She stubbed out the cigarette. "Bear with me; I have to set the stage a little. The Lustrata legend has two ancient documents to support it, but neither are whole. The Stellatus Tablets are broken, and the Lux Scrolls partially burned. The information is not complete and it is not perfect. Elders dispute over the translations and the guesses made concerning the fragments and the missing parts. They'll never know so they'll never agree because their agendas are all different."

"Okay," I said. "Your disclaimer is noted. What do we know?"

"There have been two previously documented Lustratas."

"Only two?"

"Are you going to interrupt every point?"

My mouth shut and my expression turned beatific.

Nana continued. "Stories are told, updated, and retold through bards, like Johnny. Though such references are few and mostly nonfactual, they remain far more numerous than the actual relics. Much of what bards and storytellers have told has come to be taken as fact, although it shouldn't be, as such folks do take liberties. Poetic license. These bard-stories mostly romanticized the Lustrata. Johnny, a waere, wrote of you as an enemy of the vampires. His lyrics went something like:

Impurity rising from under the world,

Dead above ground, diseases unfurled.

"But the vampire bards see you as the enemy of the waere. I found one who said:

Lustrata walks,

unspoiled into the light.

Sickle in hand,

she stalks through the night

Wearing naught but her mark and silver blade.

The moonchild of ruin, she becomes Wolfsbane.

"They see what they want to see, do you follow? They see you as the justice they want, not true justice. It's not simply these two either. I even found fairy references! And as I said, the Elders have conflicting takes on it—and Xerxadrea won't be oblivious to either side."

"You mean not even the witches agree?"

"They all have their own motives, their own agendas."

"So you're saying the different sides will try to get the Lustrata to choose them over another side or other sides?"

Nana made an uncomfortable face. "Yes and no."

"Nana."

"It's not that simple. It's not like two or three or five different factions will toady to you to gain your service. I mean, after they see the sign, some will, but—"

"But?"

"Some witches think the Lustrata is the enemy."

Of course. Can't be a simple, smooth path I must walk. "When you say some, how many do you mean?"

"I don't have a head count!"

"A percentage?"

She considered. "A third."

"That's a lot."

She waved off the idea. "Less than half and nothing you can change yet. Now listen." She rubbed her knee. "Even the regular mortal humans have a few obscure references that, in my opinion, are veiled links to the Lustrata though they'll never admit it. Bottom line is, we're all in this. We're all at risk." She stopped, turned her cigarette case over and over in her hands.

Something occurred to me. "Wait, wait! It's not just some witches either. When you say the waeres and vampires each have their ideas of justice, you mean that if I, as the Lustrata, don't agree with their purposes or if I act against them, then they will renounce me and become my enemy, right?"

Nana gave me a sheepishly sorry smile. "I hadn't thought that far into it." She rubbed her knee again. "I'll look into it."

And the truth that I hadn't seen hit me. "You've been using the scrying crystal."

Her expression turned stern but scared.

"Your door was open; I saw it sitting on your dresser." Now it all made sense. Why it was there, why her knees hurt. Scrying, like any other power, has a price. I was willing to bet the universe taxed her in the arthritis department. "What did you see?"

"Everyone's different agendas—and not just where the Lustrata is concerned—work against each other." Her wrinkled hand rose to her neck and her fingers worked as if she'd loosen a tightly wound scarf. But she wore no scarf. "You must find a way to maintain the balance," she said. "With the numbers the normal-humans have, and the technological destructibility at their fingertips, if you fail, the consequences will be insurmountable destruction."

My mind refused to acknowledge the mega-ginormous weight of her words.

Synapses filed it away as Bad Things that Could Happen instead of End of the World. "Okay," I heard myself say calmly, meanwhile thinking: Why am I not running to hide under my bed? "But still, what does that have to do with Johnny coming back here?"

"You need him."

"The hell I do."

Her mouth went crooked. "If not now, you will soon."

"Doesn't mean he has to live here."

"He is the chosen protector of the Lustrata. For that," she insisted, "he must be close."

"Says who?"

"Do you remember the Tarot reading I did for him?"

My eyes shut and my heart sank, knowing a long explanation was coming. "Yes. You found something in your research to corroborate or define or link to that?"

Nana leaned to look out the window. "I don't see Beverley!"

As soon as she said the words, panic rose up within me. My feet had me moving toward the garage door. It opened and Ares pushed through; Beverley came in right behind him. "When's dinner?" she asked.

I nearly collapsed to my knees with relief. The adrenaline in my system stalled like lead in my veins. "Soon," I said, a bit breathless. "Go wash up."

Beverley and Ares charged into the house and in seconds the water was running. I was visibly shaking from the unused adrenaline. Nana got up and grumbled. "I'll get the salad together. You pour yourself a glass of wine."

Nana encouraging the consumption of alcohol? I just leaned on the counter.

A moment later, she shoved a glass into my hand.

"The tablet made a reference," she said as she started to tear lettuce into a bowl, "to an unburned portion of the scroll that has been translated: the Lustrata, flanked by an aberrant pack of wolfen. It's been taken to mean a pack that does not return to man-form. But I think it's a pack whose leader never loses his man-mind."

"That doesn't explain why he has to be here."

"He's a pack animal. He must be with his pack."

"So you want the lot of them to move in?"

"He must be with you."

"I'm not pack! I'm a witch. Besides, he obviously doesn't want to be with me."

Nana ignored my protest. "The Lux Scroll, being in poor condition, has been pieced together in places and in one such place the text makes reference to Lupercus. He's the god of shepherds to some, the wolf-god to others. Our translators have theories about how either of these meanings can be taken in the context of the scroll. However, I showed a photocopy of that scroll section to Dr. Lincoln, and he, with his minor in Latin, said he thought it was two words: lupus and erctum. If you take the LUP and ERC most witches would assume it to be Lupercus. If Dr. Lincoln is right, lupus is, obviously, "wolf." Erctum or herctum is an inheritance. If Johnny has been given the wolf-inheritance that makes him retain his human sensibilities…"

"What if it's simply word-order confusion? Latin has convoluted rules for mixing and grouping words. It could be simple: as a waere he already has the inheritance of the wolf."

"Regardless, both the scroll and the tablets indicate that the Lustrata is somehow closely associated with a pack. And a pack needs a leader, an alpha. You don't have to be a member of the pack. You're their sovereign because you're his sovereign."

"His sovereign my ass."

Beverley giggled from the doorway. Nana pointed a finger at me. "I will start a swear jar if you don't mind your tongue, Persephone."