Magic at Midnight

by Lyssa Chiavari

Rue gasped as she recognized the crotchety old features as they came into the light, and she realized that she’d been tricked. He’d lied about not being able to drive at night. She should have known better.

  In a panic, she fumbled with the door handle. The doctor’s thin, bony fingers grabbed at her, his breathing heavy and moist. Rue managed to unlock the door and was just about to swing it open when something massive slammed into the passenger side, crumpling the door and rendering it immovable. Rue screamed out in frustration and pounded on the window with her fists.

  The back passenger door opened, and Lockheart bounded inside, panting. He looked to be partially transformed into a werewolf—still anthropomorphic in many ways, but now covered in thick, black hair with razor-sharp, pearly white teeth and oversized canines. His arms and legs were more elongated, and his nose had become somewhat reminiscent of a snout.

  “Good work, Lockheart,” the doctor said with a snicker. “Now we can go home and the fun can begin!” Lockheart howled cheerfully in reply. The doctor turned to Rue and said, “Poor Lockheart has been waiting years for the right mate. And I’ve been dying to try out my transmutation skills on a female. We’re so lucky you found us.”

  Rue didn’t say anything. Tears ran silently down her cheeks, burning her scratched face as they drove back to the mansion.

  “You really did a number on me, Rue,” the doctor continued. “You and Lockheart will have a lot of work to do after your transformation. I’ve taught him most of the ways of transmutation, though it’s taken me decades to educate myself on the entire process. Now that my bad leg is completely useless, I’m afraid I’ll have to be fully changed into the very creatures I’ve created—that should buy me some more time to teach you two everything you need to know to keep my legacy alive in the event that something should happen to me. I fear some townspeople have caught on to my experiments and have grown suspicious of me.”

  “He only injected himself with part of our wolf/human hybrid DNA concoction,” Lockheart added. “He wanted to make sure he’d last long enough to make me a mate. He’s almost a hundred, you know.”

  Rue gave no discernible response. She was frantically trying to figure out what to do. Her eyes darted continuously from Lockheart, to the doctor, to out the window. There had to be some means of escape.

  “I couldn’t just leave you alone high and dry, now could I?” the doctor replied to Lockheart. “You’ve done so much for me and my work. The least I could do was find you a suitable companion for the rest of your life.”

  “I’m just happy you decided to go the full werewolf route instead of that whole resurrection idea you had first,” Lockheart said. “I hated the idea of being fused with an old, rotting dead body.”

  “As did I, my good boy. Everything always seems to fall into place when scientific enlightenment is involved,” the doctor said haughtily. “The universe nurtures the progression of science. Because of my work, soon there will no longer be a need for organ donors or prosthetic body parts. The human race will become invincible—aside from that whole ‘silver bullet’ aspect.” He turned to Rue with a grin. “You can appreciate that, can’t you, Rue? After what happened with your mother?”

  Rue curled up in her seat, buried her face in her hands, and ignored the doctor’s words. Rage boiled within her. As soon as the right opportunity came along, she’d destroy any chance of becoming another one of their experiments. What if the doctor failed, and she ended up just another head in a jar displayed in the laboratory? She couldn’t allow that to happen.

  After just a few moments, the car began to slow. She looked up to see the mansion illuminated eerily in the light from the headlamps. Rue felt her stomach drop.

  “Ah, home sweet home,” said the doctor. “Lockheart, I take it you know what to do?”

  “Yes, sir,” Lockheart replied. In one swift movement, he leapt through the center console and ferociously snatched Rue by the hair, his sharp, elongated fingernails raking across her scalp. He pulled her into the backseat and through the door. Keeping a tight grip on her upper arm, he dragged her, kicking and screaming, back into the mansion. The doctor held on to Lockheart’s other arm for stability, struggling to walk with only one usable leg. Lockheart was inhumanly strong, and when the doctor paused for a moment he merely scooped him up and threw the old man over his hairy shoulder.

  Once they reached the laboratory, Lockheart wasted no time in strapping Rue on her side to the gurney, despite her screams, kicks and attempts to bite him. He was just too strong against such a small woman. There was nothing Rue could do except watch helplessly as the doctor balanced himself on the other side of the table, behind Rue’s back.

  Lockheart went to a cabinet on a side wall and fiddled around for a few minutes. When he returned, he held two colossally-sized syringes filled with a cerulean blue liquid—one in each hand.

  “Ladies first,” he said as he placed one of the syringes down on a side table and began closing in on Rue.

  “Not this time,” the doctor interrupted. “Age before beauty. I must insist. I’m in quite a lot of pain. I’m afraid I may not last much longer. I feel myself growing weaker and weaker.”

  “Very well, sir,” Lockheart replied, turning to the old man and bending down to his level. “Here we go. Right into the spine.”

  Rue couldn’t see the doctor’s reaction, though she did hear him cry out. Then there was an eerie, unceasing silence. Slowly and carefully, Lockheart peered over her body.

  “Your turn, little Rue.”

  Rue noticed the shine of the polished metal needle reflect the bright white light that surrounded her. She slammed her eyes shut and waited for the inevitable pinch. When it didn’t come, she opened her eyes just in time to see a slew of men rush down the stairs, holding pistols at the ready.

  “Put your hands up!” a familiar voice yelled, and Rue turned her attention to the top of the staircase. The man from the forest, the one who had called himself “Constable,” stood there triumphantly, his shotgun in his hand and his oversized hatchet still fastened to his belt.

  “Don’t try anything,” he growled at Lockheart, who was looking as though he might make a run for it. “Or you’ll get a silver bullet right where the sun don’t shine. Slower that way. And more painful.”

  Lockheart sneered, and suddenly jumped, tore past an officer and leapt toward the bottom of the staircase, fiercely slashing his claws along the way. A gunshot rang out, and Lockheart fell heavily to the ground and slumped into a heap.

  The doctor was placed in handcuffs and taken away.

  Rue looked up at the constable, her eyes wider than they’d ever been. His shotgun was still smoking.

  “Your friend’s waiting outside,” Constable said as he made his way down the stairs. “I ran into her right around the same place you hit that wolf. By that little cemetery.” He came over to the gurney and began to unfasten the straps around Rue’s wrists. “I’ve been watching these goons during my off-duty time for months now, ever since I noticed them lurking around the old cemetery when I was out cutting firewood. I’ve always known they were up to something out here all alone in the middle of the woods, avoiding everyone in town. There’ve been tall tales going around about the weirdos doing experiments on humans and corpses and whatnot, but I didn’t pay them much attention. But then people—and bodies—started going missing, and I began to connect the dots. I just needed enough evidence to get a warrant, which I was able to, thanks to your friend. She said—”

  Rue didn’t give him a chance to finish. As the binds slipped off her wrists, she pushed past Constable, racing up the stairs out of the laboratory. Just outside the front door, illuminated by the red and blue lights of several police vehicles and surrounded by many officers, Eliza was waiting. She ran straight to Rue as soon as she spotted her, scooping her best friend into the tightest hug she’d ever given to anyone.

  “How did you know where to find me?” Rue asked.

  “The job posting, duh!” Eliza laughed,
though tears were streaming down her face. “When your call dropped earlier, I knew something was wrong. None of my calls or texts would go through after that. I had a really bad feeling... I just knew you needed help. Then I called the number that had come up on our caller I.D. when the doctor called our dorm. The man who answered said you weren’t here, that you hadn’t even been here at all. So I came looking for you. When I ran into Constable and told him you were missing, he was able to get a warrant to search the house.”

  Rue smiled but said nothing. She hugged Eliza again.

  After Rue had given her statement of what had happened to the police, Eliza led her to her car. Before getting into the passenger side Rue glanced up at the luminous moon, the source of all her troubles that night. She briefly pondered if Lockheart would be at peace now, and then, a heartbeat later, wondered why she should care. Lockheart was dead. She had the rest of her life to live.

  Rue suddenly saw the flash of his piercing eyes within her mind, and an instant later her head began to hurt. She ran her hand over her scalp, and her eyes widened as she felt the swollen, raw flesh of a large, deep gash beneath her hair. She removed her hand and looked at the blood that now stained her fingers, remembering the way Lockheart had grabbed her by the hair when he’d dragged her out of the car.

  Anything that draws blood.

  Rue was suddenly aware of her body in a way she’d never been before. She felt her pupils dilate, her fingernails tingle, and her teeth begin to tickle within her gums. She got into Eliza’s car, closed the door, and locked it. Eliza climbed into the driver’s seat beside her, smiling over at Rue as she turned the key in the ignition.

  Rue could hear the sound of the blood pumping through her best friend’s veins. And prior to this very moment, to Rue, Eliza had never smelled so good.

  She smelled like lamb chops and gardenias.

  About the Author

  T. Damon is the author of The Forest Spirit series through Snowy Wings Publishing, as well as two independent YA contemporary novels under the pen name K.L. Teal. Her short story “The Desperate Warrior and the Beast Who Walks Without Sound” was included in the YA Shakespearean retellings anthology Perchance to Dream. Aside from writing, T. Damon holds a degree in Zoology and spends her free time doting on her daughter and numerous pets at her home in Santa Rosa, California. Her hobbies include studying astrology, tarot, and the teachings of secret magical orders. For more information about T. Damon, you can follow her on Instagram at @tdamonauthor, or on Facebook at Facebook.com/tdamonauthor.

  Books by T. Damon:

  The Falling (The Forest Spirit, Book 1)

  The Haunting (The Forest Spirit, Book 2)

  The Reckoning (The Forest Spirit, Book 3)

  The Awakening (The Forest Spirit, Book 4)

  Writing as K.L. Teal:

  A Girl Named Dracula

  Anthropoidea

  The Inventor's Daughter

  a retelling of Beauty and the Beast

  ♛

  SELENIA PAZ

  On the day they took her father, Maribel went farther into the woods than she had ever gone before. The hooves of the small goats that walked beside her made soft pat-pat sounds as they stepped on damp leaves. The trees had almost seemed to part before her, forming a clear path that appeared to go on forever. A fog began to roll in from all directions, and the sudden darkness made Maribel’s mind jump to the stories her father had told her as a child—stories of a strange beast that roamed the woods. Even now, her father never let her go without warning her not to venture too far.

  In the distance, Maribel heard thunder. She stopped walking and waited to see if a storm was approaching, but now there was only silence. The goats turned their heads up suddenly, and Maribel looked up to try to find what they had heard. The fog had grown thicker, and she could just make out the form of a large white owl. She smiled as she thought of her father, who would undoubtedly scold her for not fleeing from the lechuza, a bad omen. She turned and herded the goats back toward home, walking much slower through the heavy fog.

  Night had fallen by the time they reached the house, the many candles inside providing some guidance in the heavy darkness. Maribel placed some fresh hay down on the floor of the barn, and the goats settled down to sleep.

  The house was cold when she entered. Tools and blueprints were scattered over the dining table, a pencil on the floor. Maribel stopped walking as she neared the entrance to the kitchen. Pots and broken plates littered the floor, more of her father’s tools among them. The rug that covered the trap door had been moved, the door open to reveal a short set of stairs.

  Maribel made her way quickly to her father’s room. Paper was scattered over the bed and floor, his desk and mirror broken and shattered. As she entered her own room, the fear that had overcome her changed. Her closet was open and her clothes had been moved, but they remained neatly hung on one side of the closet. The papers and books on her shelves had been taken out and laid on her desk, leaving her shelf empty. The boxes under her bed had been taken out, the items inside now covering her bed. As she looked down at them, she realized they seemed to be organized: more books in a pile, jewelry, papers, shoes. She had the horrible feeling someone was watching her, and that running outside with a lantern and calling for her father was not the best action to take.

  Maribel looked down at her pants and boots and made a quick decision. Changing her clothes would take precious time away from her, so she reached under her desk and pulled loose the tape that held a knife to the bottom of the desk, placing it in her back pocket. On her father’s table, she found a flashlight but no batteries. She picked through the mess of tools and papers, singling out two that worked. She grabbed her father’s metal whistle and her hooded cloak and locked the door behind her.

  As Maribel led Valentín out of the barn, she made sure to leave the barn door open slightly. She didn’t want to think of how long she would be gone, but she wasn’t foolish enough to think that there was a simple explanation for the state of their house.

  Maribel stood in front of the house with Valentín and pointed the flashlight in all directions, careful to pass it over every part of the ground. Wave after wave of possibilities washed through her mind: Her father had suffered some sort of attack and had struggled to get out of the house? That was almost impossible; the condition of the house was so severe—and, considering her own room, so odd. A neighbor, or a stranger, had made their way into the house and had attacked her father, perhaps with the intention to steal? Her father did have quite a few unique tools. That still didn’t explain her room, or why the tools—some of them very valuable—hadn’t been taken. And what about the animals? Surely someone who’d intended to find something of value would have looked in the barn and seen Valentín. His beautiful golden mane and large build would have been enough for someone to know he was valuable. And there was another problem with that theory: any neighbors they may have had were too far and would never have traveled the distance. Their house was so deep in the woods it was difficult to come across it by chance—if at all. And, if Maribel were honest, she would have to admit that she couldn’t remember ever having any neighbors. The only person she could really remember besides her father was her mother. She didn’t like to dwell on that.

  There was a crack near the edge of the grass, where the small plants she’d grown with her father began to meet the tall trees of the woods. Valentín’s head turned to the side so quickly the flashlight fell from Maribel’s hand, dimming for a few seconds. In the quiet that followed, Maribel attempted to calm herself down, but she could not prevent her mind from thinking about the beast from the legends her father had told her. That was the only other explanation Maribel could think about—her father had been taken by the beast he’d always warned her about.

  Maribel bent down and picked up the flashlight, giving it a shake. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said out loud. She pointed the flashlight toward the woods once more, but there was no movement. The fog seemed to have t
hinned slightly, but clouds were beginning to gather in the sky. The part of Maribel that wanted to believe there was a good explanation for the state of their home wanted to call out to her father, wanted to believe that he was nearby in the woods somewhere, and that even if the beast had come to attack her father, he had lost and retreated back to the woods. But she’d read enough to know that sometimes inexplicable events really were inexplicable events.

  As she passed the flashlight over the ground one final time, she spotted four large indentations in the dirt, each about six inches into the ground. As she bent down to touch them, there was a loud noise, almost like thunder, coming from the woods. Maribel turned off the flashlight and looked up, grabbing on to Valentín’s reins just as he began to pull back. There was a bright light over the trees coming toward them. Maribel pulled Valentín toward the trees just as the light stopped above the spot where she and Valentín had just been standing. She moved deeper into the safety of their darkness and watched as a large silver plane landed on the ground.

  Three men exited the plane and ran toward the house, while a fourth stayed behind. “And make sure to look in the barn,” he called.

  Maribel held her breath until the three men returned. “Nothing seems to have changed in the house,” one of them said.

  “In the barn,” said another. “There are goats now, and the horse is gone.”

  “Then she’s gone,” said the fourth. “She couldn’t have gotten very far, not in this darkness. Send a message. Martín’s daughter is somewhere in these woods. She must be found and brought to His Majesty’s office.”

  “What of the tools and the books and the other things in the house?”

  “Burn them.”

  ♛

  For the first day, all Maribel and Valentín did was ride. She went in the direction the plane had traveled, but as the sun rose on the second day, she began to lose hope. She’d always been a very good navigator, but as the hours passed, she forced herself to stop for a few hours near a creek. Valentín nuzzled the plants growing beside the water with his snout.