Binding the Shadows (Arcadia Bell)

by Jenn Bennett

  When I was able to crack my eyes open, I saw Dare’s henchmen gathered around Beryl, who was removing a flat metal tin from his suit pocket. He screwed the top off. Something dark sat inside. Dark red. He pushed his thumb into it, like he was readying himself to offer fingerprints, and then swiped the substance across each of the men’s foreheads.

  I’d seen this once before, in the Hellfire caves. When Merrimoth threw Lon into the fighting ring with a summoned Æthyric demon. His forehead had been marked.

  A mark that allowed the wearer to step inside a binding without breaking it.

  The three big men looked up at me with menace behind their eyes.

  Shit.

  Dare’s voice floated behind them. “Word is spreading. You are the most coveted creature between the two planes. Your mother may be making claims about you. But she isn’t here. I am. And last I checked, you were my employee. My property. Mine to command, whether you like to think so, or not. Nobody quits until I say they do.”

  He stepped to the side and leaned against the bar, stuffing his hands in his suit pockets. “I’ve got a wonderfully inventive portable demon cage in a van out back. You’ll be coming home with me tonight.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “However, I want you to know that I’m a man of my word,” he said, rubbing his hand over his head. “I won’t welch on our bargain—I’ll tell you what I know about your dead brother. But first, let me show you what happens to people who defy me.”

  The three marked men approached the binding.

  My hackles rose. Brain went blank. Panic sifted through my limbs, turning them to jelly.

  Had to use the moon power. No choice. But when I tried to reach for it, the binding reflected it. Pain shot through my chest. I howled.

  Trapped.

  Bound.

  Not a damn thing I could do.

  The first man tested his foot against the binding. He smiled and stepped into the triangle with me. As he did, I tried again for the moon power, hoping the binding was weakened enough for me to snag it. No such luck.

  His fist felt like iron against my cheek. The pain was sharp and excruciating.

  They were on me so fast. Three giant men in such a small space. I tried to defend myself for half a second, but it was no use. One grabbed my hair, then violently wrenched my arms behind my back. The last one punched me in the face. The pain was unreal. Bones cracked. Blood flowed. They were going to bash my face in—maybe they already had. My shoulder popped, and my arm went numb.

  Someone jabbed me in the stomach. All the air left my lungs. Blood choked the back of my throat. My arms were released, and the pain in my shoulder rocketed through me. My knees buckled, and I dropped to the floor.

  But they didn’t stop.

  They kicked me in my chest. Ribs cracked.

  They kicked me in my back until pain radiated up and down my spine.

  Someone stomped on my foot. My ankle cracked and broke. I barely felt it. I couldn’t feel anything anymore.

  I wasn’t afraid to die. I was almost glad it was coming. This would all be over. I would start again, some where else. Another plane. Somewhere my mother couldn’t touch me. Somewhere Dare couldn’t touch me.

  My cheek lay against Tambuku’s wooden floor. I was curled on my side. I could still see out of one eye. I stared into the spotlight until I imagined it was a tunnel of white, ready to suck me in and whisk me away.

  Dare’s voice broke through my reverie. “Enough. You’re going to kill her.”

  Please, just do it. I wanted to say it out loud, but one side of my jaw was definitely broken.

  I looked up at Dare with my one good eye. He was smiling down at me. Beryl stood by his side. The men who’d beat me were breathing heavy. One shook out his fingers. His knuckles were bloody.

  “Go drive the van around and bring the cage inside,” Dare said absently.

  The air shuddered. A dark shape wavered behind his head. Beryl’s hair fluttered. Enormous black wings sounded like a flag snapping in the wind.

  They all spun around and looked up at Priya. His face was hardened, jaw tense. He swung his arm around and backhanded Dare across the cheek. The elderly Hellfire leader’s face flew sideways. Priya’s silvery body darted forward. Beryl and the henchmen cried out and stumbled as he landed.

  Two quick strides and his bare foot stamped on the edge of my binding. Heka fizzled and popped. The terrible pressure dropped away.

  Free.

  Free, but so broken, I couldn’t move.

  I guess I didn’t need to.

  The moon power came to me in a rush, coating the room in a blanket of silver light.

  All knacks. That’s what Dare said. It made sense now. I didn’t need a spell. Whatever I could imagine, I could do.

  Not demon, but not human, either. Something in-between.

  I wanted to tell Priya to get behind me, but I couldn’t speak. I didn’t need to, though, did I? I screamed at him in my head to move back. His wings extended and flapped, then flew out of sight. My hair blew forward as he landed behind me.

  No good would come of letting Dare walk out of here alive. If I lived, he’d keep me chained like a dog and use me to do God only knew what. But if I died, Lon and Jupe would be sitting ducks. Either Lon would kill Dare and end up in jail, or Dare would make their lives miserable—whatever lives he allowed them to have. He was a horrible person, a sadistic asshole with too much power. And he was a killer.

  A killer who was pulling a gun out of his suit jacket, looking at me with murder in his eyes.

  Eat or be eaten. No choice now.

  I mentally marked them all: Dare, Beryl, the three men. And as Dare hesitated, pointing the gun first at me, then behind me at Priya, I thought of Merrimoth that night on the beach, hurling fire at me and Lon. That’s what I wanted.

  Dare’s rage-filled gaze connected with mine. The panic I’d felt before his men destroyed my body was now reflected in his eyes. And with the moon power fueling my Heka, I directed all of my willpower into one single word:

  Burn.

  Orange and yellow flames lit up the room. Swirled around the five men. Screams of anguish pierced my ears. The heat felt like a blast from an unholy oven. It might burn me up, too.

  Someone tried to run—Beryl, I thought—but stumbled after one step.

  Burning flesh filled my nostrils as skin melted off their faces. The screaming stopped. They all fell to the ground, one after the other, shaking the floor like sacks of wet cement dropping as fire ripped through them.

  Dare was the last to fall. His body dropped in front of mine. I watched him die, infernal flames licking across his body. Watched his eyes dissolve in their sockets. Watched his bones turn black.

  Gotcha.

  Before I could take more than a handful of strained, pain-filled breaths, the flames were flickering out over five piles of black ash. Smoke curled in the air above them.

  I’d killed them all in a matter of seconds.

  My hair rustled. I flicked my one good eye upward, away from the ash and smoke. Priya crouched in front of me.

  I could tell by the horror-struck look on his face that my body was a mess, but I didn’t feel pain anymore. Didn’t feel anything. His sinewy silver hand reached out to me, stuttered, and halted.

  He simply said, “I will get help.”

  Tall grass tickled my cheek. I opened my eyes to wildflowers swaying in a soft breeze. I tried to lift my head, but I couldn’t move. Couldn’t move anything: fingers, arms, legs. . . . All I could do was look.

  I strained my eyes sideways. Grass. Lon wasn’t sleeping next to me this time. I looked up and saw a path of blackened grass and a white dress blowing in the breeze.

  My mother stood at my feet.

  “Cassé. Ruiné.” She sighed and shook her head. “You managed to get yourself mangled, didn’t you? How am I supposed to use a broken body?”

  I tried to respond, but nothing came out of my mouth.

  “You’d better fi
nd a healer soon, or I will be very unhappy with you, Sélène Aysul Duval. And while you do that, I will seek a better way to connect with you. This is the back door, so to speak, but I think I know someone who can help me find the front. I will return when you are of some use to me.”

  She turned and walked away, strolling through the blackened grass until she was out of sight. I lay on the ground, looking at the sky. I thought I heard birds in the distance. But as the sound got louder, I realized it was beeping.

  The sound of a machine.

  The sound of my pulse being measured.

  The grass faded away. The blue sky turned white. I could see out of one eye. Just a slit. It was so difficult to keep it open. I smelled antiseptic and plastic. Saw bodies moving around. They looked busy. Quick, sharp movements. One of them was talking to someone.

  “—broken hip, ribs, arms, leg, jaw, fingers. Internal bleeding. Concussion. She’s lucky to be alive. I’d like to try to keep her that way. You’re going to have to get out of here and let me work. People can’t walk in and see you like that.”

  Like what? I moved my gaze around the room. Dr. Mick. He was staring at a computer screen. Another doctor was hooking me up to another machine. I looked to the side.

  “I’m here. You’re alive.” Lon bent over me, horns spiraling around his ears. “It’s okay. Mick will fix you.”

  My brain was sluggish. Kar Yee . . . she wasn’t at the bar.

  “She’s fine.” His voice was low and rumbly.

  Jupe? The Giovannis?

  “Giovannis are on their way back to Portland. Jupe’s outside in the waiting room with Kar Yee and the Holidays. I didn’t want him to see you.”

  I glanced down at myself. All I could see was blood soaking through the blue paper wrap they’d used to cover me up. I looked back up at Lon and remembered what happened in Tambuku, my mind flipping through the events in rapid succession.

  I killed Dare. Killed all of them.

  Lon nodded. “Priya came to Jupe. He told us.”

  I’m not sorry.

  “Me neither.”

  Dare’s gone. Merrimoth’s gone. No more Hellfire Club, I suppose. Either that, or you’re in charge of it. I laughed silently, feeling mildly delirious. That’s something, huh? You’re the head honcho now. Everyone else is dead.

  “It’s the least of my worries.” He lifted his hand as if he was going to touch my face and halted, fingers hovering above my cheek.

  My mom will be coming back. If they fix me, tell them to strap me down. Put anti-magick sigils up around the room. Because I’ll be dangerous if she’s controlling me.

  His voice cracked. “Oh, Cady.”

  “You need to go, Lon.” That was Mick talking. I recognized his voice now.

  Lon leaned closer. “I’ll find a way to stop your mother. I don’t know how, but I will.”

  I don’t know if she can be stopped.

  “If there’s a way—”

  “Lon,” Mick said firmly. “Come on, buddy.”

  I didn’t want him to go. I love you. You know that, right?

  He murmured something anguished I couldn’t understand, laboring for breath, as if he’d been running. Mick pulled him away. His horns retracted as they forced him out the door. Two nurses took his place. Mick gave them directions, then stood over me, running a hand through his short hair, which looked more red than brown under the surgery lights. “I know you can’t talk, but I think you can hear me. I’m about to put you under.”

  I blinked. That was the best I could do to answer.

  Mick’s halo swirled, big and blue. “I also wanted to tell you this before we started. I didn’t know if Lon knew, which is why I made him leave.”

  Knew what?

  Mick lowered his voice. “The baby survived. I’m not sure how—you’re badly bruised and your hip is broken. But it showed up in the blood work, and I can detect the heartbeat with my knack.”

  What was he talking about? I stared up at him, unable to ask.

  “You’re about seven weeks along, I’d guess. Maybe eight.”

  Impossible—he was crazy. I couldn’t be. I was on the Pill! I had a repeating alarm on my phone to remind me. There’s the week you don’t take it, and the pack gives you sugar pills so you don’t get out of the habit, but sometimes I skipped those. Which is fine, as I long as I remembered to take the real pills a week later. And I always did. Well, except that one week after Halloween when my phone alarm went buggy. I missed a few days then, but I doubled up on pills when I finally remembered. Okay, maybe I missed more than a couple of days, but Kar Yee said she forgot and doubled up all the time, and it wasn’t a big deal. Besides, I’d been taking it regularly ever since, so I couldn’t be pregnant.

  I mean, I remembered my last period. It was . . . when was it?

  Oh, God.

  It was before Halloween.

  I looked up at Mick.

  “Did you know?” he said. “I thought you did, but now I’m having doubts. I wish I could tell. We’ll get a telepath in here later, someone who can read and send, unlike Lon.”

  Oh, Christ! This couldn’t be right. Wouldn’t I know if I was pregnant? I thought of Jill, one of the Tambuku waitresses. She’d had a baby earlier in the year. I tried to remember back to when she was pregnant. She was tired all the time. Nauseous. Vomiting. I’d vomited, but not in the mornings—just after magick, which was normal. After my mom visited me in the dream that first night. But that could’ve been related to whatever magick she’d done to me.

  I’d been crying. A lot. Jill cried a lot when she was pregnant.

  I remembered Hajo’s gross comments about me gaining weight. My breasts were uncomfortable. Maybe even tender. Was that a symptom? I didn’t know!

  How did I not know?

  Beep-beep, beep-beep.

  The machine was going crazy.

  “Whoa, your pulse is too high. You need to calm down. Your body is . . . I’ve got a lot of work to do. I’m bringing in a second healer who works here. We’ll do what we can, but I can’t fix everything at once. Might have to keep you sedated for a few days while we do additional work. I’ll do everything I can to save the baby. I just wanted you to know.”

  Beep-beep, beep-beep.

  No, no, no! This couldn’t be happening. I couldn’t be pregnant. I thought of what Dare’s men had done to me. Kicked me in the stomach. In the back. Broke my bones. Oh, God. Tears obscured my vision.

  Oh, Christ—did my mother know about this? She hadn’t said anything. Maybe she didn’t know. Oh, please let her not know. Lon didn’t know.

  “She’s hemorrhaging. We can’t wait any longer.”

  Wait—hemorrhaging where? What was going on? Was I losing the baby?

  “I’m putting her under.”

  Maybe it was better if I lost it. I was a monster. Lon was a demon. What the hell would we create together? Something unnatural and wrong?

  Or something beautiful?

  I’d only known about it for a minute. Now it suddenly seemed like the most important thing in the world. More important than killing Dare. More important than my mother’s diabolical plans. More important than running off to Florida.

  Whatever it was, Lon and I created it. And I wanted it.

  I had to tell Mick somehow. He had to save it.

  “She’s almost under,” he said as my eyes closed. “Let’s get started.”

  Acknowledgments

  Without my hard-working agent, Laura Bradford, Arcadia wouldn’t exist. I’m eternally grateful for her steadfastness, golden advice, and generous heart.

  My new editor at Pocket, Adam Wilson, has faced down wild dogs in the back alleys of Thailand: how badass is that? His keen observations made both this and “Leashing the Tempest” far stronger. Julia Fincher also did some heavy lifting; her edits were sharp, thoughtful, and tough: exactly what was needed. (I secretly call her Julia Awesome.) Big thanks to folks on Team Pocket: Sarah Wright, Mandy Keifetz, Anne Cherry, and everyone else behind the scen
es. Kudos to Tony Mauro for the best Arcadia cover yet.

  My husband is a genius. He is also patience personified. Not only does he tolerate my insular moods, he also calmly brainstorms me out of plot holes and listens to all my Crazy Writer paranoid ramblings.

  The online book community has been terribly generous to me—bloggers, reviewers, readers, and authors. Without their support and word-of-mouth enthusiasm, I’d be nothing. And lastly, thank you to everyone who’s taken the time to write love letters to Cady, Lon, and Jupe: long live the Bride of Frankenstein, pirate mustaches, and geeky teenage boys!

  JENN BENNETT is an award-winning visual artist. She is also the author of Kindling the Moon and Summoning the Night, the first two books in her critically acclaimed series featuring irresistible heroine Arcadia Bell. She lives near Atlanta with her husband and two pugs.

  authors.simonandschuster.com/Jenn-Bennett

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  Don’t miss the rest of the Arcadia Bell series . . .

  Kindling the Moon

  Summoning the Night

  “Leashing the Tempest”

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.