Shattered Circle

He had begged for her help. She told him to return the following night. Aware that she might try to kill him, he did. “Whether she helped me or whether she killed me, I wouldn’t harm or turn others,” he’d reasoned. She’d given him a drink and he hoped the poison didn’t hurt. But she’d only drugged him.

“The room spun around and everything blurred and stretched. But I didn’t black out. I felt it when I hit the floor. I felt the vibrations in the planking as she worked a-hammering spikes into the floor around me. She bound me to those spikes, spread-eagled. When she sat atop me, I knew something terrible was going to be a-happening, but I couldn’t do anything about it. Whatever she’d brewed into my drink left my mind a-working fine, but immobilized my body.”

“What did she do to you?”

Plympton said, “She had a coarse, ancient version of tattoo needles . . . she drew on my palms with boiling ink and molten silver. It burned in temperature, but the very substance left me feeling like I was being dipped in acid. There was some kind of magic in it; the stuff fused with my skin, into the very cells. Since I had not yet transformed, the beast within me wasn’t yet afflicted by the witches’ use of that power.” He showed Johnny the strange dark symbols in the center of each palm. “She told me to envision myself a-choking the beast, twisting its neck to breaking. Then she told me to see the beast dying and pushed a needle into my eye.” He tapped his blind eye. “I’ve been told that the heated drop cooled under the flesh of my eye and it’s lodged in something called the ‘aqueous humor.’ ”

“It didn’t keep you from becoming a w?rewolf.”

“No. Since I’d not yet a-had my first change, I revert to this after each full moon. My body has adjusted to the silver in my flesh. But my beast hasn’t. I’ve had my transformation and kenneling time videotaped. Comparing that with footage of other w?res, the silver clearly makes my transformation a bitch. Every second that I’m a wolf appears to be painful as hell. My pack’s caregivers tranquilize me each full moon.”

“You knew that touching my arm would have an effect.”

Plympton half smiled. “The old Rege could make his hands shift when he was quite angry.”

Johnny nodded. He’d seen it up close, but wasn’t going to bring that up.

“From time to time, he found reason to be quite angry with me,” the old Cajun added, staring into his palms. “That was a-how I learned that with a touch of my silvered palm I can turn away or reverse a transformation . . . at least momentarily.” He breathed deep. “Your changing would not have helped us right then.”

“I know.”

“I’ll tell you something else, sire . . . a secret.” He tapped his silvered eye and whispered, “I can see the beasts. Even now, I see yours.”

Johnny waited, sure the man would go on.

“While I am in human form, I can tell a submissive wolf from a dominant one. They usually match their human counterpart in temperament . . . but not always. Yours is doubtless a king among wolves. To master him, I daresay, is impossible. But to contain him, to coexist with him harmoniously . . . that will be the trick that tries you. Not ruling. You’re a man of character, you have ethics and a-see things in black and white. You’ll learn to navigate the gray area in between.” He snorted a small laugh. “But you already know all that, don’t you?”

“What do you want, Jacques?”

“I feel very fortunate to have been able to come here and meet you in person, to handle this building situation with you.” Plympton stood. He paced to the left, put his hands in his pockets and jingled change, then paced to the right. “There’s a reason you stepped up now and are accepting the position as Domn Lup. These are thorny times . . . with the demise of the Rege—and the dreadful method of it—the upper ranks are all a-dragging around their suspicions of you. There are rumors that you’re on the Lustrata’s right arm and that the vampire Menessos is on her left. The speculation and curiosity surrounding you has the court a-buzz like never before. When the news of Aurelia’s death reaches them, their doubts will go a-doubling.”

There was a long pause and Johnny asked his question again.

“Some fear you are a fraud, a creation of the witches’ fancy. But I have seen your beast. He’s not the product of sorcery.” He paused. “There are some who know what I can do. I’ll back you up, John. My pledge will be golden. They will assure others.”

A third time, Johnny asked, “But what do you want?”

Plympton pulled his hand from his pocket and held up a small item. It was the key to a paid locker. “I want you to tell me where the locker for this key is located.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Talto sat in front of a computer. The screen’s light was the only illumination in the room. In the darkness beside her was Liam, who in his late thirties was oddly older than most of his Offerling peers. He was good-looking, but not exactly the heart-stopping kind of gorgeous that was required of most of the second-tier vampire servants. She’d discovered he hadn’t been given the prestigious role for his looks; he was a haven member due to his IQ alone.

She heard a quiet splat and turned to see the drool that was running off his chin had dripped to the tile floor.

Not that his IQ is shining so bright right now.

She frowned in disgust. Probing into people’s minds was a nasty thing to do . . . at least the aftermath of it was.

But Liam had been a banker-turned-hacker once. He’d miraculously escaped a police raid on foot, but the hounds were closing in and he literally crossed the path of Menessos, who agreed to save him from a lifetime behind bars in exchange for his services.

In Liam’s mind resided many methods of committing crimes electronically. Menessos had required the man to act within the parameters of the law, but that did not mean Liam didn’t know how to break those laws.

Talto had taken what she’d needed.

Presently, she had set up a series of new bank accounts in various banks in various countries, and had established a schedule to filter funds from one to another. In a few days, the haven would be reduced to the minimal funding provided by the networks of VEIN, but Menessos’s private and very deep financial pockets would be empty.

She opened her phone and typed the word NOW in the body of a text message to Ailo, then hit Send.

•  •  •

Ailo ran across the stage, through the doorway, and crossed the backstage area to pound on the Haven Master’s door. The guard dropped his phone, jumped from his seat, and forcibly restrained her even as she tried the knob and discovered it was locked.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

She twisted in his grip. “I must see the Haven Master immediately! He is still in there, isn’t he?”

“He is, but you can’t barge in like a madwoman.” He noticed her necklace and it seemed he remembered who he was dealing with. He released her immediately, keeping himself between her and the door. “Allow me,” he said, and knocked more politely on the door.

Nothing happened.

“I thought you said he was in there,” she snapped.

“He is.”

“Menessos, too?”

He nodded.

“Is it normal for the door to be locked?”

“They do what they think is fit. Nobody questions them. That includes you.”

“And what do you do when they think it is fit to not answer their door and a crisis is occurring?”

They glared at each other for another minute with nothing happening.

Ailo needed to get Menessos to catch Talto in the act. She couldn’t leave her sister sitting there for hours.