Banishing the Dark (The Arcadia Bell series)

by Jenn Bennett

  “No one knows what happened but you and me.” He squinted one eye closed. “And Jupe. And Priya—your guardian appeared to Jupe to tell us what happened. That’s how we found you.”

  “I sent him to get help,” I said, remembering. “But what about Tambuku? The bodies?”

  “I took the bones to Dare’s wife, Sarah. Told her a version of the truth, that he was looking for the person who’d leaked his bionic knack drug. Do you remember all that?”

  “The red liquid that amped up demonic knacks. Tambuku was robbed . . .”

  “And Dare used a magician to manufacture the drug until he realized someone had stolen it and leaked it to the general public. So I told Sarah that Dare had traced the leak to the magician, and some Earthbound’s juiced-up knack went haywire and burned them all. It wasn’t that far from the truth, and it kept the whole thing out of the papers. She announced that he’d had a heart attack; their money and influence prevented any further investigation. The funeral was two weeks ago.”

  It was overwhelming, how much I’d missed. And my foggy memories made everything feel surreal. My brain felt broken. “I hate that you had to lie for me.” He never lied. Loathed lying, in fact. I was the professional liar; he was a walking lie detector.

  “I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” he said very seriously.

  “What about Kar Yee?”

  “What about her?”

  Good question. Why was I so worried about her? “We had a fight,” I said, reaching for the details. “I told her who I really was. Who my parents were. She got angry with me for keeping it from her all these years. I tried to go after her . . . that’s why I went to the bar. To find her. She hates me.”

  “She had Bob drive her to the hospital several times a week to see you, and that doesn’t seem much like hate to me.”

  No, it really didn’t.

  Before I could get too sentimental about it, he added, “But the two of you will have plenty of time to sort things out later. Right now, you eat. Need to get your strength back.”

  I continued to feed myself spoonfuls of soup, starving but impatient to finish and ask Lon more questions. After I’d finished most of the bowl, he set it back down on the bedside table as I glanced at the painted sigils on the ceiling. “You did that?”

  He nodded and picked up my hand again, rubbing circles into the pad of my palm with his thumb. “It’s why I wanted you home. You’re safer sleeping here. Your mother . . . do you remember?”

  That I did remember, unfortunately. My mother, Enola Duval, infamous occultist and former member of the highly esteemed Ekklesia Eleusia esoteric society (or E∴E∴, as it’s known in occult circles), one of the Black Lodge Slayers, number 37 in a set of American Serial Killer trading cards, on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.

  After finding out the truth—that they weren’t framed for the Black Lodge murders, as they’d always claimed—last year, I’d commanded a primordial demon to take her into the Æthyric demon plane with my father as payment for crimes they committed, assuming they’d been killed.

  Never assume.

  My mother not only survived, but she’d found a way to tap into me when I was sleeping and use me like a puppet. Under her control, I’d nearly stabbed Lon with a knife. She swore she’d take over my consciousness and kill everyone I loved. And she was demented enough to try.

  “Priya told me I wasn’t safe,” I said to Lon. “He said I needed to find the spell she’d used to conceive me and try to reverse it. That I should seek refuge at the E∴E∴ temple in Florida.” I put down the soup spoon. “Go to my godfather.”

  “I’m sorry, Cady. The caliph passed.”

  I stilled. “The caliph . . . died?”

  Lon nodded. “Two days after you went into the hospital. Jupe sent Priya to tell him what had happened to you. But when he tried to find him, he couldn’t. I e-mailed around until I got in contact with his assistant. Heart failure.”

  Fresh tears welled. “He was only in his seventies. He was in decent shape last time I saw him.” In San Diego, when he’d come with Lon to help me escape from my parents’ attempt to sacrifice me.

  “They’d already had the funeral by the time I found out. I guess that was about three weeks ago. His oldest son, Adrien, will take over as the new caliph.”

  “Jesus.” After the initial shock passed, I pulled myself together and focused on the reality that lay before me. The caliph was my advocate. A few people in the order knew I was still alive: the caliph’s assistant, one of the other magi at the main lodge, and the grandmaster of the local lodge and her assistant. But the caliph was the only one with the power to rally all of them. He was the one they respected.

  “What am I supposed to do now?” I said. “I have to find asylum somewhere. Priya said you weren’t safe around me.”

  “Cady, I don’t think I’ve been safe around you since the moment we met. That never stopped me before, and it’s damn sure not stopping me now. You’re not going anywhere without me, and that’s all there is to it.”

  I hadn’t realized how tense I was, but when he said that, it felt as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Maybe it was because I felt physically frail and secretly wanted help. Or maybe because I’d learned that asking for help didn’t equate to weakness.

  I slumped against the pillows, mulling over everything he’d just told me. Wondering if I should try to contact the E∴E∴. It seemed pointless, now that the caliph was gone. My troubled thoughts turned to my new abilities, and I began to remember more about that last night before I ended up in the hospital.

  “What is it?” Lon said.

  “Dare. Before I . . . incinerated him. He told me things he found out through an investigator.”

  “What kinds of things?”

  I struggled to recall what Dare had told me. “He said I had a brother, and that my parents tried the Moonchild spell on him first. But it wasn’t successful, so they drowned him when he was eight years old. He said it was their first kill.”

  “Christ, Cady.” His hand stilled on mine. “Maybe he was lying.”

  “But why make that up?”

  “Because the man was the fucking devil!” Lon shouted, making me flinch.

  Well, he wasn’t wrong. But Lon rarely let his emotions get away from him. He tried to pull his hand away, but I stopped him, threading my fingers through his.

  When he was coolheaded again, I said, “He knew he could trap me in a binding triangle. And he knew something about the mythology of the Moonchild that no one has ever hinted at—not anyone in the E∴E∴, not my parents, not any other demons I’ve summoned.”

  A small line formed in the middle of Lon’s brow. “What?”

  “I have all demon knacks.”

  He stared at me, blinking.

  “Every knack. I can command every knack.”

  “Impossible,” he said, but I could hear the doubt in his voice.

  “Think about it,” I said. “I slowed time at Merrimoth’s house. I yanked the transmutation spell out of Yvonne. I transported myself thirty miles through thin air.”

  Lon didn’t say anything for several seconds. “You healed yourself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “In the hospital. Before Mick left for Australia, he said he’d come in to work on one of your broken bones, and it would already be healed. He said he’d never seen anything like it. He said it was the closest thing to a miracle he’d ever witnessed.”

  That wasn’t good. Never trust a miracle.

  My mind jumped away from my knacks and focused back on the hospital room and the doctor. I vaguely recalled Mick’s face hovering above mine when I was on death’s doorstep. Some strange, hazy memory tried to poke its head above water in the back of my head. Something Mick was trying to tell me. I just couldn’t quite make it out.

  Lon exhaled heavily. “If you really do have the ability—”

  “To wield every knack known to demonkind?” I finished.

  He nodded his he
ad toward this intangible, terrifying thing. “If you do, it would explain a lot. And it would also mean that Dare really did have someone who was investigating you.”

  “Well, we know he already uncovered my real identity.”

  “Identity is one thing, but if Dare hired someone to find out about the Moonchild spell, that’s a whole other matter. Uncovering dark occult secrets isn’t your everyday PI work.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  And maybe this investigator opened up my options.

  Priya insisted that the only way to stop my mother was by reversing the Moonchild spell, but heading straight to my order in Florida might not be the right move now that the caliph was gone. And really, besides magical protection, what could my order give me? I’d already scoured its libraries for information about the Moonchild ritual when I was still living there in my teens. And I had to believe that if the caliph knew something about the Moonchild spell, he would have told me.

  My parents’ house in Florida had long been sold, several times, and eventually demolished; new condo buildings stood there now. Nothing I could find there to help me. I could try to track down people who knew my parents, but they didn’t have friends. So that led me back to the main lodge.

  After I told all this to Lon, I asked, “Am I thinking about this all wrong?”

  “No, you’re not wrong,” he said quietly. “Given everything we now know, I agree that a better tactic would be to track down this investigator.”

  I gave him a tight smile. “Guess I should’ve asked Dare for a name before I killed him.”

  No amount of magick or demonic ability could change the past, so there was little use dwelling on what happened with Dare. My mother was the pressing problem. But before Lon and I could piece together a plan of action, a distant door slammed.

  “Sorry, but I can’t hear you!” a voice called out before a sound akin to stampeding buffalos clambered up the stairs. A few moments later, two things lunged through the doorway: a chocolate Lab and a fourteen-year-old boy with a spring-green halo and a pouf of dark corkscrew curls. The sight of him squeezed my heart.

  Jupe skidded to a stop at the foot of the bed. Green eyes blinked at me as he slid his backpack off his shoulders, the straps snagging on monster-movie patches sewn to the sleeves of his Army surplus jacket. “Foxglove!” Jupe protested.

  “Hey, girl,” I said, dodging the Lab’s tongue while Lon grabbed her purple collar to keep her from jumping on the bed.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  “Aren’t you the kid who mows the lawn?”

  A whimper buzzed from the back of his throat.

  “Kidding,” I said. “Do I get a hug or what?”

  His shoulders dropped, and a toothy grin spread. “I knew you’d be okay,” he said as he pounced on the bed and his skinny arms curled around me.

  “For the love of God, don’t crush her,” Lon warned.

  I didn’t mind. Unlike his father, Jupe was never one to have problems expressing feelings. His hair smelled pleasantly of chamomile and coconut oil, and when he finally released me, I pushed his frizzy curls off his forehead and studied him. “Missed your face,” I murmured.

  “Missed you so much.” He looked as if he might be on the verge of getting too emotional. Just for a second. Then he reeled himself back in and smiled. “I told everyone a thousand times you’d be fine—right, Dad?”

  “ ‘Everyone’ and ‘a thousand’ aren’t exaggerations,” Lon confirmed.

  “Man, your halo looks so much better today.”

  Did it? I wondered just how bad it had looked before and if Jupe had seen me at my worst. But even if he had, I guess he wasn’t scarred for life, because he seemed to be his normal high-energy, bright-eyed, Motormouth self. He plopped down next to me on top of the covers and lounged against the headboard.

  “Let me just say, I never want to step inside a hospital again.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “God, I’m glad you’re home. I have so much to tell you.”

  No doubt.

  “Do you remember everything now?” Jupe asked, looking at his father for some sort of confirmation.

  “Mostly,” I answered.

  “Do you remember . . . ?” He trailed off and gave me a probing look, long lashes fluttering nervously as he searched my face. “Remember our fight?”

  My mind jumped back to the last time I remembered seeing him. The afternoon I’d been trapped by Dare. I’d confessed my real identity to Kar Yee and Jupe. Kar Yee had left angry. Jupe had stayed, interrogating me, until he found out I was planning to go to Florida alone. He didn’t take it well. And he let something slip that he shouldn’t have.

  Lon had bought me an engagement ring.

  “Oh, crap,” Jupe muttered, reading my face.

  And judging from the way Lon shifted uncomfortably, Jupe must have told his father that he’d spilled the beans about the ring. My cheeks heated. Lon and I never had a chance to talk about it. I remembered that he’d given me plane tickets for Christmas, had wanted to take me to the French Alps. Pretty romantic for someone like Lon. Add on a ring, and you had a big step for two people who hadn’t been able to say “I love you” for the first several months of their relationship.

  Our French Alps sex vacation was certainly not happening anytime soon. But did he still want to give me the ring? And did I want it?

  “One thing at a time,” Lon said quietly.

  I nodded and buried awkward feelings while Jupe quickly changed the subject. “Hey, like, you should be sleeping or something.”

  “I’ve slept more than enough over the last month,” I assured him.

  “No, I mean, it’s day. You’re supposed to be sleeping in the daytime. That’s what Priya says. Your mom uses moon energy to tap into you. I asked him if they had the same moon in the Æthyr, and he said they had three moons. Can you believe it? Three! So I asked him if your mom could use their moon energy or ours, and he said ours.”

  I stared at Jupe for a moment. Then Lon.

  “He’s been summoning Priya,” Lon said.

  “So I gather.” I looked at Jupe. “How are you two getting along?”

  “Someone needs to tell that guy to put a shirt on,” Jupe said. “Plus he’s kind of a dick.”

  “That’s my guardian you’re talking about, you know.”

  Jupe backpedaled. “It’s just that he’s so serious all the time. I don’t think he knows how to smile.” He did—it just didn’t look like much of a smile with all those pointy teeth. “And he’s always trying to boss me around, and he doesn’t look that much older than me. When I asked him his age, he said he was only three months old. He told me all about how Hermeneus spirits can reincarnate into new bodies when they die and that they usually reincarnate into babies, but sometimes they get lucky and can hop a ride on an older body. Which is what he did. Crazy, right?”

  “Crazy.” And more than I knew about Priya’s new body. At least, more than I remembered knowing.

  “But I asked him how long he had his previous body,” Jupe continued, “and he said he’d only had it for eighteen years. Is that true?”

  “I never thought to ask him.”

  Jupe looked at me as if I were nuts, but I wasn’t about to explain how Priya had once been a sexless, subservient projection with the personality of cardboard and that most magicians don’t make small talk with their guardians. But still, if Priya was eighteen, that meant he’d been all of ten years old the first time he’d attached himself to me. And that weirded me out.

  “Priya will tell you almost anything if you ask,” Jupe informed me proudly. “And I asked him all kinds of shit.”

  “Clearly.”

  “Don’t worry. I reported everything Priya told me to Dad.”

  I glanced at Lon. One quirking brow and the flare of his nostrils confirmed that his barely restrained impatience with Jupe’s energetic questions hadn’t changed. This made me simultaneously want to laugh and cry. In
a good way. Lon’s eyes squinted at me in shared amusement while Jupe chatted on, oblivious to our silent conversation on the sidelines.

  “Priya says you can’t fall asleep at night. Like Nightmare on Elm Street. Your mom is Freddy.”

  But instead of killing me when I dreamed, she’d just puppet me into killing Lon. Or Jupe. Or whomever the hell else she wanted.

  “He also says your mom is trying to do some complicated magick ritual in the Æthyr, and—”

  “Jupe,” Lon said sharply. “Remember what we talked about?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What?” I looked at Jupe, waiting for an answer.

  “Dr. Mick says not to bring up anything too upsetting until you’re on your feet again.”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Go on, Jupe. What else did Priya tell you?”

  Jupe glanced between us before continuing. “She’s undergoing some kind of purifying ritual, where she fasts for a week. Like, she only drinks water, and she does some sort of weird meditation. Priya wasn’t very good at explaining it,” Jupe said, assuring me the communication problem wasn’t on his end, which I didn’t believe for a second. “Anyway, your mom doesn’t know you’re awake. At least, Priya’s pretty sure she doesn’t know.”

  That was something, I supposed.

  “But don’t worry,” Jupe continued. “Priya figures you’ve got anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks before she finishes the ritual and crosses back over to earth to control you. So all you have to do is find the spell your mom used when you were born and reverse it. That way, you’ll break your connection with her, and she can’t get inside your body. You can do that, right?”

  I glanced up at the sigils on the ceiling before giving Lon a look.

  We needed to make some plans. And I needed to get better, faster.

  “Bring me my box of medicinals.”

  Although I tried several times that night, it wasn’t until the following morning that I could finally reach out for electricity and pull it into my body—my benchmark for normal health—and another day before I could walk around the yard for half an hour without getting winded, which was Lon’s benchmark. He pushed me hard, forcing me to walk and bend and stretch, and it was worth every bit of frustration. Because when I fell asleep that next day, sore and exhausted, mentally and physically, it was in his arms. I don’t think I’d ever appreciated just how good and safe that felt. Maybe that’s because I was usually too distracted by the great sex. Granted, somewhere in the back of my mind, I hoped I’d be distracted by that again soon, but for now, it was enough to smell his skin and hear his heartbeat.