Arcane Circle

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I thanked Theo and hung up. Dumping the last of Nana’s undergarments into the chest of drawers, I announced that the bathtub was calling out for me to come and soak.

“Can I join you?” Johnny quipped.

Just then, Nana passed by the door carrying a glass of milk. She called out, “It isn’t big enough for two.” Then she added, “Besides, you two should save your naked leisure activities for when the rest of us are sound asleep.”

My heart leaped to my throat, but Johnny laughed out loud and took me in his arms. “Demeter’s awesome.”

“Yeah. That’s definitely the word I was going to use.”

Johnny followed me up the stairs pinching my bottom, and while I gathered my pajamas, he crawled into bed with a notebook open to a fresh page with the words “Lickety Split” scrawled across the top.

I shut the bathroom door, started the water, and sat on the edge of my tub. My head dropped forward and my fingers kneaded the tight muscles in my neck and shoulders.

My mother owns the building Arcanum works in.

Damn it.

Can’t I just be done with her?

I slid into the warm water, eager to soak as I’d claimed, but the bath was actually a cover for what I truly meant to do: meditate and talk to Amenemhab.

Relaxing, I entered the meditative state I call alpha and visualized the familiar scenery. Beside the willow tree, I waded out into the water, ankle deep, and cleansed my chakras. When that was complete, I sloshed to the shore and saw the gray and tan jackal trotting up. “What’s troubling you?”

There’s never a prelude here. “My mother.”

“We knew you weren’t done hating her.” He sat on his haunches. “And that we would be doing a lot of work on the ‘challenge to your heart’ before we were through.”

After telling Amenemhab of her showing up at my house and my reaction, I concluded that part of the story with, “I’m just done with her.”

“So you said nothing. You shut the door in her face. That’s not a resolution, Persephone.”

“What’s to resolve? I’m done.”

He afforded me his most sage, “that’s what you think” expression. “Then why, pray tell, are you here?”

I explained about Johnny’s tattoos. “The best lead we have takes us to a tattoo artist in a building owned by my mother. I’m going to have to confront her to find out about this Arcanum person and see if she thinks he’d be willing to undo what he did to Johnny, or if we’re going to have to force him.” I sighed. “After what I did, she may be disinclined to help.”

“Hard to be done with someone if you need their help.”

“Exactly. So, here I am.”

“You don’t want her to shut the door in your face, hmmm?”

“Look, she nearly got me killed, dumped me, left me for Nana to raise. My reaction is justified. Hers never was.”

“Perhaps.” He lay down, crossed his front paws. “This situation with your mother will never be over until you either truly let it go, or you accept it and go forward.”

“Then I accept that she hates me and I hate her and we will leave it at that and go forward.”

“If she hates you, why did she seek you out?”

“I don’t know,” I said, throwing my arms up in the air. “All I know is she didn’t look for me until it was made public that I’ve become court witch in a vampire’s haven. If that’s her motive, it speaks for itself. I just want it to be over, done, and behind me.”

“And it was … until she made her move. But now, to help Johnny, you have to make a move.”

“I hate chess analogies.” I couldn’t play chess. Checkers was as ambitious as I got with a checkerboard. “I guess you’re going to tell me that chess players gauge all their options and their opponent’s possible reactions to each before they decide on their move?”

“I apparently don’t have to.”

“I wanted my move to be a nullifying nonmove so I could remain in the ‘nothing is changing’ frame of mind,” I muttered.

“But that’s not an option if you have to confront her about the people in her building in order to accomplish Johnny’s goals.” He sat up. “You’re going to have to make a move toward acceptance.”

“Acceptance isn’t a light switch I can just flip on and off.”

“But it is time to shine some light on this. It’s been in the dark too long.”

I snorted. Just like a totem to twist my metaphors against me. “Okay, for argument’s sake, say I do move toward acceptance. That will alter that core fundamental issue that honed me into who I am. And going a step further, if I reexamine this and it’s ‘resolved,’ it may change things.”

“May? Something this big will change things. It will change you.” He lifted a paw and gestured at me. “Whether that change is for better or worse, depends on you.”

I was being asked to surrender the sorrow and pain that molded me, that had forged me to be a survivor, a fighter. “I can’t forgive her.”

“Can’t or won’t?” The jackal’s voice was as firm and demanding as I’d ever heard it.

“The choice she made hurt me so much, so very much. She didn’t care about anyone but herself.”

“What if she cares now? What if she has learned?”

I snorted.

“Then that means you ‘won’t’ forgive her. And that is less noble than ‘can’t’ forgive her.” He stood. “You have a few hours of drive time to figure what you will do.” He padded away.

I wasn’t done. “Oh, hell, Amenemhab! I expected her to do what she was supposed to do as my mother. She failed. And now you’re acting like I’m supposed to let her get away with how she treated me. I’m the Lustrata! I’m supposed to be an instrument of justice.” My voice broke. “What she did was not just.”

Over his shoulder Amenemhab met my eyes, my anger and grief, briefly. When he spoke, his words were soft and aimed at the ground. “Sometimes justice cannot be served. Sometimes only forgiveness will do.”

I left the visualization and woke to pruny fingers and lukewarm bathwater.

Quickly washing up and shampooing, I worked up a little preamble to tell Johnny about my mother’s visit, and about her owning the building where Arcane Ink Emporium was housed.

When I entered the bedroom, however, I found him sound asleep. The notepad teetered on the edge of the bed. I placed it on the nightstand; half a page was scrawled with lyrics. I stepped on the pen that had fallen from his grip.

I sighed, turned out the light, and crawled in beside him.

When my satellite phone rang at six-thirty, I grabbed it and shot out of bed. It was Menessos.

“Did I wake you?”

“Of course,” I whispered back. I grabbed my robe and headed across the hall and into the bathroom so I wouldn’t disturb Johnny.

“I apologize.”

“Don’t. My alarm would go off shortly anyway.”

“I was calling to invite you to the haven tonight.”

“I can’t.”

“A date?”

“We might be out of town.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” I started to tell him that we were going to Pittsburgh, but I remembered that he had said Heldridge was seen in Pittsburgh. “Any news on Heldridge?”

“Baltimore. We have some surprises waiting for him.”

So long as he keeps putting distance between us, I’m glad. “That’s good.”

“Any chance you’ll reconsider your getaway? I’m having a party tonight, officially accepting his people into my fold.”

“All of them?”

“Those who preferred to be somewhere else have relocated.” He sighed. “I am very selective about who I want around me. We have interviewed them all now. I admit, some were forcibly relocated, but in truth, few required such action. I’m keeping almost half of them.” He covered the phone partially and spoke to someone else about a caterer for the Beholders and Offerlings. I heard, “Eva, dear, I am certain your chocolates must be divine, but keep them out of my haven.” His tone was firm. “I feed upon these people. I find the caffeine in it … distasteful.” He stopped there, but this time when he continued his voice was deep and angry. “I don’t care what Heldridge thought. Get out.” To me he said, “Pardon my rudeness.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I will fret if you’re not here. Taking them on was your idea; the building of your barns was a large part of their test.”

It was unlikely we would get back from Pittsburgh in time to make his soiree in Cleveland, but then again we might not even find Eris and be turning around and coming right back. “Maybe.”

“Maybe? What if I promise to provide you with a sensible outfit for the evening?”

Every event he hosted had a dress code. “There’s a lot going on today. I’ll let you know, okay? That’s the best I can do.”

Johnny came out of the bedroom, stretching and yawning.

“An Erus Veneficus cannot deny her master,” Menessos said.

Johnny looked askance at me. With his wære hearing he’d probably caught that last bit.

“But the Regional Lord can say she has been set on an important task.” I both rebutted Menessos’s point and answered Johnny’s look with that statement. “Especially if his real master tells him he should.” Seeing Johnny had grabbed a towel from the linen closet, I twirled the shower handle and the water rained out.

“We will begin at eight o’clock. If your important task is completed in time.”

“Thank you.”

“No, thank you. I can hear the shower running and now I am imagining you all wet and lathering yourself.” His laugh was the last thing I heard before he ended the call. I didn’t get to tell him it was actually Johnny’s shower running.

By dawn, a little after seven, I had packed an overnight bag for our trip to Pittsburgh. I could hope we didn’t have to stay more than the day, but realistically, Johnny had a lot of tattoos. If we did find this Arcanum and he cooperated, I had no idea whether one spell would suffice to unlock them all at once or not. Regardless, we had to be back by noon tomorrow. That was when Beverley’s second party would start.

After silently counting out ten thousand dollars from the duffel bag I kept under my bed, I stuffed the hundred Benjamins into an envelope. The urge to write on it “Money to Bribe Arcanum” tempted me for a moment, but I resisted and shoved it into the overnight bag.

A door slammed downstairs. Nana’s up.

I’m telling her. Right now.

Amenemhab had told me a truth I didn’t want to accept. Forgiveness just wasn’t the emotion my heart was anxious to grant my mother, and I was certain Nana would agree with me. So I took my bag downstairs prepared to fess up about what I’d been keeping from her. It would mean taking some of her wrath, but I’d end up with her support. I hoped.

She’d made coffee. Bless her.

“Is Beverley up?” she asked.

“Her alarm won’t go off for another ten minutes or so. Ready to move into the new room?”

“Smells like paint.”

“Open the windows today.”

“I opened them when I came downstairs. That’s why the door’s shut.”

That explains the grouchy slam she’d given it. “You want some air freshener?”

She clamped her jaw and glared out the window, fingers tapping impatiently on the tabletop. I poured two cups of coffee and joined her at the dinette. “I have a confession to make,” I said.

“I’m no priest.”

She was in a serious snit. Maybe telling her was a bad idea. “What’s wrong?”

“Last night, Beverley brought me my money back.” Nana had given the girl four ten-dollar bills as her present.

“Did she say why?”

“She said she’d rather have a different present.”

That sounded rude, and not at all like Beverley. “What did she say she wanted?”

“She wanted me to buy myself those Nicorette patches they advertise on TV. She asked me to quit smoking.”

Now the reason for her snit and for her asking whether Beverley was up yet became clear. She hadn’t yet had a cigarette. “Good for you.”

Her attention snapped to me. “What?”

“You’re obviously trying.”

She snorted and glared at something in the field.

“Though it’s a double-edged sword, I suppose.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re the toughest lady I know. If you set your mind to something you’ll do it or die.”

“I passed on that quality, you know.”

I smiled. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

She lifted her coffee cup and drank.

“But I also know that someone telling you that you can’t do something is as good as daring you to do it. And you never back down from a dare.”

She put the cup down. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that if you want to quit smoking, you’ll only have to defeat the tough lady who raised me. Are you tough enough to defeat yourself?”

She snorted again. “We’ll see. Where’s your favorite mug?” She pointed at the plain black mug I was using. “I was going to set it out for you.”

“Broke it.”

She tsk-tsked. “Well, what’s your confession, my child?”

Her sarcasm is not something I’ll ever get accustomed to. “This past Tuesday, while you were at the store. I had a visitor.”

“Who?”

I hesitated so I could take a deep breath and steel my nerves for this.

“Wasn’t that old boyfriend of yours, was it?”

“No.”

“Not the boy you went to the prom with?”

“No.”

As Nana stared down into the dark fluid, she wrapped both hands around the base of her mug, clinging to it like a life raft. I was willing to bet she’d initially try to pacify her nicotine addiction with additional caffeine.

“Why are you bringing them up?”

“Because there’s a sense of hurt about you this morning. Old hurt.”

I pushed my coffee cup away and sat back, crossed my arms. “My mother stopped by.”

Nana didn’t move—even blink—for a long moment.

“Apparently, I made the news in Pittsburgh.”

“That’s where she is?”

I nodded. It was my turn to stare angrily out the window. I saw Mountain in the distance, shutting the door to his mobile home and heading over to the phoenix coop. A moment later, the door opened again and Zhan stepped out, hurrying this way.

The possibilities of what that meant derailed my train of thought.

But Nana promptly set the locomotive back on the tracks. “What did she think of you being on the news?”

“Dunno,” I said flatly. “I shut the door in her face.”

Nana considered it, then shook her head. “That’s mean.”

“Mean? After what she—”

“Not that. I know you don’t want to have anything to do with her.” She paused. “I don’t know that I’d have opened the door in the first place.”

“Then what’s mean about it?”

“You telling me about it this morning. Now I want a cigarette more than ever.”

After breakfast when Beverley went upstairs to brush her teeth, I told Johnny about my mother’s visit, and announced to him, Nana, and Zhan that Theo had discovered Eris owned the building the tattoo parlor was in. Zhan finally understood who the upsetting mystery guest had been. Johnny and Nana now saw that this little road trip was going to be harder for me than originally thought.

While Johnny took Beverley to the bus stop in Nana’s car, Zhan, who was going to Pittsburgh with us, packed an overnight bag. I’d packed a second bag with magical supplies and Zhan helped load the Audi’s trunk. Once the bags were in place, I laid my broom atop them and shut the trunk.

I hadn’t had the nerve to ask Zhan about seeing her come out of Mountain’s mobile home earlier. I hadn’t even let on that I was aware that she’d snuck into the house. She could just claim she’d stopped in while making her rounds—and it might have been true, for all I knew. The sleeping bag on the couch was rumpled. All my suspicions were based on seeing how the Beholder had reacted to this particular Offerling.

We waited in the house. Johnny was late.

When he arrived, his face was flushed and his jaw set. “I think I fucked up.”

“Why?”

“One of the moms came over to the car and set into a cop-worthy interrogation of me. She wanted to know who I was, how I was related to Demeter, and whether I was going to be at the party tomorrow.”

“What did you tell her?” I asked.

“I gave her the short answers, and added that there were circumstances to the whole thing the news hadn’t covered and if she had any common sense she’d understand they only report stuff that will entice people like her to tune in—truth notwithstanding.” He shook his head. “She didn’t like that. She said, ‘I don’t want my daughter around your kind,’ and headed back to her car. So I got out and followed her.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did. I told her the party wasn’t for me or you or even her, but for Beverley—a sweet kid we all care deeply about, a kid who deserves to have a fun birthday party. I said, ‘Beverley hasn’t done anything wrong, lady. She’s respectful, does her chores, and gets outstanding grades. If you prefer your daughter not be friends with a kid like that, then you’re clearly one of those people with a cranial-rectal inversion and we don’t want your kind at our party.”

Stunned, somewhat horrified, and yet wanting to laugh, I covered my mouth until I figured out which reaction to give full rein.

“Did I just totally screw up her party?”

Before anyone could answer, the sound of firm knocking on my front door interrupted.

On my way to the door, I recognized the plain, government-tagged Impala in my driveway. Special Agent Brent and his pal Napier stood on my porch again. This time they were smiling.

“Now what?” I asked through the screen door.

“I wasn’t certain we’d find you here,” Damian Brent said.

“Did you think I’d skip town?” I detected Zhan moving into the living room. Johnny stood behind me.

Damian Brent shrugged. “Your friends keep ending up in the city morgue.”

My jaw clamped shut. Maxine.

“Five patrons of the Lodi Grocery witnessed the murder of Maxine Simmons in the parking lot. According to their statements, someone matching your description was hit in the head with a baseball bat and stuffed into the back of a white van, which then sped away. Seems you were kidnapped, Ms. Alcmedi, but here you are safe and sound at home.” He gave the impression he was quite concerned.

With witnesses and Maxine being dead, it wasn’t as if I could deny it.

“How is your head?” he asked.

“My head is fine. Now.”

“It was you the murderers stuffed into the van?”

“Yes. I escaped.” It would only cause trouble for Johnny and the pack if I admitted I knew who kidnapped me; it would mean I knew who had murdered Maxine and that was a can of worms I didn’t want to open. “Maxine’s death is tragic.”

“Ah, yes, but the death of the one person who could provide you an alibi for the time when Xerxadrea Veilleux was murdered must have you quite worried.”

“I actually hadn’t considered that.” It was worrisome now because he mentioned it.

“When I was informed the deceased was Maxine Simmons, I remembered her name from my notes. We’re here as a courtesy. Since you’re here and safe, however, I have to ask, did you get a good look at the men who took you and murdered your friend?”

“No. As we walked around the van, they shot her and I thought she’d tripped. I bent to help her up. Just as I saw the bullet wound, I was hit. I blacked out.”

“But you escaped. Did you see anyone then?”

“No.”

“Where were you being held?”

Johnny put his arm around me protectively. “Back off, man. This has been traumatic.”

“Since Ms. Simmons was an Offerling to the Regional Vampire Lord, this murder investigation has fallen to me. I’d like Ms. Alcmedi to come down to the station and give a formal statement. If you’d like to initiate the paperwork for kidnapping charges, we can tend to that as well.”

“I can do that on Monday,” I said bleakly. “This weekend is pretty tight.”

“She’s been through so much we are going to visit some family,” Johnny added. “She can give you a statement Monday.” I was impressed he’d twisted the current events so fluidly.

“It doesn’t work that way, Mr. Newman,” Clive Napier said. “And we have some questions for you as well.”

“Me? About what?”

“Let’s talk at the station, okay?”

Johnny and I exchanged glances. In the living room, Zhan waved to get our attention. She nodded; she was already on her cell phone. Nana shuffled down the hall bringing my jacket. “I’ll make some calls,” she whispered.

They were calling in the cavalry.