Linda Robertson - Arcane Circle

“That’s right, but she’s inside the circle.”

To their credit, the medics pushed past the barricade that was my Nana and lined up just inside the doorway like mannequins in dark blue uniforms. Silent and still, the two men and one woman took in the scene, including what was left of the Rege on the floor. The woman moved closer to Zhan, but stayed back from the salt circle.

Zhan said, “She was shot twice by that man before his transformation set in. One broke her arm; the bullet passed through. I’ve bandaged it and bound it to her chest so it won’t move. The other entered at the shoulder. I’m keeping pressure on it. The bleeding is minimal.”

The woman had carrot red hair held back in a frizzy ponytail. “Did that bullet pass through?”

Zhan shook her head no.

“Then it may have bounced around causing internal injuries we can’t see. We need to get her out of there.”

“No!” Eris insisted.

“How’s her pulse?” Frizz asked.

“Thready,” Zhan answered.

Frizz nodded. “She may be going into shock. Is there a pulse in the right arm?”

Zhan shook her head again.

Lance came to the edge of the circle. “Mom. Let them take you now! Please.”

Eris defiantly shook her head. “I have to finish the spell.”

Frizz said, “Cut a door and let me take you out. The others can finish.”

“You’re a witch?” I asked, surprised.

“No. My aunt’s a witch. I spent summers with her. Picked up a few things.”

Eris held up her left hand, index finger vertical. “Just one more. One more spell and we’re done.”

“Your needs are more urgent, ma’am.”

“Mom, please!” Lance begged.

“Lance, you know how much it means to me to earn Persephone’s trust. I. Must. Do this.”

I had been about to ask her to leave as well, but that shut me up. I’m important to her?

“I don’t want to lose you,” Lance said.

“I know. I love you, too, bitch boy, but if I fuck this up, I won’t want to be here anyway.”

“Ma’am. Your fingers look dark; that’s not a good sign. You should get to the hospital immediately.” Frizz’s voice was more authoritative.

“If I leave, both that man and I are fucked.”

“How so?” Nana cut in. She was pale, strained, her hands wringing. She was as worried as Lance. The prospect of watching her estranged child die wasn’t a welcome one.

“I took something from him with the last tat. I have to give it back or all of this will be for nothing.”

“What did you take?” I demanded.

“You’re probably going into shock, ma’am,” the medic announced firmly and loudly. It was a signal that she was about to forcibly take control of the patient. “This is irrational. Let us take you to the hospital.”

“Everyone … just stop fucking talking.” Even as she spoke, the hair at the nape of my neck prickled; she was calling the ley again. With her left hand and a scream of blinding pain, Eris snatched up the athame that had been discarded on the floor. She twisted and held it at Zhan’s throat. To the medic she said, “Stop pushing me. Let us finish this. Then I’ll go.”

For a tense second, no one moved, not even to breathe.

Frizz nodded. “Everyone here is a witness that you refused.”

“Back away.” The medic didn’t move fast enough and Eris shouted, “Get the fuck back!”

Nana crossed her arms and tapped her foot on the floor. She looked as scared and frail as ever I had seen her, but her eyes were defiant. “I know you’ve been shot, Eris, but that’s enough of that f-word.”

I lit the black candle and placed it on the tray. I took the last Baggie from the box and sprinkled comfrey and patchouli on the black dragon, following its coiled body with a trail of the herbs. It smelled good. Earthy.

That was when I felt Menessos rise, far away in Cleveland. Wholeness surrounded me, and I took it as a good omen.

“I invoke the authority of Saturn,” Eris said. I repeated it. “Where the crossroads meet, where the path is chosen.”

I stilled. Crossroads.

Hecate.

“Where the crossroads meet, where the path is chosen,” she repeated.

I said the words.

Taking up the shiny hematite, I dipped it in the Dragon’s Blood oil and followed the lines of the dragon as Eris murmured, “Saturn, planet named for the Roman god of harvest, with a sickle in his mighty hands … hear me …”

Hecate also carried a sickle.

I gazed at the dragon tattoo.

And Hecate’s chariot is drawn by dragons.

She continued, “You are also the god of the golden ages in history. A golden age is coming. A golden age is coming.”

I knew that, astrologically, the planet we called Saturn was ruled by Capricorn, and together they symbolized the settling of accounts. What we were doing here, the unlocking of Johnny’s tattoos and seeing the penance my mother was suffering … it definitely seemed more like karmic comeuppance than a golden age.

“Help me stand,” Eris said to Zhan.

“That’s not a good idea,” my sentinel answered.

Eris dropped the athame. “Do it anyway.”

Zhan knocked the dagger spinning onto my side of the circle. I helped her get my mother onto her feet. She was weak, moaning, and leaned heavily on the table with her left arm. Zhan stood behind her, steadying her.

“The hematite.” Eris held her shaking left hand out to me. When I gave it to her, she placed it on the dragon’s mouth, then grabbed at her right hand to maneuver it. She cried out and ended with “Help me.”

“Ma’am, really—” the medic began.

Nana grabbed the EMT’s elbow. “Zip it. And keep it zipped.”

Zhan assisted in getting Eris’s right hand to rest upon the stone and the dragon’s gaping maw. My mother held her right hand in place with her left. Staring down at the now-covered dragon’s head, I could guess how it would bite at her. Under her left hand, the fingers of her right were darkening.

Eris’s knees buckled but Zhan held her firm.

“Mother …” I said.

“Help me,” she said. “Hold my hands there no matter what.”

I put my hands atop hers, fingers threaded across her knuckles and heels of my hands resting on Johnny.

She repeated, “No matter what.”

“Got it.”

“Dragon! Master of elements,

here is divinity!

Saturn! Power, luck, and

wisdom for infinity!

Restore to him what I stole!

Restore him, make him whole!”

She repeated the last two lines over and over.

Little by little, the room darkened, or at least it did inside the circle. It wasn’t dimming because the sun had set. This darkness seemed to saturate everything with a damp chill. Even my clothes were weighted, heavy on my body. Wind swirled at the edge of the circle, faster and faster until it roared. Yet the barest of breezes caressed us. The candle flames were unhindered. The howling of dogs filled my ears as if a pack of wild hounds surrounded me, and the circle’s edges darkened.

“And there be no time,” Eris whispered. “Between the worlds are we.” She shut her eyes tight.

“Crown and brow, throat and heart

Solar plexus, sacral, base.

I free you from the art

And end that magic embrace.

That union is erased.

That union is erased.

That union is erased.

Unleash him from this cage!

Unleash his golden age!”

The whirlwind of the circle spat at us, rumbled and thundered at us.

The black dragon became real under our hands. Its body twisted around our arms, tangling and entwining us. The scales were rough and sharp, the cordlike muscles underneath bulged and squeezed.