Shattered Circle

jeans. He’ll probably gag us to silence our waking screams as well.

“I am going for a walk,” she said. Her silken gown transformed into gray pants, a warm shirt, and a hooded coat. She worked to make the fabric lose its sheen in favor of a drab, aged dirtiness. Her shoes changed from sandals into full-covering slippers.

“Would you like company?” Giovanni offered.

The gruff sound of his voice grated on her nerves. “No. I will return shortly.” She shut the door behind her. Leaving the parking lot for the sidewalk, she turned left, heading toward a place called Family Dollar. The air was cold, but it felt good inside her lungs. She imagined it freezing all the little emotions in her heart, and when she breathed out, forcefully, she hoped those feelings were expelled with the air.

She could not afford even a small sentimental notion for Meroveus. She would walk until she was certain that he had been purged from her thoughts . . . or she would burn in the rising sun. For if she could not release this mawkishness, she could never achieve her vengeance.

When the darkened store was well behind her, her phone rang.

She thought it would be Giovanni insisting she return . . . but it was Ailo.

“Yes, Sister?”

“Liyliy!” Ailo’s voice was strained, hurried and breathless. “I have the girl. I’m outside the haven. I don’t know what to do! I don’t know where to go.”

Her words tumbled out so fast, Liyliy could hardly understand them. When they registered, she stopped in her tracks. “You have the girl and have fled the haven?”

“Yes, yes! Menessos will soon discover my deceit. He’ll use his binding to find me or compel me back. The girl roused, but she struggled and I wrapped her up in the telavivum. Now she won’t wake.”

“You wrapped her in your living web?”

“Yes. I had to keep her from screaming.”

“Did you read her?”

“No. There’s been no time. When I fled she was cocooned in fabric.”

Liyliy’s mind was racing. “You haven’t killed her, have you? She breathes yet?”

Ailo snapped, “Yes, she is breathing!”

With the power this child allegedly possessed, wrapping her in the strange fabric that clothed them was dangerous . . . no. Magic wrapped in magic. It might be the only thing keeping Ailo safe at the moment. “Have you unwrapped her fully?”

“No. Maybe I should. Maybe then she’d wake—”

“No! Ailo, whatever you do, do not unwrap her. In fact, make sure she is covered up as much as possible. Do not touch her bare flesh. Do not read her. Do you understand me? It is very important that you do not touch her or unwrap her.”

“But, Sister, if she wakes, she could break this binding from me.”

“No, Ailo. Do not risk it.”

“I would not have to worry that Menessos would compel my return.”

Liyliy hesitated. “Ailo.” She used the tone that said she was the dominant one.

“I need your help. Please, please. Say you are coming. Say you will keep Menessos from luring me back.”

“I am coming, Ailo.”

“Promise that together we will make her awaken, so I will be free.”

Liyliy realized Ailo had not mentioned their other sister. “What about Talto?”

“She is yet within the haven. We must save her.”

She sympathized with Talto’s predicament, but now that the child was out of the haven, this was Liyliy’s one chance and she had to make it count. “Where are you?”

“I’ve kept out of sight as much as I could, but carrying the child and having to stay to the shadows is making progress slow. I am walking north-northwest on . . . East Third Street. Do you know this city? Where can I go and meet you?”

Liyliy did not know the city well, but she had seen it well from the sky. North-northwest . . . to the north were a series of parks. “Do you see trees before you? A grassy area?”

“Yes. But bare trees give little cover.”

“Go toward the lake, Ailo. There are benches and monuments there. Find somewhere to hide until I arrive.”

“Hurry, Sister.” Ailo hung up.

Liyliy placed the cell phone into her pocket and called upon the cursed owl within her. The quicksilver retreated into a thick cuff around her left ankle. The phone dangled from a silken pocket attached to the anklet. She screamed and fell to her knees as her body reconfigured itself, grew in size and sprouted feathers. When the form was complete—save the scarring and injuries—she took to the sky, heading back into the city she had moments ago fled.

Though her owl eye saw better in the dark, her field of vision was markedly decreased, and not being able to call on her aura in the same way made judging distances—and landings—tricky.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Johnny and Mountain lugged the broken tabletop into the garage, then out the man-door, and leaned it against the back of the garage. It was still very dark and cold outside. The sun wouldn’t rise until about seven twenty. “What witches are coming?” Johnny asked as he and Mountain returned to the kitchen.

“I’m not sure,” Demeter said. She was standing at the sink watching Red, who sat unmoving as she had been for hours. “I called the High Priestess. I told her to bring at least two witches with her. She will choose wisely.”

He grabbed the broom and dustpan and began sweeping up the splinters and wood debris. “What exactly will you do?”

“You ever hear the old witch saying, ‘To Know, To Do, and To Be Silent’?”

“Nope,” he said.

“It’s a good policy.”

Johnny kept sweeping. He glanced up when she didn’t elaborate. “That ‘be silent’ part means you’re not going to tell me.”

“Nope,” she mimicked him.

He pulled the dustpan off the broom and handed it to Mountain, then switched and gave the big man the broom. Johnny knew he could crouch to hold the dustpan more easily than either of the two people with him.

When that chore was done, Johnny dumped the pan into the garbage and Mountain started sweeping the area near the door. Johnny joined him, watching him push the fragments and pieces into a pile. When they were done, there were footsteps on the front porch followed by a brisk knock on the door.

“Demeter,” Johnny called as he carried both the broom and dustpan to the kitchen. “They’re here.”

She passed him in the hall as Mountain answered the door. Johnny dumped the dustpan a second time, then returned to the doorway so he could see what was going on without going too far from Red.

Though Demeter’s back was turned to him, he could immediately feel tension radiating off her.

Mountain had plodded into the living room to be out of the way, but the women weren’t chattering happy greetings. It could have been the early hour or the situation with Red sobering the moment, but that wouldn’t explain the silent hostility at the other end of the hall.

He recognized the pretty witch in front as Hunter Hopewell, the new High Priestess of the Cleveland Covenstead. He knew her because Lycanthropia had played at the Hallowe’en Witches’ Ball, her first coven event with her new title. She’d flirted heavily with him at the gig before she’d realized he was with Persephone.

Beside her was a witch with long, straight white hair. Vilna-Daluca—an Elder witch who was far from being a