by Gabi Moore
Mr. Cheng smiled grimly. “It’s good you here, Aurora.” His usual jovial tone was missing, missing like Madame Moreau’s make-up. He just wasn’t quite right without it. Aurora stayed near the sink, as if thinking of making a quick escape. “There is much we need tell you.”
Chapter 6
Stubbornly, Aurora refused to budge much farther than the vestibule. Her aching feet notwithstanding, there was something going on here. Something she did not like at all.
Earlier today, she would have been angry. She would have demanded to know the meaning of all this. How do they all know each other? What’s been happening here? But it had been such a long day… Aurora was so tired. She felt as if she might fall over if she stood too close to the air vent. Much too tired to do anything but wait for them to speak.
Mr. Cheng seemed to guess at it, or at least part of it. He sighed and nodded.
“You are tired. Come, sit down.” He waved at the couch under the window, near him and Moreau.
Aurora didn’t move.
Milo sighed. “Come on, Miss. Nothing ever came from standing around in the doorway. We aren’t going to bite you.”
Hesitantly, Aurora looked at the couch. Her weight was leaning on the sink counter, and suddenly, she wasn’t even sure she could make it all the way across the room.
Lucian was at her side, like a flash, like a blink. She almost fell down in shock. “Can I help you?” he asked, setting a hand on her arm questioningly.
Aurora nodded shortly, and allowed herself to be guided around the big hospital bed to the seat near Mr. Cheng. Once she was seated, Lucian retreated back to the other side, watching with silent black eyes. Aurora tried not to stare back.
“Now, Aurora, there are things you need know,” Mr. Cheng started gently. He and Moreau were both looking at her in a way that made Aurora most uneasy: proud, and affectionate. Like distant relatives who had only seen you once, when you were a baby, who suddenly reappeared when you were sixteen. You didn’t know them at all, but they’d heard all about your life as you grew, unaware. Familiarity without connection. Aurora tried not to feel utterly creeped.
Madame Moreau spoke up now. Her voice was a pale shadow of what it had been, creaky and hoarse. There was an oxygen cannula looped under her nose, and the edge of an IV peeped out from under her sleeve. The more Aurora looked at her, the less this woman resembled the Madame Moreau she had known all these years.
“Aurora, Mr. Cheng and I have known you for… a long time. Not… not just since you began… working for me. I hired you partic—particularly to keep a closer… eye on you.” She paused, taking deep breaths. “Damn lungs, giving out on me… now of all times. Anyways… What I mean to say, is… that we’ve known you… and your mother, too, all your life.”
Well, just a little while ago, Aurora had wondered if she could weather another shock. This one was not so jarring compared to the others, though, and a thinning layer of numbness allowed Aurora to absorb this information without much of a reaction.
“When your mother… came to New York, it was because… your father asked her to, but she… she stayed because we all thought it would be… safest.” Huffing, Moreau looked between Cheng and Milo and Lucian. She was having obviously difficulty breathing and speaking so long. “Well, those of us who were… there at the time. Lucian hadn’t… appeared yet, and Milo was still… fairly new to the cause.”
Okay, Aurora thought. That one was a bit heavier. They had mentioned her father. Aurora held up a hand to stop Moreau, something she had never imagined doing before this minute. She opened her mouth to try and ask, but no sound came out. Aurora cleared her throat and tried again; success, even if her voice was not as clear as usual.
“You knew my father? And my mom?”
Moreau and Cheng exchanged a glance, and Cheng set his hand over Moreau’s frail, shaking one. “Yes, and yes,” Mr. Cheng replied. “We know your mother. We see her often over the years, as we watch over you. We have not spoken to her in many year. Too dangerous.”
“And my father?” Aurora pushed.
“That is more complicated,” Moreau sighed.
“But you knew him?” They had known him. There was someone else; he was real, not a phantom of her mother’s imagination, not a vague name on Aurora’s birth certificate. “You knew him?”
“We… know him. He’s here in New York,” Moreau replied softly.
“He’s here? In the city?” Aurora took a deep breath. Somewhere, she’d sort of expected this. It was true, then, that he’d simply walked out. He’d been here in New York all the time and had never wanted to see her. He could have visited, but didn’t, even while Ramona pined after him.
“Yes, which is problem,” Mr. Cheng agreed. “He is close to you, Aurora. Close to finding you. That cannot happen.”
That didn’t make sense. Aurora shook her head. “Why not? Why would he be trying to find me? He knows where to find me. The same place he left me.”
Moreau and Cheng were both shaking their heads. “No, no,” Moreau said. “Not at all. We moved your mother… to a new hiding place when… it happened. I’ve been hiding you… ever since. But, my girl, you have… no hope of understanding any of this… until we explain more… about who we are.”
That didn’t sound good. Aurora looked around between them. “And that would be..?”
“More than we look,” Lucian replied quietly from his corner.
“Let’s see, where to begin…” Moreau looked around the room. “Cheng, you and Lucian… had better not show her. Milo… I’m afraid I have… little enough left… and your gift isn’t so… well difficult to hide… from the hospital staff.”
Milo nodded. “All right, Aurora. Think of a number between one and infinity.”
Aurora stared at him. “What?”
“Just do it.”
Aurora did; yesterday, she would have done it rolling her eyes. Today, she was more suspicious.
Milo grinned a thin-lipped grin. “178,444.”
It wasn’t even surprising, after all that had happened. “Let me guess, you’re a mind-reader?”
“Well, they used to call guys and gals like me seers, but I guess modern times can call me whatever fits.”
“So what, you’re a bunch of psychics?”
“No, Milo is the one… psychic in the bunch,” Moreau replied dryly. “I guess you would call me a witch.”
Aurora sat there, in this room full of crazy people, wondering if she, too, was quite insane. Moments like this, she was feeling it, because a part of her believed every word out of their mouths.
“Well, at least part of you believes it,” Milo muttered.
“A witch?” she hissed, as if to prove how skeptical she was. Aurora hated to seem gullible; that was New Yorker in her.
“Yes, my girl,” Moreau replied in a tired murmur. “I’ve been… hiding you… and your mother… from him.”
Aurora stared at her. “Him? My father?”
“Yes.”
She swallowed down a dry lump in her throat. Of everything she’d heard since she stepped into this hospital room… “He’s been trying to find me?”
They all looked at her then, eyes steely. “Oh, yes, Aurora,” Mr. Cheng answered for Moreau, who had started to struggle for breath. “He’s been scouring the city for you. But as long as Moreau was well, he could never find you.”
Disbelief, anger even, was building up in Aurora’s chest. “Why? Why would you keep him from me?”
“So you believe us?”
Aurora paused. The answer, of course, was yes, as ridiculous and out of reach as it all should have been. Maybe she was just in a state of mental upheaval, completely overwhelmed by the events of the last twenty-four hours. Maybe she just really needed some sleep. But Aurora did believe them, without reservation.
“Let’s say I do,” she said. “If what you say is true, then you’ve kept my father from being with me and my mother all this time.”
“No, not from being with y
ou, we wanted him to be with you,” Milo spoke up. “Look, I’d only just gotten started with all this when it happened, but I swear, these two and old Mathers wanted to see you all happy together. But your dad wasn’t going to let that happen.”
“So what, it was like, an intervention? What, was he abusive?”
“In a way, yes,” Moreau wheezed. “There’s more… still to tell you. Cheng—he’s a shapeshifter, and your father—I guess he’s… what you would call a… a vampire.”
For the first time, Aurora wondered if she was not the victim of a prank.
“You’re not,” Milo said at once.
“Stop doing that,” Aurora snapped. She turned to Moreau and Cheng sharply. “A vampire? Really?”
“Not like in movies,” Cheng answered, still holding Moreau’s hand carefully. “Not like Dracula, not like Twilight. Your father feeds off blood, yes, but mostly energy. In the city, there is plenty.”
“So I’m, like, a half-vampire?” Aurora had to roll her eyes at that.
“No, you will be… a full one,” Moreau replied. “That’s the problem. Your father… Ian… he sired you… thoughtlessly. He didn’t think… of the consequences…”
“Before you go on about unexpected pregnancy, just listen,” Milo warned Aurora, before she could say just that. He was leaning against the wall opposite the hospital bed, seeming to listen to Moreau. Aurora glared at him.
“I mean it, stop that,” she hissed.
Milo nodded apologetically.
“We are five,” Moreau breathed. She paused and took a deep, staggering inhale. “Cheng and I, Milo… Ian… and… one other, Ylessa. She is… a fairy, I suppose… you’d call her. We form a pentacle, Aurora, a complete… set.”
Now, ‘pentacle’ is a buzzword for anyone who’s ever watched the news in America around Halloween, and Aurora cringed a little to hear it. “What does that mean? A complete set for what?”
“To protect the city,” Moreau replied. “To protect… people. There are dark forces… in this world… and when he couldn’t… have you… your father joined them.”
“Why?” This was all too much information, but Aurora couldn’t budge that one thought. Why?
There was a knock at the door just then, and Lucian crossed to it warily. Everyone seemed to hold their breath; Aurora did too. Through a crack in the door, they could hear someone speaking, and Lucian opened it wide to admit a sixth guest, a teenager who rushed and picked up Moreau’s other hand at once.
He was probably a senior in high school, middling height and Hispanic. He was dressed in jeans and two sweaters, but didn’t seem to care about overheating at present. He had a blocky face, but it was kind, and at the moment, it was scrunched up in grief.
“Miss Estelle,” he sniffed. “I came as fast as I could. How are you feeling?”
Estelle? Aurora wondered. She’d never heard Moreau’s first name.
Moreau herself looked more maternal, more calm than Aurora had ever seen. “Lester. The time has… come, I think. I’m getting… weaker every minute…”
Lester shook his head, face reddening. “Not yet.”
Moreau nodded her head sadly. “I’m… so tired… Let me rest.”
The poor boy sobbed horribly, and Aurora felt it right down in her spine. Why wasn’t that her? Why couldn’t she be upset like that? Moreau was fading, and her mother was gone. Why wasn’t she dissolving?
Lester nodded, biting his lips together, and clutched both of Madame Moreau’s hands. Above the bed, the room lights flickered.
“What was that?” Aurora asked in a whisper. She wasn’t sure why she was whispering; it seemed appropriate.
“Shh,” Milo nodded his head toward the bed.
Madame Estelle Moreau was lying flat against the raised back of her bed, breathing deeply. Her white, white skin had turned almost pearly, translucent. Her face turned to Lucian and Milo.
“Stay… out of trouble… you two…”
“We’ll try, Ma’am.”
She made an unconvinced sound in her throat, and for a moment seemed like her old self. Then she turned to Aurora, who stiffened.
“There’s… much more to tell…” Moreau sighed. “Cheng will have to do it. We’re… both getting too old. You… young people… have to take over…” She smiled slightly. “You’re an excellent… employee… I’ll give… you that.”
Lastly, she turned to Cheng. They didn’t exchange words. Mr. Cheng just took both her hands in his, and kissed each. On his face was a profound sadness, deep as the sky in winter, but he didn’t make a sound. He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. Moreau murmured something in French, and he smiled and nodded.
And then, with the lights flickering again, Moreau returned her hands to Lester’s grasp, and closed her eyes.
“You’ll have… to try your best… to set a new ward…” Moreau murmured, eyes still closed.
Lester nodded, too fast. “I’ll do my best, Miss Estelle.”
“Good, good. Now, let’s go…”
Now Lester was turning a glimmery off-shade, as if his reddish skin were beginning to glow. Aurora blinked; were they glowing? The lights in the room flickered yet again, and the answer was yes, they were. Faintly, the strongest light shining up their arms, at their conjoined hands.
“What’s happening?” she asked, standing. The lights blinked out finally, and did not return.
“Madame Moreau is passing her office on to Lester,” Lucian replied quietly. He hadn’t moved at all since Lester had arrived, leaning against the wall in the far corner without a word.
Aurora glanced at him, then back at the glowing spectacle. “Her office? What does that mean?”
“She was the witch in our circle. Now, Lester will be.”
Aurora watched with wide eyes as Moreau’s glow dimmed, dimmed, and Lester’s grew stronger. It was over in less than a minute, and the lights in the room snapped back on as if someone had flipped the switch. And in the large hospital bed, gray and cold, lay the body of Estelle Moreau.
“Oh my God,” Aurora breathed.
“So passes the Witch, Estelle Moreau,” Milo murmured, bowing his head.
“We should go,” Lester coughed. He looked up at them all. “Her ward is totally gone now; I’ll have to build a new one, but I can’t do it here. I’ll need time—we need to all get somewhere safe.”
“Safe from what?” Aurora asked, her hazel eyes still locked on Madame Moreau’s still face.
Out in the hall, someone shrieked.
Chapter 7
Mr. Cheng turned to Lucian. He’d never looked so grim, never, and at that moment Aurora wouldn’t have wanted to be in his way.
“Take them to your home,” Cheng instructed. “Get them to safety. I’ll buy you time.”
Lucian nodded and stepped away from the wall. “I’m on it.”
Mr. Cheng opened the door of the hospital room; outside, there was chaos. It sounded like a high wind had begun ripping through the hall, and the lights were flashing like a series of electrical surges.
As she watched his back, Mr. Cheng began to change. It began as a rippled through his thin shoulders. At first, Aurora thought it was the flashing lights, but then he began to grow, madly, like an accelerated film. His spine lengthened and fur sprouted from his skin. In a matter of seconds, a Bengal tiger stood in the door where Mr. Cheng had been, its shoulders only a little shorter than he’d been upright.
Aurora’s legs folded under her and she was suddenly sitting on the couch again.
“He’ll can only give us a few minutes head start,” Milo told her, holding out a hand. “We gotta go!”
Go? Oh, boy. That was a lot to ask. But Aurora’s hand took Milo’s without her telling it to, and he pulled her to her feet. The tiger was gone, and the chaos in the hall was reaching a fevered pitch. Lucian helped Lester to his feet and herded them all out.
In the hall, a series of sharp growls and hisses welcomed them from the right, where the elevators were. Aurora looked
, and felt quite crazy to see what she did; the tiger, surely bigger than a real one, was locked in combat with a pair of creatures that defied description. They seemed part shadow, not fully physical, and with the lights going mad it was impossible to get a look at them.
A second later, she was being rushed to the left. “The emergency stairs,” Milo told her. “I think this counts as an emergency.”
They burst into the stairwell, to find the lights flashing here, too. The going was treacherous in her heels, but Aurora had been wearing heels a long time and managed to keep up with the boys in their flat-soled shoes. Their steps clattered and echoed around them, and when they were turning the bend between the second and first floor, the door upstairs slammed open.
“Go!” Lucian bellowed, and they blasted through the door on the first floor.
“The parking garage! We can all fit in my car!”
“What about Mr. Cheng?” Aurora asked, her voice much higher than she’d meant it to be.
“Believe me, he can take care of himself,” Lucian replied as they rushed through the ground floor of the hospital. “He’ll be trying to hold them back and keep them from following. They haven’t hurt him, and he knows where to meet us.”
Aurora had to take his word for it, because they were already in the parking garage and booking it towards Milo’s car.
“Where are we going?” she panted, swinging into the front seat without asking.
“My apartment,” Lucian answered from the backseat. “It’s well-hidden. Lester will have time to build a new ward once we get there.”
Milo started the car and screeched out of the parking spot the second Lester—the last one in the car—had his door shut. He wheeled on out of the parking structure like a bat out of hell, still wearing his gun and police badge under his jacket, which Aurora found oddly amusing.
“What if you get pulled over?” she asked, smiling like a lunatic. “What’ll we tell them, we’re running from shadow monsters?”
Milo glanced at her. “Keep with us, Aurora. I know this is a lot all at once, but we were hoping… well we were hoping we’d be able to wait as long as possible before having this conversation.”