Kindling the Moon (32 page)

Lon inhaled sharply through his nose and lifted his head. I waited for reality to register for him. He tucked his chin to his chest and looked down at me, grunted, then smiled and let his head loll on the pillow as he stretched his legs.

“I had another dream.” His deep voice was graveled with exhaustion as he shifted his arm around my shoulder to draw me closer.

“My memories?”

“Mmm-hmm. Maybe sex helps the spell along. We should make a note of that in the Memory grimoire,” he said with amusement.

“Go on, tell me.” I quickly cleared cobwebs from my sleepy brain.

“You were older this time. You were sneaking inside a large, dark room. A temple. A large silver hexagram hung in the front of the room on a wall above a raised sanctuary with two ornate thrones. There were four doors leading into it from the back. They had roses carved in them.”

“The main lodge in Florida!” I lifted my head to prop my chin on his chest.

“You sneaked in through one of the doors and hid behind a column.” He looked down at me. “Do you remember this?”

“No.”

“Your mother was having an argument with someone. I could only see his back, but they were all in purple ceremonial robes. The man had long white hair, halfway down his back—”

“Caliph Superior,” I confirmed without reservation.

“Oh? He looked like an old wizard from a fairy tale.”

“He used to. His hair is short now. Go on.” My hand
trailed lightly across his ribs, down the slight concave of his stomach, back up again.

“Well, he was saying that you—his words—‘should have already manifested qualities that would indicate deification.' He kept insisting that his guardian told him that you should be able to pull energy from the moon by now. That you could use Heka inside you to kindle moon energy and harvest it for more powerful magick. That some ancient text claimed that you should be able to do this after you started menstruating.”

“Wait, what?” My roaming hand stopped, taut on his ribs.

“Just the messenger,” he reminded me.

“Well, that means I was at least twelve when this happened, because that's when I had my first period, but kindling the moon? The Moonchild spell doesn't just strengthen Heka? I'm supposed to be able to generate magical power from the moon? What the hell?”

“Just repeating what your caliph said. That he'd personally tried to get you to kindle moon energy for several months but nothing was happening.”

“Weird. I don't remember him trying to teach me moon magick. Christ, I wouldn't even know how to start. Anyway, keep going.”

“He said that he had no doubt that you were special, because his guardian had examined you. He mentioned your halo. His guardian told him about it. Then he was trying to get your mother to show him the ritual they used for your conception. She insisted it was the proper one, from the order's private library.”

My cheek moved against his chest as I nodded. “That's where I read about it.”

“He was also asking for the name of the man who presided over the ritual. She gave a name, Frater Oben?”

“Yes. That's the old mage I was telling you about. The one they had sex in front of.” I grimaced, shucking away the thought. “He died before I was born. Kind of a relief that I never had to look the man in the eye.”

Lon grunted in agreement. “After that, they argued back and forth. He insisted that he was only concerned for her and had her best interest at heart. She got upset and walked out crying. Then the dream ended.”

“Huh,” I said, puzzled. Was it possible that my parents had failed or screwed something up with the Moonchild spell? It pissed me off to know that the caliph had made my mom cry. I had to remind myself that this had happened years ago. Still … I thought about Lon's earlier suspicion of the caliph. I hated to think he was right. It made me a little sick to consider it, even. But what if the caliph was only concerned about the order's reputation? Only concerned that they had a real Moonchild in their ranks? In the dream, was he accusing my mother of having failed at the spell?

Then I allowed myself to think about something worse. “Hey Lon? What if the caliph wasn't really kidnapped by Luxe this past week? What if …”

“He was working with Luxe? It crossed my mind, but some things don't fit. You said the caliph was the only person, apart from your parents, who knows where you live. If he was working with Luxe, why would they send Riley Cooper to track you down with a Pareba demon?”

“They wouldn't. If he wanted to turn me over to Luxe, he could just come and get me himself.”

“Exactly.” He thought for a moment, then asked, “Right now I'm more curious about the moon kindling. Do you think that's what happened back in the caves with the incubus?”

“I doubt it. I think I would have known if I was kindling
moon energy. I wasn't even trying, it just happened. Plus, why would an ability like this appear out of the blue if it was supposed to have happened during puberty? It doesn't make sense.”

“If we can get our hands on the damn glass talon, maybe you can just ask your parents,” Lon suggested. “Seems like they have all the answers about the caliph and the moon spell.”

My heart fluttered. He was right. If I could just finish this and prove their innocence, then I could have them back. They could help me figure out what had happened with the incubus. We'd sort it out together. If they failed with the Moon-child spell, who cared? I sure didn't.

I laid my head back on Lon's shoulder and thought for a while, trying to make sense of the dream until he yawned and stretched again. “We should probably get going,” he remarked.

“Boo.” I gave him a thumbs-down sign, peeling myself away and flipping onto my back to lie beside him.

“Are you sore?”

I laughed. “Why, you want an award or something?”

“Maybe.”

I burrowed my fingers into his ribs. He recoiled with an involuntary, pained grunt. He was ticklish, I'd discovered by accident over the last few hours—a gold mine of an Achilles' heel.

“That's it. Now you've done it.” He grabbed my fingers.

“Oww!” I yelled, laughing.

“I was trying to be considerate, but screw that. We're going one more round before we leave, whether you like it or not.”

“Oh,
really
? You're awfully spry for a man
your age
.”

“Honestly, my back's fucking killing me.”

“So are my legs,” I admitted, laughing.

He peered at me critically. “Looks like you fell into a vat of cherry Kool-Aid.”

I tentatively touched the swollen skin around my lips. They stung like hell. “That's your fault! You gave me mustache burn. There, and other places …”

“Mmm.” He chuckled, eyes narrowing in humor. “Come here, girl.” Sweaty and sticky, he pulled me back up onto his chest and wound his fingers into my hair, now the consistency of a bale of dried hay. “I want you to shock me with Heka like you did last time,” he added in a husky, seductive voice, “right at the end.”

“ ‘Bite me, Cady. Shock me, Cady.' Christ, you're demanding, aren't you?”

He grinned against my cheek. “Are you complaining?”

I wasn't. Not one bit.

Craig Bailey lived on the outskirts of the Village. His narrow, three-story brownstone was modeled to look like an English country estate, complete with trellised vines and plenty of stained glass. I watched from a distance, waiting nervously in Lon's coupe. The driver's-side window had a radiating crack in the glass and the hood was dented in two places, but he didn't say a word when we found it like that outside the Hellfire caves.

Watching him stroll out of Craig Bailey's driveway, I couldn't decipher his body language. Like me, his wrinkled clothes were stiff with sea water, and we were both sporting rat's-nest hairdos; we looked like homeless people who had stumbled upon evening wear in a trash bin. He opened the driver's door, got in, and closed it without looking at me.

“Well?” I asked, barely able to contain my curiosity. “Did he have the talon?”

“He's dead.”

I closed my eyes. Not out of reverence—I didn't know the man from Adam—but in mind-numbing frustration. “What?”

“Died of a heart attack yesterday morning,” Lon elaborated. “I talked to his son. He was pissed as hell that Craig
spent the family money on worthless occult collectibles. Would have been more than happy to sell the talon to me, but it wasn't there.”

“Wasn't there? Are you sure?”

“I'm sure. That fucking piece of shit sold Bailey the talon, then stole it back.”

“Who? Spooner? Why would he do that?”

“Because then he could make money without losing the talon. He's pulled stunts like this before—at least, that's what I've heard.”

“So he sent us out here on this wild-goose chase, and he had it all along?”

“I'd bet my life that he does.”

Desperate for a hot shower, I scratched the back of my head; my scalp was dry and itchy. “How do we get it from Spooner?”

“We've tried asking nicely,” Lon said with a bitter smile.

I nodded. “We're going to have to take it by force.”

“Yep.”

“You think you can remember the incantation for that memory spell we used on Riley?”

He tapped his temple. “Mind like a steel trap.”

“I think I can remember the sigil, if you can do that part.”

“Hmm … I might have something better in mind. It's in the trunk.” Carefully considering whatever scheme he was cooking up, he idly stroked his mustache with his thumb and index finger. I pulled aside his collar and winced at the nasty indigo tooth marks I'd left on his neck. He lifted his eyebrows, inspected the bite in the rearview mirror, then gave me a smug smile as I covered it back up.

“You got a lighter in that tiny purse you stashed in my glove compartment?”

“I do.”

“Good. There's some valrivia hidden in a box under the car manual. It's not fresh, but I don't care at this point, if you don't mind rolling it up for us. We'll stop somewhere and get food along the way.”

“And some coffee, please.”

“And some coffee,” he agreed as he started the car.

It was just before one in the afternoon when we arrived at Spooner's place of business, an art deco building in a commercial district on the outskirts of Morella, just ten minutes away from my house. Lon identified Spooner's car parked in the alley by the back entrance, so we pulled behind it and marched up a short flight of steps bounded by a painted metal railing.

“I thought you said Spooner didn't work.”

“He doesn't. He's a collector. This is where he cons people out of money.” Lon battered the metal door with his fist, cigarette dangling between his lips. He leaned forward, ear to the door, and listened for a response inside. Seconds ticked by, ten stretching to twenty … a minute.

“I hear movement,” Lon reported before banging on the door again and yelling, “Delivery!”

I heard it too, then a series of approaching steps. Locks began clicking open from the other side of the door. When the door swung inside, Spooner stood a few feet away in the same garish suit he'd worn the night before. With shocks of orange hair shooting out at all angles from his head and bloodshot eyes, he looked even worse than we did.

He was also very, very surprised to see us.

Lightning fast, he shoved at the door to shut it, but Lon wedged his foot against the kickplate before it closed. He stuck his Remington inside the humble opening and racked
it once. Slowly, the door opened again. Spooner stood in the doorway, hands apathetically raised in submission.

“Hello again,” I said brightly.

“Let's talk,” Lon added, prodding Spooner's chest with the gun's barrel.

We dogged Spooner down a sterile hallway until he halted in front of a frosted glass door. He opened it and entered.

All four walls of the intimate room were lined with locked glass display cabinets. In the center, a low, square metal table was surrounded by four green armchairs and a swing-arm lamp.

Lon was wrong; this wasn't the room of a collector. It wasn't carefully arranged and tended like his library, and the items weren't cherished or admired. They were displayed with the care of a pawnshop owner. Spooner was a fence, not a lover of rare mysteries.

That didn't mean there wasn't a jackpot in here. A multicolored supernatural fog swirled around the haphazard arrangements. Pink, green, yellow, blue—nearly every item in the cabinets was Æthyric in origin. Hundreds of them.

I looked closer. Horns, bones, teeth, and talons cluttered one crowded shelf. They gave off the strongest visual marker, but they weren't the only occult treasures. He also had a staggering selection of metal and clay pendants and charms … dozens of books and scrolls. The earthly items were nearly as interesting and varied as the Æthyric ones: a small animal skull covered in precious gems, a leaf-shaped Aztec sacrificial blade, a golden Middle Eastern puzzle box with Jinn markings.

“Shut the fuck up,”
I whispered, in awe at the breadth of the collection.

“Your collection has grown since I last saw it,” Lon
commented. “You used to specialize in earthly amulets, now half of this shit is glowing with Æthyric dust.”

“I've expanded.”

Lon glanced at the shelf I was inspecting. “The Æthyric demon body parts are new.”

“To be fair, some of them are angel. One Banshee tooth, or at least that's what the former owner claimed.”

“Go big or go home, huh?” Lon observed.

Spooner shrugged and straightened his green ascot. “I only discovered their existence a few years ago. Most collectors aren't willing to sell what they've acquired. It's a tough but profitable market.”