How—?” Johnny demanded.
Her breath caught. “I took it back.” She stumbled.
Johnny leaped from the table. He couldn’t catch her before her knees buckled, but his grip on her arm kept her from tumbling out of the circle.
The rest of us rushed to that side of the table, careful not to cross the ring of salt.
Eris stared at her hands in dismay. “What I did to you was so wrong and I knew it.” She showed him her hands again. “Air. Air was the final element. Air powers the mechanism that injected the ink into your skin. And now it’s in mine, as if the universe has caught me red-handed.” She laughed. The maniacal edge to it made the rest of us toss looks around like a hot potato.
“You have to stop this,” Lance said.
“No!” Eris shouted. She twisted and struggled to get to her feet, obviously weak. Johnny helped her stand. “We can’t stop!” When her knees threatened to give way again, he made her sit on the table.
Johnny retrieved his jeans from under the table and stepped into them. As he tugged the zipper up he said, “I’m not convinced you’re able to finish this.”
“You can’t leave the circle partially free.”
“What? You took days to lock me up. You even said we could do this one at a time over the course of a week.”
The guilt in her expression was heart-wrenching. “Locking it down piece by piece was like building a pyramid with blocks. It was systematic and each built on the other. I’ve just removed your foundation. If you did this over a series of days, we could keep you shielded from any other magic. But if you left now and randomly encountered any other magic, any surge of energy, it would be bad.”
“But I’m—”
“Resistant. I know. This is different. You’d be walking around with magic in progress attached to you.” Before he could protest, she added, “If you were trying to pick locks to get in a place without damaging the door or letting others know you had gained that access, you wouldn’t pick half of the locks then let your impatience and temper get the best of you. If you ripped it off the hinges you’d defeat your own purpose and destroy the door.”
He released a breath and put his hands on his hips. “I’m the door.”
“Exactly.” She reached up to his shoulder. “Right now, you’re as fragile as an eggshell, tough guy.”
He shied away from her touch. “What do you need to finish this?”
She examined her palms again. “I need … to accept what the deities intend for me to pay.”
My thoughts ran to the Three-Fold Law. What you do comes back to you, three-fold. It was a karma-in-this-life notion meant to keep witches’ actions pure, good, and positive. Getting that goodness back in triplicate would be wonderful. Winning the trifecta of troubles, however, not so wonderful.
She flipped her hands over, hiding the reddened palms from her sight and pushed them out before her.
The hair on the nape of my neck prickled as she called to that ley energy and a pulse answered her. And the junkie takes another hit.
Eris eased from the table, onto now steady legs. “Unlocking that one hurt?” she asked Johnny.
“Hell yes. I nearly decked you before I realized what I was doing.”
“This one will hurt more.”
He rolled his shoulders as if preparing for it. “Why?”
“I told you before, each of the first four tattoos were locked to an element and set to a purpose. The fifth bound them all together. They weren’t exactly happy about that.” She showed him her palms again. “I need them free in order to unlock this one, which has your memories bound in it.”
“Why did you take my memories?”
“These last three tattoos are all spiritual. They each required an offering.”
“My memories were offered up?”
“Your past was relinquished. The man who paid me to do this requested that offering specifically. He said you had an unhappy childhood and wouldn’t miss it anyway.” Her tone had gone bitter and she was intently studying the floor. “That sounds stupidly weak now.”
“Just undo it.” Johnny sat on the table and stretched out.
This time a purple candle was added to the tray. “I call upon the expansion of the planet Jupiter, with golden rays of warmth and light.” The mixture of nutmeg and clove was strewn across his chest. A heavy padlock was placed upon his sternum, right onto the pentacle, and a golden key was laid between the upraised wings on un-inked skin. Using an amethyst point, she traced the elaborate feathered details, then lifted the lock and drew the pentacle and circle beneath. She whispered, “Jupiter, planet named for the Great Roman god of thunder and lightning. Be generous. Hear me.”
Slipping the amethyst through the loop of the lock and touching only the ends of the stone, she used it to hold the lock three inches above the pentacle tattooed upon Johnny’s chest.
“Elements four, here combine.
Elements meet, pentacle sign.
Elements four, given wings.
Elements meet, here a king.
Earth: What was hidden now is found.
Air: What was unknown is now explored.
Fire: What was shackled is now unbound.
Water: What was taken is now restored.”
The golden key began to twitch. Air lifted salt from the bowl and threw it around the circle while the water in the glass bottle bubbled and the flame of the round red candle stretched high and danced.
“Jupiter! Be generous, I beseech you!”
The key flipped into the air and glided into the lock.
“Open!”
The key did not turn.
“Open!” she commanded.
The key remained still.
Eris reached for the key, hesitated … and gently put thumb and forefinger to the golden surface.
As if the god Jupiter himself stood in the circle and had denied her, lightning exploded from the lock. It sent her backpedaling, stumbling and falling even as the lock thudded to the floor, breaking the head of the key as it struck.
Johnny yelled and clutched at his chest, rising up on his elbow.
That was when I heard gunfire outside.
It was followed by the clanging of feet on the metal stairs. Someone tried the doorknob. Zhan put a round through the door and the stairs thudded as if someone heavy had gone down hard. There were shouts from outside, a few screams, and the peel of cars burning rubber to flee the area.
Zhan dropped into a crouch, keeping her aim true. “Get down,” she shouted to the rest of us. We obeyed; the shots continued outside.
Johnny’s yell dwindled to a groan, then he collapsed against the table, his arms flopping over the edge. Though he was breathing, he didn’t move.
I crawled forward.
Nana grabbed my arm firmly, holding me back. “Don’t break the circle.”
Amid the shots and shouts that were continuing outside, one rattled the door and the knob flopped. Then the door burst open, ripping from its hinges and crashing into the chair Zhan had been sitting in. The chair flipped forward. One of the legs cracked on her forehead. Zhan went limp.
The Rege lurched through the entryway—it was his shoulder that had broken the door. He held a gun. His eyes locked on Johnny and he took aim.
“No!” I shouted, calling energy from the ley.
I heard movement to the side behind me.
The Rege got off two shots before the power of the ley enveloped him, but when he was wrapped in that dangerous energy, it required his full attention. The barrier around him, his own shields, blocked the magic. The barrel of his gun shifted toward me. My fists clenched, rising up before me as if I dared fight him, but in truth, I was squeezing that ley power down, crushing him with its weight, until his shields were pulverized and every pore opened as if his skin was perforated with tiny funnels.
Weight pressed down on my shoulders as the Lustrata’s mantle appeared on me, glowing soft white light.
I could never guess how many women he had ever raped, abused, and broken. But I was thinking of them, his faceless victims as I rammed ley power into him, violating his body with it.
His eyes bulged. His hands shook like he had palsy. “No!”
Ley line power lifted him into the air and his body warped, sprouting hair and teeth.
I wasn’t just stopping him. The Lustrata was administering justice. I was doing what I never wanted to do to any wærewolf.
With a gasp, I loosed my fists, dropped the power, and stepped back. My mantle faded and disappeared. The creature dropped to the floor in a tangle of misshapen limbs, snarling and writhing. It flopped and groped, reaching toward my sentinel.
I pitched forward. “Zhan!”
At her name, she stirred. Seeing the inhuman thing so near her, she reacted swiftly. Before I could cross the room, she put four rounds into the thing’s head. She pulled the trigger three more times before she realized she’d spent her bullets. I dropped to my knees at her side.
The sudden silence—inside and out—was deafening.
The Rege fired two shots at Johnny, who lay helpless.
I didn’t want to look.
But I had to see. Slowly, my numb body responded. I saw a splash of red on Johnny’s face. My heart sank into my stomach.
Then Lance surged forward, screaming, “Mom!”
Nana grabbed Lance before he could break the circle.
Eris moaned. “Fuck that hurts. Shit, shit, shit.” Panic elevated her voice with each word. Behind me, Zhan got to her feet. I glanced at her. A trickle of blood ran down her face and her forehead was bruising. She checked the door even as she reloaded her gun.
Ignoring the mess that had been the Rege, I focused on the circle. My mother was bleeding, scraping her heels over the floor as she shouted another f-bomb.
And I found myself staring at Lance, who was trying to remove Nana’s grip from his arm. “Young man, get a hold of yourself,” she was saying.
Mom. He’d shouted “mom.” Shouted it at my mother.
The world swayed. My knees hit the floor.
Johnny may be dead. My mother’s been shot. And I have a brother. A brother she kept. And raised. And didn’t leave.