by Jenn Bennett
“I don’t have time for your nonsense, Kerub. This is important.”
So was free porn, but Jupe didn’t feel like explaining this to a being who didn’t understand the meaning of privacy. “What is it now?”
“Did you know our mistress carries your father’s offspring in her belly?”
“What the hell are you talking about now, birdbrain? Are—” Jupe stopped in mid-sentence. He stared at the gray-skinned creature as realization dawned. “Cady’s pregnant? You’re a big fat liar.” Had to be. She didn’t look pregnant. And she’d tell him and his dad before she told some stupid servant creature from another plane.
“I saw the threads with my own eyes a day ago. The Kerub’s seed is growing within her.”
Seed? Gross. He did not want to think about that. And what was more, if Cady was pregnant, how was she going to do her job? He’d never seen a pregnant bartender. And if she was pregnant, that meant—
“I’m going to have a brother? Or a sister?”
“Not if Enola finds out. Our mistress’s mother is a murderer. She will slaughter the child or take it from her if our mistress does not find the Moonchild spell and reverse it. Do you understand?”
Jupe barely heard him. He was too busy freaking out. If Cady was pregnant, it was either the best thing, like, ever or his worst nightmare. He couldn’t wrap his head around it. And why hadn’t she told him? For that matter, why hadn’t Dad told him? He felt sort of betrayed.
“She did not know,” Priya said, as if he could read his mind.
Jupe hated when he did that. It was worse than his dad’s knack. He crawled across his bed to reach for the bedside table. “I’m texting her right now to see if you’re lying.”
“Are you a boy or a man?”
Jupe’s hand stilled on his bedside table. “What?”
“I said, are you a boy or a man? Because if you’re a man, you will understand that our mistress is in grave danger, and you must protect her at any cost. But if you are only a boy, I will seek someone else who cares more for her life and will take steps to keep it safe.”
Oh, hell, no. Bird boy was insulting him? Heat rose in Jupe’s chest. “I’m more of a man that you’ll ever be.”
“Prove it.”
“You wanna fight? I’ll pound your feathered ass into the floorboards.” The guardian wasn’t much taller than him, and Dad said that nine times out of ten, people who wanted to pick fights were all talk. Dad had also been showing him where to punch someone in the face, because the antibullying campaign at school was a load of shit. Okay, not all of it, but the tattletale part. Mrs. Henry said to run away and tell a teacher if someone was acting like an ass; Dad said that advice was for savages—humans who didn’t believe Earthbounds existed—and that Jupe should learn to hit back if someone hit him.
Hit first, then tell a teacher. Basically. At least, that was how Jupe interpreted it.
“I am not challenging you to fight me,” Priya said. “I am challenging you to fight for your mistress. She is confused and not caring for her own safety. If your father will not heed my warnings, then you must take up the charge. It is your responsibility to protect her.”
Jupe started to argue that, actually, Cady had promised to protect Jupe, not the other way around. But he realized it made him sound kind of pathetic, so he kept that to himself. “What are you suggesting?”
“If she will not heed my warning to find the Moonchild spell, then you must find it for her. If you are a man, you are honor-bound to do so.” Priya held his chin high. “I once gave up my life to protect her. Are you willing to do the same, or are you going to cower like a small child and allow her to be killed?”
“How am I supposed to find a spell no one else has been able to find?”
“You possess the voice of persuasion, do you not?”
“My knack?”
“Use it to interrogate members of her occult order. Trace her history, and find the spell.”
“But her order is in Florida. That’s a long way away. There’s no way in hell Dad will let me go alone.”
“Then do not tell him. Be your own man.” Priya’s gray skin crackled with energy; he was fading. “Summon me if you need help. I will assist you however I can.”
And with that, the creature disappeared.
“Goddammit!” Jupe shouted, hurling an empty video-game case at the place where Priya once stood. It hit a shoe on top of a stack of books, which all fell off his dresser with a loud thump.
He immediately heard a muffled call from the guest room.
“Sorry,” he called back to Mrs. Holiday. “It was an accident. Everything’s fine.”
After hearing whining and scratching outside his door, he pushed himself off the bed and let Foxglove inside. The Lab sniffed around the area where Priya had materialized. Good thing she wasn’t there for the visit, or she would have barked her face off, because Foxglove didn’t like Priya any more than Jupe did. Smart dog. He gave her a quick scratch behind her ears and watched her trot over to the hedgehog crate to inspect Mr. Piggy’s well-being—who, unlike Foxglove, couldn’t care less about anything but snacking on fruit and projectile pooping.
Had to admire that kind of simple life.
So Cady was pregnant. He blew out a long breath. Before everything happened—before Mr. Dare, the biggest asshole in the world, may he rot forever and ever, put Cady in the hospital—Dad sat down with Jupe and told him all his plans. About buying Cady an engagement ring. Asking her to marry him. Everything was so much better then. Cady would say yes to Dad’s proposal, of course—why wouldn’t she?—and they’d all be a real family.
But his real mom showed up and caused major drama, and then Mr. Dare did what he did.
And now all this junk.
Cady had told Jupe all about her real identity. When she was in the hospital, he’d tracked down all the books about her parents and the Black Lodge slayings. He read one from cover to cover and skimmed the rest. They all basically said the same thing: her parents were crazy serial killers who went around murdering the heads of other occult orders. Dad told him about how they’d tried to kill Cady, too. That her mom gave birth to her already planning to kill her and take her power after Cady had reached some sort of age of magical maturity.
That was fucked up. Jupe’s mom was a piece of work, but she’d never tried to kill him.
He thought about Yvonne—that’s what he called her in his mind, just to remind himself that she wasn’t his mom in spirit, not really, and so he shouldn’t get his hopes too high. She was staying with Gramma Rose in Portland. Had been there since the Incident at Christmas. Auntie Adella e-mailed him updates every few days. She said Yvonne was doing better. Still sober. He wondered what they’d all think about Cady being pregnant. He considered calling them to ask their opinion. But Auntie had lost a baby a long time ago after her husband killed himself. He didn’t want to upset her.
He glanced at his alarm clock. Dad had called to say he and Cady were staying in Golden Peak for the night. Should he call them? And say what, exactly—I’m afraid you’re going to love the baby and forget all about me, and by the way, Priya called me a pussy?
No, that didn’t sound needy. Not at all.
He fell onto his bed and stared at the ceiling, listening to Mr. Piggy make his little hedgie noises at Foxglove. Putting his needy feelings aside, he wondered if Cady was in real danger. And the more he thought about everything he’d read about her parents, the more he began to worry.
What if he could really fix this for her? He wasn’t allowed to use his knack without permission, but surely Dad would want him to use it if he could save Cady’s life. And if he saved the baby’s life, he’d be the kid’s hero. No one forgot about heroes.
He cracked open his laptop again. The name of Cady’s order was Ekklesia Eleusia, otherwise known as the E∴E∴. He did a search for their website. Their main headquarters—the Grand Temple—was located outside of Miami. It was only open to the public once a month.
>
He was too young to get on a plane without his dad’s permission, so flying was out of the question. If only his GTO was ready to drive, but it was months away from being finished, and he didn’t have a license.
Okay, so he might not be able to rush off to Florida and save the day, but he remembered a place that might be within his reach. The E∴E∴ had a local branch, a half-hour bus ride into Morella. It just might require a few white lies to Mr. and Mrs. Holiday and a little bit of stealth. So for maybe the first time in his life, he decided to follow his father’s advice and keep his mouth shut.
Lon scanned the gas-station shelves. I could tell by the glint in his eye that he was brewing up some kind of devious plan, but I was suddenly dead tired and angry-hungry. Whatever he was planning, it was all just going to have to wait.
“Screw Wildeye and my mother right now. There’s got to be an In-N-Out somewhere up the road.” I was having Donner Party fantasies—blame it on the mountain atmosphere and talk of sleeping on the hard ground. On top of feeling ravenous, I had to pee. Again. It was getting a little ridiculous.
Lon saw me eyeing the restroom. “Go on,” he said. “I’ll just have a look around and see if I can find a couple of things.”
“Food.”
“Food, too. Then we can head to the motel. If we’re stuck here, let’s make the most of it and get a little research done.”
After emptying my bladder and using a criminal amount of paper hand towels to shut off the dirty faucet, I discovered that whatever Lon had in mind involved a tarp—the kind you use to cover a tent when it’s raining—and some spray paint. I started to ask him what it was for, but he shut me up with a packet of smoked almonds. I downed them in the two minutes it took us to drive to the motel.
“Wait in the car,” was all he said, handing me some orange juice. Leave it to him to find the only halfway healthy things in the gas station. Before I could see what else was in the bag of goodies he’d bought, he strode out from beneath the orange neon of the Sierra Woodland lobby and jumped back into the driver’s seat.
“What’s going on? Did anyone know Wildeye?”
“No luck.” He handed me a chunky blue motel key fob with a room key attached.
“Cottage thirteen?” I read from the diamond-shaped plastic.
“They’re all individual cabins. Ours is down this hill.”
A funny sort of panic washed over me as we drove past tiny log cabins to a parking space in front of the one marked thirteen. Thirteen? Really? Not that I was superstitious about numbers, because most of numerology was total bullshit. What concerned me more was the single cabin. And the sharing. I guess I just figured we’d have adjoining rooms or something. But hey, it wasn’t as if we were here to sleep, so what I was so worried about?
I grabbed my overnight bag out of the back of the SUV and opened the cabin door. Lon carted the stuff he’d bought at the gas station inside as I flipped on the light. Sort of musty. All the furniture was the bad end of retro, and the bear-print curtains burned my eyes. At least it seemed fairly clean, and the bathroom had soap and towels. And there were two twin beds—a small relief. “God, I hope this isn’t bedbug country,” I said, setting my bag down on a luggage rack.
“Probably more likely to find those at one of the four-star hotels in Morella. The problem has more to do with the lack of tech.”
“No TV,” I said, realizing. “Wait, no phone, either?”
“According to the German lady at the desk, it’s so you can leave the real world behind and relax,” he said, tossing a motel pamphlet onto one of the beds. “Let’s hope we get a mobile broadband signal.”
“What are we going to do if we don’t?” I said, digging out my phone. “Are there even electrical outlets? I need to charge this thing.”
“I have a signal,” he said. “Barely.
“I don’t.”
“Doesn’t matter.” He shrugged out of his thin leather jacket, revealing tightly muscled golden arms. Never in my life had I been around a man whose body wound me up the way Lon’s did. Not even salacious parts of him, either. Just everyday parts. His arms and hands. His feet, even—how absurd was that? And I couldn’t even bring myself to think about his bare chest without having a hot flash. I’d seen that chest, in my backyard, when we’d built my house ward. I had the strangest feeling I’d seen it other times, but the exact when, why, and how were a little fuzzy.
Why was I even thinking about this? Empath, hello! He could hear what I was feeling, so I might as well be whistling and catcalling as if he were some stripper for my own personal amusement. They were just arms, for the love of Pete. Every man had them.
“I brought some research material.”
“Oh?” I said, trying to sound terribly interested. Focus, Bell. Focus.
He opened his bag and rummaged around for two cloth-wrapped books. Both of them were moldering Goetic tomes, illustrated encyclopedias of demons, written by medieval magicians who painstakingly cataloged each demon’s attributes, seal, class, innate powers, bargaining favorability, and so forth.
“That’s one of the books you stole from the Vatican when you were in the seminary,” I said, walking over to the small writing desk where he had laid them both out. “You found the name of the albino demon in that. It’s . . .”
“A Goetia of female demons,” he said in a low voice, eyes flicking to mine.
“But—” Oh. Yes, I understood now. He was looking for me. Or the essence of whatever was inside me. The building block my parents had used in their conception spell. “Have you looked through it? Is there an entry for something called Mother of Ahriman?”
“I’ve run across plenty of demon classes with serpentine attributes but haven’t read the entire book. I was too busy worrying you wouldn’t wake up from your coma.”
“Oh.” I busily scratched my arm, feeling overwhelmingly grateful. “Thanks. You know, for everything. For looking out for me. No one’s ever done that before.”
A strange look passed over his face, fading as quickly as it began. He gave me a curt nod before turning away. “Don’t thank me yet,” he said, pulling out the tent tarp and spray paint. “I need you to help me re-create the sigils I painted on the ceiling in the bedroom.”
I cocked my head. “Not getting it. What do the Goetias have to do with warding magick?”
He slowly shook the paint can and squinted at me. “I think it’s time we did a little experiment to see the real you, and those sigils are going to be your safety net.”
“Hold on. You want me to—”
“You can’t hide from her forever,” he argued evenly. “If she wants you so badly, and she’s powerful enough to murder an Æthyric demon like Chora, she’s going to find a way to get what she wants. Either you stand by and let it happen, or we find out what weapons you have against her. If you transmutate—”
“I can’t transmutate without getting her attention.”
“So says Priya. And he’s only basing that on what he’s seen in the Æthyr when you’ve done it in the past. He doesn’t have all the answers, Cady. I know you’re fond of him, but I’ve talked to him several times while you were in the hospital. And he’s trustworthy—I’ve got no doubts about that—but he’s . . .”
“What?”
“There’s an innocence in him. A . . . youthfulness. And his instincts lean toward passive. He’d encourage you to hide rather than fight, because that’s all he knows.”
“Not everyone can be a fighter, Lon. He’s a messenger. An adviser.”
“And you aren’t,” he said firmly, offering the can of spray paint.
“You’re suggesting . . . what, exactly?” I asked.
“Transmutate inside a protective ward.”
“So you basically want me to put up a flashing sign in the Æthyr to let her know I’m awake, so she can start hijacking my dreams.”
“No, I want you to see if you can tap into your power quietly, without getting her attention. And if she notices, then she does
. We know she uses moon energy to connect to you, and you’re sleeping in the day, so she can’t get inside your dreams. If she’s found a way to cross the planes, she’d have already done it.”
True.
“You can’t learn something without practicing,” he said. “Better you master it while you can. And maybe you’ll find that you don’t have to light up the Æthyr when you shift. Just because I transmutate, that doesn’t mean I instantly turn on my knack.”
This surprised me. “You mean, you can shift and not hear my thoughts?”
“It’s like a radio. I can choose to turn it on or off. Turn it on just loud enough to hear, or crank it up to full blast. Maybe it’s the same for you, too. Maybe you can shift and refrain from—”
“Burning you to a crisp?”
He pointed a finger at me and winked. “That, for a start. If it’s possible, then it would allow me to get a look at your shifted form.”
He’d only seen it once, from a distance, outside his house while I was tearing the transmutation spell out of his ex-wife.
“You might have markings that would help me better identify what your parents were trying to create when they conceived you. I wouldn’t suggest this if I wasn’t confident that it was safe.”
I thought about the ward on the ceiling of his bedroom. I knew that magick well, and he was probably right.
“Look,” he said. “Afterward, you can call Priya and see if he ‘felt’ you connecting to your demon side in the Æthyr, just to be sure.”
“I’m not a demon.”
Lon pressed the paint can into my palm. “You damn sure aren’t human. Might as well face that fact and make the best of it. We aren’t all bad.”
