But anger didn’t change the fact that I had no options.
His hands moved to the sides of my face and lifted, to make me see him. “Bend your morals for me, Persephone. Let me show you what I can do.”
I swallowed hard and told myself,
Yeah, the situational ethics galled me. It was not who I believed myself to be. It was not who I wanted to be. But there was no other way out. I wanted to kick and scream that I simply would not and that he was a pig for even intervening in my meditation.
But I didn’t want to die.
I also didn’t want to live with knowing that I’d given in.
Was this what leadership like Johnny was achieving—and like Menessos had lost—was all about?
No wonder Johnny was changing. Compromising one’s personal ethics had to have a negative impact. I didn’t want to think about exactly how this would change me.
I looked up at him and nodded.
Immediately, Creepy was kissing me again, sucking on my bottom lip—and biting.
I jerked. “Ow!” I tasted blood. “What in Hell do you think you’re doing?”
He reached up and wiped blood from my lip. The floating stone drifted close and he wiped the blood across the base. He flashed me a sordid smile. “Sealing the deal.”
He jumped down from the boulder, dragging me ungracefully after him with a grip on my upper arm. He pulled me with him as he headed for the ruin. I could barely keep up as he hurried across the grass, across the pebbled walkway, and into the main structure.
My jaw was shut tight to make sure he didn’t get the satisfaction of hearing me protest or whine about his speed, his painful hold on my arm, or my poor feet.
He crossed the interior without hesitating, passing the darkened alcoves of the shrine and heading to the rear. There, a stone stairway descended into the dark. He gestured and a light radiated from his other hand. He drew me down the steps, strewn with shards and debris fallen from the arches above. One cut into my foot and I tripped.
As I fell, he tossed the light upward and swung me around somehow. For an instant I wondered if we were teleporting again as everything spun, but the next thing I knew I was draped across his arms like a bride being carried to the honeymoon suite.
The light hovered in the air to brighten our way. Ahead, the pathway had been walled up with mortar and stone.
He glared at it, then blew air through his lips like a silent whistle.
The stone groaned like a deep-voiced specter, then cracked and fell in on itself like so much powder.
It was incredible. There had been no tug on a ley line. No sense of any surge of power from him. Even in this meditation world, when I’d used magic I’d felt the discharge of it.
“Who are you?”
Starting forward through the haze, he said, “Call me Aidon.”
My heart sputtered in my chest. My stomach iced over.
With that, I knew who he really was.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Johnny drove. He hated the fact that Red had learned about Evan because of Aurelia’s mean-spiritedness. He’d hoped that the revelation was not any part of the reason for her current condition. Mentally, he began beating himself up.
Brian had sat silently beside him for miles, then the Omori commented on the Maserati’s handling of the country roads and the two of them talked about cars until they neared downtown.
“Dropping off the package first, sire?”
“Yes.”
Mero, still bound and gagged, was in the trunk.
The late-night foot traffic in the immediate vicinity of the May Company building was sparse. They pulled up to the curb in front of the haven. Johnny opened his car door and stood, then whistled once.
Out of the shadows, two fierce-looking vampires emerged. One could have modeled for Viking history books and the other could have been a Zulu warrior—except that both were dressed for more modern intimidation in a cold city.
As these outside guards strolled close in nonchalant gaits, Johnny reached into the car and pressed the button to release the trunk lid. “I have something that belongs to you.”
Viking peeked into the deep compartment. Zulu maintained a ready stance and kept watch on Johnny. The Viking stood straight. “We’ll take him.”
“Keep him out of the suburbs,” Johnny said, then slid back into the driver’s seat.
The vampires removed Mero from the trunk and shut the lid. Johnny drove away, purposely going in the direction of the den. He stopped at the entrance. After a quiet moment Brian said, “I don’t know what you’re doing, but I get the feeling you don’t want me around.”
Johnny nodded.
“I’m down with being your backup.”
“Gregor gave you his trust. Any other time, that would be enough for me.”
Brian reached for the door handle, but halfway he switched and reached behind him. He offered Johnny his service weapon. “With all you can do, sire, a gun may seem like a rudimentary weapon, but I’d feel better if you took this with you.”
Johnny stared at it. His first thought was to wonder if there was a tracer in it.
His second thought was disgust at the idea he’d be living the rest of his life suspicious of everyone. He took the gun.
Brian got out.
Ten minutes later, the Maserati was parked at the RTA Flats East Bank station and Johnny was walking. He had left the gun in the car under the seat. He also had decided to drive well beyond the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel in case there was a tracer in the gun. Hopefully no one would think he’d backtrack.
Zipping up his leather jacket, he turned off West 10th Street onto St. Clair Avenue, passing a few other pedestrians as he walked. At the farmhouse he’d gotten some clothes from his old room that weren’t torn or bloody or scorched. He’d chosen black denim jeans, a thick pair of clean socks, and an old pair of Harley-Davidson riding boots. The top shirt in the small dresser he used was one of the shirts they’d had made up for his band, Lycanthropia. This one was faded; he’d proudly worn it as much as he could to advertise the band.
While all of his clothing was comfortable, none of it was particularly warm. The way his heart was pumping, however, he was anything but cold. The coming northeast winter didn’t faze him. He had lived in Cleveland a long time. Sure, he’d taken off to Detroit for a stretch. Pittsburgh for a while. But he always returned to Cleveland. He’d often wandered these sidewalks at night. As a w?rewolf, in the company of Ig or other pack mates, he had marveled at how prowling the streets as a pack or a pair felt good and right.
Tonight, it didn’t feel good or right.
Perhaps it was because he was alone. Ig had always made a lesson of their outings. He never failed to learn something when he walked with the others in the pack.
He tried to figure out the lesson of this walk.
He thought of what Celia had said earlier about Erik. Johnny wanted to resume playing as a band. He wanted to get on stage and rock, to pour out the emotions he was bottling up inside through the song lyrics and power chords, and to sweat out anything that was left underneath the colored lights.
It felt like all that had slipped from his grasp.
He walked a few blocks on St. Clair, then turned on West 6th. He wanted to avoid as much of Public Square as he could; the vampires kept a tight watch on that area. As he neared Superior, a group of four young men were
