Banishing the Dark

29

The following night, just before sunset, Jupe watched the red taillights of his father’s black pickup truck disappear down the back road of their property. Cady had gone with him. She was in a really weird mood. All Dad said was that the two of them were doing important magick and warned Jupe not to leave the house under any circumstance until they got back. The Holidays would be there in about an hour to lock down the house.

Jupe knew this had to do with Cady’s mom. But Dad wouldn’t tell him anything, which sucked, big-time. Imagining all the things that could be happening had to be ten times worse than knowing. Plus, when he got home from school, he saw they had a bucket of pig’s blood from a slaughterhouse outside of town.

Major shit was going down. Scary shit.

Like he was going to just sit around here and jump at shadows? Screw that.

He had a good idea where they were headed, because the back road was a half-mile long and only really led to three places: Mr. and Mrs. Holiday’s cabin, an open-air shed, and the beach at the bottom of the cliff. No way would the Holidays let Dad anywhere near their cabin with blood. That left the shed and the beach. Sand and blood seemed like a messy combination, and it might rain tonight, so he was betting on the shed, because it was covered and walled in on three sides. Apart from a tractor and some tools, the thing was empty.

Before he sneaked down there, he would call up Priya to find out if he knew anything. But first he called Leticia to give her an update on what was happening. Leticia was at the retirement Hobbit house, a.k.a. Racist Grandma Vega’s apartment. His original plan was to meet her there, but when all this shit starting transpiring, he’d asked her if she could come here instead. And as his dad’s pickup truck’s engine rumbled down the hill, Jupe’s phone chimed with her answer. He held his breath.

MSG from Leticia, 6:40 p.m.: Grandma Vega fell asleep. I’ve got two hours before my sister picks me up. I could take a taxi to your house if you tell me how to get there.

Hot damn.

It took her about twenty minutes. No way would Dad ever forgive him if he allowed a taxi across the house ward, so Jupe met her at the electronic gate and let her in after she paid the driver. Tonight she wore a fur-trimmed gray vest over her pink hoodie, and her hair was back in the messy buns behind her ears. She stuck her hands into her pockets and smiled at him as he punched the close button on the gate.

Foxglove jumped up on her. “Down, Foxglove, you damn freak. Sorry, she’s just extra friendly. She won’t bite or anything.”

“Hello, Foxglove.” She bent low and held out her hand. After a quick sniff, Foxglove gave it a good approval lick. Leticia scrunched up her nose and wiped her hand on her jeans as she stood.

“You wrestle a wolf for that vest?” Jupe asked, using it as an excuse to look her over freely without seeming too creepy.

“It’s fake fur. Stop looking at my boobs.”

Dammit. Best not to admit anything. He walked her up the gravel road toward the house. “It’s only seven. Your grandma goes to bed that early? Mine stays up past midnight.”

“Whoop-di-freaking-doo. And no, she usually doesn’t go to bed that early. I gave her wine at dinner.”

“Damn, Leticia! You don’t play.”

“Watch yourself, Jupiter,” she said with a sly smile. “I know all sorts of ways to manipulate you if I want to.”

“Maybe I want to be manipulated.”

She shoved his arm and made him stumble off the road.

“Hey!” He laughed and pretended to shove her back, but she raised an eyebrow in warning, so he gave up on that idea.

She whistled as they crested a hill and crossed the house ward. “That’s your house? Whoa. Your dad is loaded. That looks like something out of an architectural magazine.”

“We’re not crazy rich or anything. He inherited this property from his parents. It’s just that my dad’s an artist, so he likes things to look good.”

“My dad’s an engineer, so our place is pretty nice, but it looks like every other house on the block. This is cool. Your dad has good taste.”

“Wait until you see inside.” Jupe unlocked the front door and held it open for her. “But I’ll have to give you a tour another time. We only have forty-five minutes before the Holidays show up, and there’s something I want to show you.”

She gave him that little judge-y eyebrow tilt as she slid past him, smelling of strawberry jam and shampoo, and he almost lost his mind. If they’d had more time, that house tour could have gotten her inside his room. But as it stood now, he was just happy she was here at all.

“Tell me more about this big thing you’ve been texting me about,” she said as he led her into the living room, which was a bad idea, because now she was looking at his baby pictures.

“I’m not a hundo percent sure, but I think Cady and my dad are doing a summoning down at my dad’s workshop.”

“Wow.” She glanced out the patio window, looking nervous. “Where’s this workshop?”

“In a shed on the other side of the cliff. We can get there in five minutes if we walk fast. But here’s the part I want to show you first. Have you ever heard of a Hermeneus spirit?”

“Sure. Guardian angels. Everyone’s heard of those.”

“You don’t have one . . . do you?”

She shook her head. “Grandma Vega used to, but it died. I heard it, though, a couple of times when she called it. It’s sort of spooky, like talking to a ghost. I mean, not that ghosts are real.”

He chuckled. “Boy, have I got some news for you. I’ve seen shit you wouldn’t believe.”

“You curse too much, Jupiter.”

“Don’t get prudish on me now, Lett.” He knew the second he said it that she wouldn’t be happy, and sure enough, she gave him the devil eyebrow again. “Look, I didn’t call you Letty, so relax. Besides, I’m about to show you something that’s going to blow your freakin’ mind.”

She crossed her arms over her gray vest. “Okay, go on, then. Dazzle me, Houdini.”

Oh, he would. He pulled out Priya’s sigil from his wallet and dramatically spit on the card. So far, she didn’t seem impressed, but she would be. “Priya, come,” he said loudly, then to her, “You’d better back up. He needs room to land if he’s flying.”

“Who?”

“Priya, come,” Jupe said louder, and nervously smiled at Leticia.

They stood together, listening to the clock tick on the mantel. He wiped sweat off his forehead. She looked at him like he’d gone fruit-loopy. This was getting embarrassing.

Jupe tried once more, this time with extra spitting.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Nothing.

“What the hell?” he mumbled.

“Are you seriously telling me you’ve got a guardian?” Leticia said.

“He’s Cady’s. But we’re connected. It’s a long story. But I call him every day, just about. He always comes right away. I mean, always. You think maybe I don’t have enough Heka to call him? I’m not a magician.”

“You might try blood.”

Crap. He really didn’t want to do that. But he also didn’t want to look weak in front of her, so he nicked himself with a knife from the kitchen and bled a couple of drops of blood onto the card. But when he called Priya a fourth time and the guardian didn’t show, he knew something was wrong.

“You think he could be mad at me?” Jupe asked.

“Hermeneus spirits are servants. They don’t get mad. If their owner calls, they come every time. Well, I take that back. My grandma called her guardian a couple of years ago, and it never came, so that’s how she later found out it had died in the Æthyr.”

Died? “Oh . . . shit.” A terrible fear pricked at Jupe’s nerves. He pretty much hated Priya’s guts, but that didn’t mean he wanted the guy dead. Cady would freak out, and she already had enough on her plate. Last night, after the big talk, Dad had told him the memory magick was still active, so she still didn’t remember she was pregnant or that she and Dad were practically engaged.

On top of all that, if Priya died, who would keep tabs on Cady’s mom in the Æthyr?

He took out his phone and started to text his dad but remembered that he had specifically told him not to bother them, that they wouldn’t answer his texts. They’d only been gone, what, a half hour? They weren’t starting until the Holidays called to confirm they were all safe inside the house, so Jupe still had about thirty minutes.

He pocketed his phone and Priya’s card. “We need to go find my dad and Cady right now. This definitely qualifies as an emergency. Come on.”

They rushed out into the night air, Foxglove at their heels, and he showed Leticia the back road the pickup truck had taken. If she hadn’t been with him, he would have run, but he didn’t want her to think he was freaking out as much as he actually was. After a couple of minutes, the Holidays’ cabin came into sight, the windows glowing with warm yellow light. “Stay on the other side of the road, and if they spot us, I’ll do the talking.”

But they didn’t come out. And once Jupe and Leticia began hiking down the next switchback turn in the road, more lights shone in the distance. The shed. A metal wall hid the inside from view, but Jupe could just make out his dad’s pickup truck parked in the dirt driveway that looped around back. Thank God.

Foxglove started running toward the shed before Jupe broke down and did the same, his sense of urgency outweighing his eagerness to rack up coolness points with Leticia. Then the damn dog started barking, and Jupe couldn’t shut her up. No sense trying to hide things anymore; Cady and Dad would definitely know they were coming now.

“Jupe!” Leticia called out, just behind him.

He glanced over his shoulder and saw her pointing up at the sky, then swung back around to follow the direction of her finger. He saw it, too: a black shape falling like a torpedo. It was too big to be a person, too dark to be a falling star. A gigantic boulder? Crap, maybe it was a meteor! Foxglove was going nuts now, heading straight for it.

Jupe saw the light inside the shed, and his mind registered Cady and his dad standing under the utility light that shone down from the roof. But as the falling thing rocketed past the tops of the trees, he realized what he was seeing, and he couldn’t stop himself from crying out.