Banishing the Dark

16

Jupe leaped off the city bus and raced down the sidewalk toward the Bull and Scorpion Lodge. It was 6:55—already dark outside—and Leticia had said Sophic Mass started at 7:00 p.m. sharp. He’d barely been able to persuade the Holidays to let him spend the night at Jack’s. But when they’d insisted on driving him to Jack’s house after school, he had to make up an excuse to Mrs. Yamamoto, Jack’s mom, about why he was rushing off. Then the bus took longer, and he was going to die if he went to all this trouble only to miss the damn mass.

And to top it all off, he expected his dad would call any minute. Dad and Cady were in some city named Ontario, which he first thought was in Canada, but apparently, there was another one near L.A.—who knew? They’d be waking up about now and calling to check in and—

Oh, crap! The door was closing. His long legs gobbled up the sidewalk as he called out to the man at the door of lodge. “Wait for me!”

The man didn’t look all that happy when Jupe bounded up the steps, but he let him inside.

“I’m here . . . for mass,” Jupe managed between labored breaths.

“First time?” the man asked as he locked the door behind him.

“Yes.”

Jupe glanced around and found himself in a dim hallway with a lot of doors. One was labeled as the administrative offices, another as the library. It smelled musty here, which wasn’t a surprise, because the décor looked a little Brady Bunch, and there weren’t any windows. Not much of anything, really. Just a bulletin board above a low table that held a candle and some printed programs.

“Sanctuary’s through there,” the man said, pointing to a set of double doors. For someone whose job was to greet people at a public event, that guy could sure use some personality lessons. But Jupe was too nervous to care. Strains of exotic instrumental music and the scent of incense floated from the cracked doors. He slowed his breathing and stepped inside.

If he thought the hallway was dim, the sanctuary was black. White taper candles in metal floor candelabras were the only sources of illumination, flickering across a large room with high ceilings. The room was half full. Fifty or so congregants sat in folding wooden chairs on either side of a wide center aisle that led to an Egyptian-looking raised altar at the front. More candles were there, along with some red velvet pillows. The whole thing was enclosed in a sheer, rounded curtain that hung from a half-moon rod and draped to the floor.

For a moment, every occult horror movie Jupe had ever seen flashed through his brain, and he got a little freaked out. What the hell were they going to do on that red table, anyway? And why was that sword up there? Cady’s parents had tried to sacrifice her—had Leticia lured him here to gut him like a fish and make a stew of his entrails?

And oh, shit! He just noticed: he was the only Earthbound here. No halos. Not a single one. He’d never found himself in this situation back in La Sirena, and he suddenly felt extremely self-conscious. A bead of sweat trickled down the back of his neck.

“Psst.”

He swung to the side and saw Leticia sitting alone in a back row to the right. True to her word, she was dressed casually in the same pink hoodie she’d been wearing the first time they met, with her hair twisted up in those messy Princess Leia buns. And when she flashed him a big white smile, he forgot all about his visions of human sacrifice.

He ducked into a seat next to her and dropped his backpack onto the floor. Holy crap, she was way prettier than he remembered—and he’d been remembering her a lot. On the bus ride into Morella, he’d tried to think up something suave and classy to say to her this time, but all he could manage was “Uuhh, what’s up?”

Ugh.

“We can’t talk when the ritual starts,” she whispered. “Here. Read this. It’ll tell you what’s going on.” She shoved one of the programs in front of him. When he took it, her hand touched his. Goose bumps spread up his arm.

“Thanks,” he said, feeling a new kind of breathlessness coming on that had nothing to do with his race to the lodge. His hand was tingling where she’d touched him, and she smelled like strawberry jam. He wondered if that was her lip gloss, because she had a lot of it on this time, and she hadn’t before.

For some reason, that only made him more nervous. His eyes skimmed over the front of the program. Sophic Mass. Some diagrams of a man in ritual robes posing like he was doing lame karate moves. A bunch of poems. A list of saints he’d never heard of. Wasn’t William Blake a writer? And since when was King Arthur a saint? This was some crazy shit, and whoa, hold on. Right in the middle of the list was a name that jumped off the page: Saint Sélène the Moonchild.

Cady was a saint?

Jupe opened his mouth to ask Leticia if she knew about Cady, but when he glanced up, he caught her staring. And that made his chest feel warm. It also made him forget what he was going to ask.

“Any questions?” she whispered.

“Are we going to have to sing any hymns?”

She grinned. “You volunteering?”

“You don’t want to hear me sing, believe me,” Jupe whispered. “The only time I sing is in the car with my dad’s girlfriend, and only because her voice is worse than mine.”

For some reason, this made her laugh quietly. Then she whispered, “My sister’s a good singer. I’m not bad, but I’m not good, either.”

The recorded music stopped, and a man in blue robes sat down at an organ near the altar. When he put his hands on the keyboard, a startlingly loud opening chord reverberated through the room.

A soft spotlight in the ceiling flicked on behind them. Jupe looked over his shoulder to see a procession of three robed magicians walking up the front aisle—super-slowly, as if they were in a wedding. The one in the middle was a Latina woman in a wine-colored robe embroidered with symbols. Beneath a weird pointy hat, dark hair cascaded down her back. Between the robe and the funny hat and the tall wooden staff in her hand, she sort of looked like a bishop crossed with Dumbledore. She also looked like the leader, and when she passed by, he glanced back at Leticia and mouthed, “Mom?”

She smiled proudly and nodded. Jupe gave her a thumbs-up before turning his attention back to the procession. Two of the robed people flanked the altar. They looked a few years older than him. Leticia’s mom stood in front and said something in a foreign language. Definitely not Spanish. Maybe French. Whatever it was, the entire congregation repeated it. Leticia’s mom made a gesture. Everyone stood and repeated the gesture. Jupe scrambled to his feet as a dull panic throbbed inside his stomach. He wished he’d read the stupid program.

The next few minutes were a blur. Leticia’s mom switched to English and called out for a bunch of stuff—the names of some pillars, angels, elements. Everyone got up and sat down a billion times. It got a little monotonous, and Jupe’s gaze was drifting down to Leticia’s breasts. Then the spotlight in the back of the room began moving, and everyone’s head swiveled to watch two more people coming down the aisle.

A man holding a spear and a dark-haired woman who was dressed like some sort of Arabian princess or a belly dancer, with a belt of golden coins and a lot of long necklaces. He could almost see through her robe, which was super-distracting. She parted the curtains at the altar and closed them behind her. Now he could just see the shape of her standing behind the curtains. What was she doing back there?

After more ceremonial stuff, the guy used his spear to part the curtain around the altar, and the spotlight fell on the belly-dancer chick. She sat among the pillows on the red table with her legs dangling off, knees spread.

Naked.

Oh.

My.

God.

Naked chick on the altar! Breasts, belly, dark triangle of hair between her legs. As if she didn’t even give two shits about the fact that an entire room of people were staring up at her. And the guy with the spear was kneeling in front of her, praying, it looked like, with his face right at crotch level. The bead of sweat that had trickled down Jupe’s back earlier suddenly became a waterfall, and—oh, God, no—he felt himself getting hard.

Don’t look at the naked girl. Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look. How could he not look? It was the first naked chick he’d seen in person. Ever. Well, he once accidentally saw Mrs. Holiday come out of the guest shower naked, but that was horrifying.

This was not.

And goddammit, what did they expect? It was a natural reaction. Only it was getting mighty uncomfortable, and he was painfully aware he was sitting next to Leticia. Did she know? How could she not?

He risked a glance at her. She wasn’t staring at his dick, thank God. It was pretty dark back here, so maybe he was safe. But then she caught him looking at her, so he forced his eyes back to the naked-flesh carnival at the altar. No good! Ah, crap. He glanced back at Leticia again, and she had a funny look on her face. Like she was pissed, maybe. Or not. He didn’t know. How could he think with all this going on?

Just when he thought he couldn’t be more freaked out, the people in the seats around him began heading down the aisle. One by one, they headed to the girl on the altar, drank what looked to be wine, and ate some communion-type wafer. Right in front of her, as if they were toasting to her vagina. And maybe they were, who knew? Part of Jupe wanted to find out, and part of him was absolutely horrified to be forced to walk down the aisle with a raging erection.

He couldn’t do it. He prepared himself to make up some excuse and bail—just run out of the room and leave. Then he smelled strawberry jam.

“We don’t go up there,” Leticia’s voice said in his ear.

He nearly jumped out of his seat but had sense enough to pull the hem of his jacket down over his pants. “Why not?” he whispered back.

“You have to be a certain degree.”

“Temperature?”

“Ranking,” she clarified. “For some, you have to be a certain age. I’m not old enough. And you’re not a member.”

Relief flowed through his limbs. And after concentrating really hard and biting the inside of his mouth until pain shot through him, he was finally able to get everything under control between his legs. He wiped sweat off his brow and exhaled heavily before whispering, “Who is that chick on the altar? Do you guys hire a stripper or something?”

Anger tightened Leticia’s face. Her whispered reply was so sharp she might as well have slapped him. “That chick is my sister.”

The mass couldn’t have dragged on any longer. Jupe apologized to Leticia a billion times. And he continued to do so, even when the whole shebang was finished and everyone filed outside the lodge into the old parking lot in back, which had been converted into a patio. Beneath the cover of two battered canopy tents, people gathered around picnic tables and scattered chairs. They looked so normal—moms, dads, teens. A group of smaller kids who hadn’t been in the sanctuary burst out of the hallway with a lady who must have been watching them.

Jupe was really confused.

And Leticia was walking really fast. He jogged to catch up to her as she headed to a picnic table outside the tent and plopped down on top of it, settling her feet on one of the attached benches.

“I’m really, really sorry,” Jupe said as he approached.

“I heard.” She dug inside a neon-green messenger bag that was slung diagonally across her body, pulled out a tablet, and settled it in her lap to read.

“How was I supposed to know?”

“I thought you said your dad’s girlfriend went to the main lodge.”

“Years ago, before she met my dad!”

“Oh.”

“That . . . what your sister did in the sanctuary was just a little shocking, is all.”

“She was playing the role of the priestess. It’s called a living altar, and there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s a beautiful ritual that celebrates women’s power. It’s not some cheap stripper show for a bachelor’s party.”

“I didn’t say—” Ugh. Well, he had kind of implied it. He tried again. “I’ve got nothing against strippers. Or naked girls. I mean, I like naked girls.” Oh, God. Shut up. Just shut up. But he couldn’t. “Your sister’s pretty hot.”

Leticia’s nostrils flared.

“I’m sure you’re even hotter,” Jupe said desperately.

She looked horrified. “Naked?”

“No. Yes? No,” he said in quick succession. “Wait, have you, uh, played the role of the priestess?”

Her eyes darted to the side. “Of course not. You have to be an adult to participate in the mass. Eighteen.”

“That’s only four years away. Are you going to—”

“Get naked in front of my lodge?”

Jupe’s pulse doubled. Then the thought crossed his mind that maybe Cady had played priestess back when she was active in her lodge, and that made him feel a little squicky. “Never mind,” he said. “Can we please not talk about this anymore? I’m already freaked out, and you’re making it worse.”

“Now it’s my fault?”

“Let’s blame it on your sister and call it even.”

“You’re a piece of work, Jupiter.” She remembered his name! Jupe grinned, forgetting all the awkwardness for a moment. Until she said, “Who’s Kar Yee?”

“What?” How did she know about Kar Yee? All the awkwardness came back and punched him in the gut. “Did you do some sort of spell on me?”

She rolled her eyes. “No, you weirdo. I saw your Facebook profile online. It says your relationship status is complicated, and you’ve got a bunch of pictures of some woman named Kar Yee. Is that your girlfriend?”

He scratched the side of his neck. “Kar Yee is my dad’s girlfriend’s best friend. We just tease each other. It’s just a joke.” Well, most of the thoughts he’d had about Kar Yee weren’t funny at all. In fact, they were downright filthy, but Leticia didn’t need to know that. Nobody needed to know that. “Wait, you looked me up? How come you didn’t friend me?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t know what kind of person you were. I still don’t. I thought you were serious about wanting magical help, but after tonight, I’m not sure you even know anything about it.”

“I do,” he insisted, smelling charcoal and onions drifting in the air from the grill. “My dad can do a little magick. He’s got an occult library that would probably put this one to shame. And his fiancée—”

“I thought you said she was his girlfriend?”

“He bought her a ring, but it’s just been hectic. She’ll say yes.” He hoped. It sure would be easier to say “stepmom” than “Dad’s girlfriend” in situations like this. “She’s the reason I’m here. I need to help her with a big problem.”

“Why didn’t she just come herself?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Like your relationship status?”

“I already explained that.” He motioned to the picnic table. She motioned back for him to sit down, so he crawled up beside her, careful to leave a little room between them. From here, he could see the mass attendees talking and laughing under the strings of fairy lights while grabbing drinks out of a big cooler. A couple of other people were bringing covered dishes out of the lodge’s back door. One of those people was Leticia’s sister, now fully clothed in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt.

That way lies danger.

Fearing a repeat of what had happened to him during the mass, he quickly averted his eyes and glanced down at Leticia’s book. A few words were highlighted. “What are you reading?”

“Nothing you’d like,” she said, shutting off the screen and closing the cover.

“You’re into dragons? Like high-fantasy stuff?”

She shoved the reader into her bag. “Maybe.”

“That’s cool. My best friend, Jack, reads fantasy. I’m a visual person, so I like comics and anime. Movies.”

A long silence stretched between them, until she finally said, “If you want my help, maybe you should start by telling me who your dad’s girlfriend is.”

He sighed. “I can’t do that.”

“Don’t tell me, it’s complicated.”

“It’s—”

“I already know you’re lying, because I looked at all your pictures online. I saw who your dad is. And your mom’s a celebrity.”

“My parents are divorced.”

“I also saw the picture of you and your dad and the owner of that Tiki bar, Arcadia Bell. That’s his girlfriend?”

Jupe felt like he was being led into a trap but was powerless to stop. “Yes . . .”

“I asked my mom if she could look up Arcadia Bell in the lodge directory. And she got all weird and freaked out and wanted to know why I was asking and who you were.”

Crap. That didn’t sound good. “Did you tell her?”

“No.”

Jupe bit the inside of his mouth. “Why do you think she freaked out?”

“I don’t know,” Leticia said, running the heels of her palms over her knees. “But she grilled me about it, and I had to lie and say some kid at school was talking about her. I tried to play dumb, but I’m not sure if she believed me. I don’t like lying to my family.”

“Tell me about it,” Jupe said sourly. “I went to a lot of trouble to get out here again. I’m not sure if I can keep pulling it off.”

After a moment, she said, “My mom told me to leave it alone and forget about it, so I figured it must be important. I sneaked onto her computer after she went to bed and searched the lodge directory myself. It’s a list of every member of the order, since it moved from France to the States in the early 1900s. And no one named Arcadia Bell has ever been a member. No Bell at all.”

Ah, crap. He was torn between being thrilled that she’d gone to all that trouble out of curiosity over him and panicked that she now knew too much. He’d planned on quizzing her about Sélène Duval, not Arcadia Bell.

“Who is she?” Leticia asked.

“I can’t tell you.”

“Fine. Then I can’t help you.”

“Please,” Jupe begged. “I really need your help, but I just can’t.”

She buckled the strap on her messenger bag. “Trust has to start somewhere, Jupiter.”

He thought about everything Cady had told him and how she trusted him to keep her secrets. But then, what did her secrets matter if her mother came down from the Æthyr and stole her body? And then there were Priya’s warnings and his challenge to Jupe. Priya insisted that Cady’s order could be trusted, so it wasn’t as if Jupe would be turning her in to the FBI. Jesus, she didn’t even do anything wrong—why did she have to keep this secret, anyway?

Maybe the better question was, how could Jupe help Cady if he kept her secret and walked away right now? He needed Leticia’s help. And sure, she was pretty and smelled good and had lots of nice curves. Hell, he even liked the way she argued with him. On top of all that, her knee was about an inch away from touching his, and that alone was enough to urge him into telling her anything she wanted to know. But Cady came first, and he really didn’t know what other choice he had. One day, he might have a brother or sister who’d look up to him as a hero, but not if Cady’s crazy mom won the fight.

“If I tell you,” he said cautiously, “it might be the biggest, most serious secret you’ve ever heard. And my family might be in danger if the wrong people find out. Will you promise not to tell anyone? Like, maybe you could undergo some kind of magical oath?”

She turned her head and leaned closer, until her face was right up in his and the scent of strawberry jam filled his nostrils. Her forehead tightened until her eyebrows were almost joined. “A few people in my lodge are under magical oath to protect a big secret. I think that’s bullshit. You can’t force a person to be loyal. If you’re going to trust someone, you trust them until they give you a reason not to. ¿Confías en mí?”

Jupe’s Spanish lessons rattled around inside his head and overlapped with all the Mexican lucha libre wrestling he watched on Galavisión. He was pretty sure he understood her question, but he made a mental note to pay more attention in class.

As he cracked his knuckles, trying to make up his mind, Leticia’s knee touched his thigh, warm and insistent. He glanced down between them. After a moment, he pressed his leg against hers in answer. She didn’t pull away. When he lifted his head and looked into her eyes, all at once, he decided he did trust her, and not just as a last resort.

So he licked his lips and spoke in a low voice. “Have you ever heard of the Black Lodge slayings?”