by Jenn Bennett
“It’s not my fault you’re living a lie.”
“No, but you’re a dick for taking advantage of it. And I’m done with you. Don’t wire me any more money, don’t ask me to do anything else for you.” Surging anger heated my chest and loosened my tongue. “If it weren’t for me, seven of your club’s children would be dead by now and Central California would be overrun with Æthyric demons.” I stuck a finger in his chest. “You should be kissing my feet. You have no idea what I could do to you, demon. No fucking idea. If you did, you’d be sending me roses everyday, begging for my forgiveness.”
He didn’t look like he was about to fall on his knees and ask for said forgiveness any time soon. But he did look surprised. Probably because no one ever stood up to him.
“I—”
“What? What are you going to do? Have your lackeys shove a gun in my face and force me on another job? Go on, I dare you.”
Now he was angry, too. “If you want to negotiate more agreeable terms, I’m open to that. But you seem to be forgetting that I could bring down your matchstick framework of an existence with a couple of phone calls.”
I stepped closer. Close enough to smell the expensive aftershave clinging to his leathery skin. Close enough to see a muscle jump in his jaw. “Go right ahead,” I goaded. “Tell the whole world. I’m not going to pay for my parents’ crimes for the rest of my life. If I end up in jail for living under a stolen identity or aiding and abetting my parents’ disappearance, then you’re just going to have to bail me right back out, because I can’t charge your damned Hellfire summoning circles from prison. And if you even think about using Lon to get to me, or threatening anyone I care about, you and I will be enemies. And you’d do well to remember all my enemies are dead. Including the man you’re about to fish out of the water.”
Dare stood stock-still, measuring me. Strategizing. Then he flicked his gaze over my shoulder.
“Lon.”
Oh, that was it. If he wouldn’t listen to my words, he’d listen to the hum of electricity I was going to shove inside his chest. I reached inside my inner coat pocket and whipped out a miniature caduceus—a graphite-cored staff I used for directing kindled Heka into spells. Half-crazed with fury, I prepared to siphon electrical current and raised the caduceus like a dagger, ready to strike.
Dare lurched backward and stuck his hand in his jacket like he was reaching for a gun.
“Enough!” Lon jumped between us, and roughly shoved Dare’s arm away. They stared at each other for a long moment.
“I’m done being ashamed of my past,” I shouted at Dare over Lon’s shoulder. “And I’m not paying for it anymore.”
The Hellfire leader blinked at both of us, looking old and weary in the shadowed light.
Nobody said anything else, so I just crossed my arms over my chest and started walking up the driveway. After a few moments, I heard footsteps following. I was pretty sure they were Lon’s. He has a certain loose way of walking, as if nothing in the world could ever hurry him along. I knew for sure it was him when he de-alarmed the car and reached around my side to open my door.
I was still angry. Shaking a little, even, as I hoisted myself into Lon’s SUV. His valrivia cigarette dangled from his lips as he started the engine. He cracked the window then pulled out of Merrimoth’s drive onto a winding coastal road. We sped around a curve, sitting in silence. My anger bled into a slow-moving anxiety. Lon still hadn’t said a word.
Was he upset at me for mouthing off at Dare? He often told me to stand up to the man, but admittedly, it might not have been the best time to rebel. Dare just lost one of his oldest friends. At least, I guess Dare and Merrimoth were friends. Associates. Colleagues. Fellow club members. Whatever the hell they were to each other, it was decades old.
Maybe I should’ve thought of that before I told Dare to go to hell. Maybe I should’ve thought of how this would affect Lon. Then it dawned on me that this wasn’t the reason for his silence.
I’d never told Lon that Dare had uncovered my family secret.
Crap.
“I don’t know how he found out,” I said. “But he knows who my parents were. He knows about my order. Everything.”
“Figured that out from your rant,” he said quietly. “How long?”
“Since the Halloween parade.”
He made a small noise.
“I don’t know why I didn’t tell you. I guess I was . . . I don’t know, ashamed. Stupid, I know. But you can’t understand what’s it like to keep a secret like that hidden for so many years—I built my life around keeping that secret. I just . . .”
My words trailed into a groan. I was frustrated with myself. And sick of all of it. “We’re not supposed to have secrets between us, and I should’ve told you. I’m sorry. But I mean what I said. I’m done with him. I’m tired of hiding.”
And in a weird way, I was glad I came to that realization on my own. If I had told Lon, he likely would’ve gotten in Dare’s face for me. I know he would have. But it felt good to do it myself.
Lon was silent for several moments.
“Are you mad at me?” I asked.
“I’m not happy.”
That was fair. “You wouldn’t do anything stupid to Dare, right?”
“If I would’ve known he was holding that over you—”
“I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you. But this is my bone to pick with him. I don’t want you going Neanderthal.”
It took him awhile to respond. “You haven’t called me that in a while. I sort of miss it.”
Relief washed over me. He wasn’t too mad. I gave him a soft smile. He squeezed the back of my neck and steered the car down another road.
“You think Dare will tip off the FBI or police about my identity?” I asked after a few minutes.
Lon grunted. “No. He’s not that stupid. No matter how he postures, he’s afraid of you.”
“Still, I better go ahead and tell Kar Yee.”
“It’s probably time.”
“I’m not telling Jupe, though.”
“When you’re ready, I think he can handle it.”
“I’m not ready yet.”
Maybe after the holidays. Lon’s former in-laws—Jupe’s grandmother and aunt on his mother’s side—were coming for Christmas and that was enough family drama to worry about right now.
Lon slowed the SUV as we approached a red light. “We’ll worry about it later. Right now, let’s just go home. We’ll have some wine, reheat our dinner, watch a movie.”
It sounded glorious. And, for the most part, we did salvage the remainder of the evening.
I got one night of peace and quiet. One night to relish my liberation from Dare. To ignore the feeling of dread that settled into my bones with the unexplained expansion of my moon powers. To block out the vision of my mother standing outside Merrimoth’s house. To forget about the demonic crime wave that was spreading across the city.
One single, enjoyable night before everything turned to shit.
My shift at Tambuku Tiki Lounge the following night was busy early in the evening, but the crowd tapered off before midnight. Not unusual for the Yuletide season. The Earthbounds that patronized our demon-friendly bar came in for happy hour drinks, then headed off to office parties, family functions, and shopping. By Christmas Eve, only hardcore alcoholics would walk though the neon-crowned Moai statues flanking our door.
Though I was still feeling resolute about my decision to stand up to Dare, I tried not to think about my expanding magical abilities while I worked, and I especially avoided any stray thoughts about my mother. After sleeping on the whole incident, I’d almost convinced myself that I hadn’t seen her. Almost. Before I came into work, Lon reminded me that even if she were alive—and how could she be?—she’d be alive in the Æthyr. I wasn’t going to bump into her on the street. This gave me enough peace of mind to make it through my shift.
Lately I’d been working less—only three days a week, and just one of those shifts kept me
until closing time at two. When Kar Yee and I first opened Tambuku two years back, I’d bartended six nights a week, usually working twelve-hour days. Then I met Lon. The drive from Tambuku to my house in Morella was fifteen minutes; the drive from Tambuku to Lon’s house in La Sirena was half an hour, or longer, depending on traffic.
I hadn’t slept at my own house in weeks—not since the demon Lord Chora disabled my house wards. But walking into the Butler home at three in the morning wasn’t working for any of us; Lon was a walking zombie on photo shoots and I sometimes went days without seeing Jupe, since I was sleeping when he was getting ready for school and already at work when he came home.
Lon never complained or asked me to change my schedule. But Jupe was vocal enough for the both of them, griping that his fourteen-year-old self was turning into a “latchkey kid.” I’m not sure where he heard that phrase, but it made me feel guilty enough to change my work schedule. After all, I was half-owner, and the bar was successful. We could afford another bartender. Kar Yee wasn’t working more than three shifts a week after recently promoting our lead server Amanda to assistant manager. Amanda liked closing and Kar Yee was starting to trust her with the Holy Bank Deposit, miracle of miracles. Everyone was happy.
One of those happy people marched down Tambuku’s cement steps into our basement entrance. With an aqua-blue halo and a fuck-off stare that could make Dirty Harry flinch, Kar Yee was my best friend and co-owner of Tambuku.
The Chinese expat nodded at a couple of regulars who were playing the vintage Tahiti Tropicana pinball machine that Jupe had found online. The boy had a major crush on Kar Yee and went to extravagant lengths to hatch excuses to talk to her. His latest ploy was scouring eBay and other sites for Tiki-themed junk. The Tahiti Tropicana was from the seventies and showcased two half-undressed island babes; one flipper stuck whenever you tried to hit one of the chipped silver balls. The old machine was an eyesore, but Kar Yee loved the damn thing: it averaged twenty dollars of quarters every day.
Kar Yee plopped down on a spinning stool and propped her elbows on the bamboo bar top. “It’s dead already?”
“Been dead for an hour.” Which is exactly how long ago I’d shut off the canned music. Only so many times you can hear “Mele Kalikimaka,” the so-called Hawaiian Christmas song, before wanting to stab sharp objects into your ear. “However, we did have an office party earlier that dropped several hundred.”
She twisted one of the two pointy locks of hair that extended past the severe line of her bob. “I’ll start on the receipts in a minute.”
I eyed two guys who walked into the bar. Their faces were covered in stage makeup: one was painted to look like a reindeer with a red nose and the other was either supposed to be an elf . . . or a robot wearing an elf hat. Either way, his ears stuck out comically beneath it. I couldn’t tell if they’d been at some lame holiday party or if they’d been part of a stage production of The Nutcracker Suite, but I could tell from the slight build of their bodies that they had a fifty-fifty chance of being legal.
And if they thought they were going to pass off fake IDs, they could think again.
“Where’s Doctor Feelgood?” Kar Yee asked.
Her nickname for Bob, a thirty-something Hawaiian shirt–wearing Earthbound who’d spent most of his nights at Tambuku since the first day we opened. Bob’s father was a popular Earthbound doctor here in Morella before he passed away, and Bob inherited a milder version of the man’s healing knack.
“He was in here a second ago,” I said, then gestured toward the arched hallway at the back of the bar, where our TV hung under a net of twinkling white lights. “Maybe in the restroom.”
“I pulled a muscle,” Kar Yee complained, rubbing her shoulder.
“Oh, I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to put his hands on you.”
Kar Yee’s kohl-rimmed eyes narrowed. “Bob needs a girlfriend. Hell, I need somebody, too. Looks like you’re the only lucky one for a change. By the way, I know a secret you don’t know.”
I stared at her. “What secret?”
“Just a little something,” she said enigmatically, with a teasing lilt to her voice. “A surprise. My future boyfriend told me.”
“Oh, that reminds me . . .” I leaned down beneath the bar and rummaged around for a small package. “Someone asked me to give this to you.”
Kar Yee reluctantly accepted the gift. It was bundled in Cthulhu print wrapping paper, complete with green tentacles—and way too much tape. Her face relaxed when she read the sloppy, hand-printed label. “A present from Jupe?”
“He says you can’t open it before Christmas.”
She shook it near her ear and grinned. “What is it?”
“Not telling, but it’s pretty sweet.”
“I have to know. Don’t tell him I opened it early.” She tore into the wrapping and pulled out a small wooden box. Inside sat a small figurine carved from wood: a beautiful but strange female with long robes and a gold and silver mask painted over her face. “It’s a traditional Chinese opera character,” she said in small voice. “My mother loves the opera.”
“Jupe said gold and silver would be someone supernatural. A demon.”
She turned it in her hands, seeing the green disk that had been placed over the crown of the figure’s head. “It represents me.” As she grinned, two deep dimples appeared in her cheeks.
“He ordered it from someone in San Francisco who makes them.”
“I love it! What a nice gift.” Her smile faltered. “Now I have to get him something?”
“It would be the polite thing to do, yes.”
“What do I know about teenage boys?”
“Enough to encourage this stupid infatuation, apparently,” I complained.
“He realizes I’m teasing about the ‘boyfriend’ comments.”
“You know he’s using one of those pictures he took of you on the boat last month as the screensaver on his laptop? God only knows what else he’s done with it. Probably photoshopped your head onto some porn star’s body.”
Her thin lips tilted in a slow smile.
“It’s not funny,” I said. “Get him a movie gift card. His feelings are going to be crushed if you don’t do something.”
She dropped Jupe’s present inside the pocket of her gold and black coat. “Technically, my dad is Jewish, you know. I am under no obligation to participate in this holiday.”
“I thought Judaism was passed down through the mother.”
“Well, my mother is a Taoist, so I’m covered either way.”
“You said your mother always puts up a Christmas tree in Hong Kong!”
She sighed heavily. “Can’t you just put my name on a gift you’ve already bought? I’ll pay you back.”
“Maybe if you tell me more about this ‘surprise.’ ”
“No can do. I’m the official secret-keeper. Jupiter trusts me.”
I muttered to myself, but was reminded about a certain secret of my own that I needed to spill. I had no idea how she was going to react; even if Lon thought she’d accept my real history, I wasn’t completely convinced. I’d been lying to her for years. Had plenty of chances to come clean, but never did. I was worried that she’d hate me for keeping the lie alive so long, but I was terrified that she’d be so disgusted by the truth that she’d want nothing more to do with me.
But I couldn’t risk Dare telling her first. And, you know, since I’d conjured that vision of my mother on the beach—if it really was a just a figment of my Heka-soaked brain—maybe my subconscious was trying to tell me to stop running.
To move on.
“Hey, I need to talk to you about something,” I said, a little nervous.
“Oh?”
“Maybe after closing, we can go grab some food at Black Cherry . . .” I began, but my words trailed away when I noticed the Santa’s Village rejects had stopped at the end of the bar. The big-eared elf boy had a pale green halo and was anxiously looking around while his reindeer friend—who sported a
military buzz cut under fuzzy antler head boppers—hoisted his backpack onto a barstool and unzipped it. Looked like he had a big metal can inside.
“What the hell is that smell?” Kar Yee said. “Is something burning?”
Shit. My new protective wards around the door. The sigils were glowing like embers. Not exactly a blaring warning. Guess that’s what I got for experimenting with unknown magick.
My focus flew to the costumed kids. Reindeer Boy stuck a small metal bar at the edge of the can. He was prying a lid off.
A paint can? Panic raced down my spine.
“Hey!” I shouted, striding toward him. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Hurry!” the elf said as he unzipped his coat and pulled up a pair of bulky black goggles hanging around his neck.
The silver can floated up from the open backpack into the air. Telekinesis. I saw it all the time in the bar, but most Earthbounds who possessed this knack were only able to lift the toothpick umbrellas out of their Mai Tais—not heavy cans of paint.
Reindeer Boy made a motion with his hand and the can tilted in midair. A thick wave of red paint sloshed across the floor in front of the barstools. Kar Yee shouted incoherently as it sprayed across the bottom of her pants.
I acted on instinct. My hand reached for the winged caduceus I kept behind the bar—a full-size one, several feet long—but Reindeer flicked a hand in my direction and the carved staff flew out of my reach, sailing across the bar before crash-landing against an empty high-top table.
I’d never seen that kind of telekinetic range. Never!
“Now, idiot!” Reindeer Boy shouted to his gangly blond companion as he snapped on his own pair of goggles.
The elf-painted Earthbound shut his eyes. A disconcerting pop! crackled through the room. The TV went black, along with the nets of white lights and the Easter Island lamps at the booths.
He’d shorted out the electricity. All of it. The bar was pitch black, except for the soft unearthly glow of green and blue halos, and a patch of dull street light that filtered in through the stained glass window by the door.
Panicked shouts rang around the black room.