Wicked Circle (22 page)

Hovering away from the stairwell, I noticed the elevator wasn’t here. I opened the bug-eaten gates and peered up. The carrier was dark up in the shaft, but it was nowhere near here. The last wæres out must’ve left via the stairs as Johnny escorted me up in the elevator.

I intentioned the broom into the metal and cement tube and slowly rose to the fourth floor. Forcing the doors open a crack, I listened. From the sound, the wæres were blocked just around the corner. They were none too quiet, so I forced the doors wide enough to let me dismount the broom.

I’d been here before, when
the Omori had first arrived. The
dirija
’s office was on this floor, as was the big gymnasium-sized meeting hall.

Cautiously, I skimmed along the wall between the elevator and the stairwell. When I was able to see the gate, my stomach almost dropped out of me. Wæres were crammed against the iron bars and shuffling around each other and upon each other, more irritated by the lack of room than organized about destroying the gate.

With man-minds, they’d be out by now.

But with man-minds, they’d be immune to bloodlust. That wouldn’t take effect until the next transformation under the full moon.

I backed slowly away, leaned on the elevator door, and ran fingers through my hair.

My head was bleeding. Or it had been. When I’d fallen backward on the rooftop, I must have split my scalp. Flying just afterward, the cold November temperature and the rushing wind probably helped me not notice, cooling the blood on my skin and crusting it before it had a chance to run down my neck.

I brushed the flecks of dried blood from my fingers.

When the first wære snorted, I understood how thoughtless that action had been. The dozens of wærewolves around the corner intensely sniffed the air. And the iron bars creaked like they were bending.

I had to do something.

Straddling the broom and ready to hover into the elevator shaft, I firmed my resolve and intentioned the broom to hover, then slowly descend. How was I supposed to get them to their kennels?
All they want is meat.

Or blood.

By the time I got to
the bottom, I had an idea. Then I shot it down.

They’ll smell me. Those noses will detect me and they’ll be after me and there’s no way out except the stairwells and elevator.

I flew up to the roof and landed to assess what magical items I had with me. The stones were hematite, green aventurine, bloodstone, and coral. Coral, if worn where all can see, is broadly protective. It can guard against simple things like accidents or violence, or it can ward away demons. Hematite was great for healing purposes, but it was also grounding, as in attuned to the physical plane. The aventurine was a lucky stone. I could use luck, but it was also noted for increasing perception, and I didn’t want to bring it near the wolves and chance that they’d be more inclined to see me. Bloodstone lends courage and . . .
when smeared with heliotrope, affords the wearer invisibility!

But where can I get heliotrope in the next minute?

My breath caught. My gaze slid to the duffel.

Caramel-sweet and vanilla.

I pounced on the duffel bag and clawed through it. Pushing aside the flask of crystal water I’d used when calling the element of water, I found it: the little bottle of essential oil that Zhan had been so keen on.

Beau had dropped it into the bag with the rest of the items. I’d blessed it with everything else, distracted by my visit from Creepy. I twisted the small bottle to read the label and about choked.

Heliotrope.

Thank you, Hecate!

Another thought popped into my head:
They may not see me, but they’ll still smell me.

Even if I had enough of this oil to bathe in, I’d not change my scent,
I’d just temporarily mask it with something else they’d detect and know was unusual. I scanned around. And again.

I didn’t have anything that wouldn’t alert the wærewolves to something “other” being close by.

My gaze caught on William.

Smell like one of them.

Scurrying over to him, I stole about ten hairs from his furry head and scrambled back to the duffel bag, where I opened the Baggie of salt I’d used when calling earth. I threw a sprinkling of it around me in a circle. After speaking the swiftest of invocations, I chanted. I opened the essential oil bottle, smeared the bloodstone with dabs of oil and envisioned it cloaking me in invisibility.

I wasn’t literally capable of pulling an Invisible Man act, but this was just enough that the wolves would fail to notice me should I be still and far away.

Invoking Beau’s charm, I made doubly sure of that.

Then I wrapped William’s fur strands around the stone. They stuck readily with the oil coating. And I envisioned the wolfish scent of William surrounding me. Using magic directly on a wærewolf in wolf-form was as dangerous as using it on one in human-form . . . but I wasn’t using it on him. I was actually drawing a tad off him and wrapping myself in it.

I put the stone in my front jeans pocket.

I was about to end my quickie ritual, but when I spied the water flask I had another idea. I unscrewed the cap, then dug my fingernails into my hair, dragging my nails over the clots of dried blood in my hair, being careful not to reopen the wound. Then I scrubbed the globs from my fingertips on the edge of the flask so it all fell into the water.

I replaced the lid and
gave it a good shake.

Saying a brief but heartfelt thanks to the deities and elements I’d invoked with the first spell, I jogged a widdershins path and released the original circle and the smaller one I’d just employed. Truly, the first ritual was ended and this was mostly irrelevant, but it was the right thing to do. Farsighted Hecate had influenced Zhan this morning. All the more reason for me to spend a few seconds honoring the blessings I had before leaping into the wærewolves’ den.

I
walked into the little building atop the Cleveland den. My ears rang, now out of the open wind of the roof, and my stomach gave a flip as I peered down the stairs. My feet would be seen by any wærewolves down there before I’d see them.

Waiting, I listened. Being bound to Menessos had given me better-than-average hearing, but still I worried. At a measured pace I descended. Once in the room, I made my way out into the hall. There were two other half-formed wæres in cages up here, but they were behind barred doors and didn’t show themselves.

I sat on the broom again and glided to the stairwell, where I descended half a level, rounded the landing, and eased down the other half. Here, the room beyond was empty.

This reminded me of when I’d climbed through these levels after escaping the Rege. I’d taken a baseball bat to the head and, disoriented, had been thinking “up” meant “out.” I’d never been to these parts of the den before, so I’d been utterly lost.

Now, however, I knew where I was and what was waiting for me.

There were more wærewolves in the Greater Cleveland area than they could kennel on one floor. Since this group had been blocked at the fifth floor, I knew there were kennels on five. And on six. There had been no kennels on eight, where the confirmation
meeting had taken place, but I was hoping they had built them on seven as well. I wasn’t sure I could sneak past the wæres crammed into the stairwell if I had to go to six.

On seven I found kennels and was so happy the broom intentioned in a spin that was rather like a happy dance.

There were probably eighty kennels here . . . I only needed them to use half that. I flew to the kennels farthest back.

Another fragment of recollection crossed my thoughts.

The memory that Johnny had given me was one that had happened here. His first change after learning he was a wære. He’d kenneled with the rest of the pack . . . Beau had locked all the doors with a key. . . .

They don’t self-lock?

This plan can’t be ruined by this flaw after all the effort!

I tried to swing shut one of the doors. It was heavier than expected, and I had to throw my weight onto it. It clanged quietly as metal hit metal.

Click.

I pulled on the bars.

I yanked.

It didn’t open.

That was good, but there would be no shutting them sneakily if they all needed this much effort. I rolled my eyes—and saw there was a little cylinder atop the door. It was similar to the spring atop my screen door that made it snap shut, but this was hydraulic, and I could see the barest hint of wires, fed from it into the metal bars.

They’d upgraded the doors.
Johnny told me the Omori had upgraded the den security and more. Both he and Renaldo activated the elevator with their thumbprints.
I scanned around for the master switch for these doors and found a key-code pad
attached to the wall near the stairwell, and the tube that encased the wires running from it connected to the cages.

Yes
! I opened the flask. With one swinging gesture, I splashed the bloody water in a half dozen cages. Another swing, another and another.

I was running low, but I had enough to splatter droplets into enough cages and drop a puddle of it leading from the main aisle to the stairwell.

The ruckus below had lapsed into the same grunting it had before, but as I hovered in the stairwell, chancing to inspect the key-code pad and hoping there was a marked Close button, the intense canine sniffing began again.

I flew up and around the landing, out of sight. “C’mon.” My heart was threatening to beat itself out of my chest as I waited, listening so hard, ready to bolt up and around another flight of stairs, ready to flee if I had to.

I heard one wolf, then a few more, and then suddenly they all had the scent. They rough-and-tumbled their way into the kenneling area, following the scent of blood to find the source. I peered around the edge, letting only the smallest part of my head show . . . but none of the wolves were aware of me. Their noses were on the floor. When about half the pack was in the kenneling area, a familiar black wolf crowded past the others.

I waited as they spread out, sniffling paths to the rear.

Johnny paced back and forth, on the trail, but not entering a cage. Every time I thought he was about to enter one, he backed out and searched for the scent elsewhere, found it.

They all had to be inside a cage. Some were grouped, sniffing in twos and threes.

The broom floated
me forward, into the stairwell and then into the room with them. I hovered beside the device. I had to figure out how to work it. The buttons had numbers and letters, like a phone. There would be a code to close them. A code to open them.

And those codes could be anything.

Then Johnny entered a cage.

I punched in the numbers correlating to the word
close
.

Nothing but a quiet beep.
L-O-C-K.
Quiet beep.

S-H-U-T.

The doors swung closed.

I sighed in relief.

Too soon.

Upon hearing the little motors whir, most of the wærewolves backed deeper into their cages and away from the metal.

But not Johnny.

He thrashed and squirmed until he broke through his door, causing the little motor to grind and give.

“Shit.” I sat very still.
Don’t see me. Don’t see me.

He reviewed the confined state of his pack and studied the doorway. He broke into a gallop.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.” I swung the broom into the stairwell, twisting up it as fast as possible. When I burst into the hallway of the topmost floor, he was right behind me. He leapt. His paw knocked the bristles of my broom and caused me to swing slightly sideways, but that actually helped me get through the turn to the room with the steps to the roof.

I was up and out on the roof before he’d topped the stairs.

Leaning down, I snagged the strap of the duffel, where I’d shoved what ritual items
were still usable. Flying out over the edge of the roof into the open air beyond, I twirled around.

The big black wolf put its paws on the raised edge and snarled and barked and growled at me. “You’re going to have to figure out what to tell the rest of them,” I shouted, not sure he’d even understand me. I’d done all I could.

I dropped down and entered the parking garage. I unlocked the trunk and put everything inside, including the stone wrapped with William’s fur. The guys in the Audi were still asleep. I knocked on the window and woke them as promised, and was about to get into my Toyota Avalon when a Hummer rolled up the ramp, followed by a Magnum and a white delivery van.

Hector, the former
dirija
’s assistant, was driving the Hummer. I recognized him by his size and his trademark Hawaiian shirt.

Seeing me waving him over, he cruised close and rolled down his window. “How’d it go?” There were three other men with him.

“Good, but I need to ask you something. Privately.”

He put the window up and parked. The others who had ridden with him wandered over to talk to the wæres climbing out of the other vehicles, but Hector came to me. “What is it?”

“There was a situation,” I said softly. “I think a surge of bloodlust hit some of the wæres. How do you deal with that?”

“There’s a small meat locker on four. Beau usually supervises us on full moons.” He frowned. “I don’t know what’s in it, we haven’t had newbies in a while and it’s usually just the newbies that act up.”

I acted casual. “I guess the spell must have
made them sensitive.”

“That happen before with this spell?”

“Actually, yeah. One of the wæres that changed the first time tried to attack me.” It had been Erik. Johnny had intervened.

“You all right?” Hector asked.

“Yeah. I’m a little shaken up, but . . . I’m fine.”

Beau hurried around the end of the Hummer. “How’s William?”

“He’s fully wolf—”

Beau hugged me and danced me around in a circle in the small space between cars. “I knew you could do it! I knew you would!”