Arcane Circle

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Menessos’s haven was in the lowest levels of the old May Company building on Euclid Avenue, facing Public Square. The eight-story building was beautiful, with white glazed terra cotta tiles framing the nine bays of Chicago-style windows and all of it topped with a scrolled pediment and a Renaissance Revival clock.

Well, it’s beautiful above street level, anyway.

The ground level had a flat industrial-type awning that jutted out. While it provided cover from the elements, it seemed to me that the plainness below that awning detracted from the rest of the building. The restaurant next door to the haven had a strange portico embellished with an old car, neon lights, and tall arborvitae in containers. It didn’t fit with the majesty of the rest of the building.

But then Menessos’s frontage didn’t add any class either, being comprised of plywood walls and a primer gray door. Or it had been on my last trip to the haven. As Zhan rolled to a stop to let us out, I saw a newly refurbished exterior, dazzlingly lit.

The vampire haven’s entry now matched the white glazed tiles and architectural trimmings. There were also sections that encroached just slightly on the sidewalk, like half an octagon, with four six-inch-wide panels of glass separated by narrow strips of white tile.

Two sets of doors were lit from the front and behind; the white of the frosted glass seemed to glow, and was interrupted only with the universal vampire symbol—six gleaming white teeth on a field of black inside a red circle. Of course, the outermost teeth were razory fangs. The word HAVEN was written below in bold lettering.

A foot-wide plastic banner was stretched across the left set of doors. It read OPENING SOON.

Johnny held the door for me. Inside, the cherrywood ticket booth gleamed under soft lighting, and I saw that the entire lobby was finished. A metal security fence separated this from the open space beyond, which was now blocked by plastic sheeting.

“Guess he’s refinishing in there, too.”

“Didn’t he tell you?” Johnny asked. “He’s putting in a nightclub. That’s what those two angled things out front are for.”

So Menessos and Johnny were getting chummy? Not necessarily a bad thing. “Those bay windows indicate this is a nightclub?”

He gave a throaty laugh. “They will when there are scantily clad young women dancing in them.”

I groaned and headed for the stairs, but I saw the elevators were now unbarred. I punched the button. The doors opened and Johnny and I stepped in. He waved up at the corner. Seeing the question on my face, he said, “Always cameras in elevators.”

It must have been true. When the doors opened on the lower level, Risqué was waiting for us in all of her red-eyed, blonde-ringleted glory. She bowed her head toward me and murmured, “Erus Veneficus.” She followed it with a nod at Johnny. “Gorgeous.” She twisted on her clear plastic heel and barked, “This way,” as she strutted off.

We followed without a word. Tonight Risqué wore aqua blue ruffled satin short-shorts. I hoped there was a top of some sort under those mounds of curls, but considering Risqué’s proclivity for a topless tease look, it was not likely.

She escorted us to the same rooms where she had fixed my hair for the Erus Veneficus induction ceremony. “Damn it,” she murmured. “They didn’t bring the beauty case over yet. I’ll be right back.”

In the back room I found zippered bags holding clothes for us. A piece of cardstock with a hole punched in the corner had been fastened to the zipper of each. My name was written in calligraphy on one. Johnny’s was on the other.

Though Menessos had promised me a sensible selection, I wasn’t convinced we’d have the same definition of how that word related to apparel. “I’m afraid to open this.”

Johnny stepped up beside me. “On three, we unzip and see what he expects us to wear.”

“Deal. But first, about that … telepathy … in the car.” I was still astounded by that. “It must be linked to the in signum amoris thing, but why didn’t it happen before?”

“It did happen before. For me, anyway. A day or so after you were inducted as the EV, when you asked me if I wanted the burden of knowing another big secret, Menessos’s secret, I could hear your voice in my head. You admitted you hadn’t told me everything yet. And you asked me if I wanted the responsibility of keeping it.”

I remembered that, now that he reminded me. I had been thinking those words to him, but I had no clue he actually heard me. Then, “Yeah. I kind of heard you weighing the pros and cons of it.” And I’d heard him at the beginning of our probing session with Great El’s slate.

“We were touching then, and touching in the car. Maybe physical contact makes it happen.”

He, of course, made physical contact sound dirty. “But we’ve touched a lot since the in signum amoris thing.”

“Okay, maybe we have to be touching and be in the right frame of serious-mindedness. Focused. Something. We should experiment. Maybe even when we’re naked and—”

“I agree. But not here and now.”

The moment wore on silently for a heartbeat, then Johnny said, “On three.”

He counted. We unzipped as one.

I was judging the contents of Johnny’s garment bag, not my own. He had been given a suit. Not a department store one, either. It was absolutely not anything Johnny would wear, but it was black, with a black silk shirt and tie. Even as I studied it I knew it was something that would clothe the Domn Lup. “Wow.”

“Touché.” He gestured toward my own garment bag.

A black silk evening gown with a sequined top cascaded from the hanger like glittering spilled ink. I held it up. It was floor length, with a high slit up the side. The straps crossed behind the neck, and the bodice had a plunging neckline, but all in all, it had good coverage. Then I turned it around and realized the back was virtually nonexistent.

Johnny gave a howl of approval.

“Keep it up,” I said.

“Not a problem if you’re wearing that.”

I shot back, “I hope you know how to tape a girl into her evening gown, because I’m going to need tape if I’m going to stay in this modestly.”

He laughed at me. “I’ve never taped a girl in a dress before, but it sounds like it includes man-handling. Let’s get started.” He grinned wider and added, “And since we have to get undressed, we could experiment …”

Before I could answer, however, Risqué returned.

“My second-in-command is off on a task tonight, so it pleases me to have the newly revealed Domn Lup honor me by sitting at my right.”

With a spotlight on him, Johnny descended the steps, crossed the theater’s house, and strolled up the ramp to make a show of clasping forearms with Menessos before taking a position in front of Goliath’s usual seat. When the polite applause died, Menessos said, “And now my Erus Veneficus.”

As I made my crossing, I mentally repeated how grateful I was for the practical two-inch heels on the sequined pumps Menessos had provided.

Risqué had not only done my hair and applied my makeup, she’d presented me with a scarlet garter. Though the hosiery that had also been provided wasn’t the thigh-high kind that needed a garter, I wore the red satin-covered elastic as the symbol of my rank in the vampire’s court. The bright color and the high slit skirt of this dress meant the garter was apparent to everyone.

Bestowed with a gorgeous gown and sensible shoes, my hair and makeup done, it was one of those moments when a woman should feel confident and beautiful, and I did. As I neared Menessos and Johnny, however, and took in the spot-lit view of them, both in stunning suits, standing side-by-side as if there had never existed any animosity between them, their attractive faces attuned to me, their eyes seeing only me, it hit me that I truly was the luckiest woman in the world. Not only because they were such handsome devils. Not only because I knew how desirable each was without the suits. But because I had nearly lost them, and I still had both.

My hand slipped into Menessos’s hand, and he guided me to my place, presenting me to the applauding crowd.

The house area was filled to capacity, with all of Menessos’s people and those he was taking on. I saw familiar faces in the crowd, specifically, Zhan, Seven, and Mark. There were others I recognized but didn’t have names for. Only Mountain was missing, and he had an excuse—tending the animals and especially Thunderbird.

Menessos kissed the back of my hand and bid Johnny and me to take our seats.

“Now. Eva de Monique. Join us on the stage, and sit on the dais steps to my left, that all may know you have rank here, second to my own Erus Veneficus.”

A tall slender woman in a dove gray one-shouldered sheathe dress stood up from a table in the house. She moved with a liquid grace uncommon for a mortal. Her ebony tresses were arranged in short angled lines that I guessed must be all the rage in Paris. Her skin was like smooth-chiseled white marble. Her gray-blue eyes seemed to capture not only the color but the threat of stormy seas. It was a face that would have been beautiful no matter what, with or without makeup, no matter the hairstyle. Not everyone could wear glossy black lipstick and make it look good, but Eva could.

Yeah. She was someone I could legitimately envy.

Menessos gestured to the steps before me. She sat, posture remaining as rigid as if iron bars lined her spine.

“Allow me to welcome all of you who are new to our haven. Let this celebration symbolize the first embrace of the family you are joining. Once your hungers are sated, you will be called up, table by table, and I will bestow your new marks individually, according to your previous rank. Henceforth, you will be mine, and this will be your haven. But first … feast!”

Menessos clapped his hands and caterers entered, taking lidded plates and placing them before those, like Zhan, seated at tables draped in black cloths. Those seated at the tables swathed in scarlet received tall stemmed glasses of dark fluid.

Ornate tray tables were placed before Johnny, Eva, and me. We were then each served by Risqué. Menessos was given a tall flute like the other vampires.

The meal was delicious, but being on stage made eating awkward. The fact that no one engaged in conversation made it more so. My appetite simply didn’t exist.

Our tray tables were carried off and as the servers moved into the house to clear the tables, Risqué crossed the stage with a silver-lidded dish. She lifted the shiny top and offered me chocolate-dipped strawberries. Eva twisted around and whispered, “I made those myself.”

Her French accent was thick. Menessos had told me she had a chocolate shop in Terminal Tower. The huge strawberries had to be luscious and juicy, and the dark chocolate was striped with white. I reached to take one.

Menessos laid his hand on my arm. “No,” he said gently. However, he graced Eva with an angry sneer. “I said no chocolates here.”

She smiled broadly. Eating her meal had not smudged her lipstick. I wondered what brand would stay that glossy even through a meal. “I mean only to share the best of me with my superiors, my lord.”

“We discussed this already. I said no. I will not have the chocolate tainting my sweet.”

“I’ve never even heard of such a thing affecting the taste of blood.”

“My refined palate is no doubt more sensitive than your former host’s.”

I’d stayed out of their conversation, but it was clear Menessos meant to enforce his rule. Fine by me. My hand dropped back into my lap.

Eva pouted up at Menessos. “I am trying to make a good impression with her.”

“Your defiance of me has ruined that possibility.”

At his tone, Risqué eased a step back, then another. Moving the way a person backing away from a wild bear would, she put distance between her and Menessos.

“Let me reclaim it,” Eva pleaded. “Let her see how delightful my chocolates are.”

Menessos sighed, relenting. He nodded. I reached and Risqué moved in again so I could take one. As I opened my mouth, however, the vampire said, “Wait.”

“What?” I asked.

“Give it to Eva.”

This was getting weird and all eyes in the silent house were trained on us as if we were the after-dinner show. Maybe we were, but I didn’t have a script, so I did as told and held out the confection.

Eva stood and accepted it. “Shall I feed her, my lord? Shall I tease her with it for your pleasure?” The twisted corner of her mouth said she would enjoy it, too.

“Eat it,” Menessos said.

Her crooked smile broke. “I am allergic to straw-berries.”

“Eat it,” he said again.

“B-but …”

“An allergic reaction is a small price to pay for your disobedience.” He leaned forward. “Eat. It.”

Eva threw the strawberry to the ground and stomped it with her foot. “I will not!”

Menessos flew from his throne amid gasps from the audience. In a flash he had her by the nape of the neck. He held her head back, throat exposed. She clawed at him, trying to maintain her balance on needle-thin stilettos. Her hands found purchase in the layers of his suit.

“You defy me a second time,” he snarled, “before all these people!”

She swallowed, her throat working hard at that angle.

“You are not allergic.”

“I—I am.”

He threw her to the floor and her cheek smacked the flooring with a thud. Most of the audience flinched. As did I.

My thoughts ran to the Rege, and how he treated women. I’d been ready to come to Cammi’s aid when Gregor hit her, and I had reason to hate Cammi. While Eva wasn’t on my list of favorite people either, I couldn’t sit here and watch Menessos beat a woman. And yet my feet did not move. My outraged tongue did not cry out.

Menessos was not a male chauvinist like the leadership of the Romanian wæres so blatantly was. He was a master and he was within his rights to punish someone who, as he had made clear, defied him twice. And I knew in my heart that he would have reacted similarly, had the offender been male or female. The Rege could not say the same.

Menessos motioned Risqué nearer. By the time she had moved close, Eva had recovered enough to rise to her knees.

His fist closed in her hair and he jerked her head back again, forcing her to look up at him. From my position, slightly higher atop the dais, I saw that whatever brand of lipstick she wore would, after brute contact with a floor, smudge. Ugly darkness smeared onto her cheek, marring her exquisite beauty like dirt on an angel’s face.

“Open your mouth,” he said.

She clamped her mouth shut and no longer looked dazed.

Menessos gripped her jaw so tightly that his fingers pressed her cheeks in. She tried to keep her mouth closed, but couldn’t. A single sob wracked her lean frame.

Releasing his grip on her hair, Menessos reached across his chest to select a beautiful strawberry from the tray and held it over Eva’s mouth.

Her arms flailed. Her nails clawed at his wrist. She wrenched herself away, crying out, “It’s poison!”

My stomach flipped and flopped.

I’d almost eaten it!

The master vampire’s demeanor had remained calm throughout the gruesome display, but just then as he set the strawberry back on the tray, he was positively icy. “Are you allergic?” he asked, as he reclaimed his grip on her hair.

“No. No, master.”

“You lied to me,” he spat the words on her. “You tried to murder my Erus Veneficus!”

“It is the way of my former master’s court.”

“Defiance was the way of Heldridge?”

“No. Survival of the fittest, of the most cunning.”

“You were told it is not the way of this court!”

“Mercy, master!”

She had nowhere to go. No one to protect her. And she knew it.

With his one fist still wrapped in her hair, Menessos’s other hand shot down with enough force that as he grabbed her by the lowest part of her rib cage, his fingers stabbed through her dress and into her flesh. She screamed as he jerked her up, lifting her as if she weighed no more than a rag doll, and brought her bared throat to his mouth.

Her voice filled the renovated theater … until his fangs pierced her. Until his jaws clamped onto her throat and he shoved her away from him even as he tore a wide gash in her flesh. Blood squirted and gushed.

His bloody fingers slid free from her rib cage as Eva’s fingers clutched at her neck. Menessos snatched a strawberry from the tray and shoved it deftly between Eva’s fingers and into her opened throat, then took his hand from her hair. She fell back onto the stage floor, thrashing and kicking for long seconds.

Above us all, the scream echoed, and finally, like its maker, died.

“Destroy those,” Menessos commanded, gesturing at the tray Risqué held.

She hurried in her ruffled short-shorts to obey.

I just witnessed a murder. My heart thudded in my chest, my ears buzzed, and I felt cold to my core. My spine was wrapped in a thick weaving of anxiety, fear, and repulsion. But underneath my sternum was heat. Not lust heat. This was like the sharpest edge of a blade heated in forge-fire. It sliced through me and its blazing edge severed me from the naïveté that once would have denied that such things happened even in a vampire’s haven. But I could not deny it now. In the wake of that severing was a residue of cinnamon.

“This is my house,” Menessos bellowed to the stunned audience. “My rewards for loyalty are grand, but I tolerate no threats. I permit no defiance! I allow no harm to be doled out among you, one to the other. I will give you death if you defy me! My punishment is swift. Do you hear me, members of this haven?”

“Aye,” answered those who were already claimed as his.

“Do you hear me, initiates?”

“Aye.”

“Then come forth and receive your master’s embrace, accept my mark, and become mine.”