Jenn Bennett - Banishing the Dark

“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 head 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.