Kindling the Moon (Arcadia Bell #1)(34)

“But there was one thing we remembered years later.”

“I thought you said the hoodoo priestess uncrossed you and that your memories came back ‘sharp as a tack.’ ”

Mr. Tamlin gave me a sheepish look. “Well, almost all of them. A few things didn’t come back for years … one being the demon’s talons. I’d never seen anything like them in my life.”

“Frank’s right,” his wife agreed. “The beast had four arms—two long ones below, and a short set of arms above those. The short ones on top had a single talon on the right arm, but the left arm was missing its mate.”

“Really? That’s interesting.” That sure wasn’t part of the caliph’s description.

“Isn’t it? There was a hole in its stumpy hand where a talon once was. It had been extracted like a tooth. But that’s not all—the remaining talon on the other arm was about the size of a banana, made of crystal,” Mrs. Tamlin.

“Crystal?” I replied incredulously.

“That’s right, crystal. Or maybe glass. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

“No, I haven’t,” I admitted.

“I think it might have been made of diamond,” Mr. Tamlin amended. “Either way, it was clear and shined like glass in the candlelight before the demon disappeared.”

Then a sudden realization hit me; my heart rate instantly doubled.

One of the unusual aspects of the Black Lodge slayings was the murder weapon: a glass knife. Along with two other pieces of testimonial evidence, the glass knife was the foundation of the police case and led to the warrant being issued for my parents’ arrest. Along with my parents’ fingerprints— which were planted by Luxe—was another unidentified print. Maybe that print belonged to the real killer, maybe even the Tamlins’ robed mystery man?

“Are you saying that the glass knife mentioned in the case file was really a glass talon?”

“Yes,” they confirmed in unison.

Okay, this was crazy, if it was true, but there were still too many strange things that didn’t fit. “If your Code of Silence prevented you from going to the police about the Portland murder, then why did you break it for the talk show?” I asked.

Mr. Tamlin snorted in disgust. “After the Duvals were accused, we were shocked. We’d managed to clear most of the confusion spell by this point, you see, enough to know they weren’t guilty. Like we said earlier, we talked to the Luxe leader and told him what we’d remembered. He advised us to keep quiet and promised to look into it. Then he was attacked and our temple went into lockdown. No classes, no services, and we weren’t allowed communication with any of the upper officers. Then the media went crazy.”

“Since our own leader wasn’t talking to us,” Mrs. Tamlin explained, “we tried to contact the E∴E∴ on our own, to help clear their names, but we could never get past their Bodymaster. She thought we were some sort of spies for Luxe. Then the Duvals died in that accident. Our son suggested we tell our story on the talk show, but that didn’t work out very well either, as you know.”

“We tried,” Mr. Tamlin said with a sigh, “but no one wanted to hear the truth. The Black Lodge slayings were committed by a demon. And I’d swear on the sacred name of Hecate herself that the person who summoned it was the robed man who ran out the door of Magus Dempsey’s house that day.”

Hecate herself, huh? I still wasn’t completely convinced that their memories were a hundred percent correct. But it was clear that, wacko or not, they certainly believed what they were saying. And if this mysterious robed man who fled the scene really was the person who summoned the albino demon, how was I going to find out who the hell he was?

Then we had the enigmatic glass talon. Let’s just say the Tamlins were telling the truth, and this really was the murder weapon. And maybe my parents had been crossed by the same confusion spell and never remembered the third murder. They were still present during the fourth attempt and saw the albino demon there; surely they noticed something as strange as talons made of glass. So why hadn’t the caliph mentioned it in his description?

12

I returned from San Francisco to find my driveway occupied by a large, backed-in truck. I parked the rental behind it, my rear bumper nearly sticking out into the street. A dense row of cedar trees created a natural screen along the front of my yard, ending at the driveway, so prying eyes couldn’t see the front of my house. Most times, that was exactly what I wanted; it gave me privacy, and privacy was the only reason I owned a home instead of rented an apartment. That day, however, it was a nuisance.

I pushed up my sleeve to activate a sigil that rendered me nearly invisible. Not literally. It just encouraged people to disregard my presence by tricking their senses. Like the other sigils on my arm, this magick is temporary. It also requires a lot more Heka than some of others; keeping it charged was physically draining, so I’d have to make it quick.

My servitor hadn’t returned to me yet, so I hoped to God Riley Cooper hadn’t already found me. Just in case, I prepared myself by retrieving a small ceremonial dagger from my purse. It wasn’t all that sharp, but it was better than nothing.

I peeked inside the cab of the unknown vehicle. Nothing. Then I stood on my tiptoes and surveyed the bed of the truck. The tailgate was down. There were several enormous bags of pebbles and some other red landscaping material. I certainly hadn’t scheduled any kind of professional yard work; my idea of lawn maintenance was paying the twelve-year-old kid down the street twenty bucks once a month to mow.