by Scott Tracey
“Justin, you’re planning to go find your family. And odds are, they’re in the middle of a black magic war zone. If he’s summoning more Maleficia, you need to be prepared.”
I pulled Quinn’s knife out of my pocket. “I’m prepared.”
“Beautiful,” she said, her tone dry, “you’re bringing a knife to an Apocalypse. Do you even know how to use that thing?”
“It’s a knife.”
“It’s an athame,” she corrected. “Have you ever used an athame in a fight?”
“Have you?”
“Well, no. You’re supposed to be eighteen before they’ll teach you.” She shifted the car into drive and started pulling out of the parking lot. “Do we have a general direction to go on, or are we just going to guess?”
The spell I’d been thinking of—the one that prompted the entire night’s insanity—didn’t have a flashy name like all of the others. Maybe Sherrod had been sick that day. Or maybe it didn’t do what I thought it did. But a spell called The Beacon seemed rather appropriate for tracking down lost Coven mates.
I focused on the knife in my hand, in the feel of it in my grip. And I pictured Jenna in my head —the way she’d casually toss back her hair and laugh when she was feeling particularly superior. The look she got in her eyes when someone pissed her off.
“Invenio van culum,” I whispered, tasting magic on my tongue, the thrill of casting a spell for the first time. Then I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
“I’m sure that happens to lots of guys,” Ash said quietly.
Then the car died, at the same time as the city lights of Carrow Mill winked out all at once.
The city didn’t fall into darkness. It jumped headfirst.
Twenty-Seven
“There were reports of children, of course, but we discounted them. Why would a terrorist cell like Moonset endanger everything by choosing the middle of a war to procreate?”
Robert Cooper
Transcript from the Moonset Trial
“Shut up,” I said immediately. “I did not do that.”
Ash sounded like she was struggling not to laugh. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You were going to say something.”
“I was not. Why would you even think that?”
“Because you exhale sarcasm.” I glanced at the window, even leaning towards the glass like it would give me more visibility. “The timing’s a little suspicious, I’ll admit.” Ash paused. I should have started counting down, because I knew something was coming.
“Hey, Houdini. You abracadabra’d and made all the lights disappear.”
The street was suddenly awash in light.
“See? The streetlamps are all back on again.”
Ash was peering out above the steering wheel. “Streetlights aren’t usually blue.”
Then we were both looking out the windows, studying the lights. The streetlights were only lit on Ash’s side, and only for a couple of blocks. Everything else was still … darkness.
“The spell?”
Ash looked at me, then shrugged. “Unless you’ve got a better suggestion.”
We followed the lights for the two blocks, and at the intersection Ash hesitated again. The path of lights continued to the left, turning even farther from the main downtown area.
“Can we trust it?”
I wiped my hands on my jeans. “Maybe this is how the spell works. Let’s go with it.”
Wherever the spell was taking us, it certainly wasn’t the fast route. The minute we were off one of the main roads, it was a circuitous path through every side road in the city. We’d reached the outskirts of the town and were now circling its perimeter.
“The lights are out here, too,” she said, keeping a slow and steady pace.
As I was jostled and bumped around my seat, I kept looking for some sort of guide. Some idea of where we were going.
Just as I was starting to get comfortable, Ash slowed the car and pulled off to the side of the road. “No more lights,” she said quietly.
“Is that a church?” I squinted.
“Oh,” she said, sitting back in her seat. She sounded … I wasn’t sure. Surprised? Resigned?
It was hard to say.
“Ash?”
Her hand moved, pointing towards the building. “It’s not a church. It’s a farmhouse. At least it used to be.”
“Used to be?”
She hesitated. “It used to be the Denton farm—Luca’s dad grew up there until the explosion.
After that, I guess they just left it to rot. They’ve lived in town ever since.”
“There was an explosion? Did it have something to do with Moonset?” If Mal’s dad had grown up there, it was a possibility.
“There was a party,” she said simply. “Something happened, but no one can agree on what.
Just that it was bad, and then something blew up and the house was unlivable.”
“This happened when they were in high school?”
“Yeah.”
“So it could have been a Moonset thing? Experimenting with Maleficia, maybe?” So why would Bridger come back here? Why to this particular place?
“It wasn’t just them, though. Everyone was at this party. All the kids they went to school with.
All the other witches. Whatever happened, happened to all of them.”
She looked over at the building, her hands clenched on the steering wheel. “Are you sure this is where she is? That they’re all here?”
“I don’t know.” My knuckles were white, my grip on the door handle should have dented the metal. “All I know is that Jenna’s in there.”
“And what if you find her? I know you don’t want to hear this, but … what if she wants to be there? Quinn said they could have left by choice.”
“You talked to Quinn about this?” I demanded. “He doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t know us. Jenna’s a lot of things, but she’d die before she ever became like them.”
I hated these questions, the uncertainty they raised. My plan was simple. Find them. Bring them home. Easy. So easy it couldn’t fail. As long as I didn’t stop to worry about what it all could mean.
But logic wasn’t always easy. And it was a lot more insidious.
“Okay,” she said. “Forget I said it. But if we’re going to go, we should hurry. God only knows what’s happening in there.”
Ash had gotten me this far—but she was right. I opened my mouth, planning to tell her to wait here, but she bulldozed right over me.
“Don’t do that,” she warned, a sharpness to her words. “Don’t do the boy thing. I’m not waiting in the car, I’m not running away, and I’m not leaving you by yourself so I can go find help.” She threw her door open, and nearly leapt out of the car. I hustled to catch up to her.
“Besides,” she snapped, now pointing her athame at me from over the hood of the car.
“Someone has to make sure you make it out of this in one piece. You’re not going to sacrifice yourself for nothing.”
Was she some sort of crazy person? “This is serious! You could get hurt.”
There was just a hint of crescent moon in the sky, but more than enough to throw just a twinge of light across her face, illuminating a look I’d almost call viperish. “Now might be a completely inappropriate time to say this, but I’ve always wanted to punch your sister in the face. Just once.” She paused, looking up towards the sky wistfully. “Just saying.”
This was the last thing I needed. I stared at Ash, proving herself to be the insane girl I’ve always known she was.
“God, I hope that’s not your idea of a pep talk,” I said.
The moment ended, we looked at each other, and began walking the dirt path to the farmhouse. The closer we got, the easier it was to tell that the farmhouse had seen better days. The building had wood siding, nearly peeled completely off. The windows in the front of the house were all broken, and weeds had begun growing up at the corners, feeding off
the building like a parasite.
In short, it looked like something out of Children of the Corn, or any other rural horror movie.
I’m such an idiot for doing this on my own. I glanced at Ash. Almost on my own. I’d managed to shove every scrap of nerves down underneath the fact that I didn’t have a choice. I had to do this. The Witchers wanted to believe that Jenna and the others had left willingly.
Whatever happened, they’d look at them as suspects, not victims.
That was what kept me going as we approached. And then the darkness settled in, grew limbs, and squeezed us tight.
I t was still the middle of winter; it was always freezing at night. Maybe that’s why I didn’t notice it at first, the way the cold crept inside. My jaw clenched, my body grew slick with sweat, and my legs trembled a little. This is normal, I told myself.
“You feel that?” Ash whispered, sounding … uncertain. Nervous. Two things I didn’t expect to ever hear from her.
I stopped, noticing that as I did Ash stopped immediately too, and listened. Silence. And then, once I allowed myself to focus on the things around me, I felt it. A feeling like being watched, only not by just one pair of eyes. Hundreds.
Half of me wanted nothing more than to freeze in place, and wait for it to move along. This wasn’t any normal predator—this was something that the core of my being feared. “We know we’re in the right place, then,” I said, keeping my voice pitched low. We were almost at the front door.
“What is it?”
“Maybe it’s the Maleficia. Maybe he’s already started invoking it.” Maybe it recognizes me.
“Keep breathing,” I cautioned.
“Easy for you to say,” she muttered.
“Come on,” I said. “I think it’ll be better in the house.”
I didn’t allow myself to think as I leapt forward, jumped the stairs on the porch, and threw open the half-hanging screen door. Only one hinge was still attached, making the bottom swing around haphazardly.
I twisted the knob of the front door and crossed the broken threshold. The moment I was inside, all the fear and nerves I was feeling melted away. There was nothing of the dark feeling inside—if anything, things inside were calm.
Too calm.
The front rooms were empty, except for leftover tools from half-finished renovation projects.
One wall near the side of the house had been ripped down to the studs, and bundles of wires had literally been pulled through drywall and left exposed.
I led the way, like I’d in some way be the one doing the protecting if push came to shove.
Middle school witches knew more magic than I did. My only saving grace was the athame—if it came down to it, I could seriously mess up whatever Bridger was doing here.
Ash and I didn’t talk, and we moved slowly, but neither one of us was making much effort to be quiet. The overwhelming, soul-crushing pressure outside meant that they were waiting for us. I kept in front of her, in case something came at the two of us. She kept pace with me, moving carefully through the house.
We didn’t have much further to look. The first open doorway we found—which looked like it had once boasted double doors—opened up into the rest of the house.
There were a few dividing walls in the house, but everything else had been demolished. The doorway opened into one large room—what must have once been a kitchen, dining room, and at least one, if not several, living areas. The far corner from us was covered in thick tarps, rustling against the night wind and leaking in a draft I could feel all the way over here.
Now it was some sort of makeshift chapel. Row after row of church pews had been set up in the room, facing a fireplace. Along the walls were dozens of candles and piles of wax spilled all down the wall and onto the floor.
“I’m here,” I called out. “I know you’ve been waiting. But I’m here now.”
Directly in front of us was the oldest fireplace I’d ever seen. It was made from bricks that had seen better days and mortar that had been chipped away decades ago. There was a distinct jaggedness to the shape, and it even leaned to the left. A man stood in front of it, and I steeled myself for my first meeting with Moonset’s only surviving protégé.
But the warlock standing in front of me wasn’t Cullen Bridger, a man almost old enough to be my own father. It was a kid, even younger than me.
It was Luca.
Twenty-Eight
“I don’t know why they surrendered, nor do I care to speculate. At this time, all we know is that Moonset has been apprehended, their cult dismantled, and the war ended.”
Illana Bryer
On the voluntary surrender of Moonset
“Luca?” Ash’s voice was barely a whisper.
I expected some kind of attack, or at the very least, gloating. But Luca looked like he wasn’t even aware of our presence. His was hugging himself, and he looked lost. At the sound of his name, he dropped to the floor, legs tucked under him, and began rocking back and forth.
Framing him on either side, with their backs to us, sat my family. They were seated in the first row of pews, with Malcolm and Jenna to the left, and Bailey and Cole slumped on the right.
All four of them faced Luca, but he didn’t seem to notice. He continued rocking. That’s when I noticed the way Jenna was slumped against Mal’s shoulder, and Cole’s hand was dangling lifelessly from the arm of the bench.
I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but it wasn’t some sort of demonic Bible study. “What the fuck,” I breathed.
Luca didn’t even notice us. His head was craned awkwardly to the side, looking more like an extra in The Exorcist than a high school boy. He finally looked towards us, though his eyes never actually left the ceiling. “Who are you?”
“It’s Justin,” I finally said, keeping my hands upright at my side, trying not to look like a threat.
Luca was the warlock? Luca had been the one to summon us to Carrow Mill? But he acted like he hated us. I didn’t understand.
He cocked his head to the side suddenly, and I flinched. Luca didn’t notice, his ear was towards the fire. Then he started nodding. “I remember now. You’re one of them.” He cupped his hand and made a beckoning motion.
A burst of air swept forward from behind me, like a giant fan that had just been turned on. It stank, smelling like burnt plastic and Cole’s dirty gym socks. At first I thought the room was darkening, but then I realized it was the wind. It was just like the presence I’d felt when the
Harbinger had killed himself, with faint traces of awareness like we’d felt outside. Maleficia isn’t supposed to be aware. This is something else. The shadowy wind, like diluted black smoke, swept over the fire and caught fire: smoky air igniting into green fire.
The flames sailed across the room, swirling around Luca. Into him. He flinched, his body seizing up for a moment as he absorbed … whatever it was. Maleficia?
Luca raised his head, nodded once, and Bailey turned in her seat. Her eyes glowed with the same shade of green as the fire that had just disappeared inside Luca. She squinted at me, eyes sightless and vacant. Next to me, Ash exhaled and then collapsed onto the ground.
“Ash!” I dropped down next to her, feeling her neck and praying for a pulse. Why was Bailey doing this?
We only need one. At the theater, Bailey collapsed after using too much magic. She’d been weak. Something must have slipped inside. That had been what Quinn was worried about. But even above my arguments, he wouldn’t have ignored the signs. They would have checked her out to make sure she was okay. So whatever was inside of her had been able to fool the
Witchers.
Ash drew in a breath. Slow. She was still alive, but unconscious. Bailey settled back in her seat, looking straight ahead. They needed one, and they took Bailey. She could make the others do whatever she wanted. Ash shifted next to me, murmured something nonsensical. She wasn’t dead. Bailey hadn’t killed somebody.
“Don’t be angry,” Luca said, faintly. “They slip thr
ough the cracks, and you’ll never know they’re there.”
“Is that what happened to you?”
Luca tapped his temple. “I have to keep them safe. They need us. We’re chosen. ”
We only need one. We. I looked at Jenna and the others. “Are they … ”
“ … sleeping,” Luca finished. His voice was hoarse and he was drenched in sweat. Sitting so close to the fireplace couldn’t have been helping. More than hoarse, his voice sounded raw. As if he’d spent the last hours screaming.
Luca had aged twenty years in just a day. His skin was sallow, hanging off of his bones. He’d already been skinny, but now he looked almost emaciated, his eyes sunken in and huge. “They said that you must come together. I had to prepare the way.”
“Who said?”
His head rotated towards me, like a creepy doll’s head. “The ones in the fire.” Our eyes didn’t meet, he was looking somewhere above me. At something above me.
“Luca? Were they the ones who taught you how to invoke the darkness?” Ash’s voice was thick but gentle. She braced herself against the back of one of the pews. Whatever happened to her, she’d recovered somewhat.
He started laughing then. It wasn’t the crazy laugh, but something that was half guffaw and half throat-clearing. “I’m not crazy,” he announced, as if we would believe him. “I just … can’t think while they’re here. But now you’re here. They’ll let me go, now that you’re here.” “Right,” I said to him. “I’m here now. All five of us are here. That’s what you were trying to do, right?”
His eyes dropped again, his head shifted. He was looking at Bailey and Cole, limp and empty on their bench. No, he was looking at Bailey. “He didn’t tell me. Not anything.” His head shot up.
“I didn’t know. I promise.”
“You didn’t know what, Luca?”
Their were tears in his eyes. “They get inside your head. Crawl around like serpents. Leak out your sockets and nibble on your feelings. They won’t leave. Won’t leave. Don’t even know they’re there unless they take a little bite.” He flinched, his whole body convulsing in one single spasm, and then his head was craning to the left. There was a shimmer in the air around him, like the air was bending around something that sunk into the fireplace. It was gone almost as quickly as it had appeared.