She licked her lips and stubbed out her cigarette. “Human. White. Dark hair. Really short. I was so mad at myself later that I let a puny little guy like that get the best of me, but I guess in the end I got away.”

Dark hair and short. Definitely not Bishop, based on the photos I’d seen. But we already knew that. And there had to be hundreds of men with that description in La Sirena.

“Oh, and there’s one more thing,” she added. “His eyes. I’ll never forget them. They were two different colors.”

Mismatched eyes. One blue, one brown. Very unusual, indeed.

I was fired up when we left Starry Market. Lon was, too. His energy level zoomed from slow and steady to bright and bushy-tailed. But when Jupe wanted to play detective along with us, Lon flashed me one of his famous “not in front of the kid” looks. So I steered the conversation in a different direction and proposed a pit stop in Morella before we drove back to the coast—something to distract Jupe and give me time to speak privately with Lon.

The Black Cherry is an all-night diner that sits on a busy corner down the block from Starry Market. With its neon sign of blinking fruit outside and Miami art deco interior, the diner drew an eclectic crowd of hipsters, freaks, and geeks of all ages. But the real reason I suggested we stop there was because of their retro arcade room.

Our late-night dinner was mostly spent ensuring that Jupe wasn’t too freaked out about what we’d all just heard. I was kinda proud of him, to be honest. Lon too. Cindy seemed to be okay when we left her, but I was concerned that Jupe’s persuasion could wear off eventually, and she might regret everything that she told us. I left her my cell number, just in case she wanted to talk later.

After several minutes of chatting, Lon told him he’d done a good job and Jupe bounced away to the adjoining room, drawn to the bleeps and bloops of classic video games. The second his low-top sneakers squeaked around the corner of our booth, I turned to Lon to discuss Cindy Brolin’s memories and found him grinning a smug, cat-ate-the-canary grin. His arm flew out and hooked me around the waist. With one quick tug, he slid me across the seat and planted a firm kiss on my lips. I nearly gasped for breath when he released me.

“What was that for?” I asked with a laugh.

“Because my son got us some damn good information.”

“Oh, now you’re loving his knack, huh?” I teased.

He snorted. “Still hating it. Still a little worried that it might not have been the best decision to bring him into this. But if what he did tonight helps to save some kids, then maybe I’m not the worst father in the world.”

“You’re far from that.”

He smiled at me. I smiled back.

“So, the Snatcher was a biter,” I said, clicking my teeth together.

Lon leaned backed in the booth. “She said he bit her arm to see if she was—”

“Viable,” I finished. “Yeah, how weird was that?”

“Maybe he was using blood for some sort of spell with the kids, and was looking for something specific. The amount of Heka inside someone, possibly.”

“I’ve never heard of anyone who could judge that by taste.”

He absently traced his pirate mustache down around his mouth with his thumb and index finger. “Me either.”

“Okay, apart from that, he identified her as number seven. And I’m still convinced the mandalas we found at the cannery had to be traps. He was holding the kids in there until Halloween. The circle of trees with their names at Sandpiper Park screams big-ass ritual.”

Lon paused while the waitress filled our glasses and asked if we wanted dessert before she brought us our check. After she left, he continued. “What kind of ritual, I don’t know. But I think we can safely rule out the theory that this was just Bishop experimenting with the transmutation spell. So what kind of ritual requires very specific kids?”

I shook my head. “I don’t see how seven young teenagers without magical skills would be useful in any kind of working.”

“That’s why you asked Cindy about occult leanings?”

I nodded. “If all the kids were magically gifted, I could understand the Snatcher’s choosing them to raise Heka. But he was tasting her blood as a qualifier for something more.”

“Sacrifices?”

“No idea, but I hope to hell not.” As an attempted-sacrifice survivor myself, I’d had about all I could handle of that bullshit. I twisted around in my seat. “All I know is that Bishop didn’t commit suicide in that cannery, and whoever carved those mandalas knows some strange magick.”

Lon groaned. “Yeah, and I can think of one local person who knows a lot of strange magick.”

“Who?”

“The magician who conducted the transmutation spells on the Hellfire members in the eighties.”

“You mean to tell me that the Hellfire Club hired a human magician to cast the transmutation spells?”

“More than one over the years. You thought we did it ourselves?”

“Well . . . yeah. You said your dad and Dare cast it on themselves when they first found the spell.”

He stretched his back and grimaced, trying to get comfortable. “People who aren’t naturally talented can’t churn out magick. The early Hellfire members had the glass summoning circles designed for the Hellfire caves, but they didn’t charge them when they were installed, Frater Karras did.”

Who?

Frater Karras, Lon explained, was a member of a small esoteric organization until he and his brother left the order and went rogue. Did magick for hire in central California in the 1970s. The Hellfire Club used Frater Karras as a freelancer to conduct transmutation spells and perform other miscellaneous magical jobs. “They paid him exorbitant amounts of money for his magical work, and to keep quiet. He worked with them on and off for about ten years, until he had a car accident and physically couldn’t work anymore. That’s when his brother took over his duties—he worked for the Hellfire Club until he died in the 1990s. His brother was the one who cast my transmutation spell.”