Kindling the Moon (Arcadia Bell #1)(90)

My dad smiled, and I for a moment I was ten again, being praised for acing a test. But while he was grinning, something slipped out under his breath. “Merde.” His mouth barely moved when he said it. My mother poked him on his hip with one finger, admonishing him. His grin got bigger. “That’s wonderful. Good job. Well-done. Come here.”

I shook away my confusion and stepped forward to hug him. As my arms went around his neck, a gleam of metal moved in his hand. I barely felt the warmth of his palm against my back when something jabbed the side of my neck. I cried out, drawing away and reaching over my shoulder. As I did, he pulled back a syringe.

“What—what are you doing?” My fingers found the tiny stinging wound. I shuffled away from them in horror as my vision blurred and doubled. “Dad?” My feet stumbled. A rush of pinpricks slid down my arms. I reached for the open car door to brace myself. Just as I did, my knees quivered.

Numb. Frozen. I was able to see and hear when my face hit the pavement, I just couldn’t feel anything. Not my legs or my arms. I wasn’t sure I was breathing anymore. That worried me, but I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Confusion clouded my thoughts.

The ground spun and glimmered with light. In the distance, dark shapes bounded out of the Luxe temple, running toward us. Animals, maybe. No, people.

I was surrounded by strong hands. My parents. Another man. They picked me up off the ground and carried me to the limo. The dark figures kept running toward me, but I was inside a tornado and they’d never breach it in time. If I can’t breathe, will I die? I thought in a druggy haze.

As hands pushed my head down into the limo, I tried to call back to people running toward us, but I just couldn’t. I had no voice.

It didn’t matter. It was too late anyway.

The swirling, black vortex drew me up and away.

36

A slow bead of sweat trickled down the nape of my neck. When it ran down my back, I realized that my nose was cold. Actually, cold on one side, hot on the other. That was strange. Strange enough to speed my ascent into consciousness. My eyes opened.

I was outdoors. A clearing in the woods that was bare of grass. A rocky hill lay in front of me, several dozen yards in the distance. A single man clothed in ritual robes stood at the base. His head was bowed, as if in prayer or meditation.

My vision was tinted red. Blurry. Obstructed, perhaps?

A ring of luminaries circled the surrounding area, but they weren’t projecting as much light as the Æthyric glow that brightened three points around me like compass markings. Small binding triangles were carved into the ground. One was directly in front of me, some distance away—ten yards, maybe. Two on either side of me. When I realized what was inside the triangles, I felt certain one lay behind me as well.

All were pulsing with light and flickered with movement; translucent entities were trapped within each one. Metaphysical holograms, just like my guardian Priya. But these weren’t friendly messenger spirits, they were Æthyric demons.

The first, ensnared in the circle straight ahead of me, was built like a rock, twice the size of a human, with massive legs and feet. His skin was the texture of tree bark.

To my left was a human-size woman with round features and long, wavy hair. She wore a loose shift, the hem of which was tattered and dripping with water.

In the circle on my right was a winged, male, sylphlike demon. His wings opened and closed anxiously as he paced the inside of his circle, searching for a way out.

And just behind me, elongated flame-shaped shadows flickered on the ground.

Earth, Water, Air, Fire.

I was inside an enormous circle, the cardinal points of which were stationed by four metaphysical projections of Æthyric demons who represented four elements. The projections were also unstable; they occasionally disappeared altogether, only to remanifest a second later.

“She’s awake.”

My vision left a blurry trail as I moved my head toward the voice.

It came from my father, now dressed in an elaborately decorated ritual robe; my mother stood next to him wearing much the same. Handwritten symbols streaked across their necks. They were smiling, and their faces looked red and blurry. I shook my head, attempting to get rid of the obstruction in front of my eyes. It clung to my face like a spiderweb.

“What are you doing?” I asked. My voice echoed weakly, going nowhere and traveling for miles at the same time. “Why did you dose me? Who were those people chasing us?”

“Probably the caliph. He’s been tracking us through our guardians for the last week.” My father smiled, then added, “As if we wouldn’t notice. Don’t worry, though. We warded you on our way over here and temporarily banished our guardians—no bread crumbs for him to follow now.”

And no deflector charm to protect me, either, thanks to the events at the Hellfire caves. I did my best to sober myself up, but whatever they’d used to drug me was laced with magick. “Why am I here?”

My mother floated in front of me like a dream. “Seléne … you’re here to fulfill your destiny. You have returned to us like Malkuth returns to Kether.”

“We didn’t realize the role you would eventually play all those years ago when we conceived you,” my dad explained, “but Frater Blue enlightened us.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Who’s Frater Blue?”

My father’s hand gestured to the praying man outside the circle. “Does he not look familiar to you? He was present when you were conceived.”