“What did you see?” Johnny finally asked.

Still, my melodramatic Nana took her time answering, and the longer she was silent, the more worried I became. Could she have learned about Vivian’s and my business deal that quickly?

“Demeter.”

“She didn’t write that book. And it’s not even hers; she stole it from another. Let me see it.”

I slid it from the counter and placed it on the table. Nana pulled the wooden binding closer to her. That surprised me because she’d seemed afraid of it just minutes before. She reverently opened the first page. “Ahh, Latin,” she whispered.

Her melodrama made me weary.

“Do you know what this is, Persephone?”

I crossed my arms. “No.”

“This is the Trivium Codex.”

I shut my eyes to keep from rolling them. I had enough to worry about.

Nana caught my annoyance anyway. “I’m serious, Persephone.” Ares sulked under the table to lie at her feet, probably because her tone had changed.

“What does she mean?” Celia asked.

Nana’s head lifted. “It’s a legend among witches.” She turned back to the first page, ran her fingers over the page. “It is a Latin translation, of course…”

My arms lowered, slowly. She wasn’t being melodramatic at all.

“The original would have been in Akkadian. The Akkadians used Sumerian as a religious language, you know. They called their goddess Ishtar, but their sacred writings were in Sumerian, so she was called Inanna in hymns and the like. But the author of this book was not writing a prayer. Not at all. She would call her goddess Ishtar.”

“Ishtar?” Celia asked.

“Goddess of love and war,” I said, feeling a bit guilty.

“And fertility,” Johnny added.

Nana said grimly, “This is no ordinary Book of Shadows.”

I hesitated, trying to figure out why Vivian had this legendary book and how she might have gotten it. “I know, Nana.”

“You don’t look like you believe me.”

“I do, I just—” I didn’t finish.

“Just what?”

“Are we going to have to safeguard it now too?”

She closed the cover again, caressed the triskelion. “We could learn much from this book, you and I.” Her voice shook. She leaned in, then angled the book up to the light, moving her finger as she translated the words carved in a circle around the triskelion. “One cursed by the sun, one cursed by the moon, one cursed by her heart.”

“What fun. Curses all around,” I muttered sarcastically and turned to go back around the counter to my coffee.

As I sipped, Nana regarded Johnny, then Erik and Celia. “You carry the curse of the moon. Like your friend upstairs.”

Celia grabbed Erik’s arm. “Does that book have a cure?”

Erik took her hand, clearly surprised. “Would you want it if it did?”

A breath escaped her. “Of course! We could be normal and have babies, Erik. A family.”

Celia turned back to Nana, her eyes glistening. “Does it?”

Nana’s expression turned sad. It seemed that for the first time she saw my friend not as a “filthy wære” but as a woman who longed to be a mother. “There is no cure.”

Celia’s hand slipped from Erik’s. It was clear in her eyes that in the instant it had taken for her to ask the question, years of hopes and dreams had sprouted, and Nana’s words burnt them up just as fast. It hurt me to see Celia that hurt; it reminded me of Nancy. I asked, “Then what is in the book?”

“It’s a compilation of spells, of course. I’ll have to look through them to see exactly what they are.”

“Then how do you know there isn’t a cure in it?”

“Because of the legend of this book. If there were a cure, the writer would have used it.”

“The writer was a witch, right?”

“The writer loved a wære.” Nana faced Celia again. “And she would have wanted to have his babies.”

Ares leapt up and ran to the front door, barking. “He probably needs to pee,” Nana said. It was funny to hear an old woman say “pee,” but the hour was too late and the moment too serious for any humor to be appreciated.

“I’ll let him out,” Johnny said, following after Ares.

A second passed and I called, “Wait, he’s paper-trained. He should go in the garage.” I started after them.

“You’re paper-training a Great Dane?” Johnny called back, incredulous.

“Not me, his former owners.” Ares was scratching at the door to get out. My first thought was to scold him; then another thought hit me. Johnny was just reaching for the knob. “Johnny, don’t!”

He stopped. “What?”

“Ares knows to go in the garage. It’s the only place we’ve taken him to”—I couldn’t say “pee”—“to do his business.” I finished quickly, “I don’t think he has to go.”

Johnny looked at Ares.

“Vivian wouldn’t have walked here,” I said. “Where’s her car?”

“Would she have brought someone with her?” he asked.

I shrugged, peering out the window. Her car sat at the far end of my driveway.

“Got a leash?”

“Huh?”

I expected an innuendo in answer, but all he said was, “I’ll take him out and see.”

“Johnny.”

He flashed a grin and tweaked my cheek. “Aw, you’re worried about me.”

I released an exasperated sigh and got him the leash. He looked it over appreciatively and wiggled his eyebrows at me.

“Erik,” he called. “Come out with us.” As soon as his feet hit the porch, Ares went to barking again and pulled for the end of the planking. Johnny held tight to a post, keeping the dog back as he sniffed the night air and surveyed the dark yard. Erik went out then, and he began smelling the air as well.

“What is it?” I asked from the doorway.

Johnny swiftly tied the leash around the pole and growled, “Beholders.” He ran. Erik followed him. Both of them were fast, lean shadows in the dark.

“Beholders?” I called after them. Ares whined and strained against the collar and leash, trying to follow them. “What are beholders?”

It wasn’t easy, but I dragged Ares back inside and crated him for his own good. Nana poured a second cup of coffee and parked herself right in front of the Codex. Beverley looked on with her. Vivian stirred, lifted her head slowly, and moaned. Blinking, she looked about, trying to focus and having trouble.

“Should she have come out of that so soon?” Celia asked. She’d brushed her hair and was presently working on Beverley’s. “It was a full dose, right?”

“Full for Theo. Dr. Lincoln kept them small, since drugs affect wæres so readily.”

“You’d think it’d be the opposite, that it’d take more to do anything to us,” Celia said. She gestured at Vivian. “But she’s not a wære.”

“No, but she’s stained,” I said.

“Stained?” Celia asked, concern in her voice.

I approached Vivian. “That’s right, isn’t it?” I let my disgust show in my face. “You’ve got a vampire’s mark.” It seemed dirty in a contaminated way, like having lice or something.

Vivian squinted at me and tried to talk through the gag. Though garbled, her intended words were clear enough: “Fuck you.”

Since most of her cheek was covered by the gag, I smacked her temple, hard. “Don’t talk like that, even muffled, in front of my nana and Beverley. You understand me?”

Vivian glared.

“Do you understand me?” I asked again, this time with a handful of her hair pulled tight.

She shut her eyes.

“Where did you get the Codex?”

Having previously forgotten, she remembered it now and foggily scrutinized the room until she spotted it on the table in front of Nana. She strained against the cords. I moved to stand behind her but didn’t release the handful of her hair. With one finger against her cheek, I pushed the gag free of her mouth. “Where did you say you got it?”

“That book is mine.”

“Not anymore.”

She laughed. “You’re an idiot. He’ll take it from you, and he’ll kill you just for having seen it.”

“Who?” I asked, but I thought I knew. I mean, she was stained, yet free, living a good life, working at a coffee shop—which still made no sense to me. “The one who marked you?” Her glare turned positively malicious. “It’s a good security blanket, huh?”