Banishing the Dark
Page 69

“But your servitor didn’t show you any magick.”
“That’s what worries me,” I said. “I don’t want to get caught in another landslide.”
“Maybe I should go in alone and scout it out first.”
“Just because you’ve given me hundreds of orgasms I don’t remember doesn’t mean you have to be my knight in shining armor. We go in together.” I shook the can of spray paint I’d purloined from Lon’s garage and sprayed a nice fat line of blue over one of the ward’s extension lines. The Heka powering the front of the ward evaporated. Good enough to get us onto the leaf-strewn front porch, and, once there, I sprayed down the antlers and dismantled the rest.
“Electricity’s still on,” I said, surprised when I reached out for current and found plenty.
“Makes sense if they came here every winter. They’ve probably got automatic payments coming out of an account that hasn’t been drained yet. They didn’t exactly have time to close everything out when you sent them across the planes. Might have a small fortune tucked away somewhere that technically belongs to you now.”
“I wouldn’t touch their dirty money with a ten-foot pole,” I murmured.
Lon handed me the gun and the flashlight long enough to splinter the doorframe with a crowbar and pry open the front door. Then he slowly swung the door open. Dust motes danced in the flashlight’s beam as he shone it inside.
“Empty,” he said, searching the entry for more magick.
He found a light switch and flipped it on. I was eager to confirm that the interior looked the same as it had in my servitor-powered vision, but I couldn’t see past his broad shoulders.
“Come on,” he said, motioning for me to step inside. Why was I so wary? My parents weren’t here, and Dare was dead. There was nothing to worry about but months-old magical traps that may or may not still have enough charge to be effective. I stepped over the threshold as he continued to talk. “Stay close behind me, just in case—”
I never heard him finish.
Within a blink, he vanished. I was standing in the entry of the house alone, and everything was coated in the silver sheen of my moon magick, only I hadn’t used it. I hadn’t tried, hadn’t felt any indication it was coming, and I wasn’t transmutated into my serpentine form. But Lon was gone, and I was alone. And it was . . .
Daytime.
Silver-tinged sunlight slanted across the floor from a window I couldn’t see. But this was definitely the same house my servitor spell had shown me.
What the hell was going on?
A knock sounded behind me. I whipped around and found the door closed. Someone was knocking on the other side. I backed away, stumbling further into the house, and glanced around in a panic. Same great room, same fireplace.
Same enormous grandfather clock.
And sitting on the floor at the base of the clock was a large gated playpen, a bigger version of Mr. Piggy’s. No hedgehog in this one. Inside sat a little girl. A toddler with dark bobbed hair and thick, straight bangs. She was humming to herself while shuffling wooden puzzle pieces over a tiny play table.
And she had a small, pale halo swirling around the crown of her head.
Quick footsteps and whispers drew my attention to a hallway at the back of the room. I nearly tripped over my own feet in my panic but managed to duck behind a chair before they saw me. I recognized the voices a moment before I peered around the back of the chair and spied two people striding past the fireplace toward the door, arguing in French.
Mom and Dad.
I clamped my hand over my mouth to stop myself from screaming.
Impossible! But there they were. Not ghosts, not memories. In the flesh, just as real as I was. My mom was dressed in a skirt and a striped top—one I knew was navy and white, even though my silver sight didn’t show it; I remembered her wearing the outfit in photos of book signings. My father wore his usual button-up Oxford and slacks. And they were so young. About my age, I thought. Which meant—
The girl in the playpen had to be me.
Seriously, what the hell was going on?
The knock on the door came again, this time more insistent.
“Coming,” my mother cooed before she and my father momentarily stepped out of sight. The overly friendly male voice of the visitor boomed through the walls.
“Enola and Alexander,” the voice said. “Hope you don’t mind me dropping by unannounced. I was on my way home from San Francisco and thought I’d take a detour to see if you’d arrived in town yet.
“We have,” my mother said in her heavy French accent.
“May I come in?”
“Of course, of course. Come on in.” That was my father and his used-car-salesman voice. The one that made you feel as if you were the most important thing in the world, until you heard him use it on someone else and realized he was only playing you.
I held my breath, listening to them stroll into the great room. From where I was crouched, I could see the grandfather clock and Little Me in the playpen. The girl didn’t see me. I didn’t know if this was because I couldn’t be seen or because she was too busy watching the adults across the room. Was I reliving a memory? I certainly couldn’t recall this house at all, so that seemed impossible.
“Can I take your coat?” my dad asked. “I’d offer you a drink, but we haven’t had a chance to refill the pantry yet.”
“No, that’s fine. I can’t stay long. Just wanted to check in. Make sure we were still on for Monday.”