Kindling the Moon (Arcadia Bell #1)(40)

I held the phone away from my ear and looked at it momentarily before speaking. Oh, too young for him, was I? “Lon Butler, are you trying to find out if I’m dating someone?”

Amanda leaned over the bar to grab napkins and gawked at me. “You’re talking to Lon Butler on the phone?” she whispered excitedly. I made a face at her and put my finger up to my mouth to get her to shut up.

“No, I was just saying—” Lon began. Low grunt, long sigh. “Don’t feel obligated to entertain Jupe.”

Wide-eyed, Amanda giddily puckered up her mouth before I pushed her away from the bar. Great. Now I was going to have to concoct some lie about why I was talking to him.

“Well, it’s not a big deal,” I told Lon. “I like Jupe and I’m happy to get him out of the house and give you some quiet time. Besides, if I had ‘bigger boys’ lined up right now … well, more interesting ones than the two losers who’ve asked me out tonight already—”

One of said losers, Tambuku’s favorite Earthbound healer, Bob, looked up from his drink with a wounded look. Oh, brother … “Sorry, Bob. You know I didn’t mean that,” I whispered before turning away to finish with Lon.

“Anyway, I probably wouldn’t be settling for movie-night with a teenage boy if I did.”

He paused, then replied, “It’s your funeral.”

“All right, well, I’ll pick him up at nine tomorrow. I take it you haven’t found anything today, research-wise?”

“No.”

I sighed. “Well, I gotta get back to work.”

“See you tomorrow,” he replied. “I’ll make sure he’s ready on time.”

“Sounds good, have a go—” But the line went dead before I could finish. “So rude,” I mumbled to myself. Maybe dating the younger Butler was preferable after all. He didn’t grunt.

14

The next day, I stopped by Father Carrow’s on my way to work. He was in his front yard watering plants. He glanced up to watch me step out of the car and smiled as I approached.

“Good afternoon, Father.”

“Cadybell, what a nice surprise. On your way to work?” He rested the garden hose trigger on the porch steps and took a red bandana out his back pocket to wipe his brow. He was wearing a large floppy straw hat and dark blue pants.

“Yep. Watering your special shrub? What’s it called? Yesterday …”

“Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. See, it still has all three flower colors on the side. The dark purple are the youngest, lilac middle-aged, and white are the oldest.”

I leaned forward to breathe it in. The shrub stood the same height as me. “It smells so good. I can’t believe it’s still blooming.”

“Lots of fertilizer and love, my dear. How’s it going with Lon?” If I didn’t know better, I would’ve said there was a little mischievous sparkle in his eye when he asked. I ignored it and answered casually, “Not bad. I was going to give you the latest update on the demon.”

“Has he found it already? I told you he was good.”

“He’s been working tirelessly, but no luck yet.”

Father Carrow picked up his hose and continued spraying around the base of the flower bed. “Oh, I’m sorry. What’s the update?”

“Well, I found out that the description of the talons was wrong. Remember how I told you that it had two sets of arms?”

“Yes, and long talons on all of them.”

“Turns out the talons might be glass.”

“Glass?” He raised his floppy hat and scrunched up his face at me.

“Or a glasslike substance.”

“That’s a new one for me, dear. I’ve never come across anything like that before in my studies.”

Rats. He finished working on the flowering shrub, then moved up a couple of steps to water three hanging baskets on his porch. They were in a precarious position, and he was having trouble reaching them. “Here, let me do it,” I offered, setting my purse down. He relented and perched on the steps while I watered. I began telling him how one of the talons might be missing.

“Extracted like a tooth, supposedly. What Lon and I have been puzzling over is why. I mean, if the demon was just injured, then the talon would be broken, right? It seems like if someone or something pulled it out from the root, then they might have wanted it for some reason.”

What I refrained from saying was that Lon and I really couldn’t figure out why someone would remove the talon and use it to kill when they could just command the demon to kill for them. The good Father hadn’t yet asked exactly why I needed to find the albino demon, so it was probably best that I omit any gory details regarding murder.

He thought about my question while he removed his hat and fanned it to cool his face. “I’ve never heard of a demon talon being a sought-after object. Still, it does remind me of the old fairy tales in children’s books. Have you ever heard of Struwwelpeter? It’s a famous German children’s book.”

“No. What’s it about?”

“It’s a group of nasty stories with descriptive pictures meant to frighten children into behaving. Kids who play with matches burn and die, kids who suck their thumbs get them cut off by a wicked tailor.”

“Yikes.”