Banishing the Dark (Arcadia Bell #4)(86)

A dark male figure blocked the light from the fire pit, sparks glittering around his shoulder-length hair as he stoked the wood. When he was finally satisfied, he plopped down next to me and slung an arm around my shoulders. “Peace and f*cking quiet,” he said. “No more birthdays. Ever.”

I sniffed the wood smoke clinging to his shirt. “Next time, don’t say ‘Daddy is going to throw you a big party’ and expect her to forget it.”

“Mmm.”

I poked his side, smiling when he flinched and made his I’m-too-manly-to-be-ticklish noise. “By the way, thanks for telling me you invited Ben Waters. He had his hand halfway up Mrs. Dutton’s skirt every time his wife turned her back. That man is not family-friendly.”

“You’d think he would be. He’s fathered enough bastards around town to start his own baseball team. Anyway, it was a goodwill gesture and a reward for not breaking our truce.”

Truce. I guessed that’s what it was. Although Lon was officially not active in the Hellfire Club, he turned out to be the only remaining member trusted with the club’s bank account. And that included Dare’s son, Mark. Dare’s wife had long ago moved to Europe, but Mark and his family ended up staying to run Dare Enterprises. Now, make no mistake, I still hated Mark Dare. But as long as he stayed away from my family, I tried not to hold his father’s sins against him. Mark might be an ass, but at least he wasn’t an evil overlord. And if he ever knew what his father did to me, I had a feeling he’d be pretty sick about it.

So Mark got to play leader of the club, Ben Waters was his second in command, and Lon controlled the money behind the scenes. Which meant no more Hellfire-bought drugs at the monthly parties, no more demon fight club, no more Incubus and Succubus sex circles in the Hellfire caves. That didn’t mean the parties were G-rated. I had no doubt plenty of the members were still banging each other’s brains out in the back caves and snorting every drug they could pass around.

“I’m just saying, if his wife comes into my shop asking for something to cure her husband’s roaming eye, I’m telling her to toss his ass out and get a divorce. Maybe give her something to rot off his boy parts.”

A slow smile spread over Lon’s face. “God, this town doesn’t know what it’s in for.”

No, it totally did, which was why Kar Yee had to send me the guy who helped her fix legal stuff at Tambuku. Someone at City Hall had messed with my license paperwork, and when I found out who was behind it, they were in for a world of hurt.

A screech shot across the yard, immediately followed by maniacal, tinkling laughter and excited barking. Two halos raced across the lawn under the carnival lights. One spring-green, the other silver and gold.

“Oh, really,” Jupe called over his shoulder. “That’s how it’s going to be? After I helped you smash that piñata and all that candy I picked out of the grass for you?”

More laughter and some serious huffing and puffing.

“Jesus, she’s going to have a heart attack,” I mumbled, feeling mildly panicked myself.

“She’s fine,” Lon assured me. “Let her run off all that sugar.”

Jupe stopped several yards away and turned around. “Come on and get me, Tabby-cat. That cape of yours is slowing you down.”

And God, it really was. Kar Yee would faint if she saw her gift, a sparkly robe, tied around my kid’s neck by the sleeves. It looked like it was practically choking her, but she didn’t seem to care. Orange dress, paper pirate hat, sparkly pink cape waving like a flag as she bobbed toward Jupe like some crazed fruit bowl.

Jupe lunged to one side and skidded in the grass, and that’s when she tagged him on the leg.

“Ow! Shit, Tabby, that hurts!”

“Shit!” she cried out triumphantly. “Shitshitshit!”

Great. Now she’d be busting that out at the grocery store.

Jupe rubbed his leg. “You shock me again, and—”

She got him in the arm.

“Goddammit!”

More batshit laughter followed.

“Hey, no shocking. Stop egging her on, Jupe!” I called out as he sidled around her as if they were opponents on a soccer field. He jumped back one more time, moving too fast for her to follow. And in her sugar-hyper, overexcited, past-her-bedtime state, she miscalculated and tripped over her own feet. The fruit bowl went down, face-planting in the grass.

The piercing cry that followed knifed right through my heart.

Lon’s hold around my shoulders tightened before I could scramble off the lounge and run to her. “She’s okay.”

And although that was probably true, it didn’t stop that heart-squeezing wail from jumbling all my insides. Nor did it stop my eyes from transmutating from human to serpentine. I focused on her with moon-powered nocturnal vision that gave me a sharper, silver-tinged view of her body.

Jupe bent over her and hauled her into his arms. “All right, I’m sorry. Enough playing.” He walked her over to us and peeled her arms from around his neck. Lon was closer, so he got the pass. She fell on him in a fit of quivering, jerking sobs.

“Da-a-a-ddy,” she cried. “Jupe hurt me.”

Jupe’s mouth fell open in mock offense. “I didn’t even touch you.”

“Shhh,” Lon said, rubbing her back as she clung to him. “You’re going to live.”