Fatal Circle (23 page)

“Menessos has set me upon an important task,” I said to Risqué, and hurried on my way.

Just as I burst through the outermost door, a motorcycle zipped past. I ran across the sidewalk, to watch as it rolled up Euclid Avenue. My shoulders slumped.

The motorcycle squealed to a halt in the middle of the street.

Car horns blared. Johnny gave someone the finger as he twisted to see me.

In a heartbeat, he jumped the motorcycle up on the sidewalk and sped back to me. It being Friday evening, there were plenty of pedestrians forced to dash out of his way. He stopped the bike right in front of me. Worried as hell, bloodied and grieving, time pressing, he’d nonetheless spent the seconds to fetch me.

“You came back.”

“Look at you, Little Red Riding Hood. What Big Bad Wolf wouldn’t want those long legs wrapped around him?”

The people he nearly ran over had stopped to stare at us. I threw my leg over the bike—as modestly as possible—and sat. As Johnny pulled out onto the street, the same pedestrians cheered.

Sitting at a red light, I got out the protrepticus again. As soon as it opened, Samson scolded me. “That was rude, little girl.”

“Can it, Sam. I haven’t got time. Get Xerxadrea for me.” He grumbled, and I shouted, “Now! And it better be a private line.”

The next thing I knew, the Eldrenne said, “Yes?”

“Can I talk freely?”

“This time, yes.”

I relayed Menessos’s message. “I’m with Johnny right now. We want to join you at the Botanical Gardens, but I don’t know how long we’ll be. Can you guess how long it will take for Menessos to prepare the body?”

“An hour at best, two at worst. I will contact you when I am leaving.”

“Good enough for me,” I said. Seeing the light change, I added, “Gotta go,” and shut the phone just as Johnny accelerated. It was cold to be on the motorcycle in the thin, small pieces of fabric I wore, so I kept the length of the cape around me and safely away from the wheels. I used the time to try and form a strategy for dealing with Goliath.

Menessos had enough pain at the moment, and I hadn’t meant to hurt him more by hurting someone bound to him. The power that came with mastery was frightening, let alone amping it up with Beau’s charm. I had to think it through before I acted again.

The Dirty Dog was closed and dark. Johnny turned the Night Train into a narrow alley and parked in the rear of the bar. I unstraddled and followed him. Inside, we marched up the narrow stairwell again and approached the door.

This time, there was no need to knock; the door stood open. One table lamp brightened the tall room, but failed at making it cheery or homey. It had been a dark room during the day when we’d visited, but in the night, that one necessary light illumined what the sun could not. And that was a shame. The dust covered the mantel like a sheer cloth. Soot tags waved in the air like willow fronds. And the couch, so close to the light, was revealed to be not a patterned fabric, but a solid and threadbare one.

The juniper and ambergris aroma had a drop of something else, something almost antiseptic.

Hector sat on the couch, staring at the floor. He didn’t acknowledge us, even after we’d entered. An open bottle sat on the floor beside his torn and dirty sneaker. He held a juice glass filled with ice and a clear liquid. I’d located the hygienic odor. The label was on the other side of the bottle, but I’d have guessed gin.

“Has he . . . ?” Johnny asked.

Voices trickled in from the room beyond the pocket doors, but not live voices . . . I recognized the Coca-Cola jingle. Television or radio, then. I couldn’t imagine that would have been left on in the room with a dead man.

Hector shook his head. “No. I just . . . I can’t be in there.” His voice was hollow.

Johnny crouched before the big man. “I need you to be in there. I need you to see something.”

“You’re gonna . . . ?” Hector swallowed, but he remained intent on some spot on the floor. He shook his head like a felon with a nervous twitch and his face pinched up. “I can’t watch.” He still hadn’t met Johnny’s eyes.

“Hector. You have to see this. You’ll have to tell the others.”

He shook his head again. “Todd’s the one who’ll need convincing anyway.”

“We don’t have time to wait for—”

“He’s already in there. He knows I called you.”

Johnny stood. “If he—”

“Don’t worry,” Hector said. “I told him that if he touched Ig he’d not make it out of this building alive.” For the first time, he looked up from the floor. His eyes settled on Johnny. “Ig wanted you. And you it will be.”

Johnny nodded. He went to the pocket doors. After a deep breath, he slid them open. When he entered, the voices from the TV were silenced. Hector drained his glass.

I started across the room, but Hector’s soft voice stopped me. “Where does your allegiance lie?” When I didn’t answer quickly enough he added, “I was in there earlier.” He pushed an elbow toward the pocket doors. “I saw the news. Does Johnny and the pack he’s about to acquire have your loyalty? Or do the vampires?”

I thought stating “both” would lack validity, so I decided to point out what I
wasn’t
as it might have more impact. “I’m not an enemy to either.”

“And who is your ally, then?” he pressed.

“Justice.”

From the bedroom I heard, “Don’t come any closer.”

Leaving Hector for the doorway, I saw Johnny and another man were glaring at each other. The other man—obviously Todd—stood between Johnny and Ig’s bed. Everything about him, from his posture to his scowl, screamed that he was furious. Blond, broad, and built like a brute, if he wasn’t a pro wrestler, it meant they had a height requirement. Todd was maybe five-foot-four. In boots. The bulging weight-trained muscles were his means of compensating his lack of height. His eyes darted around, dark and cunning, with an edge of bestiality and instability.

“I’ve busted my ass for years as his second while you fucked off playing rock star. And regardless of that ultimate irresponsibility of yours, and in spite of the total loyalty I showed, he still wants you to take his fucking place.
You!
” His fervor made it clear his pain and anger could merge immediately and violently, and that he was teetering on that edge right now.

“Todd—”

“Don’t! Don’t you fucking try to rationalize it! You’ve been nothing but a fucking letdown and a traitor to this pack. Ig doesn’t want to see it, but in an hour, what Ig wants won’t matter. I can wait that long. I’ll fight that long.” He took a fighting pose and, for the first time, became aware of my presence. “Huh.” He gestured at me and added a contemptuous smile. “Brought a witch for backup? She doesn’t scare me.” He inched closer to Johnny. “I’ve seen the news. She’s nothing but a blood whore.”

Johnny threw a punch, a left. Todd ducked, but Johnny countered and, crouching into nearly a squat, landed a right in Todd’s gut. While Johnny’s arm was down, Todd thrust his fist into Johnny’s jaw. It didn’t have nearly the sting and power Todd wanted it to. Clasping Todd’s arm as he followed through, Johnny rose to his full height, and used the other man’s momentum to throw him to the floor. “Mind your mouth.”

Todd sat up. “You were there! I saw you! They had live coverage.” He got his feet under him and stood, moving slowly to the foot of the bed. Johnny was nearer Ig’s head. “The vamp fed on her, she bled into him while the whole fucking world watched. And after years of absence you want to come in here like some damned prodigal son, with
her
on your arm, and make a claim for the pack? Fuck you, Johnny! Fuck you.”

Ig groaned behind them. He could not speak.

Johnny landed a punch to Todd’s right eye; it snapped his head back and Todd stumbled three steps back to keep from hitting the floor.

Hector came up behind me at the door. “Todd,” Hector said huskily.

“No. I’m not letting him take what’s mine!” He posed as if his feet were rooted in that spot.

“Todd,” Hector said again. I smelled juniper. Definitely gin on his breath.

Todd spat on the floor. “Over my dead body, Hector. Over my dead fucking body is this deserter gonna put the whole pack in danger with his witch-bitch!”

Johnny roared in anger. I felt a flare of energy surge off him unlike anything my aura had ever detected. His body trembled, his hands unclenched and rose up, turning dark even as he kicked off his boots and tore off his already ruined shirt. I backed up, into Hector, who didn’t budge.

Todd retreated also, but came up against Ig’s bed and his legs bent, sitting him on the edge as Johnny went into a full transformation. He stripped out of his clothes just in time, and glanced toward me even as his skin darkened and his snout pushed out. It was horrific and yet fascinating to watch as his skin rippled, his shape changed, and fur sprouted.

As he fell on all fours, a triumphant howl filled the room.

Ig was grinning.

Johnny growled at Todd, who shook his head. “Not possible. This isn’t possible.” He pointed at me. “You did something.”

I shook my head emphatically side to side.

“And it didn’t affect either of us?” Hector asked. “She didn’t do anything.”

Johnny growled again, lips curling back and hackles rising.

Ig began chanting. It sounded like, “Now. Now. Now.”

Todd’s feet came under him and he stumbled backward to the wall, staring. Johnny’s haunches gathered and he leaped up onto the bed gracefully, lightly, straddling Ig, who continued chanting, “Now, now, now.” Ig lifted his arm and gripped the black wolf’s hackles, encouraging the animal toward his neck.

Johnny’s neck arched back and a mouthful of jagged teeth bared as he prepared for the strike. I didn’t want to see this. My eyes squeezed shut.

“Now, now, nnuh—”

As the wet sound of a torn throat met my ears, I pressed my face into Hector’s chest. Despite his fear of me at my previous visit, he put an arm around me comfortingly.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Ig was dead.

Johnny leaped down and lay upon the floor beside the bed, head and tail low. He gave a single whimper. The flash of power that had hit me earlier now seemed to
whoosh
back into him. Fur retracted, dark skin lightened, and bones and shape reverted.

He was still, cheek on the floor, eyes shut, blood-smeared face stuck in a grimace.

With my head downcast to keep the image of the throatless body on the bed from making its way to my nightmares, I left Hector and went to crouch with one knee down beside him. “Johnny.” I touched his shoulder; his skin was heated.

At my touch, he stirred. His eyes caught the edge of my skirt; from his angle he could see the dancer undies. It changed the grimace entirely.

“Johnny,” I repeated—with a dash of scolding in it—and put my other knee down.

He sat up as if his body weighed more than the world itself. I started to help him, then stopped myself. He’d just revealed to Hector and Todd who and what he truly was. Seven had taught me that, especially with these other-than-humans, appearances conveyed valuable messages of strength and respect and status.

I stood and backed away as Johnny, naked, gained his feet. He was dirty from the floor and his chest, like his chin, was stained with dark blood. It was a morbid scene, a ravaged dead man, sheets coated bright red, and the tang of fresh blood in the air.

It was a rite of ascension, it was a mercy killing, and it was murder. Yet, it was not unjust. I felt no urge to take action and right this, for this had not been wrong.

Todd pushed off from the wall. He went forward and stopped beside Ig and in front of Johnny. He said nothing. I held my breath.

When Todd reached into the gore on the bed and removed the wolf ’s-head necklace from Ig’s body, though, tension filled the room in an instant. Todd was taking the symbol of leadership of the pack.

He made no immediate move to put it on, however. He just studied the bloodied herringbone chain and rubbed his thumbs over the Y-shaped centerpiece. His bruised eye was swelling.

I expected a swing, a kick, a punch, harsh words, anything. Anything but Todd dipping his fingers into Ig’s open throat.

I choked on my held breath, unable to form words.

With fingers coated in syrupy fluid—and wearing the deep frown of a man resolved to an unhappy fate—Todd reached out and drew a long Y on Johnny’s chest, stylizing the snout and ears of a wolf.

It reminded me of the ankh Menessos had drawn on my sternum with his blood when he’d marked me.
That seemed like so long ago . . . much more than a month.

Lowering himself on bended knee, Todd offered the necklace up to Johnny. “This pack has no crown to offer, but our leadership is yours, Domn Lup.”

Johnny squared his shoulders, and accepted the wolf ’s-head, chains dangling and dripping the blood of his predecessor. He considered the token, weighing its meaning for the space of several heartbeats before lifting it and securing it around his neck. Though he was still naked and dirty, all I saw was the king of wolves, a lean and muscular man with dark hair and a haunted blue gaze fixed on me.

He’d just claimed his mantle. For all the symbolism, for all the promise it held for us, it had cost him. And I already understood the price that must be paid more than I wanted to.

“I’ll call the pack.” Hector left us.

Don Henley’s voice erupted from my bag with the chorus of “Witchy Woman.” The protrepticus.

“Yes?”

“Xerxadrea is leaving for the Botanical Gardens now,” Samson said.

“Thanks.” I lowered the phone, biting my lip. I needed to be on my way, but I didn’t have a ride. Johnny couldn’t take me, he had to address the pack. “I have to go.” I put my hand on Johnny’s arm. “I’ll call a cab.”

“I . . .” He didn’t finish. He wanted to come with me, but he needed to stay here. We both knew it.

I nodded. “I know. We’ll figure out how to manage without you.”

“Can you do that again?” Todd asked. “The change?”

Johnny nodded tiredly. “If I have to.”

“They’ll need to see it.”

Once his tattoos were unlocked, as Beau said, he’d be able to transform without such effort. That he could defy the magic and do it at all meant that the ink spell was weakening. Or that Johnny was more powerful than anyone knew. We had to find the person who had tattooed him. But until Johnny, Menessos, and I all shared pieces of our souls, we couldn’t proceed with that.
I’ll have to dig in his memories. Sharing souls must grant the shareholders an All Access Pass.
I was going to have to talk to my spirit guide, a jackal named Amenemhab.