Banishing the Dark
Page 59

“Mama told her no.”
“Today maybe. But Cristina will wear her down. Spoiled brat can’t even bother to get out of the car and say hello to me,” she grumbled before narrowing her eyes at Jupe. “If you think my baby granddaughter here is going to get a boob job one day, you can think again.”
Part of Jupe wanted to tell the crazy old woman that Leticia’s boobs were awesome already, but mostly he was just freaking out. His Gramma would go Godzilla on him if he so much as made a joke about chicken breast. “My dad’s a photographer, so I’ve seen a lot of plastic surgery. Natural’s better.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” the old woman said very seriously, raising her juice can in confirmation.
Now Leticia looked freaked out. She quickly changed the subject. “Grandma, I told Jupe that you used to know the Duvals back in the day.”
“The who?”
“Duvals,” Leticia repeated in a louder voice. “You know, the serial killers.”
Her grandmother’s face brightened. “Oh, the Duvals. They weren’t killers.” They were, but Jupe didn’t argue. “That was just talk from savages, trying to destroy our order. The Duvals were celebrities. But I don’t talk about people in the order with outsiders.”
“But this is important.”
“I said no. And you promised me you wouldn’t tell your mama I knew the Duvals, but here you are, telling a—”
“A what?” Jupe said, sudden anger flaring inside his chest.
“Outsider,” she finished sourly.
Leticia and her grandmother immediately began conversing in angry Spanish, the speed of which was way too fast for Jupe’s junior-high Español skills to follow. And the more they fought, the worse he felt for Leticia. She was really trying, but every point she made was quickly Whac-A-Moled down by the old lady.
After weeks of fending off the temptation to use his knack, he made a split-second decision to make an exception. This was important, after all. He was doing this for Cady. And for his future brother or sister. And for Leticia.
Triple hero.
He took a deep breath and interrupted the grandmother-granddaughter throwdown. “Mrs. Vega,” he said in a loud voice, his persuasion turned up as high as he could crank it. “You can trust me, and you want to help us by answering all our questions about the Duvals.” When he opened his eyes, both females were gaping at him, so he added in a knack-free voice, “Right?”
Grandma Vega’s shoulders relaxed. She looked a little dazed as she said, “You don’t look untrustworthy.”
“I can keep a secret like nobody’s business,” he assured her.
“I suppose there’s no sense in holding on to secrets about the dead, is there? What do you want to know?”
Cha-ching! Pride and victory zinged through him. Well, until he noticed Leticia staring a hole into the side of his face. Crap. Dealing with humans was rough. Not for the first time, he wondered how open Leticia was to the concept of Earthbounds. Cady once told him that some of the people in her order were believers, so maybe she was cool about it. You never could tell. Jupe had the Nox symbol all over his social media, but if Leticia knew what it meant, she hadn’t said anything.
Her grandmother was waiting for an answer, so Jupe put the Earthbound dilemma out of his mind for the moment and said, “So, yeah, umm, how did you meet the Duvals?”
“I first met them when I visited the main lodge down in Florida, back in 1979 for the annual summer solstice ritual. Everyone loved them. They were practically superstars of the occult world. And I met their first child, the boy. I can’t remember his name.”
They had another kid? Cady had a brother? This was brand-new information to Jupe.
“Anyway, he died in the mid-1980s—”
Oh.
“—so he must’ve been around two then. Strange child. I babysat him one afternoon, and he bit me so hard I had to have three stitches on my hand.” She pointed it out, but Jupe couldn’t see any scars.
“Is that the only time you saw them?” he asked.
“Oh, no. It was after the boy died that I saw them next,” she said, leaning back in her chair with her juice can. “Imagine my surprise when I bumped into them at Gifts of the Magi.”
Jupe glanced between Grandma Vega and Leticia.
“A magical supply shop on the highway between Morella and La Sirena,” Leticia explained. “It closed down a few years ago when the owner died.”
“Got it,” Jupe said. “So, wait, they were here in the area? Were they visiting the lodge in Morella?”
Leticia’s grandmother slurped the last of her juice and shook her head. “That was the surprise. If they were on official business, they’d be staying in Morella at the lodge. It has guest rooms for traveling dignitaries. Makes it easier when other members come down from San Francisco or if the caliph visited, may the gods rest his soul.” She kissed her hexagram pendant in tribute.
“So if they weren’t visiting the lodge on official business, why were they here?”
“They had a winter home in La Sirena.”
Jupe frowned. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same Duvals? They’re from Florida.”
“Enola and Alexander,” she said, grunting as she pushed herself out of the recliner. She shuffled across the room to a bookshelf and removed a worn photo album before plunking it down on the coffee table. “Where is it . . . ?” She paged through thick black sheets of old photographs affixed with paper corners. “Here we are. Mrs. Pendleton took this of us—she was the Gifts of the Magi owner who died a few years back. That’s me, in the middle.”