Summoning the Night (Arcadia Bell #2)(49)

Lon leaned backed in the booth. “She said he bit her arm to see if she was—”

“Viable,” I finished. “Yeah, how weird was that?”

“Maybe he was using blood for some sort of spell with the kids, and was looking for something specific. The amount of Heka inside someone, possibly.”

“I’ve never heard of anyone who could judge that by taste.”

He absently traced his pirate mustache down around his mouth with his thumb and index finger. “Me either.”

“Okay, apart from that, he identified her as number seven. And I’m still convinced the mandalas we found at the cannery had to be traps. He was holding the kids in there until Halloween. The circle of trees with their names at Sandpiper Park screams big-ass ritual.”

Lon paused while the waitress filled our glasses and asked if we wanted dessert before she brought us our check. After she left, he continued. “What kind of ritual, I don’t know. But I think we can safely rule out the theory that this was just Bishop experimenting with the transmutation spell. So what kind of ritual requires very specific kids?”

I shook my head. “I don’t see how seven young teenagers without magical skills would be useful in any kind of working.”

“That’s why you asked Cindy about occult leanings?”

I nodded. “If all the kids were magically gifted, I could understand the Snatcher’s choosing them to raise Heka. But he was tasting her blood as a qualifier for something more.”

“Sacrifices?”

“No idea, but I hope to hell not.” As an attempted-sacrifice survivor myself, I’d had about all I could handle of that bullshit. I twisted around in my seat. “All I know is that Bishop didn’t commit suicide in that cannery, and whoever carved those mandalas knows some strange magick.”

Lon groaned. “Yeah, and I can think of one local person who knows a lot of strange magick.”

“Who?”

“The magician who conducted the transmutation spells on the Hellfire members in the eighties.”

“You mean to tell me that the Hellfire Club hired a human magician to cast the transmutation spells?”

“More than one over the years. You thought we did it ourselves?”

“Well . . . yeah. You said your dad and Dare cast it on themselves when they first found the spell.”

He stretched his back and grimaced, trying to get comfortable. “People who aren’t naturally talented can’t churn out magick. The early Hellfire members had the glass summoning circles designed for the Hellfire caves, but they didn’t charge them when they were installed, Frater Karras did.”

Who?

Frater Karras, Lon explained, was a member of a small esoteric organization until he and his brother left the order and went rogue. Did magick for hire in central California in the 1970s. The Hellfire Club used Frater Karras as a freelancer to conduct transmutation spells and perform other miscellaneous magical jobs. “They paid him exorbitant amounts of money for his magical work, and to keep quiet. He worked with them on and off for about ten years, until he had a car accident and physically couldn’t work anymore. That’s when his brother took over his duties—he worked for the Hellfire Club until he died in the 1990s. His brother was the one who cast my transmutation spell.”

“Hold on. So you’re telling me that this Frater Karras person was a skilled magician, and they hired him like a plumber?”

“Yep.”

“His brother, too?”

“Uh-huh.”

“But was Frater Karras employed by the Hellfire Club in the early eighties when the Snatcher was active? If Bishop wanted to undergo the transmutation spell so badly, what was to stop him from hiring Frater Karras on the side?”

“Good question.”

“Is Frater Karras still alive?”

“Even better question. I don’t know. He disappeared. Not all that uncommon for rogue magicians. They change names, move around. . . .”

“Like me.”

“Like you. But you know how Cindy said the original Snatcher was a short man with mismatched eyes?”

I stared at him. “No way.”

“Yes way. I nearly had a stroke when she said that. Fucking Frater Karras had one blue eye, one brown.”

“Crap! If he was the person who tried to take Cindy, then—”

“Maybe he’s the person taking the kids now.”

The waitress returned briefly to leave our check. Lon always insisted on paying for dinner, so we had a standing agreement that I’d take care of the tip. I glanced at the check and counted out cash, lost in thought. We knew the original Snatcher’s true identity. How were we going to find out if he was still alive? As I unwrinkled dollar bills and shuffled them into a neat stack, another nagging detail almost slid into place inside my head.

“Frater Karras,” I said. “That name . . .”

Lon gave me a strange look. “Yeah?”

“Karras, Karras . . .”

Lon shook his head, not following my line of thought as Jupe bounded up to the table.

“I need dough, yo. Small bills or quarters. They’ve got all kinds of awesome stuff in there. Double Dragon, Altered Beast, Ghosts and Goblins—it’s a freakin’ gold mine!”

“I’m not a piggy bank,” Lon complained. “Forget it.”