Wicked Circle (33 page)

“Then you need me more than you think you do.”

Johnny shoved the receiver onto the cradle. “You
will
wait somewhere else.”

“Pout, pout.” She strutted out.

Kirk appeared in the doorway but directed a whistle after the leggy blonde who’d just passed. “Dude. It’s good to be the king.”

Johnny couldn’t stifle the single laugh at the movie reference. “What do you need?”

“It’s William. He’s awake, but he’s not responding. Beau’s calling an ambulance.”

“Send someone with him.”

“Renaldo is still here.”

“He’ll do.”

Kirk left, calling out, “Hector wants you to call him.”

Johnny picked up the phone again and punched in the number for Seph’s satellite phone.

She didn’t answer. When the voice mail picked up, he couldn’t bear to leave a lame recorded apology. He hung up and dialed the house number.

No one answered that either.

Jaw clamped, he dug out his cell phone and found the number for Menessos. He couldn’t call that—the sun was up and the vamp was
tucked in with his dirt bag—but a secondary listing was that of the haven. He called that number.

It rang and rang without going to any kind of message service. Pissed and worried, Johnny let it ring. There had to be some Offerlings or Beholders around somewhere.

Finally, someone picked up. “Hello?”

“Ivanka?”

“Da.”

“This is Johnny. Where’s Persephone?”

“Who?”

“The Erus Veneficus.”

The heavy sigh that answered him made his stomach ice over. “I know the shabbubitum were there last night. What happened, and where is Seph now?”

“No idea.”

Great. I need to know what’s happening and I get the one person in the haven who can barely speak the language and isn’t big on details.
“What do you mean you don’t know? What happened?”

“She mark our boss two times. She Make him like Offerling to her.”

An awful thought occurred to him. “Did the shabbubitum take her?”

“They try.”

“Ivanka. Tell me what happened!”

“She fly away on broom. Creature pursue her. Neither come back.”

He stood.
Damn this den for its concrete walls that block cell phones! I could be on my way to my car—
“Who’s out searching for her?”

“All Beholders. All Offerlings.”

“Did they check her
house?”

“Mountain already there.”

Right. Duh.
“Write down these numbers . . . ready?”

“Wait . . .”

Johnny groaned impatiently.

“My arm broken. Be patient or I no write number.”

Be nice to the Offerling you want to call you if they find anything out.
“What happened to your arm?”

“Strange man at E.V.’s house. Bastard snap like twig.”

“When? Yesterday?”

“Da.”

No wonder Red was acting so weird when she came to do the ritual. Then I—
The guilt he felt was so sharp he cut off the words before he could even think them. He gave Ivanka the numbers. “Call if you learn anything, but I’m on my way over there. I’ll get some of my men organized and we will help with the search.”

“No. Stay away. Forget her.”

“Ivanka—”

“E.V. betray us. She betray you, too.”

The phone went dead.

This wasn’t right. He had to do something. He had to go and find her—

He couldn’t ditch the press conference. The Zvonul had set it up, and if he was a no-show he’d be getting his “kinghood” off to a terrible start, discrediting the Zvonul and making wærewolves everywhere look unreliable.

I have a few hours. I can search a while and then go to the announcement.

He had just hung up the receiver when Aurelia reappeared in the doorway with her arms folded over her chest, the file dangling to the side by her fingertips. “It’s nine o’clock. We have six hours
until your press conference. We have to find you a suit and write a brief speech. We have to have your security team assembled and briefed. We have to scout the location and pinpoint the best positions for security placement
before
the reporters begin arriving, and they do tend to be early, vying to gain the best vantage point for their cameras. So can we get started while there’s still a chance to pull this off and look professional?”

I
became aware.

I opened my eyes as if I’d been sleeping, and I think I had been, but there was nothing to see but blackness so all-consuming that not even an indication of shape pierced this dark.

My mouth was full of salt. Spitting, I reached up—
pain
.

It ricocheted around my body with more force than I’d put into the attempt.

A full minute later the pain had subsided enough that sense returned and I could contemplate the state of my own body. I was lying on my side, I was cold, and my wrists and ankles were tightly bound. A length of rope connected the two bindings, further limiting my ability to move and forcing me into an uncomfortably cramped position. Every breath made my shoulder prickle. It remained out of socket. My right fingers were numb and I continued to spit salt. On the plus side, I still wore the dress and shoes.

I blinked and blinked but couldn’t get used to this dark, couldn’t cut through it.
As black as the inside of a cat, as Nana would say.

Unwilling to move my body, I used the only other thing I had: my head. Rubbing my cranium against the ground, a feat my neck complained mightily about, I burrowed my cheek into it.
What I felt was like sand, but the overwhelming smell of salt in my nostrils made me believe I was lying on a mound of salt.

“Help!” My throat was dry. My call was little more than a whisper. I tried again, putting every effort into projecting my voice. “Help me!”

Not only did the vibration of my voice do terrible things in my shoulder but my words echoed back to me, metallic and dry. I was enclosed in a space that was very big and open and dark.

As long as it’s not Tartarus, I’ll be okay.

Concentrating, searching for a ley line, an intangible part of me reached forth—and instantly recoiled, as if shocked or burned. It made me physically jerk, and the pain made me whimper, but I determinedly tried again, more gently.

The result was no different.

A power barrier.

I couldn’t be Bindspoken. What had Liyliy done?

Hungry, in pain, and pissed off, I decided not to lie there and do nothing.

In movies, people put their out-of-socket shoulders back in by hitting them on something.

I tensed, pouring every effort into rolling onto my stomach.

Searing pain ripped a scream out of me and I threw myself onto my side, as I had been.

That was stupid. A mountain of salt isn’t a firm surface. Being tied up like this ruins the leverage.

My small efforts had won me a cold sweat and a constant throb in my shoulder. I couldn’t fail. Not here, not now, not like this.
I didn’t want to be the one to blame if our tripled union collapsed.

I thought of the
sorsanimus
. Could I reach beyond this veil prohibiting magic by reaching inward to my soul? I thought of Johnny.
I need you to find me. I need help.

Exhaustion overcame me, and I was lost again to sleep.

J
ohnny tried to get a sense of where Persephone was, but he couldn’t seem to incite the
sorsanimus
. After what he’d done, she must be blocking him. He couldn’t exactly blame her.

Presently, he sat in the back of a rented limousine, between Kirk and Gregor. He wore the suit Menessos had given him to wear at the haven. Five Omori and Aurelia sat inside the limousine with him. Two more limos accompanied them, one preceding, one following, bringing the rest of the security team.

“Why the Cleveland Trust Bank?” Johnny asked, scanning the world outside the darkened windows to keep from ogling the cleavage exposed by Aurelia’s low-cut blouse.

“It is ideal,” she answered.

He looked at her, expecting her to go on, and after his gaze dropped to her chest, she did. “Impressive, isn’t it?” Aurelia’s lips twisted in a happy little smirk.

Johnny faced the windows again, swearing to himself.

She added, “It’s a structure everyone can get to, but it’s not so easy for the media to park close. That keeps their equipment to a minimum, and since we search them upon entering, that’s kept short. As a perk, since it is presently vacant we won’t be disturbing any county offices like we would if we did this on, say, the courthouse steps.”

Their planned route had them travel Third to Carnegie to Ninth. As they drew
close, Johnny told Kirk to switch with him so he could have the window.

The Cleveland Trust Bank was a big gray tribute to Italian Renaissance architecture on the V-shaped corner of Euclid and Ninth. As the limo sat waiting for the light that would allow them to use the Euclid entrance, Johnny let his eyes be captured by the structure, as they always were when he visited downtown. This spot was a strange mixture of ancient and modern times, and oddly enough the sleek towering skyscrapers, the streetlights, and even the asphalt street with the covered bus shelter right in the middle of the road all seemed out of place. Not the bank’s columns.

The building was constructed in a style so beautiful it had endured for millennia, with four sets of paired fluted columns supporting a very Greek pediment complete with grand figures. Just above and behind, the crowning dome could be seen. He’d always wanted to see the inside.

Today, announcing that he was Domn Lup to the world—
the world!
—he would.

Red should be here.

He retracted the thought as soon as it was formed. He couldn’t blame her.

But after what he’d done, not being out there looking for her right now tore his heart into pieces. He should have been looking for her, but he couldn’t get out of this, either.
Afterward,
he promised himself.
Afterward I’ll find her.

A short, fat, balding man unlocked the doors of the bank as Johnny and his entourage approached. “You’re early.” His frown was deep.

“We specified that we would
be,” Aurelia said.

“You didn’t specify
when
.”

“A matter of security. Can we get off the street, please? There are many tall buildings around. A sniper could be lurking in any window. . . .”

The fat man hurriedly opened the door. “Of course.”

In passing, Johnny assessed the man’s expensive suit and knew this wasn’t just a doorman. The interior drew his attention while he remained aware of what was going on around him.

“You are . . . ?” Aurelia asked.

“Leo. Leo MacPhearson.” He relocked the door. “I’m the building supervisor.”

Aurelia opened her file, flipped through pages. “Yes, here you are. Okay.” She pointed to a pair of the Omori. “You cover these doors, you the Ninth Street side.”

When she indicated, Mr. MacPhearson gestured into the bank. “This way.” He hurried to stay ahead of the group. “Much of what you see here is priceless,” he said. Leading them into the rotunda lobby, he pointed to a carved wooden embellishment that ran all the way around the circle that was open to the next level up. “Such as the craftsmanship shown here in the underside of the first mezzanine level.”

Johnny noticed two things: The place was as elegant as he expected, and it stank of stale air. It was a shame such a place was sitting idle. His gaze was drawn upward by the beige pillars that supported the second mezzanine level. They had gilded tops and even more elaborate ornamentation above them.

“On up, you’ll see murals that were painted by Francis Davis Millet, who subsequently died on the
Titanic
.” MacPhearson continued his
tour-guide spiel. “Crowning the rotunda is the stained glass dome, sixty-one feet across and eighty-five feet up, which, contrary to popular belief, is not a Tiffany glass piece. It merely follows the style of Tiffany.”

Johnny rotated on a circle of brass in the center of the rotunda and studied the overhead panes of glass in hues of blue and yellow and green, then asked, “Why is it empty?” Around him, the members of his own pack and the Omori halted as well.

A few paces ahead, “tour guide” MacPhearson realized he wasn’t being followed. Warily, he scanned the group, as if conducting a head count. “The city acquired the building and the tower attached for new government offices, then those plans stalled. So here it sits until they decide what to do with it. And it’s my responsibility to make sure this structure remains intact—a responsibility I take very seriously. So, if your security has reason to believe we may have a situation here today, I need to know about it.”

Gregor drew nearer and said, “This is all standard procedure, Mr. MacPhearson. We’ve not acquired any intel suggesting adverse events today. We just take our responsibility very seriously as well.”

MacPhearson studied Gregor for several seconds. “I’ll permit a few of your men to access the first and second mezzanines, so long as I send one of my men for every one of yours.”

“Agreed,” Aurelia said. “Where is the podium to be placed?”

“Podium?”

Aurelia shuffled her papers.

Kirk stepped up beside
Johnny, and as he looked at his sharpshooter, he recalled the man’s attraction to Red’s bodyguard. He leaned in, “Do you by chance have Zhan’s cell number?” he asked in a whisper.

Kirk gave him one solemn nod, but his wordless answer told Johnny that this was a secret. He pulled Kirk aside. “I need you to contact her. Coordinate with her to find Red.”

“She’s missing?”

Johnny nodded.

“I’m on it,” Kirk said and left.

“Page three of the contract the Zvonul offered—where are you going?” Aurelia snapped.

“I gave him an errand,” Johnny said smoothly.

She gave him a nonplussed stare, then turned back to MacPhearson. “Page three of the contract states that we require a podium ‘designed to denote some level of status.’ It also serves as cover should shots be fired.”