Menessos whispered, “Vampires have forever.”
“Theo doesn’t.”
He made a gracious gesture of capitulation. “Remove the stake from your home, out the back egress, please.”
“Wait here.” I could have given Johnny a signal and he would have seen that it got done, but I wanted to get away from Menessos. “Excuse me.” I slipped past him and went inside, forcing Nana to back up to allow me through. Johnny moved only enough to be out of the way, surely to keep an eye on the vampires.
In the kitchen, I lifted the lid on the stake’s storage box to be sure it was still inside. Such a remarkably common-looking thing; a muddy stick. The sharpened tip gave it an ominous flair, though. And it was pale, the wood’s tip, like a fang. Nana touched my shoulder, and I jumped. My muscles were so tight. “When this leaves the house, we have no defense against him,” I said.
“And we’ll need none.”
I looked at Nana; something strange in her expression told me that her words were not simply stating her hopes as if they were pep-talk facts. She must have seen my confusion on my face. “He made a blood oath to you.”
“He what?” Celia nearly shrieked.
They shared a long look that I couldn’t read. Then Nana explained, “He drew his own blood, marked your porch with it, and swore to our safety.”
Celia watched me, expression curious. “What?” I asked.
“What did you say to him?” Celia asked back.
Had I done something wrong? “That I’d remove the stake from the house and, after we do the ritual, I’d let him take Vivian and the book away. He’ll send someone for the stake tomorrow.”
“Rudimentary deal-making. What else?” Celia pressed.
“I asked him for a guarantee. He didn’t offer it.”
“Well.” She put her hands on her hips. “Whatever it was, you impressed him enough to make him draw his own blood. They don’t give up their precious fluid for any common reason.”
“Such an oath is more binding than any legal contract ever written,” Nana added. “And, so long as you hold up your end, more enforceable.”
“Enforceable how?”
“Later,” Nana said. “We haven’t much time.”
“Right.” So he was impressed. That explained why he had flirted with me. “I have to get this off the property. I’ll be right back.” After closing its lid, I lifted the box and slipped into the garage, then outside through what my Realtor had called the “man-door” in the rear of the garage. In the yard, my shoes made a shushing sound in the grass. There was little light, but I knew my way, knew every little hill and dip of the yard, so my steps remained firm and confident. The box was much heavier than the object it held, and I switched hands halfway through the yard. At the end of the grass, where the cornfield began, I sat the box down and slid it in between the stalks. I turned back to the house. It seemed so far, so small and bright with all the lights on. Everyone inside was waiting for me.
If I wanted to flee, now was the time.
The sound of a stick snapping caught my attention. Beholders in the field.
It was a good thing I didn’t want to flee.
Still, the thought that people were out there, dangerous people, made my back feel exposed—like I was it—so I jogged back to the house.
That was almost funny: beholders were dangerous enough to send me jogging back into the house where their masters were waiting for me.
Everyone was starting to assemble upstairs when I returned. Dr. Lincoln was with Theo, as were Celia, Erik, and Beverley. Nana was climbing the steps. Johnny motioned me on through the hall, and I joined him at the bottom of the steps. Menessos and Goliath remained on the porch.
I opened the screen door. “It’s time.”
Menessos eased toward me like water flowing to the shore. The metaphysical barrier that restrained his kind from places into which they were not invited seemed like a thick, transparent membrane that I could see stretching as he pressed his hand to it. I’d already said the magic words. The porch wasn’t technically “inside.” Now all he had to do was push.
His eyes met mine with the confidence of a king. Of Arthur. Too late, my brain screamed at me that I had met his gaze. But there was no power to it, no call in it. Just a man looking at me, into me, as if he’d just found what he’d been searching for. He was entering my home. The vampire was breaking the seal to my private space. Suddenly, this seemed very sexual.
He hesitated, the barrier stretched to the point of bursting. I felt it, felt it like it was part of me pressed intimately against the contours of his body. A hairbreadth more, and it would be gone….
People are sure air exists; we breathe it. We fill balloons with it. We feel it on our faces when the wind blows. We can’t see it, but we know it is there. In that instant, I was certain barriers existed—protections unseen, magical and mysterious, remarkable and real. I felt this barrier burst like a soap bubble, felt the tingly flick of its particles fading as the protective shield’s integrity evaporated.
Once the unseen dam was breached, everything it had held back came flooding in. Dread, like thick and velvety foam, poured across my floor and drifted against my leg. It would take a full weekend of witchy cleansings to be rid of it.
“Theo is upstairs,” I said as Goliath stepped in, his entrance lacking his master’s ceremony.
“I want to see Vivian.” Menessos strode toward my kitchen.
I didn’t like this. “No. After.”
He didn’t stop. I followed him. Menessos turned the corner and vanished from my view. “Awaken,” I heard him say. My pace increased. But I stopped short when I too turned the corner. It felt as though the air, that thick velvet dread, were being slowly crammed down my throat to suffocate me.
Menessos stood before her. I could not see his expression. Vivian’s face was white. Her eyes were as wide as half-dollar coins. Trembling claimed her arms, and her chest heaved with fast, shallow breaths. “Vivian,” he whispered. His index finger slid under her chin, and his touch jolted her like an electric shock. “Vivian.” This time the whisper sounded sad. He grabbed her chin roughly. She tried to pull away but couldn’t. “Betrayer!”
Tears showered from her eyes.
Whatever he did to her, I figured she deserved. She’d betrayed him. She’d murdered Lorrie. But his punishment wasn’t going to be doled out here. “Menessos,” I said.
He turned swiftly, as if he hadn’t known I was there. A single bloody tear had fallen from his eye.
I retreated two steps. He mourned this vengeance?
He turned back to Vivian and ripped easily through the clothesline cord. His motions were fierce and violent, yet gentle, like those of a lover who rips your clothes off but caresses your skin with soft adoration. We’d tied her arms down at her sides and then roped her to the chair separately, so I knew she wouldn’t be immediately free. “You took an oath—” I began.
He wheeled around. “One I will keep, Miss Alcmedi. But Vivian will not leave my sight. She may not be in the circle, but she will be near me.” He turned to her. “Won’t you?” He lifted her to standing position, and her weak limbs faltered as he embraced her in his arms. Her eyes above the gag remained wide, pleading with me.
I shook my head at her.
Vivian crumbled, sobbing. Menessos caught and lifted her, then faced me. “Let us go.”
“Wait a minute—”
“Vivian will remain thusly bound and outside your circle. And”—he fixed her with a stern expression—“she will behave. She will witness a real witch at work for once.”
I hesitated. Vivian was a real witch. He was insulting her. The mixed love and loathing he displayed for her confused me, but I’d have to sort it out later. In the hallway, I led him back to where Johnny and Goliath stood glowering at each other. It wouldn’t have surprised me to find two puddles on the floor, proof of a pissing contest.