Linda Robertson - Wicked Circle

“Where’s Zhan?” he called.

“Unhappily left behind.” Seph pointed at the Audi parked on the far side of her. “She made these guys follow me.” She opened the trunk. As she bent and reached inside, the hoodie-blazer combo slid up her hips, and he admired the curve of her backside. Desire flickered within him.

“What can I carry?” he asked.

Seph handed him a duffel bag and a cardboard box. Two men sat in the Audi, wearing camouflage, just as Kirk had indicated. They weren’t going to blend into the concrete here. “What’s with them?”

Broom in hand, she shut the trunk. “Perimeter guards. This reassignment was unexpected. I told them that since they had to stay in the car, their duty here was going to be very boring and they might as well nap. I promised to wake them when I’m ready to leave.” She dropped her keys into a side pocket on the duffel. “Shall we?”

“No.” Johnny studied her. She squinted just slightly, as if she were in pain. “What’s wrong?”

“As always, there’s a lot going on.”

“What else has happened?”

“I’ll tell you on the way up,” she said as she gestured at the elevator. “It’ll keep my mind off the rickety ride.”

“Ig had everything mechanical regularly serviced,” he assured her as they approached it, “and the Omori updated everything after they assessed the security system around their Domn Lup. I swear to you: The elevator is safe. It’s just the wood gate that’s rickety.” He patted it as he held it open for her.

“Why keep such a rotten gate if safety really matters?”

“It’s a deterrent. Works brilliantly on non-wæres. As you know.”

Seph boarded the lift. Johnny lifted the false top and put his thumb to the real control button. The scanner quickly read and approved his print, and they started to rise. She asked, “How are you going to make sure the wolves get to their kennels after they’ve changed?”

“I’ll herd them into the stairwell. Remember the gates you noticed last night? They are at each level. A few of the men who aren’t going to be involved in the spell are going to lock all the gates except the uppermost and one of the kennel levels. Then they get as far away as they can.”

“So you’ll only be able to get to the levels with kennels. Will they all know what kennel to go to?”

“Yup.”

“Beau’s son hasn’t been kenneling with the rest of them.”

“Good point, but they aren’t territorial about their kennels, and it’s routine to be in them when transformed. Those not involved are supposed to head back in an hour to check on everyone. They’ll handle it if William is stubborn.” He added, “Don’t worry.”

The elevator shuddered. “Easy for you to say.”

“Those little bounces are no different than a car hitting a pothole.”

Seph crossed her arms. “If a pothole knocks a tire off my car, I won’t plummet twelve stories.”

“You won’t plummet here either.” The elevator doors opened.

He led her past the cages where the half-formed wærewolves were kept. On one of them, the cage door was open. “One last flight of stairs to the roof.” At the end of the hall they made a right, went under an arched entryway, and saw a wide set of metal steps rising through the ceiling. Johnny opened the door at the top and propped it open with one of the cinder blocks he’d had brought up just for this purpose. Here was a cold brick room with glass-block windows and a gritty floor. “Almost there,” he said, proceeding to the final door. “Ready?”

“Yeah.”

“You sure? You avoided telling me what was up.”

“Later. Let’s just do this.”

“Any last-minute messages for the men?” Johnny asked as he picked up the other block.

She considered it. “Stay together.”

Johnny opened and propped this door as well.

Atop the main building were two structures other than the one they were emerging from. The others were also brick and glass-block and, additionally, they bore colorful graffiti. In the center of the roof was a big formerly black water tower—formerly because it too wore the spray-painted lettering. The building was tall enough that drivers on the highway wouldn’t be able to see them, and far enough from downtown that people in the taller buildings wouldn’t be able to either.

Three dozen men stood gathered around the base of the water tower. William, half formed, was sprawled at the edge of the group, unconscious.

“There’s more of them than I expected,” Seph said.

“The Omori all wanted in on it.”

“They know their man-minds won’t be immediate? It’ll happen with their next cyclical change?”

“They know.”

She glanced up at the sky scattered with gray clouds. “All right. Have them gather in that far corner so the water tower doesn’t block the beam.”

Johnny directed them where to stand, then had Gregor and Kirk move William. Johnny wasn’t standing with them, however. When they were in position, one man noticed and asked, “You are still going to go through it with us, right?”

Johnny blinked. “Yup.” He’d promised to go through it with them to assure them that it was not some witch trickery. I can handle it. I’ll just change back when it’s done.

“Of course he is,” a voice from the back said. “He won’t let his woman see all of us naked without putting himself front and center of her view.” The men chuckled.

Johnny stood at the front with his best men: the Omori, Kirk, and the men who’d volunteered to stand with him and face the fey on the shores of Lake Erie. While they undressed, Persephone used her broom to sweep a huge circle enclosing them all. She called the elements and used candles in tall beakers of colored glass. Then she said,

Persephone and Isis, goddesses whose names I bear,

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

Hathor and Hera, be present here this hour,

Hecate! Come now, lend my rite your power.

Encourage the elements to participate

As we seek their man-minds to liberate

Reward the courage these men have shown

I beseech you, O wise and wonderful crone.

With her arms over her head for the last line, she formed a triangle with her thumbs and index fingers. She lowered her arms so she could see the moon through that open triangle, and remained thus for a long minute. Then she sang strange words.

Energy stirred around them and Johnny detected the men shifting uneasily behind him. He saw second thoughts betrayed in some eyes. “Steady, men. I feel it too,” he said to them calmly. “This is normal. She must call the power and contain it away from us until there is enough to fully change us all. Only then will that power descend.”

He saw one man’s mouth open, ready to ask for reassurance, then he clamped it shut, thinking better of letting his peers know he was worried.

Johnny added, “She is able to hold that much power, and more. Otherwise I wouldn’t allow this. I stand with you.” But I will change back as soon as I get you all to your kennels.

His skin abruptly itched, like he’d been dipped in icy water and coated in sand. She’s tapped the ley. He remembered that when she’d transformed him and Celia and Erik and Theo, she’d sung this hauntingly beautiful song, and her power had erupted as her voice had found the high note of the melody’s crescendo. She was building to that note now.

He rolled his shoulders. “Relax, men. Don’t fight it.”

“Look up,” someone whispered.

Everyone turned their faces skyward, where, ten feet above their heads, a mass of energy was forming. It swirled, shimmering like glitter on waves of heat. As the mass developed color, four arms stretched downward, one to each candle. When the energy-arms reached the candle flames, the center above them exploded, and that energy snapped into the candles like a tape measure recoiling.