet and plopped it onto the bed, unzipping it open. The underwear from the dresser would go in first. Mustn’t forget clean undies.

  Johnny shut the bedroom door behind him. “You’re really going to pack up and move in with the vamp, just like that?”

  “You packed up to avoid having to drive Nana’s LeSabre.”

  “Touché. But guess what I took the kid to the bus stop in?”

  I tossed cotton panties into the suitcase and strolled up to Johnny. “Thank you for that.” I curled one finger into the belt loop of his pants. “Let’s be clear: moving ‘in with the vampire’ and ‘into the vampire’s haven’ aren’t the same things. And, it’s temporary.” I tugged gently on the belt loop. “You are coming, right?”

  “Nope.”

  I went wide-eyed.

  “I mean, what you’re fondling and tugging on is only my belt loop and that’s not nearly sensitive enough to make me—”

  “Johnny. You know what I meant.”

  He grinned. “Of course I’m coming with you.”

  To continue the double entendres, I added, “I don’t mind coming first.”

  “Oooo, nice one.”

  “Score,” I said. “One to one.”

  He pretended to chalk our points onto an air scoreboard. “Let the innuendo wars begin.”

  “Bring it on.”

  His arms encircled me and he whispered in my ear, “I’ll always put your needs first.”

  I would’ve relished his embrace, but— “Hey” I said, shying out of the hug while letting my hands linger at his waist, “I need to tell you something. I’ve been neglecting telling you because the fewer people who know, the better. This is the first time I’ve had a chance to tell you. I can trust you to keep a secret, right?”

  He straightened defensively. “Is there any reason to think you can’t?”

  “You did steal and replace a certain magic stake, a decision that led to Sam’s death and Nana and Beverley’s abduction.”

  Duly reprimanded, he relaxed his posture again. “It seemed like the right thing to do and for the right reason, Red. I had nothing to do with what Sam chose to do.”

  It was a valid point. “No matter what, you can’t reveal this. Ever. Even if it seems like the right thing to do.”

  “Okay.”

  “Swear it.”

  Johnny snorted. “I haven’t heard it yet.”

  “Swear it.”

  “Fine. I swear I won’t ever reveal the secret you’re about to tell me. Unless it has something to do with Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance, Jim Morrison’s death, or events on the infamous grassy knoll.”r />
  That was probably as good an oath as I’d ever get. “Do you remember when I told you that I’d figured out my troublesome issue with the stain?”

  “Yup. You told me not to ‘let any stab of jealousy wound me.’” He semisang the words I’d used. I poked him in the ribs. “What? I used it in some lyrics.”

  I should have known. I squeezed his waist with my fingers. He was so solid and firm muscled. I regretted Menessos’s interrupting us last night. “When I took Vivian’s stake into my hands …” I considered telling him the whole of it, but I’d put off these words too long already. Short version. “I flipped the binding. I didn’t know it at first, but it’s become very clear. Menessos isn’t my master. I’m his.”

  Johnny blinked at me as that sank in. “You mean—”

  “Yeah,” I said when he didn’t go on. “I’m not stained, so I’m not going to be manipulated by him. He’s hexed. I have power over him.”

  Johnny launched into laughter. “Then there’s no need for you to become that tiara-wearing heiress-thing.”

  “E-R-U-S. Air-oose. And, actually, there is. We have to keep everyone else thinking that he’s the master.”

  “Why?”

  “The fairies will want to hold him responsible for my actions anyway. If he’s the master, he’s responsible for my actions. It serves the purpose. And it’s my charge to keep things in balance, including the vampire balance. He’s perceived as a very powerful master. If he’s outmastered … you see all the trouble that would follow?”

  “Sure, but why should we care if his cronies know you’re even more powerful than he is? That benefits you.”

  “Lower vampires with a desire to move up might challenge him. It could cause an unending parade of challenges—”

  “So?”

  “So that wouldn’t help the balance.”

  “Pendulum’s gotta swing, Red. Things may be better when the smoke of charred vamp bodies clears.”

  I ignored the jibe. “Still, I’m his master, Johnny. I’m responsible for his safety, like I am for Beverley’s.”

  “Uh-uh,” he said firmly. “Not ‘like’ Beverley’s. She’s a kid. He’s a master vamp. He can take care of himself.”

  “The fey are going to try to kill him. I can’t sit idly by and let that happen. I can do something about it. I’m the Lustrata, I’m supposed to do something about it.”

  “You do the right thing, for the right reason.” He pulled me close again. “That’s my girl.” He stroked my hair and we just held each other. “Who else knows you’re the boss?”

  Downstairs, through my thin floor, I heard the phone ring.

  “Menessos knows, of course. Xerxadrea. You.” My totem animal Amenemhab also knew it, but he was my counsel and no one else’s. He didn’t need to be on the list. “I know this sucks. I just can’t risk Beverley having to suffer because I wouldn’t step up to the plate.”

  “And what if it’s you that she needs here, not Demeter?”

  What am I going to say to her?

  “Persephone!” Nana called.

  Johnny released me and I opened the bedroom door. “Yes?”

  “Telephone.”

  “Take a message.”

  “I tried. He insisted there was little time.”

  I went out and down the stairs. “Who is it?”

  Nana shrugged. “Dunno. But the walking corpse went back to the cellar,” she said as I passed her. Good.

  In the kitchen I lifted the receiver to my ear wondering where my cordless was hiding. Probably between couch cushions. “Hello?”

  “Is everything all right?” It was Jimmy Martin, editor for my “Waere Are You” column.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “It’s Wednesday, your column is due, and I didn’t get it yesterday like usual.”

  Oh, hell. On top of all my other worries, I still have a job. “Just polishing it up right now, Jimmy. It’ll be in your in-box in less than an hour, okay? I promise.”

  I spent the next hour furiously scolding myself for forgetting about it and putting my notes together into a readable column. The only reason I got it done at all was because I was doing a series on waere parenting and this was part three. A premise and supporting notes were already compiled. Still, it was far from my best work.

  It was just after four when the front door shut loudly, announcing Johnny had dropped Beverley off. He had to go work on guitars, some German order that came in, but he planned to be back at dusk to go with me and Menessos to Cleveland.

  Beverley stopped at my bedroom door on her way to her own. Her book bag dragged behind her and the usual boisterous fourth-grader energy was absent. Everything about her was evidence of how tired she was. “Have a good day?”

  “Yeah. I have some math to do.”

  “Give me a few minutes and I’ll help, okay?” I was finishing up my packing.

  “I don’t need help, I know how to do it. Why are you packing?”

  “I have to go away for a few days.”

  “Where are you going to go?”

  “To Menessos’s.”

  Sinking onto the edge of the bed, I patted the spot next to me so she’d come and sit with me. “Remember when we carved the pumpkins and had our safety talk about handling knives?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s rule number one?”

  “Safety first.”

  “Right.” Damn, this was hard. “See, the fairies are mad about one of them being killed—even if it was in self-defense. They’re making threats. So, in order to keep that safety rule, I’m going away to make sure you and Nana are safe.

  “Just a few days?”

  “I hope.”

  Her fingers fidgeted, but she said nothing.

  “Beverley?”

  “What about my birthday? Will you be back for that?”

  Shit, I’d forgotten! Her birthday was the ninth, so I had eight days. “I don’t know how all of this is going to go, so I can’t swear I will be here on your official tenth birthday, but I can promise I’ll do everything possible to be here.”

  “Okay.” She played with the zipper on my suitcase. She didn’t seem convinced.

  “What is it?” I prompted.

  “Will we be safe here, without you?”

  “Those witches put in new wards this morning, it is very safe here. But you still have to wear the necklace when you leave—”

  “I won’t forget that again.”

  I put my arm around her shoulder and squeezed to reassure her. “Then yes, you’ll be safe.”

  Over the side of the bed, her feet swung and clunked together at the heels. “What about Johnny?”

  “He’s coming with me. And there’s one more thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I remember how mad you got when Vivian said mean things about me, so I’m telling you now: as part of keeping you safe here, Nana is going to tell some newspeople that she’s very mad at me. She’ll probably say mean things like she never wants to see me again.” I leaned in to whisper. “But secretly, everything’s okay. She’s pretending, so everyone will think she’s mad. You have to pretend it, too, if anyone asks.”

  Beverley squinted. “Why?”

  “I doubt anyone will pester you over this, but if anyone besides Nana talks to you about it, just say you’re never talking to me again. If they pressure you, just say you don’t want to talk about it. Can you do that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You won’t bring it up or mention it to anyone?”

  “Geez. No. I didn’t talk about fairies today. Just like I said.”

  “Beverley, you are amazing.” I hugged her again. “I’m going to miss you while I’m gone, kiddo.”

  She squeezed me tight. “You will be back, right?”

  “Count on it. And I promise you this: when it’s over, we are having the biggest party for you. Johnny will make the cake and we’ll invite all your friends from school, okay?” I made a mental note: weather permitting, find ponies f
or riding.

  • • •

  Assessing my magical supplies and what I wanted to take with me, I decided the bloodstone would be an excellent choice. Good for increasing courage and for alleviating unnecessary fear, it was also a stone of power and victory. I lifted it into my palm. The vibration was a bit weak. I had a quartz crystal that was well charged. I picked it up with my left hand. Calling energy out of it, propelling it through me, wrapping it with my need for courage, I pushed it into my right palm and charged the bloodstone. Just as I finished, Nana walked in.

  “I’m going down to fix dinner.”

  “Okay. You cook and Beverley and I will clean up. Deal?”

  “Deal. Anything special you want?”

  “Whatever” almost came out of my mouth, but I caught the shining in her eyes. She wanted to make me dinner. “Any of your colcannon left?” Nana had made her delicious, if not quite accurate, version of the mashed-potatoes-and-cabbage dish for Hallowe’en.

  “Leftovers?”

  “It’s your specialty. I’d love to have that before I go.”

  She nodded.

  “And Nana? Promise me you’ll only make the most necessary trips on the stairs?” I’d taken her scrying crystal and hidden it in a shoebox in my closet, but that didn’t heal the damage to her knees. Scrying always took a physical toll. “And promise me, no more scrying.” The look I gave her said I knew she’d used alternate means to look into the future without the crystal.

  “I promise.”

  She shuffled from the doorway. I added the bloodstone to the items I was packing, then retrieved the scrying crystal and packed it, too, shoebox and all. She was pushy enough she might rummage in my room while I was gone and find it. She could still scry with a glass bottle and blessed water, but I was praying she’d not be tempted.

  Though mashed-potato dishes are on my list of comfort foods, my emotionally traumatized stomach couldn’t handle much for dinner. Afterward, Beverley and I cleaned up the kitchen together. Then, as I brought down my broom and my suitcase packed with magic supplies as well as clothes, Beverley carried the toiletries bag for me.

  The sun would be setting in about twenty minutes. We had a little time. “Packing’s done. Homework’s done. Should we play ‘go fish’?”