Hallowed Circle (38 page)

The female stepped forward. “We’ve lost
our
mermaid. So we took yours.” Even in the distorting illumination I could tell her skin was red and her hair a shade of the same. She wore a wreath of tiny flowers in her hair and a gossamer tunic dress that matched her coloring.

“Release her!” I demanded. Johnny, standing just behind my shoulder, gave a low growl.

“Come and make us,” the red fairy said.

I didn’t exactly know how to stop fairies. My mind blanked.

She answered my hesitation by saying, “Cerebrosus, the honor is thine.”

The third fairy, a light-haired male with yellowish eyes that afforded him an air of uncontrollability, stepped up beside the female. He wore breeches with a shirt under a brocade surcoat. He leered at me as she offered him a sheath.

Suddenly, many things happened at once. My mind registered the weapon and Beverley’s danger. I started forward. Though running, time seemed to slow, and all sounds became muffled. The yellow-eyed fairy pulled the dagger from the sheath. The southern doors opened behind me. … I
felt
the air current of their movement. I
felt
Johnny at my heels. I heard Menessos’s voice, chanting, loud through the fog that had filled my ears. The yellow-eyed fairy turned and raised the gleaming dagger, ready to strike Beverley.

I was too slow. I could not speed myself up. I would not make it to Beverley in time.

The fairies suddenly blurred toward me, like ink smearing in water. Lines of color slid over the cars separating us.

Beverley fell to the soft grass.

I was there, picking her up. “Beverley, honey, are you okay?” A second later, Johnny was beside us.

“Yes.” She hugged me so tightly. “I was so scared. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“I took it off. The necklace Demeter gave me. I didn’t wear it because of my costume. And the fairies took me, just like in the story.”

Johnny put his hand on my back and we both sighed with relief.

But it was too soon.

The sounds of fighting came from behind us.

Menessos, Goliath, and Aquula were fighting the three fairies.

Aquula?

And then I understood. Menessos had used his bond with them; he’d called them all to him as if to guard a circle. He’d done it to remove the threat to Beverley.

Aquula’s blue tail flipped and caught the red fairy in the jaw, sent her up in the air twenty feet. Wings shot from her back and she laughed, producing another dagger.

“Stay with Beverley,” I said to Johnny and was up, running across the lot. Putting the toe of my boot on the fender of a sedan, I charged up and across a car, launching myself into a flip even as the red fairy dove down. From the side, I collided with her. The dagger tumbled from her grip and she crashed into the fairy with the vest and cravat.

“Persephone,” Menessos said, giving me a hand up. His crown was missing and his tunic was ripped.

Beyond him, though, I saw the fairy named Cerebrosus bolt away from Goliath to the south doors, and into the Covenstead.

I was moving again, running after him.

Inside, screams and shrieks erupted. I charged around the stage at a run, but pulled up short. This fairy had
sprouted wings as well and, fluttering, they held him perhaps fifteen feet above the floor.

Xerxadrea was just arriving and being guided through the entrance aisle. He swooped down to hover in front of her. “Where is it?” he demanded, his hands—yellow, I could now see, as was all his skin—pawing at her robes.

He backhanded her raven, knocked her staff from her hands, and lifted the ancient Eldrenne into the air. She screamed. Her raven fluttered about, pecking and clawing at the fairy, but the fairy twisted Xerxadrea this way and that to block the bird. “Where is it?” he demanded again.

Flying backward toward the stage, Xerxadrea in his clutches, he snarled, “It will be the end of all witches!”

I eased up the stage-left steps.

“Ha!” he said, dropping her even as the stage came under her feet. Lucky for her too. Instead of falling six feet down, it was as if she merely stumbled and fell to her hands and knees.

“Ha, ha! I have it!” he shouted to everyone, shrinking as he spoke. “The end of the witches is at hand! Or is that
at handkerchief
?” he asked, laughing and waving a black cloth at the throng staring at him.

I darted forward, grabbed the handkerchief, and ran for stage right.

Behind me, the fairy growled angrily, wings flapping to pursue me. Nearing the edge of the stage, though, I remembered here there were no steps like there were on stage left. I went down and slid like a baseball star aiming for home plate. The fairy shot past over my head. I jumped up and ran back across the stage to the steps.

Halfway across, the fairy dropped into my line of sight,
flipping head over heels to kick at my face. I ducked to the side, narrowly avoiding his boot; I felt the ankle brush over my earlobe.
Fairies wear boots,
I thought, even as he grabbed my foot from behind and tripped me.

Rolling with the momentum, I came up with my shoulder against the tip of one of Johnny’s guitars in its stand. It was the wicked-cool axe-shaped one.

Then the fairy was on me. “Give me that cloth!” he demanded. We grappled for it. He was small but superhumanly strong, agile and fast. He yanked on the cloth but I held tight. With my other hand, I punched him in the chest, knocking him back. I used the instant to shove the cloth down into the bodice firmly between my breasts.

He was on me again in a flash. I crossed my arms to block him. Amid a flurry of pinching and grabbing strokes of his hands, I rolled to my stomach and pulled my knees under me. He kicked at my stomach, but wasn’t big enough to make it count. He moved to kick at my head but was too late. Having gotten one foot flat on the stage, I pushed up, took a boot to the shoulder, and swung my fist.

He retreated to avoid the strike, then lunged at me. I threw another punch, added a kick. He lunged again, and we repeated our measures. With each lunge he grew a little bigger.

His boot heel hit the corner of my mouth. I tasted blood, but snatched him by the ankle. With a savage jerk, I slammed his back against the stage, wings fanned flat under him. “Stay down!” I commanded, standing over him.

He lay still for a heartbeat or two, then his mouth moved once and an ornate dagger appeared in his grip.

“Don’t,” I said, kicking at the weapon.

He shrank again, changing the distance needed for my kick to succeed. As my follow-through brought my leg past him, he rolled clear and leapt to the air. The blade glinted in the light. He came after me.

Slicing X shapes in the air, the fairy had me backpedaling across the stage. Hands reaching back, searching for something, I thought if I came up against the amplifiers I’d duck and roll. Instead of amps, my hand found the neck of the axe-like guitar in its stand. My fingers wrapped around it.

The fairy’s X-move ended to my left; I ducked to the right, rushing forward and dragging the guitar with me. I righted myself and ran. Again, everything slowed.

I heard the flap of his wings behind me. I heard my breath in my ears.

I ran for the drum riser. In my mind’s eye, I could almost see myself one step ahead, see what I was planning an instant before I did it. My foot lifted, one big, slow step directing my motion upward. The fairy gained on me. The next step was slow as well, but it started me across the riser. Two steps and I pulled up short, twisting around, while the guitar in my hand came up.

Even as I guided the guitar into position, like a baseball bat over my head, I started toward the fairy. His legs moved as if he were skidding on air trying to back up. I launched myself off the riser, swinging the guitar overhead, aiming for the dagger. Like a giant fly-swat, it crashed down, squashing the fairy like a bug center-stage.

Johnny’s guitar was broken and a yellowish green fluid was all that remained of Cerebrosus. The brocade surcoat, breeches, all of it was gone, replaced by gooey fluid leaking from under the guitar. I released the instrument and hurried to where Xerxadrea lay on her side.

“Eldrenne? Xerxadrea, are you okay?”

“Persephone? Is that you, dear?”

“Yes, Xerxadrea. You took a fall—anything broken?”

Her raven cawed and jumped up on her arm. “I feel fine. Help me sit up.”

“I think you should wait. Let us—”

“Help me up!” Her hand reached out and I took it, helped her sit up. She sucked in a breath.

My heart leapt, thinking her quick breath was due to some pain.

“Did the fairy get away with my hanky?” she asked.

“No. I have it.” I started to retrieve it from my bodice but I saw Johnny past the end of the stage. Beverley was beside him, holding Aquula’s hand. Menessos and Goliath were just entering, each restraining one of the other two fairies. To the side, I detected people drifting close, chat
tering like people do after something has stunned them. A glance let me know Hunter and Lydia were hurrying over.

Then the fairies realized what had happened to their comrade and they went into fits of rage and grief. The red one burst into flames and tore herself away from Menessos and turned on Goliath, who threw the other male into the air. “This night, we have been summoned into a circle on Covenstead grounds,” the red fairy shouted as the flames around her hardened and became her wings. “And a witch has murdered one of us! The Concordat has been broken and the consequences shall be wrought upon you!” She and the other darted behind the stage backdrop and the south doors were thrown back on their hinges and bounced closed.

A mist around my feet made me glance down, and slowly Xerxadrea rose to standing. The mist disappeared up under her dress as it had when she entered for the Eximium. “Where’s my staff?”

“Lydia’s bringing it,” I said.

Johnny stepped up onstage. “You two all right?” he asked.

“Yes,” Xerxadrea answered.

“Yeah,” I said. With a sheepish attempt at a smile I added, “Sorry about your guitar.”

“Hell, I’ll make another one,” he said. Before taking me into his arms, he gestured at the news crew on the catwalk opposite the stage. “I just hope they got that footage. Pete Townshend’s got nothing on you.”

News crew? Oh, crap—

Then I heard the splattering sounds of palms against
palms, growing into the unmistakable rain of heartfelt applause. They—at least the mundanes in the crowded Hall, including the media—had taken it all for one hell of a great Hallowe’en treat complete with spectacular special effects.

They’d gotten the expected show. And I had been the star.

We witches assembled in Hunter’s office, with Xerxadrea being guided to the big chair behind the desk. Johnny remained with Beverley and Aquula, while the vampires were asked to quietly secure the stage area and let no one near.

“What the hell happened out there?” Hunter demanded.

“They kidnapped Beverley and brought her here. They tried to kill her.”

“Who’s Beverley?” Hunter asked.

I sank into the chair that, a few days before, I’d sat in when I’d come to decline the nomination. I pulled the mask off and held it in my lap as I rolled the fabric up and squeezed my fingers into the silk. The stress of everything that had happened and could have happened felt like lead weights holding me down. “The daughter of a friend of mine.”

Lydia put her hand on my shoulder. “Her friend was murdered a few weeks ago and Persephone has become the child’s guardian.”

Hunter was taken aback. “And on top of that you entered the Eximium?”

Shaking my head I said, “No. On top of that Lydia nominated me.”

“Did the fairies have something to do with her mother’s death?” Hunter asked.

“No, they weren’t involved.”

“Then why would they try to kill her?”

“Were they trying to sacrifice her?” Xerxadrea asked before I could answer. “On Covenstead grounds?”

“It wasn’t ritualistic, so ‘sacrifice’ might be the wrong word, but they drew a dagger and …” I let it trail off, unsure whether telling them about Menessos was necessary.

Xerxadrea’s fingers tapped on her staff. “That makes no sense. To sacrifice a virgin child on coven grounds is an act of war.”

“And instead, one of them was killed inside the Covenstead.” Hunter crossed her arms and gave me a petulant look. “My Covenstead.”

“I haven’t announced that yet,” Xerxadrea said pointedly. “If you’d like to decline—”

“No!” Hunter’s arms dropped to her sides. “I’m not giving it up.”

Xerxadrea seemed to study Hunter, as if her filmy eyes weren’t blind at all. “You would accept the position even with the instigation of a war lying at
your
feet, having occurred on
your
watch?”

I realized Hunter’s moment of real adversity had just slapped her in the face and I had helped it happen. I held my breath.