Linda Robertson - Shattered Circle

“I am not certain where she is at this time, but I am prepared to ask those involved and aware of her departure today to meet us here immediately if you are interested in being present for the inquiry as to why my commands were not followed—”

The pager on the desk phone buzzed. Goliath pressed it. “Yes?”

“The missing shabbubitum just came through the front entrance,” the voice on the other end of the line said quickly.

Both Goliath and Mero were instantly on their feet. They headed for the door.

“I must create a binding for her,” Mero said. “Please do not allow her to leave.”

“I’ll do my best,” Goliath snapped.

“I was not rebuking you.” Mero stopped with his palms out toward Goliath. “Both females, I’m sure, are equally difficult to contain.”

Goliath acquiesced with a single nod. “How much time do you need?”

“This will have to be powerful . . . as much as you can give me.”

• • •

From the darkness inside the haven, a voice that Liyliy recognized as Goliath’s addressed her. “You’ve returned.”

It was a simple statement. The slimmest possible acknowledgment. It asked nothing, yet it was full of inquiry. “Was I not supposed to?” She laughed. “Did the witch tell you I was dead?”

“No.”

Which question was he answering? she wondered snidely and started forward, not bothering to disguise her limp. “I must see my sisters.”

She searched the darkness, and forced her one remaining eye to make the owlish transformation. Like this, the depth perception remained inferior, but the larger pupil could open wide and allow her to function better in the dark. They were clustered in small groups, fifteen vampires in all, scattered across the entry.

For an instant, she felt sick. She felt like crumbling, succumbing to the fear that had been eating at her ever since she glimpsed her new, hideous face. Attack. Give them cause to slaughter me and end this disgusting existence.

But that notion passed.

She wanted to see her sisters and repair this damage. She wanted to extract a gruesome revenge upon the witch. She wanted to see all that Menessos had built and cherished burnt to ash.

“I am injured.” She clung to a thread of hope that perhaps, with her sisters, the three of them together could reverse some of the damage.

Still Goliath did not answer. By his thoughtful pose it seemed he was considering her request, but the fact that he did not answer gnawed at her impatience.

“I have come back. My actions must speak for themselves. Let me see my sisters, that we might try to heal my disfigurement.” She held her breath. It was a risk coming here, but she was betting that they had not anticipated the action, and therefore had not created an alternate means of restraining her. She needed to not linger and give them time to do so. She needed to get to her sisters, heal herself, deliver the phones in secret, and get back out.

She ground her teeth slightly, then she added, “Please. I beg you. I’ve lost an eye, my arm will not completely change, my leg is twisted—”

“Very well,” Goliath said. “I will allow you to see your sisters and endeavor a healing. Then we have to discuss the terms of your remaining here. Am I clear?”

“Yes.” She did not believe he would let her remain here unbound, but she followed him to the elevator as quickly as she was able. She didn’t know if he avoided the stairs out of consideration for her condition, but she was grateful whatever his motive. Upon reaching the lower floor, she was escorted along the hall to a conference room with a large cherry table and dark brown décor. It was mostly leather and wood, with a few accents of deep hunter green.

She recognized the room. When she had clasped Giovanni’s wrists and licked away the blood from his hands, she had read him. Not a full mind scan like she did with the aid of her sisters, but a gentle search into the recent past. After she’d departed the haven in pursuit of the witch, he’d interrogated her sisters here.

Moments later, her sisters scurried in and rushed toward her. “I knew you would not forsake us!” Talto cried even as her eyes widened upon seeing her sister’s condition. But it did not stop her or Ailo. Both threw their arms about Liyliy.

Liyliy also took in their appearances with some grief. Both of them wore iron about their necks like slaves. Giovanni was right; her sisters had been bound.

Together they cooed and cried, shushed and sniffled as their reunion carried on for a long minute. They clasped hands and Ailo and Talto pushed images into her mind. They told her that in her absence Menessos had bound them to him and had the iron put round their throats. If they tried to transform, it would kill them. They were so angry, so resentful of him . . . but she had returned. She would save them, they were certain. All would be well.

In return, Liyliy showed them the pocket at her hip, the phones inside. She told them what they were for. “Heal me and take them,” she whispered.

Embracing tightly, they each drew upon the magic that allowed them to clothe themselves with quicksilver and silk. Fabric flowed around them, between them, entwining and twirling like lovers wrapped in sheets. Liyliy’s sisters began chanting and the fabric liquefied, spilling at impossible angles like gentle silver waterfalls onto Liyliy’s skin.

All the magical fabric they possessed had flooded around her, leaving them both naked. It flowed outward to create a circle of liquid that encompassed her, then it filled in, growing deeper until it was ten inches of fluid, hovering unbelievably in the air. Her arms lifted and her hair fanned out as if she were floating in an upright pool of mercury.

Her sisters’ chant became a song.

As the song continued, the liquid hardened like a gigantic mirror, sealing Liyliy in place. For a moment she seemed dead, frozen, caught in this strange magic. Then her sisters slammed their fists against the glass, pushing through, slicing their own flesh on the shards, and spilling their blood into the spell they were crafting.

The mirror cracked and shattered in slow motion, each broken piece cascading into sparkling dust, stretching into threads, and weaving into silken bandages that wound Liyliy like a mummy. When she was enveloped, her sisters stood and lowered her vertical body until it lay supine in midair. They each held one of her cloth-covered hands and clasped their free hands together. Still singing, harmonizing in a crescendo rising to angelic soprano notes, they forced the magic to permeate Liyliy. Her body began to glow under the wrapping, shining brighter and brighter until the room was filled with silvery illumination so blinding it seemed the moon had been stolen from the sky and placed in the hands of the shabbubitum.

All at once, that dazzling brilliance winked out.

The sisters’ melody dropped into something less divine, something made of deep tones and fast staccato notes. Liyliy’s body began to spin between them, the fabric unwinding and splitting in two, part sliding around Talto, part around Ailo.

When Liyliy was unwrapped, she stood.

The almost sentient material had reclothed each of them, with the phones hidden within the folds of their new silken gowns. With tears shimmering in her eyes, Talto held up her hand. The sleeve of her dress formed a hydrous mirror along her palm so Liyliy could view herself.

Her skin was no longer blistered, the globules on her chin were gone, and her face had resumed a human shape. Her eye had re-formed beneath a scarred lid. Lashes bristled this way and that in a drooping line across it.

Liyliy swallowed down bile.

Talto’s tears fell.

Lifting her arm so she could view it, Liyliy learned it was no longer mottled with feathers, and her fingers, though still twisted, were the proper length. Her leg felt regenerated. She clasped her youngest sister into her arms. “Do not cry, Talto. It is better than it was.”