Persephone Alcmedi 00 - Wicked Circle

the screen door. “Let’s get you inside where it’s warm, shall we?”
    In the living room he saw me to the couch, then stood awkwardly nearby as I wiped my cheeks. He said nothing, so I asked, “Where’s Mountain and Ivanka?”
    “Still at the ER, I’m afraid. Ivanka is having surgery. Screw, plates, and whatnot.” Seeing my shock and concern, he added, “She will be fine.”
    “Zhan?”
    “I sent her to lie down.”
    He fed from her.
    He sat next to me. “I’d offer to make you coffee, but I must confess I do not know how.”
    I tried to smile for him. It was a weak and watered-down version. His attempt to express contentedness was much more successful. He stroked my hair and tucked a lock behind my ear. “As an alternative, may I pour you a drink?”
    I shook my head. “Not a good time to start drinking.”
    “ Au contraire .” He gave a little tug on my hair. “I know what you need.”
    “Let’s just get to the haven, okay? You drive.” I offered him the keys.
    He waved me off. “I don’t drive much.”
    I thought back. He’d always been chauffeured in a limo or a cab. Or he walked. “You don’t know how.”
    He sat straighter. “I do so.”
    My stare remained steady.
    “You are simply more experienced,” he said reasonably. “And we have little time.”
    Right. Break down later. “Fine.” I stood. “But while I’m behind the wheel you’re not allowed to ask me what happened.”
    He stood too. “I did not intend to ask, dear master. You may tell me when you want me to know. Or not.”
    On I-71, I set the cruise control at a modest seventy-two miles per hour.
    Menessos busily sent and received messages on his satellite phone. He seemed calm, but I didn’t recall any other time when he’d been so enamored with messaging. I wasn’t surprised he had things to take care of, but I wondered why he didn’t just make calls. Then it hit me: I had already shown him I’d been pushed to the edge of breaking down. Whatever he didn’t want me to overhear must have been info that would have added to my anxiety.
    My line of reasoning added to it anyway. My stomach was in knots by the time he was finally finished texting. Directing my thoughts away from the mind-rape he was going to endure, I said, “So. Who was the creepy dude you sent to the house?”
    He fidgeted but didn’t answer.
    “Menessos.” My firm tone had some effect, but not the kind that won me an answer.
    “What did you think of him?”
    After being too stubborn to answer, his question was far too casual. “What part of ‘creepy’ didn’t convey what I thought of him?”
    Menessos gave a short laugh. “Well, I was hoping you might go into detail.”
    “Funny, I was hoping the same thing.”
    We sat in silence while two mile markers passed.
    I broke. “At least give me a name.”
    “Creepy is more fitting than you know.”
    “Then what is he? He freaking dematerialized himself.”
    “Really? That’s quite interesting.”
    My voice was low and my lips hardly moved as I said, “Menessos.”
    He shivered. “Zhan told me what he did to the dragon, and how Ivanka’s arm was broken.”
    “Yeah, and your note said you would send help. Ivanka could have avoided her injury if the person you chose to send possessed less apparent stalkerishness and more tact.” I waited for him to offer something. He didn’t.
    Johnny’s attack had just royally screwed up my ability to trust him, and now Menessos was withholding important information. So my next tactic was a low blow. “Well, at least the shabbubitum will figure out what the big secret about this is. I hope I get to hear it from them.”
    “Persephone.”
    Apprehension sucked. Anger felt much better, so I went with it. “Drop the difficult act and tell me who the creep you sent to my house was!”
    “I cannot.”
    “You mean will not.”
    “No. I can not.”
    “ Riiight .” I could justify my antagonism because it felt like it was accomplishing something, which I preferred to the sedentary and stagnant nature of worrying.
    “I know in my heart who he is, and yet his name evades me. He’s bound me against it. My tongue cannot speak his name, my hand cannot write it, and I daresay even the shabbubitum will not be able to draw it out of me, as I cannot even think it. Though they would surely find great pleasure in the pain I would suffer as they tried.” He paused. “I cannot even describe him. I would doubt my sanity if not for my certainty that he bound