Banishing the Dark (Arcadia Bell #4)(8)

“What about the other half of the Body?” I asked. “How did they feel?”

“Honestly? Relieved. We knew too much about his dark side.”

“Then why didn’t you do anything about it?”

“A fair question,” Arturo said thoughtfully. “My husband asked me the same thing many times. I suppose I told myself I was too jaded to care about club politics. When I was your age, it was a little more glamorous. Now I mainly just want to be left alone. And Dare usually complied. As long as I attended most of the meetings and showed my face at the Hellfire caves every now and then, he seemed satisfied. But now that he’s gone, I wonder just how strong his knack really was.”

Dare’s knack was known as Rally: the ability to inspire—or coerce—a group of people.

“Ambrose Dare had us all under his thumb,” Arturo added. “Even those of us who should’ve known better.”

Lon murmured to himself.

I twisted the silver double-serpent bracelet on my wrist, a Christmas present from Lon. Maybe the guy was right. I should have known better myself. I mean, I dutifully did magical work for Dare for weeks before I finally had the sense to give him the middle finger. And look what it got me: a whole month of my life beaten out of me.

“Dare was investigating me,” I told Arturo. “Did you know that?”

“I heard rumors that he seemed . . . preoccupied with you, shall we say?”

“And what exactly was he telling the Body about her?” Lon asked.

Arturo looked at me. “That you’re special. Different. Someone we wanted on our team. He said you might be more useful to the Hellfire Club than a hundred other magicians. But he needed to test you first. He was suspicious of your loyalties.”

“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?”