Persephone Alcmedi 00 - Wicked Circle

the pouch?”
    Liyliy retreated to a safe distance and opened the pouch. Her wings sprouted and hoisted her toward the open top. As she hovered, the blustering air flung salt every which way, and I had to shield my eyes again. When the rush of air diminished, she was standing, wingless, before me. “There are three. Amber.”
    Those stones would burn and transmute.
    Liyliy, apparently, understood all this. If I tried and “accidentally” cracked the amber, she would surely kill me.
    My only experience with unmaking anything was the in signum amoris . That had been a spoken spell sealed in actions and energy—it had existed like worn jewelry, attached to me, but not a part of me. Burning a fence in my meditation world had removed it in much the manner of losing jewelry down the drain. That was substantially different from unmaking physical matter in this world. I’d also had Hecate’s help.
    Why would Creepy want me to know that I can do this?
    He knows Menessos and Johnny can’t help me.
    I scratched my head as if I was still thinking. I had to either do this impossible thing, or get it away from her.
    I couldn’t fight her physically; my shoulder injury was too fresh for me to expect to make much of a show as an opponent. But. Even without access to the ley line, I had power within me. Although most of my energy was depleted, she had brought me food . . . with more I could reenergize myself. Maybe enough to make one lucky strike, claim the necklace, and flip the balance of power here.
    I could hope.
    Donning an expression of an idea that had just struck, I sat up and clawed through the salt for the candy bar she’d dropped. “I need more food.” I opened it and devoured a bite. “What you want me to do requires a lot of energy, and if you won’t let me tap the ley line, I need some other way to fuel it. Bring me water, energy drinks and any power stones you trust me to have.”
    She warily assessed me as she thought it through. Providing me energy that I might try to use against her was a risk she had to take. She couldn’t expect me to succeed without it.
    Finally she said, “Then you go back into the dark.”
    After the overhead door shut and darkness surrounded me again, I waited long enough for Liyliy to leave. Then I reopened the Coca-Cola and splashed a fizzy circle around me.
    Mother, seal my circle and give me a sacred space.
    I need to think clearly to solve the troubles I face.
    I could usually slip into an alpha state like flicking a switch . . . but not today. I tried again.
    Grounding and centering myself didn’t work. Something was wrong. It wasn’t me, either, all injuries aside. This salt-and-iron environment was interfering. Since meditation had nothing to do with outward magic, my contact with this stuff had to be to blame. Venturing a guess, I’d have bet that Liyliy had done something to this salt and that was keeping me from tapping the ley.
    Salt as mere salt couldn’t stop me. Iron couldn’t either, but apparently both in the high amounts found here, and mixed with whatever empowerment Liyliy had worked, was enough.
    She’d even gone so far as to stuff my mouth with salt.
    Thinking about that made me thirsty again; I gulped another drink of the Coke and visualized the caffeinated beverage burning the salt out of me. That gave me an idea.
    Pushing my aura to include what was directly touching me—I didn’t have enough energy to spare for cleansing the tons of it that was here—I said,
    Mother, cleanse this salt and give me a sacred space.
    I need to think clearly to solve the troubles I face.
    That did it. In seconds, I sat on the shore with a lake lapping quietly before me, a willow tree beside me and crickets singing in the darkness. My bonds and wounds did not go with me, though the torn and ragged dress did. I stood, searching all around.
    A shadow crossed the inland darkness, a shadow with ears pricked.
    For a single heartbeat, it seemed like a dark wolf racing toward me, attacking—but I knew this was not true. The shadow was too small to be Johnny in wolf form. It was Amenemhab, my jackal totem animal, who was approaching.
    He padded close and sat. The crescent moon above us silvered his back and darkened his muzzle, but his tail wagged happily—a good sign.
    “It’s good to see you.”
    “Likewise,” he replied. “How’s your mother?”
    The last time I’d chatted with him, it had been about her. I filled him in on the events since then.
    “So she does