Moonset 01: Moonset

by Scott Tracey

  “I saw him once. The sun! He fizzled and faltered, and then they locked the door on his cage of blood.”

  “Come on,” Ash said, wrapping her hand around my arm. “They’ll talk him down. But we shouldn’t watch. It’s not right. He’s obviously sick.”

  I would have left right then, except that the man shifted on his ledge, leaned forward like he was teasing the sky’s edge, and I recognized him. It was the man from the diner. The Harbinger.

  “I know him,” I said without thinking.

  Ash looked surprised. “You do?”

  “Well, not know him exactly. He got drunk and harassed Mal and I when we first came to town.”

  Now was no different. “I see you,” he called, and I could swear he was staring right at me.

  “Come on, Justin,” Ash said, a little more urgently.

  One of the lantern lights on the street corner exploded with a paff, releasing a sprinkling of sparks. Like a collective unit, the crowd shrieked and panted and screamed. But they were used to it when a second pop followed, and then the third. Three streetlamps in as many seconds.

  I felt something in the air. Like a current of air that I couldn’t quite feel, but I knew was there somehow. It sailed over us, and I was reminded of the wraith. Of the way I’d felt moments before the wall had exploded inwards, and innocent men had died because of me.

  I suddenly didn’t feel so good.

  “Can you hear them yet? They bite and they whisper, and it never ends.” His body spasmed, his left arm jerking suddenly behind his back. The crowd gasped, fearing that this would be the last moments before he tumbled forth.

  My body grew cold.

  “Traitor, caller of spirits, warlock! Following you down, laying out the signs.” the man howled. “They want you to know. They need you to know.”

  Any witch who turned to the black arts was considered a warlock. There was truth to the legends that some witches made pacts with the Devil. Warlocks were the common term, but I’d heard the others before, too. Warlock supposedly meant traitor, once, and before that, it had meant a caller of the dark spirits.

  Ash tugged on my arm again, but I took a step forward. Then another. My eyes never left his.

  “Can’t you hear it? The dark things are coming, and they only need one.” The man’s arm straightened, his posture smoothed. “They only need one.” Once the words crossed his lips, he couldn’t stop them. He was like a skipping CD. “They only need one. Only need one. Need one.”

  “Oh god,” Ash said, a moment before the man let go of the ledge.

  By now the man’s voice was hoarse and starting to falter, but he still continued to proclaim his strange message. “I can hear the litany. They’re here.”

  The man’s lips kept moving, but the sound finally died. Even at this distance, I could see that one little detail. He looked scared and resigned—like an addict who was helpless in the face of his habit. The words continued to crawl out of his mouth as if invisible hands pulled them forth, even though there was no sound. They only need one. They only need one.

  Then the man tumbled forward, suddenly so relaxed that his fall from the roof was graceful and smooth. There was silence around me, and I wondered if I was the only one who saw this sudden change. But then the gasps started, and I realized I wasn’t alone. I turned away, wincing even before the impact. Ash buried her head against my chest, and that moment of comfort sparked a lifetime of habits.

  I stroked her head, whispered comforting things, even as there were screams and tears in the crowd. People surged forth around us, either out of some misguided attempt to help, or because they wanted to be the first to see the body.

  When Ash pulled away, I expected to see tears, or at least the effects of the man’s suicide. But her face was eerily calm, slack of any emotion at all. Over the top of her head, across the open space between the crests of the crowd, there was a woman staring at me. She had the kind of stern, hard gaze as Illana Bryer, and for a second I thought it was her, but the two women couldn’t have looked any different.

  Her hair was long and dark, her expression pinched and plucked like it was the victim of an overzealous surgeon. She glared at me with the kind of recognition that made it clear she knew who I was—knew whose child I was.

  I went to say, “Who is that?” to Ash, to see if she knew the woman, but when I looked down and then back up, the woman was already gone, absorbed into the crowd. I caught a momentary glimpse of almost-familiar green eyes brushing past us, but there was a gasp in the crowd and my eyes went towards the body.

  The last thing I wanted to do was to see the Harbinger now. It was something I’d never be able to unsee. I could still picture the way the Witcher had looked, ravaged and bloody after the wraith had torn through him.

  Seeing the Harbinger would be another.

  But something made me look anyway, and it was another sucker punch.

  His body had cracked the sidewalk in a single line, arcing from his right shoulder down past his left hip. The police officer on the scene was crouched in front of the body, his posture slumped. Dead then. The officer got up, and started herding people back away from the scene. Ash and I took a step back, and something in the way the light reflected off the concrete made me stop. Blood began spreading out from the body like a water balloon with a tiny leak.

  It pooled out from some hidden wound beneath the body, sliding forward like it was the concrete that was bleeding, and not the man. The blood trailed out in several directions at once, one at the crown of his head, one along the lines of each of his shoulders, one from either hip. The lines bent and curved, and it wasn’t until I saw them all at once, saw the pattern that I realized.

  Ash sucked in a breath.

  A circle of blood spread underneath his chest, and tentacles stretched away from his limbs. I’d seen this symbol before. If we pulled him up, I knew what we’d see. A dry spot in the shape of a crescent moon, a circle, and six wavy rays. The same symbol Mal and I had seen on the burnt-out house and on my locker.

  Moonset’s symbol.

  Sixteen

  “Reports from the scene suggest that the explosions started just before noon, when the Invisible Congress would have adjourned for lunch. At this time, we don’t know if there are any survivors. Feared dead are the Covens of Devon, the Sisters of Air, Iron Rose, Moonset, and Calmingbrook.”

  Released Reports

  On the Dark Monday attack

  There wasn’t much time to put my thoughts together, or mourn, or whatever it was you did in situations like this. The adults took over almost immediately. Reinforcement police, two of them, appeared from either end of the crowd, herding people back. I pulled Ash out of the street and away from the body. As we walked away, the officers were putting up police tape and had brought out a sheet to cover over the man.

  “All right people, move along. It’s time to go home,” a strident voice called out. My heart sunk. I knew that voice. I hated that voice. Miss Virago appeared on the scene and took control. There was a small group with her—men and women no older than her. The Witchers were on the scene. The coffee I’d drunk started burning a hole through my stomach lining. It shouldn’t be possible, but the situation just got worse and worse.

  Was she pretending to be an actual government official, now? As far as I knew, working for the Congress was not the same as working for the FBI. Witches continued to survive by living a life of secrecy—all our laws, our crimes, our prosecutions had to happen under the radar. We didn’t have any actual authority to the rest of the world.

  But never underestimate the power of a bitchy woman in a business suit and heels. It helped to have magic, of course, to stop people from asking questions.

  At my side, Ash looked nauseous. “I need to call my dad,” she said. She untangled herself from my arm, leaving me only with phantom pain as she dipped and ducked through the cr
owd.

  “Time to get off the street, Mr. Daggett,” Meghan said, taking her place on my other side, and grabbing the arm that Ash hadn’t just been clinging to. She dragged me back the way we’d come, towards the coffee shop, and all I could do was panic. What if Ash saw something? What if she heard something?

  But no, the Witchers were supposed to be good at containment, at making sure normal people don’t remember anything about magic.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, because the Witchers she’d brought with her had rounded up some of the onlookers in groups of four or five. Each of the Witchers was talking, but the people they were talking to were … wrong. Slack-faced, wide-eyed. Vacant. It took me a second to realize they were being fascinated.

  Fascination is a highly regulated branch of magic. The ability to control a person’s thoughts, to bewitch them so thoroughly that they’ll believe anything you tell them, was widely coveted and easily abused. It was almost exclusively the purview of the Witchers themselves, along with whoever the Congress decided to allow to learn the basics. Even those who were good at it—normal witches—could barely work more than five or six at a time—fascination had its limits.

  My stomach twisted again. Normal. If there was one thing the five of us were, it wasn’t that. But those were secrets I’d sworn never to tell. I covered my nerves up with curiosity. “You’re making them forget?”

  Meghan didn’t actually smile, but the muscles in her mouth unpinched for just a moment. It looked like the closest she ever came. “First, we’re finding out what they remember. Then we’re making them forget.”

  She said it so easily. Like stripping away people’s memories meant nothing to her. Who knew, maybe it didn’t. The only comfort to me was that spells of fascination didn’t normally work on witches. Again, normal.

  I knew an interrogation was coming, and I had to prepare. I had the entire length of the street before the coffee shop to pull myself together. To wipe away any trace of what the Harbinger’s words had done to me, the truths he’d revealed.

  Meghan didn’t take us to the coffee shop, though. We walked one building further—an empty storefront with dust-coated windows and Going Out of Business flyers, faded and grimy, taped to the glass.

  The door was unlocked, and she gestured me inside. I followed, at least grateful that Ash wouldn’t stumble in on whatever interrogation this was going to be. The idea that she’d find out what I was on a night like tonight … that was unconscionable.

  “How did you find out there was going to be an … incident tonight?” Virago asked, feigning a sweet tongue as if I’d forget the callous shrew she really was.

  “I didn’t. I went out for coffee with a friend, and we saw people running for the clock tower.” I shrugged. “We went outside to see what was going on.”

  “And that’s when you saw the man. The sympathizer.”

  I nodded.

  “He was very sick,” she confided, like we were friends. “Did you know that?”

  “He harassed Malcolm and me before,” I said, because I knew that she knew. Everything that happened to us ended up in a report somewhere.

  “And what did he say to you tonight?”

  “He was up in the clock tower,” I said. “I never saw him tonight. I mean, other than that.”

  A benevolent, charming smile. “You don’t expect me to believe that, do you Justin? Now, what did he say to you? We need to know what he was planning.”

  What he was planning? “What are you talking about?” I asked. Maybe if I knew how Virago and the other Witchers were planning to spin this, I could figure out … something. Some idea of what they wanted.

  Some of her patience wore away, smooth like an ocean wearing away at a rock. “We know he was shouting things. Preaching, proselytizing, whatever. What we need to know is what he said. That’s the only way we can stop whatever he’s set into motion.”

  But it didn’t sound like the Harbinger had set anything into motion. He’d been scared, and his mind wasn’t all there, but he’d been more a victim than a villain. He’d said there was a warlock, and after the streetlight explosions and the Moonset symbol pooling beneath him, I was convinced.

  What I needed was to talk this over with Jenna. She saw through things easier than I did—maybe she was just better at reading people, or maybe the fact that she inherently distrusted everyone made her see things I couldn’t. But she’d know what to do with what I’d heard.

  “Nothing that made any sense,” I said, looking down at the floor. There were several different sets of footprints, some of them starting to dust over, and others as fresh as ours. Were the Witchers using this as some sort of hideout?

  “It might not make sense to you,” she said, her tone getting more brittle. She knew I wasn’t interested in cooperating. “But it’s important that you tell all the same.”

  “Tell her what she wants to know, Justin,” Quinn said, coming into the storefront. He was dressed in a pea coat and a sweater that looked like they could have both been the same shade of gray. They could have given the grime on the floors a run for their money.

  “You heard what happened?” I asked. Quinn nodded his head, actually looking sad, where Virago just pretended. “I don’t know what he was talking about,” I said honestly. “He kept talking about hearing things. Voices. I mean, I knew crazy people were supposed to hear voices, but I didn’t expect him to talk about it, y’know? I think they told him to jump.”

  Quinn’s expression was curious. “Why would you say that?”

  “Because he didn’t want to. I couldn’t really hear what he was saying most of the time; he was screaming and the crowd was too loud, but he looked scared. Not like someone that wanted to kill himself.”

  “Anything else?” Quinn asked. He had taken the lead, and Meghan had relinquished it silently. She stood behind him, pulling out her tablet computer and punching away while we talked.

  There’s a warlock in Carrow Mill, but I don’t know what it means. I’m being haunted by the symbol my parents used to take credit for their darkest acts. He may have been crazy, but I think the Harbinger was trying to warn me, but I don’t know why. I don’t trust you. I don’t trust anyone.

  But I didn’t say any of that. “Not that I can think of,” I said, biting down on my lip. I wasn’t as good a liar as Jenna, and I couldn’t talk so fast and in so many circles that you lost the point like Cole, but I could withhold information like no one’s business.

  Except Quinn didn’t seem to believe me. “You’re sure,” he said, catching my eye. “This is important, Justin. All we want is to keep you safe.”

  Is that all? Are you sure? “No,” I said, exhaling slow. “Like I said, it was all kind of crazy. He said some stuff, but it was nonsense. It was like his brain got scrambled.”

  Quinn stared at me for a long minute. “Okay,” he said finally. “Let’s get you home.”

  Quinn didn’t come inside when we got back to the house. “Ask your sister not to sneak out tonight? Please? We’ve had enough drama for one day.”

  “Where will you be?”

  He looked in the rearview mirror, scrubbed at his eyes. There were dark circles there that stood out severely on his pale skin. I hadn’t noticed in the store because the only lights had come from the street, but with the car door open, his exhaustion was on display. “There’s still some coordination that needs to take place tonight. To make sure everything’s okay.”

  “But the guy killed himself. It’s not like suicide is contagious.”

  Quinn wouldn’t look at me. “I’m not sure it was a suicide,” he said quietly.

  It was an opening, albeit a small one. “Then what was it?” I pressed. “What’s going on, Quinn?”

  But just as quickly as the wall went down, it came back up stronger than ever. “You should get inside. School to-morrow.”

  Of course he was
n’t going to tell me anything. He was just like the rest. I unbuckled my seatbelt and hopped out into the driveway. “Justin,” he called, just before I slammed the door. I bent down, looking at him in the driver’s seat. I waited, but he seemed to be wrestling with something. “There’s a guard inside,” he said finally, resisting whatever he’d wanted to say, “so don’t freak out.”

  A guard. And there was nothing that we needed to know. I bit down on my irritation and nodded, slamming the door shut with a little more force than necessary. Once inside the house, I took the stairs two at a time and skipped past my room to head straight for Jenna. I knocked, and barely waited for the annoyed “What?” before I turned the knob and slipped inside.

  She was curled up on her bed, applying a coat of nail polish to her toes. It was hard to tell if it was black, or just a really dark purple. Not that it mattered much. She raised an eyebrow at me, and in lieu of greeting, I raised my index finger over my lips.

  My phone was in my pocket and I fumbled for it before pulling it out and into my left hand. I nodded at her, then at the phone next to her on the bedspread. The eyebrow rose even higher, but Jenna’s toenails were forgotten as she slipped off the bed and picked up her phone. She crossed the room to her laptop, and clicked on the music player, pressing the button until the volume went almost as high as it could go. Then she walked back to me with her phone. Hers went into her left hand, too. We both raised our right hands, palms out.

  Jenna had traded another girl for the spell a few years ago. It was a communication spell that the girl had managed to tweak to work with her cell phone. It had become invaluable ever since. We whispered the spell in stereo, and the screens of our phones lit up.

  Something happened tonight, I thought, and the words lit up on her screen.