Wicked Circle

Mr. Manipulator himself. Do you know what I did already? I swallowed my anger and answered sweetly. “Hello?”

“Persephone,” Menessos said. “Are you well?” Something about his voice was different.

“Absolutely.” I arranged the glass hurricane globes into the cardboard box I’d placed beside the fountain. “And yourself?”

“I am fine.”

No, he wasn’t. He was hoarse. Ever since I’d staked him and applied a second hex to him, I’d been aware of his death every morning and his regained life every evening. While he tended to die gently, his sunset awakenings were violent. I’d felt him screaming his way back to life before the ritual started. Even so, the pity I’d felt earlier was in short supply now. “Liar.”

“You are correct in refuting my statement,” he said sullenly, “but mortals often downplay their replies to such questions. It is unnecessary for you to impugn my character over it.”

If I could have reached through the phone, I’d have smacked him.

“Persephone?”

“Hmmm?”

“Our fears have been realized.”

Unmoving, I felt like I’d been kicked in the gut. “Heldridge?”

“He gained an audience with the Excelsior. You need to come home. Immediately.”

With one box of supplies on the passenger-side floor and the other on the seat, I arrived at Eris’s apartment over the Arcane Ink Emporium. The Slut wasn’t here.

There were, however, lights on upstairs. So, retrieving my wet clothes from the narrow crevice that Corvette owners call a trunk and lifting the boxes stashed up front, I hefted it all up the metal steps.

Going home had been my desire even before Menessos had called, and now I had a good excuse. Knocking on the door and hoping they heard me over the music playing inside, I had time to rehearse my announcement once more before the door opened.

Zhan relieved me of the boxes. I put the Corvette keys on top. She carried the supplies toward the black door of Eris’s “woogie room,” where she kept all her magical materials.

Nana and Eris sat in dining chairs near a table lamp missing a shade. My mother’s wet hair clued me in that she’d just showered, and she wore only sleep pants and a bra. Nana jabbed a needle into Eris’s shoulder joint, stitching the flap of skin where her arm used to be. Eris winced.

My horror must have been evident. After a shallow but derisive snort, Nana explained, “Her stitches broke.” Eris squirmed as Nana sewed, tightened the thread, tied it off, and cut it.

The wound was ugly enough before. I shut the door behind me and approached.

“I felt them pop when I fell down the embankment trying to get you,” Eris said.

Crap. Here we go again.

Nana smeared Neosporin on a gauze pad and placed it over the wound, securing it with medical tape. “Bled all over the place, but her wet red outfit didn’t exactly show it.”

“Did you—”

“Sterilized the thread and the needles.” She passed Eris a T-shirt. “I’m not stupid, Persephone.”

Nana was more than her I-need-a-cigarette cranky. That meant she was in pain. “Did you—”

“Took Aleve. I’m icing my knee every fifteen minutes and am in the off-phase right now.” She tugged the back of the T-shirt down as Eris struggled into it.

Zhan returned. “How are you?”

“Knocked my head, but it isn’t bad.” Before anything else could be said, I blurted, “I have to go to Cleveland. Right now.”

“Why?” Nana demanded, going from cranky to pouty.

With both of them injured, I felt guilty about leaving them. “Bad stuff,” I said. Without a word, Zhan was in motion, gathering her things and mine, packing.

The Slut’s distinctive motor roared outside, pulling up. “What kind of bad stuff?” Nana pressed.

Pounding footfalls outside gave me reason to avoid answering. I opened the door. Lance lugged two large pizza boxes and a pair of two-liters inside.

He must resemble his father, I thought. With sandy blond hair, he didn’t get his looks from our mother. Lance was also trying to grow a goatee without much success. He sort of resembled Shaggy from the Scooby-Doo cartoons.

The smell of the pizza instantly reminded me of how hungry I was.

Lance rounded the table and set the boxes down. “Does weird shit happen around you all the time?”

“Lately it does.”

He gave me a reproachful glare as he strode into the kitchen. I helped Nana and Eris twist their chairs back to the table. Lance brought cups, an ice bucket, paper plates, napkins, and two wet rags. “I put some soap on these,” he said. After he’d put the other items down, he gave one rag to Nana. Sitting down next to Eris, he washed her hand.

She protested, “I just got out of the shower.”

It would have been better to let her figure out how to do it herself, but he was reacting as any good son would, coddling her. He wasn’t thinking about the future, a few years from now, when he’d want to be on his own. If he made her dependent on him now, it would get ugly then.

Or maybe he was doting on her because Eris was so focused on me these days. He’d had her to himself all his life, and tending her was a way to maintain her attention.

At least I had one reason to not feel guilty about leaving.

Nana must have caught the accusation in his tone; she didn’t press me about the “bad stuff.” Eris, however, wasn’t aware of all the nuances where Menessos and I were concerned. “So what’s going on that you have to leave?” she asked.

Lance perked up. “You’re leaving?”

I nodded. “Zhan and I have to go to Cleveland as soon as possible.”

“What’s happened?” Eris asked.

“An already existing problem seems to have escalated.” The irony that those words could mean the situation in Cleveland and mean the situation here wasn’t lost on me.

Eris wrenched away from the washing Lance was providing to stand and curl her fingers around mine. “Don’t be so vague. Tell me.”

“I can’t.”

Sorrow dimmed her. “So you’re just going to leave me like this? You said you’d stay and help.”

Behind her, Lance stood, too. I could feel the anger he was trying to hide. Damn it. “This is important or I wouldn’t be going. Eris . . . you’ll be fine.”

Lance openly glared at me.

“You’re in good hands. Lance is here. Nana’s here. I have to do this.”

“I understand.” She sank into her seat. “Your life doesn’t shut down because of my wounds.”

Oooo. My eyes narrowed with resentment at her brilliant guilt-trip statement. It didn’t matter. Nothing she could say would make me revise my plans.

Lance gathered up the washcloths and made for the kitchen. He motioned for me to follow.

I was certain that this was going to be bad.

“How are you going to get to Cleveland?” Nana called as I followed Lance out.

I was grateful for the delay. “Dunno. Zhan and I could get a rental car, I guess.”

The moment of silence that followed wore thin as Nana dug into the food and my excuse to stay out of the kitchen dissipated.

A polite five feet away from Lance, I spoke so as not to be heard over the music in the other room. “What did you want?”

Plucking the Corvette keys from the counter where Zhan had obviously set them, he threw them at me. “Leave now.”

The keys hit me in the chest. I winced but caught them before they fell. “What did I do?”