Banishing the Dark (The Arcadia Bell series) Read Online Free PDF Page A

happy to oblige.”
    Lon had warned me about Arturo before we came. In the same way Lon could hear feelings, Arturo could see memories. Older ones were only possible if he was transmutated, apparently, and it was easier if you were thinking about them. But, unlike Lon, Arturo required skin-to-skin contact for his knack to work.
    No shaking hands with Arturo, in other words. But that was a pretty good rule of thumb when dealing with most Earthbounds, I’d come to learn.
    “As you’re aware, Ambrose didn’t like me getting too close,” Arturo said. “Sure, he was happy to use me when he wanted to shake someone down. Which iswhy I know a little more about the man behind the mask, so to speak. Dare had the Body’s allegiance, but he didn’t have our love. Half of the Body was sad to hear Dare had died. But it was the kind of sadness you feel when you hear a celebrity has died. You think, That’s a shame , then you move on, because you didn’t really know them, did you?”
    “What about the other half of the Body?” I asked. “How did they feel?”
    “Honestly? Relieved. We knew too much about his dark side.”
    “Then why didn’t you do anything about it?”
    “A fair question,” Arturo said thoughtfully. “My husband asked me the same thing many times. I suppose I told myself I was too jaded to care about club politics. When I was your age, it was a little more glamorous. Now I mainly just want to be left alone. And Dare usually complied. As long as I attended most of the meetings and showed my face at the Hellfire caves every now and then, he seemed satisfied. But now that he’s gone, I wonder just how strong his knack really was.”
    Dare’s knack was known as Rally: the ability to inspire—or coerce—a group of people.
    “Ambrose Dare had us all under his thumb,” Arturo added. “Even those of us who should’ve known better.”
    Lon murmured to himself.
    I twisted the silver double-serpent bracelet on my wrist, a Christmas present from Lon. Maybe the guywas right. I should have known better myself. I mean, I dutifully did magical work for Dare for weeks before I finally had the sense to give him the middle finger. And look what it got me: a whole month of my life beaten out of me.
    “Dare was investigating me,” I told Arturo. “Did you know that?”
    “I heard rumors that he seemed . . . preoccupied with you, shall we say?”
    “And what exactly was he telling the Body about her?” Lon asked.
    Arturo looked at me. “That you’re special. Different. Someone we wanted on our team. He said you might be more useful to the Hellfire Club than a hundred other magicians. But he needed to test you first. He was suspicious of your loyalties.”
    “Are you?” I asked.
    “I’m suspicious of the manner in which Dare perished. But that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m going to call for a witch hunt. For the first time in years, I can go to sleep knowing I won’t get a phone call at three a.m. telling me to drive out to some back alley and rifle through a guy’s memories—only so Dare can put a bullet in his head the second I drive away.”
    “Dare was using a private investigator to dig up things about my past,” I said. “I need to find out who that investigator was.”
    Arturo held my gaze for a long moment. “Why would I know that?”
    “Because people trust you,” Lon said.
    Arturo shrugged, not denying it. “They know if I really wanted to see what’s on their minds, I can brush their fingertips.” He gave me a pointed look. “Having a gift is all well and good until people decide they want what you’ve got.”
    No truer words . . .
    But I wasn’t afraid of the Hellfire Club. Not anymore. Arturo said the Hellfire Club wanted to see a show of strength, or they wouldn’t follow him. Maybe he’d be more inclined to give me what I wanted if he had a clearer picture of who I really was.
    “I killed Dare.”
    The confession hung in the air like a plastic bag caught in dead