“Red?”
I opened my eyes. The beam had stretched with the setting sun and was shining drowsy warmth on me. Presently a shadow fell across the light from the doorway, leaving me cold without the beam. “Red?”
I sat up. “Here.”
Johnny came down the steps and stopped at the door to his cage. “Demeter’s looking for you.” His silhouette was all I could see. He was so tall and lanky. Nana would have said he was cut like a clothespin. Dust floated in the beam around him, creating the illusion of something magical about him. Magical, yet dark, his expression hidden, his face shrouded by strong backlighting. “Red?”
I realized I was staring. “Yeah.” I stood up, brushed hay from my backside. I headed toward him. “Sorry. Did Nana get scared?”
He didn’t make the polite step to get out of my way. He stood rooted in that spot, facing me. This close, I could see his expression now. He said, “I got scared.”
I couldn’t believe he’d just admitted that. Weren’t there strict rules against that in the guy-code rule book? “Johnny. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disappear.”
I waited for him to say something lewd, but he didn’t, and the silence thickened, woolen and warm, getting heavier and heavier as if a flood were rising around me, weighting me down and threatening to drown me. Suddenly, he grabbed my arms and pulled me close. For an instant he hesitated; then he kissed me.
I didn’t fight against it, but I wasn’t prepared for it either. My back stiffened defensively. I’m just not the kind of girl to collapse into a sudden kiss. Did that mean I’d never make a good Guinevere?
Johnny must’ve read the worst into my body language, because his lips went absent just as I thought to wonder how they tasted. “Forgive me,” he whispered.
He had taken my reaction as rejection, but I hadn’t pushed him away. It had just happened so fast. I wasn’t keeping up. His grip loosened, and he started to release me.
“No,” I said, my hands grappling for a hold, one coming up with his shirt, the other clinging to his side. He stilled under my touch. “Forgive me,” I whispered, a bit breathless. I swallowed down my fear and said, “Once more?” Please.
“No,” he said softly, eyes glinting. “It’s a hundred kisses, or none.”
How could I deny that low, confident yet needful tone? “A hundred it is.”
He leaned down and, this time, I was ready. I wanted his kiss. I wanted to know the taste of him. I shut my eyes.
Just before our lips met, he paused and hovered there as if these seconds could last an eternity. Desire mounted in me; anticipation filled every nerve. I inhaled deeply, taking the cedar and sage scent of him into me as if I could pull him that fraction more, so his lips would meet mine.
But it was his will holding him there, for whatever reason.
I opened my eyes. He gave a quick, lopsided grin; then he gave in.
His lips were soft, yet firm, as they pressed to mine. I trembled, and his arms encircled me. Heat brimmed within me. My eyes had shut again, and I thought of the motorcycle ride, of swaying to the hum of the engine. But this, this was face-to-face, this was our bodies pressed together—Goddess, I held him tight—and the roaring music was my heart pounding in my ears.
His arms were so strong around my waist and when he broke the kiss he didn’t loosen his hold. We stood, foreheads pressed together, catching our breath. “That’s one,” he said. “Ninety-nine to go.”
“And when those ninety-nine are all gone?”
He straightened. “Then I’m going to ask you for the promise of another hundred.”
The look I gave him was teasingly skeptical, but he became serious. “Don’t you know that I would give my life to protect yours?” he asked. His warm hands left my waist to take my wrists and pull my palms to his face. “To protect the Lustrata.” He kissed each palm in turn. “I’ve looked for you for so long.”
Looked for me?
“The first time I saw you, I knew.” He squeezed my hands. “I felt it. And I knew in time, you would know it too.” He caressed my cheek. “I’m not wrong.”
Even if I didn’t believe it, he did. The convinced fierceness in his eyes wasn’t scary at all.
“Johnny? Did you find her?” Nana’s voice trickled in from outside.
We both turned as she stepped into view atop the cellar steps.
“Yeah. I found her,” he said.
Nana put her hands on her hips and scowled at us, but it wasn’t a very convincing scowl.
Chapter 19
For further protection, Nana placed empowered sage in each window, with a sprinkling of salt on the sills. She even had Johnny hammer two nails into the wall above my front door and then wired my broom to the nails. For my part, I moved Vivian’s 40 Winks bottle and my baseball bat to the corner closest to the front door.
Beverley wanted to sit with Theo, so she was taking my turn for a while. This was a good thing, because I was too anxious to sit still. I showered and debated over what to wear for the ritual. I sifted through my closet for several minutes, searching. My first thought was to dress formally, to show respect for the religious ceremony I was about to lead. The more the thought rolled around inside my head, however, I realized that would be furthering a witchy stereotype. So, since I didn’t have any flowing and billowing gowns or hooded capes, and since I didn’t need to impress the attendees with such things anyway, I chose clothing that would simply be comfortable: faded old jeans, sneakers, and, for fun, a girly black T-shirt with the Superman symbol on it in blood red. If they wanted to think of me as the Lustrata, then I could wear a hero’s pentagonal symbol to the ritual.
Still filled with nervous energy, I decided to run the sweeper. The floor didn’t need it, but I had to do something. That’s what I was doing when the sun slipped under the horizon. I felt it go, felt its protection leave me, felt the threat of vampires waking up. My imagination, to be sure, but my stress level rose again nonetheless.
After putting the sweeper away, wiping out the sink in the bathroom, and making sure there were clean towels, I was going to check on Theo when, from the living room, I heard Celia ask Nana, “Demeter, would you tell me about the author of that book? I’m curious about her story and the wære she loved.”
There was a pause; then I heard Nana say, “Come. Sit.” I couldn’t see her expression, but it didn’t sound like she was being derogatory. I sat on the top step and listened.
“This story is in this book along with the spells, but I learned it long ago…. At the dawn of civilization, in Uruk, one of the most ancient of cities, the high priestess Una performed her sacred duties with great devotion and was favored by the goddess Ishtar.”
Nana was obviously reciting from memory more than telling the story in her own words.
“One day a foreign magician, Ezreniel, came to Uruk. He served a god previously unknown to its people. A man of great physical stature, strong of eye and voice, he came to the high priestess and she looked upon him with pleasure.
“But Ezreniel insisted the strange and solitary god he worshipped was the only god and that Una must forsake her goddess and all gods. It was customary to honor the gods of other lands, but to insist she reject her own was beyond toleration.
“Una refused to allow Ezreniel further access to her person.
“Ezreniel, however, was not so easily deterred. He bribed his way into the temple where Una lived and served. There, in secret, he watched her. Like his god, he was of an intemperate and jealous nature. He was angered that Una looked upon other men with the favor he had been denied.
“One night when two priests, both her lovers, came to Una, Ezreniel could contain himself no longer. He burst into her chambers, where the three were engaged in full and intimate worship of Ishtar. Both men leapt to defend and protect Una, but they were no match for Ezreniel. One he beat back until the man lay broken and bloody on the floor, whimpering like a starving street mongrel. The other he held in his crushing grasp. Unable to wrench his arms free, the man bit at Ezreniel’s neck, drawing blood before he, too, was cast aside, limp and unconscious.