The Circle

by Val St. Crowe

  “Your car keys,” he said.

  “You want me to drive?” I said. “Why don’t we take your car?”

  “I don’t have a car,” he said, smiling nastily. “Charity case, remember? I do have a motorcycle I’m fixing up. You want to take that?”

  “Fine, I’ll drive.”

  “Give me your keys,” he said.

  “What? I’m not letting you drive my car,” I said.

  “You don’t know where we’re going.”

  “You’ll give me directions.”

  He considered this. “Nah. It’s not really like that. The place is cloaked by magic. I’ll need to do spells while I’m driving. They’re hard to explain.” He held out his hand. “Keys.”

  I glared at him. But what the hell? At this point, I was already committed. I pulled my keys out of my pocket and slammed them into his palm.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Phist drove the car too fast for my liking and didn’t slow down when I asked him to.

  Then he drove the car straight at a brick wall, and I screamed and grabbed at the steering wheel, but it turned out the brick wall was a glamour, and we sailed straight through it, arriving in the driveway for a huge manor house with a big outdoor tent, like something from a gothic circus. It was black and purple striped, and there were occultists coming and going inside it. Some of them were carrying drinks that glowed and smoked.

  We got out of the car and Phist pocketed my keys.

  “Give me my keys,” I said.

  “I’m going to have to drive back,” he said.

  “You’re not going off and stranding me here,” I said. “Give me the keys.”

  “Come on, I’d be stranded here too.”

  “Give. Them. To. Me.”

  He handed them over, giving me a look like I was crazy. I didn’t care. I wanted my keys.

  He gestured. “We’ve got to get through the gauntlet to get admittance.”

  “What’s the gauntlet?” I said.

  “Just a little payment, that’s all,” he said. “Come on.” He started off.

  I hurried to catch up to him. We crossed over to a wrought iron gate where a man with a painted white face and top hat stood. Phist held out his hand. Top Hat took it and shut his eyes.

  Magic streamed out of Phist’s chest, traveling down his arm over his fingers into Top Hat.

  Top Hat was sucking magic out of Phist. He let go, his lips curling into a smile. “Aren’t you a tasty one.”

  Phist snatched his hand back.

  Top Hat laughed. “Oh, don’t get all bent out of shape, sugar. A taste is all we need.” He turned to me. “And you?”

  I looked at Phist, a little confused.

  “Give him your hand,” said Phist.

  I did, and I felt Top Hat start to pull power out of my chest.

  I grunted.

  It hurt.

  Moments stretched out agonizingly, and then Top Hat let go of me.

  I panted, unsteady on my feet.

  Top Hat laughed. “Not laced. What a rarity.”

  I wavered, my vision swimming.

  Phist was at my side, holding me upright. He touched the flashpiece in my ear. “Well,” he murmured. “Look at that. I didn’t notice before.”

  I grunted again. I was going to pass out.

  “Got to say, I respect that,” said Phist. “Let’s get you something to eat.”

  * * *

  I was shoving cheese cubes into my mouth, eating as quickly as I could.

  “You should have told me you weren’t laced,” Phist was saying.

  We were sitting under the tent, the big manor house casting deep shadows down over all the gathered people. The tent was crammed full of vendors selling their wares—trinkets and powders and flashpieces and the like. There were food tables too, with finger foods and snacks. There was also a nearby lounge, full of blow-up furniture. Several people were sitting on blow-up chairs and making out. The atmosphere was carnivalesque, but there was a tinge of malice to it.

  I ate more cheese. “Not something I like to broadcast.”

  “That’s smart, but it’s not smart enough,” said Phist. “Should have figured, though, considering you’re Enid’s sister.”

  “Wait, but I found her flashpiece,” I said. “She was laced.”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. “She was laced, but—” He shook his head, as if he was saying something he didn’t want to say. “Eat your cheese. The sooner you feel better, the sooner we can go look at the transmogrify.”

  “What were you going to say about Enid?” I said.

  “You really need to stay away from people in the Circle,” he said. “Trying to use magic to protect yourself, you could get hurt. Hell, I’m surprised you held your own against Grayson for as long as you did on Saturday.”

  I arched an eyebrow at him. “Did you just compliment me?”

  “No,” he said, swiping a piece of my cheese. “You feeling better yet?”

  “Yep,” I said, but really, I probably wouldn’t be a hundred percent until I’d had a good night’s sleep. That guy had taken a lot out of me.

  Phist smirked. “You’re a good liar, Suther, but there’s no way you’re okay. I know how much magic they take to get in, and if you’re not laced—”

  “I’m fine.” I pointedly put three pieces of cheese in my mouth and chewed.

  “Whatever,” he said. “There shouldn’t be anything dangerous that happens during the rest of this outing. And if there is, just let me handle it.”

  I glowered at him, but I was still chewing and couldn’t say anything.

  We sat there for several more minutes as I finished my cheese, and neither of us said anything else. It wasn’t awkward. Not at all.

  Phist looked away from me, gazing off into the distance, his jaw set.

  I couldn’t help but look at his profile. He had finely carved features, a strong nose and full lips. He blinked, and my attention was drawn again to his thick eyelashes. He’d be pretty if he wasn’t so male. I dragged my top teeth over my bottom lip, surveying him, thinking about what it would be like to touch him, to feather my fingers over the stubble on his jaw, which looked shorter, as if he’d trimmed it or something.

  Did he groom himself? Was he trying to look artfully disheveled on purpose? It was funny, but it didn’t make him as ridiculous as it should have. It was another weapon in his arsenal, his looks. He wielded everything with precision, and damned if I wasn’t affected by it all, by the whole package.

  Why was I here with him?

  Lev was right. Phist admitted to killing Enid. I shouldn’t be anywhere near him.

  But no. I squared my shoulders. I should be. I needed to be right here. What was the saying? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Yeah. That was my strategy. I was going to stay real close to Phist, and when I figured out how to kill him, it would be that much easier to do it.

  I imagined Phist on his back, underneath me, as I held my hand over his throat, pouring magic into him, watching him gasp and writhe and…

  Okay, maybe I should stop imagining that.

  I squirmed. I reached for another piece of cheese, but it was gone. I had eaten it all. I stood up. “Okay, I’m good. Let’s go look at transmogrify.”

  “Great,” he said, standing up as well.

  I brushed my hands against my pants, which was dumb, because now I’d smeared a tiny piece of cheese into them, and that was an oil stain, and it was going to be hell to get out. I’d ask Lev if stains were like holes in jeans—gave them character.

  Phist gestured. “It’s this way.”

  “I’ll follow you,” I said.

  He started walking, and I went after him, eyeing the way his jeans hugged his backside. Oh, man. I was in it, now. This was not good.

  Okay, okay, so Phist was attractive. He was also an asshole. He’d saved my life, sort of, but I wasn’t helpless either. Who knows how I might have gotten out of that situation with Gra
yson if Phist hadn’t shown up. Besides, his reasoning for saving me, that he wanted to be the one to maim me, it was totally fucked up. And I hated him. No, I despised him. I wanted to kill him.

  I balled my hands into fists.

  Phist led me across the field, down over a little bridge over a stream and down a windy little path through the woods. Eventually, we came to a small clearing, and there was a thing in the clearing.

  I don’t even know what else to call it. It was chained up, the size of an elephant. Its legs looked like elephant legs, in fact, but its body was lizardlike, and its face looked as though it had come from a hammerhead shark. It had a long, forked tail that it swung around in wide arcs, and it kept making a noise, like a rattling whine in the back of its throat.

  It sounded like it was in pain.

  I saw the thing, and I stopped short. A sick feeling started in my stomach. I didn’t like this.

  It reminded me of this time, when Enid and I were kids, and we found a slug on our porch, and we had heard that slugs died if you poured salt on them, so we poured salt on the slug. Until it died. And it took a long time, and I found that it wasn’t interesting after a while, it was just… bad. I felt ashamed of us for killing something just to watch it die. Sure, it was an icky slug, but it was wrong. I knew that somewhere, deep inside my child soul. And I also knew that I was capable of that kind of wrongness, and the only thing that would keep me from doing it again was the memory of that feeling in my stomach, the knowledge that I never wanted to feel that guilt again.

  Phist looked the thing over.

  “You the kids from Hellespointe?” called a man. He was lounging in a chair underneath a pop-up pavilion, over at the edge of the clearing. He had long hair and a beard. He was wearing a leather vest with nothing underneath it. His chest hair was peppered with gray curls. He sauntered over to us.

  “Yeah,” said Phist. “We got assigned a transmogrify project this semester. Have there been other students here?”

  “Nope, you’re the first,” said the man, surveying us. “They still give out prizes for the best projects?”

  “They do,” said Phist.

  “If you want me not to talk to any other students besides you, that’ll cost,” said the man.

  “Depends on what you tell me,” said Phist.

  “Okay,” said the man. “I guess you want to know how I did it.”

  Phist nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Well, the easiest way is to use live body parts and use the power of the kills to merge it all together,” said the man.

  “So, black magic,” said Phist, looking back at the thing. “That’s what’s powering it.”

  “You channel all those sacrifices, you can keep it going for quite some time,” said the man, grinning.

  Phist furrowed his brow. “Well, thanks for your time.”

  “You don’t want to know my spells?” said the man.

  Phist shook his head. “Nah, that’s all right.”

  The man raised his eyebrows, looking amused. “What’s wrong? Afraid of a little black magic?”

  Phist didn’t answer. He looked back at the creature, his expression unreadable.

  “I thought you were with the Black Circle. There’s a reason that circle’s called black, so don’t tell me that you’ve got lily white hands—”

  “Too easy,” said Phist, swinging his gaze around. “Using black magic is a shortcut, and the teachers will factor that into our grade. Won’t win any prizes this way.”

  The man shrugged. “The other way to do this… it takes time and skill. No one does transmogrify with potions anymore.”

  “No one?” said Phist. “Well, then, that’s exactly the way we’re going to do it.” He nodded at the man. “Thanks again.

  * * *

  Back at my car, Phist held his hand out for my keys.

  “I’m driving this time,” I said, and I didn’t wait for an answer. I climbed into the driver’s seat and shut the door.

  Phist stared in the window at me and then he sauntered over to the passenger’s side and got in. “There’s a spell to get through the glamour—”

  “You can do it,” I said. “You don’t need to be driving.”

  “Fine.” He pulled his seatbelt on.

  I started the car. “That thing back there… do we have to make something like that? I mean, I know what the project is, but it seemed so…”

  “Cruel?”

  I glanced at him. “Yeah. I guess that doesn’t bother you, though.”

  “Try not to let it,” he said. “Animal sacrifice is sometimes necessary. I try to think of it like eating steak, you know?”

  “But that thing, it wasn’t dead,” I said. “I think it was… suffering.”

  “We won’t do it like that for our project. We’ll infuse inanimate objects with movement,” he said. “That’s harder, anyway. It’ll get us a better grade.”

  “What about human sacrifice? You ever do that? You ever seen it done? Did Enid ever see it?”

  He barked out a laugh. “You got it all figured out, huh?”

  I backed the car up and pulled out of the parking area. “I don’t think you liked seeing that creature either. I think it bothered you. I don’t think you’re as bad and hard as you pretend to be.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “If there are things that the Circle is doing, things you don’t agree with, you can tell someone. You can stand up for what’s right. Even if they killed Enid, we can find ways to protect—”

  “You don’t know anything, Suther. Especially not about me.”

  “Maybe not, but if you would tell me what happened to my sister, then I would.”

  “I already did,” he said. “Didn’t you say you were going to get revenge when you found out the truth? And yet, here I am, still standing, and you’re trying to get me to admit I have a soft, chewy, marshmallow center.”

  I gripped the steering wheel. “Maybe I’m waiting for my moment.”

  He chuckled. “You’re not even laced. You know you can’t take me.”

  I glanced sidelong at him. “We’ll see.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Dr. Abbadon looked up from his desk as I rapped on the open door of his office. The room was small, barely room for a desk and a window. I guessed as a younger member of the staff, Abbadon didn’t warrant a big office. “Um, hi there?”

  “Hi,” I said, stepping into the office. There was a chair wedged in front of his desk for students to sit in, but there wasn’t a lot of leg room. “Should I shut the door?”

  “I’m sorry, do I have you in class?”

  I shut the door and managed to sit down in the chair. “I’m not here about class. I’m here about the Black Circle. You’re the faculty sponsor, right? If they were doing something that was against school policy, you’d want to know?”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Wait a second. You’re Enid’s sister, aren’t you? What’s the name? Sullivan?”

  “Sutherland,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “Interesting first name. Listen, I may be the sponsor, but I don’t control who they tap. I know you’re a legacy, but that doesn’t mean—”

  “I don’t want in,” I said. “That’s not what this is about.” I got my phone out of my pocket and pulled up the picture of him from Naomi’s profile. “That’s you.”

  He peered at the picture. “Yes, it appears to be me.”

  “A girl named Naomi took that picture,” I said. “Later, she starred in this little film.” I showed him the video from Grayson’s profile.

  Abbadon looked genuinely surprised. “What are you saying? I knew the girl in that video? That very regretful video, by the way. I don’t know what happened that night, but there haven’t been any charges brought, so maybe it was all consensual.”

  “Naomi has disappeared,” I said.

  A beat. Various expressions seemed to flit over Abbadon’s face, and then his eyes went blank. He folded his arms over his chest. “Has she?”
r />   “You know anything about that?”

  “Are you accusing me of something, Sutherland?”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Do you know what happened to my sister?”

  “We don’t,” said Abbadon. “Whatever it was, it was very unfortunate. Finding a student’s body in that state, it’s unprecedented. Why couldn’t she use her magic to protect herself? It’s all very troubling. If we had any idea who was responsible, action would be taken. You must realize that.” He gave me a sympathetic look, but there was something mocking about it.

  I swallowed. He was in on it. Whatever it was, Abbadon knew all about it.

  “You know,” said Abbadon, “I met your mother once. I was at the school for graduation when my older brother was attending. She was in the Black Circle back then. You look remarkably like her.”

  I gaped at him. What the hell was that? What a crazy hurtful thing to say to someone. Why bring up my dead mother at a moment like this?

  “I guess that you’re really the last of the Astaroth bloodline, aren’t you?” He made that sympathetic face again. “Thank goodness that you’re still alive. You’d best be careful, though, hadn’t you?”

  I gave him a nasty smile. “Thanks for your time, Dr. Abbadon.”

  “Oh, I’m always here for students,” he said.

  * * *

  I pounded on Lev’s door.

  He pulled it open. “Hey, what’s up?”

  “You were right about Abbadon. He’s completely corrupt. He knows about all of it, and I think he had something to do with Enid’s death. Hell, I’m pretty sure he threatened me.”

  “Shit,” said Lev. “You went to him alone? No plan? What if he’d tried something against you?”

  “I know, I know.” I began to pace in the front of his dorm room, threading my fingers through my hair. “I’m weak. Everyone else is laced, and I’m not. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Come sit here and calm down,” said Lev, sitting down on his couch. “We’ll figure it out.”

  “I don’t know if we can,” I said. “There’s too much. I don’t understand it all either. I’m trying to, but every new thing I learn only confuses me more.” I looked up at him. “What was your lacing ceremony like? Was it awful?”