Jenn Bennett - Banishing the Dark

“Are you?” I asked.

“I’m suspicious of the manner in which Dare perished. But that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m going to call for a witch hunt. For the first time in years, I can go to sleep knowing I won’t get a phone call at three a.m. telling me to drive out to some back alley and rifle through a guy’s memories—only so Dare can put a bullet in his head the second I drive away.”

“Dare was using a private investigator to dig up things about my past,” I said. “I need to find out who that investigator was.”

Arturo held my gaze for a long moment. “Why would I know that?”

“Because people trust you,” Lon said.

Arturo shrugged, not denying it. “They know if I really wanted to see what’s on their minds, I can brush their fingertips.” He gave me a pointed look. “Having a gift is all well and good until people decide they want what you’ve got.”

No truer words . . .

But I wasn’t afraid of the Hellfire Club. Not anymore. Arturo said the Hellfire Club wanted to see a show of strength, or they wouldn’t follow him. Maybe he’d be more inclined to give me what I wanted if he had a clearer picture of who I really was.

“I killed Dare.”

The confession hung in the air like a plastic bag caught in dead branches.

“If it matters, it was self-defense,” I added.

“Your ‘attack,’ ” Arturo said softly.

“He had a gun and three men, and he was trying to teach me how much power he had. He might’ve temporarily broken my body, but I turned them all into ash, just like that.” I snapped my fingers.

Arturo flinched and mumbled something I couldn’t hear.

“I have no beef with the Hellfire Club,” I told him. “Frankly, I just want to be left alone, too. But if I can find out who Dare was using to investigate me, that would make me extraordinarily happy. Please.”

Arturo said nothing for a moment. Then he crossed his legs and exhaled. “I saw a memory when I bumped into Dare at a holiday party. He’d been telling someone that he’d just flown back from L.A. And when I touched him, he was remembering sitting outside by a pool talking to an Earthbound named Wildeye. Don’t know his first name. All I can tell you is that he looked to be in his thirties or forties and had an aquamarine halo. He was giving Dare a packet of papers that had ‘Duval/Bell’ scribbled on the outside.”

Outside the wine bar, Lon and I thanked Arturo and watched him drive away in an expensive sports car.

“He wasn’t lying,” Lon said before I had a chance to ask. “And we can trust him.”

“I figured you would’ve stopped me if we couldn’t. I guess now we’ll need to hunt down a PI named Wildeye in L.A.”

Lon tapped the back tire of his SUV with the toe of his boot while digging his silver valrivia cigarette case out of his jacket pocket. “We need to be careful. Don’t know if this PI is loyal to Dare. We can fly down there tonight if you want. Better to talk to him in person so I can hear his emotions when we question him.”

“What about Jupe?”

“He’ll be fine with the Holidays. With any luck, we can take care of this in a matter of hours, then turn around and come back home. You feeling all right?”

I nodded. “Can I have one of those?”

He looked appalled that I’d even ask. “Absolutely not.” He snapped his valrivia case shut. “Neither one of us needs it.”

I frowned. “Meany.”

He grunted, pocketing the case. “You still want to drive into the city?”

I’d asked him to drive me to Tambuku so I could see Kar Yee. She didn’t know. Lon had called her the day before to tell her I was home but requested she hold off visiting until I was better recovered. “If we’re flying out tonight, maybe we should stop by on our way to the airport. Would save us—”

A very distinct familiar feeling stole my attention.

“Cady?” Lon said.

But someone else was talking inside my head. May I show myself?

I glanced up and down the alley. No cars. No people. The whole area was fairly dead, and it was dark. “Yes,” I told him. “Come, Priya.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Lon mumbled as a ball of white light shimmered in midair. The light flickered violently, and a gray-skinned boy with black wings exploded into view.

We backed up in tandem to give him room to land. A smoky black halo trailed over his haystack black hair as his bare feet touched the pavement. His face lit up when he saw me. “Mistress!” he called out, snapping his wings shut behind his back. “I am so relieved to see you!”

“You, too, Priya.” And I was. Despite his physical and personality changes, he was still the same spirit who had watched my back since I was a teenager.

He grinned with a mouthful of pointy silver teeth and started to reach for me until he spotted Lon and drew back. “Kerub,” he said in greeting, inclining his head politely, if not begrudgingly, before speaking to me again. “The demon boy has told me of your progress. You look well.”

“Getting there. Has Jupe been summoning you a lot?”

His eyes narrowed before darting toward Lon. Yeah. He still didn’t like Lon. And whatever he’d wanted to say, he’d definitely thought better of it. Instead, he made a funny sort of shrug as he gestured awkwardly. “We have been getting to know each other.”

Yeah, I’ll bet. I was going to have to have a talk with Jupe about using Priya like his own personal chat buddy. “Why are you here?”

“I have urgent news about your mother.”

“Let’s have it.”

“She has killed the demon Lord Chora and fled his fortress with a group of slaves.”

“Dear God.” Lord Chora, grand duke and commander of two legions of Æthyric warriors. That demon had torn down my house wards, flown away with Jupe, and nearly killed Lon. He was highly skilled with Æthyric magick—not a demon to screw around with. But my mother had killed him? “I thought he was helping her. Jupe said—”

“He was,” Priya insisted. “I do not know what went wrong, nor do I know whether she’s discovered the magick she needs to cross the planes. But you should assume the worst and be on guard. She could take possession of your body at any time.”

“Like right now?” I said, glancing up at the night sky as if she might tumble down.

“Today. Tomorrow. A few days. I do not know. But the sooner you can reverse the Moonchild spell and sever the bond with her, the better. Perhaps it’s best you seek the protection of your order until you do that.”

I shook my head. It was natural for Priya to assume that a group of magicians could protect me; Hermeneus spirits and magicians had been allies, if you could call it that, for centuries. In Priya’s mind, magick was power—and that was true. But magick wasn’t infallible, and I couldn’t sit around twiddling my thumbs while my order kept me from the inevitable.

“I’m not going to Florida right now,” I told Priya. “Lon and I just uncovered a trail we need to follow. Someone who might have information about my past.”

“We don’t even know if it’s safe in Florida, now that the caliph is dead,” Lon added.

Priya’s brow furrowed. “You should not gamble with her life, Kerub. Your associations got her injured. Put your faith in her own people now.”

Oh, boy. I didn’t have to look at Lon to know that the horns were coming out. I could feel the transmutation in my bones like an esoteric platoon of soldiers marching to war. But when I lifted my hand to hold Lon back, something caught my eye: threads of pale light.

I’d seen threads emerging from my hand before but not quite like this. And when Priya leaned closer to have a look himself, the gossamer strings brightened like fluorescence exposed by ultraviolet light. Priya’s Æthyric halo was making them visible.