Wicked Circle

sitting on the staircase. He smiled maliciously and waved. Then he stood and bounced on my squeaky step.

Taller even than Johnny, with a lanky scarecrow frame, he was intimidation incarnate in collar-to-toe black leather. Goliath’s skin and hair were like a white palette with two daubs of forget-me-not blue, and the blue was so feral and cunning that his glance seemed more like an incision. Menessos had chosen his second-in-command and security head because he was a certifiable genius whose perfect ACT score was achieved at the age of ten. Menessos had raised him and trained him as an assassin before Making him a vampire.

And I was on this guy’s least-favorite-people list.

His brother, a defunct Southern Baptist preacher, had once tried to stake Menessos and been beheaded for the crime. But apparently even brothers separated at a young age and with opposing opinions of vampires could be protective of each other. When Goliath heard Sam’s voice on my protrepticus, he had grabbed me and questioned me.

At the time, I happened to have been wearing a charm that amplified my magic. He’d frightened me, and all I’d wanted was for him to let me go. In a knee-jerk reaction, I’d pulled arcs of electrical power from him through my connection to his master and Maker Menessos. I’d put both vampires on their knees.

I’d saved Goliath’s life a few hours later, but I’d never explained Samson’s voice emitting from my phone. I was sure he thought I’d done something terrible like rip his brother’s spirit from the ever after and forcibly bind it into the device. He needed answers. He deserved them.

Fully aware that I wasn’t wearing that charm now, I closed the distance between us, flipped on the stairway light and passed him. “Follow me.”

“An Erus Veneficus cannot command an Alter Imperator.”

I blinked stupidly at him for a heartbeat; I hadn’t known his official title.

“Besides,” he added, “I’ve already rolled around on your bed.”

At the bottom of the steps, Johnny growled.

“Goliath,” Menessos said in a weary tone. “Our circumstances are far from typical. You will always treat both the Lustrata and the Domn Lup with respect, and for me, please give them an extra measure of tolerance.”

“As you wish, master.”

That was good enough for me. I resumed my trek to my bedroom. I flipped this light on too and rummaged through the luggage Zhan and I had dropped off earlier. Finding the cell phone, I held it up.

His eyes widened slightly in recognition.

“It’s a protrepticus.”

“Bullshit.”

I let him see my deadpan expression.

“Samson hated witches! He would not deign to bind his soul into a device that put him in service to you. And,” he added, “you cannot exceed a certain distance from a protrepticus. This bag was here, while you were fifty miles away in Cleveland.”

The latter part was true. Or it had been, anyway. I was just relieved that he knew enough about the spell to know it would require a willing spirit. “The spirit did not identify itself until after the spell was finished.”

The vampire entered my room and angrily demanded, “Why would he do that for you?”

“I don’t know what he found in the afterlife, Goliath, or how that may or may not have weighed in his spirit’s decision to comply with that spell, but if it’s any consolation, he did use every opportunity to be completely annoying. As for the distance . . .” I shrugged. “It was a triple binding, involving Xerxadrea. With her death, his spirit should have been freed.”

“Should have?”

“When I open it, the screen stays blank, and yet it’s rung a couple times since. In those instances it lights up and he’s spoken to me. I can’t explain it. I’ve asked him. He won’t explain it.” I tossed the phone to Goliath.

He caught it, looking confused. When he wasn’t being a sinister badass, Goliath was a handsome man. For a moment, I glimpsed the vampire with whom Lorrie—the mother, now deceased, of my foster daughter, Beverley— had shared a relationship with a few years after her husband had died.

“You can use magic, Goliath. See if he will talk to you. It was never my intention to extricate him from his afterlife.” I left him standing in my bedroom.

Samson’s calls since Xerxadrea’s death had all been warnings I desperately needed, so parting with the protrepticus put me ill at ease, but giving the device to Goliath nonetheless felt right—and regardless of Johnny’s opposition, I wasn’t going to give up my way of making such decisions.

Downstairs, Mountain and Zhan were conspicuously absent. Johnny had built a blaze in the living room fireplace and was playing tug-of-war with Ares and a rope toy. Menessos sat on my couch, his elbow propped on its arm, and his index finger to his temple as he admired the John William Waterhouse painting over the mantel.

Crossing my arms and leaning against the newel post, I let the scene before me linger undisturbed. Who knew how long the two of them could maintain such contentedness in each other’s presence?

It was a skill they were going to have to master.

Encouraged, I said, “I have to admit, I like this.”

They both turned when I spoke. Johnny released his end of the rope toy, and Ares carried it merrily around the room and thumped down on the floor to chew on it.

“You look peaceful,” Menessos said. “Finding a little peace before the storm is enviable.”

Before the storm? I’ve already ridden one today.

Menessos’s words could have been a sincere compliment, or they could have been a roundabout jibe at Johnny to say I seemed unaffected by our spat. I uncrossed my arms and entered the living room. “You don’t seem like you’re not at ease.”

“Thank you.” His lips curved slightly. “That bodes well, since I have just decided that come nightfall, I will return to my haven and await the shabbubitum.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

My spine stiffened, and any sense of peacefulness I had scurried away. Menessos was going to accept the pain and torment of being read. He was going to accept the risk of judgment.

He’s going to stay.

“Why the change of heart?” I asked, keeping my voice as casual as possible.

“Escaping them is . . . improbable.”

“And the ramifications you were so concerned about?”

Menessos extended his arm toward me, palm up. I walked to him and slipped my hand into his. Can’t read my mind anymore, can you?

“I have been so focused on the negative possibilities, and on escaping them, that I had not considered how I might create an alternative confrontation.”

“You didn’t instantly envision every potential benefit to you?” Johnny snapped.

Menessos gripped me tighter. “This is particularly personal, Johnny.”

I asked, “How so?”

“First, Heldridge is my son—the only kind I will ever have, anyway. I Made him. I watched him break free of his mortal womb and I raised him in my world. We have had our quarrels, as all fathers and sons do—”

“Quarrels?” Johnny snarled and pointed at me. “He tried to kill her!”

“Yes. Even so, it does not mean I love him less.”

Johnny straightened. “You love him?”

“I care for all the men and women in my haven. You care for those in your pack, don’t you?”

Johnny put his hands on his hips. “Yeah. Doesn’t mean I’d profess to love them.”

Ignoring him, Menessos resumed his explanation. “Heldridge broke away to become his own master and to have his own haven. He interpreted my relocation as an encroachment. Had I not been his Maker, he may not have seen it as a personal insult.” He drew a long breath. “Had I not been his Maker, I would not have assumed his