Banishing the Dark (The Arcadia Bell series) (26 page)

Lon’s phone rang, tearing me out of my brain strain. He slid his fingers over the screen to answer the call. Even with the phone against his ear, I could hear Jupe’s urgent voice. Then Lon said, “Hold on.” He put it on speakerphone and held it between us.

“Cady?”

“I’m here,” I confirmed. “What’s wrong?”

“You guys need to come home,” Jupe’s voice said. “Right
now
.”

Nine hours later, after speeding our way across the state, we sat on the most comfortable sectional sofa known to mankind, in the cleanest-smelling, coziest home in the world. Stack stone and pale wood. Soft rugs. Black-and-white photographs. Large plate-glass windows and sliding doors that looked out onto a covered patio and a redwood deck and the dark Pacific beyond.

If I could, I’d never leave Lon’s house. Ever. In the midst of the shitstorm that was my personal life, his home felt safe and familiar and good—so good it helped dull the shock that trickled through my body like medicine dripping down from an IV.

“Are you sure that’s everything Mrs. Vega knew?” Lon asked. “You positive she had no idea where this winter house was located?”

“I’m sure,” Jupe said from my side, then reluctantly added, “I used my knack on her.”

Lon’s jaw twitched. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

Jupe’s long legs were folded up against his chest. He leaned hard against my shoulder, smelling faintly of coconut oil and chamomile, while Mr. Piggy sniffed his bare toes. I knew he was still worried that he was in trouble for sneaking around; considering Lon’s simmering, barely restrained anger and this latest confession about his knack, I was pretty sure a long grounding was in Jupe’s future.

But I personally wasn’t mad at the kid. Confused by what he’d learned from Mrs. Vega? Oh, yes. Very confused. Which was probably why I couldn’t stop holding his hand. I craved comfort, and he was the only thing between sanity and a whole lot of travel-weary, sloppy-ass tears.

“I made Mrs. Vega not want to tell anyone about our visit and what she told me and Leticia,” Jupe added.

“How did you meet this Leticia?” Lon asked. “She doesn’t go to school out here.”

Jupe’s groan was so low I felt it more than heard it. “She kind of, well, she goes to school in Morella. I sort of, kind of, met her . . . well, it doesn’t matter.”

God, he was the worst liar in the world. I forced myself not to laugh as I tried to put a face to the name. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen Leticia Vega; I’d only ever talked to Grandmaster Vega on a handful of occasions. I never attended the Morella lodge as a member; I only went to them for help when I needed it. “She’s your age?” I asked.

A dreamy sort of daze breezed over Jupe’s features. “Uh-huh.”

Oh, boy. I’d seen that look before, whenever Jupe was in the same room with Kar Yee. “So she’s cute, huh?”

Slow grin.

“And she’s helping you, so she must like you.”

He teased, “I mean, who wouldn’t like all this?”

“I’m not liking you much right now,” Lon complained.

“But—”

“Don’t even bother,” Lon said. “You’ll be telling me whatever it is you’re lying about tomorrow when we sit down with the Holidays and get everything out in the open. Count yourself lucky we’ve got more important concerns at the moment.”

“When you say it like that, I don’t really feel all that lucky,” Jupe mumbled.

Lon snorted. “You and me both, son.”

Foxglove jumped onto the far end of the sofa and sneaked her way over to Lon’s lap, stretching her front paws over his thighs. He mindlessly scratched her behind her ear, let out a slow breath, and slunk lower on the couch, staring at the ceiling.

Damn, he looked exhausted. All that driving today didn’t help. I’d checked his snakebite a couple of times when we stopped for gas or a restroom; it was still tender and a tiny bit swollen, but at least his skin didn’t feel numb anymore.

The way he was sprawled on the couch pulled his shirt tighter across his chest.
I could just make out the bump from the ring hanging around his neck. I hadn’t asked him about it, but God, how I wanted to. I guess he must have heard this in my emotions, because he hassled me the entire ride up here about my memory problems.

But as he told Jupe, we had bigger concerns.

“My parents’ ‘winter home’ has to be the house in the woods,” I said to Lon.

“What house?” Jupe asked.

“None of your business,” Lon said.

“But I helped,” he insisted, his gaze swinging from Lon to me. “I know you’re both mad at me, but I did help. Right?”

Maybe it was the pitiful note in his voice or the earnest squeeze of his fingers around mine, but whatever it was, it turned me into a sucker. I slung my arm around his shoulder. “You helped,” I assured him, pulling him closer.

Lon slanted me a ticked-off look, but he needn’t have bothered. I could feel the agitation rolling off of him in waves. So I was babying Jupe. Big deal. He really did help, even if he had to sneak around to do it. And who could blame him? We—that is, I mean,
Lon
—ran off and left Jupe alone for a week. That was the same shit my parents pulled on me all the time. Especially during—

During the holidays.

Every Christmas. They left me every December and returned a month later in January. And all that time, they were here. Here! How was that even possible?

“Time for bed,” Lon said to Jupe.

“It’s only eleven, and I haven’t seen you both all week.”

Lon pushed off the sofa and headed toward the sliding doors. “Cady and I need to talk.”

“But I helped,” he protested. “I might be able to help some more.”

“Come here for a second.” Lon flipped on the outside lights and stepped onto the patio.

“Crap,” Jupe mumbled.

“Buck up,” I said. “It’ll be okay.”

He gave me a unnervingly grave look. “Will it?”

I stared into his bright green eyes, with all those dark, fanning lashes. His uncertainty and worry were almost palpable—almost something I could hear as clear as his voice—and it had nothing to do with whatever punishment he feared from his dad. He was scared for me.
Me.
And for us, and the future. And I wanted more than anything to assure him that he was worried for no reason, that everything was fine, and nothing ever went so horribly wrong that it couldn’t be fixed. That life was easy, and if you worked hard enough, you’d get everything you wanted. If you did right by others, they’d do right by you. That both humankind and demonkind were intrinsically good, and people you respected didn’t disappoint you, and no one would ever break your heart.

None of that was true.

But unlike him, I was an excellent liar.

“Trust. Me,” I enunciated firmly, pressing my forehead to his. “Everything will be fine.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” I repeated.

“I really do like your eyes all silvery like that.” He’d already told me twice, after freaking out about them when we first pulled up to the house.

“Yeah, well, I’ll like them better if your dad and I can use this new information to stop my mother.”

“Me, too.”

“You did good, kid. Now, go on. Your dad’s waiting.”

He let out a long-suffering breath and eventually broke away to meet Lon on the patio. I watched them through the glass as Lon slid the door shut and talked to him. Lon’s face was intense, but he wasn’t angry. Not in the least. He was talking rapidly, speaking in a voice so low that I couldn’t hear anything through the door. And as he talked, Jupe’s stubborn expression fell away and was replaced by a taut anxiety.

When Lon paused his rapid-fire, one-way conversation, Jupe flicked a look in my direction. Pity? What the hell was Lon telling him?

Feeling like a third wheel, I left them to their father-son conspiracy and brooded my way to the cool oasis of the kitchen. It looked the same as it had when we’d left it, with its white subway tile and Lon’s neatly organized, well-used cooking tools.

I raided the fridge for something to make me feel better and devoured two sweet clementines in a matter of seconds. Thank God for yoga pants; I’d given up on public decency halfway between Twentynine Palms and La Sirena, when I’d forced Lon to pull over
so I could change out of those horrible skinny jeans in a McDonald’s bathroom. And with all my newfound stretchy yoga-pants freedom and my grumpy mental state, I decided I didn’t give a damn and ate two more clementines. Lon walked in and caught me stuffing the last segment into my mouth.

As I tossed the mound of peelings into the garbage, I had the distinct feeling he was concerned. Maybe he’d never seen a grown woman attack a piece of fruit as if it was her last meal. But whatever he was thinking, all he said was, “Jupe took Foxglove upstairs for the night, but maybe we should set up camp in the library, just in case he tries to listen in.”

As I wiped my citrus-sticky hands on a kitchen towel, a bottle of vitamins sitting on the counter caught my eye. The label bore a colorful sketch of a woman whose curvy body was filled with fruit and vegetables, so I assumed they were the ones he’d been foisting on me. Idly, I started to turn the bottle around to see it better, but Lon snatched it out of my hand and shoved it into a kitchen drawer.

“You have the page from Wildeye’s journal?” he asked suddenly.

O-o-o-kay. Why was he so flustered? I mean, he didn’t look it. He looked mildly irritated, staring at me with his perpetually narrowed eyes, but that felt like a false front. As if he knew that
I
knew, he quickly strode off toward the library. “Bring it with you. Let’s look at it again and make sure we’ve covered all our bases. We need to use this time wisely.”

He was probably right about that. I grabbed the journal page out of my purse, then headed past the kitchen into the first floor’s southern hallway. At the end of the corridor, Lon was grumbling at the fingerprint lock as he punched in an override code. “That little bastard’s been trying to get in here.”

I thought about all the dangerous magick Jupe could get his hands on, but Lon confirmed that the break-in attempts weren’t successful. Score one for expensive technology.

Once he got the door unlocked, I shuffled inside, smelling musty old paper and leather. I’d almost forgotten how much I loved the scent of old books. Lon switched on the frosted art deco pendant lights, illuminating the hundreds of rare occult tomes that lined the walls from floor to ceiling. I plopped down on one of two overstuffed armchairs that faced each other in front of an unlit fireplace in the back of the library. Lon took the other seat, eyeing me cautiously.

“What?” I asked, sinking my toes into the soft rug as I slumped in my chair.

“Nothing.”

He seemed anxious, which was completely out of character for him. I studied him as he cracked open his laptop, trying to determine why he was so edgy.

“So,” he said, pausing for a long moment as the computer booted up. “We know your parents stayed in a house here every winter. And we know they shopped for magical supplies at Gifts of the Magi.”

“You knew that shop?”

He nodded. “My parents knew the Pendletons. Not well, just as people around town. The husband died the same year as my father. The wife ran the shop until she passed—four years ago, I think.”

Before I moved to Morella, then. Which explained why I’d never heard of it. “And there were no other occult shops in town?”

Lon shook his head. “That one only survived as long as it did because it was halfway between Morella and La Sirena, which drew business from the city. La Sirena is seventy-five percent Earthbound. Most Earthbounds don’t want anything to do with an occult shop.”

“Makes sense. But it doesn’t help us pinpoint where that winter house might’ve been located.”

“Jupe said all Mrs. Vega knew was that they said it was peaceful, and they wrote there. Your caliph never gave any hint whatsoever when you moved to California that your parents vacationed here?”

“He didn’t know.”

“Are you sure?”

“He wouldn’t have kept that from me. No reason to. Grandmaster Vega didn’t know, either, or she would’ve said something. After everything we’ve seen over the last week, I think it’s pretty obvious my parents spent a lot of time outside the order’s radar.”

He grunted his agreement.

“The house I saw in the servitor’s upload had a lot of antlers tacked up around the front door. My parents were vegans.”

“Vegan serial killers.”

“They ate that way to keep their bodies pure, not out of respect for animals. My mom believed it kept her Heka reserves sharper. But what I’m saying is that they weren’t hunters. Maybe they were renting that house from someone who hunted, or maybe it was a hunting lodge of some sort. Where do people hunt around here?”

“North of my property, away from the coast.”

“Maybe we can start looking there.”

He nodded and began searching on his laptop, seeing what came up in the way of cabin rentals with nearby hunting. “You wanna take a look at the photos on this rental website and see if you recognize anything?”

I got up and sat on the padded arm of Lon’s chair to study the small photos of the rentals he pulled up. He smelled nice. Not as nice as he’d smelled in the hotel a few nights ago—God, how I wished I had access to that scent knack all the time—but pretty damn good for someone who’d spent a good part of the day riding in a car. And for someone who’d just been super-anxious and twitchy, he was awfully relaxed.