Wicked Circle (41 page)

I swam closer to the ship. Because of the inward slope of the ship’s hull, she couldn’t dive at the same angle. She adjusted, preparing to swoop in straight at me. She might drown me, or squash me against the side of the ship. There were many possibilities, but it was unlikely letting me live was among them.

As I was heading toward the rudder, thinking that there was more cover there, it hit me—

Combine what you have earned.

Splashing forward, I put my thumbs against the ship’s hull, pointed up with my index fingers and kept my pinkies in the water. And I kicked like hell to stay afloat.

Element of fire, give me heat!

Element of water, boil and seethe!

Element of air, combine with these . . .

Over my shoulder I watched the dark form descending. I focused, hard. I reached deep within me, and I finished,

Lake Erie, arise, and give me steam!

The talons gleamed in the moonlight, silver and sharp. The owl wings spread, adjusting her aim. A sharp cry of triumph exploded from her beak.

Air swirled behind me. About three yards away, a blast of boiling water burst free of the surface. Pulled into the whirling wind, it was transmuted by the touch of wicked air.

The owl crashed into the
thick veil. She screamed as it hit her huge eyes and blanketed her fleshy talons. She screeched and flapped and stumbled through the air. She lurched out of my sight, and it sounded like she crashed into the hatch and was flopping around on the deck.

A wave of heated water flowed over me, and I was grateful for its warmth.

I heard an awful screech, then a dark shadow flew away over the lake.

I swam toward the rocks of the North Harbor. With my arm feeling so bad, “swimming” was actually more like floating on my back and kicking to propel me in the proper general direction.

As I neared the steep slope, the large, slimy rocks ahead made me wary. I wasn’t fondly anticipating that climb barefoot, and I wasn’t hankering to be dripping wet in the cold night air as I made my way downtown, either, but here I was.

Wading out of the water, I saw a flash of light above, but it disappeared. I tried to wipe the silt from the shreds of my gown. I’d ruined two nice dresses in seventy-two hours. Laughing at myself, I scrambled on, slipping but determined. I was halfway up when I heard someone say, “May I help you?”

I looked up.

Menessos.

He’s alive.

Of course it was him. My Arthur, I could count on him.

His shoulders lowered. His eyes softened, expressing the relief that filled him.

I offered him my hand.

L
iyliy could barely see out of her filmy eyes.

Consumed with a bitter, malefic rage, she flew. In time, pain wore her down. She tapped a ley and healed herself enough to keep functioning, but some of the damage was permanent. She feared returning to her human form, feared knowing what new curse was hers to own.

The revenge she would reap upon the Lustrata would have to be profound.

Another thought occurred to her.

She would need help . . . and she knew exactly who would want to help her.

Giovanni.

At the hotel, despite checking in so late, Johnny was showered and dressed by 7:00 a.m. The gym bag had held dark blue jeans, a white tank undershirt, and a button-front shirt. It was black and had silk-screened eagles and guitars on it. The short sleeves barely hid his armband tattoos.

He shoved the suit into the gym bag and, in the lobby, used the available computer to search the internet. First, he did a local white-pages search for the name Hampton. Among the fewer than six thousand residents of this city—according to Wikipedia—there were no Hamptons.

My mother has moved away. Or married.
He had no hope of finding her on
his own, but a private investigator could search the records.

Undaunted, he began his second search, perusing articles about boys raised without fathers, about absent fathers reappearing in their sons’ lives, and the challenges these men and their sons faced.

The statistics were discouraging, the facts heart wrenching, but Johnny vowed to not screw this up. To be better than the data he’d found.

At 8:45, he checked out, and the guest services lady suggested the Blue Moon Café for breakfast. He thanked her and wondered if she had any idea she’d been talking to a wærewolf.

Sitting in his car, his phone beeped. He had a text from Kirk.
Your GF was found safe. Where R U?

Johnny sighed, eyes shutting momentarily with relief. He’d been so consumed with all that had happened to him in the last twenty hours that Seph’s danger had slipped his mind. He fought back the twinge of guilt with the knowledge that she was okay.

He texted back:
Alls well. Should return l8r 2day. Let u kno when I kno.

Saranac Lake wasn’t very big, but it seemed like a nice place to grow up in.
I must have grown up here. In the Adirondacks. With all these trees.
He recalled Toni saying the kid was a climber.

What if the kid doesn’t like me?

What if I don’t like the kid?

What if I do?

The café on Main Street was easy to find. When Johnny parked and walked into the café, the people there quieted. He wondered if they did because they’d seen the news yesterday, or if
they just did that to all strangers.

Sitting at the counter, he ordered the Café Steak-and-Eggs and a Tupper Stack of pancakes with two glasses of orange juice. By the time his food was served, the chatter had picked up again, and as he ate, he heard whispering about his car.

One old man wondered too loudly, “Maybe it’s stolen.”

“Stolen?” another questioned.

“A cop’s pulled up to the curb. He’s just sitting there.”

The other man scolded the first, “There’s all kinds of fancy cars ’round here during skiing season.”

“But it ain’t ski season yet. Did you see that fella’s face? He’s got tattoos around his eyes! That’s a shady character, there.”

He glared openly at the man, who hunched into his seat. Johnny shook his head and resumed eating. He was nearly finished when his phone rang. “ ’Lo?”

“John,” Toni said. “You can head over now.”

Johnny downed what remained of his juice, placed a fifty on the counter and headed out. He noted that there was a police car up the road, but it didn’t follow him. A green Crown Victoria seemed to trail him out of town, but it turned off before he arrived at Toni’s house.

Will the kid be scared of me with all these tattoos?

From the driveway, he studied the house. In the morning light, the beige aluminum-sided ranch, with black shutters and a brick-red front door, seemed smaller than it had in the dark last night. It was cute and well kept; the many trees were bare, but the lawn had been raked and the leaves tended. The bushes were trimmed, the flowerbeds mulched and ready for the snow that would soon fall.

He shut the car off and
dropped the keys in his pocket.

Toni opened the front door before he could knock. “Have a seat. I’ll get him.”

Johnny entered a modest living room with two chairs and a small love seat, as she’d said. All were dark brown and worn. He sat on one of the chairs and noticed that the oval coffee table showed signs of wear and tear on its edges. He understood why when he saw the bin of Hot Wheels under the coffee table.

He swallowed, hard.

“Evan! Come here,” Toni called.

“I’m playing!”

“There’s someone I want you to meet.”

“Who?”

“Come here and I’ll introduce you.”

Silence.

More silence.

Toni rolled her eyes and started forward, but Johnny touched her arm. “May I?”

She blinked. Nodded. “Sure.”

Johnny walked down the hall with his heart pounding. The walls and ceiling seemed to be closing in on him, though he told himself it was just a small house. The
vroom-vroom
sounds of a boy at play met his ears, and he eased into the doorway as if his world was in slow motion.

The room was a sunny yellow with framed posters of sleek cars. The twin bed was primary red and shaped like a Ferrari. The bedspread was also red. Though there was beige carpeting, a small area rug, made like a city with roads, lay next to the bed. It seemed the rug city was under construction—dump trucks and backhoes were placed along the streets.

The boy lay in the middle
of the city on his stomach, feet kicking up and one sock half off his foot. He was positioned away from the door, his attention riveted to some Hot Wheels setup. The boy—
Evan
—was guiding cars into a motorized area that caught the cars and sent them speeding through loop-de-loops. When the cars crashed, he laughed delightedly. “All right!”

Maybe this will work out after all.

“So you like cars?” Johnny asked.

At his voice, the boy turned, and his big brown eyes started at Johnny’s shoes and rose unhurriedly upward. “You’re really tall.”

“Yup.”

“Why are you wearing makeup?”

Great.
“I’m not.” He pointed at his face. “These are tattoos.”

“Why?”

“Because I used to be in a rock-and-roll band.”

The kid hit a button that switched off the motorized part of his toy. He sat up, cross-legged. “Who are you?”

“My name’s John. You’re Evan?”

“Yeah.” He scratched at his brow. “Why are you here?”

“I . . .” Johnny’s mouth opened and shut. He couldn’t just blurt out
Because I’m your dad.
“I heard you like cars.”

“So?”

Johnny bent and picked up one of the cars. “This one. Do you know what this is?”

Evan studied the car. “Ferrari. Like my bed. Only that one’s light blue.”

“What do you know about Ferraris?”

“They’re cool and they go fast.”

Johnny dropped to
one knee. “This one happens to be a 599 GTB Fiorano. Do you know why they go fast?”

Evan blinked.

“This Ferrari has a V12 engine. That means it has twelve cylinders. . . . Do you know anything about engines?”

“No.”

Johnny asked, “Would you like to?”

“No.” Evan jumped up, snatched the car from him and left the room.

What did I do?

Evan dashed straight to Toni in the living room.

Johnny followed behind him.

“Who is that guy, Gram?”

Toni glanced past Evan to Johnny. “He’s someone you need to know.”

“I don’t want him touching my cars.”

“Then, just say so,” Johnny said.

Evan spun around, and in doing so, he scanned the front picture window. His head snapped back to the driveway. He eased forward and put his nose on the glass. “Whoa. . . . Is that your car?”

“Yup.”

“Wow. What is it?”

“It’s a Maserati Quattroporte.”

“Does it have a twelve-V engine, too?”

Johnny laughed. “No, it’s a V8. It only has eight cylinders.”

“It still looks cool.”

“Would you like to go for a ride?”

Evan’s eyes lit up. “Could I?”

“If Toni says it’s okay.”

“Can I, Gram? Can I? Can I?”

Toni regarded Johnny
steadily. “Can I talk to you privately?”

“Sure.”

“Evan, go to your room.”

“But Gram—”

“Get your shoes,” she said. Evan scurried off. As soon as he was out of earshot, she seized Johnny’s arm. “Don’t you dare try to take him from me yet!”

“I wouldn’t!” Johnny realized what she’d thought. “I wouldn’t steal him. He doesn’t even know me yet.”

She released his arm.

“I don’t know where to start. He obviously likes cars. So do I.” He shrugged. “You can come with us.”

Toni sat in a chair. “No,” she sighed. “Go for a drive, just the two of you.”

Evan returned with his shoes on, laces flopping. “Tie those or you’re not going,” Toni told him. “No speeding.” She pointed her finger at Johnny. “And he has to sit in the back.”

“We’ll be back in twenty minutes. You have my word.”

After letting Evan sit in the driver’s seat for a few minutes, Johnny told him to get into the back—Evan crawled over the console—and put on his seat belt. Johnny revved the engine a few times while in the driveway, and Evan giggled gleefully.

He backed onto the road and headed back the only way he knew to go. Soon, Evan was begging, “I want to go fast!”

“Toni said not to go fast.”

“She said no
speeding
. The speed limit is higher on the highway. That’s why they call it the
high
way. Geez.”

Johnny saw a sign
for NY-3. He followed it, heading west. He punched it up to the allowed forty-five. “So, tell me a little about yourself, Evan. Do you get good grades in school?”

“School? Bleh.” Evan stuck his tongue out. “Can we go faster?”

“No.”

“Not even just a little?”

“Well. Tell me about school and I’ll go a little faster.”

“I like recess and gym. Art class is fun.”

“What else?”

Evan sat up like he was trying to see the speedometer. “Are we going faster?”

“A little.”

“How fast?”

“Forty-eight.”

Evan sat back in his seat with arms crossed. “That’s not fast.”

“I’ll do sixty-five in a straight stretch if you tell me about your spelling tests.”

“I do okay. Not As, but no Fs either.”

“What about your teacher?”

“Seventy-five?”

“Your teacher is seventy-five years old?” Johnny asked incredulously, teasing.

“No. Can we go seventy-five?”

A straight patch stretched before them and there were no other cars around except the one about eight car lengths back, so Johnny slowed down to thirty, then punched it so it would feel more dynamic to hit seventy-five.

I
nvestigator Kurt Miller was following the Maserati as nonchalantly as possible for a quiet Sunday midday. Most folks were in church now. The roads were empty.