Vicious Circle c-1

by Linda Robertson

  Nana repeated the last part: “So mote it be!” Menessos repeated it after her.

  After I drew an equal-armed cross in the air to further seal the circle, my eyes closed. I called up the sub-alpha state.

  This was the point in the ritual where things became truly magical.

  Chapter 23

  I took the first of four saucers from the tray. The saucers were prepared for the element invocations, each complete with an appropriately colored candle ringed in small stones. Each element had its own reaction, an undeniable physical presence that confirmed it was with me. This first saucer represented the element of earth and had a green candle and hematite stones. I lit the candle and held the saucer carefully aloft.

  “Hail and welcome, element of earth!

  Bring your stable strength and witness this rite.

  Protect us and aid us as much as you might.”

  Immediately I felt a tingle, as if glitter were raining onto my skin. The elements never seemed affected by my clothing; they could pass right through. Flexing my aura with a mental command, I embraced the energy to me, keeping it from drifting over Theo; it had a gritty, rooted feeling to it, and I knew earth was present. I placed the saucer opposite me, in the northernmost position of my circle.

  The second saucer bore a yellow candle and green aventurine stones.

  “Hail and welcome, element of air!

  Bring your experience and witness this rite.

  Protect us and aid us as much as you might.”

  This time, a warm breath swirled around me, exploring. A breeze lifted my hair, but no one else’s. With air present, I placed the saucer to the east.

  The red candle ringed in bloodstones was next.

  “Hail and welcome, element of fire!

  Bring your transformability and witness this rite.

  Protect us and aid us as much as you might.”

  Fire touched me in nips and little gnawing bites. It could be painful, but it wasn’t angry with me. It understood my respect, and I understood its volatile, consuming nature. I placed this saucer to the south, behind me.

  Last was a blue candle ringed in coral.

  “Hail and welcome, element of water!

  Bring your life-giving womb and witness this rite.

  Protect us and aid us as much as you might.”

  Feeling pressure and current flowing against me, I stood firm until water’s greeting was done, then placed the saucer to the west. I remained there and combined my statement of purpose and deity invocation, saying:

  “Persephone and Isis, goddesses whose names I bear,

  Artemis, Inanna, and Ishtar, your lunar purpose I share.

  Hathor and Hera, come to me, be present here tonight,

  Hecate! Come to me now, give credence to my rite.

  Encourage the elements to participate

  And return Theo’s life from the Summerland’s gate.”

  The wolves watched with interest and a healthy amount of wariness, but they didn’t really know what I was doing, so I didn’t feel judged. Neither Nana’s nor Beverley’s observance bothered me. Their approval surrounded me like a bath of warm light. But Menessos stared coldly, evaluating the ceremony and the reverence I gave to the ritual. He studied every gesture, considered every inflection, surely creating a mental critique. I had the distinct impression that he was gauging my performance of the ritual against that of someone else he’d seen perform it. I regretted letting my sweeping speed up when I had been near him. Maybe he didn’t like my statement of purpose or the fact that I called on eight goddesses, but to my thinking, it fit perfectly: eight is the number of transformation.

  Lifting my hands above my head, I put my index fingers together and my thumbs underneath, forming an open triangle. Keeping my arms straight, I lowered them before me. I imagined the light of the moon shining through that triangle and onto the third-eye area of my forehead. I wanted Theo to live. I wanted to undo the damage done because of me. I focused on those goals, seeing my will like a blue spiral and my emotion like a red spiral; they slithered, entwining and undulating, joining and forming, until I had one purple spiral.

  Straightening the spiral into a glowing violet rod, with the force of my mind I shot it like an arrow at the lunar surface, visualizing it landing in the presence of the goddesses I called on, being passed hand-to-hand as each aspect of the Goddess examined it and considered my plea.

  As I held on to perfect trust in divine will, the violet arrow shot back to me, through my triangulated fingers and into my third eye.

  Suddenly my body vibrated from within. My throat opened. My mouth opened. I began to sing.

  The words weren’t mine, weren’t even my language, but they came in my voice and the melody rose and fell in crescendos along musical scales that were foreign to my ears, yet beautiful.

  In some religions, people speak in tongues—glossolalia, mystical unintelligible utterances that sound like fluent speech—and this singing must have been something akin to that. But how was I going to conduct the ritual if I couldn’t stop singing?

  After struggling with this, I decided to trust in the goddesses I’d invoked. The song felt good and right. Maybe the odd words were Akkadian—a gift, conducting the spell in its original language.

  Turning to face the group and letting my voice fill the room, I continued with the ritual as if this were how it was supposed to be. Though I stepped closer to Theo in preparation to release the moon-energy, I channeled it upward to flow deosil at the ceiling. Drawing a hexagram in the air above Theo, I invoked all the elements at once. The gritty earth energy scrubbed abrasively over my body like a sand bath to join with the moon energy. The heated breath of air rose next, followed by the churning, nibbling fire energy and, finally, the buoyant current of water.

  Menessos suddenly commanded, “Imagine what energy you will offer to this rite, imagine it forming like an orb between your hands!” He glanced at Goliath, who readily took a deep breath. He focused next on Beverley and the doctor. Both looked to Nana. She signaled her approval of this with a single nod.

  “Rub your hands together to warm them,” Menessos demonstrated. “Feel the tingle and imagine it growing with the energy you’re releasing.”

  In sub-alpha, I could see golden sparkles emanating from between Nana’s hands and smaller sputters of light as the doctor and Beverley summoned energy. Goliath formed a nice round sphere as if he did this every day. The vampire’s orbs were a brassier color. Beverley’s orb—pure white—grew suddenly.

  Menessos instructed, “Now, everyone, lift your hands up.”

  It was awe-inspiring, seeing the alpha-enkindled glow of these energies.

  I pushed my offered energy out like fireworks trailing from my fingers, while still holding the triangle shape. Then the flow began to pull on me. It was as if my energy was a kite caught in a wind current, tearing more and more string from the spindle. Fighting against it, the flow from me slowed.

  “More, Persephone. For a full transformation, you must give more,” Menessos whispered.

  His words drew out of me a sum of energy that I knew was unwise, but I could not deny the spell or Theo’s need.

  Arms of light shot out of the swirling mass above our heads, capturing the energy offered up and pulling it into the mix, blending and kneading it until the top swirled and deepened to form a spiraling funnel, an upside-down tornado. This cone of power, unlike any other I’d ever raised, appeared like a galaxy of shining solar systems spinning. Every imaginable color flashed sporadically within that cone. I couldn’t tear my eyes from it.

  “More.”

  I resisted.

  “More!”

  My focus wavered. The flow of my energy sputtered.

  “You need more to turn her! You know where it is! You must call to it! Take it!”

  Mentally, I reached out to the wards surrounding my home. The energy, once set, reawakened. It leapt to my spirit hand, and the strange heat erupted inside my arm. Immediately, I yan
ked this energy up into the room. It rose through me and out with my voice, swirling into the flow. The tingling-burning overwhelmed me for a fraction of a second, but now it faded.

  The energy above sang back to me, a sustained high note, beckoning, daring me to sing that note with it. But I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. It would surely call to the ley line again, and I wanted no more power searing through me, no more risk of losing my focus.

  But that insistent call carried on, slipping beyond me anyway, beyond the circle. I felt it reaching, crying, begging for more.

  Beyond the cornfield, in the little grove…the ley line answered.

  The ley pulsed and fell into a steady thrumming beat. Enticed, it reached across the field toward me as I had reached for it to power my wards. With each pulse it drew nearer. I could feel the enormity of it, crackling all along the line and arcing forward. I tensed.

  I’d dared touch it with my fingertips, and—out of dire fear and need for safety—I’d dared to dip my hand into it. That handful had given me a taste of the immense power and the rush that mortals are rightly meant to fear…but this was searching me out, answering the need of the ritual, the need inherent in my song. And I could not stop it from finding me.

  “Now!” Menessos whispered.

  The energy of the ley line leapfrogged. A bolt jumped to the ward-circle, then into me. It wanted to fling itself outward through my voice, to fill the room and spill beyond as I sang that note…but it couldn’t filter through fast enough. I sang an octave too low.

  In that instant, my body numbed. I could feel nothing—not the vibration of my vocal cords, not the floor under my feet. It felt as if I didn’t exist. The energy took me and became tangible—touching, running, roiling inside of me, searching for its purpose so it could have a task and a form. But I could not speak, could not command it; my voice was taken by the song, and I could not keep from singing; I fought to no avail.

  Through it all I heard Menessos whisper, “Give in, Persephone. Now!”

  I stopped fighting it. My voice rose higher, a flurry of notes rising soprano-high. When the peak tone was hit, when I matched the note my swirling wards had created, it held.

  Finally unblocked, the ley-line energy shot out of me and joined with the energy we’d each given.

  Menessos stepped forward, hand lifted, and shouted the command:

  “Partake of this energy, elements four,

  Swallow it down and return to us more!”

  The swirling mass split into four arms reaching from the center. The arms reached down, blue and red, yellow and green, touching the candle placed at each compass point. The arms swirled and lowered, stretching until the circle was a cage of colored energy being consumed by tiny candle flames.

  Above us, the center exploded. The colored arms shot into the candles like the length of a metal measuring tape recoiling with a snap. But my note did not end.

  Menessos said, “Goliath.”

  Goliath lowered his head some, extended his open arms imploringly, and said, “Theodora Hennessey…forgive me.”

  Energy bolted from the candles like lightning, arcing in crackling jolts until they met over our heads where the center had once been. It scoured my skin as well as the others’. Beverley cried out and hugged Nana tight.

  Menessos said:

  “Rise, cone of power! Rise to our call!

  Deliver lunar energies to one and all!”

  With that command, I knew he’d betrayed us.

  In my mind, I screamed, NO! but my single note continued uninterrupted.

  He added something in Latin. I only understood lux et tenebris, “light from darkness.”

  The candle flames sank down to minimal embers, and the room darkened. Light burst around me like a spotlight held at my back. The final note of my song tapered off, and my knees gave way. Moonlight, like a sharply focused sunbeam, shone through the skylight and encompassed my circle.

  Menessos continued:

  “Search for the wolves, caress these beasts,

  Loose them now, moonlight increased!”

  Celia stared at the darkening hair on her arms. “No! Persephone, no! I’m changing! Stop this!”

  “Feel your wolf inside you,” Nana called to her. “Stroke it, pet it, keep it calm, and turn it away!”

  It sounded like good advice, but it didn’t work. Celia grabbed Erik and buried her face in his chest. He held her tight, sharing an angry look with Johnny. Johnny turned to Menessos and started forward, then stopped. His eyes had gone yellow, and his skin rippled as if a wave were crashing around underneath.

  All the wærewolves began to change. Skin split like thin fabric as bones elongated, snapping like dry sticks. Brought to their knees by the power and pain of the transformation, the wæres emitted anguished cries that were piteous half-howls. Beverley screamed. Nana turned Beverley away and covered the girl’s eyes with her old hands.

  “Come. Come to me, Persephone.” When Menessos said my name, I faced him squarely, looking him dangerously in the eye. He extended his hand. “Come to me.”

  Unlike the time just before, his power flashed forth and imprisoned me. My conscious anger was like a smaller me locked inside a Mason jar. I heard my own thoughts distantly, as if from a radio playing in another room. They were separate from me, distanced and muffled. Though I was seething, my fury at his betrayal could not affect me or get through the bondage confining my will to Menessos.

  Unable to refuse, I stood and took his offered hand. His other hand lifted before me, an elegant gesture an expert magician might use before pulling a bouquet of roses from within his sleeve. But Menessos’s intentions were not traditionally romantic. Instead, he removed my hand from his and positioned my arms so they were outstretched to either side. He fingered the bottom edges of my Superman shirt, rolling the fabric up. He bared my waist, pausing to touch my skin approvingly, before rolling the shirt up until my bra was exposed. With a word, he made me raise my arms up to allow him to pull the shirt free.

  Physically, I complied without question. Mentally, inside my sealed Mason jar, I screamed to no avail.

  My neatly rolled shirt dropped to the floor. His fingers glided over the lacy edge of the black bra before deftly unfastening the front clasp. Menessos removed and discarded my bra.

  The exposure both horrified and thrilled me. Energy fluttered along my skin, stronger than ever before. My hands, still outstretched, turned palms up.

  “Fire,” he whispered.

  The biting power of fire raced over me, focusing on intimate places. I had an inkling now as to why some witches did their rituals naked—sky-clad, as they called it. It felt good.

  Menessos sliced the tip of his finger open with his fang in a motion that looked more like he was dabbing at something at the corner of his mouth. Blood welled up. He licked the first drops away, savoring them, then reached out to me.

  My body flowed forward, spine bowing to arch toward him—if I took an actual step, I could not tell. His index finger touched my sternum between my breasts and sank lower, leaving a smear of his blood.

  Nana’s voice joined that of my bottled anger, shouting at me, calling through the fog, insistent but ineffectual.

  Beverley ran at Menessos, but Goliath grabbed her and restrained her gently but firmly.

  Menessos added an oblong loop above the first mark and connected them with a crossbar under the loop. He spoke. I didn’t understand the words, but the rhythm and cadence complemented his masculine tone and mimicked the melody I’d been forced to sing.

  Somehow, that melody connected us.

  His powerful, dark eyes met mine and bored into me, reading my thoughts. And I knew his: he would not deny what he had done. Why should I? he seemed to ask.

  He knew I was disgusted and horrified.

  His answering expression could have been that of a warrior demanding information from me and warning me of the means of torture he could employ, or he could even have been Arthur ensconced in the passion that led to h
is fathering Mordred. I began to yield.

  As his chant ended, the ankh he’d drawn on my skin began to glow.

  It itched.

  It burned.

  It felt as if every cell of my skin under his bloody mark called to intangible pieces of my soul, pieces that answered readily only to be bound tight in the thick syrup of his blood. Retreating, those little pieces took the essence of him, sinking deep inside of me to hide in places even post-mortem medical examiners wouldn’t find.

  Still the energy of fire nibbled at my bare skin, and sandy earth-energy scraped my flesh sore. Water offered buoyancy, but only in waves that left me feeling heavy as they ebbed. Air, the breath of life, seemed only to enhance the heat of fire and make it hotter.

  I wanted to be naked. I wanted him to see me and touch me. I wanted to feel those elements caressing other parts of me.

  A new chant met my ears, words I should know but didn’t. Nana shouted at Menessos and commanded him to stop.

  Suddenly the bright spotlight of moonlight waned. The howls of four fully formed wolves overpowered all the other voices.

  But I couldn’t look around, couldn’t respond to what was happening. My whole world had become focused on the vampire before me, on matching the beat of my heart exactly to his. I could feel each contraction of his heart like a lover’s caressing hand squeezing me. It was quixotic, eager, and indulgent. It was blessedly comforting.

  Menessos cupped my face in both of his cold hands and drew me adoringly closer, as if I were the first bloom from a seed he’d planted himself and therefore deserved his loving scrutiny. The kiss I was surprised to find I wanted was a breath away when he spoke: “Tomorrow someone will come for the stake.” His voice resonated inside my head, whispered syllables heard distinctly despite the cacophony around us. “I have honored my oath to you, Persephone Alcmedi.” His hands slid around me as if he would dance with me, and mine conceded to hold him as well. He smelled like hot cinnamon and campfires; his body flowed against mine like a hot, urgent current of fresh magma.

  He put his lips to mine in a kiss as fragile as the edge of a toasted marshmallow. I thought of that sticky, melted sweetness thick on my tongue—