Wicked Circle

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Kurt Miller followed the three limos as they departed downtown. His GPS was still on, but he was very aware that if he needed to make a hasty exit, he didn’t know this city at all.

Based on the security the wærewolves had shown at the press conference, he made sure to keep back as much as he dared, yet, not knowing the city, he couldn’t lag behind too far or else he might lose them. Soon they were on West Fourteenth Street, and the limos gathered in the parking lot of the Pilgrim Congregational Church.

He drove on by, made the first right, circled the block, then parked his Crown Victoria up the street and kept his distance. The brawny guard was marching away from the middle limo, and the Domn Lup entered the church door alone. The guard opened the door on the first limo and Toni climbed out. The guard raised his arm to gesture her into the church.

Out of habit, Kurt reached for the old worn file stamped cold case on the passenger seat, opened it to a page for notes in the back, checked the time, and wrote:

3:40 p.m. I witnessed Antonia Brown entering the Pilgrim Congregational Church of her own accord seconds after the man just named Domn Lup of the wærewolves entered.

Using his BlackBerry, he accessed the internet and searched for images of the new Domn Lup. Flipping the page in the worn file to the picture of a very similar, youthful but untattooed face, he whispered, “Gotcha.”

He noted the men around the building, guards, like wærewolf secret service. “But how do I actually getcha?”

Sitting at the dining table in the combined living-dining room, Eris held seven cards. She laid them down, drew a card, and had to sort through them to put the right three together and make a spread.

Playing cards had been Demeter’s idea, and Eris had agreed before she realized she wasn’t able to shuffle. Demeter had to shuffle for her, but she made Eris deal when it was her turn.

Eris discarded, then maneuvered the four remaining cards into her grip again. Outside, the Slut’s rumble sounded. Lance was home from the college classes he attended at the Art Institute.

Nana drew a card, laughed, laid down a three card spread and discarded. “Rummy.”

“You win again.” Eris laid down her cards, glad it was over.

Lance charged up the stairs, rattling them so they could be heard inside. The door opened. As soon as he entered, he noted that the television had the news on, reporting on the Domn Lup and showing Johnny’s picture. “The press conference is over. Why are they still going on about him?”

Demeter answered, “A Domn Lup’s big news.”

“We’re not wæres. Why do we even care?”

Eris said, “Because he’s your sister’s boyfriend.”

“Half sister,” he corrected.

“Lance.”

He groaned exasperatedly and stomped away. A second later, music blasted from his room.

Embarrassed that he would act this way in front of his grandmother, Eris shoved the cards into a pile, disregarding that they weren’t all facing the same direction. “I pushed him hard. He’s way ahead of his peers, in college at only seventeen. Some days he doesn’t appreciate that.”

Demeter sat back and propped her leg on the chair adjacent to her. “You abandoned Persephone—”

Eris stood abruptly, her chair squealing on the floor. “Mom. Not now.”

“If not now, when?”

Eris stomped over and switched the television off. It was awkward working the remote with her left hand. I didn’t ask for this.

“Never? If that’s your answer, that’s too late.”

“Fine. You want to do this to me now? Have at it.” Eris flopped down on the couch. The force of the action resonated up into her sore shoulder and she tried to keep the pain from showing.

“That is exactly what I’m talking about. If ‘I want to do this to you now.’ Do you think I’m out to get you?”

“Feels like it.”

Demeter hobbled over to the opposite couch. Again, she propped up her leg, using the length of the cushions. “All this self-pity you’re wallowing in—”

“I’m not—”

“Yes, you are!” Nana shouted. “And you’re pressuring Persephone, trying to guilt her into loving you. She doesn’t love you, Eris. You’ve given her nothing but abandonment, and followed that with a guilt trip.”

That’s ridiculous. “I’m her mother. And I saved her boyfriend’s life!” She had expected her actions would buy her daughter’s love. That her sacrifice hadn’t simply filled Persephone with compassion and devotion pointed out a flaw in Persephone’s character. Eris had begged Frigg, the Norse goddess of motherhood, to prod Persephone into recognizing that fact . . . but it seemed Frigg was not inclined to aid her.

“Yes. You saved his life,” Demeter said. “And you could have saved your arm if you had gone to the hospital with the medics.”

At those words, Eris’s stomach formed a molten ball. I didn’t ask for this! But Eris knew in her heart that she had. No one knew about the countless times she had thought to herself, I’d give my right arm for another chance. . . . “The spell needed finishing.”

“It could have waited. You were impatient for the benefit, eager for Seph to see you as not giving up. You chose not to go. You chose to threaten Zhan’s life in order to stay and finish. Did you think that would erase the past? Do you think Persephone owes you now for those choices you freely made?”

Yes. The word almost slipped out, but Eris bit her tongue. Demeter was twisting it all around just like—“You’ve been scrying!” That’s where the opals had gone. Her mother had always been perceptive; her scrying ability was unmatched. Growing up with her had been a nightmare. Demeter could use the magical properties of opals to combine scrying with a form of astral projection. This was a skill Eris had never completely understood, but it busted her in lies, skipping school, underage smoking . . . so much more. Demeter could use it to pick up information that was, for lack of a better term, psychic. She knows. Frigg help me, she knows.

Demeter didn’t deny it. She put her leg down and sat forward. “You saved a life, Eris. You’re a hero. So act like a hero. Not a martyr.”

Tears welled up and fell before Eris could think to fight them. Demeter sank onto the couch next to her. She squeezed Eris’s hand. “There’s a boy in there who loves you and needs you, and he’s afraid he’s losing you to a sister who’s never been a part of your lives until now.”

Eris sniffled. “He told you that? Or did you scry that up too?”

“Neither. It’s written all over him. You’re not seeing it because you’re so wrapped up in Persephone. I know your daughter. She won’t be pressured or pushed into your life. Focus on Lance now and let her go. I promise she’ll come back.”

Risqué worked by candlelight at the altar table in Menessos’s private rooms. She was unperturbed by the fact that his corpse and Meroveus’s lay in closed beds nearby. Her makeup case was on the floor at her feet. Another case, similar in size but filled with magical miscellanea, was beside it.

Her master had inspected the items she’d brought to fulfill his list. He’d explained what he wanted her to do with them. It was a difficult task, brilliantly plotted and full of risks.

Risks. Perfect for me.

She began,

Necklaces two, I now make,

With spell-work meant never to break.

With carnelians and malachites,

The wearers are stable in their human hides.

Birch, iron, and silver wire,

This spell will never expire!

Iron lockets open wide,

These I now place inside:

Dragon’s Blood, powdered fine,

Mandrake root, and turpentine.

One dark hair from the Lustrata’s head,

This binding you can never shed.

Vampire wizard’s blood—two drops!

Now this binding cannot be stopped.

Sealed with fire, hot as the sun,

This binding cannot be undone.

Each necklace was placed into a basket. She laid the jewelry carefully, as one link in the chain of each was yet open. Carrying the basket and a bucket with welding supplies, Risqué stepped to the back chamber door. She declared her mortality and opened it without trouble from the spell her master had placed upon it. Still, she felt the compulsion he’d placed. The seal would not keep an immortal from leaving, but it would cause him or her to linger within.

Risqué lit candles around the bed where the two dead shabbubitum lay, then called a circle encompassing Menessos’s large bed.

Crawling onto the bed, Risqué sat straddling Ailo’s corpse. She lifted Ailo’s head, put the necklace under her neck and replaced her head on the pillow. Laying a heavy welder’s glove across Ailo’s throat, Risqué hooked the open link atop the glove, satisfied that it was a tight fit. Donning protective goggles, the half-demon fired up the small torch. Clasping the link with long-nosed pliers in one hand, the torch in the other, she chanted, “I bind you Ailo to Menessos and Persephone.”

When the link was secure, she did the same to Talto. By the time she had taken up the circle, the iron was cool enough that she could retrieve the gloves that had protected the sisters’ necks. She removed also a few hairs from each of their heads.

Crawling onto the bed between them, she tied the strands together in knots, chanting, “Ailo and Talto, you are henceforth bound to Menessos and Persephone.” When the hairs were well knotted, she dropped them into a thin cotton pouch. She clipped the sisters’ fingernails and toenails and added these trimmings to the pouch. After she cut a fingertip of each and squeezed out blood to stain the sides of the pouch, Risqué left the rear chamber.

She let the candles continue burning; the undead liked to awaken with a dim light waiting.

Returning to the altar, she burned the pouch on charcoal, then gathered the ashes. She put half in a glass vial. The other half she stirred into a lotion she’d made with oil, beeswax, a few drops of water, orrisroot and buckthorn bark.

After lighting candles all around the outer chamber, she opened the door to Menessos’s closed bed. She repositioned a pedestal to be nearer and placed a candelabrum on it so the black tapers could light her endeavors. The glass vial, an ink pen, surgical gloves, a knife, a needle with two colors of thread and the little bowl with lotion from the altar were placed with Menessos, then she undressed and crawled inside.

Sitting atop his body, she opened his sightless eyes and murmured lovingly as she drew symbols on his forehead. She drew symbols on his cheeks and down his sternum. Still chanting, she drew an ankh on his throat. Donning the surgical gloves, she rubbed the lotion where she had drawn, chanting, “Ailo and Talto are yours to command,” following it with the seething words of a far fiercer language in a voice that was not entirely her own.

What flicker of energy she felt as she worked she believed to be of her own making, and she did not know that a hooded man had appeared in the chamber, standing on the other side of the enclosed bed. She did not know he placed his palms upon the wood and spread his fingers wide. She did not know how he smiled, listening to her.

When the symbols were smeared and all of the lotion absorbed into Menessos’s skin, Risqué clutched the knife. The words of her staccato chant had a dark cadence as she placed the tip of the blade just lower than his sternum. With an ecstatic cry and a flick of her stubby tail, she cut a deep, three-inch line.

Wedging the gash open with the knife tip, she poured the ashes from the vial inside her master’s body. As she sewed black and red stitches into his skin, she chanted, “Sealed within you, their binding will never be undone.”