Hallowed Circle (25 page)

In one swift motion, even as Holly’s arm started stabbing down, I rose and used my momentum as I kicked out, knocking her knife hand up and away. She turned her face toward her arm, surprised, and I punched her hard in the jaw. She fell and the knife skittered away.

Holly was young, small, and clearly inexperienced as a fighter. She could have killed her victims only by surprising them. I felt bad for her as I pounced on her and took her by the hair. I whacked her head on the stone floor to daze her. Then, still sitting on her, I jerked one of her shoes off, ripped the shoestring out, and tied her hands behind her back, tight. I took her other shoe and unstrung it; then I bound her ankles, pulled them up, and knotted the ends of the strings together.

“Oh my god!” she groaned. “Oh my god! That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“Yeah, I bet.” I stepped toward the restroom door.

“Holy shit!”

It wasn’t Holly’s voice. Slowly, I turned.

Amber was sitting up, staring at Holly. Amber began to laugh.

“You’re okay?” I stammered.

“Yeah.” She ripped open her shirt and pulled an elaborate fake “chest” away from her own. As she turned it around, she revealed it was some bizarre device with plastic tubing all through the back.

Over her shoulder, she said, “I didn’t invoke my stone!” as if talking to the toilet in the stall behind her. She giggled again, turning back to me. “And I’m so glad I didn’t. I would’ve missed the show. Somebody finally kicked your ass, Holly! Goddess, you should see your face.”

I stood there, dumbfounded, motionless. What the hell was going on?

The back of the restroom—both the floor and the wall itself—rolled open like a garage door and the fourth Elder stepped into view, eyeing me suspiciously.

“For twenty years, I’ve been re-creating this test in some fashion for every Eximium I’ve been a part of. Never have I seen the like.”

“All right already,” Holly exclaimed. “Untie me! I think she chipped a tooth!”

“What the hell is going on?” Realization began to seep into my brain, but I couldn’t believe it.

“I love this part!” Amber said, getting up and stepping to the open doorway. She pulled out a half-full gallon jug of red fluid and began refilling the chest mechanism. “No one died here tonight. Not Suzanne, not Lehana. Not me.” She grinned. “We are all part of the fourth test.”

I blinked rapidly. “The paramedics, the police—”

“Part of our group.”

“Then … Suzanne and Lehana … you and Holly … aren’t real contestants?”

“Never were.” She capped the mechanism’s well, put the lid on the gallon jug. Removing her shirt, she replaced the chest mechanism, attaching it to her bra with Velcro. From a hanger, she took a shirt identical to the one she’d been wearing—except this one had no bloodstains—and put it on.

“Excuse me!” Holly protested.

“Oh!” I dropped beside her and worked at the knots, but they were too tight from her straining against them. I reached for the knife, hesitated.

“Here,” Amber said, handing me a pocketknife. “That one’s a fake.”

I cut the strings and Holly immediately went to inspect herself at the mirror. “Sorry,” I mumbled.

“Do not apologize, child.” The Elder, leaning on her staff beside her, was grinning at me. It was unnerving. “I am Vilna-Daluca. Your solution to our play is one I will have to ponder before I can decide how to judge it.”

“Damn,” Holly said, fingers poking at a bruise swelling on her cheek. “You’re going to have to start asking contestants if they know judo, Vil.”

Vilna-Daluca laughed heartily. “I’ll personally drive you to the dentist tomorrow if it is necessary.”

The Elders drive? Why did
that
stick out to me as ludicrous in this moment?

Probably because everything else was tripping my weird-o-meter into the red zone, my thoughts centered on that trivial thought. What kind of car did Vilna-Daluca drive? Did she wear the robes—no, no, that was just silly. I’m sure even the Elders were like normal old women when they weren’t doing witchy things.
Probably played bingo and dominoes and everything.

“Fear not, Holly, you will heal,” Vilna-Daluca said, but her interest was centered on me.

Oh, shit
.
I showed them I could—and was willing to—fight. I went for a subject change. “What normally happens?” My voice conveyed meek innocence.

“You should have cowered, or screamed, or fled,” Holly said. “Fighting back is unheard of. Detrick?” she called.

The police officer opened the door and poked his head in. “Yeah?”

“He would have been blocking the door,” Holly pointed at him. “So you couldn’t escape.”

“It’s over?” he asked.

“Duh,” Holly said.

“How’d she do?” Detrick asked.

Holly pointed to her swelling cheek. I’d punched her
and
whacked her head on the floor. That was going to swell a lot.

“She decked you? All right!” He gently punched my arm. “Slugger! Were you filming, Vilna?”

My eyes went wide.

“Yes.”

“I’ll mop up the fake-blood mess in a minute; I wanna see.” He shuffled past us to the area behind the wall.

“Yeah, I bet,” Holly retorted.

“You’re bleeding,” Vilna-Daluca said to me. She indicated my hand.

I had a cut on my knuckle. It wasn’t bad; I grabbed a paper towel to wipe it.

“Yeah, worry about
her
,” Holly mumbled. To me,
she continued explaining, “After you’d tried to run and couldn’t, I would have moved in. If you had broken down and cried, I would have scolded you for being weak and trying to lead a coven. If you tried to talk me down—which I thought you were starting to do—I would have reconsidered killing you, we would have talked a bit more and seen where you went with it.”

“Oh-ho!” Detrick hooted from the back area. “That had to hurt!”

Holly went to join him. I dropped the paper towel into the trash and eased across the space to peer into the back. This was a classroom like the others, but the “restroom” façade had been constructed around the door to facilitate the setting. There was a whole production room set up back there! The paramedics, Lehana, and Suzanne lay sleeping on cots farther back in the room. “It’s incredible,” I whispered.

“C’mon,” Amber said. “Time to go get Maria.”

As we walked back to the holding room, Amber explained, “We each have a stone, we’re supposed to invoke it when it’s our time to ‘play dead.’ It gives that appearance to anyone who’s checking us. Lehana is new to the troupe and played with hers; Hunter picked up on it. That surprised me. But she thought it was a
vinculum
. I guess that is the most obvious guess, what with Holly planting her seeds of mistrust with WEC and all.”

“Completely had me.” Now I understood what had been different about Hunter when they came back to the holding area—she’d had this part of the test while I was with the vampires. She was dealing with the vampire test now, while Maria slept. Amber and I stepped inside;
Maria continued snoring. “So you have to set up again for”—I whispered and pointed in the direction of the snoring—“now?”

“Yeah,” she said. “But first,” she pulled her purse from under her cot, “let me show you this.” An atomizer was in her hand. She sprayed it. “Your turn to nap,” she said.

I woke up sometime later on the cot.

Hunter was shaking my shoulder. “Wake up!”

I didn’t want to
.
“Hmmm? I’m up.” I sat up. “You just back from the vampire test?”

“Yeah. Lydia brought me back. Amber had already started the scenario with Maria.” She very nearly giggled like a delighted little girl. Maybe Hunter got giddy when she was tired.

I stretched. I was so short on sleep I was beginning to go numb. “What time is it?”

“It’s after four.”

I sat up and glanced toward Maria’s empty cot. “And you’re not trying to sleep? Why?”

“Oh, I have to talk to someone about this! I mean, Goddess, that was outrageous! We were punked by the Elders!”

She’d woken me to share in her enthusiasm, but I couldn’t. Being roused from a valerian-aided snooze left my eyelids as heavy as I ever remembered them being.

“Lydia told me that Amber would wake Maria and tell her it was almost time for her turn,” Hunter went on. “Then Amber would start the scenario for Maria,
and afterward they’d see her to the vampire test. She’ll probably soon be transferring to the office for that test.”

I felt downright groggy. “I need caffeine,” I said, thinking but not adding,
if you insist on keeping me awake to talk.
“Suppose we can go to the kitchen and help ourselves?”

“Don’t see why not, whether or not Maria has moved on to the vampire part, we won’t cross her path between here and the kitchen. But there’s still no electric.”

“Damn.” I paused. “Did you notice if it was a gas stove?”

“Think so, why?”

“I
need
coffee.” Bad enough to make it the hard way.

We took our candles, pushed some boxes and furniture aside in the hall, and proceeded to the kitchen. When we arrived, however, I found the overhead lights did work. I headed for the coffeepot. “I bet the power outage was all a part of their show.”

“You’re probably right.”

I got the coffee brewing and sat at the table to wait. Hunter said, “I should probably thank you for the reality check earlier.”

I looked away, feeling embarrassed as I remembered what I’d said. Then I decided that I was being stupid. She
had
needed it and she wasn’t angry now. I faced her and snorted a little laugh. “Promise you’d do the same for me?” The smell of the coffee was perking me up.

“Yeah.” She laughed softly. “I do have a business degree and I did grow up with a silver spoon. My mother probably spoiled me a little because of my allergies;
maybe it helped create that ego.” She paused. “You’re very perceptive.”

“Usually gets me in trouble, helps me make enemies.” I tried to play it down.

Hunter remained serious. “I want to win, Persephone. As much as you do, I’m sure. I want this more than anything, and I swear, if I win, I
will
do this right. I’ll be all that a high priestess is supposed to be—not a trophy-wife version of a leader.”

I had, as Nana would’ve said, “knocked Hunter off her high horse” with my speech. The least I could do was give her a hand up so she could brush herself off. “I believe you,” I said.

“So what’s your story?”

The coffeepot dinged to signal it had completed brewing. I got up to pour a cup. “Journalism degree. Raised by my grandmother—no silver spoon.” I indicated the pot. “You want a cup?”

“Please.”

I returned to the table with two Styrofoam cups and a yawn. “Not a moment too soon,” I mumbled and took a long sip of the dark liquid. “Mmmm.”

“Oh my,” she said. “That’s strong.”

“It’ll put hair on your chest.”

Hunter gave me an amused look over the edge of her cup.

“Pour some out and add water if you want, but I need it this strong to shake off that valerian spritz and get through the rest of this.”

We were still sitting at the table with our Styrofoam cups when Lydia brought Maria in. “In fifteen minutes,
the Elders will convene. The Eldrenne will reveal to you the final test.” She let the door shut. Maria joined us and sank heavily into her chair. “You want some coffee?” I asked.

“Is it as strong as you made it this morning?”

“Stronger.”

“Good.”

I got up to get it for her; she called me a dear.

“So?” Hunter asked Maria, grinning.

“I can’t believe I just went ignorantly into a fake murder scene and followed it by walking fully understanding into a fake round-table with real vampires.” She fanned her face. “My heart can’t take so much pressure all at once and my mind’s still reeling.”

I set a cup before her, and the creamer and sugar packs; she thanked me as she mixed up her brew. She stared into her cup as she stirred. “Lydia said these tests would reveal much to the Elders, ourselves, and each other. She was
sooo
right.”

“What did you learn about yourself?” Hunter asked.

Maria made an unhappy face. “Faced with a real, violent threat to my life, I’m a chicken shit.”

“What about you?” Hunter asked me.

Up to this point, I’d been enjoying the company. My high school friendships were nonexistent and, while my college friendship with Celia remained a meaningful one, I’d not had many opportunities to sit and talk with other witches, except Lydia. She was grandmotherly. This was different. Like co-workers chatting about the job. It felt very normal and good while it lasted. Now, I had the feeling that Hunter wanted to know how we did in both of
these tests so she would have a better idea of where she stood. “I’d rather not say.”