Binding the Shadows (Arcadia Bell #3)(10)

Panicked shouts rang around the black room.

“Everyone stay where you are and you won’t get hurt,” a voice said. Reindeer Boy. His halo gave him away. Three red dots switched on around his googles—around his friend’s, too. Night vision goggles.

“You. Bartender.” Something slid across the bar top. I thought it was his backpack, but I wasn’t sure. “Open up the register and put everything inside that.”

A fierce rage caught fire inside my chest.

“They covered up the binding traps with the paint!” Kar Yee shouted.

Bold. And stupid. I didn’t need the damn binding traps anymore. Without electricity, they were no good to me anyway. I could just summon up the Moonchild power. But then I thought of my mom’s appearance at Merrimoth’s beach house . . . and hesitated. Only for a moment, but it must’ve been too long for Kar Yee, who didn’t know about my extracurricular talents. In her mind, my caduceus staff was across the room, and the binding triangles were compromised with paint.

A horrible, throat-closing fear hit my body, vibrating me like a struck gong. I heard myself whimper. Heard screams of the bar patrons bouncing off the carved tiki masks and kitschy tropical decor. But it wasn’t until I’d ducked behind the bar, retracting as if I were a frightened turtle, that I remembered the intensely piquant feeling of Kar Yee’s knack.

Kar Yee had the ability to cause everyone within a few yards to quake in their shoes: her knack was known simply as fear. Problem was, she had no control over it. All or nothing. She couldn’t direct it to a specific person.

I knew this. Knew exactly what was happening to me.

But I still couldn’t move.

Gods above, I’d never been so frightened. Terror clouded my thoughts and hijacked my body. My heart stuttered inside my chest and goose bumps spread over my arms. My gaze jumped around the darkened bar, searching.

A metallic rattling drew my attention to the low counter lining the back wall of the bar. The register shook like an airplane taking off from a runway. It rose into the air. The attached monitor slipped, then crashed onto the floor near my feet, cords dangling. I lurched sideways as the black, boxy metal till sailed through the air.

That piece of shit Reindeer.

I couldn’t see him, but I heard a crash and his pained grunt.

“Come on, come on!” The elfy one said, his voice squeaking with fear.

More grunting. Rubber-soled sneakers slapped against the floorboards, as coins jingled inside the till like sleigh bells. They were robbing us, and I was cowering behind the bar like a small child.

“Stop!” Kar Yee commanded, forceful as an army sergeant. On the heels of that shout came a sharp sound. The floor shook with the thump of flesh, crack of bone—too similar to the sound of Merrimoth being impaled. Kar Yee screamed and a wrenching, pained sound that stabbed through my heart. The fog of fear lifted immediately.

I leapt to my feet and zoomed around the bar. When I turned the corner, my feet slid in thick paint. I flew sideways, grabbing the corner of the bar top just in time to stop myself from landing on my ass.

The thieves were silhouetted inside the open door, red lights from their goggles making them look like dark aliens. “You’re both f*cking dead!” I shouted in their direction.

I reached out for the Moonchild magick. Saw the Tambuku door slam shut as my already-dim surroundings blackened to nothingness. The pinpoint of blue light glowed. With my mind, I began shaping it into a standard binding triangle bordered with sigils, but instead of the numbing silence that usually accompanied the moon magick, I heard . . . voices? Whispering voices. The blue light began fading. I blocked out the whispers and concentrating on the binding—

Until something slithered down my left leg of my jeans.

The moon magick snapped away like a broken rubber band.

Alarmed and shocked, I reached for my pant leg. Nothing. The sensation disappeared. The whispers were gone. A strange dizziness stole over me. I didn’t get dizzy from using the Moonchild power. That only happened when I kindled Heka with electricity. What the hell was going on with me?

My mind jumped to my mother’s image. Christ, at least I hadn’t seen her again.

A horrific sob rent the air. My heart twisted. I’d never heard that sound, not in all the years I’d known Kar Yee.

I scrambled toward the sound, slipping in slick paint.

My foot kicked something. I dropped to my knees and crawled on all fours on the paint-coated floor. A noxious scent of latex filled my nostrils. “Kar Yee!” I reached out a sticky hand and touched her—where, exactly, I couldn’t tell. It was too dark. But I felt the puffy gold lamé of her jacket.

She whimpered and said something in Cantonese. Her voice was small and fragile.

“Where are you hurt?”

“I slipped. I’m broken up here.”

Broken. I slid a hand up her coat, searching. She lay on her back—I could tell that much from the feel of the coat’s zipper and the direction of her voice. My fingers touched warm skin. Her neck? She cried out. I snatched my hand away.

“Broken where?” I asked. “Your shoulders? Arms? Ribs?”

“My collarbones,” she said between sobs. “Can’t move!”

“Don’t try. Be still. Stay calm.” The last instruction was for myself as much as her.

“Cady!”