Page 119
“Who’s Cornelia again?” asked Jess’s mother, Cindy.
“The woman who came out of the stained glass,” said Jess.
“Not like that’s going to give me nightmares,” muttered Cal, draining the can. “Got any more of these?”
“It’s Cornelia’s mausoleum and we thought it was her demon. I’ll fill you in on the rest later,” Jess told her mother. “Are you going straight back to California, or can you stay for a bit?”
Cindy beamed at her daughter. “I can stay for as long as you want me. Or at least until November tenth, when I have a new opening at the gallery. Unless you want to come with me?” She looked at Adam and Ben and her eyes brightened. “You could make a family trip of it. Ben, have you ever been surfing?”
Ben stirred. “For real?”
“You can paint your own surfboard!” said Cindy happily.
“Why don’t we deal with the demon first,” said Adam quickly. “Is there anything in there about how we get rid of him?”
“It’s so Victorian,” complained Ingrid. “Cornelia never says exactly what Horace did to bind the demon. She just hints around it. Like, oh, the horror.”
“Actually, it’s not Victorian,” said Cal, shocked into sobriety by the presence of historical inaccuracy. “Victorian is England. It’s Gilded Age here.”
Ingrid put her hands on her cinched waist. She was wearing black lace mitts. “I’m an early modernist. The nineteenth century is all dark satanic mills to me. Nothing interesting happens after 1648.”
“How can you say that?” Cal drew himself up. “Just look at what we’ve got here! Diabolism! Industrialism! Fortunes rising and falling! Look at the women Cornelia helped set up as artisans!”
“Ha,” retorted Ingrid. “You want to talk about women artisans? I’ll give you women artisans, poets, and painters of the Renaissance. Two words. Artemisia Gentileschi.”
“Interesting,” said Cindy, as the thing that used to be her necklace shook and rattled on the coffee table. “I don’t think your demon likes Artemisia Gentileschi.”
“Of course he wouldn’t! Belfagor hates women. Sucks to be defeated by one, doesn’t it?” Ingrid taunted the pendant.
Apparently, the frog incident still rankled.
“Your Cornelia made an extensive study of the occult,” said Cal, turning the page of a journal marked with Cornelia’s beautiful handwriting. “Looks like she tried just about everything to get rid of that demon once she found out what her son had done.”
“A pile of grimoires with Cornelia’s name on them,” murmured Jess. “Kimmy did say that just because we hadn’t found them didn’t mean they weren’t out there.”
“And none of it worked!” Ingrid’s braid swished in indignation. “All of that research, all of those spells—all of the freaking supplies I bought!—and he wasn’t caught using a spell at all!”
“I don’t get it,” said Adam.
“Prayer,” said Ingrid bitterly. “Jacinta Piatti prayed and an angel came to her. That’s it.”
“Angele dei,” murmured Jess. “Angele dei qui custos es mei.”
Adam peered down at her. “I thought you didn’t know any Latin.”
Jess’s eyes met his. “I don’t. But Jacinta did.”
“Pre–Vatican II,” said Ingrid sagely. “If she was Catholic, she would have gone to Latin mass.”
Cal perked up. “I know that one. It’s a prayer of intercession to one’s guardian angel.” He turned red around the ears at the sudden attention. “I went to Catholic school. I always liked that prayer. It’s supposed to guard against demons, but I figured it could also be used for math tests.”
“Did it work?” asked Cindy, with genuine interest.
“On the math tests? Not really,” admitted Cal. “I don’t think my guardian angel was any better at math than I was.”
“Well, it clearly worked against demons,” said Ingrid, still sounding miffed. “Cornelia spent all that time and money and effort collecting rare Renaissance texts and early modern grimoires—there’s some really cool stuff in here—and in the end, a seamstress recited a prayer and an angel came to her.”
Adam thought of the angel sculpture in Jess’s living room and wondered if, having arrived, the angel had decided to stick around for a few generations. There had been that time he thought he’d seen the shadow of wings behind her . . .
