Vicious Circle c-1 Read online

  Amenemhab laughed.

  “Granted, this trait has gotten me into trouble most of my life. I know this, and still I can’t help but act when I know I can make a difference. That being the case, I should’ve known to offer Vivian my condolences on her situation and get the hell out of her office. But I couldn’t. I’d felt the nudge to act on Beverley’s behalf already, and…”

  “Go on.”

  “She’s such a great kid. It’s so awful that this has happened, and more so because it happened to her.” It was easier to keep from crying in meditation. “The picture of her from the front page keeps floating up in my mind. The anguish in her expression, the fear and loss, moved me. I have no idea how to get in touch with her, yet I want to call her.”

  “What would you say?”

  I swore quietly. “I knew you were going to ask me that.”

  He laughed, ears perking. “And still you came.” He cocked his head. “So. What would you say?”

  I took a deep breath and imagined it. “‘Uh. Hi, Beverley. It’s me, Seph. I miss watching movies and eating popcorn with you. I heard about your mom.’ No. Maybe, ‘I saw the newspaper’ would be better. No, maybe she’d feel all embarrassed and put a wall up before I started—”

  Amenemhab cleared his throat. It was a signal. I put myself back on track.

  “‘I know how you feel, Beverley. Really, I do. I was…’” I stopped. I felt tears pushing at the corners of my eyes and fought them by grinding my teeth until I’d mastered myself.

  “Say it.”

  “‘I was left by my mama too. No, no, my mama wasn’t murdered. She left. Literally. But I wish she’d died. It would have been easier to take her absence if I hadn’t known she’d chosen to leave me behind.’” The bitterness of my voice startled me. I stopped talking until I felt control return. I thought I was over all this. It made me angry to realize I wasn’t. “‘I’m left hating her. At least you can always remember loving your mom.’”

  Amenemhab did not respond at first, then asked, “What does that tell you?”

  “It tells me that I’m drawn to Beverley’s pain and loss because I’ve shared it. I think I can offer her some guidance through this awful time. I want to offer it.”

  “And?”

  I knew he wouldn’t let me go without admitting it, so I stopped fighting it and blurted, “And I’m not done hating my mother for leaving me.” Damn it.

  “Good,” the jackal said. “Now that we have an understanding about the burden on your heart, tell me about this other weight that’s heavy on your conscience.”

  The light on the river glowed; the sun was setting here because I wanted to go, to avoid this conversation. My gut was twisting with guilt and realizations I didn’t want. Realizations I had to face, regardless. “I agreed to take Vivian’s money and dole out the justice that other humans won’t.”

  Silence. Then, “Your hands are shaking.”

  “I think my victim may be a Council member. A High Elder or maybe someone protected by one.”

  Amenemhab cocked his head. “Victim? Don’t you mean ‘target’ or ‘mark’?”

  Wasn’t he going to lecture me about the Rede? “Whatever. I may be writing my own death warrant.”

  “Your fear, at least, is justified. Your pain, however, confuses me. It is not all pain for Lorrie’s death and Beverley’s loss. You also feel pain for yourself.”

  I stood, wiped my damp palms on my jeans, and wrapped my arms around myself. “Nana has a saying: ‘Once is a mistake, but twice is a habit.’ I’ve never had much use for most of her sayings, but this one…this one hurts.”

  “Why?”

  I stared across the field, not wanting to face him as I said, “I’m mentally trying to justify this, but I know that worming my way around the Rede is wrong.”

  “Persephone.”

  His tone drew my attention to him.

  “You are overthinking. If all this is true, if he has killed, then he has already broken the Rede.”

  “Me breaking it back in retaliation isn’t right.”

  “And what if you are not acting out of vengeance, as the word ‘retaliate’ suggests, but as an instrument of justice?”

  I squinted. “Mind-set does not change the action.”

  “It doesn’t?” he asked.

  “No matter how much I validate this situation, no matter how much this guy deserves it, I’ve allowed myself to become an assassin. Even before the deed is done, the intent to do it brands me.” After a pause, my hands fell limp and empty at my sides. “That’s not who I ever wanted to be.”

  The jackal rose too. “The flower sprouts up from the ground when the sun and the rain give the seeds cause to grow. In the right environment, the stem will grow strong and produce a bud that will bloom when the time is right. A rose is a rose, Persephone, and a lily is a lily. They do not choose what color they are or what their petals will look like; they are what their roots have made them. And they can be nothing else.”

  A chill crawled up my spine.

  The jackal turned and loped away.

  Chapter 5

  When I got home, Nana’s old Buick sat in front of the garage instead of in the turnaround, thus blocking me from parking my car inside. She’d gone somewhere, probably to get cigarettes, and not considered where she was parking when she returned. If I’d given her a door remote, she’d likely have parked in my garage. But parking was the least of my worries. The thought of that old woman on the road, endangering other unsuspecting people, terrified me.

  I pulled in behind the Buick and got out. I pushed the remote button, the door opened, and I walked in through the garage. When I stepped into the kitchen, I heard a high-pitched whining.

  I dropped everything on the counter and ran to the living room.

  Nana was fine. In fact, she was sitting on the brown-slipcovered couch, grinning. Beside her on my already abused sofa was a big, dark-furred puppy. He had a deep wrinkle above his eyes, as if he had too much skin. It made him look worried. I didn’t blame him; my anger was mounting.

  Cautious of my tone, I asked, “What’s this?”

  “This is a doggie. Named him Poopsie,” she said proudly.

  “Poopsie?” I hoped it wasn’t going to turn out that he was named for an overactive attribute. I stepped over to see him better but only got halfway before he leapt from the couch and came at me, barking and wagging his tail so hard his whole butt wiggled. “He’s doing the Twist. You should’ve named him Chubby Checker.” His legs were extremely long. Tentatively, I reached out to pat him. He turned and shot back to Nana.

  “It’s a wonder people ever sell anything through the classifieds,” she said. “You know? Only a few people really know how to advertise. But your owners knew what to say, didn’t they, Poopsie?” The old smoker’s rendition of the silly voice people use when they talk to babies or pets made me want to vomit. She scratched the pup’s head. “No other ad claimed their animals were super, but your owner did. How could they not say that about you?”

  Suddenly suspicious, I asked, “What did they say about him?”

  “The ad said he was a super Dane. And well, I figured he was perfect for me, ’cause I never met a Danish I didn’t like.” She laughed hard. It sounded like she was going to hack up a lung.

  I didn’t even break a smile. “Can I see the ad?”

  Nana pulled off her pink slipper, exposing her misshapen hammertoe. Seeing it always made me wince. That had to hurt, didn’t it? How did she balance properly with that? She held the slipper out to the pup and enticed him into snapping at it. He lunged and sank his teeth into it. “Paper’s on the table. I circled it.” I left the two of them playing tug-of-war.

  Making a mental note never to leave Nana alone with the classifieds again, I picked up the paper and read the ad circled in blue ink. The only thing encouraging about it was the word paper-trained. The “free to good home” part had some merit, but not much. I knew there was no such thing as a “free” puppy. I wen
t back to the living room, pointing at the ad. “This…this…is a Great Dane puppy?”

  “I told you that, Seph.”

  My voice tightened. “Nana.”

  The puppy yanked the slipper from Nana’s grip, and she laughed and slapped her knee. “My stars! What a strong little doggie!”

  “Nana, your ‘little doggie’ is going to turn into a two-hundred-pound behemoth in the next six months. He’ll be this tall at the shoulder.” I indicated with my hand. “He’ll eat like a teenage boy.” I thought of my high school prom date, Gregory Newberry. We had gone to a fast-food restaurant before the dance, and I watched him scarf down a pair of triple-patty burgers and a large order of fries. Shocked me at the time, but I guessed it prepared me for seeing the way wærewolves ate. And that reminded me of what had happened to the tables I’d left holding sweets too close to their kennels. “Not to mention what’s going to happen to my furniture!” I could imagine the gnaw marks on my coffee table from a teething puppy.

  “I knew it.” Nana stood and pointed at me. “I knew you’d throw a fit! He’s my doggie. If you can have your unnatural wærewolf friends over all the time, then you can deal with one natural canine. He’ll protect me from your vicious, so-called ‘friends.’”

  I threw my arms up, tossing the paper dramatically. “Nana. My friends wouldn’t hurt you, and they’re here overnight only once a month! Lord and Lady, they don’t even come in the house! They go straight to the storm cellar.” I paused to get a breath and redirect my thoughts away from the defensive. “You’re bringing an animal into my home and you didn’t so much as ask me if you could!”

  Voice soft with remorse, she said, “I thought it was my home now too.”

  My every memory of her had a tough-as-nails overtone to it; she simply couldn’t inspire me to pity her by offering me a pout.

  Sensing the defeat, she resumed arguing. “He’ll keep me company when you’re out gallivanting with your so-called friends. Isn’t that right—oh!” She began to laugh.

  I followed her gaze to discover Poopsie pissing on the newspaper where it had landed, in the corner on top of my picture album.

  I screamed. He dropped his leg but pissed a stream across the wood floor as he squatted and whined his way back to Nana.

  * * *

  An hour later, with Nana sulking in her room and the dog in one of the cages in the storm cellar, I’d dried the pictures in danger and removed all the unharmed pages. I’d get another binder; this one had to go. After scrubbing the corner of the living room twice, I promptly went for a drive. She had been here less than twenty-four hours and had already managed to drive me from my own home in search of serenity.

  There were a few scenic fields I knew of. A bridge over a fast stream. A woodland grove—the leaves were crimson and burnt gold and palest yellow, their branches full of the season’s glorious color. A few more weeks, and those same branches would be bare. By the time I’d seen all that, I’d made it nearly back into the civilized world. I saw a gas station and stopped.

  I pulled the Waterhouse day planner from my purse and flipped to the back, where I kept phone numbers. I knew I should join the twenty-first century and get a cell phone, but I was resisting. I knew if I got one, it’d be a ball and chain—and a bill—I’d never be rid of. Besides, where I lived, it wouldn’t get much of a signal.

  A Post-it note was stuck to the page. It read: School Brunch and had this Saturday’s date under it. Had it been six months already? In high school, Olivia, Betsy, Nancy, and I had been the “not-so-in” crowd. Afterward, Nancy had stayed in Halesville—which was weird, because she was the most intellectual one. The rest of us had parted for separate colleges and separate lives. We all ended up within a few hours’ drive of one another so, twice a year, we got together in the central location of Columbus for a brunch or dinner. We chatted on the phone from time to time when there was a problem among us that I, of course, was needed to fix, but lately I couldn’t help feeling as if the separate directions we’d all grown in had left us on different life maps. Having nothing in common anymore made for tedious gatherings. Keeping in touch had become a vain attempt to hold on to the past. There was very little in my past I thought was worth that much effort. Hell, it was too much trouble just keeping the present in line.

  I moved the Post-it and searched the list for the name “Johnny.” A last name wasn’t necessary to clarify this guy. There was only one Johnny. I kept the numbers of all the wærewolves who kenneled at my place for full moons, though I’d never yet needed to announce a change in plans.

  I put quarters into the pay phone and dialed Johnny’s number. It rang twice.

  “’Lo?”

  “Johnny, it’s Persephone Alcmedi. I—”

  “Hey, Red.”

  That threw me. My hair’s dark, dark brown. I tried going blond in my late teens. A week later, all the prissy cheerleaders at school started saying things like, “Your Greek roots are showing.” I dyed it back to brown; blond hadn’t been me anyway. I was a darkling. “Red?” I asked.

  “I’ve decided I’m going to call you Red from now on.”

  “All right. I’ll bite—no pun intended. Why?”

  He snickered in a very masculine way and lowered his voice. “’Cause I like the idea of the big bad wolf visiting you and Grandma.”

  I laughed so hard, people pumping gas turned to stare at me. Johnny’s sigh made me imagine the satisfied smile he surely wore. He loved attention.

  “I knew you’d call me eventually,” he said.

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but this isn’t what you think it is.”

  “Damn.” He breathed the word more than said it.

  Quickly, I asked, “Busy tomorrow?”

  “Never too busy for you, Red.”

  “Stop it. And don’t read into the words.” On full moons, the wæres let themselves into my storm cellar and locked themselves into the cages they wanted with whomever they wanted to share them with—an important choice, since these caged animals passed the time by mating, and furious mating by the sounds of it. (Wæres differed from natural wolves in that they didn’t have to be in heat for such activity.) When I went to unlock the cages at dawn, Johnny was always alone. He teased me and howled at me—the pack clown, so to speak.

  “Aw, c’mon, Red. Go out with me just once. I won’t bite. I won’t even lick if you don’t want me to.”

  I grinned, but softly said, “No.”

  He sighed. “Hey…you know about Lorrie, right?” His voice had gone soft too, and serious.

  “Yeah,” I said. A heavy, sad silence filled the line between us. I wanted to say something else, but everything that came to mind was a statement of the obvious. And I couldn’t say, Don’t worry, I’m taking care of it. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “I hope they get the bastard.” Johnny knew better than most what a crock the justice system was to wæres. Maybe he didn’t know what to say either.

  “Me too.” I paused, then asked, “Um…Busy or not?”

  “I said I wasn’t.”

  “Perfect. Would you please go to Cleveland and pick up something for me in, uh, well…your stage clothes.” He fronted an awesome techno-metal-Goth band. My friend Celia was now married to Erik, who was the drummer.

  “In daylight hours?”

  “Mm-hmmm. At four o’clock.”

  “Awesome. I love scaring the white-collared types. What’m I picking up?”

  “Probably a briefcase or something like that.”

  He paused. “You don’t know?”

  “Long story.”

  “Sounds like perfect dinner conversation to me.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Johnny.”

  “Okay, okay. Where?”

  “From the manager of a coffee shop near the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On East Ninth.”

  “No way! The place they roast their own beans?”

  I had to smile. His enthusiasm never waned. I didn’t mean to be cruel, but if any man would make
a good wærewolf, as in cousin to man’s best friend, it was Johnny. He had the personality of a tail-wagging leg-humper that had just gotten its treat. “Yep.”

  “Cool. Wait—what’s in it for me?”

  Going with the thought I’d just had, I said, “Treats.”

  “Oooo baby.”

  “Not those kinds of treats, Johnny. I’m talking steaks.”

  “Don’t blame me for trying, do ya?”

  “Never.” I had to admit, his interest in me was flattering—and his voice seemed sexier to me on the phone than it ever had in person—but my personal rule was direct: don’t flirt with the wæres you kennel. Kind of like no office dating. Of course I’d only adopted that rule after he started flirting with me. But I couldn’t date him. He…he had these tattoos that were just…ominous.

  “So…” he drew it out. “Am I keeping this briefcase or whatever until the moonrise, or do I get to make a special trip to see you and Grandma?”

  In a mocking, childlike voice, I teased, “What big ideas you have.”

  He growled low. “I got other things bigger than my ideas, little girl.”

  My cheeks flushed red enough to suit the nickname. Johnny was different. The other wæres, in human form, were just people. Johnny had such presence!

  I’d always thought he just flat-out scared me, but talking to him now—more than we ever talked when he kenneled—I had to wonder. He was funny. He was witty. Was it different now because I needed him to do something for me? Was I that shallow?

  No, it had to be because this was the first time I was on the phone with him…hearing him without seeing him.

  I realized it was all about his appearance. That made me feel bad. I didn’t judge people on looks. Not usually, anyway. And though I’d not thought Johnny was a bad person based on his looks, I’d definitely judged him as “not boyfriend material” because of them.

  “I’ll be home; bring it to me there.” I’d have to test my theory and see if he still intimidated me.