Summoning the Night (Arcadia Bell #2)(2)

“Pfft. I’ve never even heard of a knack like that.” Well, Lon could influence thoughts when he was amped up into his transmutated demon state, but that’s nothing Jupe knew about, or would ever know. Not from me, anyway. Besides, Lon’s influence was temporary, and he had to be touching the person. Plus, it was more common for the inherited knack to be weaker than the parents’, not stronger.

“I think my knack is like”—he paused, as if he knew what he was about to say was going to sound ridiculous, but he just couldn’t stop himself—“a Jedi mind trick.”

I snorted.

“I’m serious!”

“Dream on.” I shot him a sidelong glance as he snuck a couple fingers just beneath the waistband of his jeans and scratched—vigorously, with a teeth-gritting, pained look on his face. That was the third time today I’d caught him scratching. “What the hell is wrong with you? You have ants in your pants?”

He scratched harder and groaned. “I’ve got an injury.”

Dear God, have mercy. I held up my hand to stop him from saying more, waving away any mental images before they had a chance to pop into my head. “I don’t even want to know.”

Affronted, he made a face at me. “Not there. It’s . . . nothing. Never mind.”

No need to tell me twice. He could discuss it with the school nurse or his dad. Not my job description. I promptly changed the subject. “So, what was all that jibber-jabber earlier about you wanting an Eldorado?”

He’d talked the branch manager’s ear off, telling him what he was going to do with the savings account. Jupe swore to the guy—who couldn’t have a given a rat’s ass—that he wouldn’t touch his new money until he turned fifteen and could apply for a driver’s learning permit, and buy a car. That’s right: a year from now this ADHD mess of a boy would be plowing down the same roads I drove on. Heaven help us all.

“Umm, Super Fly, duh. The Cadillac Eldorado is only one of the greatest cars in movie history—the original pimpmobile.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Driven by Youngblood Priest, played by Ron motherf*cking O’Neal.”

I didn’t even bother to curtail his obscenity-rich language anymore. Getting honey out of a hornet would be easier. When I was his age, my parents would’ve slapped me for talking like that. Then again, my parents turned out to be evil, power-hungry serial killers, so what did they know? I mean, these were the people accused of murdering the leaders of rival occult organizations when I was seventeen. They swore they were innocent, and because I believed them, they were able to persuade me to assume a fake identity, separate from them, and hide from the FBI for seven years. When they resurfaced a couple of months ago, Lon tried to help me prove their innocence, but we discovered that they actually had murdered several people and were planning to kill one more: me. They’d conceived me during some crazy sex ritual that granted me the title of Moonchild and enhanced magical abilities that lay dormant inside me until I turned twenty-five—and they wanted to steal those abilities through ritual sacrifice. But I escaped and they were spirited away by a demon into the Æthyr, where, I hope, karma bit them both in the ass.

So, yeah, compared to them, Lon was parent of the year. That’s why I just stuck to the Butler house rule: no swearing around strangers. Unless Jupe was making an ass of himself in public, he could knock himself out.

“Yuck,” I complained. “Didn’t Boss Hog drive an Eldorado in the Dukes of Hazzard?”

His wince told me that I was right.

“Anyway, I seriously doubt your dad’s going to go for a pimpmobile.”

He clicked the release on his seat belt several times. “Then how about a 1977 Firebird Trans-Am?”

The boy was obsessed. He knew the make and model of every car produced in the last fifty years—at least the ones featured in movies or on TV.

“Oh, hell no,” I said. “Not a Trans-Am.”

“That’s the Bandit’s car. What’s wrong with that?”

I puffed my cheeks out and made a puking noise.

“Hey, you’re talking about Burt—”

“Yes, I know. Burt motherf*cking Reynolds. Put your seat belt on, Snowman—we’ve still got two more levels to go.”

He refastened the buckle. “Holy shit! I’ve never been this far down underground. There’d better be an elevator. This looks like the kind of place where you get stabbed and left for dead.”

Ugh. Tell me about it. Parking here was the worst part of owning my bar, but it was better than leaving my car on the street. I once had my window broken and my car stereo stolen while parked in front of the bar. At least the garage had cameras and a guard on-premises 24/7.

“If I had to choose, I guess I’d go for the Eldorado,” I said, trying to distract both of us from the sight of a homeless guy sleeping in a dark corner by one of the stairwells. “But I’m kinda doubting that fifteen thou is going to buy you one.”

“My dad knows a ton of car collectors. He’ll get me a deal.”

Mmm-hmm. Sure he would. We headed down the final ramp onto the monthlies’ level. I spotted a tight corner space, not too far from the elevator.

“We’re parking here?” Jupe asked, wiping away fog to peer out the window. “Gross.”

“Welcome to glamorous big-city life.”