The Circle

by Val St. Crowe

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I gathered up the ingredients, and it looked like we had everything except some really common potion ingredients, which I knew were in the potion lab. Scanning the spell, it didn’t look that difficult. I didn’t want to be alone with Phist again, that was for sure. Maybe if I could put the potion together myself, it would save us having to work together again.

  I set about finding a cauldron and getting to work.

  Two hours later, I had a big, bubbling green mess that didn’t look right at all. I wasn’t sure what I’d done wrong, but I had to admit that I’d never attempted a really difficult potion like this. We’d only done basic stuff in class.

  Damn it all.

  I guess I was going to have to ask Phist about it. I remembered that I had his phone number, so I called him. I would have send a text, but this was kind of urgent, and I didn’t want to wait for him to get back to me.

  “Phist’s phone,” answered a cheery female voice.

  I rolled my eyes. “Is Phist, um, there?”

  “No, can I take a message?”

  “Just… it’s his partner for the semester project. Tell him I have a question about the potion.”

  “Potion? I’m good with potions. Take a picture and text it?”

  “You’re going to help me?”

  “Why not? Send the pic, okay?”

  Whatever. I hung up, took the picture and texted it to Phist’s phone.

  Oh, whoa, came a reply text. You’re in the lab, right? Hang tight, I’m coming.

  Great, so Phist’s girltoy, whoever that happened to be, was going to come and help me with my potion. Or maybe it was a trap, since everyone in the Black Circle hated me.

  Ten minutes later, Tess showed up. “Oh, it’s you,” she said, grinning. “I should have expected that. Anyone else and he would have traded out so he could be partnered with someone else.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I said.

  “He’s totally got it bad for you,” she giggled. “I’ve never seen him like this.”

  “That’s not true,” I said.

  “Anyway, I was thinking about your potion on the way over, and I’m pretty sure I can stabilize it with a pinch of arnica powder.”

  “That’s not on the ingredient list,” I said.

  “It shouldn’t affect the outcome of the potion. It just helps the magic to flow better. It’s like a conductor, you know? Like metal?”

  Huh, that was interesting. Here she was making an analogy between magic and electricity. I wondered what Tess knew about that, but I didn’t know if I should ask. “Why are you helping me?”

  “Some reason I shouldn’t?’

  “Don’t you hate me?”

  “I don’t know you,” she said. “I knew your sister, though.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “You and Enid did a semester project together last spring.”

  “Started it,” she said. “Enid wasn’t able to finish it.”

  I stiffened.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Your sister, she was nice. I’m sorry about what happened to her.”

  “Do you know what happened to her?” I said.

  She crossed the room to my cauldron and began sprinkling arnica into it.

  “Was Dr. Abbadon involved?”

  Tess froze.

  “He was, wasn’t he? What happened? Did Enid get sacrificed too? Is that what you did with her? Is a witch a better sacrifice than a regular human?”

  Tess turned to look at me, and now she just looked confused. “You think you know something, but you don’t. There aren’t any sacrifices going on. Listen, you’d be better off to leave it alone.”

  “If I cared about being better off, I wouldn’t have come to this school. I need to know what happened to her, no matter what it costs me.”

  Tess set down the container of arnica, sighing. “Look, Enid was nice, like I said. That was probably her biggest mistake. You can’t be nice and be a member of the Black Circle.”

  “That’s why it doesn’t make sense that she even was part of it,” I said.

  “I’m not sure she knew what she was getting into,” said Tess. “She showed up and demanded an invitation, considering she was a legacy. But once she got in, she had trouble with… things.”

  “Like what kind of things?” I said.

  “Just things,” said Tess. “I mean, I get it. It’s not always easy being a powerful witch. The men in the occultist community, they like to try to put us in our place.”

  “What is our place?”

  “On our knees?” she said. “Or on our backs, our legs spread? You know how it is.”

  “I don’t, actually,” I said.

  “Well, you will,” she said. “It’s not just the Circle, it’s everywhere. You want power, you figure out how to play the game. And while the guys are too busy thinking with their dicks, you figure out what it is that you can use to get ahead, and you do it. But Enid didn’t want to play.”

  “So, they killed her?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Tess shook her head. “No, the guys, it only made them more determined to have her, you know?”

  “So, someone went too far, someone forced her—”

  “It wasn’t like that at all,” said Tess. “That didn’t have anything to do with… with the end.”

  “You mean with her getting murdered?”

  “She wasn’t murdered. She got herself into trouble. But I’m not talking about this with you anymore. It’s funny, really. Enid and I didn’t really get along, and here I am, playing nice with her baby sister. Maybe I feel guilty.”

  “Why would you feel guilty? Did you have anything to do with what happened to her?”

  “I told you, it was her own fault.” And now, she was sharp.

  I’d heard other people say this before, like Ryan Legion. But what did it mean? “How did she get herself into trouble? She didn’t commit suicide. I know she didn’t do that.”

  “She might as well have,” said Tess.

  “But how—”

  “I’m done.” Tess pointed at the potion. “That looks better, doesn’t it?”

  I peered down at it. “Actually, yeah. Thanks for that.”

  “No problem. I’ll let Phist know that I helped you out.”

  Another voice floated into the room. “Helped with what?”

  Tess and I both looked up and there was Dr. Abbadon standing in the front of the classroom.

  “Oh, Dr. Abbadon,” said Tess, giving him a hard smile. “How nice to see you.”

  I furrowed my brow. What was that about?

  Abbadon didn’t seem fazed. “What are you doing in here, Tess? Why are you with Sutherland?”

  “You know Suther?” said Tess. “She’s Enid’s sister. Guess you would be interested, huh? Got a list to check off? Every teenage Astaroth girl?” She made a little checkmark in the air. She tossed her hair, glaring at him.

  Abbadon chuckled. “You seem very spirited, Tess. I haven’t seen you like this in quite some time.” He looked past her at me. “I hope you weren’t hurt by Tess’s words. She wasn’t being very thoughtful. Enid was a very strong and beautiful young woman.”

  Tess’s nostrils flared. Without saying another word, she flounced out of the room.

  Abbadon watched her go, and he let out another laugh. Then he turned back to me. The laugh died in his throat.

  “Tess didn’t tell me anything,” I said. “Don’t worry, I still don’t know how you killed my sister.”

  “I didn’t kill your sister,” said Abbadon.

  “But you know how she died.”

  He pointed at my cauldron. “What’s your potion for?”

  “Semester project,” I said.

  “Ah,” he said. “So, finding time for your schoolwork amongst your conspiracy theories?”

  “Well, it’s tight, but I manage,” I said.

  He laughed again. “I like you, Suther. Maybe if Enid’d had some of your fire, she wouldn’t have botched everything. Th
ey really picked the wrong sister, I think. Too bad for them. Their loss. Our gain.”

  “Whose loss?” I said.

  “You don’t know anything, so you’re no danger to us. And even if you do figure it all out, it won’t mean anything. I’m not worried about you at all. I’m not even going to bother threatening you.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “Funny you took all that time to tell me that I don’t matter at all.”

  “I don’t think your sister was the person you think she was, Suther,” he said. “I think she fell in with a very bad crowd.”

  “The Circle?” I said.

  “No,” he said. “Not the Circle.”

  “The Circle killed her.”

  “Your sister died because she became unlaced,” said Abbadon.

  I furrowed my brow. “What?”

  “She became unlaced and didn’t lace again,” said Abbadon. “Sometimes, a witch can survive the withdrawal. She didn’t.”

  “No,” I said. “I saw her body. There were bruises, there were cuts. She was… someone killed her.”

  “In the end, it was the unlacing that did her in,” said Abbadon. “No one killed her.”

  “But—”

  “Why don’t you store your potion in the back room there and run along home?” said Abbadon. “I hope your semester project turns out well.”

  * * *

  I was shaking. What the hell had he meant by that, that she’d become unlaced? I knew that was a freaking lie, but I didn’t understand why he’d pick that particular thing to lie to me about.

  Anyway, coming unlaced wasn’t like your shoelaces. It didn’t just happen. A person could release the demon they were laced to, if they wanted, which was rare. People usually only did that if they felt it was time for a new demon, a more powerful one or something. They would have another demon lined up to lace to, and they’d only be unlaced for a matter of moments.

  Otherwise, the only way that someone would become unlaced would be if it was done forcibly. I didn’t totally understand how that worked, but I knew that if enemy occultists found a witch’s or warlock’s demon, they could detach the demon by wounding it or something.

  Demons couldn’t really die. They were pure spirit. But they could be attacked. They could be hurt. I wasn’t sure exactly what was done to them, but whatever it was, it detached them from the lacing.

  If that had happened, well, then that was still murder, and someone had done it to Enid on purpose.

  But it didn’t explain the bruises or anything.

  After Abbadon left me, I stood in the middle of the classroom, trying to get myself under control. Then, because there was nothing else that I could do, I cleaned up the mess I’d made with my potion and stored my cauldron in the back of the room in one of the cubbies for students’ use. This potion needed to sit and continue to mature before it would be able to be used on transmogrify. It wouldn’t be ready right away.

  I scrubbed down the table that I’d used and washed up the implements I’d used for stirring and left them in the drainer to dry.

  Then, still shaken, I left the room. I walked down the hallway toward the steps, and I realized I would need to go right past Abbadon’s office. I stopped in the middle of the hallway. Did I want to do that?

  Well, he probably wasn’t there anymore. He’d said what he’d said to me, and then he’d left.

  Even if he was, I wouldn’t have to talk to him or acknowledge him.

  But maybe I wanted to. Maybe I wanted to go into his office and take him by the collar and shake the truth out of him.

  That was stupid, and I knew it, because there was no way that I was nearly as strong as Abbadon, but…

  I lurched forward, my nostrils flaring, thinking of Enid’s beaten and bruised body, how small she’d looked, how broken. She had been my sister and my best friend, and then she was gone, ripped away from me, and I had no one else, no one who really knew me. I was completely alone, and—

  Voices.

  From within Abbadon’s office.

  I slowed, and I moved more quietly. I tiptoed over to the wall and I crept up on the door. It was open a crack, but the crack was opposite me. There was a tiny space between the door and door frame it was hinged to. I squinted, peering through it. I couldn’t see anything.

  “You act as if I betrayed you in some way, and you know that there has never been any kind of exclusivity between us,” Abbadon was saying in a low, annoyed voice.

  “I don’t act any way at all,” said another voice. A female voice.

  Tess, I thought. Exclusivity? What?

  “Hell, I’m the one who should be angry if that were the case. After all, you are quite free with your… favors.”

  “You know that’s not true,” said Tess. “And even if it were true, it would be different, because I’m the one who’s twenty, and you’re the one who’s fucking your students.”

  Shit. Tess’s boyfriend, the one who made her cry at that party? It was Abbadon.

  Abbadon chuckled. “Yes, well, I hardly think anyone would be scandalized by that. It’s a fairly common practice at Hellespointe.”

  “Still makes you a scumbag.”

  “And yet, you keep coming back for more,” Abbadon said, and his voice had dropped in pitch.

  “That’s not why I’m here,” said Tess.

  “Isn’t it?”

  And then there were other noises—gasping, smacking noises that sounded a lot like… kissing.

  Eew, okay. Moans.

  Didn’t they realize the door was open? Only a crack, but still.

  I didn’t particularly want to stick around and listen to this, so I eased my way past the door and down the hallway. I rushed down the steps and out of the building.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I knocked on Lev’s door, but there was no answer. “Lev, let me in!”

  Nothing.

  I tried the door knob, and it turned in my hand, but when I went into his room, he wasn’t in there. Not in the kitchen or living area, not in the bedroom, and not in the bathroom. I was heading out the door when he appeared in the hallway with a laundry basket.

  “Oh,” I said. “There you are.”

  “Were you in my room without my permission?” he said.

  “You left it unlocked,” I said.

  “I was just running down to get my laundry.”

  I moved out of the way of the door and let him in. “I have a bunch of crazy stuff to tell you.”

  “Did Phist find you? Did he deflower you between the stacks at the library?”

  “Did you just say deflower?”

  “It means to take your virginity.”

  “I know what it means, and I’m not a virgin, thank you very much.”

  “Well, not anymore.”

  “I didn’t have sex with Phist!”

  He shrugged. “Kay.”

  “I’ve had sex before.”

  He shrugged again. “If you say so.”

  “Why would I lie about that?”

  “I don’t know, but you’re pretty sheltered, sweetheart. You tried to act all big with the cider, but I could tell you were a baby in the business of drinking, and I highly doubt you’ve had lots of experience with anything at all.”

  “I’m not a virgin,” I muttered. In the wake of Enid’s death, there had been a few encounters with Billy Rickshaw in the backseat of his Toyota Corolla. I mean, I was pretty sure it was supposed to last longer than two minutes each time, but, you know, sex had been had. I’d found it pretty overrated if you wanted to know the truth.

  “Suit yourself,” he said.

  “Why are we talking about this?” I said. “I have huge news.”

  “Is it about Phist?”

  “No, it’s about Tess,” I said.

  “Did you see Phist or not?”

  “I did see him, but he ran off after we found potion ingredients. I don’t know why.”

  “Wait, what do you mean he ran off?”

  “I got stuck between these two
shelves in the library basement and he used this spell to pull me out, and then I kind of collided with him and there was a sort of… you know what? None of this matters.”

  He laughed at me, thoroughly enjoying my discomfort. He sat down on his couch and began folding his laundry. “So, Tess comes into this how?”

  “Well, I decided I would just do the potion without him, but it didn’t go so well, so I called him, but Tess answered his phone. I guess he lets his girltoys do that or whatever.”

  “Ugh, he’s seriously not boyfriend material. He’s such a dog. He’s strictly use-for-hot-sex material, don’t you think?”

  I glared at him. “Anyway, so then Tess came to help me with the potion, but while she was doing that, Abbadon came in, and he’s her boyfriend.”

  “Abbadon is?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I saw them making out.”

  “They were making out in front of you?”

  “Well, no, they were in Abbadon’s office, and they didn’t know I was there. See, Tess got pissed off at Abbadon and left me there with him, and he said this weird stuff to me about Enid.”

  “Really?” said Lev. “What?”

  “He said she died because she came unlaced. He said no one killed her. But that’s bullshit, because she was beaten to death. Her body was bruised and bloody. I had to make the decision to have a closed casket because she was so messed up.”

  “Oh, wow.” Lev’s face twisted in sympathy. “I didn’t know it was like that. I’m so sorry.”

  I was affected by his compassion, and I had to swallow down tears which were coming unbidden. I was quiet for a moment or two, and then I took a deep breath. “Look, it’s the past, okay? I’m okay with it.”

  “Wait a second, why did Tess leave?”

  “I don’t know, um… she said some thing to him about being there with me. She was like, ‘Got a list to check off? Every teenage Astaroth girl?’” I blinked. “I don’t know what she meant by that.”

  “Um, I think it’s obvious,” said Lev.

  I shook my head. “Enid would never—”

  “We should start a drinking game for every time you say, ‘Enid would never do that,’” said Lev.

  “But she wouldn’t do that,” I said.

  He shook his head at me sadly. “So, we’ve got another wrinkle here. Enid was having an affair with Abbadon, probably while he was also having an affair with Tess—”