Summoning the Night (30 page)

Oh.

Dueling emotions revved up inside me, slammed down on the gas pedal, and collided into each other in one glorious wreck. Before I knew what was happening, my arms were around him and he was crying on my shoulder. “It's okay,” I murmured.

I couldn't really remember ever comforting someone before. I certainly was never comforted much myself growing up. My parents were never “hands-on”—big surprise in hindsight.

Despite my lack of experience, it somehow came naturally. As Jupe repeatedly told me he was sorry, I gladly absorbed his angst-ridden pain, selfishly appreciating that he was warm and his shampoo smelled good, and that his angular arms felt pleasantly familiar around me. Like Lon, but not. Same, but different. At that moment, it hit me like a ton of bricks that they were a package deal.

If I was fully committed to Lon, then I had to accept that Jupe was part of that. I knew this, of course, but Lon and I didn't exactly have a plan. One minute I was getting to know him, the next he was handing me a key to his house because “it's just easier.” But even if Lon wasn't vocal about the future, Jupe was already jumping ten steps ahead, marking himself as mine. Sure, the tattoo was a stupid, impulsive teenage mistake, but it said loud and clear that he was expecting me to stick around.

It was easy to play house and enjoy the moment with both of them, not getting too close. But a person could do that only so long—could only test drive the car for so many miles before the dealer made you park it in the lot or buy it. There wasn't a rent-to-own clause when a kid was in the picture . . . even one who was fourteen years old in two days.

I rubbed his back and told him to hush, and he stopped clinging to me like we were in the middle of a whirlpool and he was saving me from spiraling away. He pulled back and sloppily wiped his wet face and snotty nose all over the front of his T-shirt.

“Hey, Jupe?”

“Yeah?”

“Have you ever used your knack on me?”

His response was fast and emphatic. “No way.” Squinting up his tear-stung eyes, he added, “And you haven't used magick on
me
, right?”

“Of course not.”

“Okay then.”

Even without Lon there to evaluate his emotions, I believed him.

“Your dad is going to wring both of our necks when he finds out.”

Panic flicked over his face. “You promised not to tell.”

“And I won't, but you can't hide it forever. He's going to know. Besides, you should probably go see a doctor and get antibiotics. Or get a healer to pull out the infection. Did the Earthbound doctor who healed your arm when it was in a cast—”

“Dr. Mick? No way! We can't go to him. He's friends with my dad!”

“I know a healer who could probably take care of it, but if I took you to Bob, I'd have to tell Lon.”

A low voice rumbled behind us, turning Jupe's muscles to rock. “We're not going to Bob.”

Shit.

Lon stood in Jupe's doorway, slowly pushing the door all the way open with his fingertips.

“How much did you hear?” I asked while Jupe ducked behind my back, using me as a shield.

“All of it.”

Ugh. That meant he heard me suggesting to Jupe that we might break up one day. I hoped he didn't take that
the wrong way. He'd been listening to our emotions too, right?

Jupe peeped around my shoulder. “Are you mad?”

Lon glanced from Jupe to me, and when our eyes met, his were tender. A little puffy, even. You'd think that he, of all people, would be resistant to Jupe's infectious sobbing by now. Maybe not.

“I'll be mad if I cooked dinner for no reason,” Lon said at length, then joined us by the bed. “Let me look at it. After we eat, I'll call Dr. Mick and see if he'll let us drop by tonight.”

Dr. Mick was on duty at the ER. While Jupe got his infected tattoo squared away, Lon and I sat in the waiting room. I nearly dozed off in my chair until Lon's phone startled me fully awake. I watched his face while he answered the call. I knew it wasn't good news, but when he closed his eyes and his head dropped, worry crept into my chest.

He touched the screen to hang up, not bothering with good-bye, as usual.

“Lon?”

“It was Dare. A fifth kid, an hour ago. Mindy Green-burg.”

I blinked, trying to remember the homes I'd visited earlier in the day. The Greenburgs—it was the last one on my route. I'd spoken with the father. “I warded her house,” I protested. Had I screwed something up? Was this my fault?

Lon stared blankly across the waiting room. “She never made it inside the house. She was taken in the driveway. Her mother said that one second they were both getting out of the car; the next, she heard something in the bushes and her daughter was gone.”

Outside the house. The ward didn't work unless you were inside it. All that work, and it didn't matter. I wanted to scream in frustration, but all that came out was a sob.

“She goes to the public school,” he added in a fatigued voice. “She's one of Jupe's classmates.”

Lon hesitated to send Jupe to school the next morning. He could've saved himself some trouble if he'd just kept the boy home, because it was only a couple hours later that he got a call from the principal's office: they were temporarily closing the school.

By the time we made our way over there, cars already filled the front parking lot and crowded the drop-off area, causing a traffic jam on the main road outside the school. Frustrated, Lon maneuvered his SUV through a gap and double-parked.

Inside was even worse. A total clusterfuck of parents waited outside the principal's office—mostly those complaining about the school's decision. They were shutting down for the rest of the week, until Halloween was over. The principal said it was a decision made by the school board, which didn't want to be held liable for any children being abducted from school. Even though no kids had gone missing during the day, they said they weren't taking any chances. They couldn't afford to hire additional security, and they were nervous.

Parents were scared and angry at being forced to take time off work and make other arrangements for their kids,
teachers were upset, and the school staff was trying to maintain order and get everyone out. Total chaos.

Lon swore under his breath as we fought the crowd to Jupe's homeroom.

Ms. Forsythe's classroom was noisy. No one sat in their seats; they were grouped around the window watching the parking lot, huddled together in the corner, buzzing with gossip. Ms. Forsythe was standing in front of a chalkboard covered with lists of stars and astronomy vocabulary. A 3-D model of the solar system hung above her desk.

“Mr. Butler, Ms. Bell.”

Though she was dressed in the same poncho she'd been wearing when I met her in the faculty parking lot, she now looked frazzled and run-down. Her eyes were bloodshot. She absently scratched her head, then tucked the ends of her unkempt bob behind her ears in exaggerated slow-motion.

“Bet you'll be glad to get out of here today,” I said, having to speak up to be heard over the din.

“This has been a disaster,” she said in a weary voice. “They called us in at five this morning to tell us what was going on. I've been cussed out by angry parents and it's like a war zone in here.”

“I'm sure they understand it's not your fault.”

“To be honest, I stopped caring about fifteen minutes ago.”

Yikes. “The girl who went missing last night, Mindy . . . was she your student?”

“No, but I know her and her mother—not well, yet it's shocking nonetheless.” She sighed heavily. “I think it's the right decision to close the school. I understand that it's hard on working parents, but most of the teachers are terrified something will happen on their watch, and no one's getting
any sleep.” She rubbed a temple and sighed. “My mother picked a fine time to get her stomach stapled—I was only supposed to stay with her for a few days while my house was being tented for pest control, but now I'm taking care of her, too.”

“Not roaches, I hope.” I thought of the cannery and shuddered.

“Termites,” she said. “Costs me a small fortune every few years. And on top of all that, no one realizes what we've been having to do, sending the kids to the bathroom in pairs, watching their every move—it's been stressful.”

“It's hard on everyone,” I agreed. “Do you have kids of your own, or . . . ?”

“No. My husband died years ago. We never had children.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't be, my dear. I've got a wonderful family, friends, and my students. And I have the support of my church. I'm quite blessed.”

Strangely, I could appreciate this, though not in any way she'd understand. When my parents left me and went into hiding after they were charged with murdering the leaders of rival occult orders, the only thing that kept me sane was the regular contact I had with my caliph, who is the head of the E∴E∴ and my godfather. Maybe that's one reason why, when I moved to Morella a couple of years back, I turned for friendship to Father Carrow, a local retired priest who lives down the street from me and who also introduced me to Lon.

Lon shifted his stance, antsy to leave. He hates crowds. “We're taking Jupe.”

Ms. Forsythe nodded wearily. “Be my guest. He's over in the back with Jack.”

As we elbowed our way through the crowded classroom, I couldn't help but wonder how many other of the seventeen descendants of transmutated Hellfire members were students here. I never thought to ask when I was doing the warding magick yesterday. So many kids in one place at one time. If the Snatcher operated in the daytime, he could take the rest of his victims in one fell swoop right here.

That's when it hit me. Maybe we'd been going about things all wrong. You couldn't summon an Æthyric demon who was already on earth, and you couldn't find a magician who didn't want to be found. But if I couldn't track down Merrin, then maybe I could draw the bastard out of hiding—or maybe even Duke Chora himself. . . . If I could get all the remaining transmutation descendants in one place, at one time, would he come?

The annual Morella Halloween Parade was a big earner for the city, with attendance that topped 100,000. It was dark, crowded, and one of the featured floats was sponsored by Dare Energy Solutions, Mark Dare's company in La Sirena. After a couple of hours of persuading, the senior Dare agreed to populate the float with the transmutation descendants. If that wasn't bait, I didn't know what was.

A couple of weeks back, when Jupe and I first made plans to attend the parade, it was just going to be me, him, and Lon, and the world was both Snatcher-free
and
anti–Halloween protester free. Now the protesters were out en masse, holding up handmade signs and shouting through bullhorns behind police barricades, and Jupe was one seriously unhappy boy, sitting at home with the Holidays, barricaded within the house ward. Both the housekeepers knew how to shoot—Mr. Holiday had been the one to teach Lon, when he was Jupe's age—and Lon had left them with loaded shotguns . . . just in case. I didn't feel guilty for refusing to offer up Jupe as bait along with the others. Lon either. Especially when we showed up before the start of the parade and discovered that Mark Dare's kid was also safe at home.

I wasn't, however, an unfeeling monster who didn't care about the other kids. I felt extremely anxious about this whole baiting plan. A little sick to my stomach, even. If anything went wrong, it would be my fault. So I told myself that nothing
could
go wrong. I wouldn't let it.

Halloween music pumped from portable speakers, but you could barely hear it over the clamor of the crowd. Every ten or twenty feet, food vendors and drink merchants were set up under tents and doling out smoked sausage, roasted nuts, gallons of beer and daiquiris. Hundreds of costumed revelers sauntered shoulder to shoulder up and down the packed sidewalks.

The Dare float was designed as a waterfall lit up with thousands of sparkling white lights. The float riders were divvying the free throws that they'd be tossing out to the crowd. Candy? Plastic spider rings? Small toys? No: flashing key chains with the corporate logo. “Way to advertise your business instead of promoting Halloween spirit,” I remarked to Lon as we both donned parade badges and took our places at the rear of the float.