by Jenn Bennett
“Goddammit, Jupe.”
“Language, Dad.”
I covered my mouth with my knuckles to muffle a laugh.
We ate at a small table in a nook off the kitchen— braised short ribs that melted on the tongue, in a thick, dark wine sauce; a simple salad; and the hand-smashed potatoes, which were doctored with a sinful amount of cream and butter. After a long, dry spell of living off microwave dinners and cold cereal, anything homemade would’ve tasted good, but his cooking skills were surprisingly refined. I had to force myself to eat everything slowly so that I didn’t appear desperate or greedy. Jupe had no such concerns and finished off two helpings with remarkable speed and gusto.
Throughout the meal, I was torn in two directions by two very different men. Jupe was bubbly and talkative, a fireball of innocent energy that contrasted with Lon and his understated way of thinking and speaking.
Strangely, though, I found a few subtle similarities between them as well. Jupe obviously considered himself a budding comedian and constantly tried to make me laugh— which he did, many times—but I also caught fleeting looks of amusement on Lon’s face, and they lapsed into several bouts of gunfire-fast witty repartee. Yet, underneath all his manic energy, Jupe had his father’s easy confidence, and occasionally made remarkably concise observations that caught me off-guard.
It was pleasant, being in a normal house with a normal family. My mind wandered to the last few years I’d spent at home with my own family, when I was a teenager. My mom was never much of a cook, and making the meal that Lon had just served would have been beyond her expertise. Besides, my parents were vegans, so meat was never part of our meals at home—though I’d regularly sneak hamburgers and meat loaf in the school cafeteria and tell my parents I’d eaten salad instead. But there was an Indian restaurant close to our house in Florida that made awesome samosas. We used to get take-out from them every Friday and would eat it outside on our back patio. Afterward, my father would point out constellations and tell me stories about the myths behind them. Even though he repeated many stories, I never got tired of hearing any of them; Friday was always my favorite day of the week.
After clearing the table, Lon exiled Jupe to his room so that we could discuss business. I trailed him as he retreated to a door at the end of a small hall past the dining room. The door was locked electronically. He stuck a finger onto a small blue light over the handle of the door and a dead bolt slid open.
“Wow, serious security.”
“There’s dangerous information in some of these books,” he explained as he flipped on the lights and let me inside. “Jupe’s fascinated with magick right now. I don’t want to risk his fooling around in here and getting himself in trouble.”
Once inside the room, my mouth fell open. Hundreds and hundreds—maybe thousands—of rare occult books lined all four walls of the windowless room, and even more titles neatly filed around a large rectangular pillar in the center. On one side of the room was a chunky antique desk and a small fireplace with two stuffed armchairs in front of it anchored the other side. Six frosted art deco pendant lights hung from a high ceiling in two neat rows. A rolling wooden ladder attached to a track that extended around the room.
“Jesus, Lon.” I studied the endless rows of cracked leather spines. “This is larger than the collection in the vault in our main lodge.”
He walked alongside me with his hands behind his back. “I’ve spent twenty years collecting it. Almost got myself killed a couple of times in the process.”
I didn’t doubt it. He was right about there being dangerous information in some of those books. Theurgia Mallecta Gotetica, Hellanicus Magica Infernal, Speculum Artis Bene Moriendi … it was an occultist’s wet dream. Plenty of people would go to less than ethical lengths to get their hands on these.
“Is this a first edition?” I asked, squatting down to inspect a tall, fat book with a green leather spine: Liber Ceremonialle Magicke.
“Yes, 1416. One of five known existing copies. Would you like to look at it?”
“Could I? I’ve only seen the later editions printed on paper.”
“Sure. Let’s wash up first.” The mark of a serious, obsessive collector. He retreated to one of two small doors at the far end of the room, which contained a sink, hand soap, and paper towels. I washed and dried my hands, then returned. The book was sitting in the middle of his desk on a fresh white paper blotter. He motioned for me to sit down, then stood over my shoulder as I opened the book.
It smelled wonderful as I cracked open the cover—old leather mingled with the slightly musty scent of parchment. Lon smelled good as well, like the dinner he’d just cooked. It made me wish I’d ditched my pride and asked for seconds.
“Turn the pages by the corners,” he instructed.
“Yes, I know.” Sheesh. It wasn’t like I’d never handled a valuable old book before. The pages were stiff and brittle, and I carefully turned each one, marveling at the old astrological calculations and tedious ritual instructions. “The illustrations are so bright.”
“The previous owners took good care of it.”
“Very well preserved,” I agreed.
After a couple of minutes of browsing, I thanked him and gave it back. He shelved it, then brought a small stack of goetias over to the desk. The old tomes were each roughly the size of a coffee table art book; their cracking paper pages were swaddled in worn leather covers embossed with the names of the magicians who wrote them. Lon pulled up a wooden side chair next to me, sat down, and took a book off the stack.
“These are all the albino demons I’ve found so far.” He scooted his chair closer until his shoulder brushed mine. A rush of chills spread over my arms at the accidental contact. I stole a quick sidelong glance at him, eyes roaming over his arms and the hint of defined muscle there, just visible through his long-sleeve T-shirt. Christ, I thought. How long had it been since I’d been on a date? I really needed to work less and get out more.
As I tamped these thoughts down, he opened the first book in front of me, gently turning past pages of scrawled arcane symbols, handwritten in ink centuries ago. Calculations for moon phases and detailed charts of summoning variables covered the entries: size of the summoning seal, what was used to draw it (red ochre chalk, soot, blood), where the ritual was performed. Crude drawings and engravings depicted the evoked beings. One had the head of a frog and the naked body of a boy. Another was covered in scales below the waist and had massive twisting horns; he was riding a flying crocodile.
Lon stopped at a pair of pages; tucked between was a small scrap of blue paper.
“This one is Lemansus,” he said, removing the blue paper marker. “He fits all of your descriptions but two.”
I leaned closer to study the small woodcut rendering. “No horns … oh, no eyes at all—blind,” I said after a few seconds. “What else?”
“Not primordial. The text claims that the magician who first conjured him was told that this demon was born sometime in the fifth century.”
He carefully flipped to the next marker in the book. “Eligostanzia. He mostly fits the description, but there’s no mention of the rolling tongue that you’re looking for, and it’s hard to tell if those are talons or long fingers. The magician doesn’t say.”
“Hmm.”
“He’s also allegedly skilled at divinatory favors, not killing.”
“Maybe I should copy down his name, just in case. Do you have something I can write with, or—”
He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a stack of papers; he’d already run off copies of the marked pages. “Let’s make two stacks: Maybe and No. You can take the Maybe stack with you.”
At that moment, it crossed my mind that I really shouldn’t have needed to come all the way out there. He could easily have met me somewhere and handed over the copies.
“I thought you’d like to see the details on the original pages yourself,” he explained, as if he’d read my thoughts.
Wait—my thoughts. A terri
ble realization struck me.
“Umm, Lon?”
“Yes?”
“You never told me what your knack is.”
Knack. Earthbound slang for a demonic ability. Healing, telepathy, controlling weather … Most of the Earthbounds I knew had useless knacks that weren’t even interesting enough to nab them a job in a carnival sideshow. But I had a sinking feeling that Lon’s knack wasn’t ordinary.
“I didn’t?” He looked down at the desk, avoiding my eyes.
“No.”
He shrugged. “I don’t really have one.”
“Liar.”
Seconds ticked. “I’m an empath,” he finally said, still gazing at the book in front of us.
“You sense other people’s emotions?”
“Yes.”
I instantly became anxious. I thought back to when we first met at the coffee shop, and how he must have known everything I was feeling. Crap. In my house, too. Could he tell when I was ogling him, then? What about a couple of minutes back, when I was getting all hot and bothered by our shoulders touching? Exactly how much could someone tell about you by reading your emotions?
He sighed.
“You can tell how I feel right now, huh?”
“Yes.”
I tried to relax and clear my head. “I’ve heard of empaths, but I’ve never met one. How detailed is your skill? You can’t read minds, can you?” Please say no, please say no …
“No.”
Paranoia got the better of me. “Are you just saying that because I was thinking it?”
His smile was fatigued, like he’d been forced to explain this a billion times before; he probably had. “I really can’t read your thoughts. Just emotions. Simple ones are the easiest. If there are too many at once, it gets garbled. But I can sense you’re relieved that I’m not a mind reader, and that you’re putting up a barrier to keep your emotions guarded right now.”
“Sorry.”
A long, awkward pause filled up the space between us.
“Can you block it, or do you just sense emotions from everyone you’re around?”
“No, I can tune people out. If I couldn’t, I’d never be able to leave the house.”
“I suppose that would be … overwhelming.”
“When other Earthbounds find out, they start avoiding me. Relationships are hard.” One corner of his mouth puckered as gave me glance from the side. “The only person who doesn’t mind my ability is Jupe. He’s … well, an open book, so to speak.” He closed the tome in front of us and smiled at me weakly before pulling the next one off the stack.
A low wave of pity rolled over me, and I let it, even with the knowledge that he could sense it. “Is that why your marriage broke up?”
“It didn’t help. It’s hard to stay together when you know someone’s cheating on you and doesn’t care that you know it.”
“That sucks. I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “I married her after she got pregnant with Jupe. I thought it was the right thing to do, thought we were in love—or at least that we might be one day—but her demonic ability …” A scowl darkened his face for a few seconds. “Turned out, staying together was bad for us and bad for Jupe. So I divorced her eight years ago and took Jupe with me. He’s a good kid.”
“It’s kinda admirable that you’re raising him by yourself.”
“I’ve had help. I employ an elderly couple who live on a small house on the property. They help take care of the house and watch out for him.”
Housekeepers. Hmph. I knew a man like him couldn’t possibly keep a house like that so clean by himself; I tried to erase that thought before he caught my smugness.
“Has Jupe’s knack surfaced yet?” Abilities usually didn’t until mid-teens, from what I’d heard.
“No, but as much as I hate my knack, I hope like hell he inherits mine and not hers.”
He didn’t offer any further information about her ability, so I didn’t pry.
“Well, like you said, he’s a good kid. You’ll teach him to handle it fine.” I smiled, and his tightly creased eyes relaxed.
“I’m glad you like him,” he said. I wondered if that was just a casual observation, or if he sensed that I did. Before I could ask, he cracked open the second book.
“Here’s the third demon I found,” he said, going back to our shop talk as if his revelation was inconsequential. As if nothing had changed between us.
And maybe it hadn’t.
9
I flipped on my high beams as I drove out of the gates and began the trek down Lon’s rocky mountain. Despite the nice house, I really didn’t see why Amanda had fussed over the piece of property. Maybe it looked different in the daytime, but right now it was pitch black, and the seaside cliff’s steep road set my nerves on edge.
Lon had given me several decent leads. All told, I’d walked away with four possible albino demons, which was great. Problem was, to find out whether one of them was the particular demon I wanted, I’d have to summon and question each one. I really wasn’t looking forward to that. Summoning Æthyric beings made me sick as a dog. Half of the ones I’d evoked in the past were utterly uncivilized, little more than wild beasts. Some only spoke Æthyric languages, maybe Latin or some Coptic dialect. The ones that spoke English had been summoned to earth frequently by other magicians, and were pretty savvy about weaseling their way out of negotiations. Some were even strong enough to attempt to break out of my binding triangles if I didn’t charge them correctly.
Summoning was tricky business, and it took a lot of skill and smarts to do it without getting yourself killed.
As I rounded a sharp turn, a few raindrops splattered on the windshield and I hoped like hell that I could make it all the way down before a storm hit. I soon forgot about this, however, when the air around me bubbled.
“What the—”
A light flashed above the passenger seat, and half of my guardian’s body became visible. Priya’s birdlike face flashed and faded, then snapped back with static. I gasped in horror. Priya’s body was cloaked in a swarm of small, ghostly entities with grotesque bodies—each had multiple, hairy, spidery legs and two sets of bulging eyes. Their mouths were firmly suctioned on Priya, and through their transparent bodies, a steady stream of energy was being leached.
They had to be the litchen insect creatures that Priya had said were pursuing her.
“Priya!” I screamed, slamming on the brakes.
My guardian’s eyes, dazed with terror and pain, were fixed somewhere above my head. It only communicated one word to me before it vanished: Run!
The car came to a screeching stop, skidding sideways at the end of a hairpin turn.
My hands gripped the steering wheel harder. I tried to think, allowing the full weight of Priya’s warning to settle. After several deep breaths, I shakily felt for my deflector charm beneath my shirt … gone! I tucked my chin and yanked my shirt down to be sure. It must have fallen off at some point. I strained to think how or when, but it really didn’t matter.
A booming crack of thunder startled me, jerking my shoulders up. It was followed by a sudden downpour of rain that sheeted against my window.
“Keep calm,” I said out loud as I tried to make sense of my options. I couldn’t go back to Lon’s. The road wasn’t wide enough to allow me room to turn around, and it was tightly bordered by trees and cut rock. Plus I didn’t want to get him involved in this, especially not with his kid around. I had to go forward. If I could make it home, I’d erect a serious ward and hole up inside my bedroom.
For the time being, I needed to get the car back on the road, then charge one of the sigils on my arm once I could expend some attention for concentration. I needed something that would help hide me and give me a chance to escape.
I struggled to turn the steering wheel so that I could maneuver around the turn, then let my foot off the brake. Throwing the wipers on high, I had started around the curve when a heavy thump crashed down on the car roof.
Fo
r a second, I thought the storm had toppled a branch onto my car, then I looked up. Four dents the size of baseballs protruded through my inner roof.
That was no tree.
The car creaked and moaned. Whatever had landed on my car was now moving.
The cold realization of my guardian’s warning exploded inside my head like a bottle rocket. The litchen insects had done their job and hijacked Priya’s link to my Heka; their host demon had materialized from the Æthyr … and it had found me.
I rammed my foot down on the gas pedal. The car spun in place briefly, then shot across the pavement, full bore, propelling me across the brief straightaway segment of the mountain road. Whatever was on top of my car made a terrible noise, and the weight shifted to the back of the roof.
The next sharp turn came way too fast. I gritted my teeth and jammed the brakes with every bit of strength I had. As I rounded the turn, tires squealing, the weight on the roof shifted again. The unbalanced load nearly caused the car to spin out around the curve.
I straightened the wheels out and floored it to take the next straightaway. Midway down the road, the driver’s window exploded inward. I squeezed my eyes shut and turned away as a spray of rain and glass flew inside.
During that moment of distraction, the car slipped off the side of the road, plowing through bushes and several small trees. I yanked it back onto the pavement, unable to see clearly. The windshield was fogging over and something wet on my face was filming over my eyes; I couldn’t tell if it was rain coming in from the busted window or my own blood.
Light darkened in the open window. I cut my eyes to the side and saw what had broken my window; it definitely wasn’t a tree branch.
An upside-down face was descending from the roof.
The face was green and smooth as polished stone. A matching green halo misted around its head, neck, and shoulders. Red eyes blinked twice.
I could barely hear myself scream as a hand thrust itself into the open window and locked onto my arm. The car hydroplaned, and everything around me seemed to be moving in slow motion. My body jerked forward against the seat belt.