Wicked Circle

I halted in the doorway. “Zhan, I’m grateful that you care. Answers are just sometimes hard to give these days.”

“Answer or no answer, milady, don’t let a beast dominate the Lustrata.”

That she addressed me by my larger title, not as E.V., didn’t evade my notice. Neither did the fact that she’d obviously heard us in the shower. Darn paper-thin walls. Warmth flooded my cheeks. I entered the Arcade.

The witch supply shop was located just inside the grand, glass-topped mall. According to the faded black and gold letters underneath the name—and the clock on my satellite phone—it should have opened five minutes ago.

I scanned around and saw no one in the balconies. The Arcade was not the shopping powerhouse it had been a few decades ago. All the warm bodies that were present were milling around in the lower-level food court.

Among them, a short man clutched a lidded coffee in one hand and a Plain Dealer in the other as he trudged up the stairs. His long gray beard and curled moustache identified him as much as the Ivy driver’s cap of brushed twill and the bulky gray cardigan he wore over a beige button-down shirt. He’d teamed it all with khaki pants and loafers.

Maurice. Beau’s hired help.

He neared the summit, and I saw the blurriness created by the hefty prescription in the wire-rimmed glasses that perched on his round nose. The crack in the left lens that I’d noticed when we’d first met was still there.

When behind the store’s counter, he had the “mystical wizard” act down pat, but he was a total fake. Anyone who had real power could tell. I didn’t exactly like Maurice, but Beau was clever to have him here. It was a means to identify the clientele and gauge who should and shouldn’t get to purchase items that would be dangerous to mundane humans.

Additionally, since Beau was Bindspoken, he couldn’t personally touch the merchandise without causing himself physical pain.

Maurice was pretty close before he noticed us waiting by the door. He paused a few paces away. “I remember you,” he said to me. “But I don’t know your name.”

“Hi, Maurice. I’m Persephone.”

“Yes, yes. Are you here for the priapean wands?”

“No. Just some supplies. What is a pre-a-pee-an wand?”

He chattered a laugh and shoved his newspaper under his arm so he could dig the keys from his pocket. “I’ll show you.” Zhan and I parted so he could access the lock. A brass bell chimed as the door swung open, and he flipped on some lights. We followed him in. Aromas mingled, pungent incenses and spicy oils mixed with the earthiness of dried leaves and flowers, all merged with scented candles and old books to form a smell that only another witch shop could produce.

The wooden floor creaked under our feet as Zhan and I followed him past racks of pagan-oriented T-shirts and around displays of brooms and cauldrons toward the bins with loose gemstones and the display cases with wands and crystal balls.

Maurice rounded behind the counter and we waited on the customer side of it while he plodded into the back and engaged the rest of the store’s lights. He brought something wrapped in tissue paper with him. “These just came in.” He laid the item on the counter. “I tell you, they’re going to be all the rage.”

He whisked back the tissue paper, and it took me several seconds to accept what the old man had laid before us. It was a wand, sure enough. It had a six-inch wooden shaft, ending with a crystal tip secured by a metal band. The thick handle, though . . . it was a good ten inches of supersized phallic replication.

I blinked. Repeatedly. “That’s—um.” I squinted at Maurice and struggled for the right words.

“It’s solid jade,” he said, tapping the detailed tip on the counter. “Don’t you think it would enhance the Great Rite?”

“I . . . I think you’re a dirty old man.”

He winced and tugged at his beard.

The bell chimed behind us and Beauregard entered the store. He had buzzed white hair, bushy brows, and walked with a cane. Under his brown sheepskin-lined bomber jacket he wore a black-and-red plaid flannel. His trademark cigar was not absent. The scent of peach and tobacco wafted as he neared. “Hey, doll. To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“Supplies.” I passed him the list I had written up on the way here.

He scanned it. “I’ve got all this.” He pushed the paper at his employee and noticed the priapean wand on the counter. “Maurice!”

Maurice wadded the paper, mumbled, and ambled off to collect the items.

Beau jerked the cigar from his lips and blew the smoke, staring irritably after the short old man. He flipped the tissue paper to cover the wand. “I think I know what ritual you’re doing,” he said quietly.

“Oh?” I wasn’t worried. Since being Bindspoken, he’d forged a friendship with the wærewolves of Cleveland. He was even a regular bartender at The Dirty Dog.

“This way.” He put the cigar to his lips again and parted the curtains to the back room. A small office was off to one side, separate from the warehouse area. He pulled the string on the forty-watt overhead light. I sat in the folding chair while he removed his coat and draped it on the padded wooden seat. He set about unbuttoning his flannel shirt cuffs and rolling them up to reveal the white thermal underwear shirt he wore beneath. It was his trademark style.

This was the room where he’d given me the amulet that amplified my own power and befuddled other power, making it hard to hit me with magic.

He put the cigar on the ashtray—the glass ash receptacle was fashioned like a busty woman, and the cigar lay right between her breasts. “I’m calling in my favor,” he said.

In exchange for the amulet, I’d promised to come back before the full moon and hear what favor he would ask of me. I owed him. The amulet had saved my life, but I already had enough on my plate today. Steadying my voice I said, “Okay.”

“I want you to include my son in your forced-change spell.”

That wasn’t an add-on to the to-do list, just an inclusion to the task already on it. Whew. “Sure. I didn’t know you had a son. Does he live nearby? I’m supposed to do this spell at the den this afternoon.”

“He’ll be there.” Beau puffed on the cigar, held it out as he blew smoke at the ceiling. The peach aroma was nice. “I haven’t seen his face in”—he calculated—“twenty years.”

My brows knit. “I don’t understand.” If they were on the outs with each other, Beau couldn’t assume his son wanted this, and if his son didn’t want this, then I certainly couldn’t include him in the spell. That was a rule.

Then I noticed he was shaking. “Beau?”

“He’s been half-formed for two decades.”

My mouth dropped open. I’d seen the cages where the pack kept half-formed wæres. To my knowledge, there were three of them in the top of the den. “Oh. I’m so sorry.”

“You didn’t do it to him, doll. All I ask is that you try to undo it.”

“I’ve never tried this on a wære who was trapped in a half-formed state. I can’t guarantee—”

“Look, doll. In theory, his present state doesn’t make any difference. You just stir up enough energy to kick- start the shifting process and maintain it for a full transformation. It works for the others, it should work for him.”

That was true, but I would still have to give this a little more thought and consider how it might affect the spell. I had time, but it meant no potion. Not that I had an inkling of what potion I’d have tried to brew this afternoon anyway. “I’ll do the best I can.”

“What time?” he asked.

“At three thirty.”

“I’ll be there.”

Maurice’s voice rose from the front room. “You want me to ring up these items now?”

I nodded at Beau, but he shouted back, “No!”

“Beau—” I protested.

“You’re going to bring my boy back.” He stood. “It’s the least I can do to give you the supplies.”