Wicked Circle

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Delightfully sore as promised, I stood in the kitchen making breakfast. I wore Johnny’s shirt and my cotton undies; he wore only his jeans.

Just as my finger hit the button that set the coffeepot to brewing, Zhan walked into the kitchen with an envelope. My name was beautifully scripted on it. That meant this was from Menessos. “I better get some caffeine in me before I read that.” I set it aside and gathered some mugs from the cabinet.

Minutes later, as the bacon Johnny was in charge of was sizzling, I carried the envelope to the dinette table, sat on the bench, and opened it.

My Dearest Persephone,

Goliath has returned to the haven. You know where I am.

I have increased the number of guards around you and your home. By the time you read this another Offerling sentinel will have arrived along with six Beholders who will maintain your perimeter. If you have not already done so, you should fortify your magical protections from the ley line.

Even as you read this, I am negotiating for aid.

—M

That didn’t make sense because presently he was dead. I put it back into the envelope.

“Did the vamp impart any pearls of wisdom?” Johnny asked from the stove. He fed Ares a slice of bacon.

Appreciation of his physique delayed my answer. How can anyone eat bacon and still have defined muscles like that? “He’s sending another bodyguard and more perimeter guards. He has an idea for getting help, but he wasn’t clear about whose help.”

“Of course not.” He flipped over the slices in the pan. “When will the horde arrive?”

“They are already here,” Zhan answered for me. “The perimeter guards are set up and in position.”

I leaned over the table to peer out the window.

“They’re camouflaged,” she said, pouring a cup of coffee. “You won’t see them.”

“What about the other sentinel?”

“Waiting in the car out front.” She joined me at the table. “Ares wouldn’t be quiet about someone new in the house, and I didn’t want to wake you.”

I smiled. “Thank you.” Her consideration was remarkable. Well, to me it was, perhaps not so much to the sentinel stuck in the car. “Who did he send?”

“Ivanka Chernov.”

The plainness of her voice was atypical. “And?”

Zhan sipped her coffee. “And what?”

“What’s her story? Do you think she’s a good choice?”

“She came to this country as a Russian mail-order bride. Her husband had a heart attack and died a month after the wedding. Nine months later she signed on with Menessos. That was almost six months ago. I think. Since then, she’s been well trained and is very disciplined.”

“That’s a very tidy description.” I smirked. “Now say what you honestly mean.”

“She’s scary dangerous and overbearingly stern.”

“Stern?” I asked.

“She sees everything in terms of her rank, above this one, under that one, and is eager to climb up the status ladder. She’s smart, but her strict adherence to the rules and regulations keeps her from seeing the bigger picture. So, she’s unlikely to accommodate your ‘unusual’ requests unless you pull rank. And her English is pretty basic.”

“She’s been here over a year. Won’t speaking English help her make rank?” Johnny asked.

“Yes, but she’s not much of a conversationalist, so mastering the language hasn’t exactly been her priority.”

Johnny put down the spatula. “What has been?”

His authoritative tone stunned me. Zhan hadn’t missed it either. “When you see her, you’ll know.”

I could feel heaviness fill the room, and the weighted silence made it hard to breathe. “Does she like bacon?” I quipped. “This could be a good time to bring her in.”

Zhan opened her mouth and shut it again without answering, then left.

To avoid the pup going into a sniffing and snarling conniption, Johnny coaxed Ares into the garage with another slice of bacon. “I have to give Zhan credit,” he said, putting a plate with eggs and bacon in front of me. “She’s more than a pretty thug.”

“Minimum IQ for an Offerling is two standard deviations above average.”

“Intellect doesn’t always mean someone is perceptive. Or adaptable.”

I picked up my fork and teased, “Is the Domn Lup saying he trusts a certain Offerling?”

He brought his plate and sat across from me. “Do you remember the exchange she and Kirk had at your mother’s right before the pack had to leave because of the spell?”

“Yeah. Kirk charged her with your safety. And she accepted it.” It wasn’t quite that simple, but it was an adequate summation.

“Zhan hit it on the nose when she pegged this Russian chick as a by-the-book, rank-and-rule-abiding Offerling.”

“You make it sound like rule abiding is a bad thing.”

“It can be. It sounds like she’s a . . . a . . . drone, Red. That kind of sentinel will protect you and die for you, period. But a sentinel who can think independently, who can understand the master’s bigger goal and bend the rules to be a team player in support of that goal, that’s a rarer person, a rarer kind of loyalty.”

A bite was ready on the fork, but I didn’t eat it.

“You need to know who you’re dealing with and what you can expect of them. In no uncertain terms, Zhan just told you.” He shrugged. “If you expect rigid adherence to rules, you won’t make a fine-line request that bites you in the ass.”

We locked gazes for a moment, but when the front door opened, we both ate. Still, I watched Johnny. A few months ago, he would have been flirting shamelessly with me the whole time we were alone. Now, he was telling me how to lead people. I was proud of him, glad for his shared insight, but I was also sad for the loss of our carefree days.

A tall woman appeared in the doorway. She had short, spiky black hair and a beautiful oval face that didn’t have a brush of makeup on it. Because Zhan usually wore business casual, I had expected something similar of the new sentinel. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Ivanka wore a khaki green T-shirt and military fatigues. Add combat boots and a handgun on each hip, and the zero-percent-body-fat military bodyguard ensemble was complete. Her muscular shoulders and bulging arms dominated her appearance. She had a single backpack and a stuffed GNC bag.

It was shitty of me, but I couldn’t help wondering if she’d ever been part of some Russian super-soldier experiment.

“Erus Veneficus Persephone Alcmedi, this is Ivanka Chernov. Ivanka, this is your E.V.”

Ivanka set her bags on the floor, lowered herself to one knee and bowed her head. Then she stood and mimed shooting a gun. “I have ninety-eight-point-four percent accuracy with revolver.” Her accent was thick. “I have black belt and run mile in three minutes, forty-two seconds.”

“That’s all very impressive, Ivanka.”

She pointed at the nutrition store bag. “I fix own meals and clean up. I sleep little, talk less. All I ask is three personal hours every day for strength training. This work for you?”

“Yes. You’ll do just fine.”

After Zhan ushered Ares out to Mountain’s trailer, Ivanka drove us downtown in my Avalon. She remained in the parked car.

Once we were on the sidewalk and headed for the Cleveland Arcade, Zhan casually inquired, “May I ask you something personal?”

“Sure.”

“Is Johnny okay?”

“Yeah, why?”

“He seems . . . different since Pittsburgh.”

I didn’t know what to say. He was different. Responsibility changed people, or at least when they accepted that burden onto their shoulders it did. And Johnny had accepted a burden much heavier than most. Not only had he just been confirmed as the Domn Lup—meaning he would have to step into a global spotlight—but he also had access to all the power formerly bound in his tattoos. That wasn’t something I wanted to point out to Zhan, though. Saying he seemed edgy or unlike himself would imply that he was having trouble dealing with it all.

I couldn’t do him that disservice.

Yet Zhan was just being my friend. After the commanding vibe Johnny had exuded in the kitchen this morning, any good friend would say something. Celia would have mentioned it sooner than this had she witnessed it.

But Zhan had shown she was willing to bend the rules. If I treated her like a confidante, like a good friend, that would put her in more danger. Not that I thought she would disclose girl-talk to her master, but if Mr. Manipulative wanted “the dirt,” she could be a source of it.

Ability to see the bigger goal or not, her first and foremost loyalty isn’t to me or Johnny. She serves the vampire.

We arrived at the Arcade before I had decided on an answer. Zhan hurried ahead of me to open the door. “I’m sorry, she said. “It’s not my place to ask things like that. I shouldn’t have.”

I halted in the doorway. “Zhan, I’m grateful that you care. Answers are just sometimes hard to give these days.”

“Answer or no answer, milady, don’t let a beast dominate the Lustrata.”

That she addressed me by my larger title, not as E.V., didn’t evade my notice. Neither did the fact that she’d obviously heard us in the shower. Darn paper-thin walls. Warmth flooded my cheeks. I entered the Arcade.

The witch supply shop was located just inside the grand, glass-topped mall. According to the faded black and gold letters underneath the name—and the clock on my satellite phone—it should have opened five minutes ago.

I scanned around and saw no one in the balconies. The Arcade was not the shopping powerhouse it had been a few decades ago. All the warm bodies that were present were milling around in the lower-level food court.

Among them, a short man clutched a lidded coffee in one hand and a Plain Dealer in the other as he trudged up the stairs. His long gray beard and curled moustache identified him as much as the Ivy driver’s cap of brushed twill and the bulky gray cardigan he wore over a beige button-down shirt. He’d teamed it all with khaki pants and loafers.

Maurice. Beau’s hired help.

He neared the summit, and I saw the blurriness created by the hefty prescription in the wire-rimmed glasses that perched on his round nose. The crack in the left lens that I’d noticed when we’d first met was still there.

When behind the store’s counter, he had the “mystical wizard” act down pat, but he was a total fake. Anyone who had real power could tell. I didn’t exactly like Maurice, but Beau was clever to have him here. It was a means to identify the clientele and gauge who should and shouldn’t get to purchase items that would be dangerous to mundane humans.

Additionally, since Beau was Bindspoken, he couldn’t personally touch the merchandise without causing himself physical pain.

Maurice was pretty close before he noticed us waiting by the door. He paused a few paces away. “I remember you,” he said to me. “But I don’t know your name.”

“Hi, Maurice. I’m Persephone.”

“Yes, yes. Are you here for the priapean wands?”

“No. Just some supplies. What is a pre-a-pee-an wand?”

He chattered a laugh and shoved his newspaper under his arm so he could dig the keys from his pocket. “I’ll show you.” Zhan and I parted so he could access the lock. A brass bell chimed as the door swung open, and he flipped on some lights. We followed him in. Aromas mingled, pungent incenses and spicy oils mixed with the earthiness of dried leaves and flowers, all merged with scented candles and old books to form a smell that only another witch shop could produce.

The wooden floor creaked under our feet as Zhan and I followed him past racks of pagan-oriented T-shirts and around displays of brooms and cauldrons toward the bins with loose gemstones and the display cases with wands and crystal balls.

Maurice rounded behind the counter and we waited on the customer side of it while he plodded into the back and engaged the rest of the store’s lights. He brought something wrapped in tissue paper with him. “These just came in.” He laid the item on the counter. “I tell you, they’re going to be all the rage.”

He whisked back the tissue paper, and it took me several seconds to accept what the old man had laid before us. It was a wand, sure enough. It had a six-inch wooden shaft, ending with a crystal tip secured by a metal band. The thick handle, though . . . it was a good ten inches of supersized phallic replication.

I blinked. Repeatedly. “That’s—um.” I squinted at Maurice and struggled for the right words.

“It’s solid jade,” he said, tapping the detailed tip on the counter. “Don’t you think it would enhance the Great Rite?”

“I . . . I think you’re a dirty old man.”

He winced and tugged at his beard.

The bell chimed behind us and Beauregard entered the store. He had buzzed white hair, bushy brows, and walked with a cane. Under his brown sheepskin-lined bomber jacket he wore a black-and-red plaid flannel. His trademark cigar was not absent. The scent of peach and tobacco wafted as he neared. “Hey, doll. To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“Supplies.” I passed him the list I had written up on the way here.

He scanned it. “I’ve got all this.” He pushed the paper at his employee and noticed the priapean wand on the counter. “Maurice!”

Maurice wadded the paper, mumbled, and ambled off to collect the items.

Beau jerked the cigar from his lips and blew the smoke, staring irritably after the short old man. He flipped the tissue paper to cover the wand. “I think I know what ritual you’re doing,” he said quietly.

“Oh?” I wasn’t worried. Since being Bindspoken, he’d forged a friendship with the wærewolves of Cleveland. He was even a regular bartender at The Dirty Dog.

“This way.” He put the cigar to his lips again and parted the curtains to the back room. A small office was off to one side, separate from the warehouse area. He pulled the string on the forty-watt overhead light. I sat in the folding chair while he removed his coat and draped it on the padded wooden seat. He set about unbuttoning his flannel shirt cuffs and rolling them up to reveal the white thermal underwear shirt he wore beneath. It was his trademark style.

This was the room where he’d given me the amulet that amplified my own power and befuddled other power, making it hard to hit me with magic.

He put the cigar on the ashtray—the glass ash receptacle was fashioned like a busty woman, and the cigar lay right between her breasts. “I’m calling in my favor,” he said.

In exchange for the amulet, I’d promised to come back before the full moon and hear what favor he would ask of me. I owed him. The amulet had saved my life, but I already had enough on my plate today. Steadying my voice I said, “Okay.”

“I want you to include my son in your forced-change spell.”

That wasn’t an add-on to the to-do list, just an inclusion to the task already on it. Whew. “Sure. I didn’t know you had a son. Does he live nearby? I’m supposed to do this spell at the den this afternoon.”

“He’ll be there.” Beau puffed on the cigar, held it out as he blew smoke at the ceiling. The peach aroma was nice. “I haven’t seen his face in”—he calculated—“twenty years.”

My brows knit. “I don’t understand.” If they were on the outs with each other, Beau couldn’t assume his son wanted this, and if his son didn’t want this, then I certainly couldn’t include him in the spell. That was a rule.

Then I noticed he was shaking. “Beau?”

“He’s been half-formed for two decades.”

My mouth dropped open. I’d seen the cages where the pack kept half-formed wæres. To my knowledge, there were three of them in the top of the den. “Oh. I’m so sorry.”

“You didn’t do it to him, doll. All I ask is that you try to undo it.”

“I’ve never tried this on a wære who was trapped in a half-formed state. I can’t guarantee—”

“Look, doll. In theory, his present state doesn’t make any difference. You just stir up enough energy to kick-start the shifting process and maintain it for a full transformation. It works for the others, it should work for him.”

That was true, but I would still have to give this a little more thought and consider how it might affect the spell. I had time, but it meant no potion. Not that I had an inkling of what potion I’d have tried to brew this afternoon anyway. “I’ll do the best I can.”

“What time?” he asked.

“At three thirty.”

“I’ll be there.”

Maurice’s voice rose from the front room. “You want me to ring up these items now?”

I nodded at Beau, but he shouted back, “No!”

“Beau—” I protested.

“You’re going to bring my boy back.” He stood. “It’s the least I can do to give you the supplies.”

“I’ll wear the charm you gave me for an extra boost.”

He winked. “Atta girl.”

Out front, Beau told Maurice to bag the items. Without question, he began.

I roamed over to Zhan, who had found the essential oils and was sniffing deep of the scent of some small bottle. “Smell this.”

“What is it?” I leaned into the bottle and sniffed. It was all vanilla, but sweeter, like it had been caramelized with maybe brown sugar. “Wow.”

“I’m buying this.” She carried it to the register. I followed; Maurice was almost done.

Zhan held the little bottle out, and Beau quickly handed it to Maurice. “That too,” he said.

Zhan protested. “I’ll pay for that.”

“Not today,” Beau said firmly.

I thanked Beau again. He rolled the paper top down and gave it to me, quietly saying, “Don’t be nervous. You’re the Lustrata.”