Arcane Circle

by Linda Robertson

  Whining wasn’t in his character, so I was suspicious. “Really?”

  He shrugged nonchalantly and moved the napkin holder around. “Maybe I should crash in your bedroom.” His blue eyes locked on mine with the last word.

  That was all it took to make my heart beat a little faster. “Let’s see how you feel after we get this ‘probing’ done.”

  “Oh.” He grinned. “I always crash after intense probing.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  My bedroom’s creamy-yellow walls were bathed in the flickering glow of white candles and the sweet, heavy scent of nag champa incense filled the air. Nana and Beverley were asleep in their beds, and Johnny and I were alone in my room. I’d promised to try this mind-probe thing and, despite feeling more like sleeping than scrutinizing, I would try it. Plus, with the wærewolf head honchos en route, Johnny needed whatever information he could get.

  “How do we do this?” he asked.

  “First, we take our pants off.” I dropped my jeans, leaving me in a long-sleeved tee and cotton boy-short panties.

  He growled approval and dropped his jeans atop the discarded guitar-strap-sling without a word. I approved of the black stretch cotton boxer briefs. They were snug where they needed to be snug. Regardless of his injury, it was obvious his libido was doing just fine.

  “Since when did you start wearing underwear?” I asked.

  “Since the summer’s over.”

  Just below the hem of the shorts, tattoos of blocky Aztec figures adorned each thigh. Drawn with thick lines and colored in with dark shades of red, these tattoos weren’t my favorites. “Sit on the bed and, here, take these pillows.”

  “Please tell me that this is going to involve some kind of kinky sex magic thing.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Damn.”

  “This isn’t even going to stir up a lot of energy like magic does. It’s mostly a meditation. The saline and salt should have cleansed the magic completely from your wound, but if you feel even a hint of energy affecting your injuries, let me know, okay?”

  “I am more tolerant to magic than other wæres.”

  “I know but …”

  “But what?”

  “When we made love at the haven … you know Menessos did something, right?”

  He arched a brow. He could have given into anger or laughter. “He didn’t have video cameras in our room, did he?”

  “Oh, hell. Not that I know of.” I had a sinking feeling inside. That bastard just might have. “He did something magically, through his link to me. He said that we’d already imprinted on each other, and he gave it a nudge into a fuller emotional bond. When it happened, we both murmured, ‘in signum amoris.’ Do you remember that?”

  He squinted. “Now that you mention it … sort of.”

  “Well, if, because of that or the sorsanimus, this tweaks you in a way that’s wrong, bad, or unpleasant, say so and we’ll stop, okay?”

  “You imply that I could be tweaked in way that is both wrong and bad yet is not unpleasant.”

  I licked my index finger and gave him a point on the air scoreboard, then began rearranging my closet. Once all of my clothing hangers were pushed from the right side toward the middle, some old poster frames were exposed. Behind those were smaller frames, and behind them, a rectangle of slate, a little more than a foot wide by two feet long and less than a half-inch thick. The slate was cool and smooth under my fingers. I hefted it out and leaned it against the bed. I passed Johnny a fluorite stone and proceeded to cast a circle around us.

  Before calling the elements to guard us I corrected my wording to invoke the “spirit of the elements” and not the elementals themselves. Probably not necessary, but it wouldn’t do to have any of the elemental animals from the grove trying to break into the house, so better to over-think in this instance.

  The personalities of the elements arrived as I had always experienced them before. I knew earth was present when a tingle touched my skin. Air was announced by a warm breath swirling around me, lifting my hair. I called to fire, and felt its nips and small gnawing bites of response. Lastly, I called to water and felt the pressure and the pull of a current, then it subsided and buoyancy took hold until it all faded away.

  At this point, I lit an extra white candle. Goddess, watch over Ross and see that his soul finds its way to the Summerland to heal.

  Sitting cross-legged on my bed in front of Johnny, I used the pillows to elevate my knees so they could touch his and be nearly level. When I positioned the heavy slate on our knees, it took a minute to make adjustments but finally the slate slab rested on our bare skin and seemed reasonably level.

  “Is this the genuine version of the Ouija board?” Johnny asked, fingers skimming over the gray-black smoothness. Symbols of all types had been drawn on the surface in faded and occasionally chipped white paint.

  “Kinda. ‘Ouija’ is just a made-up name and we aren’t using it to contact spirits or demons or what-have-you. But it is something that can help in … well, communication. This piece of slate has supposedly been in my family for generations. The story goes that in the 1860s my great-great-great-grandmother stole this slate from the ruins of an altar to Hecate and painted these symbols on it to ensure she got it out of Greece.”

  “So your whole family is made up of spunky chicks?”

  “Spunky?” Not the word I would have used. “I guess you could say that, but we’re not even sure her account of things was completely true.”

  “Spunky and a liar? Say it ain’t so.”

  “More like spunky with Alzheimer’s.”

  “Oh. What are all these fancy scribbles?”

  Confident he recognized the numbers and the alphabet, and could read the “yes,” “maybe,” and “no,” for himself, I explained the rest. “Runes, zodiac symbols, planetary symbols, astrological glyphs, the various stars, here … you know a pentacle.” It was in the middle of the rectangle. I pointed to symbols. “These are just stars with more points. A hexagram—like a Star of David—has six; the heptagram has seven; here’s eight, the octogram; and nine, one form of an enneagram. Here’s the symbol for infinity, and you know the Wedjat and the ankh.” There was no wasted space, yet the symbols weren’t crowded. They each had their place.

  “Why’d we have to take our pants off to hold this slate?”

  “So the physical energies in our bodies have direct access.”

  “I do like direct access,” he said.

  I chalked another point into the air for him.

  “And this?” He held up the fluorite. The purple and blue hues were frosty, not glossy. It wasn’t smooth and round like a marble, but a normal tumbled stone you’d find in the bins of any rock-hound’s store. It had edges and flat spots. “It isn’t the same as those.” He pointed to the purple stones I’d placed with the white candles.

  “Those are sugilites and they are receptive. This is fluorite and it’s projective.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning those stones around the circle will aid in drawing the answers out of you, while this one will project those answers onto the slate.”

  “And the purple theme?”

  “Spiritual. We’re tapping our souls, but we’re also tapping your subconscious.” I waited a second. “You feel all right?”

  “I’m kinda horny.”

  My nonplussed expression made him defend the statement.

  “What?” His attention flitted from my chest to my face. “I’m in your candlelit room, that little aphrodisiac stick is smoking, and I’m on your bed in my skivvies.”

  “That little stick is incense, nag champa, and it is for meditational purposes. As in calming.”

  Johnny sniffed the air, wiggled his brows. “I disagree.”

  “I meant, does your arm feel all right?”

  “Yeah, yeah. My arm is fine.”

  “Put that stone in the middle on the pentacle, then put your hands like this.” I held my hands in front of me as if I was going to clap, b
ut instead of bringing them together, I placed them on the outer edges of the slate. The tip of my middle finger rested at the midpoint of the side, and the cool edge of the stone stretched along that finger, into my palm. Johnny mimicked it. “Your fingertip must touch mine,” I said.

  He adjusted.

  Now we held the stone rectangle like a tray we were ready to lift, but we weren’t going to be moving. “Will you be able to keep your arm there for a while?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I can get more pillows if you want to prop it.”

  “Nah. I’m good.”

  I bit my lip, then said, “I know.”

  The gleam in his gaze was soft, adoring, a bit sad, and it said much more than flattering words ever could. “I’m ready.”

  “You’re always ready, but for now, I want you to close your eyes. Breathe deep. Good. Again.” I kept my voice even, soothing, and my words slow. “Ground and center. Feel your heartbeat, feel how steady it is. See the light inside you. Now slowly increase the scope of your vision as if backing up. See yourself, see your light remaining steady in this place, while your view of it moves farther and farther away, until you can see the whole universe, with your light at the center.” I gave him a moment. “Now slowly glide back to that light, embrace it and become one with it, calm and steady.”

  His breathing was deep.

  “I am going to ask you questions and make statements. Do not use your voice to answer me. When you hear the stone tumbling around, do not open your eyes. Concentrate on that light, on keeping it in your embrace. Listen to it hum and let it shine through you, down your arms and into the slate.”

  He nodded.

  “Go back, reach into the past. You’re waking up in the park. Naked, confused, covered with tattoos. You don’t even know your own name.” I paused. “Now go back further. Reach into the unknown.”

  Wrinkles appeared around his eyes as if he was squinting. His breathing had quickened.

  “Don’t force it. Just feel, feel the weight of time lifting from your shoulders. Imagine a clock, and the arms are spinning backward. I do not expect you to know the answers. They are locked away from your conscious mind. But they may not be locked from the subconscious. Just focus on the clock and let your subconscious answer through the stone between us. Breathe. Breathe.” I repeated it a few more times until I could sense serenity around him again.

  “Good.” Directing my awareness onto the fluorite resting on the pentacle, my first few questions would be easy, to set the tone. “Can you answer?” I whispered as low as possible, almost soundless.

  The fluorite remained still.

  I asked again, waited again. Nothing.

  With closed eyes, I sought that piece of Johnny’s soul I now carried. Breathing in the incense, I imagined that ethereal essence searching for that memory and reached out for my alpha state. Johnny, I thought. Johnny.

  What?

  I stilled. For an instant, I could have sworn that I’d heard his voice. Silly me. I’m not searching for Johnny, but for the memory he gave me.

  Targeting that more precise request, the memory awoke and answered my call. It sparked like neurons firing across my brain, and finally it filled my sight.

  I saw Johnny, in his late teens. His hair was shorter, and he had no piercings, just the tattoos. As before, with Menessos, I was watching Johnny and yet I was one with him, impossibly seeing this moment from the outside, yet also inside his thoughts, feeling his fear.

  His eyes were too wide—the dark blue like lapis lazuli set in ivory and encased in ebony, like on a mummy’s sarcophagus. His arms were wrapped tight around him as he paced inside a jail cell, then stopped, staring at the open door. He wanted to rush through it, to flee. The naked bulbs along the walkway beyond the cage were dim, and some burnt out, but he could still see the endless rows of cells, the filthy floor, and dingy block walls. There were no windows here.

  Beauregard walked down the hallway, shutting each door, checking that it was locked. Johnny paced away from the door, turning to watch as the door swung shut, clanging like a dull death knell. Beau twisted the key in the lock, gave the door a tug. The pity on the man’s face made Johnny feel weak and cowardly. These men around him weren’t afraid. But I am, he thought. He could smell the reek of it clinging to him as if he’d pissed his pants. They all knew he was scared. He couldn’t hide it.

  Beau secured the cell door next to Johnny’s. The last one in the row. Ig’s cell. After a nod at the dirija, Beau left the cell-block kennel area.

  In moments, a wave of heat made Johnny’s skin ripple and nausea made him crouch in the corner of the cell. He put his back to the rough block wall. Its coolness chased the rising bile back down his throat. In the cage beside him, Ig had removed his clothes and folded them, stacked them in a neat pile. He moved to the bars near Johnny.

  “You okay, son?”

  Johnny didn’t answer; he didn’t want to be naked, didn’t want the others to gawk at the strange tattoos now embedded in his skin. After a moment he asked, “What will it be like?”

  “I won’t lie, it hurts. Hurts more if you fight it.”

  “What if you’re wrong? What if I’m not like you and I don’t change?”

  Ig gave him a kind but cheerless smile. “I wish that were true, John. But you are one of us.”

  Johnny knew it was true. He could smell and hear things others couldn’t. But he couldn’t remember it being any other way. He couldn’t even remember his name. They called him John Doe at the hospital. No one knew how old he was, either. They guessed seventeen. Maybe eighteen.

  In the twenty-seven days since he woke naked in that park without any memory, no one had recognized him. No missing person’s report had been filed in any state for someone that fit his description, with or without the tattoos.

  No one cares enough to search for me.

  Ig reached through the bars and put a reassuring hand on Johnny’s shoulder.

  Johnny put his head down, fighting back tears—a sign of weakness he would never let Ig see.

  Then the moon blew her kisses into the cell block and her curse shivered into life. Gooseflesh prickled and erupted thick, dark hair. It felt like sandpaper had been shoved under his skin, scraping and scrubbing under his flesh.

  He tore off his clothes just in time.

  His face ruptured, and the inner beast was born snarling and fighting, forcing its way out into the world. Molten iron surged through his veins, burning him, dissolving him. He was stretched until his overheated bones felt brittle thin, and then the moonlight hammered him like forged steel, remaking him, pounding him into a new shape, stronger than the former.

  For a time he stood on all fours, unmoving, waiting … but the pain was gone. He felt like a just-whelped pup, exhausted.

  Ig had become a red wolf, growling at him. To the other side, a gray wolf snapped its muzzle through the bars. In cells beyond he saw wolves mounting she-wolves; he saw another wolf throw itself against the bars repeatedly. He watched it fight frantically for a freedom it would not find.

  He stared down at his paws.

  I’m a wolf. A wolf! I am … I am.

  None of us, Johnny thought, will ever be free of this curse.

  No one will want me now.

  His muzzle lifted and the saddest wailing howl echoed through the cell block.

  Holding on to that despairing sound, keeping it foremost in my mind, I begged, “Who made these tattoos? Who bound his power away from him?”

  The fluorite tumbled to the left, rolled toward me, spun on blank slate and rolled toward Johnny. The stone stopped on a rune letter that was shaped like an F with the two bars angled down.

  “Ansuz,” I whispered. The rune represented the spoken word and advice. But when the little fluorite spun halfway around, I knew this was a sign to reverse the rune and change the meaning to trickery and lies. The stone rolled to the right, onto the next rune, Raidho. Upon this angular-looking R, the stone again rotated half a turn. Since
this symbol normally indicated travel, the reverse meant an upsetting change in plans. The stone rolled to the very next rune like a sideways V, called Kenaz, and did its little spin for a third time, meaning poor judgment or ignorance.

  The stone seemed to be simply checking out each rune and twisting. I began to wonder if this was a waste of time.

  When the fluorite rolled back to Ansuz, then tumbled across the slate as if it were running away and stopped abruptly on Nauthiz, however, my confidence returned; there was a purpose in this reading. Nauthiz looked like an X that someone had kicked: The line ending its upper right “arm” was shifted vertically rather than at an angle. The stone did not pirouette here, so the symbol indicated a need, but whether that was a spiritual, emotional, or material need had to be assessed by the surrounding runes. The fluorite rolled to Uruz next, then to Mannaz. The former symbol looked like two upright bars, one shorter than the other, a slanted bar connecting the tops. It was the sovereign of strength, determination, and healing: internal transition. The latter symbol resembled an X and an M combined. The stone spun halfway around—and having just relived Johnny’s memory I had to think it was indicative of silence, solitude, and perhaps introspection. It was definitely about personal obstacles and separation.

  The stone rolled back to the pentacle and went still.

  It had given me a kind of recap of Johnny’s story, as if I’d asked for a reading. I hadn’t. Though I prompted it a few more times, it did not respond. I counseled myself to keep a heavy sigh from escaping.

  Johnny cracked one eye open a fraction. “Is it done?”

  “Yeah.” I said quick thanks and left him holding the slate while I took up the circle.

  I moved the candles to the dresser top, let the stones pile on the bedside table, and took the slate back to the closet, where I shifted the frames forward and bent to replace the slate.

  “Well?” He sounded like he was ready for bad news.

  From deep in the closet I asked, “Do you know anything about runes?” I twisted to see him as he answered. He was staring at the bed. He has a prime opportunity to ogle my ass and he’s missing it? “Johnny?”