Shattered Circle

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Johnny and Mountain lugged the broken tabletop into the garage, then out the man-door, and leaned it against the back of the garage. It was still very dark and cold outside. The sun wouldn’t rise until about seven twenty. “What witches are coming?” Johnny asked as he and Mountain returned to the kitchen.

“I’m not sure,” Demeter said. She was standing at the sink watching Red, who sat unmoving as she had been for hours. “I called the High Priestess. I told her to bring at least two witches with her. She will choose wisely.”

He grabbed the broom and dustpan and began sweeping up the splinters and wood debris. “What exactly will you do?”

“You ever hear the old witch saying, ‘To Know, To Do, and To Be Silent’?”

“Nope,” he said.

“It’s a good policy.”

Johnny kept sweeping. He glanced up when she didn’t elaborate. “That ‘be silent’ part means you’re not going to tell me.”

“Nope,” she mimicked him.

He pulled the dustpan off the broom and handed it to Mountain, then switched and gave the big man the broom. Johnny knew he could crouch to hold the dustpan more easily than either of the two people with him.

When that chore was done, Johnny dumped the pan into the garbage and Mountain started sweeping the area near the door. Johnny joined him, watching him push the fragments and pieces into a pile. When they were done, there were footsteps on the front porch followed by a brisk knock on the door.

“Demeter,” Johnny called as he carried both the broom and dustpan to the kitchen. “They’re here.”

She passed him in the hall as Mountain answered the door. Johnny dumped the dustpan a second time, then returned to the doorway so he could see what was going on without going too far from Red.

Though Demeter’s back was turned to him, he could immediately feel tension radiating off her.

Mountain had plodded into the living room to be out of the way, but the women weren’t chattering happy greetings. It could have been the early hour or the situation with Red sobering the moment, but that wouldn’t explain the silent hostility at the other end of the hall.

He recognized the pretty witch in front as Hunter Hopewell, the new High Priestess of the Cleveland Covenstead. He knew her because Lycanthropia had played at the Hallowe’en Witches’ Ball, her first coven event with her new title. She’d flirted heavily with him at the gig before she’d realized he was with Persephone.

Beside her was a witch with long, straight white hair. Vilna-Daluca—an Elder witch who was far from being a cookie-cutter copy of Oz’s Glinda the Good Witch of the South. He’d last seen her when she crossed paths with him and Red at the police station in Valley City. The agents from SSTIX had taken them there to question them about events on the shores of Lake Erie. Though Vilna had gotten Red out of there pronto, she hadn’t exactly done so out of friendship. According to what Red had told him, Vilna blamed her for another witch’s death. The dead witch—Xerxadrea—was Vilna’s cousin or something. And she had left him sitting in the police station.

Last was a witch who wore her white hair in a bun atop her head. This one, however, didn’t have a title. She was Lydia, the witch who’d sold this farmhouse to Red a few years back. He remembered her from when the witches put wards up around the property. She and Demeter had some kind of unsavory history.

That explained the rigidity in Demeter’s shoulders.

“Ladies . . . ” he said, gaining the attention of all of them.

“Hey, I know you,” Hunter said. “One day you’re in a rock band . . . the next you’re the Domn Lup.” Her smile was friendly—but not more than that.

“Yeah.” He would have preferred she not bring that up, but since she had, and since his status should be respected by these witches, he did not hesitate. “You’re all here to help Red, right?” He looked from Demeter to Lydia and back.

“Of course.” Hunter nodded. No one else spoke.

He crossed his arms and let each of these women see his defensive concern. “Then, let’s get some things straight. According to Red, her last encounter with Vilna didn’t exactly reek of friendship.” He looked Vilna-Daluca squarely in the eye. “I want her safe, so I’m not sure I want you involved.”

Vilna started forward. “Hear me, Wolf King—”

Either the belligerence in her tone or Johnny’s statement must’ve triggered something in Demeter. She sidestepped into Vilna’s path, blocking her.

“The fact is that the Eldrenne is dead because of her! I have my opinions about Persephone and I’m entitled to them, but the High Priestess asked me to come. I am honor bound to do what I can to assist, an’ it harm none, and that’s exactly what I’ll do.”

The hall was silent for a moment, as Demeter shot a glance at Johnny that he took to mean she hadn’t known about those particular details he’d revealed. She faced Vilna and said, “Make oath to that.”

Vilna-Daluca tapped her lip, thinking for a moment. She stepped around Demeter and strode to the kitchen, walking along the counter with her palm hovering above it. She stopped before a drawer, opened it, and removed a knife. After deftly slicing both of her index fingertips and rinsing the blade in the sink, she used the bleeding wounds to draw on her palms with the blood. She made an F shape, with the bars normally horizontal turned downward instead. She held them aloft for all to see.

“Ansuz grant power to my words! Vár, daughter of Asgard, handmaiden of Frigga, goddess of oaths, hear my vow this night! Erinyes, those who punish whosoever swears a false oath, hear my vow this night! Before these mighty witnesses, I say this: I have come to assist and aid Persephone Alcmedi in this predicament. All my actions, all my words, all my thoughts will be focused on that deed until I leave this house. May the Erinyes exact their wrath upon me if I break this oath.” Vilna lowered her arms. “Satisfied?”

“Quite,” Demeter said.

“And secondly,” Johnny cut in before anyone else could speak, “are you”—he pointed at Lydia—“and Demeter going to be able to keep this friendly?”

The two old women eyeballed each other. Neither spoke.

Hunter put her index finger in the air. “From here on out, I vow that if I ever make requests of witches to assist in a situation, I will not base them merely on rank”—she glared at Vilna—“and proximity.” She glared at Lydia. “I will, however, ask if there are any conflicts of interest I should know about.”

Johnny nodded approval of that vow. “Demeter?”

“It’s my granddaughter in need. Of course I’ll keep it friendly.”

“Lydia?” Hunter asked.

“I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t intend to help Persephone.”

“Good enough for me,” Johnny said. “Now, come this way. She’s back here.”

As they moved from the hall, Lydia caught sight of the damage. Hunter must have been blocking her view of it before. “What on earth happened to this floor? And the stair railing?”

Everyone stopped.

Demeter turned. “I’ll explain later. We’ve already spent enough time talking. Persephone needs our help.” She started for the kitchen again.

Johnny stepped out of their way to give them room in the kitchen. Demeter explained that she believed Persephone had been stuck in a meditation—for several hours.

While she spoke, Hunter and Vilna listened and observed Red’s position. Lydia, however, strolled around the kitchen with her thin arms crossed, noting the damage to the floor, the walls, the phone. She looked irritated.

“What do you have in mind?” Hunter asked.

“Sorcery,” Demeter said.

“Unwise,” Lydia countered.

Demeter shot her a nasty look but before anyone could rebuff Lydia’s comment, Vilna-Daluca cut in. “What would you suggest, Demeter?”

“If you three can triangulate a ley line flow between you, then you can create a secondary barrier, and I can walk through her meditation barrier.”

“Very unwise,” Lydia said.

Demeter spun on the old woman. “If you don’t want to do anything but cast your negativity around, you can cart your ass back home and I’ll put the man inside the circle.” She gestured at Johnny.

Lydia looked him up and down. “So it’s safe to say you don’t have a problem with wærewolves anymore?”

“Lydia,” Vilna warned.

Lydia ignored her. “Or is he acceptable because he’s your granddaughter’s man? Or because he’s not bothered by our magic? Maybe it’s because he’s especially powerful, being the Domn Lup and all.”

Demeter’s face was vibrantly red as she stepped closer to Lydia. Johnny had seen her worked up before, but not like this. Hunter looked from the older women to Johnny and her expression was clearly asking: Now what?

He shrugged. He hadn’t known Demeter ever had a problem with wærewolves; she’d always been good to him.

“Ladies.” Vilna put a hand on each of their shoulders. “Leave the past in the past because presently, we have to save Persephone.” She squeezed Lydia’s shoulder. “Are you capable of utilizing sorcery?”

“I can,” she answered defensively.

“Are you willing to use it?”

Lydia hesitated. “Yes.”

“Do I need to request an oath of you to keep you focused on the task at hand?”

Lydia pouted. “No.”

“Then we proceed with Demeter’s plan.” Vilna removed her hands from the other woman’s shoulders and nodded at Demeter. “Go on.”

Demeter stepped away from the Elder and stood before Persephone. For a long minute the room was silent.

“Demeter?” Hunter finally dared.

“She’s beginning to fade.”

“What?” Johnny asked, pushing closer.

“There are circles forming under her eyes. They weren’t there when I arrived.”

He crouched to inspect. She was right. “What does this mean?” he asked, voice tight.

“Time is not on our side or hers,” Vilna-Daluca said.

“We cannot risk severing the connection that guides her return,” Demeter said.

Concern had gripped Johnny’s gut, but this was getting worse by the minute. “Her return? She’s meditating . . . right?”

Demeter faced him. “It’s a meditation, but it’s also part astral travel.”

Remembering when he and Red had used Great El’s slate, and the meditation-like journey she had guided him through, Johnny wondered if they were different. He’d felt like he’d traveled to the center of his soul, not to some outward place.

“Astral travel. That’s projecting your spirit outward, like an out-of-body experience, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I’m confused. I thought meditation was inward,” he said.

She smiled at him. “Meditation often involves self-examination in the serenity you find inside your own soul. But the soul isn’t like the physical body, it is mobile in ways that do not involve the gravitational pull of this planet.”

He squinted at her. “Still confused.”

“There’s no up and down in the soul. There’s no left or right. No forward and backward. There is only the motion of the will. She doesn’t project out from her body. She projects out from her soul, into dimensions that do not exist in the reality we know.”

“Seriously?” Vilna-Daluca asked.

Demeter turned back to Seph. “She could do it since she was little. She creates a place and goes there. Totem animals have guided her through many lessons.”

“How little?” Vilna asked, incredulous.

“Seven or eight.”

“You mean she’s viator?”

The accent Vilna placed on her last word made Johnny certain it was foreign. Italian or Latin if he had to guess.

Demeter said, “Virago.” After a pause she turned to Vilna and added, “She’s not an average witch. She is the Lustrata.”

“Someone is spoiling for a fight,” Lydia muttered.

“No,” Demeter said, not taking her eyes from the Elder. “I know she is, and I know that she wouldn’t simply get lost or stuck in a meditation. Something is keeping her there, keeping her spirit away from her body.”

“Do you know anything about her current totem? That could be helpful,” Hunter said.

Demeter shrugged and shook her head no. They all turned to Johnny.

He copied Demeter’s reaction. “She never talked specifics about her meditations. Would her totem not let her leave?”

“No, no.” Hunter clarified, “If she is being kept in a meditation against her will, it wouldn’t be her totem’s doing. But if we knew the name we could attempt to contact it to learn what was going on. Without a name to call to her exact totem we are not going to find it.”

“Good point. If I can touch her forehead,” Demeter said, “I can find her totem’s name.”

“Okay,” Hunter said. “So we are going to triangulate a circle of ley line energy around you and Persephone, then you break her circle and we contain it while you learn the totem’s name, and then meditate and contact it for advice. When you come out of your meditation, you’ll know what to do. Is that the plan?”

“Sounds good to me,” Demeter said.

“We might have to hold the ley energy a long time,” Lydia said.

“Are you able?” Vilna asked.

To Johnny’s eyes, Lydia looked worried, but she nodded. He wasn’t comfortable with the notion that, ultimately, he was entrusting Red’s safety to the frail-looking old woman’s ability to hold a ley line.