Shattered Circle (Persephone Alcmedi)

by Linda Robertson

  As it dove in, Menessos slapped his hand down on Beverley’s forehead and screamed words I did not understand. Her mouth opened. The green bolts dropped into her throat, and the purple serpent followed them down. Instantly, parts of her body began to glow purple. Her head was first, then her neck. The glow eased down her arms, and then, though that light was dimmed by her shirt and jeans, it moved down her torso and her legs. When the radiance beamed out from her bare toes, Menessos slid his hand at her brow to the top of her head, and the other smacked her under the chin, shutting her mouth roughly.

  The part of the line that was reaching into her was severed by his action. It flopped wildly as it recoiled into the line. Her body began to shake as if an epileptic fit had overcome her.

  Menessos kept his hands on her little head, kept her mouth shut, and murmured over her until the fire sputtered and sparked before him. It died down low.

  He watched the fire intently, and kept murmuring.

  The moment lingered on. She was shaking badly. I was about to shout—

  “Now!” he cried.

  The flames burst upward with a shimmer of white sparks that rained down upon the child, avoiding contact with him.

  As the sparks hit her, they seeped through her skin, through her clothes, and, little by little, her trembling abated.

  When she was still, Menessos removed his hands from her hesitantly, then grinned at me.

  I sighed. My shoulders relaxed, but I knew a hot and lengthy shower was the only thing that would truly ease the tension out of me.

  He drew a breath—I thought for another sigh—but instead he again began speaking words that were unknown to me.

  This wasn’t over yet.

  Suddenly, I could feel the line’s energy thrumming along my skin. It felt like I was sitting astride Johnny’s Night Train, feeling the deep vibration that rumbled out from the engine and through the pipes to reverberate through my whole body.

  Menessos was drawing the line up to the surface.

  What in Hell is he thinking?

  Drawing a line to the surface was like putting kinks in a garden hose—magic being the water and the witch being the hose. Depending on the witch, the flow of magic would be controlled, or the hose would bubble and burst.

  The vibration resonated into my bones and my whole body buzzed from the inside out. It made me feel dizzy. The temperature where I stood was rising fast. It must have increased fifty degrees in the few seconds I deliberated before leaping away and falling face-first into a pile of dew-damp leaves. As I picked myself up and stood farther away from the warmth, the leaves within the circle—leaves that had dried from the heat contained within the circle—fluttered and danced, pushed aside as the ground bucked underneath the bonfire.

  The logs bounced. One rolled right toward Beverley.

  Then the ground under the bonfire split open and the logs tumbled into the hole. The rolling one reversed its direction and fell in as well.

  I would have felt relieved if Beverley wasn’t right on the edge of the opening.

  My first instinct was to reach out, dive in, and pull her back from that edge, but I couldn’t break the circle. If Menessos didn’t draw me a door to let me in, I couldn’t help. Instead, I backpedaled and ran frantic hands through my hair. His eyes were closed. Maybe he didn’t know she was about to fall in. Distracting him might be a bad thing.

  Beverley’s body slid an inch toward the crevice.

  I took the risk. “Menessos!”

  My cry was lost as light exploded up from underground in a beam. It split the night like the megawatt finger of some gigantic god. It knocked me down, but I kept my eyes fixed on the girl.

  Beverley’s body slid another inch, then another, and I scrambled up—

  Some gentle force lifted her, hovering, into that light. Air tossed her dark hair about. Her arms spread outward as if she were floating peacefully in a pool.

  It was beautiful, ethereal, and angelic. My mouth fell open.

  Something began floating up in the beam; it looked like pieces of ash rising from a campfire, blackened fragments with edges glowing red-orange. These pieces swirled and fluttered around the child, gathering around her hands, bulking up until it covered her arms like extra-long oven mitts.

  There was a pulsing to the ash-like substance and the fiery glow grew brighter and brighter. Hotter.

  “Menessos … ”

  The ash condensed, tightening down on her. Her back arched and her high, piercing scream engulfed my world. Heedless of the circle, I shot forward.

  Time slowed down.

  Hands held me back. “No!” I screamed.

  Zhan put her knee into the back of mine, throwing me down a few feet from the ashen circle. With her weight centered on my spine, she pinned me to the ground. Still, I struggled to move onward, reaching, clawing at the grass, straining for purchase in the earth.

  Heat warmed my hands and blew across my cheeks. A few feet away, I’d been on soggy land, but here the heat of the circle was rapidly drying the nearby vegetation. The temperature kept rising until it felt like I was trying to reach into a blazing hearth. Beside me, outside of the circle, dried leaves began to smolder and burn from the heat.

  It couldn’t be as hot within the circle—both of them would be blistering by now.

  Menessos had to be displacing that heat magically.

  Inside the circle, he rose to his feet. His hands remained arched, and his features were lined with the effort of containing the power of the ley, transferring the heat, and sustaining the spell. Earth fell away around the crevice edges. The light was expanding. He had to step back to keep from falling in.

  He couldn’t hold it.

  I stopped struggling. Head down, concentrating hard, I tried to send energy to him through the magical bond we shared, but his shields were clamped tightly with all that he was trying to accomplish.

  I could help him if—

  Something dark cast shadows in the beam from below. Black mist rose, followed by a huge opaque black hand. The fingers caressed Beverley’s spine. It was a tentative touch, the way someone strokes an animal when they are uncertain if it is tame. The next touch was braver, longer. Then the fingers slithered around her and clasped her tight. It was like watching King Kong grab Fay Wray.

  “No!” I shouted. My voice was not nearly as loud as I hoped, as my lungs were compressed by Zhan’s weight on my back.

  The giant hand tried to pull Beverley down into the opening in the earth. Judging by Menessos’s hand gestures, he was fighting against letting that happen.

  Remembering how I’d used the elements to aid me against Liyliy, I called the mantle around me. I could link the elements readily when it was glowing soft around me.

  Zhan gasped and wisely got off of me.

  With Menessos having taken the time to triple-cast the circle I was willing to bet he had called the elements to guard his circle. I could use my power to manipulate the elements inside the barrier of the circle.

  What I needed mastery of right now was earth. With it I could close that crevice—but that was the one element that hadn’t yet tested me. Fire, water, and air—those I could command.

  Air.

  Rising to my feet I pointed my index fingers heavenward.

  “Hurricane force and twister speed,

  Air gust forth and lift her free.

  With whirlwind strength but zephyr soft

  Hold the child Beverley aloft!

  Windstorm fly her straight to me.”

  I couldn’t bring her out of the circle, but I wanted it to bring her to this edge and away from the hole in the world.

  But it wasn’t to be that easy.

  Whatever held her did not want to let go.

  Menessos continued fighting from within the circle. He cried out, “Water!”

  “Water?” I questioned.

  Zhan shouted, “The stream!”

  I dropped to my knees and shoved my two little fingers into the ground.

&
nbsp; “Water, water, heed my demand,

  Flow over your banks and across the land.

  With the fury of rapids and a waterfall’s might

  Reroute this stream right now, tonight,

  Filling the torn earth as I command!”

  Water came.

  “It’s going to wash away your circle!”

  Even as I called out, Menessos flicked a hand in my direction. His lips moved. Though my ears could not pick up the sound of his voice, I knew he was drawing a door on the circles. But that moment of refocusing his willpower cost him. The giant hand pulled Beverley down. I could barely see her; she was slightly below the level of the ground.

  Like rushing whitewater, the liquid poured across the earth, picking up leaves and crashing noisily in on itself. I guided it through the open doorway Menessos had drawn. Fearing Beverley might drown, I mentally pushed the water so it rounded that crevice and spiraled down into it staying mostly to the edge. But not all.

  As it splashed about, the fluid splattered across the hand. Where it fell, it sizzled. Blisters swelled up instantly.

  A deep subterranean squeal shuddered up through that fissure. The hand threw her upward and jerked out of sight. Seeing Beverley falling, I had an instant to readjust the water and move it from the edges to pool across the opening and catch her.

  It did—then she sank.

  I fought to whirlpool the water, to make a current that would push her to the top, but I could not feel where she was, and I wasn’t sure if my efforts were keeping her down. I couldn’t tell how deep the water in my control was.

  Zhan, who had been around magic enough to know a cut doorway meant people could move in and out of the circle, raced through—and dove into the water.

  I was dumbfounded by her bravery.

  For an endless few seconds I debated what I should do. I wondered if they had both fallen from the bottom of the fluid and were now dropping to their deaths. I could be covering up their screams with this whirlpool. If I released the water and they weren’t already plummeting, they certainly would then. I couldn’t let it go, but I couldn’t keep this liquid spinning if it was what was keeping them down, either.

  I looked to Menessos, but he was trying to put the ley line back where it belonged, well below the surface.

  Zhan’s head broke the surface with a gasp. She was carried around the opening twice before she could get a grip on the edge and hold her position. “I have her!”

  I slowed the flow of the water, but that allowed the level to drop. I knew if I pulled my fingers free of the earth, my control on the water would end.

  But what choice did I have? Beverley’s head was still under. If Zhan could have lifted her up, she would have. If I didn’t let the water go and get in there to help, Beverley was surely going to drown.

  “Hold on!” Rising, I sped through the doorway.

  As expected, as soon as my hands were free of the earth the water was freed. It splashed away, crashing down in the hole. I dove toward the edge, reaching for Zhan’s hand. She’d caught a thick root, and had her foot wedged on a rock. “Take the girl.”

  Her other arm was wrapped around Beverley’s torso. I reached lower and Zhan used every ounce of her Offerling strength to lift Beverley high enough so that I could get my hands under the girl’s arms. I was able to bend my arms and lift her closer to me, but I had no leverage.

  Zhan crawled out of the fissure and spun around on her knees. “Don’t let go,” she said. She straddled me and half lifted, half dragged me away from the edge. All I had to do was maintain my grip and Beverley was hoisted out with me.

  When I could, I hauled her away from the hole.

  Menessos had sealed up the door he cut and was shutting down the circle, so that by the time Zhan and I had reached a safe distance, the crevice was backfilling.

  Ignoring his ending of the spell, I pulled Beverley closer. She wasn’t breathing. I began CPR. The third time I breathed into her mouth, her body jerked. I pulled away and she vomited up water. She didn’t regain consciousness, but she was breathing deeply and her pulse felt strong to me. A quick examination of her hands and arms proved they were warm to the touch, but un-burnt. I noticed her flint arrowhead necklace was gone; Menessos likely had to remove it before his spell would work. Cradling her, I faced him. Not caring about the exhaustion in his expression or the slump of his shoulders, I demanded, “Why in Hell did you do that?”

  He said plainly, “I had to.”

  The anger in my expression made him look away. He stood, rolled his shoulders, straightened his clothes, and paced a few unsteady steps away. I knew the longer he had to think about it, the prettier and more innocent he could make his explanation sound. “I know it was similar to what you did to Liyliy and her sisters, so start talking.” What he’d done had turned out badly for them, and knowing that made the worry I felt now for Beverley clench up tight in my gut.

  He turned and there was a hint of surprise in his eyes. “I had to get her out of the line. That was my sole purpose, I swear. But as I brought her out, I realized why she was in there in the first place.” Sadness filled his expression. “Had I been less focused on you, I would have caught it … but as it is, what power I detected I simply wrote off as yours.”

  Power? Somewhere between nine and twelve, a witch’s power begins to show. But Beverley’s mother was not a witch.

  “She possesses a power that was not wakeful when Goliath was dating her mother. She had a birthday recently, yes?”

  I nodded. She’d turned ten … ten days ago. “Why did you pull a gift into her?”

  “Persephone, she wasn’t just in the ley line. She was riding it. You know what that means.”

  His words struck me. The truth had been there all along and I’d danced around it at every turn. I looked down into her sweet face. I ran my fingers around her neck, where the necklace would have been. I moved her hair away. And there was a faint redness where the silver would have been, redness like a fading rash. With her recent birthday and the onset of power with the coming of age, it all made sense now.

  “She has fey blood.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Johnny turned to Celia. Her eyes were wide and glassy.

  The shock in her expression cut through his rage and he realized he was roughing up a woman. Though he tried to console himself that Aurelia was a wærewolf and could tolerate it, guilt flashed through him.

  “You … you have a child?” Celia stammered.

  She had heard Aurelia. He knew how badly Celia wanted a child. The fact that wærewolves couldn’t breed was her greatest pain in life. Because he and Erik had been best friends up until a week or so ago, he also knew that Celia struggled with a secret resentment over Seph getting custody of Beverley.

  Now a child had fallen into his life as well.

  “Yes,” Aurelia answered, her voice raspy. “The Domn Lup has a human son, a child born out of wedlock to his high school sweetheart, conceived in all likelihood a matter of days before he was made wærewolf.” She slowly climbed to her feet. “If you acknowledge him, John, if you bring him into your world, he will forever be in danger.”

  Johnny turned back to Aurelia. “How do you know about him?”

  She straightened her outfit. “We’ll discuss that later.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “You will fucking answer me right now.”

  “How isn’t important.”

  Johnny pointed at the indentation in the paneling. “If you don’t answer me, we’re gonna find out what it takes to put you all the way through.”

  She sneered at him. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  He didn’t even hesitate.

  He grabbed her, lifted her, and the first thrust broke through the paneling and cracked the structure’s framing beneath. The second sent Aurelia and various bits of wood, insulation, and siding across the yard.

  Johnny exited by the door. As he stepped onto the grass, Aurelia began to laugh. She slowly picked herself up. “The R
ege did far worse to me for lesser reasons. It’ll take more than throwing me through walls to make me talk.” The wind tossed her hair about and she tore off her jacket and threw it down as if ready for a fight. She held her long hair out of her face. “C’mon, John. Put your hands on me again.”

  The copper-sweet tang of blood filled Johnny’s nostrils. A quick scan revealed a gash on her forearm. She seemed unaware of it. Still, his mouth watered. “I’m not the Rege.” He’d heard the sadistic bastard had tormented her in many ways; she’d risen through the ranks because she was not only worthy, but she didn’t break under the damage he dished out.

  “You’re not so different. I could always feel his beast. I could feel it rouse, feel it yearning for things. I felt your beast as I got close to the trailer.” She laughed softly again. “You’re on the edge.” She wiped her hand over the wound, covering it with blood. Then she rubbed her hands together and waved them in the air between them. “Lust. Anger. Violence. And now … blood.”

  Fresh and warm, the blood glistened wet on her fingers. The building breeze wrapped the scent around him, swathing him in heaviness that weakened his knees. Penetrating that scent was another: the heady aroma of her arousal. That perfume of her sex reached through the blood-scent cloaking him and, like a silken lining, slid cool and smooth against his flesh.

  Its touch was light, but far from subtle. It breached his skin like a sigh passing through a screen. Once underneath, it warmed as it passed over each sinew, each muscle, stroking and saturating his body with a savage craving previously unknown to him.

  Aurelia’s pouty lips curved as she stepped out of her dress shoes. “Touch me, John. If you can.” She turned and ran.

  Unable to resist chasing her, wanting that scent, that sensation, to remain, he kicked off his slick-soled shoes and followed.

  She ran into the cornfield, avoiding the grove. It wasn’t long before her bare feet were bloodied, and he could smell each drop as the air lifted the fragrance to his nostrils.

  The transformation stirred within him, fiercer with each step. He’d been outpacing her, but as he threw off his clothing, pausing desperate seconds here and there for the removal of each article, she increased the distance between them. When he was fully naked, he let the change claim him. In fact, he welcomed it—certain that he could cover the ground quicker on four legs.