“You need dinner,” Aidan responded, “and so do I. Please, my treat.”
Coqueta was a Spanish restaurant, decorated in the relaxed yet upscale way of many of San Francisco’s bayside eateries. The valet and the hostess seemed to know Aidan, the latter fluttering her eyelashes and fawning all over him when he requested a patio table. Outside, overhead heaters kept us warm and snug despite the cool breeze off the water. The bay itself was dark and still at this hour, but the lights along the Bay Bridge twinkled, and the homes and businesses of Oakland and Emeryville and Berkeley on the other side of the bay led the eye up into the hills.
The usually incessant seagulls were quiet, and I imagined I could hear the water lapping gently at the piers.
I felt weary. If I really was suffering under a befuddling spell, I wondered whether I could will it away with the proper attitude, as Conrad had suggested. On top of everything else, I had missed the preview of the estate sale this afternoon. Then again, maybe I wasn’t going to need a wedding dress after all. Just the thought of Sailor sitting in jail, waiting for me to figure this thing out . . . Depression settled over me like a shroud.
“So, what did that little chat with Renee tell us?” I asked Aidan after the waiter took our orders and opened a bottle of wine.
“Not as much as I’d hoped.” Aidan waved off the waiter and poured the wine himself into two stemmed glasses. “She’s still trying to win you over, I’d say.”
“Renee said something about you once . . . ,” I began.
“Only once?” Aidan said with a crooked smile.
“She said: ‘Who died and made Aidan boss?’”
“Ah. And what did you tell her?”
“I said I had no idea. So, Aidan, how did you become boss of the San Francisco magical community?”
I didn’t expect him to answer me. Politician-like—or similar to Oscar and so many other magical folk—Aidan almost never answered a direct question with a direct answer. Especially when that question was about his past.
But he didn’t immediately dissemble, and seemed to be lost in thought, staring into his wineglass. His golden hair sparkled in the light of the overhead lamp, darker lashes framing his blue eyes. I could see his glamour shimmer, ever so slightly, as he shifted in his seat.
“When I first arrived here from Germany, I was in bad shape,” he began. “That was fifteen years ago.”
“You were in Germany when I was?”
He nodded. “You really don’t remember, do you? I was there. Anyway, after I came to San Francisco, I needed to lie low for a while, concentrate on healing. I arrived with nothing but the injuries of which you’ve seen proof.”
I thought of how Aidan walked around with the glamour that recalled his old self, before the burns. Renee had told me he was looking for the fountain of youth. Was that true, or was he simply trying to heal himself? It took a lot of energy for him to maintain the glamour, energy that he needed now if there was a supernatural battle brewing.
“Maybe you should drop the glamour,” I suggested. “Let people see the real you. Your friends won’t care.”
“Do you really believe that?” he asked, flashing me a mocking smile. “But in any event, it matters to me. And speaking of bad old times, we really should try to help you remember everything that happened. I think we could manage it if you were willing to stay in the trance for a longer period of time.”
I nodded, but was still nervous. Maybe it was my imagination, but I’d felt like my energy was drained the last time we melded our energies. Something similar had happened with Patience, though not to the same degree. I just didn’t feel up to much of anything, now that I thought about it.
“For the moment, maybe you could give me the broad outline?”
Aidan took a sip of wine and sat back in his chair. “As you know, your father was going down the wrong path.”
I nodded. I couldn’t remember the particulars, but I knew my father was bad news. He had succumbed to the temptation of power, to the desires that I occasionally felt coursing through my own veins.
“He and I had worked together previously. Your father is immensely gifted, Lily; clearly, he passed his abilities on to you. But as his powers grew, his confidence gradually turned into arrogance. He began experimenting with dark forces, almost as if he were playing a game, tempting fate. I tried to warn him, but he wouldn’t listen to me, claimed I was jealous of his power. Which, to be fair, I was.”
Aidan paused and took another sip of wine. “In vino veritas, yes? Shall I continue?”
I nodded.
“Not long before you arrived in Germany, he had been working on something, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was. I had my suspicions. I took note of the books he consulted, and in my free time attempted to discover what he had been looking for. It gradually became apparent that he was researching spells to summon and control not one demon, but a small group of them. A fool’s quest, as I am sure you already know.”
“Why would he do something so reckless?”
“Perhaps sheer ambition, or maybe he was simply bored. Your father was a very powerful practitioner, greatly admired for the natural ability he had spent years honing and perfecting. Maybe he was looking for a new world to conquer? He became fascinated by the grimoire called the Lesser Key of Solomon, and in particular the Ars Goetia, or the hierarchy of demons. But controlling a demon is a feat few have attempted, and even fewer have accomplished, at least over time. Most are seduced by the power, and the roles eventually shift.” Aidan paused. “Do you wish me to continue? You may not like what you hear.”
“Go on.”
“I tried to talk to him about what he was doing, but I was young and foolish and he wouldn’t listen to me. I became angry—how we mortals hate it when our idols are toppled. We argued for some time, but after one particularly nasty blood ritual, I told him that I no longer wished to continue my training with him, that I could do better on my own, without him or his magic. He burst out laughing.” Aidan shrugged. “It took a while for my ego to recover from that blow, let me tell you.”
“And then? What happened next?”
“You happened next. I had no idea you existed, much less that you had inherited your father’s powers. You showed up at the door, and the minute your father laid eyes on you, he began to doubt his path. Your presence finally woke your father up to the risk he was running in his pursuit of power. He faltered in his resolve, dangerously so, and the binding spell he had cast over the demon portal began to slip. You don’t remember any of this?”
I shook my head. I remembered the trip to Germany, I remembered taking a taxi to my father’s house, and I remembered knocking on the huge oak doors. I remembered the door swinging open. . . . But everything from that point on was a blank.
“Your father hid what he was doing from you, and tried everything to get you to leave his house—he threatened; he cajoled; he promised you things—but you refused to go. This went on for days, with the demons growing stronger as your father grew weaker and less focused.”
“Because of my presence?”