Kindling the Moon (Arcadia Bell #1)(56)

“N-no. It was some weird language.”

“Where is she now?” Lon asked.

“I don’t know. Patrolling or something. She said she’d be right back. Dad, I can’t breathe in here much longer.”

I looked down at the wide crack below the door. He had plenty of air. Lon noticed the same thing. “He’s claustrophobic,” he muttered.

I nodded, then began trying to work out a solution. “I’ve never read about any kind of ward that would kill a body that crossed it. Especially not one that was put up fast like this. No blood or anything.”

“Me either,” Lon admitted. At least he was being civil enough to get through this.

“The worst I’ve seen is one that drained the energy out of the person who crossed the barrier.”

“No, the worst I’ve seen is the ward around both our houses,” he replied. “The sound it makes causes enough pain to make someone black out.”

A dull thump came from inside the closet. Jupe was moving around. “Please, please get me out of here,” he pleaded between sobs. “My arm hurts so bad. It’s making me cold.”

Riley Cooper was going to be back any second. Indecision might be our downfall.

“We’re going to have to take the risk.”

“No!” Lon barked, completely panicked, but before he could stop me, I got my hand on the door knob and turned it. The blue air flickered and made a loud popping noise, then disappeared as I flung the door open.

Just a warning ward. A simple warning ward, nothing more.

A muffled cry came from the back of the dark supply closet, then Jupe struggled to get up. Light flooded in from the classroom and we saw his long legs scrambling. Lon lunged forward to get him out, but jumped back when Jupe hollered at the top of his lungs.

I winced. We’d already tripped her ward and were now making enough noise to wake the dead; Riley Cooper would be here soon enough.

Lon yanked Jupe out by the legs, scooting him across the floor until he was halfway out of the closet and in the light. Hot tears left tracks on his cheeks. His eyes were shut, trying to adjust to the fluorescent classroom lighting after being in the dark for God knows how long; it was after ten, and school let out at three.

But that wasn’t the worst part.

His hand was swollen, fingers crusted with dark blood, his thumb was black and blue, and he was holding his arm at an awkward angle.

“Oh, God,” Lon whispered. “What happened?”

Jupe just continued sobbing with his eyes shut, holding his arm out and shuddering.

“She broke his arm,” I said, fury rising fast. “She did this, didn’t she?”

He nodded his head, blinking back tears.

“Get him out of here now,” I said. “She’ll be back and she might be armed or—”

Lon halted. “Does she have a gun, Jupe?”

“I-I don’t think so,” he cried.

“Sure I do,” a raspy voice said from behind us. We swung around to find a petite young woman standing in the doorway, patting the front pocket of her leather pants. “I just don’t need to use it,” she finished with a dark smile. “Yet.”

There she was, exactly as she looked in my servitor’s transmission, dressed like a slutty road warrior with too much makeup.

“So, this is the big bad Moonchild,” she observed as she slowly walked around the teacher’s desk at the front of the room. “Now that I see you, I’m not sure what all the fuss is about.”

Jupe’s sobbing stopped immediately. He retreated back into the closet before Lon could stop him. Not good. Best to be calm about it, and lure her away from them so that Lon could get Jupe out of there.

“Luxe sent you?” I asked, moving away from the closet.

“Luxe made me, baby. Despite what they say about you, I think they might have made me a little better than Eleusia Ekklesia made you—or maybe all that running away that you did made you miss out on some important training.”

I took several more steps forward as she paused in front of the desk and fiddled around with some of the papers stacked there.

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“Let’s see, first off, it took me like one day to kill your guardian.”

“Yeah, thanks for that.”

“You’re welcome. Second, your servitor magick stinks. I was able to put a tracer on it with no effort.”

“The green dot.” I knew it.

“Very good. You spy on me, I spy on you. I’d been warned that you’re hard to trace, but that little boy over there was quite easy. Nice and earthy.” She punctuated her words by scraping a couple of long fingernails across the chalk-board.

“Yeah, well, you kinda f*cked up when you decided to mess with him.” I stole a quick glance behind me. Lon had managed to get Jupe back out of the closet and on his feet.

“Look,” she reasoned, “if you had just come quietly when I sent that Pareba after you, we could have avoided all this. All I wanted was for you to come with me so that you could stand trial for your psycho parents. But now you got these people involved. So all three of you are coming with me now.” She looked behind me and called out, “I see you trying to leave back there.”

She patted her gun again, still looking at them, then smiled at me.