by Jenn Bennett
“Your valrivia tastes fresh,” I said after taking a couple of drags in silence.
“It is. I grow it.”
Another long moment stretched as we both smoked and he looked around the room in curiosity.
“You’ve got magical wards over the doors and windows,” he noted.
“Yep.”
“What are you afraid of? Surely not demons.”
“Hardly.”
“Do you belong to an order? A magical organization?”
“No,” I lied.
“But you were trained somewhere.”
“I learned on my own.”
He laughed. “Bullshit. No one learns summoning and binding demons on their own. That’s an advanced skill and the goetias in publication are bogus.”
“Most of them are. If you’ve got natural talent, you can teach yourself anything.”
“Let’s say that’s true. How many Æthyric demons have you summoned?”
I shrugged, enjoying the euphoric effect of the cigarette. “More than ten, less than a hundred.”
A flicker of surprise crossed his face. “For what purpose?”
“Mostly for practice in the beginning. Curiosity. Now I only do it if I need to trade information.” Or skills. Just like Earthbounds, most of the Æthyric demons have abilities. Only, theirs are much greater. Need to heal someone with stomach cancer? Find your grandmother’s hidden stash of war bonds? If you know the right Æthyric with the right skill— and are willing to negotiate a trade—you might be able to get what you’ve wished for. Might. It is a tricky game. “I’ve had a few run-ins with some Æthyrics who weren’t exactly thrilled to be summoned,” I added. “Not all of them play nice.”
“They’re no different than humans in that respect,” he agreed.
True.
“So, enough about me,” I said. “Were you upset when you got kicked out of the seminary? How long ago was that, by the way?”
His face twisted up in mock surprise. “Are you trying to find out my age?”
“What? No.” I glanced out the window. “But now that you mention it, how old are you?”
“Forty-two. How old are you?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Twenty-five? Jesus, I was older than that when my son was born.”
“You have a son? I guess that chastity vow didn’t take, huh?”
He laughed, and for the first time, it was pleasant. All the meanness was gone. “I didn’t take a chastity vow. I never really intended to become a priest,” he explained. “And yes, I have a son. He’s thirteen. Closer to your age than I am.”
Thirteen? Christ.
“Is your wife an Earthbound?”
“I’m divorced, and yes.”
“Oh … I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He looked at me intently, and I found my hand nervously moving up to cover the side of my neck, as if it were exposed. It took some effort to force my arm back down to my side.
“Do you see your son often?” I asked.
“He lives with me. I have full custody.”
“Oh, good.” Good? That was a silly response. My cheeks flushed as he absently scratched the hair behind one ear. He had really striking green eyes when they weren’t narrowed into defensive slits.
“So why did you join the seminary if you didn’t want to become a priest?”
“I wanted to get my hands on a few of their books.”
“Aha! So you did steal those goetias that Father Carrow talked about! I can’t say that I’m very religious myself, but even I think that’s pretty low.”
“Why don’t most magicians believe in God?” he mused. “They witness more miracles than the average person.”
I bristled. Most of the people in my order believe in some sort of creator. Maybe not a Abrahamic one, but they share many of the same ideals and moral codes: protect your family, accept responsibility for your actions—that sort of thing.
“I believe in a God,” I argued. “Just not ghosts.”
He chuckled, and after casually crossing his legs, ankle on knee, he slumped lower down into the cushions. “Just because I didn’t intend to become a priest doesn’t mean I don’t believe in God. Maybe not with the conviction that Father Carrow has …” A gentle smile curled the corners of his mouth. “But you’re right. Stealing from the church was stupid. I was only nineteen, if that counts for anything. Though, in the end, it was worth it. The books I took were … invaluable.”
He took a long drag off his cigarette and observed me. I was starting to feel lightheaded. Almost buzzed. I turned the cherry end of my cigarette toward my face and sniffed it suspiciously. “There’s only valrivia in these, right?”
He draped his arm over the back cushion and leaned closer, ignoring my question. “Why do you want to find the albino demon?”
“Please don’t ask me. I really can’t tell you. You wouldn’t understand anyway.”
“You’d be surprised. Try me,” he coaxed, his face softening. “Besides, I won’t help unless you’re honest. What other choice do you have?”
Not once in seven long years had I ever once told anyone the truth about my family. I’d never even been tempted to open the vault and spill my guts. Not even to Kar Yee, and she was the longest-running friend I’d had since this whole mess started. Sometimes I came close to telling Father Carrow. He was easy to open up to, and understood what it was like to be an outsider who didn’t fit human or demon expectations. But no matter how convinced I was that he’d be somewhat understanding and keep my secrets, I just never allowed myself that luxury.
So why was I considering it now? I didn’t even know this man.
I don’t know if it was the stress of what was going on with my parents, or the physical exhaustion from staying up worried the night before, but suddenly I wanted to tell him everything. Not just because he was forcing my hand, and not just because I was desperate for him to help me—which I was. I think I just wanted to confess.
“Can you offer me absolution if I tell you?” I asked with a weak smile.
“No, I’m sorry. I’m the last person in the world to offer that.” His voice was soft and sympathetic, and when I met his gaze, the fortifying wall I’d carefully built around my stronghold crumbled. My heart hammered as an unexpected spike of exhilaration ran through me.
“My parents are Enola and Alexander Duval.” The words raced out of my mouth, eager to be free after years of captivity.
His face drew up as if he was confused, or trying to place the names. Then his eyes widened. In shock? Terror? Certainly not pity.
“They didn’t do it—the killings. They were f-framed,” I stammered.
“You’re … the teenage daughter?”
“Not anymore. It’s been seven years.”
“How—” he started, then hesitated. “Your parents are alive, too … on the news.”
“Yes, they’re back in hiding again, I guess, who knows where? They won’t tell me,” I admitted. “We separated after they were accused.”
“And you’ve stayed hidden all these years? Alone?”
“Assumed identities. Changed my look. Protected myself with magick.”
He blinked several times, then leaned forward, seeking a place to extinguish his cigarette.
“Here.” I wiggled out a ceramic plate from beneath a potted plant on the coffee table.
After he stubbed his out, I did the same, then waited nervously for him to say something. The ramifications of what I’d just done hit me like a slap in the face. What was wrong with me? I was smarter than this. And why him? It’s not like he was giving me warm and trusting vibes. There was a damn good possibility that I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life.
“Huh,” he finally said, as my anxiety and regret rose to heart-attack levels. “I knew Arcadia Bell couldn’t have been your real name.”
I looked up to find him grinning ear to ear. Oh, thank God. My head lolled against the sofa as relief fell like a cool, cleansing rain.
<
br /> “My order lifted the Arcadia identity from a homeless woman in Seattle,” I explained.
“So you do belong to an organization? Your parents’ order—Ekklesia Eleusia, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I get them confused with that Luxe group.”
“Our main rivals. A common mistake.”
“Your parents were well respected before the killings,” he noted.
When they were first accused of the murders, none of the orders believed it, even if the media and the police did. My parents were minor celebrities who wrote and published several occult philosophy books and were vocal advocates of a united magical community.
Before I was born, they famously campaigned for an umbrella committee to be created that would consist of leaders from each order. This was like herding cats. Esoteric orders are historically secretive and uninterested in sharing their secrets or banding together for a greater cause. However, my parents often acted as interorder liaisons with some degree of success.
“Wasn’t it the Luxe group who blew the whistle on them?” Lon asked.
“Yep. After their leader was attacked, Luxe accused them. That’s when they were brought in for questioning and the whole media circus started. A couple days later, the leader of the Luxe Order led the police to the murder weapon used in the Black Lodge slayings—I’m sure you’ve heard about that in the news as well.”
He nodded, creasing his eyes as he studied me with greater intensity.
“When my parents’ fingerprints were found on it, the warrant for their arrest was issued. At that point, they were facing serious charges from the law and even bigger threats from Luxe. There was no way out—they had to run.”
“You too.”
“Me too,” I agreed, remembering the panic and fear, the sudden loss of my family. “I don’t know how Luxe got their fingerprints, but it was rigged evidence. It was a demon, not a knife, that did the dirty work.”
“The albino demon?”
I nodded.
“But they didn’t summon it?”
“No. We think it was either someone from the Luxe group who was trying to sabotage our order, or some outside independent magician trying to take over all the orders. It might sound ridiculous to an outsider, but you really wouldn’t believe the politics and power struggles that go on between the major occult organizations.”
“Oh, I believe it. Whenever people organize, there’s problems. That’s why I’m not a joiner. I keep to myself and mind my own business.”
That was true of most demons I knew. I smiled. “Except for the seminary stint?”
“That was self-serving.” A trace of smile showed as he crossed his arms over his chest. “So, the albino demon …”
“If I can find it, I can force it to tell me who committed the murders. My parents will be exonerated.”
“You need me to find it fast because the police are looking for your parents again?”
“Well, that doesn’t help matters, but it’s more because the Luxe Order has given my organization a mandate to turn over my parents—or me—in two weeks.”
His eyebrows shot up. “What would they do if you turned yourself in to them?”
“Kill me,” I said very seriously. “Eye for an eye, sins of the father, all that.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah.”
A cool breeze blew in from outside the window and fluttered a few stray hairs around my face. I pushed them away, and noticed that our beers hadn’t been touched in a while. Toying with a small tear in the knee of my jeans, I spoke again in a low voice.
“I bet you didn’t expect all this, huh?”
“This? No. I thought you might be some angry kid with a vendetta. Not this.”
“Well, I guess you can either help me, or you can rat me out to the feds and collect a handsome reward. It’s up to you.”
“Do you worry about people doing that? Turning you in?”
“No. There isn’t anyone who knows who I am.”
“No one?”
“A few people in my order, but they’re willingly under magical oath to keep quiet. Otherwise, no one. I guess you think I’m pretty stupid, spilling my guts to a complete stranger. I’m not even sure why I told you. I could have made something up like I usually do.”
We looked at each for a few moments, then he sat on the edge of the sofa and leaned forward, legs spread and forearms braced on his knees. “Two weeks, huh? That’s a lot of pressure on me.”
“Yeah, sorry.”
“Mmm.”
“Will you do it?”
“I think the bigger question is can I do it. I have some rare resources, and I can start there …”
He linked his fingers, staring at them, thinking. But all I heard was that he would help me, and I felt as if an enormous weight had been lifted. I had hope.
He stood up without warning, and I scrambled to follow.
“I’ll start researching in the morning,” he said. “I’ll contact you again tomorrow night and give you an update. I’ll be discreet. You have my word.” He turned and walked toward the door, opening it and stepping out onto the concrete stairs. When he reached my driveway at the bottom, he turned and looked back up at me.
“What’s your real name?”
“Seléne Duval.”
“Seléne? Like the moon goddess?” He rolled his eyes.
“My parents are occultists, what do you expect? It’s better than them being hippies and naming me River or Rain, right?”
He laughed. “Well, what do you want me to call you? I like Arcadia better.”
“Me too,” I admitted with a smile as I stood in the doorway. The cool night air sent a shiver through me. I folded my arms around my middle.
“Arcadia it is,” he said definitively. “By the way, I apologize for lacing the cigarettes.”
Goddammit. I knew it. Fucking hoodwinked by a demon—me! How many Earthbounds had I unwittingly dosed in my bar over the last couple of years? Maybe this was payback. Before I could protest, he tipped his finger in parting, then ambled away to his car.
7
Amanda set a large box down on the bar. It was half past three in the afternoon, and Tambuku opened in thirty minutes for happy hour. I came in to help with some deliveries and break it to Kar Yee that I wasn’t working this weekend. She was mildly pissed, but that was tough. I just couldn’t concentrate on babysitting a bunch of drunken idiots all night. I’d already spent the first half of the day jumping at every noise, freaked out that Lon had changed his mind and called the police. But no one came to arrest me. Hell, the media was barely even reporting about my parents’ sudden appearance in Texas anymore. In a way, it almost felt like everything would just blow over and I could go back to my life like nothing ever happened.
But that was a pipe dream. As I’d told Lon last night, it was never the authorities that truly scared me; it was the Luxe Order. I called someone to cover my shift while I waited for Lon to contact me, hoping that he’d find some bit of information that I could use.
Amanda shook out her hands. “Wow. I’m amazed at how heavy a carton of straws can be.”
“There should be fifteen new ashtrays in that box, not just straws,” I pointed out.
“O-o-oh. That’s why. Duh.”
She got out a box cutter and went to work on unpacking the carton while I restocked the liquor and traded the tapered metal pouring spouts from empty bottles to full ones.
“Hey, why did you draw those new symbols over the door?”
They were drawn in clear ink. Only Earthbounds would be able to spot the soft white glow from the Heka charge, and Amanda wasn’t Earthbound. Her father was Earthbound, her mother human. But all that made Amanda was nonsavage, aware of the existence of demons, but unable to see them. As far as I knew, all Earthbound-human couplings produced human children—no halos, no abilities, no preternatural eyesight—but they were embraced by the Earthbound community as family. Ugly ducklings, they were affectionately called
.
“I saw you coming down off the stepladder after you scribbled something over the door,” Amanda explained. “I figured it must’ve been magick.”
Ah, okay. “They’re nothing. Just symbols for extra protection.”
“Why do we need extra protection?”
“You don’t. I do.”
She put the box cutter down and paused. “Why?”
“Not a big deal, I’m just being extra careful.”
“Do you have another crazy stalker boy?”
Ugh. “Don’t remind me,” I said. A few months ago some punk kid starting hanging outside the bar after we closed, trying to follow me to my car. Turned out he was bipolar and off his meds; if I never saw him again, it would be too soon. “Hey, speaking of boys—well, men—I met someone from your neck of the woods. Have you ever heard of Lon Butler? He’s a—”
“You met Lon Butler? Ohmygod, that’s so cool! Was he nice? I heard he was kind of a jerk. I’ve seen him at the farmers’ market a couple of times but I was too nervous to approach him.”
I feigned casual interest, but I was dying to find out what she knew. “He wasn’t warm and friendly. How do you know about him?”
“Everyone knows about him in La Sirena. He’s got a cool piece of property at the edge of town on one of the cliffs overlooking the ocean. He inherited it from his father and built a house up there, but the only way to really see it is from a boat.”
“Hmm.” Boring. “What else?”
“Let’s see, he travels around the world to exotic locations for photo shoots. Umm … Oh, yeah—you know his ex-wife, that model, Yvonne Giovanni?”
I shook my head. I had no idea who she was talking about. “Where have you been living, Arcadia? Under a rock? She used to be a supermodel.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Back when I was a teenager, she was always in the gossip columns because she partied with tons of celebrities. I heard that’s why they split up. His son goes to junior high with my cousin, Rosy. You remember her, right? I brought her by here a couple of months ago on my day off, that morning when you and Kar Yee were doing inventory?”
