Kindling The Moon

by Jenn Bennett

  The image stuttered, then focused on a matchbook next to her bed. It read palms casino, las vegas.

  Perfect. I had a location, and I now knew what she looked like. Better than nothing, and at least she wasn’t in the area.

  I expected that to be the end of the servitor’s magick-fueled transmission, but I couldn’t disengage from the spell. The last image blurred, crackled, then … changed. I wasn’t looking at stills anymore. It was the same hotel room, but now it was like a video playing in my head. The girl had moved off the bed. She was looking me square in the face. She walked forward. Toward me. Or toward my servitor? She reached above her head, lips moving, and a green dot appeared in the middle of my vision before darkness ate it all away.

  The transmission dropped and my head hit the floor of the SUV as I fell backward. Jupe’s face was wedged between the front seat, a look of thrilled wonder glazing over his pale green eyes. As he stared at me, an unexpectedly strong wave of postmagick nausea hit me.

  I barely had time to grab the empty popcorn bucket before I threw up.

  16

  Apart from making me sick as a dog and giving Jupe his second biggest magical thrill (“The Pareba demon binding was cooler,” he’d remarked), the servitor, I decided later, was a bust. Sure, it was a relief to know that Riley Cooper wasn’t in Morella. But unless I planned to chase her down in Las Vegas—no thanks—all I had was a face to go with a name that didn’t match up with any known magicians. I had nothing to tie her directly to Luxe or to any other order. Disappointing.

  With her identity still up in the air and the glass talon being researched, I really needed to talk to the caliph in Florida. I tried to email him again; it bounced a second time. I tried calling multiple times from public phones and just got his voice mail. That left me one option: the local E∴E∴ lodge.

  The morning after my date with Jupe, I headed to the lodge after checking on my car in the body shop. When I arrived, Soror Yolanda was speaking to a member on the far side of the main temple. Trying not to pace, I looked around at all the sigils painted on the walls and waited for her to finish. Just when I thought I couldn’t be more miserable, her blond assistant, the over-friendly Frater Kantor, appeared.

  “Soror Seléne.”

  “Keep it down,” I cautioned, quickly glancing across the room. “If the FBI comes knocking at my door because of your indiscretion, I’ll hex you before the oath spell even has time to shut your mouth.”

  An idle threat. I really didn’t know much about hex spells, but whatever.

  “Frater Hadler couldn’t hear me if he was a foot away. He refuses to wear the hearing aide that his doctor prescribed,” Kantor replied. “Anyway, back so soon? Does this mean you’ve reconsidered my offer? I’m quite skilled in the art of tantric sexual rites, you know.”

  “Okay, seriously. Let’s pretend we’re normal people, not magicians. If you saw me in a coffee shop, would you really think that you had a chance with me? I’m not trying to be mean, just realistic.”

  He gave me a confused look. “Ritual sex does not require a mutual attraction between partners, you know.”

  “Are you deaf, or can you really not imagine a life without magick?”

  “Why should I? You’re here, I’m here, we’re both talented magicians.” He ran his fingernails through the blond, cropped hair over his ears. His nails were too long. Disgusting. I wanted to find a nail clipper and chop them off.

  The Grandmaster interrupted us before I had to endure him any longer.

  “Sorry, temple business,” she said wearily.

  For a second, I wondered if she and Frater Kantor had ever engaged in ritual sex; maybe they got it on with her husband right here in the temple. Nothing would surprise me.

  “Can we talk alone?” I asked, shaking that thought away.

  “Of course. Frater Kantor?”

  He bowed his head obediently and turned to leave, but not before winking at me as he exited. I might not be able to hex him, but I could brew up something that would knock his ass on the floor for the better part of the day. If only.

  “I’ve been trying to get in touch with the caliph,” I said once we were alone.

  “Look, Seléne. I’m going to be frank. No one in the Florida lodge knows where Caliph Superior is. Not his children, his assistant, no one. He disappeared three days ago.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve sent my guardian to find his, but he’s warded and refusing communication. The elite mages at the main lodge have sent out servitors. Only one has returned, and the transmission was too weak to decipher much of anything. All we can gather is that Caliph Superior is in San Diego.”

  “The Luxe Order?”

  “We believe.”

  I clicked my jaw. “Kidnapped?”

  “Not exactly. He was stubborn about trying to find a solution to your problem, and I personally think he went there willingly to try to negotiate in secret. No one in the order would have allowed him to go if he had told someone beforehand.”

  “They won’t hurt him, will they?”

  “No, no. Not yet, anyway. The council they offered us was binding. They’ll stick to their word until the final date. Which is seven days away, by the—”

  “Yes!” I snapped. “I know damn well how far away it is. Do you think I’m not trying? That my parents’ lives being at stake—my own life—isn’t motivation enough?”

  She ignored my rising anger. “Do you have anything to report?”

  Total attitude.

  Suddenly furious, I realized that I didn’t trust her or Frater Kantor or anyone in that damn lodge one bit. I had planned to ask her advice about Riley Cooper, and the strange green dot that had appeared in my servitor transmission … I had even planned to tell her about the glass talon. Not now. No way in hell.

  “Nothing that I can tell you,” I said coldly. “When you get an update on the caliph, you call me immediately instead of waiting around for me to come to you. Otherwise, I’ll speak with you before the final date for the council.”

  “Of course,” she said with forced politeness, inclining her head.

  It probably wasn’t the brightest idea for me to piss off my last possible link to the caliph, but I didn’t care anymore; I was tired of being nice to people I didn’t like.

  17

  I was still fuming and stressed over the Grandmaster’s news when I pulled into Lon’s driveway after lunch. He greeted me at the door in his typical stained T-shirt and faded jeans that had holes in both knees. Not fake deconstructed holes made in some factory, but the real kind. I wondered how many years of wear it took to get them. He was on his cell, so he waved me inside and pointed me to a set of sliding glass doors at the far end of the living room that led out to a patio.

  I made my way across the room and dumped my purse on an olive-colored sectional sofa. A plush area rug was here, along with a couple of leather chairs that looked comfortable and inviting. I glanced around looking for examples of Lon’s photography; I hadn’t noticed any the first night I’d been here. Just a couple of large paintings and a colorful 1920s print advertising a circus. I spotted a few small photos hanging high above the sliding glass door, but before I could examine them closely, I became distracted by what lay on the other side of the glass. Amanda had been so excited about Lon’s property; now that I was witnessing it in the daytime, I understood why.

  I slid the door open and stepped outside onto a deep patio covered by matching modern cement ceiling that sheltered it from the weather. Where the patio stopped, a large, wraparound redwood deck started, with three tiers of long steps that led down to a narrow yard filled with native California plants: small palms, lavender, coastal sagebrush, and several stunning Monterey cypress trees with their unusual wind-sculpted trunks that curved beneath the flattened evergreen tops. The verdant patch was well tended inside curving stone borders that wrapped around the side of the house.

  Beyond the small garden of Eden lay a long, wide strip of bright green lawn
; past that, the land became rocky. The house stood on the edge of a steep cliff that dropped, leveled off, then dropped again and fell into the ocean. Miles and miles of the blue Pacific. The tree line had been cut to reveal a spectacular unobstructed view, but became dense at the edges of the property so that you couldn’t see another house, building—not another living soul. It was as if civilization didn’t exist. I stood at the top of the tiered steps and looked out over it in amazement as the coastal wind whipped my hair around my face.

  A couple minutes later, a glossy black dog with a purple collar emerged from the garden and bounded up the steps to greet me.

  “You must be Foxglove,” I said as I bent down to offer her my hand. She sniffed twice, then nuzzled her nose against my arm. Two powerful paws lurched up on my knees as she shot toward my face and began licking my chin. “Whoa, down, girl!” I said with a laugh, turning my face away. “You’re definitely Jupe’s dog—no boundaries, huh?”

  I stood and wiped my face as she looked up at me, panting happily, tail wagging. I scratched her neck as she sniffed my legs; maybe she smelled Mr. Piggy on me. Then her ears cocked at the sound of a bird, and she darted away as quickly as she’d arrived, disappearing through a small cypress grove at the side of the property.

  “Do you like it?”

  I turned to find Lon sauntering up behind me. “The view? Unbelievable.”

  “See that bit of land jutting out down there? The sea stack?” He pointed to the coast below where the waves were breaking furiously against several rocky columns of graduated cliffs that extended into the sea. “That’s Mermaid Point. Ever heard of it?”

  “No.”

  “It’s what La Sirena was named after. The local Pomo Indians say that their ancestors believed a strange spirit lived in the water there. They’d offer it gifts for good luck—floated planks of wood with food and flowers in the water.”

  “Interesting. I wonder if there really was something there? Sometimes there’s truth in old myths.”

  “I don’t know, but Jupe swears he’s seen a ghost out there a few times. Foxglove sometimes howls out there.”

  “Mmm … sure it’s not an imp?”

  He chuckled. “Probably.”

  We stood together in happy silence, and for a long moment, I forgot about everything. My mind just went blank. It was so peaceful. Morella seemed so far away … Then it all came back in a jarring rush—my parents, the albino demon, Riley Cooper, the caliph. I wanted to kick something.

  Lon must have sensed my mood change; he gave me a sidelong glance and tapped my elbow. “Come and sit with me on the patio.”

  I followed him up the wooden deck stairs and back under the cement ceiling to a small metal table with four chairs. A pot of steaming tea sat there along with a book and his silver cigarette case.

  “You want the heat on? It’s kind of chilly out here today. Overcast.”

  “Uh, sure.”

  He punched something into a panel on the stone wall near the sliding door, then sat down next to me and poured us each a cup of tea without asking if I wanted any.

  “Jupe at school?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Mrs. Holiday picks him up.”

  “Who’s Mrs. Holiday?”

  “Housekeeper … half of the elderly couple I told you about that works for me.”

  “Oh, that’s right.”

  “They live in a small house down the cliff over there.” He pointed toward the side of the house where the trees thickened. “Check this out,” he said, doling out cigarettes. “I’ve been poking around since you dropped Jupe off last night and mentioned Father Carrow’s fairy tale. He might have been right.” He slid a small book toward me. Liber Demonica III. Paper pages. It mustn’t have been too valuable for him to have brought it out from the confines of his library. I allowed him to light my valrivia while I turned to the page marked with one of his little blue pieces of paper.

  The entry was titled “Rules of Possession.” I began reading, then skipped ahead when Lon guided me forward several paragraphs. I read out loud.

  “If the summoner desires Prime Possession of the Entity, and all the privileges of its special talents, He must secure a Kieyda by using the following formula to calculate a Secondary Circle that should connect to the apex of the binding triangle, as shown in figure 171. The Entity should be tricked to cross over into the Secondary Circle using the one of the methods listed within table 54—”

  “Some of those methods are barbaric,” Lon mumbled.

  “—then the desired Kieyda should be removed quickly. Banish immediately after removal with the full Greater Banishing Ritual. The Primary desirable Kieydas are as follows: Horn, Tooth, Bone, Talon, Tip of Tail, Boney Crest. Please keep in mind that neither Skin nor Scale holds sufficient power for Kieydas.”

  I held my cigarette away from the table and looked at Lon.

  “Kieyda?”

  “A kind of amulet derived from the body of an Æthyric demon.

  “It goes on to say here”—he pointed at text on the following page—“that the summoner needs to have possession of the Kieyda when the demon’s seal and name are used for summoning. If the Kieyda is lost, the demon can’t be summoned to earth again until it’s found. Drink your tea. It’s jasmine.”

  I glanced down at it with feigned suspicion. “Just jasmine?”

  “Cross my heart,” he said with a sly smile.

  I inhaled the tea and sipped it cautiously. It was wonderful.

  “Give me a second,” I said, collecting my thoughts.

  He looked at me curiously but stayed silent, which I appreciated. After a minute or so, I sighed and put the tea down. “Why are my feet warm?” I ducked to peer under the table.

  “Heated floor. I asked you if you wanted it on.”

  “Ah. Fancy.”

  “Convenient,” he corrected. “It gets brutal out here at night in the winter. I like to be able to use the patio year-round. Hate being trapped indoors.” He plucked a stray valrivia leaf from the tip of his tongue, transferred from the open end of the hand-rolled cigarette.

  I nodded, then dropped my head and spoke into my half-empty teacup. “If the Tamlins are right about the albino demon … we have to find the summoning name, the demon class, and the damn talon. That’s impossible. It’s all over. Done. Doomed.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the talon—or glass knife, or whatever they’re calling it—is in police evidence in Portland.”

  “Portland? I thought they recovered it in San Diego?”

  “The local FBI in Portland was working on Magus Dempsey’s murder. I guess they sent it up there for the investigation. Besides, it doesn’t matter where it is. We can’t just walk in and ask to check it out like a library book.”

  Several seconds ticked by. “Are you sure about that?” he asked, a glint in his eye.

  “I’m pretty fucking sure, Lon.”

  He sat back in his chair with his leg crossed over the opposite knee in a lazy figure-four shape. “And I’m pretty fucking sure I know someone who owes me a big favor.”

  “What kind of favor?” I asked as my heart rate shifted from resigned to intrigued.

  “Big enough. His son works for the Morella PD.”

  Correct that, intrigued to excited.

  “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll call him tonight. In theory, you might be able to use the talon with a servitor. Program the servitor to find the summoning name of the demon it belongs to. Like a bloodhound following a scent. I’m not positive, but it stands to reason.”

  He was right. I’d used other objects as tracers for servitors in the past. Theoretically, there was no reason I couldn’t program one to find the book with the albino demon’s information if I had the talon.

  “So let’s stay calm but hopeful, okay?” He lowered his eyes and gave me a serious look.

  I pressed the warm sole of my shoe against the edge of his chair and tried to push him away. “Calm but hopeful, huh? No fair using your empathic
hoodoo on me, you jerk. Move back.” I strained to push with my leg, but broke into a laugh when his chair wouldn’t budge. “Dammit!” He grabbed my ankle and threw me off, laughing with me as we engaged in a brief hand-and-foot wrestling match.

  While we finished our tea and cigarettes, he asked me what I was going to do about Riley Cooper; I had no idea. I’d spent hours trying to find her on the internet and had called every magician I knew even tangentially whom I could trust, but no one had heard of her.

  Then I told him about Caliph Superior disappearing off to San Diego.

  “He must be dedicated to your parents to go through so much trouble to protect them all these years and put himself in danger now. That’s above and beyond.”

  “My family has been in the E∴E∴ for generations, at least on my mom’s side, back when the order used to be headquartered in France.”

  Lon sipped his tea. “You look a little French. Something in your mouth.”

  “I look just like my mom. Only, she’s taller and more … elegant. Less hip-y.”

  His eyes dropped to my hips in evaluation; I couldn’t tell by his expression whether he liked what he saw or not. My mind floated back to last night’s embarrassment over his date—or colleague, or whatever he claimed she was. Tall and slender. I wondered if that’s what Lon preferred; his ex-wife was built the same way.

  This was not the time to conjure up unwanted emotions, not when he could sense them. Best to keep talking and distract both of us. “My mother spent her childhood in Paris before moving to the States. My father was American, but his family was from Marseilles. It was one of the things that originally drew my parents together, la connexion française. That’s what my mom always said.”

  “Parles-tu français?” Lon asked brightly.

  I shook my head, slightly embarrassed that I didn’t. “A few words here and there. You speak it?”

  “I pick up languages pretty easily.”