Binding the Shadows (Arcadia Bell #3)(12)

Bob lived in his parents’ old house in one of the nicer neighborhoods of Morella. At one time, it was probably a grand, lovely house, but Bob’s inheritance was dwindling, and home-maintenance was not his top priority. I’m sure all his über-successful doctor and lawyer neighbors loved the fact that his gutters were overflowing and his lawn was overgrown, but they were probably all jerks anyway, so I told him he shouldn’t care.

Ever since the night he’d saved Lon’s life, he’d been going to an alcoholic support group twice a week. I tried to tag along with him every other meeting. I couldn’t be his sponsor, as I’d never had a substance abuse problem, but I figured since I was the one who’d served most of his drinks over the last couple of years, I could take the time to help him stop. He still came to Tambuku every night—which was totally against the support group’s rules—but I made him virgin drinks. And, with his permission, I’d been adding a small dosage of a medicinal tonic I’d brewed up with milk thistle and kudzu root, which was purported to cleanse the liver and reduce his cravings for alcohol. He said it helped; he’d been sober for five weeks now.

I knocked on the front door and opened it. “Hey, it’s me.”

“Back here,” Bob called out.

His house was messy and always smelled like a combination of spoiled picnic basket and elderly shut-in. I suspected he had something dead inside one of the walls—a rat, bat, or cat—and told him to call an exterminator, but he said I was imagining it. (I wasn’t.)

A long hallway led past the living room to his deceased father’s home office. A desk sat in front of a wall of anatomy books and medical periodicals, and at the far end of the room was an examination table, a glass cabinet filled with half-empty pharmaceutical drug bottles, and some random medical equipment, including a portable x-ray machine. Bob stood in front of a computer screen. Kar Yee reclined on the examination table, which had been adjusted so that she was almost sitting.

Dried red paint clung to her hair, hands, jeans. It was spattered over her gold coat, which was draped over a nearby chair. She stared straight ahead, unmoving, her arms flopping at her sides. She looked awful. I swallowed hard and tamped down worry.

“Hey,” I said, padding across the room to stand next to her.

“I’m never going to the emergency room again,” Kar Yee answered, her voice weary and cracking. “They are all *s. ‘Put some ice on it,’ that’s what they told me. And the ambulance ride was worse than Bob’s car. A waste of insurance money.”

“They were understaffed,” Bob said, his focus remaining on the computer screen. “But it’s fine. I’ve already x-rayed her. Pulling the image up now.”

“I probably have radiation poisoning,” Kar Yee said, blinking lazily.

I forced a smile. “You sound like Amanda. Before you know it, you’ll be drinking green protein smoothies and riding a bike to work.”

“Bikes are for schoolchildren and poor people,” she said tartly. “I will saw off my legs before these feet touch pedals.” Her sarcastic snobbery lifted a small weight from my chest. I’d take that over tears any day. “So, did you bring it?” she asked.

I tugged a brown vial out of my jean pocket—a magical medicinal, fairly strong if unpredictable. “What did they give you at the ER?”

“Something that should wear off in about an hour,” Bob said. “Let’s wait, to play it safe. If she overdoses right now, she’ll have to spend all night in the waiting room before they can pump her stomach.”

“I’ll take the risk,” Kar Yee said. “Dope me up, Cadybell.”

She never called me that. No way was I giving her the medicinal now. I leaned against the examination table and ran my fingers over the long lock of hair at the front of her bob, now tipped in red. “I think you can use WD-40 to get latex paint out of your hair.”

Her gaze tilted up to mine. “Really?”

Pity and guilt knotted my stomach. “I’m sorry I didn’t get them,” I said. “Your knack caught me off-guard, and when you fell . . .”

“They’d destroyed your binding triangles,” she said.

“I know, but I’ve been experimenting with a different kind of magick. Something that doesn’t require—” I hesitated, wanting to tell her more than I should in front of Bob. “It doesn’t matter,” I finally said. “I should’ve been able to stop them. I’m sorry I didn’t. And I’m sorry you got hurt.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Bob said. “It’s like I told you on the phone—these robberies are happening everywhere. I’ve never known an Earthbound who could short out electricity like that. I thought that was something only you could do, Cady.”

“Me too,” I admitted.

“You think it could be magick?” Kar Yee said. “A talisman?”

I brushed a paint-tipped lock of hair off her cheek. “Something that boosts the potency of the wearer’s knack?”

“Is that possible?”

Not that I knew. I mean, there was the Hellfire Club’s transmutation magick. But even if it wasn’t a closely guarded secret only doled out to select members, even if it didn’t bring out the horns and the fiery halos, that kind of magick—a permanent spell cast on a person’s body—couldn’t be replicated in a temporary sigil worn around someone’s neck.