Wicked Circle (8 page)

Lance openly glared at me.

“You’re in good hands. Lance is here. Nana’s here. I have to do this.”

“I understand.” She sank into her seat. “Your life doesn’t shut down because of my wounds.”

Oooo.
My eyes narrowed with resentment at her brilliant guilt-trip statement. It didn’t matter. Nothing she could say would make me revise my plans.

Lance gathered up the washcloths and made for the kitchen. He motioned for me to follow.

I was certain that this was going to be bad.

“How are you going to get to Cleveland?” Nana called as I followed Lance out.

I was grateful for the delay. “Dunno. Zhan and I could get a rental car, I guess.”

The moment of silence that followed wore thin as Nana dug into the
food and my excuse to stay out of the kitchen dissipated.

A polite five feet away from Lance, I spoke so as not to be heard over the music in the other room. “What did you want?”

Plucking the Corvette keys from the counter where Zhan had obviously set them, he threw them at me. “Leave now.”

The keys hit me in the chest. I winced but caught them before they fell. “What did I do?”

“Do you see her?” he whispered hotly. “All that she’s already suffered for you isn’t enough. Because of you, her stitches were ripped. Because of you, she went into the damn river! Fully under the surface! She came in here shivering cold. What if she gets pneumonia? Her wound was open in the river water. What if it gets infected?”

“Lance—”

“Save it. The doctor gave her specific orders, and because of you, all that’s blown to hell. Just leave before you do her any more damage.”

He left the kitchen, plastering on a fake grin as he shunned me. “Hey, Mom, I told Seph she could take the ’Vette. It’ll save them some time. You don’t mind, do you?”

With arms crossed, I trailed him into the dining/living room area. Eris, chewing on a piece of pizza, said, “Not at all.”

I was glad that Lance continued on to his room. I hugged Nana good-bye. “You’re going right this second?” she asked. “Don’t you even want to wash up and eat?”

“I’d love to, but this is critical, Nana.” I raised an eyebrow and hoped she’d understand I didn’t want to say too much. Of course
we could easily have stayed longer, but between Lance’s anger and my mother’s inquisitiveness, it was best to leave immediately. Zhan and I could grab some dinner once we were on the road. Then I embraced Eris.

When I stood up, Lance was back. “I’ll carry your bags, sis, and get my hug by the car.”

Sis?
He was laying it on thick. He swiped the bags from Zhan’s arms and exited first.

“Persephone,” Nana called.

Please have understood I don’t want to talk about Menessos in front of Eris.
“Yeah?”

She opened her mouth, then shut it. “I don’t need to wish you luck. You always work things out.”

Zhan was just outside the door. “How about I drive, Seph?”

I gave her the keys. I’d left it unlocked, so Lance had already shoved the bags into the mini-trunk and was leaning on the car, arms crossed, waiting for me.

“Why did you stop calling her Mom?”

“Because she started with the guilt trip.”

“Well, it
is
all your fault.”

I’d known this argument was brewing. Resigned to it, I said, “She dove in front of those bullets. I didn’t make her. I wasn’t even in the circle with her.”

“The doctors could have saved her arm if she hadn’t stayed to finish the spell.”

“She made that choice too! Or have you forgotten her threatening Zhan with a knife to keep the medics back?”

He pursed his lips, then snapped, “Saving your boyfriend from a spell or two was more important to you than saving her arm! She did it for you.”

“Yeah. She. Did. It.”

“It wouldn’t have happened if not for you. You don’t have any sense of responsibility, do you?”

I dropped my head down.
If you only knew.

He read my lowered chin as some kind of concession. He pushed away from the car. “Get going. Take this.” He shoved something at me. I dropped it and had to pick it up.

He was three paces away before I had a grip on the little book. “Lance.”

He kept walking. “Got no time for you, sis. Mom needs help.”

“Yeah. As long as you do everything for her she won’t learn to do anything for herself.”

He spun back at the bottom of the stairs. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? If I quit helping her? That would punish her good, right? Well, one of us needs to physically help her. Maybe I can’t buy her a big-ass apology truck, but I can be here.”

“You’re absolutely right.” That shut him up. I continued. “And in a few years, Lance, what then? What happens when you meet someone you want to spend your life with? What happens when you’ve made Mom dependent on you and you want to leave?”

“Like you’re leaving her now? Is this a good enough payback for her leaving you, sis? Are you satisfied now?”

“This isn’t about me, Lance. It’s about her. You’re not helping her if you don’t help her learn to do things for herself.”

“You are so twisted! Maybe she abandoned you, but she’s always been there for me. I won’t leave her.”

It seemed he had mastered the snotty little brother routine. “Of course you won’t leave her. Not tonight. Not
next week or next month, either, but unless you are ready to give up your whole life and have yourself surgically attached to her, you’re not her new right arm either.”

“I’ve got nobody else,” he snapped and pointed at the book. “You do.”

As he stormed up the metal stairs, I examined the book in my hands. It was a small photo album. Inside were pictures of my father.

On our way out of the city Zhan asked, “Why did Menessos call us back?”

I shut the photo album. It was too dark to see it clearly and my head was reeling anyway. I was glad to have her distract me. “Heldridge met with the Excelsior.”

She didn’t know I had mastered her master, but she knew we’d been hoping Goliath found Heldridge before he made it to VEIN. “Oh.” Her reply wasn’t a light, airy vowel sound. It was the kind that was launched in a normal tone but dropped into the lowest of her alto tones, transforming it into an
Oh-ewww.
“Did he elaborate?”

“No.”

Zhan checked the rearview mirror again and changed lanes. It was nearly eight o’clock on a Thursday evening. Luckily the Steelers’ game was an away one, so traffic was light. I could guess the information I’d just given her had put her into alert mode. She would be aware of the vehicles behind us, maybe pull off a few times to see if we were being followed.

She understood the kind of bad things happening to cause our sudden trek home.

She was silent for several heartbeats. “We should find a restaurant, since you haven’t eaten all day.”

“Wonderful idea.” My stomach growled at the thought of food. “Afterward, I want to go home and shower, then head to the den.”

“Does Menessos know that? He may intend for us to—”

“
I
intend to see Johnny before I go downtown.”

I didn’t need to say more; she would do what I said. As the Erus Veneficus of his haven—the fancy title of a court witch—I outranked her and could make such decisions. Good thing, too. It was best if no one at the haven knew I was farther up the chain of command than they thought.

W
e arrived home just after midnight. Lingering over dinner and staying away from major highways—a tactic Zhan claimed would make it easier to tell if we were being followed—made the trip take almost twice as long as it usually would have. It also meant I slept in the car for the ninety minutes it took us to reach my farmhouse in rural Ohio south of Cleveland.

The first thing I did upon arriving home was stash the photo album in my desk drawer. I’d looked through it at dinner, but I wanted to snatch all the pictures out and see if anything was written on the backs. I’d deal with
that
later.

Despite the nap, after a hot shower I was ready for bed, but that was a luxury I couldn’t afford. The night was far from over. I donned a fresh pair of jeans and layered two tank tops, white and peach, under a black scoop-neck sweatshirt that had the habit of slipping over one shoulder. My hair would be dry by the time we arrived at the den. “Let’s go.”

Zhan chose a direct route to the Cleveland Cold Storage building (CCS), the giant, mostly windowless structure at the heart of the disputes of the new I-90 project. The real reason the old building continued to exist was that it secretly housed the Cleveland wærewolf pack. The advertising painted on the sides made it a big money-maker for them; they refused to sell and relocate. The city couldn’t afford to forcefully tear
down the one place that kenneled ninety percent of the local wærewolves. Bad things would happen if they didn’t have a den.

Apparently, bad things were happening anyway. It was one thirty in the morning and the parking area underneath the structure was packed like a Best Buy at dawn on Black Friday.

“There’s nowhere to park and the moon isn’t full for another twelve days.” Zhan stopped the Corvette in front of the rickety freight elevator.

“Wait for me over by the University Inn,” I said.

“No way. You don’t know what’s going on up there.”

“Wæres aren’t fans of Offerlings.” The term referred to a twice-marked member of a vampire’s court, and that’s exactly what Zhan was.

“I’m not a spy.”

“I know that. I’m not comfortable pulling E.V. rank on you, but if you need a direct order to remain behind, consider it given.”

She crossed her arms. “Text me that you’re fine in ten minutes or I’m coming up.”

“Deal.”

Having little trust in the elevator, I headed up the stairwell as the Corvette rolled out of the parking garage. The wæres had increased the security, and though there was no one seen here, that didn’t mean they weren’t watching. They should all be familiar enough with me that they weren’t alarmed by my presence.

A young man and an older man were waiting atop the first-floor landing. I hadn’t seen either of them before. “Miss Alcmedi,” the older man said. “I’m George. This is Renaldo.”

“Hello.” I paused halfway
up and out of reach. “I called earlier, and Johnny said I could meet him here, but he didn’t mention there was anything going on. Has something come up? Can I see him, or is he too busy?”

“He said to bring you up when you arrived,” George said.

Renaldo added, “And he said to tell you the elevator’s safe.”

Johnny knew I was leery of that elevator; that he’d thought to tell them to assure me helped me believe these strangers—but not totally. “Lead on,” I said.

Without hesitating, Renaldo proceeded to the waiting elevator. It could have transported a car, but I wouldn’t have dared such a thing. George held the gate for me. The second-floor gate wasn’t as bad as the termite-damaged garage-level gate. Still, small pieces of wood splintered to the floor.

Renaldo lifted the dirty control panel, revealing a pristine and high-tech one underneath. He pressed his thumb to the button. A light flashed under his print. The gears shuddered, and we were heaved upward. Good thing I hadn’t tried the elevator. I would have fiddled with the fake cover forever.

I glimpsed the dark open expanse of the third floor as we rose past it. Only dim bulbs in steel fixtures at each corner of the elevator illuminated us. On the eighth floor the main doors parted. Renaldo led us out.

The halls in the upper floors of the CCS were off-center, leaving smaller rooms on one side and larger ones on the other. In the days when this place was the cold storage center of Cleveland, there was probably a reason for it. Now, however, it meant I didn’t have a clear view down the hall from the
elevator. It made me nervous.

I relaxed when Johnny’s voice wafted down the hall. He was talking to someone in slightly loud but formal tones, then he fell silent. He was here and these two were truly escorting me to him.

As we entered the head of the hall, however, a wave of energy hit me like an explosion. I staggered. Shock waves rolled through the walls. Johnny’s yell of pain followed.

I bolted.

Renaldo grabbed my arm as I passed him and he jerked me back. “He’s just transforming.” He released me.

I’d never felt such a surge of energy when any wære changed near me. “Didn’t you feel that?”

“Feel what?”

Guess that was as good an answer as any.

I knew things might be different for Johnny since we’d unlocked the power bound in his tattoos. That, and the fact Renaldo did let me go, made me more inclined to keep on believing him, but wære strength is not to be underestimated. My skin stung under my sleeves and a bruise was forming.

“There’s cameras in there,” Renaldo said. “Running live via satellite to the Zvonul. Allow me to lead so you don’t disrupt the confirmation meeting?”

“Of course.” Johnny had to prove to the Zvonul that he was the Domn Lup, and though they’d sent the Rege to confirm him, the Rege was now dead. It appeared that the Zvonul were moving forward in spite of the loss of their head honcho.

“Remain quiet when we enter,” he added.

George and I followed.

Inside, a throng of bodies stood between us and the corner, where
bright lights were illuminating the dingy block wall. Some of the rooms, I’d learned, still had the old steel panels with the piping underneath that had once contained coolant. In this room, all of that had been discarded. Mobile work lights were the only light source in the room, but they had wattage to spare.

Three cameras were also aimed at the corner, and the red lights atop them meant that they were broadcasting.

A howl erupted from the corner and resonated off the block walls so loudly that I covered my ears. Renaldo clasped me by the arm, more gently this time, and led me through the throng to the front. Gregor, the head of the Omori—the Zvonul’s version of the Secret Service—adjusted his bulk to give me a spot.

In front of me a large, familiar black wolf paced. The animal sniffed in my direction, blinking as if the bright lights made it hard to see the crowd.