Shattered Circle (19 page)

He backed away from the car.
I can’t do it under these circumstances, either.

She coughed again and it sounded like blood came up. He turned away. He’d made two steps before he heard, “John. Please. Wait.”

He stopped.

She was breathing fast, so pale. Yet there was sweat on her brow. “You have to go to my hotel. The Renaissance Cleveland. Get my purse. Take my room key. It’s the Presidential Suite.” She coughed again, spat. “In my suitcase, wedged in the bottom left corner, is a key to a public locker at the Greyhound station on Chester Avenue. It’s not even a mile from the hotel.”

He knew downtown well enough that she didn’t have to tell him this, but he refrained from interrupting her.

“Take the key. Get the stuff inside it . . . in the next twenty-four hours.” Another cough. “Do it before he gets it. Do it and your son will be safe.”

Johnny stepped back to the car. “ ‘He’ who?”

She swallowed, spat. “Take it,” she whispered. “Get the key.”

Johnny sat and reached for her purse, which lay on her feet. As he pulled it away his stomach turned over inside him. Beneath the purse, her right foot was twisted to the side and an inch of leg bone protruded from it. Blood was dripping fast, pooling on the tan floor.

If he had doubted the truth of her claim to not feeling anything, that sealed it. He brought the purse up onto the console between them and unzipped the top.

“Who?” he asked again.

Abruptly, Aurelia screamed. “My feet. Oh my God, my feet! John, do you see that!”

Brusquely, he said, “I saw it.”

“I . . . I can’t feel any of that. God, please, don’t leave me like this.”

Johnny’s fingers closed around the hotel key card. He zipped the purse up and replaced it gently, hoping she would calm down once she couldn’t see her feet again.

“Help me,” she begged.

Not trusting his voice to not break, he whispered, “I cannot kill you.”

Shallow jerky breaths overcame her and she sobbed again.

Lights flashed down the road. Four sets. Johnny got out of the car.

When the vehicles neared he recognized the three black Chevrolet Tahoes that the Omori had been using, and the last he recognized as Doc Lincoln’s pickup truck. They parked behind his car on the road and started unloading.

Johnny headed directly for Gregor. “Let the doc in first,” he ordered, pointing at the truck and the plain man who climbed out of it with a large medical bag
in hand. Once Doc Lincoln approached Aurelia’s car, Johnny pulled Gregor to the side. “I need you to go to Saranac Lake, New York.”

Gregor nodded. “What may I do for you there?”

“Get my son and bring him to Cleveland.”

The Omori captain blinked twice, showing more surprise than Johnny had expected he would. “Would you repeat that, sire?”

•  •  •

Johnny sat in his car and called Antonia Brown. “I’m sorry, Toni. I know it’s late—”

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I’m sending a man to Saranac Lake.”

“What for?”

“I’ve learned that someone bugged the key fob to my car. They know about Evan. They know I have a son.”

“ ‘They’ who?”

Johnny’s free hand scratched through his hair. He flashed a look at the car in the field. The Omori had taken one of the Chevys into the field. It sat running with the high beams shining into the BMW while Doc Lincoln was checking Aurelia. “I don’t know exactly.”

“John.”

The question in her voice was clear. “I trust the man I’m sending.”

“He’ll protect us?”

“Yes. He is to bring you and Evan here. Pack only what you need, we’ll send for the rest or replace it.”

“You don’t seriously think it’s that simple to uproot our lives, do you?” she snapped.

Johnny wasn’t sure how to delicately say what he wanted to say. “Don’t you have your affairs in order?”
When she’d tracked Johnny down, she’d told him she was dying. She had about six months.

Toni sighed resignedly. “What if I want to die in my home?”

“I will do everything you ask of me, Toni, but I want Evan with me. I want him here with guards I trust around him. I would not ask this of you unless I was convinced Evan’s life depended on it.” He respected her resilience and tenacity. She had struggled on when her husband died suddenly. She had struggled on when her teen daughter, Frankie, wound up pregnant by a boy who disappeared before she could even tell him about the child. She had struggled on when Frankie was killed by a drunk driver. She had raised Evan alone for five years. She’d done what needed to be done, her way. He wanted her to be able to die her way, but he had to protect his son. “You will have every bit of medical care that you want. No more, no less.”

Silence.

“Toni?”

“I will hold you to that.”

“I expect nothing else from you.” Another moment passed. “I’m going to send a picture to your phone of the man I’m sending. His name is Gregor.”

“Okay.”

Movement outside caught his attention. “I need to go now, Toni. Call me if you need anything.” He ended the call as he exited the vehicle.

Dr. Geoffrey Lincoln had left the BMW and was coming back toward his truck. What bothered Johnny was the doc wasn’t hurrying.

“Doc?”

He stopped in his tracks. He removed his glasses and began cleaning them on the tail of his shirt.

Johnny’s pace increased. “Doc?”

“I’m sorry, John.”

Johnny’s heartbeat was loud in his ears as he pulled up short in front of Geoffrey, not wanting to believe what he knew was true.

C
reepy gazed into my eyes with the kind of adoring sincerity that was meant to make women swoon. I fought against the sensation of free-falling.

“Are you saying you want my increased assistance?” Creepy asked.

“No,” I replied, “I’m saying I want to know by what means it is that you think you can aid me more, so I can consider whether I want that extra assistance or not.”

His voice dropped to a low whisper. “There’s a price for that information.”

I crossed my arms and snorted, frustrated with both the predicament and the sensuality brimming in his voice—which had sunk into a captivating tone, melodic and soothing.

“It is a simple thing I ask for,” he said, “but very valuable.”

“Are you able to tell me what that is, or does knowing what that price is have a price?”

My sarcasm sobered him. His smile faded into an expression of deadly seriousness. His hand pushed my hair away from my shoulder, then rounded the side of my neck. “Let my lips touch yours for one kiss and I will tell you what I can do for you.” He made it sound entirely sexual—which was quite a contrast to the placement of his hand, which only served to remind me how fragile and vulnerable the human neck was.

Additionally, bartering to break down the barriers of intimacy always irritated me.

Heedless of both warning signs, I contemplated kissing him.

He gave my earlobe an affectionate little tug, then his gaze traveled over my face, coming to rest adoringly on my eyes. “I have what you need, Persephone.”

I believed he did.

To find out what he could do that trumped the plan I had in mind, all I had to do was kiss this mysterious being who wasn’t a man, a vampire, or a wærewolf. He wasn’t anything I could yet identify. He could work sorcery without pulling on a ley line so he was internally powerful, enough so that he could teleport himself. That wasn’t normal.

Maybe the taste of him would give some hint.

I scolded myself soundly. It wasn’t like I’d know. Until a few weeks ago I’d never kissed anyone but a human. I was sure Johnny tasted like Johnny, not like some default wærewolf flavor, and I doubted all vampires tasted like cinnamon. So Creepy would taste like Creepy.

What flavor would he have?

I wondered what his lips—a bit wide for his face; not too thin, not too thick—would feel like on mine. His dark beard was trimmed short, but it looked soft. It was a very masculine mouth, as if he could command legions with ease. But the sum total of that impression was created by a combination of things.

Like his eyes.

His stance.

He conveyed confidence and authority.

Knowing how out of control my life was becoming,
being close to someone with his level of self-assurance was aspirational.

Yeah. That’s what I want. To be in control of my life, not a victim of it.

Sometimes, in a small corner of my heart, I wished someone else was the Lustrata, wished for my simple life back. I didn’t want to be a target anymore.

The wærewolves in particular seemed to have it in for me. Some in the local pack had personal grudges and resentments. The Rege had tried to kill me, and so had Aurelia. Hell, even Johnny had tried, though he might be the only one who had a legitimate excuse for his actions.

The vampires had made their share of threats, too. Heldridge had it in for me. Eva had tried to poison me. Liyliy had kidnapped me, and when I escaped she decided it was better to shred me with her talons and drown me than to have me unmake that necklace. Mero was determined to deliver me to the Excelsior. That would not be good at all.

They all fear me.

They see me as a danger to them.

How do I become something that those who oppose me would not dare to strike against . . . and yet maintain my “self”?

I’d hesitated longer than I should have. I’d taken a tangent along a side path, meandering in my own thoughts, and hadn’t answered him. Like a little girl lost in the woods, when I came back to myself and realized my mistake, it was too late. The predator was closing in.

My eyes closed. I held my breath.

Creepy’s lips brushed mine.

With his hand at the back of my neck I could not
have pulled away, but I didn’t resist. The chaste exploration surprised me. It was just his mouth making contact with mine, barely, then sliding to the left, then the right. It wasn’t even a kiss, really. He was feeling me, caressing me in a way that I’d never been touched before. It was infinitely intimate. It took my breath away.

Literally. What I’d held in my lungs escaped all at once in a quavering sigh.

I felt him smile.

Then his lips pressed against mine.

It was a moment of utter sweetness. I yielded. I kissed him back.

His grip tightened. His mouth pressed harder on mine, so hard it hurt. I
mmmm
-ed a protest and tried to pull away but his hand held me firm. His beard was rough now, scraping over my skin. I tried to say no, but his tongue filled my mouth—he tasted of raspberry and orange. No, he tasted like a blood orange.

As the seconds ticked away, he grew rougher. Gripping turned into squeezing, fondling into groping. When I heard the seam of my shirt tear, I thrust my hands under his chin and pushed as I turned away. “Stop it!”

He roared in anger and, clutching the back of my neck, spun me around like a dancer. My knees gave and the next thing I knew I was crouched before him on all fours, looking out at the decaying hall around us. His fingers gripped my shoulders but he wasn’t pulling me away from this danger; he was holding me to it. Threads of light sprang from his fingertips and wound down my arms, forcing them to stay straight.

In a raw whisper Creepy said, “I can remove all the
uncertainty, Persephone. I can remove the danger and replace it with serenity so deep you’ll wonder how you ever survived without it. Imagine your life without threats, without doubts. You want that, don’t you?”

Breathing hard, feeling the floor cracking under my palms, I saw fine fissures appear under my hands and spread. I fought to keep all my weight on my knees. “How can you do that?”

“How matters not, if that is what you desire of me.” His voice shook with an intensity that traveled down his arms into my shoulders, vibrating out to my palms. The cracks widened.

“How matters to me!” I shouted, trying desperately to hold the force he was exerting in my legs and back. My muscles trembled with the effort.

“What would you object to?” he growled.

“I object to being coerced by threats.”

“Indecision makes me impatient. This method brings answers. Now, what would you object to?”

“Harming others.”

“The world must balance. If I give to you, I must take from another.”

“Then, do it my way.”

He leaned down to my ear. “But your way takes from the Excelsior. It takes his home earth to make a stake such as that. It counters his free will, prohibiting him from coming near you while the stake is in your possession!”

“I need only a little dirt and the stake won’t bother him if he doesn’t seek to harm me, so I’ll accept that risk.”

He barked a single laugh. “The stake will not defend you from his human minions.”

My jaws clenched. I was the Lustrata, bearer of the mantle. I could tap a ley line and call on energies many witches would not dare to touch. “I can do quite a bit to protect myself.”

“Yes, my beauty, you are strong—thrice tested—and your potency is waxing, but you are not yet full as the moon.”

Johnny and Menessos would help me. Certain witches would. And the elementals. “I have other defenses.”

“Do you dare to underestimate who you trifle with, witch? He is the Supreme Vampire for a reason. His minions will employ others not bound by him, others who will not be held back by your weapon. They will lay waste to all the people who would stand to shield you. They will destroy the flimsy weapon you create. The blood of all those you hold dear will run thick upon the open ground, and they will throw you before the Excelsior anyway. All will have been for naught.”

I said nothing and simply tried to breathe normally to quell the fear that rose up when those I cared for most were endangered, and to evaporate the tears burning at the backs of my eyes.

“I have what you need,” he said again.

Through clenched teeth I asked, “How would you accomplish it?”

He snorted. “So stubborn!”

“I have to know! I have to think it through to decide.”

“Then think, sweet, sweet Persephone. Think long and hard. Call for me when you’ve decided how you want to proceed.” He shoved on my shoulders.