Banishing the Dark (Arcadia Bell #4)(41)

The bed moved behind me. I rolled over to see Lon’s dark figure slipping under the covers on the other side of the bed. My heart hammered inside my chest.

“Hush,” he murmured, curling up on his side to face me. “Nothing’s happening. Go back to sleep.”

I stretched my arm to the middle of the bed—not to touch him, not really. Just to feel as if we were a little closer. A second later, his hand covered mine. “Good night, Cady.”

I sank back into my pillow, happier than I should be and unexplainably satisfied. It felt nice to be touching. God, he smelled so damn good. And why all of a sudden? He didn’t smell this good yesterday.

Hold on.

After transmutating the first night in Golden Peak, I turned into Superwoman, busting down doors. Last night, I nearly transmutated in the botanical garden, and today my sense of smell was radically stronger. Like, ridiculously strong. I concentrated and tested it. I smelled Lon, yes. The sheets. And the dust in the carpet. The window cleaner. The dirty clothes Lon had bagged up and hung for housekeeping to wash.

The ink in the pen by my bed.

Whoa, Nelly. Definitely not normal.

But why smell? It wasn’t as if I made a conscious decision to wield a scenting ability. I’d deliberately chosen when I’d gone all Moonchild in the past: I chose to save Lon when he was falling off Merrimoth’s roof. I chose to incinerate Dare. This smelling thing just seemed so arbitrary. Maybe it was like when Jupe was coming into his knack, and he had trouble controlling it.

Knack puberty? Ugh.

Getting used to a single knack was one thing, but I damn sure didn’t want a grab-bag surprise ability every time I transmutated.

“What’s wrong?” Lon asked, his hand tightening around mine.

“Did you have trouble controlling your knack when you first underwent the transmutation spell?”

“Not that I remember. It was twenty years ago. Your sense of smell’s still heightened?”

“You have no idea.” I explained my knack puberty theory. “You think that’s what’s going on with me?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s something else. But your spoon-bending strength faded along with your silver eyes, so if this is another knack randomly manifesting, it’ll probably fade, too.”

Let’s hope so. I mean, it wasn’t as if Nose of Bloodhound was some horrible burden or anything. And it wasn’t something that put Lon in direct danger.

Not this time. But what about the next time I transmutated?

Jupe leaped off the city bus and raced down the sidewalk toward the Bull and Scorpion Lodge. It was 6:55—already dark outside—and Leticia had said Sophic Mass started at 7:00 p.m. sharp. He’d barely been able to persuade the Holidays to let him spend the night at Jack’s. But when they’d insisted on driving him to Jack’s house after school, he had to make up an excuse to Mrs. Yamamoto, Jack’s mom, about why he was rushing off. Then the bus took longer, and he was going to die if he went to all this trouble only to miss the damn mass.

And to top it all off, he expected his dad would call any minute. Dad and Cady were in some city named Ontario, which he first thought was in Canada, but apparently, there was another one near L.A.—who knew? They’d be waking up about now and calling to check in and—

Oh, crap! The door was closing. His long legs gobbled up the sidewalk as he called out to the man at the door of lodge. “Wait for me!”

The man didn’t look all that happy when Jupe bounded up the steps, but he let him inside.

“I’m here . . . for mass,” Jupe managed between labored breaths.

“First time?” the man asked as he locked the door behind him.

“Yes.”

Jupe glanced around and found himself in a dim hallway with a lot of doors. One was labeled as the administrative offices, another as the library. It smelled musty here, which wasn’t a surprise, because the décor looked a little Brady Bunch, and there weren’t any windows. Not much of anything, really. Just a bulletin board above a low table that held a candle and some printed programs.

“Sanctuary’s through there,” the man said, pointing to a set of double doors. For someone whose job was to greet people at a public event, that guy could sure use some personality lessons. But Jupe was too nervous to care. Strains of exotic instrumental music and the scent of incense floated from the cracked doors. He slowed his breathing and stepped inside.

If he thought the hallway was dim, the sanctuary was black. White taper candles in metal floor candelabras were the only sources of illumination, flickering across a large room with high ceilings. The room was half full. Fifty or so congregants sat in folding wooden chairs on either side of a wide center aisle that led to an Egyptian-looking raised altar at the front. More candles were there, along with some red velvet pillows. The whole thing was enclosed in a sheer, rounded curtain that hung from a half-moon rod and draped to the floor.

For a moment, every occult horror movie Jupe had ever seen flashed through his brain, and he got a little freaked out. What the hell were they going to do on that red table, anyway? And why was that sword up there? Cady’s parents had tried to sacrifice her—had Leticia lured him here to gut him like a fish and make a stew of his entrails?

And oh, shit! He just noticed: he was the only Earthbound here. No halos. Not a single one. He’d never found himself in this situation back in La Sirena, and he suddenly felt extremely self-conscious. A bead of sweat trickled down the back of his neck.