Binding the Shadows (Arcadia Bell) (13 page)

“Holy shit,” I murmured.

He glanced around us for a few moments, surveying the twinkling city all around us, as if he just noticed where he was. He lifted his face and inhaled, breathing in the night air, then turned back to me and smiled. “I am so happy that you did not call another guardian to replace me while I was gone.”

“You told me to wait for you.”

“And you did.”

“Well, I waited as long as I could. I wasn’t sure you were alive yet.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “You called me because you need me. You are in trouble?”

I shifted my legs and glanced at his wings, the tips of which were softly bent where they met the roof behind him. “Umm, yes. Maybe. I’m—my Moonchild power is changing.”

“You are getting stronger,” he agreed. “I could tell that from your call. And your Heka smells rich.”

I made a face. Maybe he was smelling the blackberry bar vomit. “Anyway, I’ve been able to do crazy things with it. Slow time, make a weird silver fog trap out of my halo—”

“And pull your guardian through the veil. You are powerful,” he agreed. His lips quirked up. “It is exciting.”

“Anyway,” I said, “I’m worried about my power getting stronger, but I’m mostly worried because I saw a projection of my mother.”

His dark brows lifted. “And that is strange because . . . ?”

Oh. Right. Priya died before I found out my parents were guilty of all the ritual killings, handed them over to the White Ice Demon, and let her whisk them away to the Æthyr as her war prize. It took me several minutes to tell the story, but Priya listened intently, crouching before me with his silver arms wrapped around his legs, his chin resting on his knees. He was barefoot, I noticed. And his toenails, though not as long as the talon-like nails on his fingers, were glossy black.

“I will admit, I never liked your family,” he said when I was done.

“Why didn’t you say anything? Did you know they were guilty?”

He shook his head rapidly. “Of course not. If I thought you were in danger, I would have warned you. But I did not understand the workings of this world, and it was not my place to give opinions about your personal life.”

“You don’t seem to have a problem with it now,” I noted.

He shrugged, black eyes gleaming. “I am different now. But let us return to your problem. You thought the White Demon would kill your mother and father in the Æthyr.”

“My parents tricked her. Used her. I just assumed she would take their lives.”

“But now you are worried that she didn’t.”

“I heard my mother whispering to me. I saw her—it was like a projection, you know, how you used to appear to me. I’m worried. I want to use the Moonchild power. But if she’s alive, could she find a link through my Heka signature?”

Priya’s face drew up as he thought about this. “It is unlikely, but there is only one way to find out. I will hunt her in the Æthyr.”

A heavy relief sank through my bones. “Would you, please?”

“I am yours to command.”

“Don’t say that. I don’t want to
command
you. I’m asking a favor.”

“I was made to serve you. When I was reborn into this body, the first thing I remembered was your face.” The way he said this made me equal parts flattered and uncomfortable. And he was staring at me intently, though it could be because his gigantic black owl eyes make every glance intense. It was hard to tell.

I decided to play it safe and offered a logical reason. “We were linked for so long.” From the time I was sixteen until a few months ago, to be exact. Nine years. Yet this was the longest, most personal conversation we’d ever had.

He began to respond, but as soon as his mouth opened, his body seemed to crackle with unseen energy. We both stared at each other for a long moment. “My strength is fading. The Æthyr seems to be pulling me back. I feel ungrounded.”

It made sense. Æthyric demons couldn’t stick around on this plane for long without a host.

“I will hunt down news of your mother,” he said, and quickly jumped to his feet.

I followed. “Wait! What about our link? Can you reestablish it?” I could call him using this ritual again, I supposed, but it was much easier—and less vomit-causing—to be able to use the homing sigil on my arm.

Strong, indefinable emotion slackened his facial features. Then he said in a low voice, “It would be my greatest honor.” He held out his hand, requesting mine. “We can do this directly now,” he said, noticing my hesitation. A wave of crackling energy made his neck muscles strain.

We didn’t have much time. I nodded my head quickly and gave him my hand.

Foreign and lush, Æthyric words tumbled from his lips in a low chant as he held his palm over mine. This certainly was a lot more direct than the gigantic Heka burst I had to send through the planes to link us the first time around. After a few moments, a nebulous cloud of sooty black light floated out between our palms—a light that matched his halo. I felt a sharp pinch. He made a noise, then things felt . . . different between us. I felt the link.

I pulled my hand away, half expecting it to be marked somehow. But it wasn’t mine that was marked, it was his: my personal sigil, black as ink, was etched into his palm. A whisper-thin spider web line floated from my palm and his.

That was new, too.

I ran my other hand between, and it went through the line as if it were a laser beam. Not solid. Just like the line that had connected me to Jupe’s tattoo when he was in trouble.

Priya grabbed my hand and peered down at it. “There is another link here,” he said, startled. “You have another servant?” He said it like I was cheating on him.

“It’s someone under my protection. A demon child.”

Priya’s face lifted. “Ah. I understand now.” His body crackled again, and this time he almost completely disappeared. “I must leave. I will come to you when I have information. I will not fail you again.”

“You didn’t fail me.” For the love of Pete.

Black wings snapped open to reveal an impressive span. Rather intimidating. Not an everyday sight, that’s for damn sure. Holding his marked hand over his stomach, he canted his head, then gave me another smile before both he and the black line connecting us disappeared completely.

And before I could process everything that just happened, my phone chimed inside my jeans pocket. I looked at the screen.

MSG FROM JUPE, 3:05 AM: DAD SAID YOU HAD EMERGENCY AT KAR YEE’S. ARE YOU BOTH OK? TELL HER I SAID HI. NEXT TIME YOU SHOULD TAKE ME WITH YOU. I CAN SLEEP ON HER COUCH.

Dammit. Lon managed to remove the blame from the whole “you leave or I leave” situation. That was . . . the right thing to do. And he went against his big honesty-or-death policy, telling a little white lie to make the peace. Just like that, I felt tender and weepy again. I sent Jupe a response.

SENT 3:05 AM: EVERYTHING OK. WHY R YOU STILL AWAKE?

MSG FROM JUPE, 3:06 AM: I FELL ASLEEP AND WOKE BACK UP. HEY, GRAMMA IS TAKING US ALL OUT TO EAT TOMORROW NIGHT SO BE SURE TO GET BACK HOME BY 5 EXACTLY. SHE’S A FREAK-A-DEAK ABOUT BEING ON TIME BUT I WON’T LET HER LEAVE WITHOUT U.

SENT 3:06 AM: PROMISE TO BE ON TIME. NOW GO TO BED, MOTORMOUTH.

MSG FROM JUPE, 3:06 AM: GOING! G’NIGHT!!! <3 YOU!!!!!!!!!!!

Heart you, too, kid.

That wasn’t the only text I received. Before I went to sleep, Lon let me know that he’d found Noel Saint-Hill’s address—which was good, because Bob’s online search was fruitless. Lon volunteered to pick me up at Kar Yee’s the next day so we could check it out. I told him not to bring his gun. He told me I was awfully bossy.

Around noon, I got ready to meet him. I was worried the T-shirt I’d packed was too casual for Rose’s dinner plans, so I dressed in jeans and one of Kar Yee’s tops, a long sleeve striped blouse that cost a small fortune. It was sort of tight around my chest, but Kar Yee was a couple of sizes smaller. Normally she wouldn’t let me borrow clothes—no way, no how. But at the moment she was too hopped up on Bob’s happy pills to care.

I took the elevator down and stood outside the stoop of her building, scanning my surroundings. No dark sedan across the street, and no dark figure slinking in the shadows. No shadows at all, actually. It was one of those sunny days in California where the sky is so clear and big, it makes everything around you seem a little less crowded. I lifted my face up, soaking in rays and wishing the temperature was just a few degrees warmer as traffic whizzed by on Kar Yee’s street. After a couple of minutes, a luxury SUV slowed to a stop in front of me. The dark-tinted driver’s window lowered. A gorgeous Earthbound with a gold-flaked green halo and a dead-sexy smile draped his arm out the window.

“Need a ride, little girl?”

“Depends,” I said, stepping up to the car. “Where you going?”

His lazy gaze slid down my body. “Probably to hell. Wanna come?”

Why, yes—yes I did. And I was certain he could hear the zing of desire that went through me. “Sorry, my boyfriend doesn’t like sharing.”

“Is that so?”

“Besides, aren’t you kind of old for me? I’m not sure you could handle all this.”

“I have a feeling I could.” A breeze from his open sunroof lifted strands of golden brown hair. Good God, he was hot. Just beautiful, all golden and rugged, with those deep crescent hollows in his cheeks and his perpetually narrowed eyes. “And I don’t think I need permission to take what’s already mine.”

Goose bumps blossomed over my arms. “Did you miss me last night?”

“Get in the car.”

“In the front or back?”

He seemed to consider that for a moment as his gaze dropped to my breasts. They immediately felt swollen and overripe under his perusal. If he didn’t stop looking at me like that, I might bust a few seams in my borrowed top.

Then he said, “My seat goes all the way down.”

“What a coincidence. So do I.”

“Get in the car, Cady.” Oh, he was mad now. Not mad-mad, but impatient-mad, like he gets when I tease him too much.

I stood on tiptoes and leaned through the window to kiss him. It was just going to be a peck, but he tasted like the cinnamon gum he always chews, and I really did miss spending the night with him. Before I knew it, he was urging my lips apart—or maybe I was doing the urging, hard to tell—and his tongue was hot in my mouth, and I pretty much melted on the spot.

I didn’t care that pedestrians were doing double-takes as they strolled past on the sidewalk. I was ready to pull him through the window. But just when it started to get good, Lon pulled away. I moaned a complaint.

“That’s all you get,” he said, grasping my chin firmly with one hand. His voice was all deep and rough. “You think about it tonight when you’re trying to decide whether you want to sleep in your own bed or play nursemaid to Kar Yee.”

“No one at Kar Yee’s place is demanding I leave on account of my whorishness.”

“I like your whorishness. And that’s all taken care of. Situation fixed.”

I stared at him for a moment, waiting for him to tell me how. Did he have a talk with her? What was his idea of “fixed,” exactly? Probably not the same as mine. If she hated me even more now, I was going to be pissed at him. “What did you do?”

“Nothing you need to know about.”

“Try again.”

He sighed. “I had a little talk with her. Gave her some information that changed her mind. End of story.”

“What information? You didn’t use your transmutated knack on her, did you?”

“Nope.”

“Magick?”

“No magick. Can we drop it? I’ll tell you in good time.”

“Why not now?”

“Cady,” he pleaded.

“I know, I know. Get in the car.” He clearly wasn’t ready to share, so I dropped the subject for the time being and headed around the SUV to hop inside. He was wearing a jacket I loved, a fitted, softer-than-butter hazel-colored leather deal that was almost more green than brown in the sunlight. I could make out every bump and dip of arm muscle. The inside of the car was warm, the breeze from the sunroof cool. He turned down Thin Lizzy on the radio and offered me some valrivia, which I waved away.

“How is she?” he asked as he pulled out into traffic.

“Kar Yee? Much better. Bob’s healed her bones three times now. He says the brace can come off and she can do non-strenuous stuff, like actually leave her apartment. I think he’s going to try to take her somewhere today. He’s up there arguing with her now.”

“Bob spent the night?”

“Yeah, in a chair next to her bed. But after sleeping on her couch, I understand why. I’ve got a massive crick in my neck. Then again, that could be from my rooftop adventures. Guess what I did?”

He looked askance at me through squinty eyes. “Does it have to do with the paring knife you stole?”

“I can’t steal what’s already mine,” I said.

That got a slow smile out of him.

I sighed and gave him the lowdown about Priya, leaving out the whole
first thing I remembered was your face
remark. Having no experience dealing with a Hermeneus spirit, Lon wouldn’t understand their desire to serve. Even so, his reaction was less happy, more alarmed than I expected.