Fatal Circle (17 page)

He had an angle that, while I didn’t approve, I understood. “Speaking of protection.” My crossed arms fell. “I spoke with Xerxadrea. Are you possibly willing to share your secret with the vampire—what are they now?—lords or executives?”

“They are presently preferring the term ‘executives,’ but in my company you may use whatever term you like. And no, I am not willing to share.”

“Even if it would mean they came to your aid?”

“If they were to come to my aid, then too much would change, and nothing would change at all.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means perceptions would change, people would think the situation different than now, but it would not be.” He shook his head and stared off at one of the museum cases. “The world would have a target to blame, and an immortal sage to be hounded by museums and historians, begged for explanations of the eons. And I wish to be neither of those.”

“Enough to risk dying?”

With a steady stare, he said, “Yes.”

I couldn’t breathe; tension squeezed me like a vise. I stood. “Don’t put it all on my shoulders to save you. You have to do something, too!”

He also stood. “I am not putting it all on you. Believe me, I am being proactive about this.” When I didn’t respond, he asked, “Has WEC tried negotiating yet?”

“Yes. The fairies will not negotiate.”

He began pacing behind his desk. “Is there a time frame?”

“Headlands Dunes on Lake Erie at dawn this coming Sunday.”

He nodded.

“As Xerxadrea said, the council wants me to deliver you. Barring that, they’re giving consideration to asking the Vampire Executive International Network for approval to take you, a debt they’ll repay with their blood.”

“If you deliver me, what are they offering?”

“They recognize me as Lustrata.”

He stopped and considered it. “Not a small offer, WEC endorsement. But they still cannot force witches individually to believe it, or to like it. Depending on the influence of the higher-ups, and their take on what you represent, they could either undermine you with propaganda, or build you up with it. They could use the threat of repercussions to lessen opposition to you, or the punishments they dole out could be inconsequential.” He stroked his beard thoughtfully. “That offer could be good or bad. What’s the threat if you don’t?”

I sat again. “That was my other question for you. Xerxadrea said I’d be Bindspoken.”

His shoulders squared and his hands dropped, clenching. “They wouldn’t dare!” Then his chin dropped. “And yet . . . they just might.”

“How does that happen?”

“I do not know, exactly.”

“They can’t do that from afar, though. Right?”

His fists loosened as he considered it. “No.”

“Is there anything in the Codex that can protect me?”

“Yes.” He nodded and came around the desk and rested one hip on it, directly in front of me. “But first you’re going to have to go to Wolfsbane and Absinthe.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“What’s Wolfsbane and Absinthe?” I leaned toward Menessos and gripped the arm of his chair.

“I will tell you that, after you’ve answered my questions about what you saw at the Eximium.” Still leaning on his desk, he crossed his arms.

Damn it
. Did I play stubborn? Hoping that playing along would win me some points, I conceded as he had, saying, “As you wish.”

He nodded, then became as solemn as I had ever seen him. “Tell me again, in detail, what you saw at the Eximium.”

“Just as Xerxadrea started to announce what her test would be, she spoke of Hecate. I felt the touch of Her power, and a light formed behind Xerxadrea. I could smell raisin and currant cakes. Then you sat up straighter. Did you see Her, too?”

“I remember what seconds you speak of, but I saw nothing. I heard an owl screech.” His hand slid up to stroke his chin.

“I didn’t hear that.”

He was intent. “What did She look like?”

“She was beautiful, and haggard. Then at the Ball—”

“You saw Her at the Witches’ Ball, as well?”

“Yes. After everything was over with Beverley. Xerxadrea took my arm and then . . .” My words trailed off. I reclined in the chair, remembering. Twice Xerxadrea had been the catalyst of my seeing the Goddess as Hecate. I had also seen Her as a mustang and as a woman in my meditations. As a child, I saw Her once when alone in a cornfield.

“Then what?” Menessos moved to the chair next to me. He perched on its edge, leaning close to me.

“I was with Hecate. Her face seemed to grow old, then grow youthful in seconds. Her eyes were so strange. They were eyes of the moon, eyes that had stared into the sun for eons.” She’d said I would seek Her and find Her, when I was ready to see my own soul. But I wasn’t going to tell Menessos about that.

“And what of me?”

“She gave Her Blessing to us, to the witches that hear Her. ‘Witches mine,’ She said. As She came forward, She reached out to you and said, ‘Be forgiven,’ as She passed and—”

“Touched my cheek.” Menessos sat back.

“Yes. You felt it?”

“Like the moon had kissed me.” That made him smile and sigh. A visible amount of relief swept over him then his relief transformed into seduction. “I know who and what you are, Persephone. And you are right, you’re not Una. But, I yearn for you.”

Not this again.
“Menessos.”

“Una saw visions of the Goddess, too. And so did—so did the second Lustrata.”

I was gearing up to relaunch my protest, but this information made me curious. “What kind of visions?”

“Much like yours, I’m certain. They left her awestruck and inspired. Both former Lustratas explained their visions to me, but these incidents, though compelling, do not foster the same fervor in those who hear the tale as they do for those who are a part of the encounter.”

I shared my agreement with a nod. My thoughts skipped back to this Wolfsbane and Absinthe.
If I am Bindspoken, there will be no more visions.

Menessos touched my arm. I peered into his eyes. “Kiss me, Persephone. Kiss me and I will let you see the Codex.”

I made an irritated face at him and stood so I could look down at him. “I know you’ve lived longer in times when women were mere chattel than you’ve lived in times where women had rights and liberties, but that’s where you are
now
. Either you’re with me and you share information I need without demanding whorish behavior from me, or you’re not on my side.”

“There is nothing whorish about your behavior.”

“A kiss in trade for valuable information is.”

“Don’t I deserve some recompense for what I provide?”

“You get my blood.”

“For my loyalty.”

I stomped my foot. “And loyalty means you share valuable information!”

Menessos laughed out loud.

“What?”

“No matter what else time and circumstance has made of us, I am still a man and you are a beautiful woman. I do not need to draw you a picture, do I?” He gestured toward the rear of the room. “Actually, there is a painting back there that depicts it.” He indicated a gilded frame that held the image of a pale woman in luminous and falling bedclothes astride a man in a rumpled bed.

I rolled my eyes.

“If I gain your kisses with information I provide, I will endeavor to always have information you need.”

This subject needed to be resolved so we could come to some kind of mutual understanding, master to servant, vampire-wizard to Lustrata, and vampire executive to Erus Veneficus. “I need to know how to protect myself against being Bindspoken, and if you give a rat’s hairy ass about me, you’ll help me because you care and because it’s the right thing to do.”

“I care, Persephone. I care for you deeply.” He stood. His fingers caressed my arm. “Do you care for me?”

“Yes.”

“Then why such a fuss over a kiss? Did you not enjoy kissing me?”

“Twice we’ve kissed, and twice I’ve been
un
willing. You wound me up in your power when we saved Theo, and you manipulated me with energy here before you kissed me and fed from me. Maybe kisses are trivial to you, but they aren’t to me. They’re personal and intimate and not given so freely as you’d like.”

He inched nearer. “Have you forgotten the kisses after you tended the injury Goliath’s brother inflicted? I won those with poetry.”

Okay. I
had
forgotten those.

“I am wounded that you did not remember.”

“Menessos, fine, you’ve made advances on me and I know you’re interested. I get it. And in spite of all the kindnesses you have shown me, in spite of destinies running in sync, I’m not a player. That’s not my lifestyle. It seems to be yours, so go, do your thing, but don’t waste your time on me, and for pity’s sake stop trying to coerce me. I don’t want to go where kissing like that will lead me.”

His expression went all male. “Where will it lead?” His caress slid down so he could take my hand in his.

I did not clutch his hand in return. “You said you wanted what Johnny had.”

“I did. And I do. But I will not take it from you forcibly. And I could have.”

That was true.

“Just a kiss, Persephone. Agree to just a kiss now and then, not from your servant, not from the master of the Erus Veneficus, but as a reward for service in aid of the Lustrata.”

It sounded logical, if not innocent, and it wasn’t like kissing him had been unpleasant. It had been damned nice, in fact. But that logic disrespected Johnny and betrayed his trust. He didn’t deserve that.

“Johnny doesn’t even need to know.”

“Hold on there!” He must’ve tapped into my thoughts.

“You would rend his already jealous heart further?”

“No—”

“Then he does not need to know.”

I pulled my hand from his. “I’m not agreeing to this, Menessos.” Hands on hips: my punctuation to the statement.

“He may be your protector,” he said, curling his fingers around the robe’s knotted belt, “but I am your guide. You have to let me lead.” He jerked me to him.

I shoved away and removed his fingers from the belt as I spoke. “Whatever. You share information because it is the right thing to do, or don’t. Either I die, or I’ll be miserably Bindspoken forever. If either of those things happen, I won’t have much need for a guide, now will I?” I pivoted on my heel and left.

It surprised me that he would let me leave and say nothing, but he did. The guards reacted only with sniffing—my wound was scabbing over, but it was freshly opened. Six steps down the hall, Menessos’s door opened again. “Persephone. I have had an idea, concerning the matter we were discussing, and the location of the place you need to go. Rejoin me for a moment longer, won’t you?”

I stopped and considered. The guards were watching with interest. “Of course.” There was no other viable answer that would maintain the pretense. And though I could likely find out what and where Wolfsbane and Absinthe was on my own, his simply telling me would be easier.

When the door closed again, he gestured to the guest seats before the desk. I sat in one and he took the other. “You are right.”

I waited.

“If ever our lips meet again, I want it to be because you wanted them to. Not because I influenced you.”

Sure, when it sounds like it was
his
idea, it’s a good thing.
“I am glad we can agree on that.”

“Wolfsbane and Absinthe is in the Arcade. If you enter by the Euclid Avenue doors, it is just inside on the left. You must speak with the owner, he’ll probably be the only one there, but in case he has hired someone, insist on talking only with him. Tell him I sent you.”

“I can do that. Then what?”

“Tell him of your threat. He is the only one I know of who can instruct you in what you must do.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The following morning, Johnny and I slept in until ten. He didn’t seem aware of my short absence and went happily about making breakfast. I silently rehearsed how to ask him if he’d been aware of the magic Menessos had inserted into our lovemaking, but he exuded such happy contentedness that I didn’t want to ruin it by pointing out the vampire had interfered.

Once we had eaten—I ate a whole slice of bacon all by myself for his entertainment—he had to go. He had to assemble a special-order guitar at the Strictly 7 warehouse, then cover the one-to-six shift at the music store where he sold guitars.

It was raining so we found and questioned Mountain who kindly sent another Beholder to play valet and fetch my car. Johnny would take the Avalon to work and, since the Arcade was close by, I’d walk.

After a soak in the tub, and a thorough inspection of all the expensive clothes Menessos had filled my closet with, I decided on jeans from my suitcase and a long-sleeved white cotton shirt with some decorative lace at the low collar. Remembering how the lake effect chilled the air here, I added a black fleece hoodie under my brown blazer.

Mountain was waiting in the green room, lying on the green futon couch I’d seen him carrying before. He sat up. “Boss said to show you out the back way, Ms. Witch.” He yawned.

“Were you sleeping?”

“Yes, but it’s all right.”

“Let me go the way I know. You get some rest.”

“Can’t do that.”

“Why?”

“They’re hanging things high in the theater, best to avoid going in there right now. Don’t need them trying to be formal with your presence and falling off ladders and such.”

“Oh. Right.”

He strolled across the backstage. “This way.” He showed me to a huge service elevator, opened the gate, and stepped in. “This is how the stage sets were brought down for touring shows.”

This theater hadn’t been used in decades. I stopped before getting onto the elevator. “How old is this elevator?”

“Boss had it all replaced, it’s dirty and beat-up because we’ve hauled so much debris out through here. Takes a toll.”

I conceded and he shut the gate. We started up. “I don’t mean to contradict the Boss, but when I asked you those questions, I wasn’t teasing you. I honestly didn’t know.” I didn’t want him to think I was mean.

“Haven rules are confusing at first.” The elevator lurched to a stop and he opened the gate. “This goes up another floor to what was the storage area of the department store, but we’ll get out here. Boss said it’d be good for you to know the back way around.” Mountain led me through hallways, then up the steps to the ticket booth. It had been cleaned and decobwebbed, too.