Summoning the Night (Arcadia Bell #2)(54)

The magician shook his head and looked away.

“We’re not leaving until you answer me,” Lon snarled, gesturing with the Lupara. He was too angry, not paying attention.

“Hey!” I shouted, my eyes on the magician’s roaming fingers. I tried to yank my caduceus out of my pocket but it got stuck sideways, like a bone wedged inside a throat. That cost me. The magician’s hand grabbed what he’d been seeking, some sort of engraved disk that fit into the palm of his hand.

The lights around the theater mirror flashed off and on as Merrin quickly pulled electricity and released kindled Heka through the disk, pushing it right into us. My hair blew back as charged Heka punched me in the chest so hard that it knocked me off my feet. I didn’t even have time draw a breath before I was thrown backward into the wall.

My leg twisted painfully as I tumbled to the floor. Lon’s head snapped to the side. The Lupara flew out of his hand—a deafening blast cracked the air when it hit the floor and went off accidently. The theater mirror shattered. Better it than me. The Lupara rotated near my feet like a lethal spin-the-bottle while the sharp scent of spent gunpowder blossomed.

And Frater Merrin was already racing down the steps.

I scrambled to pull myself up, afraid the vintage gun might go off again as Lon retrieved it. When I put weight on my twisted leg, pain flared. One of Lon’s arms flew out and snagged me around the waist.

“You okay?”

“Goddamn knee,” I bit out, testing it again. Better this time. Nothing broken.

“Can you—”

“Yes, go,” I shouted, pushing him toward the stairs. I winced as we raced down to the altar, wondering just how fast a man in his sixties with a bad back could run. Halfway down the stairs, I got my answer. The beaded curtain swung in the distance as commotion surged behind it in the foyer.

“Call the police!” Frater Merrin cried out between heavy breaths.

Awesome. Just what we needed. We stormed through the temple and tried to catch up with him. Dear God, I was hurting. A sharp pain shot up and down my leg with every step. It was all I could do to push it out of my mind and plow forward, a few steps behind Lon.

I heard the front door crash open. He wasn’t far ahead of us. A swell of angry cries rose up when we pushed through the beaded curtains and burst into the foyer. Lon flashed the Lupara and everyone backed up. Someone in the crowd echoed Merrin’s instruction to call the police.

We darted out the open door and took a sharp left through the covered walkway. It was pouring rain now. I tore after Lon, nearly slamming into him when he stopped short. His torso whipped around as he quickly scanned the sidewalk behind me in disbelief.

“What?” I looked past him. No Merrin.

“What the hell?” Lon mumbled breathlessly. He turned to the street punks still huddled against the inner wall along the sidewalk, smoking cigarettes and sharing a case of Milwaukee’s Beast. Only one of them was an Earthbound, a small boy with his hair dyed bright blue to match his halo, maybe sixteen. Lon singled him out, probably hoping for a little brotherly help. “Which way did he go?”

The blue-haired boy shrunk closer to the wall and shook his head nervously.

Lon repeated his demand to the rest of the punks, but was met with a sea of disinterested faces. No one said a thing.

With a growl, Lon shoved the Lupara back into his jacket and ran toward the street. I raced after him, cutting through a slippery patch of mud and dead grass. I bounded onto the cracked sidewalk half a block behind, but he wasn’t running anymore, only turning around in circles, searching. Traffic raced by, splashing sheets of rainwater as we both surveyed the area. A few umbrellas danced along the sidewalk on both sides of the busy road, but no man in ritual robes.

Frater Merrin had disappeared.

Wet and miserable, we skirted around the side of the brick school trying to root out a place he might be hiding, even checking the Dumpster that the bums had been digging in earlier. It was fruitless. A man with his experience was probably well versed in concealment and warding magick. Hell, I’d figured it out on my own when I was eighteen—the spells were carved into my arm. Merrin could be standing right next to us and we wouldn’t even know.

Crushing disappointment turned my limbs to cement. We were so close. We had him. The Snatcher himself. What were we going to do now? Sit out here in the rain and watch the temple in case he came back? Then again, if we left, he might. Maybe Dare could have some of his people watch it. We could stay until he sent someone.

A police siren wailed in the distance. Shit. Merrin had gotten his people to call the damn cops. I glanced back at the temple. Some members of the congregation were huddled beneath the overhang with the street punks, watching us. I could’ve cried in frustration.

“My gun has been illegally modified. I can’t get caught with it,” Lon lamented in defeat. With an open palm, he swooped back the dripping strands of hair matted against his forehead and blinked away rain. He glanced down at me. “You okay?” he asked a second time.

“Just pissed.” Being outsmarted by a lunatic magician with one foot in the grave wasn’t on my bucket list.

It wasn’t on Lon’s, either. He nodded once, sniffled, then slung his arm around my shoulders and urged me forward to the crosswalk. “Let’s get back to the car and get the hell out of here.”

“We should call Dare and—”