Binding the Shadows (Arcadia Bell #3)(42)

He shook his head and sighed. I looked across his skinny frame and caught Lon staring at me, concern tightening his brow.

I picked up Jupe’s hand and slid my palm against his, spreading out his fingers to line up with mine. “I just want you to be happy. I think your dad does, too. That’s all.”

“I am. It’s just . . . hard to explain,” he finally finished.

I nodded.

He threaded slender fingers through mine. “You’re staying home tonight, right?”

“Yes.” Oh, yes. I was. If I’d had any doubts about that before Yvonne walked in the restaurant, they were long gone. I might never let Lon out of my sight again.

Lon ran his palm over Jupe’s forehead, pushing back curls. “What do you say we go watch TV in the living room? That crack in your screen is driving me nuts.”

Jupe glanced at the old television set, where Jack the Pumpkin King was announcing his plans to usurp Sandy Claws. “You said that crack added character.”

“I lied.” Lon slapped his son’s leg and stood up. “Come on. If we hurry, we can watch something R-rated before Gramma comes back and stops us.”

“What about Black Christmas?” Jupe said with a big cheesy smile.

“Only if Cady says yes.”

Jupe turned his eager smile on me. Like I was going to say no to anything at this point. “Is this a horror movie?”

“It’s made by the same guy who made A Christmas Story. It’s great!”

Lon crossed his arms over his chest. “And . . .” he prodded.

“And it’s a slasher flick from 1974. Sorority house murders.” He waggled his brows.

“Go find it and meet us in the living room.”

“Woo-hoo!” Jupe sailed off the couch and exited the garage with Foxglove running alongside. For the moment, everything was temporarily patched up in his teenage mind. And I was okay with that. I wished like hell a movie could do the same for me.

“I hate to bring it up, but I still need to call Hajo,” I said to Lon as he helped me off the couch.

“Hajo,” he repeated, as if it were a dirty word. But I could tell by the look on his face that he was a little relieved to change the subject. Maybe he wasn’t in the mood to rehash Yvonne anymore; I damn sure wasn’t. “Go on and get it over with,” he said. “Maybe the boy can actually help us out.”

“He’s my age, you know. Not a boy.”

“Don’t remind me.” He slung his arm around my shoulders. “And if he won’t talk about it on the phone, try to arrange a meeting with him in the afternoon.”

A drug dealer and user, Hajo hated talking about anything remotely illegal on the phone. “Why afternoon?”

“Because Merrimoth’s funeral is tomorrow morning, and I should probably go.”

A cool, dark anger prickled my thoughts. “Why? Have you been talking to Dare?”

“Nope. Not a word,” he said. “I’m only going because it’s the right thing to do. You don’t have to come with me.”

Maybe not right, exactly, but paying respect to someone you knew is normal. But me? Paying respect to someone I had a hand in killing? Not so much. I thought about it as I left a message for Hajo and headed back into the house. Normal or not, I damn sure wasn’t going to let Lon go to the funeral alone. Just because I’d quit working for Dare didn’t mean I had to avoid every demon in the Hellfire Club. Nearly impossible in La Sirena, anyway. And it was part of Lon’s past, whether I liked it or not. Part of mine, too.

And I suppose, after pondering all this, it was only natural that I had nightmares that night.

At first I dreamed I was attending Merrimoth’s funeral, a rainy and gray graveside service in a crumbling cemetery. Most of the attendees had blue and green halos that glowed beneath the cover of their umbrellas. But when I looked around at the gravestones, I noticed sinister occult symbols chiseled into the rain-darkened granite instead of names.

I stepped to the front of the crowd and discovered that it wasn’t a preacher leading the service, but my father, dressed in black ritual robes.

The grave opened at my feet. They weren’t burying a body. They were hoisting up an old casket. And when they pried open the moldering lid, I stared down at my mother’s rotting skeleton.

Her arm moved. One bony finger traced an invisible sigil in the air. I shivered, feeling a current of strong, dark magick undulating in the air between us, and watched as her muscles and organs grew between her bones. Veins and arteries appeared, filling with blood. Her heart pumped. Her skin knit itself together, spreading pale and thin over her Phoenix-like body.

Blank eyes filled the dead sockets inside her skull. They stared up at me, looking like wobbly, slick eggs. And when her mouth opened to speak, I screamed and woke up in a cold sweat.

Most people would agree that funerals aren’t cheery occasions. But when we made it to David Merrimoth’s the next morning, it was the polar opposite of my dream: the atmosphere was more like an awards ceremony than a memorial service.

Cars packed the sunny parking lot of the largest church in La Sirena. Every important Earthbound in a hundred-mile vicinity had shown up, dressed to the nines. I smiled at them; they stared at my silver halo. Did any of these people realize I was the last person to see Merrimoth alive?

“You have nothing to feel guilty about, so cut that out,” Lon said in a low voice.