Kindling the Moon (Arcadia Bell #1)(43)

From Lon, 10:12 PM: IS J BEHAVING?

ALL IS WELL. HOWS YR DATE?

From Lon, 10:14 PM: GONE. NOT A DATE.

BOOTY CALL. WHATEV.

From Lon, 10:14 PM: SHES A COWORKER, NOT A HO.

I snorted a soft laugh after that one. Jupe tried to see what I was typing, but I held the phone out of his reach and thrust the rest of the box of Raisinets in his hand. Eat up, my soon-to-be-diabetic friend.

HO OR NO, NONE OF MY BEESWAX.

From Lon, 10:15 PM: REALLY NOT A DATE. SERIOUSLY.

NEITHER IS MINE. GUESS WE’RE EVEN.

I didn’t get a response to that, but at least my jealousy had calmed. He may not have been attracted to me, but at least he cared what I thought about his extracurricular activities. I interpreted that to mean that he had a certain amount of respect for me. Even so, I figured that I better reel in my feelings—and fast—or I was just going to get hurt, and I didn’t have time for that.

A few minutes later, during the climax of the movie, a small flaw appeared on the film, obscuring the face of the creature. “Crap!” Jupe said. “This blows. How did a pink spot get on a black-and-white print? This is the best part of the whole stupid—”

We both yelped. The film wasn’t pink; the air in front of the car was. Jupe scooted backward into the SUV, kicking the empty popcorn tub onto the pavement. “Holy shit!” he whispered in fright, just as I realized what it was.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said, putting my hand on his feet. “It’s okay, buddy. It’s nothing bad. Just my servitor.”

He looked at me with crazy eyes. “Your what-a-tor?”

“My servitor.” I quickly dug around my coat pocket and retrieved the clay doll that anchored the spell. “It’s not an imp or anything.” I held the doll in my open palm and we watched as the tiny pink figure bobbed and floated through the air, then slowly filtered into the doll while the spell was absorbed back into its anchor; within seconds it had completely disappeared.

“What’s a servitor? Is it a fairy?” Jupe looked from me to the doll in amazement.

“There are no such things as fairies. I created it, with Heka.”

“Does it have a name?”

“No.”

“But it’s good, not bad?”

“It’s not good or bad. It’s just an energy spell. I need to do another spell to retrieve some information from it. You wanna scoot up to the bumper and watch the rest of the movie? I’ll just do the spell inside the car so no one can see me.”

“No way, I’ve seen this movie a thousand times. Will the pink fairy thing come back out when you do your spell? I want to watch. Can I? Please?”

“I thought you said you’d ‘die’ if you couldn’t see this movie.”

He gave me a sheepish grin.

“Are you even allowed to see magick without your dad’s permission? Or am I going to get in trouble for that too?”

“I don’t think there’s a rule about that,” he said, cutting his eyes to the side. What a punk.

I debated for a second, wondering if I should let him watch or not. My deflector charm was still around my neck; the wards on the rental car were intact. It wasn’t a dangerous spell. I reached down to grab the popcorn bucket off the ground and shut the back door.

“There’s not much to see,” I said. “It just dumps images into my mind. You can watch, though, if you stay quiet. Reach over the front seat and grab my purse, will ya? Turn the radio down while you’re at it.”

For on-the-go magick, I always carry a small notebook to jot written spell components. I also used to carry a sigil cheat-sheet until I forgot my purse in a restaurant a few years ago; I got the purse returned to me intact, but it made me realize that if it had fallen into the wrong hands, it might cause all sorts of problems.

Scribbling a squared circle on a sheet of notebook paper, I began to draw the symbols inside it that would trigger the information upload from my servitor. Jupe questioned my every stroke, and I explained as best I could until I lost my patience. “Zip it, kid, or I’m going to put you outside.”

“Zipped! Keep going, I’ll be quiet—I swear!”

I had a sneaking feeling it wasn’t the first time he’d been told to shut up.

When I finished my drawing, I warned him one last time to be quiet—no matter what—and made him watch from the front seat. With intent, I spit on the sigil, charging it as Jupe whispered, “Gross.” The retrieval spell was now ready to be used, so I loosely grasped the head of the clay doll and smashed it against the charged paper sigil. It cracked in several pieces, releasing both the servitor’s energy and the information it had collected.

The images it showed me weren’t happening in real time, but they were most likely gathered within the last few minutes; once the servitor located its objective, it returned pretty fast. They rushed into my head and began flipping slideshow-style. A bedroom—no, hotel room. A girl sat on the bed. Riley Cooper, I presumed. Early twenties? Long black hair, dark eyes. Petite.

She was dressed like she was headed to fetish night at some goth club: skintight black leather pants, purple vinyl top that was cut low to show off cleavage and high to show midriff. That, and the sides of a really bad tramp-stamp tattoo with batwings and paw prints that circled around from her lower back to her sides. Leather boots laced up the front with ridiculous heels, big silver hoop earrings. Lots of dark makeup and matching black nail polish. A pair of handcuffs sat on the bed beside her, along with a handgun and a large grimoire.