Banishing the Dark (Arcadia Bell #4)(34)

My pulse pounded. Okay, this was good, something substantial to follow. Worth the whole trip down here. But just when I was about to ask Rooke about the temple’s location, I got a little distracted.

Several yards behind us, Evie sat down on a bench to scribble something on a business card while Lon remained standing. She handed it up to him, then playfully snatched it back when he reached for it. Laughing, she held it out for him again, and when he took it, she slowly ran her fingers over his.

What the hell did she think she was doing?

Any temporary excitement I’d felt over Rooke’s information vanished under the flare of jealousy that twisted my stomach into a knot and made my face overheat. Violent girl-on-girl thoughts filled my head.

Her fingers fell away from his, only to trail down the front of his shirt and rest on the waistband of his jeans, which she gave a gentle tug.

Nuh-uh. No. Hell, no.

I felt the rush of power ripple over my skin but didn’t recognize what was happening. Hot anger mixed with an oblique energy that swirled around me and shot toward Evie like an arrow. Branches swayed. Leaves scattered. I hadn’t moved an inch, but I felt the bark and leaves and flowers as if I were a stormy wind howling down the garden path, as if I were touching them with my own hands.

I felt the cool metal of the trash can as it lifted off the path and slammed against a nearby tree. The dense weight of the cement bench as it rose—

With Evie still on it.

Her mouth fell open. She gripped the molded gargoyle arm of the bench in terror as her legs dangled a foot above the paved path. Two feet. Three. When I blinked, my vision changed; silver light blanketed the gardens. Somewhere in the back of my head, I knew this was bad. It was night, and I wasn’t standing in a protective ward. My mother could—

“Cady!”

My gaze snapped to Lon’s. The commanding intensity there was a bucket of cold water over my wayward power. I gritted my teeth and reeled it back in with a growl. The silver light retreated. Half a second later, the cement bench crashed to the ground. Evie cried out as she bounced off and tumbled to her knees.

I struggled for breath as Lon hesitated, then rushed to help Evie up. She didn’t look all that hurt, more shocked than anything. I was a little shocked, too. What the hell was the matter with me? Rooke had just finished telling me about my evil mother’s crazy outbursts of anger, and here I was, following in her footsteps.

I turned to him with an apology on my tongue and saw the evidence of what I’d just done. Not only was unfiltered awe written all over his face, but the silver light lingering in my eyes was reflected in his glasses, two eerily glowing dots.

“My God,” Rooke murmured.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . .” I started, glancing back at Evie. Lon was pulling her up, making sure she was okay as she brushed dirt off her knees.

“Damn me to hell,” Rooke swore as we hurried toward them. “What in God’s name did Enola do to you?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

He didn’t say anything else until we were a few yards away. “I truly don’t know the exact location of the serpent temple, but Magus Frances said it was in the desert, and your mother would visit it—back and forth in an afternoon—when your parents came to the Pasadena temple, so it can’t be that far from L.A.”

Maybe not, but we couldn’t just roam around Southern California looking for a hidden temple. “You’ve got to know something else. Mr. Rooke, please.”

He clutched his smoking jacket lapels in one hand and shook his head. Then something changed in his face. He halted long enough to tell me one last thing under his breath. “They are snake handlers, like the Pentecostal churches in the South. But they use exotic snakes—big, colorful ones that don’t belong in the desert.”

* * *

Lon didn’t say anything until we were back inside the SUV. While he started the engine, I pulled down the visor mirror to confirm what I already knew: reptilian pupils ringed with silver and a halo so bright it cast metallic light across the dash. I slammed the visor back into place as he pulled out of the garden parking lot, heading back toward the residential neighborhood we’d passed through to get there.

“Call Jupe,” he finally said in a flat voice. “Get him to summon Priya and find out if he noticed that in the Æthyr.”

“I didn’t—My tail.” I didn’t feel it slithering down the leg of my pants in the garden, so that was something. “My horns didn’t . . . did they?”

Lon shook his head and flicked a glance at my halo. “Just that. And your eyes. Cady—”

“I know, I know,” I mumbled. “I lost control. I don’t know what got into me.”

But that wasn’t really true, was it? I did know. I was jealous as hell over a man who wasn’t mine. And that was nearly as terrifying as the Moonchild power, which had flared up as fast as my anger and temporarily overridden my good sense.

I dug out my cell phone and stared at the time on the screen. “It’s past one in the morning,” I told Lon. “Jupe’s asleep.”

Lon opened his mouth to argue but changed his mind.

“We can check in the morning,” I said. “What’s done is done. If my mother detected what just happened, there’s nothing I can do to undo it.”