Wicked Circle (35 page)

If that’s true, he won’t know you at all, Toni.

Kurt worried that if she acted in some rash and desperate manner, the security here would respond. They couldn’t hurt her in public, but Kurt didn’t trust wærewolves, even when they were being honest about what they were.

When John Newman left the stage, Kurt was relieved the security started to change places with John as they neared Toni’s spot.

Then Toni very nearly leapt forward as she grabbed at the Domn Lup. There were gasps and flashes, and the noise level of the
media side rose as they compressed the area, straining for pictures and trying to hear.

In the shuffle, Kurt surged toward Toni. He couldn’t let anything happen to one of his wife’s best friends. He was right behind her when he heard her say, “. . . on a bus.”

It seemed the whole room stilled, like someone had stopped time. Then John Newman said, “Let her through. Bring her with us.”

The brawny security man unhooked the velvet rope and let Toni through, his glare enough to keep anyone else from trying to pass through. He snapped the cordon back in place and followed John Newman out.

Bring her with us. Bring her with us?

Kurt had to get to the parking garage
now
.

T
hree limos pulled into the parking lot of the Pilgrim Congregational Church. It was well out of downtown in Tremont, and was the location the wæres often used for meetings they wanted off-site of the den, especially if they wanted to avoid vamps.

Gregor had insisted the old woman not ride in the same vehicle as Johnny. He’d put her into the first car and ridden with her. When Gregor got out, Johnny, who was sitting by the window of the middle car, hit the button to lower the window. “Well?” Johnny asked. “What did you find out?”

“She’s a stubborn woman who is apparently not intimidated by riding in a limo surrounded by wæres,” Gregor announced, clearly frustrated.

“What did she
say
?” Johnny clarified.

“That she will only talk to you.”

For the entirety of the fifteen-minute ride, Johnny’s emotions had swirled. He wanted to hear what she had to say, and he feared it.
Who was that woman? Not my mother, surely! She would have said something different, right?
Now he intended to talk to her, and he didn’t want everyone else listening in. He opened the car door. “Then let her talk to me. Send her inside. Alone. And send the rest of the men home.” He approached the church.

“Sire—”

“You heard me.” Johnny kept walking.

He pushed open the
great doors, walked into the theatrical interior. Here, there was real Tiffany glass, a dome and columns as well. He sat in a pew near the front and viewed the pulpit.

The answers I sought were locked away. I didn’t know when the phoenix taloned me that it would cost me any chance of that knowledge. Don’t let this be a hoax.

He heard the outer door open again. Momentarily, quiet footsteps entered the chapel. The woman sidestepped into the pew just ahead of his and kept her distance.

He observed her as she stood looking up at the dome then at other architectural details. She didn’t seem nervous; she seemed very much at ease. Her silver-blond hair was short, and she was dressed in a gray pantsuit made of a material that didn’t wrinkle. He recalled her saying she’d ridden five hundred miles on a bus. That would explain the strange mingled scents around her.

Finally, she sat down in the pew, keeping her spine straight, shoulders squared. As she turned to face him, he noticed she’d tried—without complete success—to apply enough makeup under her eyes to hide the dark circles. She didn’t sleep well, he guessed, but she wasn’t as old as he had first thought. The preponderance of silvery white hair on her head belied age—or hardship. She did emit a profound tiredness.

“You certainly picked a beautiful spot to talk,” she said.

“What’s your name?”

“You used to call me Toni.”

He regarded her, repeating the name over and over to himself, but he had not even a hint of recollection. “Do you dislike wæres?”

She shrugged.
“I don’t know any. Or I didn’t until now. I liked you well enough before.”

“How do you know me?”

“Indulge an ‘old’ woman for a moment, will you?”

He felt only impatience, having waited eight years already, but he forced the hastiness aside and unclenched the fists he hadn’t consciously made. Gregor had surely insulted her when he’d called her old. Wanting to ease that offense, Johnny deliberately relaxed his shoulders and nodded.

“What is the date of your earliest memory?” she asked.

Suspicion filled him. “Why?”

“Everything else I think I know hinges on this time line.”

“Because you’re a fraud who wants information to twist into your lies?” Johnny sat back with a tired, regretful exhalation. “Tell me what you came here to say, or get out of here,” he whispered.

Toni fixed him with the look that cross mothers wear.

He could force her to tell him. It probably wouldn’t take much to make her talk. A wave of shame rushed through him.
What’s wrong with me?
He’d lost it last night and he might have lost Persephone forever, but this impulsive carelessness wasn’t
him
.

Johnny raked fingers over his scalp, as if he could harvest a good idea that way. He stood and paced out into the aisle, ready to leave before the beast inside him did something horrible.

He couldn’t abandon this chance. Staring straight ahead into the darker depths under the choir loft, he was overwhelmed with the need to know and the understanding that this was his chance. Maybe his only chance. He couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t
master himself, sit his ass down and find out.

As he turned back, he felt more in control.

“My first memory is of waking naked in the Cleveland Metroparks. That was actually roughly eight and a half years ago. In June.”

“June,” Toni repeated. She scooted over in the pew. Patting the space she’d just opened, she said, “C’mon.” He sat. “What happened to you then?” The empathy she conveyed wasn’t false.

“I ended up at the hospital. I didn’t know my name and couldn’t remember anything. They called me John Doe but couldn’t find any head injuries. I was released to social services. The police assisted them in a missing persons search. Found nothing. By then I was used to being called Johnny, so I stuck with that, but the name Newman fit because . . . I was a new man.” He snorted.
Let’s see if she knows what I know about the tattoos.
“Teenage punk, all tattooed up.”

“The last time I saw you was in May. You didn’t have the tattoos then.”

That was a relief. He knew Eris had given them to him after he’d been abducted. Facing Toni squarely, he said, “There’s a giant hole in my life. Can you start filling it in now?”

Toni reached into her purse and produced a small brown diary. The lock on it was broken, and a thick rubber band was keeping it shut. She plucked the stretchy plastic ring away and opened it, then handed him a school photo of a pimply teen, maybe fifteen.

Johnny’s breath caught, recognizing his own face, minus the tattoos.

His thoughts were racing,
so many, jumbled and frantic. This was him. Toni really did know him! He checked the back of the photo. It was blank. “What was my name?”

“Ironically enough, your name
was
John. John Hampton.”

Elated, Johnny grinned as he repeated the name to himself many times. As he did, his gaze fell to the diary, and he wondered if that was his, if his own thoughts had been recorded there. “You’re not my mother, are you?”

She laughed. “No. But I suppose I fed you more than she did there for a while.”

“What’s her name? And my father’s? What were they like?”

Toni raised her hand as if to say slow down. “I don’t know.”

Johnny’s grin disappeared. Desperation roiled up. He snapped, “What do you mean you don’t know?”

Toni shook her head and muttered, “This isn’t going to work.” She also stood. “You’ve a temper, John. That’s something I never could abide.” She left from the opposite end of the pew.

Johnny nimbly leapt to the seat of the next pew and jumped into the aisle to block her. “Oh no, you’re not leaving
now
.”

“I’ve given you a name. That was more than you had before, and you don’t intimidate me, John.”

“I haven’t tried yet.” His beast snarled inside him.

Toni leaned against the pew and crossed her arms, still clasping the diary. “Well, go on then,” she challenged. “Do your worst.”

The beast slavered inside him. It wanted free, but Johnny fought.
I am in control. Me. The man, not the wolf.

But the wolf was strong.

Johnny’s fingers itched. He threw
off his jacket, tore the tie loose, and ripped the shirt, sending buttons flying. His fingers elongated and, even as dark hair sprouted from his skin, his nails darkened and sharpened into points. He lifted the black claw between them, and, when Toni did not react, he let the dull edge slide across her cheek—without pressing. “What do you mean you don’t know?” he asked again.

“You didn’t talk about them,” she said calmly, “and if you want to scare me, you’ll have to do much more than that.” She curiously perused the tattoo on his chest.

Johnny couldn’t smell any fear radiating off of her. It made his anger swell. He wrapped his hand around her throat, still without pressure. “I can do much more.”

Toni simply blinked at him, no trace of fear anywhere.

It reminded him of Ig . . . Ig hadn’t been afraid to be mauled either. He’d been dying anyway.

The thought of his father figure hit him like a jab in the gut. That emotion weighed upon the beast until its grip weakened. Johnny felt control become fully his once more. But a disturbing idea had occurred to him.

Concentrating, Johnny induced the transformation through his whole upper torso. His grasp on her neck was loose, even as his snout elongated and his nose grew infinitely more sensitive. She did not shrink away as he leaned in close, sniffed. Closer, he put his nose into her hair, against her neck . . . there. There it was, embedded in her scent.
Disease
.

He released her and reverted, feeling the defeated whine of his beast. He retrieved his shirt from the floor and punched his arms into the sleeves. “How long do you have to live?”

Toni’s eyes widened, then she
set her jaw. “Maybe six months.” She bent to pick up his jacket and tie.

“What do you want?” he asked. “Treatment in exchange for your information?”

She transferred the garments to him. “You can’t buy me any time, John.”

“You can beat the disease if I infect you. Is that what you want?”

“Hell, no!” She sank onto the pew as if her knees were suddenly weak.

The buttons were gone, so he couldn’t keep his shirt closed, but he still donned the jacket. He folded the tie and leaned against the end of the pew. “Then what do you want from me?”

Toni opened the diary again and retrieved another picture. In this one he was younger.

Johnny studied the mixture of innocence and mischief in that youthful face. “What grade was I in here?”

“That isn’t a picture of you, John. That’s my grandson.”

K
urt 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.