Shattered Circle

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

What are you doing here?” Johnny asked Jacques Lippencot Plympton.

In the meager light from a slightly opened curtain, the diviza’s wrinkles deepened as he squinted. “Because I’ve heard me a rumor.”

“What rumor?”

“That our dear Aurelia has joined the ranks of the dead.”

Johnny didn’t answer. He didn’t even move.

Plympton sat forward and rubbed his hands together. “Betcha you’re a-wonderin’ who told me.”

The moment wore on in silence, then Plympton laughed.

“Well, c’mon in, m’boy. We have oodles to discuss . . . and besides, you’re a-lettin’ the draft in. I’m not fond of your northern November weather.”

Johnny reached for the light switch.

Plympton made a sound, one decidedly disapproving note, that stopped him. “Better to leave the lights off.”

“Why?”

“You’ll have been seen a-entering the hotel. If these lights come on, that’ll only confirm that you’ve a-come to her room while she’s out.”

Johnny let the door shut behind him but he stayed near it. “Who’s watching this room?” As he spoke he sensed around the room. No one else was here. His eyes had already adjusted to the darkness.

“Maybe several people.” Plympton shrugged. “Maybe no one.”

“Why would anyone watch her room?”

As the diviza sat back in his chair, he was again in the slightly brighter portion of the room. It made his hair seem like a ghostly halo about his head. “Some like to watch lovely women. Some keep an eye on their friends. Some monitor their enemies. Others enjoy a-studying the ways of shit-stirrers like her.”

Shifting his weight, Johnny repeated, “Shit-stirrer?”

“She has—had—a knack for trouble. A-finding it. A-making it. A-using it to her gain.”

“When I introduced you today I didn’t think you knew her.”

“I don’t—I mean, didn’t.” Before Johnny could ask he added, “I hear rumors.”

The gossip theme wasn’t to be missed. “What other hearsay has found its way to your ears?”

“Come on and sit down, John.” He gestured to one side, then the other. “Chair there. Couch there.”

One put Johnny’s back to the window. The other put him in line with other buildings beyond the slightly open curtain. Johnny’s most trusted pack mate, Kirk, was a former military sharpshooter. Johnny had learned a thing or three from him about what can and can’t be done with such rifles.

Johnny knew he should sack the room, get the locker key Aurelia had told him about, and leave, but Plympton’s presence here and his knowledge of her death was enough to make Johnny alter his plan. Though Demeter was on her way and he needed to attend to Red, he had to see what the old man might reveal.

Johnny wrapped his hand around the arm of the offered chair and dragged it to a more neutral position that suited him better. With his back to the wall and no structure to be seen through the gap in the window dressing, he sat.

“You’re a-going to do all right, John. That’s not flattery. I really believe that.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re cautious. You think about things. And it’s obvious you don’t really want it.” He cocked his head a little. “It’s the men who get all riled up and salivate ’cause they be a-wanting power and clout and influence . . . they’re the ones to watch with wary eyes. I have to wonder what it is that they’re a-wanting it for.”

“You and me both,” Johnny muttered. “You have quite a lot of authority. What’s in it for you?”

Plympton grinned and flicked the fingers of one hand as if he were dismissing Johnny. “I love me a big flea market, a peppy auction, or even a dingy garage sale. I love to haggle and negotiate. So much so that as a young man I broke into the business of mediation and arbitration. For countless legal situations, I was a neutral middleman a-helping both sides reach an agreement. Then folks found out I was a wærewolf and my phone stopped a-ringing. My business went bankrupt. Apparently, a man cannot be a wærewolf and be trusted to mediate fairly.”

There was a hint of old bitterness in his voice, but bitterness that had been dealt with.

“I’ve been a diviza for thirty years.” He sat forward again. “In that time, I’ve met thousands of wærewolves. Let’s just say that the best have tried to fool me, and failed. I can always tell what kind of person I’m a-dealing with.”

Johnny waited. “What do you want me to say?”

“Nothing. I can guess what the three of you are a-planning.”

Three. Plympton knows about me and Red and Menessos. He almost claimed they weren’t planning anything, but that would be a lie. Menessos was always planning something. Overwhelmed with his new roles as the Domn Lup and as a father, Johnny had lost sight of that.

He’d nearly killed Meroveus—a powerful magic-using vamp. He’d thought earlier that with his tattoos unlocked and his full power at his disposal he could defeat Menessos if pushed into a confrontation with him again. Now, he was even more confident of that. Now, he could even tempt an encounter with Menessos to directly ask what the vamp’s endgame was.

Besides, he thought, getting back on track with this moment, Plympton would not believe me if I denied that we had a plan. So, instead, he asked a question back. “Earlier, at the bridge, their lies enraged me . . . and you did something. What did you do?”

Stretching his feet out before him, Plympton spoke. “Long, long years ago, when there was nary a wrinkle on this old face, I lived in a cabin on the bayou. I ate what I could catch. Fish. Fowl. Squirrel. The occasional ’gator. When you grow up in the bayou, you learn the ways of the swamp. When I was attacked there, I avoided the first pounce. Something chased me, but I used the bog. Had ropes in some of the trees. I made it to one and climbed up, a-wrapping the rope around my arm so it couldn’t follow or pull it and bring the branch, and me, down. But it nipped my heel.” Plympton paused there for a breath. “I’d heard the stories. I knew what it meant to be bitten. I knew what would be a-happening next. I didn’t want it. So . . . I paid a visit to a vodoun priestess.”

His voice lowered slightly as he recounted the story. He’d shown her his wounds, and told her his fear. She had examined his injury with distaste and, he thought, disbelief. Then she wiped the stems of some dried blue flowers on his heel. His skin sizzled and burned like fire, leaving the edges blackened. He’d screamed and thrashed in pain, but he’d seen how her eyes widened, he’d seen her backpedal in fear. “What kind of damned flower is that?” he’d asked.

She whispered, “Wolfsbane.”

He had begged for her help. She told him to return the following night. Aware that she might try to kill him, he did. “Whether she helped me or whether she killed me, I wouldn’t harm or turn others,” he’d reasoned. She’d given him a drink and he hoped the poison didn’t hurt. But she’d only drugged him.

“The room spun around and everything blurred and stretched. But I didn’t black out. I felt it when I hit the floor. I felt the vibrations in the planking as she worked a-hammering spikes into the floor around me. She bound me to those spikes, spread-eagled. When she sat atop me, I knew something terrible was going to be a-happening, but I couldn’t do anything about it. Whatever she’d brewed into my drink left my mind a-working fine, but immobilized my body.”

“What did she do to you?”

Plympton said, “She had a coarse, ancient version of tattoo needles . . . she drew on my palms with boiling ink and molten silver. It burned in temperature, but the very substance left me feeling like I was being dipped in acid. There was some kind of magic in it; the stuff fused with my skin, into the very cells. Since I had not yet transformed, the beast within me wasn’t yet afflicted by the witches’ use of that power.” He showed Johnny the strange dark symbols in the center of each palm. “She told me to envision myself a-choking the beast, twisting its neck to breaking. Then she told me to see the beast dying and pushed a needle into my eye.” He tapped his blind eye. “I’ve been told that the heated drop cooled under the flesh of my eye and it’s lodged in something called the ‘aqueous humor.’ ”

“It didn’t keep you from becoming a wærewolf.”

“No. Since I’d not yet a-had my first change, I revert to this after each full moon. My body has adjusted to the silver in my flesh. But my beast hasn’t. I’ve had my transformation and kenneling time videotaped. Comparing that with footage of other wæres, the silver clearly makes my transformation a bitch. Every second that I’m a wolf appears to be painful as hell. My pack’s caregivers tranquilize me each full moon.”

“You knew that touching my arm would have an effect.”

Plympton half smiled. “The old Rege could make his hands shift when he was quite angry.”

Johnny nodded. He’d seen it up close, but wasn’t going to bring that up.

“From time to time, he found reason to be quite angry with me,” the old Cajun added, staring into his palms. “That was a-how I learned that with a touch of my silvered palm I can turn away or reverse a transformation . . . at least momentarily.” He breathed deep. “Your changing would not have helped us right then.”

“I know.”

“I’ll tell you something else, sire . . . a secret.” He tapped his silvered eye and whispered, “I can see the beasts. Even now, I see yours.”

Johnny waited, sure the man would go on.

“While I am in human form, I can tell a submissive wolf from a dominant one. They usually match their human counterpart in temperament . . . but not always. Yours is doubtless a king among wolves. To master him, I daresay, is impossible. But to contain him, to coexist with him harmoniously . . . that will be the trick that tries you. Not ruling. You’re a man of character, you have ethics and a-see things in black and white. You’ll learn to navigate the gray area in between.” He snorted a small laugh. “But you already know all that, don’t you?”

“What do you want, Jacques?”

“I feel very fortunate to have been able to come here and meet you in person, to handle this building situation with you.” Plympton stood. He paced to the left, put his hands in his pockets and jingled change, then paced to the right. “There’s a reason you stepped up now and are accepting the position as Domn Lup. These are thorny times . . . with the demise of the Rege—and the dreadful method of it—the upper ranks are all a-dragging around their suspicions of you. There are rumors that you’re on the Lustrata’s right arm and that the vampire Menessos is on her left. The speculation and curiosity surrounding you has the court a-buzz like never before. When the news of Aurelia’s death reaches them, their doubts will go a-doubling.”

There was a long pause and Johnny asked his question again.

“Some fear you are a fraud, a creation of the witches’ fancy. But I have seen your beast. He’s not the product of sorcery.” He paused. “There are some who know what I can do. I’ll back you up, John. My pledge will be golden. They will assure others.”

A third time, Johnny asked, “But what do you want?”

Plympton pulled his hand from his pocket and held up a small item. It was the key to a paid locker. “I want you to tell me where the locker for this key is located.”