Kindling the Moon (Arcadia Bell #1)(81)

I laid my head back on Lon’s shoulder and thought for a while, trying to make sense of the dream until he yawned and stretched again. “We should probably get going,” he remarked.

“Boo.” I gave him a thumbs-down sign, peeling myself away and flipping onto my back to lie beside him.

“Are you sore?”

I laughed. “Why, you want an award or something?”

“Maybe.”

I burrowed my fingers into his ribs. He recoiled with an involuntary, pained grunt. He was ticklish, I’d discovered by accident over the last few hours—a gold mine of an Achilles’ heel.

“That’s it. Now you’ve done it.” He grabbed my fingers.

“Oww!” I yelled, laughing.

“I was trying to be considerate, but screw that. We’re going one more round before we leave, whether you like it or not.”

“Oh, really? You’re awfully spry for a man your age.”

“Honestly, my back’s f*cking killing me.”

“So are my legs,” I admitted, laughing.

He peered at me critically. “Looks like you fell into a vat of cherry Kool-Aid.”

I tentatively touched the swollen skin around my lips. They stung like hell. “That’s your fault! You gave me mustache burn. There, and other places …”

“Mmm.” He chuckled, eyes narrowing in humor. “Come here, girl.” Sweaty and sticky, he pulled me back up onto his chest and wound his fingers into my hair, now the consistency of a bale of dried hay. “I want you to shock me with Heka like you did last time,” he added in a husky, seductive voice, “right at the end.”

“ ‘Bite me, Cady. Shock me, Cady.’ Christ, you’re demanding, aren’t you?”

He grinned against my cheek. “Are you complaining?”

I wasn’t. Not one bit.

32

Craig Bailey lived on the outskirts of the Village. His narrow, three-story brownstone was modeled to look like an English country estate, complete with trellised vines and plenty of stained glass. I watched from a distance, waiting nervously in Lon’s coupe. The driver’s-side window had a radiating crack in the glass and the hood was dented in two places, but he didn’t say a word when we found it like that outside the Hellfire caves.

Watching him stroll out of Craig Bailey’s driveway, I couldn’t decipher his body language. Like me, his wrinkled clothes were stiff with sea water, and we were both sporting rat’s-nest hairdos; we looked like homeless people who had stumbled upon evening wear in a trash bin. He opened the driver’s door, got in, and closed it without looking at me.

“Well?” I asked, barely able to contain my curiosity. “Did he have the talon?”

“He’s dead.”

I closed my eyes. Not out of reverence—I didn’t know the man from Adam—but in mind-numbing frustration. “What?”

“Died of a heart attack yesterday morning,” Lon elaborated. “I talked to his son. He was pissed as hell that Craig spent the family money on worthless occult collectibles. Would have been more than happy to sell the talon to me, but it wasn’t there.”

“Wasn’t there? Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. That f*cking piece of shit sold Bailey the talon, then stole it back.”

“Who? Spooner? Why would he do that?”

“Because then he could make money without losing the talon. He’s pulled stunts like this before—at least, that’s what I’ve heard.”

“So he sent us out here on this wild-goose chase, and he had it all along?”

“I’d bet my life that he does.”

Desperate for a hot shower, I scratched the back of my head; my scalp was dry and itchy. “How do we get it from Spooner?”

“We’ve tried asking nicely,” Lon said with a bitter smile.

I nodded. “We’re going to have to take it by force.”

“Yep.”

“You think you can remember the incantation for that memory spell we used on Riley?”

He tapped his temple. “Mind like a steel trap.”

“I think I can remember the sigil, if you can do that part.”

“Hmm … I might have something better in mind. It’s in the trunk.” Carefully considering whatever scheme he was cooking up, he idly stroked his mustache with his thumb and index finger. I pulled aside his collar and winced at the nasty indigo tooth marks I’d left on his neck. He lifted his eyebrows, inspected the bite in the rearview mirror, then gave me a smug smile as I covered it back up.

“You got a lighter in that tiny purse you stashed in my glove compartment?”

“I do.”

“Good. There’s some valrivia hidden in a box under the car manual. It’s not fresh, but I don’t care at this point, if you don’t mind rolling it up for us. We’ll stop somewhere and get food along the way.”

“And some coffee, please.”

“And some coffee,” he agreed as he started the car.

It was just before one in the afternoon when we arrived at Spooner’s place of business, an art deco building in a commercial district on the outskirts of Morella, just ten minutes away from my house. Lon identified Spooner’s car parked in the alley by the back entrance, so we pulled behind it and marched up a short flight of steps bounded by a painted metal railing.