Moonlight Rising

by Linski, Megan

  As the word close spilled over her lips, a loud bell resonated over the intercom system. It rang three times. No words accompanied the sound. It was the last alarm. The silence that followed felt like the Lumina were handing control back to the Tenebrae, as if to say it’s all yours now. The next bell would be at sunrise, which felt like an eternity away.

  “You should stay here for the night,” the boy said, his eyes narrowing and posture stiffening. “It’s not safe.”

  “I can get back,” Claire replied. “I’ll leave now.”

  “You really should—”

  “I’ll be fine,” Claire said hotly. Who did he think he was?

  The boy’s eyebrows arched, then he pursed his lips and smoothed out his expression. “Apollo’s blessings on you,” he said, pointed disapproval dripping from his words.

  Leaving behind the safety of the light, Claire hurried back to her bike, already calculating the quickest path to the Gamma-Rose shelter. Going back toward the school, the way she’d come, would keep her on the large, better-lit roads but would take much longer. There was a faster route if she cut through the residential area between here and Gambill Street. She wasn’t sure of the exact distances, but years of running and biking for physical conditioning had given her a good sense of the town’s layout.

  As she was mentally plotting her course across town, a long, eerie howl pierced the silence. Goosebumps prickled down her neck as she surveyed the empty street ahead of her. A second howl sounded from the distance, answered by a third. Then it was quiet again, but the quiet was a thick tension that weighed on her, waiting for something to strike.

  Time to go.

  Math was a low priority, but astronomy was much-discussed at Golden Rose, at least as far as it affected their power and that of the forces of evil that emerged at night. The sun’s power held between sunrise and sunset, but there was a short window of twilight when reflected light still glowed in the atmosphere. Certain dark creatures could emerge in twilight while others would remain dormant until the last vestige of sunlight had faded. She wasn’t safe by any definition, but the worst dangers of the night would still be shaking off the stupor of sunlight for a few minutes longer.

  Beyond the brightly-lit thoroughfare of Dorchester Avenue, darkness was falling like a thick fog. Past a block of mostly abandoned storefronts and offices, Corbin Street was lined with houses. Some were still neat and well kept, while every third or fourth house was overgrown, its windows broken out as an indicator that its inhabitants had long gone.

  Some thirty years earlier, well before Claire was born, the Nightfall had shattered their world. For all of her fifteen—almost sixteen—years of life, she had feared the night. Life had always revolved around the sun’s cycle, but some of the older sisters told them stories about a time when sunset didn’t necessitate a complete lockdown. Once, the monsters that prowled the darkness were nothing more than stories. It was hard to imagine a time when night came without fanfare or fear.

  In a bid for power, the witches of the Tenebrae had unleashed unspeakable horror into the world. While the Lumina’s predecessors, the Aurora Coven, had thwarted the worst of their plans, they could not prevent the ensuing catastrophe. Sister Anne-Marie had taught them, as had Sister Kathleen at Claire’s first home, “The daylight is ours. The night is theirs, and we must never forget the balance.” The witches of either coven were forbidden to directly hunt each other down, but the balance was a joke. Those who lived in the light wanted normal, peaceful lives, while the Tenebrae and their fiends sought to feed and destroy. That was no balance.

  The rising and setting of the sun dictated their lives, permeated by constant fear. And Goddess forbid any of them questioned the Lumina and their precious balance. A year or so ago, Claire made the mistake of raising her hand during a history lesson with Sister Danica to ask, “Why don’t we just take them out and stop all of this? Why are you so afraid?”

  The class had already been quiet, but the room filled with so much silent tension that it felt like the air had all disappeared. “Why, indeed,” Danica said, her mismatched gaze fixed on Claire. She began to speak several times, then pressed her lips together like she had thought better of it. Finally, she said, “Put away your books.”

  It was still eerily silent as her class stowed their notebooks, waiting for what was about to happen. Was Danica going to incinerate Claire on the spot? Was she going to reveal some Lumina secret? After waiting for another long stretch, Danica sat on the stool and began to speak calmly, telling them the story of Rosewood.

  Not long after the Nightfall, several witches of the Aurora Coven tracked one of the Tenebrae to a small town called Gibsonville, seeking to end her reign of terror over the area. After beheading her and burning her remains for certainty, their victory lasted less than twenty-four hours. Another of the Tenebrae descended on the town, unleashing ravenous hunger-hounds and wraiths upon the city. By the next sunrise, every single person in Gibsonville lay dead or bound into possession by the witch. The city itself was burned to ash, leaving a smoking ruin.

  Reeling from the massacre of innocents, the coven was more careful with their next strike and cornered a Tenebrae witch far away from her place of power. It didn’t matter. Several days later, the Tenebrae descended on the nearest city of Rosewood, Virginia. The witches burned a swath through the town, leaving their swarms of minions to feed upon the survivors. By morning, thousands were dead. To be certain the Aurora Coven received the message, they left a dozen survivors to tell the story when they returned to sift through the wreckage. It was then that the Balance was struck, as leaders of both covens met in the tenuous twilight hours. The day and its light would belong to the Aurora Coven and those in their protection. The night belonged to the Tenebrae, and for every blow against them, they would return it a thousand-fold.

  “That’s why,” Danica had said as she finished her story. The normally energetic class was still and silent as a graveyard. “But Claire, it seems you know better. What would you have done to prevent wholesale slaughter? What brilliant tactical counsel would you have given the early Aurora Coven to guarantee victory over the Tenebrae?”

  Humiliation burned her cheeks as she felt the gazes of her classmates shift her way. Sitting silently with their eyes on her, she felt like she was guilty of the whole thing; the Nightfall, the lost lives of Rosewood and beyond. Her throat clenched, and she knew if she tried to respond, she would cry in front of her classmates. Instead, she pressed her lips together and looked down at the floor.

  “No answer. It’s almost as if the situation is incredibly complex and beyond the grasp of an arrogant teenager,” Danica said. “This balance is all that keeps us from falling into perdition. To answer your question, we are afraid that the Tenebrae would wipe out humanity and ensnare their souls so that the suffering would be eternal. Should we attack them on general principle? What good is it to be victorious if every person under our protection is slaughtered in return?” She surveyed the class. “Now, get your notebooks out. That’s enough distraction for the day.”

  She’d continued her lesson after that, but her gold eye repeatedly found Claire as she taught. When class was over, she returned to Claire’s desk. “You are a foolish child. We are all foolish once, but most of us learn better. See that you do. And if you ever question me in that manner again, it will not end well for you. I have experienced things you cannot imagine, in the hope that someday you and your classmates won’t have to.”

  As it was, Claire had been sent to the south wing, isolated inside a tiny room for three days to contemplate her choices and write a twenty page essay on the meaning of a Pyrrhic victory. Her classmates didn’t look her in the eye for weeks once she returned.

  So all they could do was be on the defensive. The Lumina sent guards for shelters and patrolled the streets to protect innocents from the demonic forces that prowled by night, but they were never going to solve the problem. The world was broken, and there was no way to fix it. Magical traini
ng and detailed schedules made them feel like they were in control, but the Lumina were just janitors, perpetually sweeping up the mess they couldn’t prevent.

  A flash of greenish light washed over the street, and Claire nearly toppled her bike in surprise. A few seconds later, ominous thunder rolled across the sky. In the distance, far north of her, another bolt of sickly green lightning flashed, painting the cloudy sky like a half-healed bruise. Howls rose from the west, these more hungry and intense than the ones she had previously heard.

  This was not Claire’s first time outside after sunset, but it was the first time she’d been alone. In addition to standing guard at the shelters, the older novices occasionally rotated into a patrol with the initiates. She’d ridden in one of the Jeeps, keeping watch on the deep shadows and listening for anything amiss. Riding a bike, alone in the dark, was a far cry from sitting in the back of a truck with two powerful sisters.

  “It’s fine,” she told herself. As she rode down the dark street, she focused her energy and summoned the sun-wisps. While some of her classmates were still working to summon manifestations of light, it was a trick she’d developed unconsciously as a child. The dancing wisps were the first sign that she had the Spark, and what had alerted the Lumina to her ability in the first place. A warm sensation rushed over her, billowing up from the base of her spine and through the crown of her head as the wisps exploded into existence.

  Six palm-sized globes of light formed ahead of her. Their shapes resolved into butterfly-like bodies, fluttering ahead of her in a V-formation. The light cast a comforting, warm glow around her. It was fine.

  For a while, she lost herself in the rhythm of pedaling and patrolling. She swept her head from side to side, surveying the street ahead. The wisps lit the way. Her heart pounded, but things were static. Frightening, but unchanging.

  She had been riding for some time when a muffled cry broke through the quiet whirring of the bike’s tires. Claire slowed her pace and squeezed the brakes gently as she listened. Another cry, then rhythmic sobbing. It was close. The voice was small and high-pitched. It sounded like a baby.

  A chill prickled down her spine.

  Claire sent a message to the wisps. They weren’t living creatures, but they could follow a simple command. Go and look, she willed to them. The six wisps scattered in a radial pattern. As she listened closer for the sound of the crying, she directed the wisps toward it. Suddenly, there was a tiny tugging sensation, like someone had pulled a stray hair along her hairline.

  Walking the bike at her side, Claire followed the wisp’s insistent tug. The other five closed in on it, forming a neat line that angled away from the street and toward a house. The crying grew louder as she followed the wisps.

  Despite the wisps’ warm glow, the darkness around her felt thick like viscous black oil that swallowed the world. The crying was loud now, hitching with sniffles and bursts of coughing. The line of wisps undulated as they reacted to an unseen dark energy.

  The neoprene bike handle was sweaty and damp in her grasp. She could throw her leg over the bike and race back to Corbin Street to shelter, where it was safe and bright. She didn’t have to do this.

  “Mama!” the crying voice wailed. The word hit her like a slap to the face. “Mamaaaa…” The voice dissolved into wordless cries again.

  Claire quietly let the bike rest on the ground, reaching into her pocket to grasp one of the daggers with her left hand. She let her right hand rest on the Apollo Cord, feeling for its gently pulsing energy. Sending the wisps toward the sound, she pressed forward. They darted ahead, circling in a tight spiral about ten yards ahead.

  The wisps had led her to a small, unassuming house. Four windows adorned the front. Three were covered by the familiar black shutters, but the fourth, closest to the front door, was open, spilling light onto the front porch. Barely visible at the window was a small face. Tiny hands curled over the window sill as the child cried.

  “Mama!”

  Oh, no.

  No good came for heroes. The story of Rosewood proved that. But she didn’t have to be an initiate to know that Mama hadn’t simply forgotten to close the window. She hadn’t stepped out to pick up groceries. Mama had been lured into the night, and she wasn’t coming back.

  Claire swallowed the lump rising in her throat. She hurried through the yard and onto the front porch. Though the lights inside the house were bright, their glow seemed to end at the edge of the porch, like the dark was unmoved by the attempt to stave it off.

  As she stepped onto the porch, the little cries stopped, and the child gasped. “Mama?” he said in a cautious tone.

  Claire knelt at the window, still gripping the dagger out of sight. “Hi there,” she said, trying to make her voice soothing. The little boy was no older than three or four, barely tall enough to see over the windowsill. His eyes were red and puffy from crying. “What’s your name?”

  “Willem,” he said. “Where’s my mama?”

  “I’m not sure,” Claire replied. What was she supposed to do? She wasn’t prepared to find something like this. Damn Danica for her interruption. Did it make her a terrible person to wish she’d turned down a different street? Either way, she was here now, so she couldn’t pretend it hadn’t happened. Trying to keep her expression neutral, she said, “Let’s go somewhere safe.”

  Chapter Three

  -thirty-six minutes after sunset-

  With the door barred and locked, Claire had to assume Willem’s mother had climbed out the window. There was no way he was strong enough to get the shutters unlocked and open the window from inside. It hadn’t been dark long, so whatever had come for his mother had been ready, waiting for the last of the sun to disappear before it struck.

  While they were certainly the most dangerous, the powerful witches of the Tenebrae weren’t the only threat in the world. The Nightfall had opened their world to demonic forces, from wraiths to hunger-hounds, and more still. One of the greatest threats was the entity the Lumina classified as phantasms; demons that could appear as anything they wished, they tried to trick innocent people into coming to them.

  Once a phantasm convinced someone to come with them, they could overtake the victim’s mind and guide them back to their master. While other creatures posed grave physical threats, it was the phantasms that necessitated the sealed shutters on every residence. While the Lumina were trained to resist the creatures’ temptations, the average person stood little chance of seeing through their deception in time to protect themselves.

  Claire squeezed through the window. The house was neat, though it was stuffy and warm. She surveyed the room, then looked down at Willem. His bottom lip poked out, his little red shirt stained with tears. He took one look at her, then extended his arms upward. She sighed and reached down for him. She wasn’t a big fan of babies or the trickle of snot under his nose, but it felt like an act of evil to refuse him. As soon as she got him into her grasp, he wrapped his legs around her and slung one arm around her neck as if he’d done it a thousand times. “Does your daddy live here?” Claire asked.

  Willem shook his head. “Just Mama and me.”

  Claire nodded. She wandered into brightly lit kitchen, where a cutting board still sat on the counter. A carrot had been partially cut, with a pile of thin orange slices next to a thumb-length stub. The knife lay askew across the cutting board.

  A small white refrigerator occupied a corner of the kitchen. It was covered in crayon-drawn pictures, with a few Polaroid photographs held on by magnets. One of them showed a smiling brunette woman and a slightly smaller version of Willem. Claire took the picture down and showed it to him. “Is this your mama?”

  “Mmhmm,” he said, squeezing his fist into her jacket.

  “Okay,” she said. Flipping over the picture revealed a hand-written caption: Shayla and Will, Christmas 2002.

  “Let’s go find Mama,” Will said.

  “Okay,” Claire said. She couldn’t explain to a toddler that finding his mother was something
way beyond her grasp.

  She couldn’t leave Willem here. Even if there weren’t dark things prowling in the darkness, a small child couldn’t fend for himself. She’d head back to the Corbin Street shelter and drop him there. If she gave them the picture, they could find his mother, and hopefully reunite them before something claimed her. The odds weren’t great for Willem to have a happy ending, but that was the world they lived in.

  “Okay, Will,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  ***

  At Will’s insistence, they returned to his bedroom to retrieve a well-worn blanket covered in cartoon trains. Though she was initially annoyed, she was grateful for the assistance as she contemplated the bicycle and the added cargo of a squirmy four-year-old. After mentally planning it a few times, she finally crouched on her knees to let Will climb onto her back and wrap his arms around her neck. Once he was situated, she slung the blanket around her waist, over his back, and back around to tie the corners into a messy knot at her chest.

  The first few yards on the bike were tenuous and wobbly, but she found her balance with his added weight. Instead of fretting about it, she told herself it was just an exercise of her strength, like running the track with a weighted backpack. As she rode, she summoned the wisps again to light the way ahead. With grim determination, she pedaled hard back toward Corbin Street. With each stroke, she was keenly aware of the way her path had been diverted.

  A dry whisper rose above the quiet whir of tires.

  “Luuuuminaaa,” it murmured, drawing out the sound until it trailed off in a long sigh.

  Claire startled, jerking the bike’s handles. The weight shift threw her off, and she nearly fell. She managed to plant her foot, throwing her hand back to secure Willem as he gasped in surprise.

  “Lumina,” the voice said again, this time an actual voice and not just a whisper. “What do you seek? What do you wish for?” As it spoke, there was a faint scratching sensation, like running light fingers across her scalp and down the back of her neck. She recoiled and threw herself upright on the bike. It could have been one of a handful of creatures, but identifying the chilling voice was way less important than getting the hell away from its source.