Linda Robertson - Fatal Circle

His words, offered like a bouquet of summer color, held the trembling timbre of a first date, as if each syllable were felt with such deep intensity, striving to mean more .

He kissed my cheek, so softly. “My world is more tender with you in it.”

His words, a breath in my ear, gently urged my spark of desire to rise up and blaze white-hot.

N o! I raged at myself. Refuse his influence! Deny him the power to stoke these flames into more than I am willing to let them be.

Our bond, I’d learned, afforded him a measure of automatic compassion from me, and it was difficult to suppress. This, however, was base instinct responding in knee-jerk reaction to his call. It was up to me to stay mentally alert to his manipulation. Not just to keep my head lest I panic as I had in the cellar, but I realized that if I gave in to the passion he kindled, my regret would be fierce.

I expect exclusivity from Johnny and I owe him nothing less.

The heat within me began to cool.

Features wilting with rejection, Menessos slipped his attention to the side. His fingers gently combed into the hair at my temple. The strands fell free of his touch. I shivered.

“The Beholders will continue to work in shifts throughout the day.” He sauntered away from me. “My people will work around the clock. All will be completed in the hall in two days’ time. We will have the ceremony Friday.”

His matter-of-fact shift reminded me that, like it or not, I was going to be here for several days at the very least.

“May I take you to dinner? There are many fine restaurants in the vicinity.”

“I ate with Nana and Beverley.”

“A diminutive portion.”

“What makes you think that?”

His lip twitched. “Think? I know this to be true. I am very attuned to your body.”

Twenty minutes later, we were outside and I pointed to the restaurant next door—the upper half of an old, finned Cadillac sat atop an out-of-place attempt at a formal entry. A neon sign graced the lintel. “There?”

“Decidedly not.”

“Not good?”

“I wouldn’t know. But the manager emphatically communicated his dislike of our kind. I therefore forbid my people from visiting those premises. He will find his registers lacking for his misjudgment.”

“Okay. Where, then?” I buttoned my blazer.

Waiting for him to answer, I took in the crisp lines of his suit. He’d changed out of the one he’d worn when he slept in the hay in my cellar. All of his suits were cut to complement him as only the best garments can, but tonight there was something especially masculine about him. He wore no tie and his linen shirt was neither tucked nor fully buttoned. I appraised his self-assured gait, and the competent way he scanned both sidewalks ahead of us and behind, gauging every facet of our environment.

No matter how docile he seemed, underneath he was a predator.

No matter how modern he seemed, underneath he was ancient.

He’d lived thousands of years. He’d experienced almost all recorded history from the dawn of civilization until now. Yet, he strolled along with me, hands unassumingly in his pockets. Seemingly content.

“What was the moment you realized nothing would ever be the same?” I had to ask.

He stopped under the House of Blues marquee and considered.

“Many times I felt despair at what I had become, but always Una and Ninurta were there to comfort me, as I was there for them.” Until then, he’d spoken while gazing sincerely at me, but there his words faltered and his focus fell past me—and not as an indication of lying. I sensed his heartache rising to the surface. “We grieved,” he said. “Like a child’s song sung in rounds, it was the same melodious grief, overlapping at different intervals, but always together. We’d loved together, and we’d been cursed together. We were strong together. For a time it seemed it would always be so. My day of reckoning came when Ninurta took his own life.”

“Ninurta?”

“He bore the curse of the moon.”

“He killed himself?” I touched Menessos’s arm. “I’m so sorry.”

“Una and I tended his body, bore him to the tomb.” He sucked in a lungful of cool night air.

I waited; he was staring up Euclid but was lost in memory. The Lake Erie breeze, though light, packed enough chill that I could see my breath in the air. And Johnny is on his bike in this. I wished my blazer were a little thicker. A cup of hot coffee would have been nice to drink and to hold. “What happened after you buried Ninurta?”

Still fixated on something up the road, he answered, “Guilt enveloped Una in a continuous embrace. Our curses had spread before we learned how to control ourselves through magic and sorcery. She was certain the world would be destroyed by our spawn. For her, I killed vampires and waeres alike, trying to correct our mistake. But the bloodshed could not purchase her peace. I tried to kiss away her nightmares, but my arms could not offer any comfort that was as constant as her regret.” He checked the roadway in a sweeping glance that brought him to face me. “Una’s dark hair turned silver. I knew she would age and die and finally be free of her shame. I was glad for her. But I had to watch her die and bury her alone. And I have been alone ever since.”

I felt a deep sympathy for what he had endured. “But you aren’t alone.”

His elbow pushed out for me. “Take my arm, Persephone, and we will go forth.”

“Hmmm?”

“A local slogan.” He smiled. “Go fourth-with-a-U—for an area on Fourth Street, where there are many restaurants. It is past the season for eating out of doors, but it remains a destination for the locals.”

I allowed him to lead me. My concentration circled around his story, without awareness of where we were going. As we strolled down a road blocked from traffic, however, my thoughts returned to the here and now. He guided me past the various venues, including a comedy club. Then he ushered me down a quaint brick alley.

Multicolored party lights zigzagged over our heads. A bench sat under the next building’s fire escape, from which hung a sign that read: ZÓCALO, MEXICAN GRILL & TEQUILERÍA.

The hostess showed us through the brightly colored space to a table next to a beautiful iron railing, placed the menus for us, and left. We sat. There were gorgeous brassy lanterns hanging all around. A curved stairwell led down to more seating and the kitchen. It was lovely.

I am sitting in a Mexican restaurant in Cleveland, Ohio, with the original vampire.

Opening the menu, I fixated on the ornate lettering, seeing the page like art. My mind couldn’t focus on the words.

His native tongue is Akkadian, Old Babylonian, from thousands of years ago. He still lives, suspended in time, as if he’ll be thirtyish forever.

Forcing my mind to the words on the menu, I scolded my sullen self for having girlishly pathetic worries like being “forever changed by the experience.” Menessos couldn’t go back to things as they were, either. I wondered if he had wanted to.

How does he deal with it?

“Are you all right, Persephone?”

“Yes. Why?”

“You’re practically glaring at your menu.”

Yeah, at least here I have choices. “Tell me about the fey we’re facing.”

“Such talk will keep.”

“But we have to make plans.”

“Planning is best done on a full stomach—yours isn’t—and to be effective, it must be done in secret.”

I laid the menu down and looked at him questioningly.

The waitress took my posturing as a sign and came for my hurried order of diet cola and chile relleno.