Wicked Circle (39 page)

She warily assessed me as she thought it through. Providing me energy that I might try to use against her was a risk she had to take. She couldn’t expect me to succeed without it.

Finally she said, “Then you go back into the dark.”

After the overhead door
shut and darkness surrounded me again, I waited long enough for Liyliy to leave. Then I reopened the Coca-Cola and splashed a fizzy circle around me.

Mother, seal my circle and give me a sacred space.

I need to think clearly to solve the troubles I face.

I could usually slip into an alpha state like flicking a switch . . . but not today. I tried again.

Grounding and centering myself didn’t work. Something was wrong. It wasn’t me, either, all injuries aside. This salt-and-iron environment was interfering. Since meditation had nothing to do with outward magic, my contact with this stuff had to be to blame. Venturing a guess, I’d have bet that Liyliy had done something to this salt and that was keeping me from tapping the ley.

Salt as mere salt couldn’t stop me. Iron couldn’t either, but apparently both in the high amounts found here, and mixed with whatever empowerment Liyliy had worked, was enough.

She’d even gone so far as to stuff my mouth with salt.

Thinking about that made me thirsty again; I gulped another drink of the Coke and visualized the caffeinated beverage burning the salt out of me. That gave me an idea.

Pushing my aura to include what was directly touching me—I didn’t have enough energy to spare for cleansing the tons of it that was here—I said,

Mother, cleanse this salt and give me a sacred space.

I need to think clearly to solve the troubles I face.

That did it. In seconds, I sat on the shore with a lake lapping quietly before me, a willow tree beside me and crickets singing in the darkness. My bonds and wounds did not go with me, though
the torn and ragged dress did. I stood, searching all around.

A shadow crossed the inland darkness, a shadow with ears pricked.

For a single heartbeat, it seemed like a dark wolf racing toward me, attacking—but I knew this was not true. The shadow was too small to be Johnny in wolf form. It was Amenemhab, my jackal totem animal, who was approaching.

He padded close and sat. The crescent moon above us silvered his back and darkened his muzzle, but his tail wagged happily—a good sign.

“It’s good to see you.”

“Likewise,” he replied. “How’s your mother?”

The last time I’d chatted with him, it had been about her. I filled him in on the events since then.

“So she does care and she has learned,” he said.

“Yeah. I guess.” I hadn’t believed this was possible when he’d suggested it. “She’s trying to guilt me into reciprocating, but that’s not why I’m here.”

“It isn’t?”

“No.” I explained that Liyliy was holding me hostage, and that she expected me to unmake a magical necklace without allowing me to touch the necklace or to tap the ley line for power.

“Hmmm . . .” he said.

I remembered that Creepy’s visit might be important too, but before I could speak, Amenemhab said, “And yet the two are not so dissimilar.”

“Huh?”

“As Liyliy is keeping you from the freedom you want, you are similarly holding your mother hostage from your love, which she wants.”

I frowned at him, but he
was undeterred.

“Liyliy wants you to unmake the necklace and will restrict your freedom until you do as she wants. You want your mother to change, and you restrict her access to your heart until she does as you want. Are you following me so far?”

“Unhappily, yes.”

“Liyliy refuses to give you access to the item of power, but this complication makes winning your freedom more difficult for you, and because Liyliy does not trust you, this undermines the success of her goal. Care to outline how this is reflected with your mother?”

I crossed my arms, not that a physical show of being “blocked off” would have any effect on a totem animal. “I refuse to let her into my heart, but my standoffishness makes her more stubborn, and because I don’t trust her, all this undermines my chance of eliciting a change in her behavior.”

“See? You do understand.” He flashed the jackal version of a grin. “As Liyliy denies you access to the ley line, she lowers her chances for a satisfying outcome. As you deny your mother your love, you do the same, and it is a shame, for that is the one thing that
can
change her.”

“Okay, I get it. I see it. Life is wildly synchronous. But I can’t do anything about my mother if I don’t get away from Liyliy. So help me out here. How do I unmake this thing?”

“Why would you?” Amenemhab stood and paced back and forth before me. It was unnerving, since that was exactly what Liyliy had done. Just as I was about to say something about it, his tail dropped down. “Unmaking a spell of this magnitude, which was never part of you in either the making or the
receiving, is interference with karmic repercussions. If you do this, you will bear an iron chain. It will have to be abolished if ever you are to reach your destiny, and nullifying it in this lifetime would be very difficult indeed.” He bowed his head.

“Then I have to get the necklace away from her, which will be next to impossible.”

“Is she so fierce?”

“She’s very capable and there, my right arm is injured.”

His snout lifted. “You’ve been tested. Those tests were not given you simply to strengthen you. In passing them you earned power and were afforded privileges and opportunities . . . such as unmaking that which was unjustly wrought upon you. But to balance the success of an opportunity, there comes a challenge.”

My shoulders squared. “So what do I
do
?”

He cocked his head. “Have you evaluated where you are in your cycle?”

“You want to talk about my period?”

“No. Your
life
cycle,” Amenemhab laughed. “Birth. Life. Death.”

I scratched my head. “I’m pretty sure I’m well past the birth part and into the life part, and hopefully none too close to the death part.”

“Each facet of life can also be gauged upon its life cycle. Like a love affair. Some are born quickly, live briefly and die in flames.”

Johnny.
My stare dared the totem animal to make that connection.

“It is the way of existence—and your existence as the Lustrata is no different. What is birth?”

“Birth is creation, beginning, initiation.”

“And life?”

“Life is development, growth,
progress.”

“It is time to evolve, Persephone. Time to take what you know and all you have earned and unite it.” He held his head high. “Embracing the goddess whose torches light your path and whose grace protects you is easy. Embracing the goddess who would set you aflame, who would drown you and cast your body soaring wingless into the sky . . . is not easy, and yet you embrace Her still. Some would let fear immobilize them, yet you just accept what She asks of you and do it. That sets you apart, Persephone.”

I hadn’t thought to “blame” Hecate for the close calls during my tests. Though I hadn’t grasped it during the first test—I’d been naïve, but I’d come to understand that danger was to be expected when a deity assessed a mortal.

“Your devotion and loyalty shine like bright beacons that declare you ready for the more treacherous journey along the deeper path.”

I cast my eyes toward the island that resembled a spearhead jammed into the middle of the lake. I’d seen the giant steps to Tartarus inside there. I didn’t want to go back.

“I cannot tell you the answer,” he said softly, “for these things of which I speak are uniquely yours, as will be the manner in which you combine them.”

“If I have so much, why isn’t the course of action obvious to me?”

“Being the Lustrata is no simple honor. It will only get harder.”

Delightful.

“You have a decision to make, Lustrata:
Cor aut mors
. I leave you to it.” He turned to leave, then stopped. “My time with you is growing short,
Persephone; I feel another totem will soon replace me.”

That made me sad.

“Be at peace, Persephone. When things change here, it is evidence of evolution.” Amenemhab trotted away.

I awakened inside the cargo hold. Not wanting Liyliy to find the wet circle of salt and become suspicious, I wiggled around and hoped it disguised my actions.

“
Cor aut mors
,” Amenemhab had said. It was Latin for “heart or death.” It meant a choice between the morals and loyalty of the heart, or the insignificance and disgrace of death.

Of course I would choose “heart.”

C’mon, Snickers bar, and kick in. I have a karmic suicide to avoid.

I
n her suite at the Cleveland Renaissance Hotel, Aurelia emerged from the bathroom carrying an empty goblet. She wore a thick terry robe, and her towel-dried hair was combed straight. As she crossed the living room to the table, where an uncorked bottle of wine rested on a bed of ice, she paused to dig a small portable radio from her pocket and place it on the damask-covered fainting couch. She poured herself a second glass of wine and watched the city below.

Cleveland was nothing like her Bucuresti. Though the cities were nearly the same geographical size, there were far fewer people in Cleveland. Also, this city’s nickname, her research had revealed, was “Forest City”: A motto adopted in the 1830s, it made no sense in the present day. There was no forest here; not now, anyway. It irritated her that the phrase was utterly inaccurate. Continuing to pay homage to an outdated vision, she felt, highlighted the lack of forwardly mobile thinking that would be needed to make this city great and prestigious again.

Her home was known as “Little Paris,” and with its beautiful architecture, its universities and theaters, cafés, and museums it was, indeed, an eastern version of that grand city. The Dâmbovita River was far more beautiful than the Cuyahoga.

“What’s he like?” Johnny’s voice emitted from the little radio.

Aurelia left the window.
“Finally.” Since the Domn Lup had fled Cleveland, he and the woman had spoken little. The woman he called Toni had said she needed a nap, and the silence had ensued. Hours of it.

“He’s all boy,” Toni answered. “He can’t sit still. . . .”

Setting her goblet on the table, Aurelia lifted the little radio, holding it tightly as she reclined on the fainting couch and listened via the bug she’d planted in the Maserati’s key fob.

Detective Kurt Miller knew when the Maserati hit I-90 north that the Domn Lup was escorting Toni back to Saranac Lake. His Crown Victoria couldn’t hope to keep up with a car like that, but he didn’t have to now. When he arrived in his hometown just after 2:00 a.m., he drove slowly past Toni’s house. The lights were out. There was no fancy car parked in the driveway, either. He cruised by the area hotels and spotted the sleek vehicle at Gauthier’s Saranac Lake Inn.

He called in a favor from his old friends at the village police department and had a cruiser sent to stake out the Maserati. The assigned officer was to call him if anyone used that car, then he was to nonchalantly tail it.

Kurt stretched. He was ready to go home and sleep in his own bed.

Johnny walked into the lobby area of the hotel. A man with a bushy moustache emerged from the back room. “Hello. Welcome to Gauthier’s. Would you like a queen or a king? I have a suite available.”

Johnny dropped the keys on the counter and readied his wallet. “Nothing fancy,” he said. “Just a room to sleep in.”

The man swiped the
credit card and gave it back, then asked him about the make and license of his car, which brought an impressed whistle to the man’s lips. “Are they really all they’re cracked up to be, the Maseratis?” the man asked. “I mean, you can get more horsepower for less money in a Corvette Z06.” He slid the room key across the counter.

“I drove a Z06,” Johnny said, retrieving his keys and the room key. “I opted for the Quattroporte. I just . . . liked it more.”

“Ahh,” the man smiled. “You must be a family man, going for the four-door.”

Johnny’s chest swelled. “Yeah.”

“Your room’s on the second level, all the way down on the right.”

After showering, Johnny crawled into bed with the diary in his hand. He read entries about Frankie missing her dad, about how her mom cried at night, and about her mom struggling to pay the bills . . . but it was the entry about her hating her father for leaving them that struck him hardest.

Will Evan hate me for not being there?

He read about a fight Frankie had with one of her friends, about a crush on a boy who never acknowledged she existed, and about trials with a monster math teacher. Then she documented his “loser” appearance. Toni had glossed the story over, but after an hour of reading, he had a grasp of who Frankie thought him to be, and how that evolved as she grew to know him, love him. She’d drawn a whole page of hearts and written “Francine Rosalee Brown + John Curtis Hampton” inside them.

She mentioned that he said nothing of his home life except to mumble that
he hated his mom’s boyfriend and couldn’t understand what she saw in him. There was no other insight to his family. Frankie said she pitied him, and she had been perceptive enough to understand she was pinning on him all the love she could no longer give her father.

He had the feeling they could have made it work, high school sweethearts, together forever, because each would fit perfectly into the hole in the other’s heart.

But Frankie was gone. Soon, the kid would be alone.

No. No, he won’t be alone.

S
itting in the utter blackness of the cargo hold, I clenched my hands. I said, “Heart,” as if hearing my own voice would make everything comprehensible. When it didn’t, I whispered, “
Cor
.”

Core.

Soul.

The
sorsanimus
.

I couldn’t tap Menessos or Johnny under this confinement, but I knew neither of them would give up if they were in my situation. I would not be the weak side of the triangle.