Summoning the Night (Arcadia Bell #2)(42)

Dr. Spendlove’s upstairs office was spacious. More Early American artwork hung on the navy blue walls, along with several painted vases, tools, and a small collection of wooden tobacco pipes in glass cases. A few chairs were grouped together on one side of the room, but no psychiatric fainting couch, to my disappointment.

The doctor stood up from behind a large desk that sat between two narrow stained-glass windows on the far wall. “Lon Butler, how wonderful to see you. Come in, come in,” he said enthusiastically, waving us inside. The assistant softly closed the door behind us. “It’s been ten years? Is that what we were saying on the phone earlier? Goodness.”

Dressed in a black corduroy blazer, Dr. Spendlove was a trim man sporting a gray mustache twirled into points at the corners. He wore his silver hair pulled into a short, tight braid at the base of his neck. His deep blue halo nearly matched the wall color.

“Guess I’ve been busy,” Lon replied, shaking his hand.

The psychiatrist turned to me, smiled, and offered his hand. “Lawrence Spendlove.”

“Arcadia Bell.”

“Lon mentioned you on the phone. So wonderful to meet you. Please, sit.”

Lon and I settled into two chairs in front of the desk as Dr. Spendlove unabashedly stared above my head. “I’m sure you get asked this all the time,” he said, “but would you mind telling me about your halo? It’s quite intriguing.”

Lon rushed to speak. “Cady, wait. Dr. Spendlove is—”

“I’m not demon. I’m a magician,” I blurted out over Lon’s words, fast as a snakebite.

“O-oh,” Dr. Spendlove cooed with excitement. “Fascinating.”

“He’s a truth sayer,” Lon finished. “I forgot.”

“Oh, God,” I moaned. I’d heard of that knack but had never been on the receiving end. “You can force the truth out of people?”

“Not ‘force’ exactly. My patients just open up a little more for me. Don’t feel uncomfortable. I promise not to ask anything about your sex life,” he said good-humoredly.

That was the least of my worries. “You . . . forgot?” I murmured to Lon. Dear God. I was going to murder him when we got out of there.

“Please don’t push her about her background,” Lon said.

The doctor raised his hands in surrender. “Not here to judge. But I am interested in your halo. Can we talk in generalities about it? Knack free. Cross my heart. It’s just that I don’t meet many magicians. Certainly none with halos.”

“Demons and magicians, natural enemies,” I said lightly.

“You’re certain you don’t have any Earthbound further back in your bloodline?”

I nodded.

“Hmm. Well, you’ve got something rather Æthyric bonding with your DNA or you wouldn’t have a halo.” He tilted his head to the side, pondering. “You were born with it?”

“Yes.”

“I have seen one or two anomalies in my thirty-some years of practice. Tell me this: have you yourself conjured anything Æthyric?”

Of course I had. It was just oddly chilling to talk about it with someone outside the occult community. “A few Æthyric demons, a Hermeneus spirit.” Poor Priya, my lost connection to the Æthyr. The Hermeneus spirit who was once my guardian promised that it would regenerate and link itself to me again, but it could take years. . . .

Dr. Spendlove crossed his legs and leaned into one side of the chair. “Fascinating! So you know firsthand that there are indeed other Æthyric beings besides demons.”

“People in my esoteric order believe there are multiple Æthyric planes and that demons inhabit only one of them,” I said. “Then again, who knows how accurate that is. Most magicians don’t even believe that Earthbounds exist, because they can’t see halos.”

“But you can,” he stated, studying my face.

“Yes.”

“She co-owns the tiki bar in Morella,” Lon said.

“Ah! So you’re that girl. Yes, I’ve heard people make mention of you from time to time. Beat and bind, as they say in fencing, yes?” His cheeks were ruddy with interest.

“En garde,” I replied flatly.

He laughed like Santa Claus, minus the jiggling belly. “Indeed, indeed. Lon’s always shown a sharp interest in magick—since he was a small child, in fact. So it doesn’t surprise me that he’d connect with someone like you.”

A thrumming panic was surfacing. Not out-of-control panic, but it was there. Sweat was beginning to make my hair itch at the nape of my neck. Lon reached for my hand and threaded his fingers through mine.

Dr. Spendlove didn’t seem to notice my fear. “I once had a young patient from a small town in northern India with a dark orange halo,” he said, circling his hand in the air around his own in demonstration. “Never having seen another person with a halo, he lived his whole life thinking he was mentally ill. Had been prescribed antipsychotic medications. When he was eighteen, he came to the states for a job, right here in La Sirena, and voilà!” He clapped his hands together then spread his arms dramatically. “Halos, as far as the eye could see. He began seeing me to wean him off his medications, which I did. But I was never entirely convinced that he was demon. Earthbound like the rest of us, yes, but Earthbound what, exactly?”