Wicked Circle

here when night falls. Tied up, you will stay and you will be motivated to do what she asks of you.”

“What do you care if I do what she wants me to?”

“I told you I could help you more than you know.” He drew very close to me, almost nose to nose, and caressed my cheek. “You need to know that you can do this.” His fingertips slid to the back of my neck and held me as he kissed my forehead. When his warm lips abandoned my skin, he whispered, “Malek tsalmaveth. Basilissa nekros.” He released me and blew out the candle.

I blinked in the sudden darkness, waiting for his touch to resume, waiting for him to do something I’d protest. He did nothing. “Hey,” I said.

Nothing.

“Hey!”

He was gone.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

The press conference would commence at three o’clock, with security in place to Gregor’s satisfaction. MacPhearson had acquired a podium to Aurelia’s satisfaction, though MacPhearson had fussed at the men bringing it in, warning them not to scuff the floors if they valued their jobs. Johnny sat in a room down a hall off the rotunda and listened jealously as the crew performed a sound check on the mic.

Things were so much easier when all I wanted to be was a rock star.

On the cell phone he hit the autodial for Seph, again. Still no answer. He called the haven again. After five rings Ivanka growled, “Da, Johnny. I am here. I have no news. Stop calling!” She hung up on him.

“Silence that phone,” Aurelia said on her way to the door. “It’s time.”

Johnny set the phone to vibrate and followed her out into the hall.

“You wait here. I’ll have everyone’s attention once I begin, so you can come to the head of the hallway after I’m talking. Wait there until I introduce you.”

Johnny noticed Gregor watching her strut away and remembered that Gregor had been the guard of the Rege in the Courts of the Zvonul in Romania. “You already know her.”

“Aurelia Romochka. Press Secretary to the Court of Zvonul. Very good at her job. They couldn’t have sent you a better liaison. She’s great at managing the media, organizing social events and the like.”

Johnny rolled his shoulders to alleviate the tension. He was anxious and a tad shaky. A few cleansing breaths helped. “Not an easy task, to gain any kind of rank being a female under the last Rege.”

“How do you think she gained her rank?” Gregor asked gravely.

“Under the Rege?”

“Under his fists.” Gregor added, “He broke many females. He didn’t break her. She’s strong.”

In the main room her voice boomed from the sound system. “. . . thank you to all the media here today. We are delighted to have you join us. . . .”

Johnny walked toward the head of the hallway. A curtain had been placed there for privacy. He waited and listened until he heard “. . . and now, it is my great honor to present the Domn Lup.”

Once he was in position behind the podium, Johnny scanned the prepared speech that was waiting for him. Having power such as that being given him meant many things. Chiefly, bearing the burden of maintaining the trust of the people under his authority. He’d previously thought of it as a kind of enslavement. He didn’t disagree with that notion now, but he knew the words on the page, and he deemed them good words. Honest words.

He wasn’t here for the power. He wasn’t here to become a dictator. I will not be like that, he vowed silently. Not because I am better. Better men than me have succumbed to the seductions of leadership, perks that are not lacking in the role I am about to embrace. He glanced at Aurelia. The difference is I see the danger, even here at the outset. If I remain mindful of it, I will not fall.

“Hello,” he said. “I am John Newman.”

Flashes blinded him.

“As I ascend to the rank and privilege of the Domn Lup, I find myself inspired by the responsibility I am about to embrace. . . .” The speech was short, and he followed it by inviting questions. None were unexpected. He responded appropriately to each.

Aurelia leaned over and touched Johnny’s elbow. “The next question is the last,” she said softly, making a point of checking her wristwatch for the assembled media to see.

Johnny smiled at the crowd. “I’m told there’s time for only one more question.”

There were hands raised, and he tried to find someone he hadn’t yet called on. “You, with the green tie.”

“Where did you grow up? What can you tell us about your human background?”

Cameras flashed again.

Johnny shrugged. “I don’t know. I can remember the last eight years only. Prior to that is gone.”

“Why?” the man in the green tie asked.

Others shouted questions like “Did you have a head trauma?” or “Were you attacked by a wærewolf then?”

Aurelia cut between him and the podium. “I’m sorry, that will be all for now.”

Gregor clasped Johnny’s arm and led him along the velvet rope that not only cordoned them off from the media and the public at large, who had crowded closer, but also led directly to the hallway they had emerged from. “There is a limo waiting, sire.” He moved to switch their places so he was the one nearest the velvet rope.

Before Johnny was out of reach, a woman leaned and reached, snatching Johnny’s wrist between both of her small hands. Her grip was viselike; he paused. Cameras clicked relentlessly around them.

“Ma’am—” Johnny began.

“We have to go, sire.” Gregor’s voice was stern. “We have to leave so that the media can wrap up and the building can be emptied.”

The woman said, “I knew you before you were a ‘new man.’ ”

Gregor reached toward the woman’s fingers. “You have to release him, ma’am.”

“Wait,” Johnny said, his free hand slapping onto Gregor’s chest.

“What does an old woman know?” Gregor whispered.

She fixed Gregor with an unwavering stare. “Enough to bring me over five hundred miles,” she said. “On a bus.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Kurt Miller had followed when Toni Brown had hailed a cab from the bus station. As a SSTIX agent, he’d been made aware of some hubbub about the wære’s Domn Lup, but as the regional agent for upstate New York, it had been of only peripheral interest to him. Listening to a local radio station, he learned a major announcement by the wæres was being made at the Cleveland Trust Bank. When the cab dropped Toni off in front of an impressive building with columns, he read Cleveland Trust Bank along the top. Why does this matter to you, Toni? Is he supposed to be here?

Kurt drove slowly and saw her leave the cab and head inside; he also glimpsed security using metal-detecting wands to check the people going in. He found parking down the block on the opposite side of the street, then jogged back. It bothered him to leave his gun in the car, but he’d not get through security with a weapon.

As he waited for his inspection at the checkpoint, he scrutinized the security staff. None of them fit the description of the person he suspected she was looking for. He also worried that Toni might see him as he waited or as he entered. It was a risk he couldn’t dodge.

Inside, he searched for a few moments before finding her. The place was thick with media people, and Toni