Banishing the Dark (The Arcadia Bell series) (29 page)

“It’s a distraction,” I murmured. “Anyone looking for the symbols or the Heka signature can find it, but it’s hidden
just
well enough—”

“To make someone cocky enough to think they’d outsmarted it. An ego stroke.”

“Exactly. There’s more magick inside, I guarantee you.”

“But your servitor didn’t show you any magick.”

“That’s what worries me,” I said. “I don’t want to get caught in another landslide.”

“Maybe I should go in alone and scout it out first.”

“Just because you’ve given me hundreds of orgasms I don’t remember doesn’t mean you have to be my knight in shining armor. We go in together.” I shook the can of spray paint I’d purloined from Lon’s garage and sprayed a nice fat line of blue over one of the ward’s extension lines. The Heka powering the front of the ward evaporated. Good enough to get us onto the leaf-strewn front porch, and, once there, I sprayed down the antlers and dismantled the rest.

“Electricity’s still on,” I said, surprised when I reached out for current and found plenty.

“Makes sense if they came here every winter. They’ve probably got automatic payments coming out of an account that hasn’t been drained yet. They didn’t exactly have time to close everything out when you sent them across the planes. Might have a small fortune tucked away somewhere that technically belongs to you now.”

“I wouldn’t touch their dirty money with a ten-foot pole,” I murmured.

Lon handed me the gun and the flashlight long
enough to splinter the doorframe with a crowbar and pry open the front door. Then he slowly swung the door open. Dust motes danced in the flashlight’s beam as he shone it inside.

“Empty,” he said, searching the entry for more magick.

He found a light switch and flipped it on. I was eager to confirm that the interior looked the same as it had in my servitor-powered vision, but I couldn’t see past his broad shoulders.

“Come on,” he said, motioning for me to step inside. Why was I so wary? My parents weren’t here, and Dare was dead. There was nothing to worry about but months-old magical traps that may or may not still have enough charge to be effective. I stepped over the threshold as he continued to talk. “Stay close behind me, just in case—”

I never heard him finish.

Within a blink, he vanished. I was standing in the entry of the house alone, and everything was coated in the silver sheen of my moon magick, only I hadn’t used it. I hadn’t tried, hadn’t felt any indication it was coming, and I wasn’t transmutated into my serpentine form. But Lon was gone, and I was alone. And it was . . .

Daytime.

Silver-tinged sunlight slanted across the floor from a window I couldn’t see. But this was definitely the same house my servitor spell had shown me.

What the hell was going on?

A knock sounded behind me. I whipped around and found the door closed. Someone was knocking on the other side. I backed away, stumbling further into the house, and glanced around in a panic. Same great room, same fireplace.

Same enormous grandfather clock.

And sitting on the floor at the base of the clock was a large gated playpen, a bigger version of Mr. Piggy’s. No hedgehog in this one. Inside sat a little girl. A toddler with dark bobbed hair and thick, straight bangs. She was humming to herself while shuffling wooden puzzle pieces over a tiny play table.

And she had a small, pale halo swirling around the crown of her head.

Quick footsteps and whispers drew my attention to a hallway at the back of the room. I nearly tripped over my own feet in my panic but managed to duck behind a chair before they saw me. I recognized the voices a moment before I peered around the back of the chair and spied two people striding past the fireplace toward the door, arguing in French.

Mom and Dad.

I clamped my hand over my mouth to stop myself from screaming.

Impossible! But there they were. Not ghosts, not memories. In the flesh, just as real as I was. My mom was dressed in a skirt and a striped top—one I knew was navy and white, even though my silver sight didn’t show it; I remembered her wearing the outfit in photos of book signings. My father wore his
usual button-up Oxford and slacks. And they were so young. About my age, I thought. Which meant—

The girl in the playpen had to be me.

Seriously, what the hell was going on?

The knock on the door came again, this time more insistent.

“Coming,” my mother cooed before she and my father momentarily stepped out of sight. The overly friendly male voice of the visitor boomed through the walls.

“Enola and Alexander,” the voice said. “Hope you don’t mind me dropping by unannounced. I was on my way home from San Francisco and thought I’d take a detour to see if you’d arrived in town yet.

“We have,” my mother said in her heavy French accent.

“May I come in?”

“Of course, of course. Come on in.” That was my father and his used-car-salesman voice. The one that made you feel as if you were the most important thing in the world, until you heard him use it on someone else and realized he was only playing you.

I held my breath, listening to them stroll into the great room. From where I was crouched, I could see the grandfather clock and Little Me in the playpen. The girl didn’t see me. I didn’t know if this was because I couldn’t be seen or because she was too busy watching the adults across the room. Was I reliving a memory? I certainly couldn’t recall this house at all, so that seemed impossible.

“Can I take your coat?” my dad asked. “I’d offer you a drink, but we haven’t had a chance to refill the pantry yet.”

“No, that’s fine. I can’t stay long. Just wanted to check in. Make sure we were still on for Monday.”

“We are here, no?” my mother said, not bothering to hide her irritation. “Have we given you any reason to think we would not be?”

“My wife’s tired. The flight was a little rough.”

“No need to explain,” the voice said. “I just . . . ah, there she is.”

Footsteps approached. Little Me’s head tilted upward as she quietly watched the visitor walking up to the playpen. She wasn’t frightened, I didn’t think, but she wasn’t speaking, either. She just stared up at him, mouth drawn in a tight line, assessing him. Was I this cold and calculating as a child? Was this really me?

“Hello, Sélène,” he said to her.

I let out a shaky breath, waiting to hear her voice, but she didn’t reply.

“Are you shy, pretty girl?” he asked. “Do you remember me? I met you last winter, when you were just a year old, but you’ve grown so much since then. I barely recognize you now, but I see you are looking more like your beautiful
maman
.”

“We’ve taught her not to speak to strangers,” my mother’s voice said bluntly.

“Ah,” he replied. “Probably wise. The world is full of crazies, and she’s . . . quite the prize, your little Moonchild.”

My mother made a sharp, unhappy noise.

“As we’ve told you before, we prefer that people don’t know we’re here,” my father said, as if he were her interpreter. I immediately remembered Karlan Rooke calling him my mother’s apologist. “So please don’t use that title around your own people or anyone in town. I’m afraid we must insist on that, or the deal is off.”

“Strong words, Alexander. But I understand, and you have my word.” A man’s hand came into my view as he reached over the playpen’s gate and pointed at the scattered puzzle pieces. “What are you playing with there? Astrological symbols? My. Already the great magician, I see. Following in your parents’ famous footsteps.”

“Naturally. She is a Duval.”

“And your first child, so I’m sure you’ll spoil her rotten.”

Not the first. If this man only knew . . .

“Don’t worry, I will not tell anyone about her,” the man said, standing so that I could only see the toes of his polished shoes. “But I would advise you not to parade her around La Sirena. Back home in Florida, the chances of her encountering one of us are slim, but here? The locals call this area Earthbound Paradise. If the wrong demon got a glimpse of her, he might decide she’s rare enough to warrant his interest.”

“What do you mean by that?” my mother snapped.

“I mean that I’d advise you to find a babysitter in Florida for your little moon muffin when you come to work for me next year. Bring her here at your own risk.”

“Is that a threat?”

“I’m sure it’s not a threat, darling,” my father said.

“I’m paying you for your magical skills, and quite handsomely. If you want me to continue funding your publishing career and paying for all those first-class plane tickets to France, then you’ll keep family and work separate.”

“If I were you, I would watch myself, devil. I can do things to you that you never knew were possible. And if anyone touches my property, I will punish you.”

“Is
that
a threat, Mrs. Duval?”

“We will continue to honor our working agreement only as long as it is beneficial to us. Incur my wrath, and you can kiss your Succubus-summoning circles and your magical potions good-bye.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I foresee a long, prosperous working relationship between us. As long as you perform your work to my satisfaction, I will not tell your order that you’re moonlighting for a demon. And if you ever believe I’m not compensating you fairly, we can renegotiate our terms. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way home. I’ll see you at the Hellfire caves at nine a.m. sharp on Monday. You have a lot of work to do before the solstice.”

Shock was a knife through my gut. And as his
footsteps trailed away and the front door shut, my world closed in on itself, pieces of shattered memories collapsing under the weight of too many seemingly random paths converging.

My parents worked for Dare. They were Dare’s paid magicians.

They constructed the summoning circles in the Hellfire caves.

That’s why they were in La Sirena.

No such thing as coincidence.

The engine of a car roared to life outside the house, and soon after, Dare was gone.

“He saw something!” my mother said excitedly, her mood jumping from anger to glee. “Did you hear him? The filthy Earthbounds will steal the child because they will see something rare about her. She must have the marker. He saw a nimbus of light around her head.”

I heard a muffled noise. My father was kissing her. Then he gave a little shout and said, “We did it, my love! I knew it was right this time. I felt it.”

“Let us call my guardian to confirm that the halo has appeared,” she said in a controlled voice. “The day I trust demon swine is the day I roll over and die.”

“Cady!”

I blinked, and Lon’s face appeared above mine in full color. No silver light. I shoved him away and flicked a look around the room. I was back in the present. The great room was empty. No playpen. No toddler me. No parents.

“Are we alone?” I asked.

“What the hell just happened?”

“I-I don’t know,” I stammered. “A time warp? Or a memory came to life. I was here in this room twenty-some years ago. I saw my parents, and I saw . . .”

He swiveled me back around to face him. “Saw what? Did we set off a magical trap? I don’t see any Heka or spellwork.”

“Did I transmutate?”

“I suddenly couldn’t hear your thoughts. I turned around, and you were standing there like you were in a trance. Your pupils—”

“What?”

“Your pupils disappeared. Just silver. You wouldn’t wake up.”

“How long was I out?”

“A minute?”

“Holy . . . Lon, I relived something that happened in this room. I walked around and watched myself as a two-year-old girl.” I looked around and pointed to the far corner. “There. I hid behind that chair. I watched the whole thing like it was actually happening. I don’t know if it was induced by some sort of knack. What is it when people can see in the past?”

“What did you see?”

“I saw how my parents found out I had a halo. I always thought it was Scivina who told them—”

“Your mother’s guardian?”

“—but Scivina only confirmed it.” I grabbed the front of his jacket and pulled him close. “The person who first saw it was Dare. My parents were working for Dare.”

Lon paled.

“They built the glass summoning circles in the Hellfire caves. They were doing winter solstice work. My God, Lon. They could’ve done some of the transmutation spells.”

“Not mine. I already told you who did mine, remember? Merrin’s brother.”

That’s right. I knew this. A small relief lifted me; I really didn’t want my parents to have put their evil hands on Lon. “Dare told them not to bring me here anymore, which must’ve been why I started spending
Christmas alone in Florida. They were working for Dare and keeping it secret from the E∴E∴.”

Lon pulled back and paced several feet, swinging the Lupara at his side. “I couldn’t have ever been introduced to them. I would’ve recognized them when the Black Lodge slayings first hit the news. But they were working for Dare, and Jupe told us that Mrs. Vega saw them every winter until they faked their deaths. That means they were working for Dare while I was still active in the Hellfire Club.”

“God, I’m going to be sick.”