Wicked Circle c-5 Page 3

  The dragons neared the shoreline and lurched suddenly. As they sloshed forward I realized that in addition to their wings, they had four limbs! The dragons I knew didn’t have legs.

  I retreated three steps as they brought themselves—and their passenger—right to me.

  When they stood ankle-deep in the river, the wide plank plowed into the sandy mud and they halted. One shook his mighty head, and the gemstones flashed in the dim light. The other one warbled in response. The teeth in that mighty maw were as long as steak knives.

  I went stock-still, thinking stupidly of the Jurassic Park movie. These aren’t tyrannosaurs, these are dragons.

  Movement behind them caught my attention as the woman drew away from the water. Her dress, like mine, had long bell sleeves, but hers had been dragging through the water. They dripped as she gestured for me to join her in the boat.

  The plank, it seemed, also served as a gangway, but the mere idea of walking between the dragons with their rows of sharp teeth wasn’t a notion that snuggled up to my sense of well-being.

  Guardedly, I went forward. The beasts did nothing but benevolently watch me, so I dared onward. The plank creaked under my weight, and once past the dragon’s long necks, I raised my arms for balance.

  Ducking under the foremost branches, I got a better view of the boat bottom. It seemed the tree roots had crawled free of the earth and woven together to form this slender, watertight vessel. At the bow I waited for my host to indicate if I should sit down or come closer.

  Her hair had faded to gray. The skin on her hands was like spotted parchment. Her hood shifted slightly as her head rose and her chin jutted toward me. Her smooth cheeks had wrinkled and grown sallow. Her eyes remained hidden in the shadows of the hood.

  Even so, I knew her. I had been witness to this transformation before and wasn’t surprised when the cloying fragrance of raisin and currant cakes filled my nostrils.

  “Hecate.” I sank to my knees.

  The dragons backed the boat onto the lake once more. I tried not to think of the shore that was getting farther and farther away.

  For minutes we remained with me on my knees, the world silent except for the gentle splash of water as the dragons swam. When finally She spoke, Hecate said, “The company of men can be warm and pleasant, but men are willful where women are involved. More so when she is a woman of power. Like you.”

  The Goddess brought me here to give me dating advice? Dumbfounded, I simply nodded.

  “The vampire wizard marked you once, but here in this place, we reversed it onto him. When you showed him you would wield the power you had over him, when you put him on his knees before you, it prompted his planning.”

  “Planning what?”

  “Another way to control you.”

  My brows lowered.

  “In signum amoris. ‘A sign of love.’ ” She spat into the bottom of the boat.

  In signum amoris, the spell Menessos had performed on Johnny and me. He had not asked permission, he’d just acted as he’d seen fit. At the time of the offense, he’d cooled the heat of my fury by explaining that it had created an important link between Johnny and me. “Because of that spell, Johnny and I have been able to communicate telepathically when touching.”

  Hecate rose from Her seat and shuffled toward me. “A nice benefit to be sure, child, but the vampire did not tell you what else he did.” Her misshapen fingers gripped my chin and forced me to look at Her just as the breeze lowered Her hood.

  The goddess’s eyes were the eyes of the moon, eyes that had stared into the sun for eons. They were the most bizarre color—the color I see in the dark after staring too long into a candle’s flame. I focused on Her face, which was haggard and hard but not unkind.

  “He was a part of that binding. He can also hear your thoughts when he touches you . . . and yet he can shield you from his own thoughts.”

  Bastard. He’d claimed that spell amped up the imprinting bond that already existed between Johnny and me. He’d said it was all for my safety, so Johnny could feel my strong emotions and ride to my rescue if necessary. The bond hadn’t been any help when the Rege had kidnapped me, but the concussion I’d suffered had probably interfered.

  “It is vexing that he waited until there was nothing you could have done to oppose him. Disguised in your intimacy, the spell was complete before you knew it was happening.” She released me and made a flicking gesture that caused the tree roots to form a seat behind Her as She sat. “He knew the sorsanimus would become necessary. Because the three of you are now additionally bound tight with that soul-sharing, he can use his ‘sign of love’ to read you. Through it, he can learn what you would otherwise hide, and therefore, his words can manipulate you to his aims more efficiently.”

  “Are You saying that his goal isn’t the same as Yours?”

  “I see the past that was, the present that is, and all the possibilities that the future holds, but Menessos travels a road unlike that of any other man. His path is unceasing, like that of a god. His choices are bold and yet unavoidably bound to the slaking of an unquenchable thirst. His purpose is difficult to define.”

  “I thought he was Your servant. At the Eximium, You told him he was forgiven.”

  She cocked Her head. “Menessos serves no one but himself. Sometimes even that selfishness can become a path that aligns with the goals of a goddess.”

  “What were You forgiving him for?”

  Hecate’s cackle of laughter echoed across the lake. She made no effort to answer.

  That didn’t surprise me. We weren’t here to discuss Menessos’s past. We were here to discuss what he’d done without my permission. Including Johnny in it made it doubly wrong—even if Menessos’s intentions had been pure, and he was evidently incapable of pure intentions.

  “The triangular power base the three of you have formed now binds you to each other, but it will not be pliable forever.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like an infant’s bones, such constructs harden as they age. Your triangle will break if each side is not equal to the others.”

  “It could break?”

  “You are all striving to adjust to the pressure put upon you; should one grow too fast, it burdens the other sides. The sides of the triangle stretch as each of you grow. This forces a matched pace upon you all. If one stumbles or fails to meet your challenges, you risk collapse and the failure of all.”

  I considered this. “So you’re saying the in signum amoris has to go.”

  “Indeed.” She added, “The sides must be equal. Not even your side can dominate.”

  “How do I get rid of it?”

  Her strange gaze was a physical touch upon me, raising the hair along my arms and up the nape of my neck. “The sorsanimus binding is virtually impervious. That shielding links the three of you together. It is a protection like thick stone walls.” She sat forward and clenched Her hands to characterize strength. “And you will all need that. By comparison, the vampire’s ‘sign of love’ is but a wooden fence.” Her pose relaxed and though She sat back, Her chin remained elevated. “Yet even that could destroy you all.”

  “And there’s no way for Johnny and I to grow to match this?”

  “It gives the vampire an unfair advantage. Rather than try to re-create it for yourself and the wolf, remove it.”

  “How?”

  “You must unmake it. Burn his fence to the ground, so to speak.”

  I stood, ready. “It’s here? A physical fence in this world?”

  She motioned for me to sit. “You passed the test of fire here,” she said. “Passed the test of water.”

  Fire was represented by the south. I’d witnessed my own burning at the stake in that test. Water corresponded to the west. I’d nearly drowned during that test. A deosil path around the pagan elemental compass would mean that earth was the next element, yet something in my gut nagged at me. She’d hauled me out on the water and away from land, away from earth.

  “Ai
r?” I asked.

  “Air,” she said.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Eris Alcmedi saw her daughter stumble and she laughed—until the torch fuel exploded in a blast of white light. Seph lay in the water, and she wasn’t getting up.

  Stunned, immobile, Eris thought, Get up, Persephone. Get up.

  Beside her, Demeter started forward, then halted. “My knees,” she said. “I can’t get her. Go!” She pushed Eris forward, panic in her voice as she commanded, “Go, the river’s taking her! She’ll drown!”

  The alarm in Demeter’s tone triggered Eris into action. She charged down the slope in her slick-soled cowboy boots and immediately lost her footing. Without two arms to pump and swing for balance, she lurched and fell on her behind. She scrambled up too fast, tripped over her own feet, and then dropped to her knees. Momentum pitched her forward. She thought to catch herself on the heels of her hands, but her brain forgot what her body was missing and she toppled to the right, smacking her face and shoulder into the rocks and mud. Cold pain shot over her cheek and she saw stars.

  Stunned, she found her thoughts speeding in circles; she was strangely unwilling to make the usual instinctive self-recriminations.

  “Get her, Eris! Quick!” Demeter shouted.

  Eris scrambled up, keeping the white of Seph’s dress in sight as she plunged into the river, but the mist was determined to obscure her view. She sloshed in up to her knees. Her boots filled with water—So cold!—and her feet became leaden weights. Each step was a burden. Why am I doing this anyway? She’s the Lustrata. The goddess won’t let anything happen to her.

  Eris halfheartedly pressed on. When the frigid water was thigh-deep, she stretched and groped for the dress hem. I can’t do this. I can’t dive for her. . . . I can’t swim one-armed! I’ll be lost.

  Without warning, she slipped on a slimy rock and went down. She heard Demeter call her name just before the water closed over her head. The current tugged at her, impeding her effort to stand. She fought with the current, kicked her feet into position and planted them.

  Finally, gasping, she broke the surface only to hear Demeter screaming. Eris wiped her eyes and searched around for a sign of Seph’s white dress.

  Persephone was yards away now, so far out of reach. Eris stared in disbelief as the powerful flow of the river swept Seph away. The mist closed in.

  Seph isn’t the Lustrata. This wouldn’t be happening if she were. She’s going to die. . . .

  Eris turned and struggled back to the shore in a panic. “I couldn’t get to her, I couldn’t get to her! I couldn’t!” Demeter was sitting on the shore. She tried to get up, grimaced, and rubbed her knee.

  “Mom? Are you okay, Mom?”

  “Where’s Persephone?”

  “I couldn’t get to her.”

  “She’ll drown!” Contempt, blame and disappointment flashed in Demeter’s eyes.

  “The river carried her away.”

  The lap of the water taunted Eris, laughing at her weakness. The silence between them was a crushing weight.

  Demeter pushed her fingers down into the mud on either side of her and chanted. “Poseidon, naiads, hippocampi! Protect my granddaughter and bear her to the shore . . . that she may come to rest where she belongs. Bear her to the shore. Bear her to the shore.”

  Eris felt useless. Seph, her daughter, was out there right now in the water. She could imagine her sinking, drowning. She isn’t the Lustrata after all. Eris had wanted to believe it. She wanted to believe that she’d done something right, that she’d brought someone special into the world. Her tears spilled.

  “Knock off that crying,” Demeter croaked.

  “I lost her!”

  “Crying won’t help right now.”

  Eris sniffled and wiped her nose. “I can’t even put my will into the ground, like you just did. I can’t create the circle of energy you just created.”

  “You have feet, don’t you?”

  It’s just like Demeter to sit there all imperious and tell me what to do after I’ve ruined everything. Eris glared. “Feet?”

  “Your feet aren’t as good as your hands for focusing and directing energy, but that’s what you have, Eris. So buck up and start figuring out how you’re going to be a one-armed witch.”

  Eris turned her back on her mother, but that left her looking at the water that had just swept Seph to her doom. She choked on a sob she didn’t want Demeter to hear.

  “Your feet have carried you all your life,” Demeter said. “You just need to figure out a new way of walking.”

  Spinning back, Eris shouted, “Don’t lecture me! Persephone is”—she swung her arm and pointed, and it was so not normal to do this with her left arm—“out there!”

  “And you couldn’t—”

  “Don’t you dare lay this on me!” The tears sprang up again. “I tried. I did the best I could.” But she hadn’t. She hadn’t believed this could happen. She hadn’t believed the goddess would allow it to happen.

  Eris saw her mother’s pained face. “You’re lucky you didn’t break a hip.” She reached out to Demeter, ready to lever her up.

  Demeter accepted her hand and tried to stand, but she cried out, “Let me sit, let me sit!”

  Eris noticed the shallow trenches in the embankment mud. “You didn’t scoot over the edge and ease down. You fell.”

  “Everybody else did tonight. Why not me?”

  Eris invoked the Norse healing goddess. “Eir’s sweet mercy, Mom!”

  Demeter rubbed at her knee. “I could use some of Eir’s attention right now, but I’d settle for an OxyContin.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Hecate’s dragon-drawn boat dropped me off at the island in the middle of the lake. It was comprised of a narrow, muddy shoreline around a sun-bleached stone that, when viewed from the opposite shore, seemed like a giant’s spearhead rammed into the earth.

  I walked to the backside of the huge rock, searching for the crevice I’d entered when Hecate, in the form of a mustang, had led me here during the sorsanimus. This time, there was no crevice.

  My shoulders slumped. She’d delivered me here, so what was I supposed to do now?

  The fog shifted and swirled. A thunderous cry heralded me.

  A griffon limped into view. He was missing a few talons on his right foreleg, and his gait identified him as much as his sleek black feathers and tiger body did. “Thunderbird!” He was missing his right eye as well, so he kept his head slightly aslant to monitor me. “How did you get here?” He was supposed to be in the barn at my farmhouse in the real world.

  “The goddess,” he said.

  I stumbled, then froze. “You. Talk?”

  “Your totem animal can speak in this place. Why shouldn’t I?”

  He sounded unnervingly like the actor Patrick Stewart. “Right.” Still, the shock felt like a kick in the chest.

  He positioned himself facing the water and stretched the wing nearest me back toward his haunches. With a nod he indicated that I should sit astride him. “Shall we?”

  A test of air obviously included flying. Still, I hesitated. “What are we supposed to do?”

  “I do not know.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  He wiggled his wing insistently. “Get on.”

  He wasn’t quite the size of a pony. No grown-up in her right mind would expect him to ably carry her. “I’m too big.”

  His one eye tilted in its socket, up then down. “No, you’re not.”

  I gave him the once-over, assessing the muscular tiger body. This has to be done. This destiny of mine depends on the three of us.

  Hauling my skirt up, I straddled him in front of his wings. I sat—tiger backs are not comfy—and wrapped my arms around his sinewy, feathered neck. He cantered along the shore, beating his wings. As his muscles flexed his great strength was remarkable, and suddenly we were rising in the white air.

  We burst through the fog, and now, flying above it, I was glad for the clear air . . . until a
flash in the distance drew my attention to the clouds. Ahead of us was a massive cloud formation. The edge could have been a snapshot of stormy seas, freezing the frothy water in motion. The “crashing waves” ascended in asymmetrical jumbles, puffy and beautiful. Atop that, layers of smooth-edged clouds jutted out as if a layer cake with thick icing had been placed atop that curling wave.

  “That’s the mother of all storm clouds,” Thunderbird said.

  Again, lightning flickered within the depths of the formation, a reminder that such beauty was often dangerous and wrathful. “We have to fly inside it, don’t we?”

  “To confront the most powerful air we do.”

  “You won’t be able to see inside it, will you?”

  “Don’t need to. I just need to feel the current and ride it without you falling off.”

  This test couldn’t be just about the ability to hang on, but my fingers burrowed under his feathers for a better grip anyway.

  “Wind shears spiral around, up from the ground, then back toward it. Young griffons play in them often, but that involves much twisting and would increase the risk for you, so I’m going to skim the top.”

  Sounded like surfing. “Do the young griffons ever carry extra weight when they play in wind shears?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think it will make a difference?”

  He craned his neck regally. “I am strong enough, Persephone. Are you?”

  Considering the previous tests, this one was stirring up significant unease. “I have to be.”

  Leaping from a plane without a parachute might prove easier than what I was going to have to do.

  Thunderbird pumped his wings faster, gaining speed. Griffons could be incredibly swift if they wanted to be. Beneath us, miles of ground elapsed at amazing speed.

  Thunderbird’s path had us pass in front of the formation. Clouds, I learned, were deceptive. They gave the appearance of being close even when they weren’t. As he angled back to approach from the southwest, we were dwarfed by the storm.