Hallowed Circle (40 page)

I was about to nod off too, when Hunter and Lydia finally joined us. From the buzz of the outer office’s windowed door, it was clear the band’s second set was roaring. Introductions were made again for Hunter, as the newcomers took the open seats.

“The Ball proceeding well?” Celeste asked politely.

Pleased by the inquiry, Hunter gave her a brief rundown. When she finished, though, Xerxadrea impatiently pointed to me and said, “Tell them.”

They all turned to me expectantly. My chest went tight. A cleansing breath—in, then out—helped as I
willed myself to relax. I stood, because, well, it felt appropriate to say this on my feet. “I … am the Lustrata,” I said.

For a moment there was silence. Only Lydia and Hunter looked surprised. I don’t know what I expected, but
some
thing would have been better than the nothing I got. In the silence that followed, I resisted the compelling urge to start spewing reasons and citing occurrences from my life that seemed to validate the claim. Keeping my mouth shut wouldn’t give them ammunition to tear me down.

At first they were all openly staring at me, then, moment by moment and one by one, they turned to Xerxadrea. She sat with her head angled so the brim of her hat hid her face. The raven upon her shoulder resettled its feathers but was silent.

“The Redeemer? The Bringer of Justice and Light?” Lydia asked, finding her voice.

I wondered if everyone was going to have a different moniker for me.

“Yes,” Xerxadrea said.

“Are you certain?”

The Eldrenne tapped her staff and held her hand out toward me, murmuring. The orb atop the staff began to glow softly and I felt a glittery, shimmering cold upon my skin. I began to glow and those gathered gasped as the Goddess’s mantle appeared on my shoulders. Each circle of the armor that had come to me under that blue moon gleamed in the soft orb-light.

When their shock ebbed, the light faded.

I asked. “So … did I screw everything up out there?”

Silence.

“You killed a fairy on these grounds,” Ludovika said.

“An act of war,” Celeste murmured.

“It was not my intention to start a war,” I said firmly. “I was ending the threat they posed to Beverley.” My eyes went to the girl sleeping on the cot.

“It was inevitable,” Xerxadrea said.

“The fairies
will
retaliate,” Jeanine said.

“Earlier, Xerxadrea, you said I’d protected those I care about with my anonymity. But the fey took Beverley, they already know who I am.”

“Other witches do not. The news media do not.”

My brows furrowed. “Are you suggesting that other witches and humans are more dangerous than the fairies?”

“I am saying the fey will make a grand plan and they will use a secret to their advantage, as leverage. And knowing that, we can use it too.”

“Beverley and my Nana must be safe.” I disliked how thin my voice sounded.

“We will see to that,” Vilna-Daluca said. She and Xerxadrea exchanged nods.

“Hunter, you and Lydia will be conducting the public ritual shortly,” Xerxadrea said. “Afterward, Hunter, you must remain.”

“You want to clean up tonight?” she asked with slight exasperation. “I hired a crew to come in tomorrow to do that.”

I remembered her cleanser allergies and wasn’t surprised by her strategy.

“This isn’t cleanup,” Vilna said. “We’re initiating you and Persephone into the
lucusi
tonight.”

• • •

I stayed with Beverley. Johnny, hair dripping with stage sweat, peeked in for an instant to say he’d be back in an hour when the ritual was concluded. “Don’t leave without me,” he said and shut the door. I didn’t get to say anything before he’d taken off again.

With the comfy desk chair near Beverley, I arranged another chair so I could prop my feet in it. My fingers stroked Beverley’s head as Vilna’s had.

She had to be safe.

I killed a fairy. I took a life! Instigated war. Nana had warned me.

The weight of it all filled my chest, tightened my throat.

I won’t cry. I’ll fix it. No matter what. I’ll find a way.

I drifted to sleep. Even when Johnny’s voice whispered my name, even when I smelled the cedar and sage and freshly shampooed aroma of him, even as I felt his callused fingers on my cheek, I thought it was a dream. Then Beverley giggled and called me “Sleepyhead.”

I sat up.

Johnny kissed my cheek. “They wanted me to leave, but I insisted I had to see you.”

“Who wanted you to leave?”

“The witches. They’re getting ready to do something up there, so I can’t stay. They allowed me to come and wake you, but they also said I could take this drowsy mermaid with me.” He poked Beverley in the ribs.

“Do I get to ride your motorcycle?” Beverley asked, eyes widening.

“No, take my car,” I said quickly, reaching into the Tarot pouch for my car keys.

“Aw,” Beverley whined.

“I don’t have a helmet that’d fit you, anyway,” Johnny said. “And your eyes won’t stay open. You nod off on a bike wearing an oversize helmet and you’ll dump yourself on the road!”

“Then how will Seph get home?”

Johnny said, “We could wait?”

“We’ll see that she gets home,” Vilna-Daluca said from the doorway. “Come with me, Beverley, and give them a moment?”

She followed Vilna from the office.

I stood, stretched my arms high. Johnny’s warm hands on my waist preceded the kiss he planted on my cheek.

My arms fell about his shoulders.

His arms wrapped around me too, then his hands cupped my backside. “Oooo. Velvet.”

When we left the office and emerged at the base of the eastern stairwell, a black-robed woman whose face was hidden in the depths of her hood stood silently waiting.

“This is where I move along,” Johnny said. He squeezed my hand and took the steps two at a time with Beverley running and giggling behind him. “See you at the house.”

The woman before me, obviously one of the
lucusi,
lifted another cape just like her own and offered it in a manner that said she would put it on me. I went forward and slipped into the soft cape. She then turned me,
fastened the front at my throat, and lifted the hood, positioning it to hide my face. I could see out clearly even though my eyes were hidden in the depths. Lastly, she pushed the cape’s length behind my shoulders, so my arms could move freely.

She led me up the stairs, where another cloaked woman stood beside Hunter, who I recognized only because of what I could see of her Isis costume.

I took in the Covenstead. The hush of emptiness had fallen and four women, all cloaked with hoods up, waited around the pentacle in the floor. It was only the eight of us now.

The two women led Hunter and me across the Covenstead floor and indicated where we should stand. I was surprised our places were not on any of the star’s points, but rather in between them.

The women who’d led us took places at the points, and the other four filled in the other points, leaving one, where Xerxadrea with her staff and raven took up a position to triangulate mine and Hunter’s.

Xerxadrea called up a circle, then strode around us making her quarter calls and Goddess invocation. Then, around us, the five women on the points began chanting. Their movements were stiff, but it was clear they were calling up energy from the nucleus below. I could feel something physical manifesting with their sorcery. In moments I could see a dark mist floating in the center, but where Xerxadrea stood she blocked what was forming from my view.

The Eldrenne chanted with them, a separate chant, one that almost mocked the meter and tone of their
chant, but her words were old words and they worked efficiently.

“For you,”
the ley line whispered. Power shot upward, like a geyser erupting at the center. White light shone from it. Mist curled around our feet.

The chant ended and the hooded women stood with their arms outstretched before them.

“A gift,” Xerxadrea called. “By accepting this gift, you are inducted into my
lucusi
,” she said. “And on your honor you vow to follow my commands.” She paused. “Do you so swear, Hunter Hopewell?”

“So I swear,” she said.

“Do you so swear, Persephone Alcmedi?”

I wanted to know what they had created, but I trusted Xerxadrea. “So I swear.”

Immediately, two brooms skittered across the floor and rose up, broomsticks in Xerxadrea’s hands. She offered the brooms to us.

From the broomstick tip to the dried straw making its base, it was black. In my palm, the broomstick was smooth despite the beautiful symbols etched along its length. And, as newly created matter, it was warm. This symbol of women’s labor tingled in my hand.

“Thank you,” I said. Hunter did likewise.

“You are welcome,” Xerxadrea said. Then each of the
lucusi
members repeated her. They had all created these, for us.

“Awaken them,” Vilna-Daluca said.

Holding the broom before me, I whispered, “Awaken ye to life.”

The end lifted into the air. The broom floated in front
of me, suspended horizontally about two feet above the floor. I looked up to the assembled women, to Hunter. They laughed. So did I.

“Is this what I think it is?” Hunter asked.

Xerxadrea gestured to the eastern doors and they flung open. “Try them out,” she said.

And the
lucusi
materialized their brooms, spoke the awakening, and sat on their floating broomsticks. Hunter and I still stood stunned and motionless.

Then the witches flew out into the night.

Hunter and I exchanged a look before hurriedly mounting our brooms.

I sat upon the straw where it was bound to the broomstick. It held my weight easily, steadily. Copying what I had seen the others do, my legs bent so my knees pointed down, and, hovering there, I tucked my toes under my bottom. “East,” I said.

I rode the broom from the Covenstead as if I’d been doing it all my life.

The other witches were nowhere to be seen. Hunter waved and sped off to the north. I turned the broom southeast, toward home.

I rose high, leveling my ascent as the air grew cold. Cruising slowly along, I turned my face to the moon. Just past full, it was still almost whole. And it was beautiful.

Nana had said there would be a sign, and with one wide swing of a guitar, the Lustrata had left a green-and-yellow–blooded announcement:
I’m here.

Many witches, and some of the wæres and vampires, would recognize what they had seen. Among them would be those who feared and loathed what I represented. …

I had an opportunity, with the fey, to show all the other-than-mere-humans what I meant when I said “justice.”

Nana had said, “Everyone’s different agendas work against each other,” and that I must find a way to maintain the balance. She said she’d seen the hostilities and that they “must be avoided at all costs.” She hadn’t indicated that I’d be the start of it.

Another broom came alongside me. “May we join you?” Vilna-Daluca asked.

“Absolutely.”

Jeanine and Ludovika were with her.

“Xerxadrea wanted me to remind you that time runs differently in the world of the fey. We hope to have a week before they take some action, but that is not a guarantee. Boost your wards, link them to the protrepticus. We will come to you in the morning.”

“Dawn?”

She sighed. “I would love to sleep in, but Xerxadrea isn’t fond of it.” After her words faded she kept gazing at me. She didn’t seem starstruck exactly, but it was something akin to that. Like a devotee. It made me uncomfortable. I looked away.

“Is my first landing going to be a problem?” I asked.

“The brooms drive on intentions, so that’s up to you.”

“Thank you.”

“You may thank me tonight, Lustrata. But soon we will all be thanking you,” she said.

“I don’t know if I can bear it,” I muttered.

“And that’s why I like you, Persephone.” She nodded. “Until tomorrow?” she asked.

“Until tomorrow.”

The three of them left me. Apparently, speed is part of that intention too. They zoomed like silent black rockets and were out of sight.

Broom-riding, I found, was actually a lot of fun and no matter how dismal the future might loom, I was in
this
moment.

Dipping, turning, following familiar roads from a
brand new perspective, I was soon laughing out loud, going fast enough the make my new cape’s length flutter out behind me. It reminded me of a roller coaster without the click of wheels on the track. It was a buoyant kind of motion, fluid. Maybe it was more like surfing, but I wouldn’t know.