“What else could it be about?”
“If I knew, I’d be doing something about it.”
As I peered down into the laundry basket, all that remained were underwear and bras. “You going to help me fold her bloomers?” I held up a pair.
Johnny blinked. I’d seen him fight the Rege and the Omori, but wave an old woman’s underpants at him and it left him aghast with fear.
“How’d it go with Todd and Kirk?”
“I called Beau like you said; he drove over.” Johnny shook his head. “He brought a bottle of bourbon with him.”
“Ah ha. No wonder you didn’t come back all night.”
“You miss me?”
“Of course. But …”
“But what?”
I lifted my hair to let him see my neck. I wasn’t keeping secrets. “Maxine’s death taxed the vampire.”
He took a moment to hedge his reaction. “Did he behave himself?”
“He tried not to, but I insisted. He didn’t stay long.”
His jaw flexed, relaxed. “Good. Is he going to send another sentinel?”
I shrugged. “What’d you guys come up with, besides hangovers?”
“The Zvonul have to fund the Domn Lup. They won’t want me to have a day job. The guitar store will be able to replace me, but Strictly 7 will soon be out a painter and tech and that’s not a position that’s easy to fill.”
“Are you okay with that?”
He shrugged. “I’m not quitting until I’ve got someone trained. I won’t do that to them.”
My satellite phone rang. It was Theo. “Hello?”
“I did some digging on the Arcane Ink Emporium. Just a general query, how long they’ve had their licenses, whether they’re current, that sort of thing.”
“And?”
“This is too weird. It must be coincidence, but …”
“But what?”
“The licenses are in the name of AIE, but there’s no lease on file for the building. It’s privately owned, but the tat shop isn’t listed as the owner.”
“Who is?”
“Someone whose last name is Alcmedi. An Eris Alcmedi.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I thanked Theo and hung up. Dumping the last of Nana’s undergarments into the chest of drawers, I announced that the bathtub was calling out for me to come and soak.
“Can I join you?” Johnny quipped.
Just then, Nana passed by the door carrying a glass of milk. She called out, “It isn’t big enough for two.” Then she added, “Besides, you two should save your naked leisure activities for when the rest of us are sound asleep.”
My heart leaped to my throat, but Johnny laughed out loud and took me in his arms. “Demeter’s awesome.”
“Yeah. That’s definitely the word I was going to use.”
Johnny followed me up the stairs pinching my bottom, and while I gathered my pajamas, he crawled into bed with a notebook open to a fresh page with the words “Lickety Split” scrawled across the top.
I shut the bathroom door, started the water, and sat on the edge of my tub. My head dropped forward and my fingers kneaded the tight muscles in my neck and shoulders.
My mother owns the building Arcanum works in.
Damn it.
Can’t I just be done with her?
I slid into the warm water, eager to soak as I’d claimed, but the bath was actually a cover for what I truly meant to do: meditate and talk to Amenemhab.
Relaxing, I entered the meditative state I call alpha and visualized the familiar scenery. Beside the willow tree, I waded out into the water, ankle deep, and cleansed my chakras. When that was complete, I sloshed to the shore and saw the gray and tan jackal trotting up. “What’s troubling you?”
There’s never a prelude here. “My mother.”
“We knew you weren’t done hating her.” He sat on his haunches. “And that we would be doing a lot of work on the ‘challenge to your heart’ before we were through.”
After telling Amenemhab of her showing up at my house and my reaction, I concluded that part of the story with, “I’m just done with her.”
“So you said nothing. You shut the door in her face. That’s not a resolution, Persephone.”
“What’s to resolve? I’m done.”
He afforded me his most sage, “that’s what you think” expression. “Then why, pray tell, are you here?”
I explained about Johnny’s tattoos. “The best lead we have takes us to a tattoo artist in a building owned by my mother. I’m going to have to confront her to find out about this Arcanum person and see if she thinks he’d be willing to undo what he did to Johnny, or if we’re going to have to force him.” I sighed. “After what I did, she may be disinclined to help.”
“Hard to be done with someone if you need their help.”
“Exactly. So, here I am.”
“You don’t want her to shut the door in your face, hmmm?”
“Look, she nearly got me killed, dumped me, left me for Nana to raise. My reaction is justified. Hers never was.”
“Perhaps.” He lay down, crossed his front paws. “This situation with your mother will never be over until you either truly let it go, or you accept it and go forward.”
“Then I accept that she hates me and I hate her and we will leave it at that and go forward.”
“If she hates you, why did she seek you out?”
“I don’t know,” I said, throwing my arms up in the air. “All I know is she didn’t look for me until it was made public that I’ve become court witch in a vampire’s haven. If that’s her motive, it speaks for itself. I just want it to be over, done, and behind me.”
“And it was … until she made her move. But now, to help Johnny, you have to make a move.”
“I hate chess analogies.” I couldn’t play chess. Checkers was as ambitious as I got with a checkerboard. “I guess you’re going to tell me that chess players gauge all their options and their opponent’s possible reactions to each before they decide on their move?”
“I apparently don’t have to.”
“I wanted my move to be a nullifying nonmove so I could remain in the ‘nothing is changing’ frame of mind,” I muttered.
“But that’s not an option if you have to confront her about the people in her building in order to accomplish Johnny’s goals.” He sat up. “You’re going to have to make a move toward acceptance.”
“Acceptance isn’t a light switch I can just flip on and off.”
“But it is time to shine some light on this. It’s been in the dark too long.”
I snorted. Just like a totem to twist my metaphors against me. “Okay, for argument’s sake, say I do move toward acceptance. That will alter that core fundamental issue that honed me into who I am. And going a step further, if I reexamine this and it’s ‘resolved,’ it may change things.”
“May? Something this big will change things. It will change you.” He lifted a paw and gestured at me. “Whether that change is for better or worse, depends on you.”
I was being asked to surrender the sorrow and pain that molded me, that had forged me to be a survivor, a fighter. “I can’t forgive her.”
“Can’t or won’t?” The jackal’s voice was as firm and demanding as I’d ever heard it.
“The choice she made hurt me so much, so very much. She didn’t care about anyone but herself.”
“What if she cares now? What if she has learned?”
I snorted.
“Then that means you ‘won’t’ forgive her. And that is less noble than ‘can’t’ forgive her.” He stood. “You have a few hours of drive time to figure what you will do.” He padded away.
I wasn’t done. “Oh, hell, Amenemhab! I expected her to do what she was supposed to do as my mother. She failed. And now you’re acting like I’m supposed to let her get away with how she treated me. I’m the Lustrata! I’m supposed to be an instrument of justice.” My voice broke. “What she did was not just.”