Moonset tlom-1

by Scott Tracey

  “You’re enjoying this way too much,” I said, for about the thousandth time.

  “You could put flames around it,” she grinned. “Make it look a little more badass.”

  “I think that’s too much detail for a prison tattoo.”

  Jenna shrugged. “Sure, ruin my fun. What are you cooking?”

  “Spaghetti and meat sauce.” I pointed to the package of ground beef on the counter.

  She squinted. “Shouldn’t you have cooked that first? Noodles will be done before it.”

  I grunted. Cooking was hard. And annoying. But Quinn was the proactive sort, and he kept insisting on teaching us how to cook. Neither Jenna or I had any right to be in the kitchen. I was just lucky that I hadn’t caught the pot of water on fire.

  “Saw your girlfriend today,” Jenna added a few minutes later, when I was stirring the meat waiting for it to cook.

  “I don’t have a girlfriend,” I said automatically.

  Jenna shrugged. “Fine. Then I saw the pretentious little rich bitch who’s not good enough for my brother today.” She didn’t miss a beat.

  Curiosity won out over playing it cool. Jenna already knew what I thought about Ash.

  Pretending otherwise was pointless. “Where was that?”

  “She went into that shop with all the weird stuff. You know, across from the coffee shop? It has costume jewelry hanging in the window.” She tinged the word with an appropriate amount of disgust.

  “So maybe she was looking for something retro.” Ash had gone to the curio shop? Why?

  I looked away, knowing full well Jenna would be turning her glare on me any moment.

  “Besides,” I added, “you don’t even know her well enough to say that she’s got money.”

  “I know I don’t trust her.”

  “You don’t trust anyone,” I countered. “That’s not saying much.”

  “That’s why I’m never disappointed,” she replied in satisfaction. At this point, we both knew the conversation would just start going in circles, with Jenna inevitably claiming victory. I’d point out that she was always disappointed about something; she would counter that she was never disappointed in people, unlike the rest of us who kept getting hurt.

  After dinner, I took Quinn’s homework up to my room and tried to start making headway on tomorrow’s project. I wasn’t even a chapter in before the technical jargon started, and I had to read each page three times before it started to make sense. Falling asleep was a relief.

  I didn’t remember dreaming, but I remembered a lot of thrashing. When I woke up, the covers had come off the bed, and I was all tangled in them. And I was abnormally hot—I could feel the dampness of sweat all over my body, soaking into the sheets.

  “You remember this?” Jenna leaned against my dresser, barely visible against the dark. I squinted, trying to figure out what she was talking about. Night had started to fall sometime while I slept. The only thing I kept on my dresser was a picture of the five of us that we’d taken the summer before. It had been tucked up into the side of the mirror, but now it was in her hands.

  We’d been in a resort town, the kind that was mostly invisible from fall to spring. Cole had found a shopping cart about two miles from any stores that even had shopping carts. Mal and I had picked him up and stuffed him in the basket. For some reason, we all crowded around and took a picture, laughing around Cole’s flailing indignation.

  It was the closest thing to a vacation we’d ever had. Cole had to go to summer school that year after skipping two straight months of English. The rest of us had walked around on eggshells the whole time—he thought every comment was about him. There could have been a book written about it. Summer of My Emo Brother.

  “Yeah,” I said, my throat feeling raw, like I’d been screaming.

  “I tried talking to Cole today,” she said.

  “How’d that go?” The inside of my mouth tasted funny. Like gravel and something sour.

  “Not so good. He blew me off.” I saw the flash of pain, but I don’t think Jenna realized she’d let it show. She could be heartless and relentless, but she could be hurt just like the rest of us.

  “Has he talked to you lately?”

  “Should he?”

  Jenna squirmed. “It’s just … he’s been acting weird lately. Funny, y’know? But he won’t talk to me about it. And he talks about everything. ” She was pointedly quiet for a few seconds before she switched gears. “C’mon,” she said, holding out her hand to me. “Something’s going on.”

  I took her hand, confused, as she helped me up and out of bed. “What kind of something?” I followed her out of my room and down the stairs.

  “Not sure. But Quinn just got a call and flew out the front door. Told me not to leave the house, that it was life or death.”

  “Was there another attack?” I was having a hard time pulling myself out of the sleep fog I’d been in. There was something I was missing. Something with teeth.

  My stomach sank and I didn’t know why. Jenna went to the front door, peering out one of the windows on either side of it. The porch lights were on at Mal’s house, and at Bailey and Cole’s.

  Farther down the street, standing in the street itself and positioned perfectly under one of the streetlights, Quinn and the other two guardians were huddled together. Mal’s guardian Nick, and Kelly, the sorority guardian.

  All three of them were clutching their athames, prepared to use them at a moment’s notice. A car turned onto our street and slowed as it approached the trio. Nick opened the driver’s door and Meghan stepped out.

  “What’s she doing here?” I don’t know why I was whispering.

  Jenna looked at me, an eyebrow raised. “If we knew we wouldn’t be spying, would we?”

  Nick was getting in the car now, and he closed the door once he was behind the wheel. Then, like nothing had happened, he continued driving, turning towards down-town.

  “You feel that?” I looked over at Jenna, and saw the most peculiar look on her face. Like she could almost make something out, but it still didn’t make any sense.

  “Feel what?”

  She shook her head, and focused back on the adults in the street. “Nothing. Never mind. Just one of those ‘someone walking over your grave’ feelings.”

  Maybe they know about the book. The thought struck me at all once. Maybe. It looked serious enough.

  My coat was still tossed over the railing post at the bottom of the stairs. I grabbed it, figuring

  I could be outside and back in just a minute or two. Sneak into the garage and see if the book was still there. If it was, I’d grab it and hide it somewhere else.

  Two minutes, tops. If they find it, they might punish one of the others. It’s no one’s fault but mine. If anyone should take the blame, it should be me.

  “Where are you going?” Jenna’s voice rose.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said, opening the door before I could give her a chance to respond.

  Everything was fine as I first stepped off the landing and down onto the concrete porch. It was when my second leg left the safety of the house that something went wrong.

  It was like that moment when you’re somewhere between being awake and asleep, but you’re still kind of dreaming. Everything is fine until you trip in the dream, and then you’re suddenly awake as your body jerks itself in compensation.

  That was what this was like, except it was almost exactly opposite. I stepped down onto the porch, but some dream-part of me missed the step. I kept falling, like there were two of me.

  One on the porch, and one that was hurtling somewhere else.

  There were a thousand pairs of hands, and they were all grabbing for me, each pulling me further and further down. There was a glimmer of light so far in the distance I thought I must be imagining it.

  The farther they dragged me, the worse the pain. At first it was like every muscle in my body was clenching at the same time. But every few feet, it was like more and more of those muscl
es were being torn off my body, ripped from where they were supposed to be.

  I was there, but I was also on the porch. Jenna had been standing next to me, but now she was towering over me like some sort of wild and terrified Amazon. She hadn’t stepped down onto the porch yet. I don’t know why I noticed that, but I did.

  I tried to say something to calm her, but there was a tunnel between my mouth and my voice.

  It was like looking at a slide from the bottom up. Such a long way back.

  They’re here. Now they’re here. Finally. Whispers chittering against my skin. Their voices were legion; hot and icy against my skin, fetid and honey against all the things on the inside.

  Part of me could still see Jenna, framed by the porch light. I was sinking faster, or she was floating higher. Either way, the distances kept growing.

  Her mouth moved, but the words were unintelligible. All I could hear was the Others. Here now. Finally here. They’ve come. Everything you’ve ever clawed for in nightmares. Here for you, crackling open your bones and biting down on your rage. You know what we need.A thousand voices, all talking in the same tongue. Something that wasn’t English, and wasn’t the language of magic. Something else.

  Blood rushed to my skin, but it bounced down the tunnel all the way down to me before I felt the slap. Jenna’s face, blocking my vision. She’d grabbed me. Dragged me back towards the door. Slapped me.

  She did it again, and I floated between two worlds. The hands released, though they struggled to regain their grip.

  A third and final slap. Long enough for a single moment of clarity. This was not my sister.

  Jenna’s makeup never smeared, her eyes were never that wild. Her skin never flushed like that.

  Her breathing was never so erratic.

  This was not my sister. She would never ask for help.

  Jenna had never in her life screamed the way she did. “Quinn!” It was a howl, fearful and breaking apart at the seams. If I kept watching, I was sure I would see things spilling out the side of her as she came undone.

  One of the voices crept close, a whisper-burn against my spirit. You know what we need. We only need one. We only need one. We only need one.

  That was the last thing I remembered, before the hands pulled me back down. It was almost like sleep. Almost exactly opposite.

  Twenty-Two

  “People thought it was a sick joke at first.

  Moonset hadn’t even graduated from college yet. How could they be behind this? The reports said that their magic had been amplified by the Abyss—they’d willingly become warlocks and turned their black arts on the rest of us.”

  Elizabeth Holden-Carmichael (C: Risenleaf) Personal Interview

  There were snatches of conversation as I floated back towards my body. Fearful words, some accusations, and the sound of tears. Whatever had happened, it wasn’t pretty.

  “ … fixing … ”

  “ … never so quick … ”

  “ … damnit, tell me … ”

  “He’s awake.”

  Everything was blurry. My eyes burned at the harsh light. There was a bulb hanging from the open ceiling, the long chain swaying back and forth. Everything smelled musty and sour.

  Basement. This was our basement. Why had they taken me down here?

  Jenna’s face swallowed my vision. She’d wiped off her makeup and tied her hair back. Then she was pulling away, and Quinn was there, looking concerned. Standing on the stairs, looking over his shoulder, Meghan tapped away on her computer.

  “Can you talk?” Quinn crouched down on his haunches, watching me.

  Meghan looked up “He wasn’t in a coma, Quinn. Of course he can talk.”

  “He had some sort of seizure,” Jenna snapped.

  I had?

  My throat was on fire, like something had reached inside and left huge gouges on its way back out. “Why the basement?” Even my voice sounded burned out.

  “Best place for you,” Quinn said, stepping back. “Closest to the warding spells.” He looked over his shoulder, “Shouldn’t you be hovering over my grandmother, Meghan? There’s no one’s ass to kiss down here.”

  I tried to sit up, but there was a problem. I could feel all my limbs, but I wasn’t having much luck moving them. My head wouldn’t even lift off the pillow. The next thing I knew, there were footsteps coming down the stairs. Even though I couldn’t see who it was that descended, I saw the way the new person’s arrival stiffened Quinn’s spine and caused Meghan to suck in a nervous breath. It had to be Illana.

  “How is he?” Illana asked.

  “The boy is stable,” Meghan said crisply. “He doesn’t seem to have a concussion, and there aren’t any lingering side effects from his episode. Psychological deviations have yet to be determined.”

  “Deviations?” Jenna said, making it sound like something vulgar. “You’re the last person to talk about being deviated.”

  I could hear it in her voice—she was getting close to losing it. I tried to force my arms to move again, to prop me up. I could barely twitch on command.

  “Relax, young one,” Illana murmured, sweeping down next to me. She dabbed a towel against my forehead. “The darkness can act like a paralytic.”

  “What?”

  “She means it can paralyze you,” Quinn said. “Like getting hit with a taser. So don’t panic.”

  “Someone … used Maleficia?”

  “Yes,” Meghan said, her voice heavy and dramatic. “A warlock right under our noses. Quelle surprise. ”

  “You’re not helping,” Quinn said under his breath.

  “Meghan.” Quinn’s grandmother called out her name and waited. The room grew silent as everyone waited to see what she’d say. “Next time let’s try for an evaluation that is actually comprehensive. The boy can’t move. I’d qualify that as a side effect.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Bryer.”

  I opened my eyes to see Meghan hovering on the stairs, her eyes wide. She kept doing some sort of twitch, like she couldn’t decide if she was going up the stairs or coming down them.

  “That will be all,” Illana said coolly. A moment later, the girl vanished up the stairway.

  “Honestly,” the older woman exhaled.

  I laughed weakly. “She’s that girl. ”

  “What girl?” Quinn asked. Even Illana was looking down at me with curiosity. Only Jenna knew what I meant. We shared a private grin.

  “The girl whose father has to make a phone call to get her into college,” Jenna explained.

  “Never quite measures up, and has to kiss ass and beg favors to get ahead.”

  “Meghan was top of her class,” Illana chided, although she did so absently, proving how little she cared about the girl.

  “Meghan was second,” Quinn corrected smugly. He came down quite clearly on the “Meghan is a raving beyotch” side of the argument.

  “Yes, yes,” Illana murmured. “We all know you were precocious. Don’t gloat; it’s a sign of poor breeding. Now then. Justin? What do you remember?”

  Even blinking my eyes felt like it was some sort of process. “There were voices,” I rasped.

  “Yes,” Illana drawled, sounding like she was humoring me and nothing more. “I’m sure there were.”

  “They said, ‘They’re here.’” I looked to Quinn, who grimaced but didn’t immediately reply.

  “What’s here? Is something coming?”

  “You’re here, Justin,” he said, his tone growing softer. “The five children of Moonset.”

  “Do you remember anything else?” Quinn asked, staring down at me.

  “They were talking to someone,” I said slowly, thinking back to the voices and the cold that had slipped inside me. Just remembering it was enough to make me start shivering again. “It was a conversation.”

  “Did you get a name?” Quinn pushed. “Hear his voice? Anything?”

  “Hey, lay off him. He’s not-—” Jenna said, before cutting off abruptly. “Did you l e t this happen? Did you know
something was going to happen to Justin?”

  “Oh, do be serious,” Illana muttered with irritation. “How would Quinn have known that Justin would leave the house? Don’t be foolish. He thought the two of you smarter than you obviously were.”

  “Why did you leave, Justin?” Quinn asked, leaning in. “I told Jenna you needed to stay inside.

  This is exactly the kind of thing we’ve been trying to protect you from.”

  “Great job there,” Jenna said. “A rousing success.”

  We only need one. “I thought the warlock wanted us here?”

  “He does.” Quinn narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

  Because they don’t need all of us. I looked over his shoulder, at the woman who’d moved us here like a bold chess move. I couldn’t speak freely in front of Illana. Even if I really trusted

  Quinn, I still didn’t trust his grandmother. She looked like she could garrote any one of us and not lose a night’s sleep over it.

  “Because I’m still alive. I thought you said Maleficia liked to destroy things.” I looked down at my body. “It looks like I’m still in one piece.”

  Quinn shifted, a guilty look in his eyes. “That’s be-cause—”

  “Quinn!” I couldn’t see Illana anymore, but the whip crack demand in her voice left no doubt.

  She didn’t want him answering.

  “The warlock tried to kill him tonight,” Quinn said, getting heated. “They need to know.”

  “I’m not so certain that they did,” Illana replied. “It’s entirely possible that they wanted something else from him.”

  I couldn’t feel a lot, but there was a sudden pressure on my leg. Right by where Jenna was standing. “I don’t like what you’re implying about my brother,” she said tightly.

  Implying? It took my brain a second to put things in perspective. What else would a warlock want from me? Recruitment. Moonset 2.0. A new generation of darkness. But had Illana implied it? Or was Jenna jumping ahead like she always did, reading people too well and determining the undercurrent?

  Illana huffed out a breath. “Relax, child. It isn’t like this is a formal accusation.”

  “Then there’s no reason to continue keeping secrets from them,” Quinn announced. “If you’re convinced they’re not part of the problem, then they need to know.”