Kindling the Moon (Arcadia Bell #1)(83)

Spooner eyed Lon’s shotgun, then reluctantly snapped his fingers in the direction of the cabinet. The door swung open.

“Spooner’s demonic talent is opening locks,” Lon explained. “Manual ones, at least. That’s one of the reasons I’ve got electronic locks. Ten years ago he stole a couple of books from me, before I built my house. But I got those back, didn’t I?”

“You did. I also f*cked your ex-wife.”

“No, I believe she f*cked you, along with everyone else in the Hellfire Club. Don’t flatter yourself.”

After examining the core of the caduceus—it was graphite, thankfully, not a dud—I walked over to the point of the triangle and exhaled.

“What’s she doing?”

“Looks to me like she’s putting you in a magical pigpen,” Lon said.

I pulled from the electrical current. The lights dimmed.

“How can you …?” Spooner was now alert and more than a little alarmed. “You’re a magician?” He stood up. Lon racked the pump shotgun again and aimed until he sat back down.

With a gentle push, I released kindled Heka into the carved staff, charging the triangle in a brilliant display of white light as I recited the binding spell. I teetered on my feet when the nausea came, but recovered quickly and gave Lon a dizzy smile. Ta-da.

Spooner squealed like a fifties housewife who’d just spotted a mouse on the floor, folding himself up in his chair, legs drawn up tight. He covered his ears with his hands. “Stop it! What have you done? My head—” He ground his teeth together. “Too much pressure. My head!”

He’d never been bound. Most Earthbounds haven’t. It’s always a shock the first time.

“Where’s the talon?” Lon asked.

The orange-haired man ignored him. “Oh, God, my head. Please make it stop.”

If I had a dime for every time I’d heard that during a binding in my bar …

“Spooner, you are now bound by me, and I command you. Those are the rules. Now answer me. Where is the god-damn glass talon?”

“In the table,” he intoned, voice low and obedient. His eyes shot open and he covered his mouth with both hands, shocked that he’d said it. “You could have just put the gun to my head and I would have told you. Please unbind me— please!”

“Do you know the name of the demon it belongs to?” I asked.

A confused look crossed his face. “Name? No.”

A long shot, but I had to ask.

I took a step, then rubbed my foot over a corner of the triangle, breaking the spell. Spooner fell over in his chair, a floppy puppet with slackened strings. He whimpered as I approached and set the caduceus down.

Each side of the thick tabletop bore a small indentation flanked by horizontal lines. Deceptively decorative. I pressed my finger into the indentation on one side. Nothing. Second side. Nothing. Third … a small drawer creaked open. Inside were two wads of dog-eared hundred-dollar bills bundled with wide rubber bands, a small ladies’ pistol, and in the back, a swirl of pink fog surrounding what could only be the glass talon.

I gathered it up with shaking hands. It was cool, and heavy. Not smooth, as I’d expected, but marred with long, rough ridges. The base was ragged and opaque ivory, the remainder clear.

After all the worry and frustration, there it was.

Could I use it to find the summoning spell for the albino demon?

I nestled it in the center of my palm and closed my hand around it, situating the talon between my index and middle fingers. Gripping it tight, it felt like a weapon in my hand. I slashed at the air once, wielding its power, testing. I relaxed my fingers and transferred it into my other hand, dropping it to my side.

Spooner continued to whimper. I glanced at Lon and nodded. He lowered his gun and spoke to him in a low, rational voice. “I wanted you to know what she could do. Don’t look for her, don’t ask about her. Don’t even think about her. If I find out that you have, I’ll come back, and I damn well won’t be happy. That goes for my kid too.” He gaze captured Spooner’s. “We’re not afraid of you, but you should be afraid of us.”

Lon turned his back and began walking away, then paused. He looked at the ground as he spoke. “Later today I’ll wire you the money you paid for it. I’m not a thief.” In a barely audible murmur he added, “Not anymore.”

33

“Amazing,” Lon said. “It really does look like a fairy. Jupe was right.”

I gripped a freshly charged clay doll and watched my servitor’s small pink figure float above our heads in his library, hoping against hope that the glass talon would generate enough live energy to link it to a book containing the albino demon’s summoning name. Hoping also that the book was here. Only one day remained until the Luxe deadline, and if it turned out that the servitor could find the right book, but it was in someone else’s library across the globe, I was screwed.

It was early afternoon. Jupe was watching a movie in his room, but Lon had made him promise to stay in bed; he didn’t even know I was here. We stopped by my house after the confrontation with Spooner, to check in on Riley and pick up the supplies I needed to do the servitor spell, then I followed him in my rental.

The servitor hung at the ceiling. Not unusual. It sometimes took a few moments for it to get a fix on its objective and begin hunting. The pink light would either go through the ceiling, or float back down. Through … or down, through—