Linda Robertson: Arcane Circle

“Is the vamp dead-dead or undead?”

“We’ll know in a few hours.” The misery and dread in my voice were as thick as syrup.

He searched my face. “How are you?”

“Good, now. You’re going to be fine.”

“That’s not what I meant. You two were—I mean are —bonded.”

I tucked hair behind my ear. “I feel fine.”

“Now. What about then?”

“It was awful.” In every way.

“Well,” he said cheerfully, “when that vamp does rise, he’s going to be hungry. When you go to unlock the kennel … be careful.”

That he’d said “when” and not “if” meant a lot to me. I snuggled down beside him, head on his shoulder.

It was more than I could expect, to have come so close to losing them both and still have one of them in my arms.

Is it ungrateful of me to wish that I could still have them both?

On that Lake Erie beach, where witches, wæres, a single vampire, and his Beholders had put aside their normal antipathy and united, albeit briefly, against a common enemy, we’d defeated the fairies and I’d sealed the doorway between our two worlds. In minutes, when the sun set, I would know whether I’d slain the world’s original vampire and rendered him a normal corpse, or simply ushered him into the realm of being one of the true undead.

Sitting on my cellar steps, I waited, wringing my hands.

Behind me, the door was shut. Before me, the cellar was a dark tomb except for the tangerine candle in the center of the floor. The citrus aroma mingled with the smell of cold cement, old hay, and coppery-sweet blood.

My stomach was in knots and I hadn’t been able to eat dinner. The foreboding was more diligent now, gnawing at me with sharper teeth.

I had killed a man once, years ago. It was an accident, but it had haunted me. This … this was so much worse. I’d done this on purpose.

Menessos’s body lay sprawled in the first cage with the blanket that had wrapped him carelessly flung open. Apparently, Kirk had carried him down here and literally tossed him into the kennel.

The inevitable machismo pissing contest strikes again. It happened whenever vampires and wærewolves crossed paths. The alliances forged for the beach battle had, apparently, expired with our victory.

It made me mad. No one should be treated that way, dead or alive, least of all the original vampire. Though Kirk didn’t know that tidbit, he and I were going to have a talk about respect in general.

This kind of thing made me wonder if I would ever be able to succeed as the Lustrata. Balancing these preconceived notions of place and rank seemed impossible. I couldn’t go around and smack each and every wære and vampire in the back of the head, say, “Grow up,” and poof! it would be so.

Making them open their own eyes and see the value in each other, that was the trick. And it would be so much harder than planting a head slap on each of them.

But it wasn’t just the vampires and wærewolves bickering among themselves. The witches were in it, too. As were the mundane humans. The old dividing lines of skin color, religion, sexual orientation, and class status seemed to have found some common ground in their hate-mongering against the kind of people in and around my farmhouse. Despite human history being full of caveats about intolerance, one particularly hate-filled TV pundit had recently coined the term “ non sters” to lump witches, wæres, fey, and vampires together— emphasizing that they were not human. Technically, we witches were still human, but sadly, the incorrect term seemed to be catching on.

I checked the time on the satellite phone Menessos had given me.

In about a hundred and twenty seconds, the last edge of the sun would officially cross over the horizon. Menessos would rise. Or he wouldn’t. I’d know whether that conspicuously incomplete feeling in my core would ever feel whole again.

On some level I was aware of a metaphysical absence when Menessos was away from me. Though I sat only a few yards away from his body, that sensation was even stronger here. The best comparison I could make equated this to the way those who’ve lost a limb described their phantom pains.

Though Menessos was a self-righteous bastard most of the time, on that battle-ripped beach he’d gently placed the slender wand into my hands and told me to take his life so we might win the day. He’d even placed the tip against his chest to make it easy for me.

The cinema in my mind replayed the moments of his staking repeatedly, seeking some sign that he would come back. I’d placed a second hex on him as he died. That gave me hope. But did that action come too late?

Menessos had given up his life. Willingly. He’d given up the light of day forever. If he rose, he would evermore be a child of darkness.

All he’d sacrificed, these hands had taken.

My knuckles whitened around the phone as if it was the embodiment of hope I was silently clinging to. Menessos had to wake and rise and be the good ol’ pompous asshole we all knew and … Well, I won’t add the L-word there.

But he had to rise. I didn’t want to revisit the web of guilt that had ensnared me after the stalker’s accidental death. I didn’t want to dream of Menessos screaming blame at me and wake in a cold, shameful sweat for weeks on end. I needed not to be a murderer twice over, mostly because of Nana’s old saying: Once is a mistake, twice is a habit.

Two witches had lost their lives on the beach, and two wæres. A dozen Beholders died. Those deaths were a weight I couldn’t—and shouldn’t—be freed from carrying. They died pursuing my cause and fighting for what I needed done. I mourned their passing, but that was a pain I could keep in check.

With Menessos, it was different. My grieving for him had been displaced and tethered to a slim hope. The burden on my shoulders as I sat here waiting for confirmation was so heavy I knew if he didn’t rise it would crush me. It would break me.

Eagerly straining to see something in the candlelight, I scrutinized his body for any sign. The vampire’s face was angled away. His wavy, walnut-colored hair was strewn across the hay, across his cheek. One arm was thrown free of the blanket and at an awkward angle, not broken, but if it had been me lying there my arm would have been pins-and-needles asleep. But then my heart still beat regularly, maintaining the circulation of blood.

His didn’t.

Menessos was dead. Lifeless as a toaster. Like every other vampire when the sun is yet hanging in the sky.

He hadn’t been like this before. He’d been alive. It was this, his ultimate sacrifice, that had allowed us to win the day.

Shoving the phone into my pocket, I pulled the sleeves of my flannel past my fingers and let the cuffs dangle. I resituated myself on the step. I re-resituated myself. These were the longest seconds of my life.

His chest rose, minutely.

Or it might have been the flicker of the candle flame.

I stared hard, unwilling to blink.

His chest moved again, this time raising a fraction higher. The hair on his cheek fluttered as he exhaled.

He lives!

I had the urge to stand and shout, “He’s alive! He’s alive!” like a parody of Dr. Frankenstein, but I kept my backside planted on that cement stair. I swallowed, hard, and pushed my flannel’s cuffs back up, fingers folding together, knuckles pressed to my lips. Now, will he be the same?

Groaning softly, Menessos stirred. His groan grew louder, rising in pitch. He ripped away the blanket, clawed his shirt and tore it open, screaming in anguish as fingers scrabbled at his chest. He arched his spine until only the top of his head and his heels touched the floor.