Shattered Circle c-6 Read online

  “The witch is not in the haven.”

  Mero rose to his feet. “Where is she?”

  Goliath wasn’t about to tell him they didn’t know, not yet. So he kept his expression one of poise and authority. “Please sit down, Meroveus.”

  A moment passed, then the advisor sank stiffly onto the chair again. The questions he could have asked and the accusations he could have made all went unspoken, but his rigid mannerisms screamed of anger.

  Goliath considered how he might stall for time, hoping that Menessos would bring the witch back. If he was able to achieve such a sham, he would avoid being seen as incapable by the Excelsior’s advisor. If caught, however, he would be doubly discredited. He haggled with himself, only to decide that—being a new Haven Master—in this instance guile would not serve him as well as directness and honesty.

  “I am not certain where she is at this time, but I am prepared to ask those involved and aware of her departure today to meet us here immediately if you are interested in being present for the inquiry as to why my commands were not followed—”

  The pager on the desk phone buzzed. Goliath pressed it. “Yes?”

  “The missing shabbubitum just came through the front entrance,” the voice on the other end of the line said quickly.

  Both Goliath and Mero were instantly on their feet. They headed for the door.

  “I must create a binding for her,” Mero said. “Please do not allow her to leave.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Goliath snapped.

  “I was not rebuking you.” Mero stopped with his palms out toward Goliath. “Both females, I’m sure, are equally difficult to contain.”

  Goliath acquiesced with a single nod. “How much time do you need?”

  “This will have to be powerful . . . as much as you can give me.”

  • • •

  From the darkness inside the haven, a voice that Liyliy recognized as Goliath’s addressed her. “You’ve returned.”

  It was a simple statement. The slimmest possible acknowledgment. It asked nothing, yet it was full of inquiry. “Was I not supposed to?” She laughed. “Did the witch tell you I was dead?”

  “No.”

  Which question was he answering? she wondered snidely and started forward, not bothering to disguise her limp. “I must see my sisters.”

  She searched the darkness, and forced her one remaining eye to make the owlish transformation. Like this, the depth perception remained inferior, but the larger pupil could open wide and allow her to function better in the dark. They were clustered in small groups, fifteen vampires in all, scattered across the entry.

  For an instant, she felt sick. She felt like crumbling, succumbing to the fear that had been eating at her ever since she glimpsed her new, hideous face. Attack. Give them cause to slaughter me and end this disgusting existence.

  But that notion passed.

  She wanted to see her sisters and repair this damage. She wanted to extract a gruesome revenge upon the witch. She wanted to see all that Menessos had built and cherished burnt to ash.

  “I am injured.” She clung to a thread of hope that perhaps, with her sisters, the three of them together could reverse some of the damage.

  Still Goliath did not answer. By his thoughtful pose it seemed he was considering her request, but the fact that he did not answer gnawed at her impatience.

  “I have come back. My actions must speak for themselves. Let me see my sisters, that we might try to heal my disfigurement.” She held her breath. It was a risk coming here, but she was betting that they had not anticipated the action, and therefore had not created an alternate means of restraining her. She needed to not linger and give them time to do so. She needed to get to her sisters, heal herself, deliver the phones in secret, and get back out.

  She ground her teeth slightly, then she added, “Please. I beg you. I’ve lost an eye, my arm will not completely change, my leg is twisted—”

  “Very well,” Goliath said. “I will allow you to see your sisters and endeavor a healing. Then we have to discuss the terms of your remaining here. Am I clear?”

  “Yes.” She did not believe he would let her remain here unbound, but she followed him to the elevator as quickly as she was able. She didn’t know if he avoided the stairs out of consideration for her condition, but she was grateful whatever his motive. Upon reaching the lower floor, she was escorted along the hall to a conference room with a large cherry table and dark brown décor. It was mostly leather and wood, with a few accents of deep hunter green.

  She recognized the room. When she had clasped Giovanni’s wrists and licked away the blood from his hands, she had read him. Not a full mind scan like she did with the aid of her sisters, but a gentle search into the recent past. After she’d departed the haven in pursuit of the witch, he’d interrogated her sisters here.

  Moments later, her sisters scurried in and rushed toward her. “I knew you would not forsake us!” Talto cried even as her eyes widened upon seeing her sister’s condition. But it did not stop her or Ailo. Both threw their arms about Liyliy.

  Liyliy also took in their appearances with some grief. Both of them wore iron about their necks like slaves. Giovanni was right; her sisters had been bound.

  Together they cooed and cried, shushed and sniffled as their reunion carried on for a long minute. They clasped hands and Ailo and Talto pushed images into her mind. They told her that in her absence Menessos had bound them to him and had the iron put round their throats. If they tried to transform, it would kill them. They were so angry, so resentful of him . . . but she had returned. She would save them, they were certain. All would be well.

  In return, Liyliy showed them the pocket at her hip, the phones inside. She told them what they were for. “Heal me and take them,” she whispered.

  Embracing tightly, they each drew upon the magic that allowed them to clothe themselves with quicksilver and silk. Fabric flowed around them, between them, entwining and twirling like lovers wrapped in sheets. Liyliy’s sisters began chanting and the fabric liquefied, spilling at impossible angles like gentle silver waterfalls onto Liyliy’s skin.

  All the magical fabric they possessed had flooded around her, leaving them both naked. It flowed outward to create a circle of liquid that encompassed her, then it filled in, growing deeper until it was ten inches of fluid, hovering unbelievably in the air. Her arms lifted and her hair fanned out as if she were floating in an upright pool of mercury.

  Her sisters’ chant became a song.

  As the song continued, the liquid hardened like a gigantic mirror, sealing Liyliy in place. For a moment she seemed dead, frozen, caught in this strange magic. Then her sisters slammed their fists against the glass, pushing through, slicing their own flesh on the shards, and spilling their blood into the spell they were crafting.

  The mirror cracked and shattered in slow motion, each broken piece cascading into sparkling dust, stretching into threads, and weaving into silken bandages that wound Liyliy like a mummy. When she was enveloped, her sisters stood and lowered her vertical body until it lay supine in midair. They each held one of her cloth-covered hands and clasped their free hands together. Still singing, harmonizing in a crescendo rising to angelic soprano notes, they forced the magic to permeate Liyliy. Her body began to glow under the wrapping, shining brighter and brighter until the room was filled with silvery illumination so blinding it seemed the moon had been stolen from the sky and placed in the hands of the shabbubitum.

  All at once, that dazzling brilliance winked out.

  The sisters’ melody dropped into something less divine, something made of deep tones and fast staccato notes. Liyliy’s body began to spin between them, the fabric unwinding and splitting in two, part sliding around Talto, part around Ailo.

  When Liyliy was unwrapped, she stood.

  The almost sentient material had reclothed each of them, with the phones hidden within the folds of their new silken gowns. With tears shimmering in her eyes, Talto held up her
hand. The sleeve of her dress formed a hydrous mirror along her palm so Liyliy could view herself.

  Her skin was no longer blistered, the globules on her chin were gone, and her face had resumed a human shape. Her eye had re-formed beneath a scarred lid. Lashes bristled this way and that in a drooping line across it.

  Liyliy swallowed down bile.

  Talto’s tears fell.

  Lifting her arm so she could view it, Liyliy learned it was no longer mottled with feathers, and her fingers, though still twisted, were the proper length. Her leg felt regenerated. She clasped her youngest sister into her arms. “Do not cry, Talto. It is better than it was.”

  “Do not leave us here,” Talto whispered.

  Liyliy pulled Ailo into their hug and by touch told them she had to do just that.

  You have a binding upon you. If I free you, Menessos will follow.

  Talto began sobbing.

  Liyliy shushed her. Do not fear, little one. Listen to me. I must leave before they put a binding upon me and doom us all.

  Ailo told her Menessos was not there. I saw him leave in a hurry earlier. To my knowledge he has not returned.

  Liyliy asked why he had left. Ailo told her she had not been able to find out.

  Still, Mero may be working on a means to bind me this very second, so I dare not linger. I will remain in contact via the phones, which you must keep secret. I will get you out, but I need you to be my eyes and ears inside the haven for now. We must tear them apart, weaken them as they have sought to weaken us. You understand this, yes?

  “Yes,” Talto whispered.

  “Ailo?”

  “Yes. And I have an idea.”

  Liyliy and Talto let her grasp their hands. She shut her eyes, and power flowed around her. Liyliy felt the energy reaching out, striving to touch something that was both deep within and far away . . . the binding. Liyliy listened inwardly and Ailo’s silent plea echoed into her mind.

  She was searching for Menessos, reaching back along the bond imposed on her, stretching. She sought him out, eager to report to Liyliy what he was doing.

  Ailo found him . . . but he was not alone.

  He was performing magic—a heady, dynamic magic—and it felt familiar, like an ancient memory.

  Recognition burst into their minds as one.

  By the gods, he’s doing it again, Liyliy thought. We must use this.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  It was barely six thirty and the day’s light had almost entirely faded as I slid my satellite phone into my pocket. After I’d finished my call to Menessos, Johnny’s text arrived—I was grateful for the distraction. He’d simply said he was on his way. Then my Great Dane, Ares, burst from the field and raced toward me in the grove. He was still pushing through the branches when Mountain emerged from the same spot the dog had. “Did you find her?” he asked.

  “No,” Zhan answered for me. “She’s gone into the ley.”

  Mountain scratched his head. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  Everyone faced me, waiting for the answer. Looking at her empty little shoes made my legs weak and rubbery, but I was trying to reason this all through. “Bad,” I said. “I think.”

  “Explain.”

  “Witches use sorcery to tap into a line. It’s dangerous and painful . . . and, truly, we have to be very careful to not get sucked in.”

  “So she was sucked in,” Celia said through her tears.

  There were horror stories about such things. Witches of “ye olde times” who disappeared were often thought to have been dabbling in sorcery and fallen into the ley. Especially if items left on their altars could support such theories. But I had always regarded those tales as exaggerations meant to steer curious young witches back to their craft studies, much like tales of the bogeyman warned children not to venture from their beds at night.

  “Explain how you use this board to tap the ley line,” Zhan said.

  “I’m not sure. When I tap it, I do it directly, without an ancillary device.”

  “Is the board significant, then?” She began pacing. “Is there a clue in it? Did that make it easier or harder to get sucked in? And does it hold an option for us—or rather, you—to bring her back out through it?”

  My mouth opened but nothing came out.

  All these rapid-fire questions bordered on an understandable panic, feeding my fears, but I couldn’t think clearly like this. I had to push the emotion away and concentrate.

  My eyes locked on Great El’s slate. The symbols painted on it were eerily bright in the darkness as I considered it.

  Tapping a ley line directly was certainly more dangerous, and potent, than using a device to filter it. Direct access left nothing to keep a witch from falling into the ley except the barriers inherent in a physical being touching a nonphysical world. I thought of it as an oil-and-water kind of thing. But . . . the inherent risk lay in the fact that the ley’s intense energy has the potential to transform tangible matter into intangible.

  “The slate does not actually create the boundary between life as we know it and the other side,” I said. “But it should have acted like an additional buffer.”

  “What do you mean by the other side?” Zhan asked.

  “Think of a spirit board like those huge gates in King Kong. It stands between you and a world of wonderful and strange things. The fencing is so high and thick that you can’t see over it or through it. There are other gateways, but this particular door has a neon sign above it that tells you this door is a unique spot, one where notes can be slipped back and forth underneath. You go there sometimes to ask those inside what it is like there.”

  With tears brimming her eyes, Celia asked, “Do you mean heaven . . . an afterlife? Is she dead?”

  The only answer I had was lame. “I honestly don’t know.”

  Silence fell around us. Another thought occurred to me. I’d focused on the slate because it was right there in front of me and so terribly out of place, but there was something else here that was magical. The grove was all around me.

  “Wait.” Mountain joined the conversation. “You said that the Ouija-board thingy should have been an extra buffer. When you say ‘should have been’ are you implying that it wasn’t an extra buffer, or that it acted as more of a secret side door?”

  I fixed him with my gaze. The big, gentle man was smarter than most people gave him credit for. “Beverley couldn’t accidentally open a line and fall in, not with a spirit board, not even here in the grove.”

  “Not even if she’s a witch?” Mountain asked.

  “No. First of all,” I said, “lines do not randomly open when someone gets near them like the sliding doors at the supermarket. There is a process to opening them, you have to make your own keys. Witches do that, but it takes time and skill.”

  Zhan crossed her arms. “You said not accidentally.”

  I nodded. “Something took her in.” I didn’t want to think that meant she was gone. I couldn’t believe that. I wouldn’t. “Whatever navigated her into the ley must have had a reason, and for that, it will be shielding her.”

  I said it like a command and I saw hope flicker in Celia’s eyes.

  My satellite phone rang, the number blocked. “Hello?”

  A smooth female voice said, “The precious thing you are seeking will be found beside the ley line at Mill Stream Run Reservation, but only if you hurry, witch.” The caller hung up.

  I held the phone before me, wide-eyed. Ley line?

  Zhan asked, “What is it?”

  My broom would have been ideal, but I hadn’t seen it since Liyliy and I fought at Cedar Point. Zhan’s lead foot was the next best option. I grabbed her arm. “We gotta go.”

  Without enlightening the others, I hurried toward the trailer where Zhan had parked her Audi. Once inside the vehicle, I told her we needed to get to the reservation and asked if she knew the way. “Absolutely,” was her reply.

  She had us on I-71 in minutes, and, as expected, she cast caution to the w
ind and ignored the speed limit. “Why Mill Stream Run?”

  I told her what the caller had said.

  “This might be a setup,” she countered, slowing down.

  “How? She dialed my phone and called me ‘witch.’ She knew I was looking for something precious, and knew it had to do with the ley line.”

  “Exactly. Who was the caller? What if the kid was played by someone?”

  I thought about my wards not being active. I hadn’t been able to check them directly to see if I’d let the power run down or if something else had brought them down. “Either way, I have to find out.”

  “But you don’t have to run in there blind.”

  “That’s why you’re with me.”

  “You called Menessos, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was he doing about it?”

  “He said he’d tap into the line near the haven and see what he could find out. He’d let me know if he found something.”

  “But it wasn’t him that called?”

  “No, it was a woman.”

  Zhan took the Royalton Road exit and turned right. “All right. Where’s this line of yours?”

  I took a moment to reach out and feel for the line. It ran north-northeast to south-southwest. I pointed to the south.

  Zhan turned right onto Valley Parkway. Shortly within the park, the road curved to the east and a paved trail for walking or biking ran along the left side of the road. Ahead was a bridge to our right; the sign said it was Royalview Lane. Zhan slowed down. “Stay on Valley or turn?”

  “Stay on Valley.”

  “How far?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure. Go slow.”

  The trees were all bare. That dim inkling of civil twilight had expired and the full dark of night had settled in like a thick blanket. It was hard to see, and I scanned all around while keeping my focus on the ley line. I noticed the stream to the left beyond the trail.

  It occurred to me that the headlights would give us away. I saw a spot to the right where a car could pull off the road. I said, “Stop here. Kill the lights.”