“If I had to guess”—Johnny came to his feet—“I’d say that psychic stuff like telepathy touches on what we’re attempting, but what we’re doing is more permanent.”
Menessos stroked his chin contemplatively.
“And,” Johnny continued, “I don’t want either of you in my head.”
I had a thought. “This ritual is in the Codex, right? Didn’t you perform it with Una and Ninurta?”
“Una would not.”
“Why?”
“She feared the repercussions. She thought that souls are the handiwork of the gods and that, should we play at separating and dividing our essences, we would all die.”
Guardedly, I asked, “What do you think?”
My question lingered, unanswered. Then Menessos disappeared into the black chasm doorway. A minute later, he came back with the Trivium Codex and placed it into my hands. “A silver ribbon marks the proper page. If, after studying the ritual, you still wish to perform it, return here an hour before dusk.”
Wordlessly, I pleaded with him to answer.
He stroked my cheek. “I think the goddess favors you above all others.” Then he departed into that blackness again.
I followed Johnny out.
• • •
I couldn’t call Nana to decipher this for me. So, I called Dr. Geoffrey Lincoln. It being Saturday afternoon, the veterinarian was out of the office. The recorded response supplied an “emergency number” which I promptly dialed and left a message. After answering Johnny’s “where’d you get that phone?” questions, I worked translating things via the Internet, doubting the accuracy of every syllable. A half hour later, as Johnny served up lunch, I’d succumbed to the idea that the doc wasn’t going to call back. I commenced an internal dialogue of how to broach the subject with Nana.
Then the phone rang.
For the next two hours, I read passages to Dr. Lincoln, Johnny snapped phone photos and emailed them to him, and slowly we interpreted and deciphered the ritual. Dr. Lincoln promised to bill me.
I sat down to study the actual spell. Though I knew how Beau’s ingredients would work, I didn’t see how the willow wand fit in.
An hour before dusk, we gathered in Menessos’s chambers around the altar table where Aquula’s dead body had lain.
It was just after four in the afternoon. The sun would set at the startlingly early time of five-nineteen. Tomorrow would be the first Sunday in November, and daylight saving time would officially kick in at two A.M. tonight. All things considered, we have about fifteen hours.
The altar held the Trivium Codex—open to the proper page—the supplies Beau had provided, and the standard supplies, too. My wands, old and new, marked my place at the table. Menessos’s was marked by his black-handled athame. For Johnny, Menessos had placed an onyx carved in the shape of a howling wolf. Though he would not call or shape the magic, Johnny would be a participant in this spell, and it was a nice gesture on the vampire’s part. I was pleased that Menessos had respected him enough to consider it.
We were all here. Ready or not. I reached for the salt to get this ritual under way. Menessos beat me to it, taking the salt neatly before I could. He walked around casting about this representation of the element of earth and cleansing the space.
I picked up the paper with the sigils for the spell, studied it once more, then set it to one side. Johnny picked up the corked bottle I’d been given at Wolfsbane and Absinthe. “What is this?” he whispered.
“Something Beau gave me.”
Johnny lifted the bottle, tilting and examining it. “Is this made with water or whiskey?”
“Water.” I hope. I hadn’t opened it.
“Is that a peach pit?”
“Yes. For love and wishes.”
“And the other stuff floating in there?”
I thought back.
Menessos replaced the salt on the altar, then smoothly took the incense and a feather and cleansed the space with the element of air.
“Moss, willow, and orchid petals,” I said to Johnny, fingers trailing along the secondary wand, the willow branch with moss. “Moss is for luck, and is protective. Willow is for love and protection.”
“And the orchid petals?”
“Love.”
“And?”
“Just love.”
“There’s a lot of love in that bottle.”
My cheeks warmed.
Menessos put back the incense, then made a trek around the circle with a red candle, cleansing the space with fire.
“Protection, too,” I said, holding up the prickly holly leaf. “Protection and luck.”
Johnny cocked his head a little. “Do we need that much protection, luck, and love?”
“For what we’re about to do, yes.”
He shot a glance at Menessos, then shifted back to me with brows raised, as if silently asking, Him too?
Making my expression entirely soft and full of compassion, I nodded.
He pointed to the paper on which I had drawn. “Those?”
“Sigils and symbols. The cross-number-two thing is the symbol of Saturn, and since it is Saturday we’ll tap the humility, authority, and respect associated with this day. However, we are at a crossroads here, so we’ll also call on the energy of Scorpio, the current zodiac house, and since the moon is waning we’ll concentrate on being rid of the dangers and doubts and …” I let it trail off. Johnny’s eyes had kind of glazed over, as if I’d started speaking Chinese or something.
Menessos replaced the red candle and took up the seashell filled with water.
Johnny studied the lines and curves of the next, a sigil, and gave me a polite nod.
“You’re thinking it’s just a scribble, right?”
“Actually, I was thinking it’s like fan blades that have had Silly String sprayed on them.”
Maybe he won’t change after all. “You’ve sprayed Silly String on a fan before?”
“Of course. Haven’t you?”
“No.” Inspecting the sigil again, I had to agree it was as good an interpretation of the lines as another. “Your ‘fan blades’”—I traced with my finger—“are two S’s, see?” I’d drawn them with glue and silver glitter, one at a forty-five-degree angle, the second ninety degrees from the first so they crossed in the center. “They represent soul sharing, which is what we are doing. These are each of our initials, M, J, and P.” These were centered among the glitter. Purple and red ink from standard office-supply Sharpies highlighted the drawing.
Menessos finished with the cleansing, opened the altar energies, and lit the illuminator candles. With a nod at me he said, “Your turn.”
Taking the pail of sea salt, I drew a large circle encompassing much of the room, chanting, “Where circles are cast in salt … there, magic is called.” Then I redrew it with my usual crystal-tipped wand. “Where cross the paths of fate … there, magic is made.” I drew it a third and final time with the new willow wand. “Where three pieces make one whole … there, magic is the soul.” A triple-cast circle always made me feel safer.
“Two wands?” Menessos asked.
“This one is new.” I laid the willow wand on the table.
“Oh?”
“A present.”
“From?”
Who? The Goddess? A tree? “My meditation.”
He thoughtfully studied where it lay on the altar.
When I spoke the quarter calls, north and the earth element came first. The coarse sea salt marking the circle shifted as if to acknowledge that presence. The second call stirred the air in the room like a sighing breath. With the third call, the candle flames flickered down low in unison, then shot up in a single blast of greeting. When I called water, the seashell on the table rocked, making ripples across the water’s surface. Most impressively, the fluid in the bottle Beau had given me swirled as if shaken, forming a tornado effect with bubbles and debris being pulled down in the center.
I nodded to Menessos. “Backatcha.”
He shook his head. “No. You will invoke deity.”
“But—”
“No buts. They like you better.”
I thought of Hecate at the Eximium. “She told you to be forgiven.”
His chin leveled. “Still, you are Her chosen.”
“And you are not?”
In one sharp, sideways glance, Menessos told me he didn’t feel comfortable discussing this around Johnny. His posture stiffened as emphasis to that point.
I took up the bottle and uncorked it. To Johnny I said, “Bare your chest, please.”
“You first.”
I smirked.
He unbuttoned his shirt. Taking a holly leaf from the altar, I allowed the mixture to drip onto the prickly leaf. It was neither water nor alcohol, but a thin oil. The fragrance was pleasant. After setting the bottle on the altar, I smeared my fingers through the oil from the leaf and I traced the pentacle tattoo on his sternum. Above it, I drew the sigil of our combined initials, MJP. I replaced the holly leaf on the table beside the onyx wolf.
Making certain I moved clockwise, deosil, around the circle, I went to Menessos and repeated the actions on him—minus the tattoo to use as a pattern. I opened his shirt a bit more to check the spot where Samson had tried to stake him. It was perfectly healed. No scar. I clasped his hand. “She forgave you. Can you not forgive yourself for whatever it was that caused the rift?”
His resolve was strong. “I want you to call Her.” He squeezed my hand for emphasis.
Having pushed as hard as my conscience would allow, I relented. We couldn’t risk negative energies tainting the sacred space we’d created. Releasing him, I shifted to the side, not resuming my former place.
“Who gets to mark you?” Johnny asked.
I removed my shirt, but remained modestly covered by my bra. They each gave a man-growl indicating their approval, then Johnny tried to outstare Menessos.
“Both,” I said. “Menessos draws the pentacle, you draw the sigil.” I moved Beau’s pendant so it hung down my back, leaving drawing room on my skin.
Menessos went first. He poured the liquid onto the holly leaf, and dipped his fingers in it. Solemnly meeting my eyes, he touched my skin.
When first he’d marked me with his own blood, he’d drawn an ankh on my sternum. It was against my will and he knew it, but I was engulfed in his power. Now, he drew not the symbol of his alchemy. He drew the symbol of my magic. Slowly.
He painted the pentacle with tenderness and burning certainty. It wasn’t innocent. It wasn’t chaste. Not because his fingers strayed—they stayed right where they were supposed to be—but because of his eyes. The gray was simmering like quicksilver.
Seven wanted me to love him. But this wasn’t the countenance of love. It was covetous. Lecherous. Hedonistic. It made my heart race. It summoned that warmth deep inside of me that only he could stir. And it beckoned to my darkest desires … the kind good girls never admit having.
Menessos stepped aside and held the leaf out to Johnny.
I had to take a pair of cleansing breaths.
Johnny wiped his fingers over the holly and extended his hand toward me. “Does it matter which order I draw the letters?”
“No.”
He drew the J first, and I could feel the trembling in his fingers. He covered the J with a P. I watched his face, so serious, intent on getting it right. For me. He added the M last, and nodded. His first magic circle; his first sigil.
With shoulders squared and voice strong and firm, I said, “I call upon She who is the Three and the One. The crone who has been the maiden and the mother. You have been the Past, You are the Present, and You will be the Future. Queen of Heaven, Earth, and Underworld. My Goddess.”
Taking a pause to consider that we three were, from a certain point of view, about to become one, I felt the hair on the nape of my neck rise.
A presence hovered on the periphery of reality. Observing. I had seen the darkness coalesce and become the night alive, sparkling like black diamonds. I had seen it become Her. I had felt Her touch before.
Hecate was here.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I did not call Her into me, as I would have when Drawing Down the Moon. After our last meeting, I wasn’t sure I’d have the nerve to do any such thing ever again. She’d said—
My heart skipped a beat.
She’d said She would see me when I was ready to see my own soul. That I would find Her at the crossroads. I’d said to Johnny we are at a crossroads … And this was all about my soul. And theirs.
From the ethereal, a hand stroked my neck, through my hair, causing it to prickle more stiffly. The hand caressed my skin so subtly, intangible but undeniably touching me.
“Hecate!” I whispered Her name, reverently, fearfully.
Her fingers trailed down my spine, nails sharp and scraping my flesh. Like a warning. It set the charm at my back swinging.
“Our purpose,” Menessos said, “is Sorsanimus, to share pieces of our souls, each with the others. For our own protection. For balance.”
When he spoke, it seemed the Goddess’s attention shifted to him. I sighed in relief. This is it.
I took Johnny’s hand in my right, and I took Menessos’s hand in my left. Then I waited. They had to work this out. Each had to come to the moment when he was ready to hold the other’s hand. But of course, they were men. While I had my suspicions that Menessos and Ninurta had been intimate, that was long, long ago. Johnny wasn’t the kind of man who held other men’s hands.
So, this was difficult for them both, but in different ways.
At once, both reached, then stopped, holding back their hands as if expecting the other to concede to the undergrip.
Then I realized it was more than I feared. Their hesitation was about more than pressing their palms together. It was about who would, literally, have the upper hand. Who got the overgrip, the undergrip.
Matter-of-factly, Menessos said, “I am the oldest.”
“It’s my people coming to save your ass.”
“And they are so motivated because of my Codex giving them the ability to retain their man-minds.”
Johnny was unimpressed and unmoved. “It’s still your life on the line, man.” He wiggled his fingers. “Show me how grateful you are for the chance to keep it.”
Menessos didn’t have a comeback for that one. Slowly, he turned his hand.
Johnny’s mouth curved up slightly.
I held my breath, waiting for the sarcastic remark that would make both release my hands as they came to blows again. But Johnny said nothing.
And Menessos let a small smile of his own slip through.
It’s a miracle. Then it hit me that they were being men again. Though Menessos had conceded the upper hand, both were waiting to see who would take the other’s hand.
I sighed exasperatedly.
Johnny grabbed Menessos’s hand.
“Three. Two. One. Three of us. Two male. One female. Three. Two. One. Three lives. Two sigils. One purpose. Three. Two. One.” I spoke softly, rhythmically. It was not a part of the spell, it was a reminder.
“Tres. Duo. Unus. Tres fieri unus. Sorsanimus,” Menessos said. “A piece of my soul I offer to each of you. I accept a piece of your soul in return.”
I repeated the words, then Johnny did.
“Vieo nexilis trini.”
It was the chant that would achieve our goal. That is, if we could convince a higher power to grant us this mutual intercession.
In ritual, the ability to focus is crucial. Right now, concentrating on my intention was as important as keeping my eyes on the road when driving one hundred miles per hour. Menessos knew this. In discussing the ritual with Johnny earlier, I had advised him it was imperative that he maintain his thoughts precisely on what we were doing, his willingness to participate, and to not let his thoughts go roaming.
Taking my own advice, I turned my inner “meditation switch” halfway and edged toward alpha. I imagined that through my voice
I poured into the chant all the hopes I had for this spell. I poured in my need to block the Witches Council from rendering me Bindspoken and thwarting my destiny. I added my need to help Johnny unlock his power—which he would require as Domn Lup. And I included my need to save Menessos from the fairies … in about thirteen hours.
Around us, wind howled like a wolf. The sea salt marking the circle’s barrier was lifted into the air like dust particles, thrown into the fray to whirl and dance. I was the only one of the three of us facing the table now, and I saw the candle flames flickering, but not as harried by the rushing air as I would have expected. In fact, the flames sank low to the wicks and sporadically flashed high. Within the salt-strewn air at the circle’s edge, flashes of light erupted, coinciding with the candle bursts. Water rose up from the seashell, somehow expanding to become much more than a few drops. An umbrella of water formed over our heads, more water than the seashell actually held. Each flash of light created a ripple on the water’s surface.
Menessos was rapt, resolute. Seven’s words, “Love him as he loves you,” flickered through my mind, but I cast them out and checked on Johnny. He stared up, fascinated by the magic, but maintained the chant.
The power was present, but it was holding back. The chant had gone on too long for nothing to be happening. It had built, and was building no more.
Was one of them resisting? Was Johnny? I need this! For all of us! I pleaded.
That intangible hand reached through me, then, and turned my switch all the way to alpha.
I stood on the shore beside the willow tree, toes sinking into muck. Regardless of my state in the circle outside this meditation, I’d been delivered here naked.
Amenemhab was nowhere to be seen. Out of nowhere, the buckskin mustang raced by the tree at a full gallop and splashed into the lake, ruining the tranquil surface with splashes and ripples.
Oh no you don’t. My need was such that She must not get away. But the horse kept going.
I rushed into the water. The cold fluid tugged at my ankles, jerked at my knees, and my vivid memory of my last visit made me hesitate. A deeper emotional world.
She was swimming toward the white spearhead-shaped rock.
Fatal Circle Page 24
