Summoning the Night (Arcadia Bell #2)(57)

“Help me look.”

As the sun shone intermittently behind shifting dark clouds, we circled Queen Cow, ripping away weeds to examine her for clues. No writing, no scratched message in any strange magical alphabet. But when I was inspecting her face, I brushed the Honor System sign she held in her hoofed hand. The sign was loose, and a dull pink light glowed from inside the sliver where her shoulder met the back of the sign.

“Lon! Here. Same pink charge that was in the cannery on that door ward.”

“Dammit.” Lon tried to pry the sign away, but his fingers slipped off once, twice. . . .

“Same spell, as well,” I confirmed. “Keeps people away.”

I took out the red ochre chalk and wrote out the counterspell I’d used on the door in the cannery, letting my spit dribble slowly into the hidden crevice. With a fizzle, the pink glow disappeared, but before I could pat myself on the back, the golf ball suddenly became dislodged and fell out of the cow’s broken nose, bouncing as it hit the golf path. We watched in surprise as it rolled away.

A cracking noise brought our attention back to the Queen. The fiberglass sign had split away from the body. The resulting dark crack gaped open; something shiny was down in there.

“Is it safe?” Lon asked, peering closer.

“I think so.”

He reached a few fingers inside, twisted his hand, and slowly retrieved an object from the crevice—a tarnished silver tube, maybe a foot or more in length, a couple inches in diameter. Milky white glass capped either end, reminding me of a fancy kaleidoscope. A long leather strap suggested that it was intended to be worn around the body.

“What in the world is”—a louder crack! interrupted my words—“that?”

The Queen’s entire body was splitting like a fissure on an ice-capped lake. The crack ran down the length of her side in one direction, up her shoulder, and across her face in the other. As it continued to deepen unnaturally, the hairs on the back of my neck rose. I really didn’t like this magick. Didn’t like it when we first encountered it in the cannery, and didn’t like it out here in the abandoned putt-putt course.

With my hand on Lon’s arm, I took a step back, attempting to pull him along with me. He wouldn’t budge. The rigid muscle under his jacket might as well have been stone.

The front of the Queen buckled and swayed. I muffled the urge to yell “timber” as the crack ran across the base and the molded fiberglass shell began falling away from its inner wire armature.

“Move!” I shouted, yanking Lon. In a daze, he staggered backward as the fiberglass crashed into the cement in front of us and shattered into sharp pieces around our feet. At the base of the armature, the fissure grew. It radiated like a spiderweb and ran into the cement under the bench . . . then up and over it, across King Bull. Continued to spread down through the golf path, burrowing wide, ragged crevices into the ground. Mud seeped down into the dark spaces it left behind. I backed up and nearly tripped over the wood border than lined the course, righting myself on the muddy, synthetic grass.

“It’s a spell,” Lon said dazedly.

“Of course it’s a spell!” What else would it be? The fissure spread up nearby trees, crackling the bark . . . it created a filigree pattern up the side of the castle obstacle.

We doubled back over the castle fairway and stopped at the next putting green as one of the smaller trees dropped branches and the side of the castle fell apart. The magical crack continued to spread.

“Do something,” Lon snapped.

I cut him a dirty look. “Do what?”

Lon gave me a sidelong glance, his expression a mixture of alarm and anger. “What you did in the cannery!”

We jumped and cried out in surprise as the castle armature tipped and fell over with a boom, shaking the ground. The crack had destroyed everything around hole seven and was overtaking the surrounding greens.

He was right; I had to do something. I tried to will my Moonchild power, but nothing happened. It was dead. I couldn’t understand why—how could it snap into action without my calling it up in the cannery, then refuse to surface when I tried now? Frustrated, I climbed a small hill on one of the courses, and tried again. Again, nothing.

“I can’t!” I yelled as several trees split, the wood groaning in protest.

“Try harder.”

“I’m trying, *—I told you, I can’t!” Then something hit me. A big, gigantic Duh. “It’s daytime! No moon! I need the moon to draw power.” It had been night or near-night every time I’d used it in the past—in the Hellfire caves, when my parents were trying to kill me, and in the cannery. It was midafternoon now.

His face fell. He knew I was right.

“Can you manually cast the spell that you used at the cannery?”

“I’d have to circle the whole golf center with chalk. There’s not enough time.”

“Try again to use your ability,” he suggested, panic in his voice. “Maybe it’s possible when the moon’s not out, just harder. Take a few breaths first.”

Mumbling obscenities, I closed my eyes and attempted to calm myself enough to call up the power. Attempted to block out the image of the spell spreading through the town and destroying buildings like some sort of apocalyptic magical plague. Tried instead to visualize the experience of the blackness pushing away my surroundings and the blue pinpoint of light appearing.