Wicked Circle c-5 Page 2

  “This young fool has requested it!”

  “It seems overindulgence to exploit their unique skills upon a task such as this.” Mero had to regain the advantage. Nothing good would come of the Excelsior consenting to this ludicrous idea. “Heavy-handed wastefulness would not reflect well upon our Lord.”

  Giovanni tilted his head. “This is an opportunity. Heldridge has opened the door, Mero, and I long to see what the great Menessos has hidden behind it.” Giovanni leaned forward. “Don’t you?”

  “I do not wish to tread where the shabbubitum run free.” Eager to drive his point home, Mero sat straighter and said, “They are dangerous, sentient beings, not domesticated animals that can be made to perform tricks. Treating them as such would be very unwise. Better to leave them where they are.”

  Guistini stood, facing the darkness surrounding the Excelsior. “For long decades Menessos has puzzled us all. He refused the very position you fill so well, Excelsior.” The vampire maneuvered his thin frame between the seats one section closer to his lord. “Do you not want to know why? Do you not want to know if he regrets that decision?”

  “You reveal your true motive: revenge against the one who tore your throat.” At that, Mero expected Giovanni would explode in anger, but he did not.

  Giovanni mounted another step. “Revenge? No. I am merely thinking of the Excelsior’s safety. If Menessos believes his witch is the Lustrata, he will bond with her in order to unite their power. If he’s found her, the Domn Lup won’t be far behind. A triumvirate of power merging the Wolf King, the Witches’ Messiah, and the vampire who could have been Excelsior . . . what will they seek, once they are united, my lord?”

  Mero tried once more to stop the madness. “Your manner suggests guilt, yet you have only minimal facts.” He glanced at the screen again; Heldridge was pounding on the door.

  “They could not have yet recognized their full potential.” Giovanni made a fist as he said, “This trio is yet within your grasp, Excelsior. The shabbubitum are at your beck and call. Do you dare keep your hand at your side?”

  The Excelsior’s eyes gleamed in the darkness.

  Giovanni had won this time. The danger of inaction outweighed the danger of action.

  Bowing low before the Excelsior, Giovanni whispered, “Summon the shabbubitum. Let us have all the secrets Menessos would hide.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  The day’s meager light was nearly gone as I stood enshrouded in fog at Point State Park in Pittsburgh and yanked the white sheath dress over my head. Nana placed a circlet of ivy on my head.

  “The bell sleeves are nice,” said my mother, Eris, as she smoothed my dark hair. “You’re going to make a beautiful bride.”

  Those words furrowed my brows. “Someday,” I retorted, envisioning Johnny standing before an altar. Then, in my imaginary scene, Menessos stepped up on the other side. What would I do if I had to choose between them? “Maybe.”

  Besides, it wasn’t like I was wearing a silk gown. My attire was simply meant to be symbolic of the maiden aspect of the triple-goddess. This was a plain cotton chemise I bought on eBay from a seamstress who could have independently costumed a Renaissance fair.

  Having always been more tomboy than prom queen, I’d always had an extremely low tolerance for dresses. However, this plain gown was reminiscent of those worn by the women in the art of John William Waterhouse, and for that reason alone, I was thrilled to be wearing it. At least until Eris’s romantic notion spoiled the mood with implied lifetime commitments.

  Shoes were another story. I’d not thought of them when ordering, and by the time I realized my error, it was too late for even overnight shipping.

  My mother supplied me with a close imitation of the appropriate footwear: ladies’ slippers from Isotoner.

  “You’ll be a bride someday soon, I’d bet. I’ve seen how Johnny looks at you.”

  Words like “mom” and “mother” didn’t yet roll off my tongue with any ease, so my reprimand was blatant name-calling. “Eris.”

  “What? Mother said he’s been sharing your bedroom at the farmhouse.”

  Disapproval for Nana’s gossip-mongering darkened my expression. As she presented me with the silver belt I whispered, “Traitor.”

  “And who was it that told her I was trying to quit smoking?” Nana shot back.

  “She has you there,” Eris quipped. “And she’s hoping for great-grandchildren, though she doesn’t want you to . . . how did you say it, Mother?”

  “Don’t put the cart before the horse,” Nana answered.

  “Wæres can’t breed,” I reminded them.

  Nana smiled optimistically. “Yeah, yeah, but with him being the Domn Lup, a lot of those wære rules don’t apply to him.”

  That hadn’t even occurred to me. Fear must have shown in my expression, because they both giggled.

  Irritably, I wrapped the belt around my waist, my glare snapping back and forth between Eris and Nana. “I’m certain the molecular science behind the ‘non-viability’ of wære reproduction is something not even the Domn Lup can defy.”

  My anger, however, was all for Eris. She knew that a calm mind-set was essential pre-ritual, but she’d had to get that crack in. She couldn’t resist exerting some type of control over me.

  I bit my tongue to keep from saying anything else. I’d gone to a lot of effort for this ritual, and I wasn’t going to let her mess it up.

  Part of that effort included drawing a pentacle with black chalk earlier on the concrete near the fountain. Because of the dark powder, Nana had brought the dress with her to keep it from getting dirty, but that meant my wardrobe change had to be done on-site. Though the park was seasonably abandoned, I had expected to have to use the quad-cab of my mother’s newly purchased used truck as a dressing room. The fog provided adequate privacy, however, and I opted to switch my clothing beside the fountain.

  When I finished adjusting the silver belt, I glanced at my mother.

  All in all, Eris seemed to be remarkably accepting of the loss of her limb. She’d even gone so far as to say, “Losing my arm was a fair price to pay in order to have you in my life again, Persephone.”

  It seemed like the simple show of a positive attitude. At first. After hearing it for the fourth or fifth time, the passive-aggressive tone became obvious. That sentence, as in “grammatical unit,” was becoming my sentence, as in “judicial determination of punishment.”

  In a single afternoon I’d brought the two biggest regrets of her life into her tattoo parlor: me and Johnny. After sixteen years of separation, on the first day I’d spent with Eris, her home had been invaded. The top dog of the wærewolves, the Rege, had followed us to her home—led by a tracer he’d planted in my phone. In a hail of bullets, he’d forced his way inside, where the spell to unlock Johnny’s tattoos had been under way. The Rege had hoped to kill Johnny and eliminate the threat a Domn Lup would have on his power base, but Eris had caught two bullets playing human shield and protecting Johnny. That had led to the loss of her right arm.

  For all her recent heroics, she’d also been the villain who, eight years ago, had tattooed Johnny in the first place. She’d used her magic and sorcery to hide and constrain the power of the Domn Lup. A mysterious man had paid her to perform the magic and create the tattoos, but she could remember nothing about him. Or that was what she claimed.

  After my messy reentry into her life, she should have told me to get the hell out, to drag my dangerous destiny with me and never come back. Yeah, she should have abandoned me again. This time, at least, she had a legitimate reason.

  Instead, she was using these events—and her consequent loss—as a means to keep me around. It felt like I’d been condemned for life, and my prison was the unending inclusion in her world. What is it with mothers and guilt trips?

  I’d truly forgiven her for the awful childhood she’d provided. I’d even let go of my resentment for the subsequent abandonment. She’d protected my boyfriend from certain death, and I had
made sure the damage to her apartment was repaired pronto. I’d also agreed to stay and help her adjust to life without her arm and get to know her again.

  But that was before I realized what she was doing. And what she wasn’t doing.

  Tonight, November 16, was the Night of Hecate, and that particular goddess had shown me great favor. There was no way I would miss honoring Her. But I didn’t have to include Eris and Nana in it. I’d involved them because the guilt trip my mother was determined to send me on felt like a brand-new wedge between us, and I wanted it gone. I wanted her to get into a circle. I wanted her to see that she couldn’t perform ritual tasks like she did before. I wanted her to eat that knowledge and get angry. I wanted her to cry. Not in order to satisfy some vengeful side of me; those days were gone with the absolution I’d sincerely offered her. These things would be healthy for her. She had to grieve her loss in order to accept it. Instead, she was disguising the truth—and I was the camouflage.

  That kind of self-deception wouldn’t help anyone.

  But in this ritual she had been charged with specific duties, and she’d have to figure out how to perform them one-handed or admit defeat. Either would force her to begin dealing with her loss.

  Since we were in Pittsburgh, I had selected a park where a triangle of land jutted between the Monongahela River and the Allegheny River. The tip of the triangle pointed toward the Ohio River, and on it sat a fountain celebrating this liquid confluence by spewing water high into the air. Or it did in warmer weather.

  The fountain and its pool had been drained for the coming winter, but there was no lack of moisture in the air. With the mist embracing us so thickly, we were going to have to rely on Menessos to determine when the sun sank beneath the horizon. Not that he was here, but I would feel when he awoke, and at that exact moment, the Night of Hecate would commence. That was when we were to begin our journey to the river’s edge.

  Nana pulled a white-lidded bowl from a cloth satchel and passed it to me. The standard supper offerings were eggs, bread, cheese, and fish. As she removed the lid and replaced it in the bag, I saw I had, as expected, the eggs. Once standing in position, I quieted my mind and tried to purge the not-so-calming effects my mother had on me.

  Nana put a red bowl into the crook of Eris’s only arm. “Good?” she asked.

  “Good,” Eris replied. Representing the mother aspect of the triple-goddess for our ritual, she was dressed all in red: scarlet jeans and a tight-fitting crimson tee that said Tremendous under a flannel-lined red jacket. She’d insisted that Nana cut off the sleeve and sew the hole shut. This alteration made it obvious that nothing of her right arm remained. She’d even had a pair of red leather cowboy boots in her closet to complete the scarlet head-to-toe.

  Lastly, Nana, who signified the crone aspect of the triple-goddess for our ritual and therefore wore black polyester pants and a thick black sweater, drew out a black bowl and dropped its lid into the satchel before taking her place in our line. The smell of delicious fish wafted to me and reminded me how hungry I was. We’d fasted all day for this ritual.

  And we waited.

  I had time to notice the pair of black combs with little silver owls in Nana’s hair. She’d found them at a local sundry store.

  My fingers drummed on the edge of the white bowl. I checked on the candles behind us. After I’d drawn the circle earlier, I’d placed and lit short black pillar candles at each of the five spots where the lines of the star met the circle. Because of the constant wind here, the candles were topped with glass hurricane globes. They flickered but didn’t seem in danger of going out.

  Abruptly, my body felt like it was being inflated with hot air—Menessos was awake. My insides resonated with his screaming as if the waves of sound were vibrating from within me. Returning to life must be a horrific experience. I pitied him because of it.

  When the resonance faded I breathed deep and exhaled with purpose to counter the sensation.

  Then, I began walking. Eris and Nana fell in behind me, and we made a single-file trek toward the river’s edge. The light of the candles we were leaving behind would disappear into the fog as we strode further away, but hopefully I could maintain a straight line back until we were in range of the glow that would guide us unerringly to the circle to complete the ritual. Parading all over the park, lost in the white air, would be embarrassing.

  Another part of my earlier on-site preparation had included hiking down to the river’s edge to stick two oil-burning bamboo torches into the ground. When the torches glimmered into view, my nostrils filled with the smell of the cypress I’d scented the lamp oil with. Pausing on the last piece of level ground, I waited as Eris and Nana re-formed the side-by-side line.

  “I am the maiden,” I said, ceremoniously hoisting the bowl of eggs skyward. The fog gave this ritual an ambience of mystique and majesty, so it felt appropriate to try to display a formal and serious demeanor.

  As I surveyed the embankment, though, I realized I was in trouble.

  This slope had been no problem earlier, when I’d worn my hikers, but the Isotoners were soft-soled. With my first step, sharp rock points jabbed into the bottom of my foot. I wished my boots would magically reappear on my feet.

  Compensating and shifting my weight onto my heels led to the discovery that the slippers had zero traction. The rocks shifted under my feet. Two quick steps kept me from tumbling down, but I was certain that something had pierced the sole and cut into the arch of my foot. The eggs clacked roughly in the bowl, but when I inspected them, none had cracked.

  Trying futilely to regain my solemn demeanor amid the giggling from Nana and Eris, I proceeded between the torches. Crouching before the water, I found my bell sleeves made placing the bowl into the river tricky. Not willing to let anything further dampen the mood, or my sleeves, this problem was solved by wrapping the draped length around my forearm and tucking the edge under. “I offer this food for the Supper of Hecate, for the Lady of the Crossroads.” The bowl quickly floated out of sight in the mist.

  “I am the mother,” Eris said.

  She awkwardly surrendered the red bowl to me. In the transfer, I couldn’t help seeing the red ink now embedded in Eris’s palm. That, too, had happened when she’d reversed the spellwork on Johnny.

  The red bowl contained a round loaf of bread and a fresh log of goat cheese. As I placed it into the river Eris said, “I offer this food for the Supper of Hecate, for the Queen of Witches.”

  “And I am the crone,” Nana croaked.

  When she placed the black bowl in my hands I saw that it bore three Filet-O-Fish sandwiches.

  The drive-thru contribution lacked the charm an offering should have. Rolling my eyes up at her I whispered, “Really?”

  “I wasn’t about to stink up the apartment cooking fish.” She flapped her hand at me. “That’ll do just fine.”

  I took the black bowl to the water.

  “I offer this food for the Supper of Hecate,” Nana said, “for the Dark Mother of the Underworld.”

  The river carried Nana’s offering away. Finished, I held the hem of my skirt up, put my foot on the slope, and dug my toes in. It felt secure, so I took the step.

  The loose gravel shifted and gave way. My balance was ruined. I flailed my arms trying to steady myself as I backpedaled. My forearm smacked against one of the torches, and something sharp pierced my already injured foot. The torch fell toward the water. I tried to catch it, pivoted wrong, and my ankle wrenched.

  Pitching backward, I kept the falling torch in my view, aware it had a burning wick and a container full of lamp oil. Landing on it would be very bad.

  It smacked on a rock protruding from the water. The edge cracked. Lamp oil spilled, and light flared as the flame caught it. A gush of heat shoved me, then I was down, too, and I briefly felt the river’s cold embrace just before the agonizing pain of my skull striking stone.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I stood on a mist-shrouded shore in the dark. Not the shore
of the rivers in Pittsburgh, however. The willow tree to my right meant this was the shore of my meditation world.

  My view was limited to about a dozen yards in any direction. I made a full revolution, searching the thick white air for a telltale sign of Amenemhab, my totem animal, but the jackal was nowhere to be seen.

  What am I doing here? I couldn’t remember slipping into what I called my “alpha state” and prompting this visualization. The white dress I wore didn’t help clarify anything for me. Am I dreaming?

  A strange, trumpeting bellow made me spin toward the water again. It was not a sound I could readily identify.

  The heads of two black dragons materialized from the mist before me. They floated side by side with their necks arched like swans, wings tucked down. Nothing like the eel-ish and smooth-skinned creatures at home in the barn, these dragons had scales and horns and gills. Silver crowns adorned the bases of their horns, and I saw a flash of crimson embedded in the metal. Strands of rubies and diamonds draped to a ring hooked on their rhinolike snout horns. A silver yoke linked them to a wide plank that ran between their long bodies.

  It was connected to a tree they towed through the water. Not a log floating behind them, but a branched tree, upright. Squinting, I tried to make sense of what I saw. The trunk was dark, gnarled and angled, as if it had grown in shadow and had had to reach for light. As it neared I saw it was actually a cluster of trunks. In some places, the trunks were like stacked drainpipes, in other spots the bark had smoothed over like scarred skin.

  By that, and the evergreen foliage, I identified it as a yew tree. The branches stretched twice as wide as it was high, and enclosed lanterns were hung along the outer perimeter. In their soft glow, black veils hung closer to the trunk and fluttered eerily, defining the base of the rectangular boat.

  I noticed a woman sitting on the sloping tree trunk. Her somber pose reminded me of Waterhouse’s Ophelia. Her head was down, the gray hood of her cloak raised. Dark hair spilled down her chest like ink. Her fingers trailed in the water beside her, and her pale, smooth skin had the barest trace of phosphorescence.