BloodMoon

by Drew VanDyke

  To the General, many of the mental illnesses diagnosed today, such as depression, are actually due to one of two things: a failure to trust in God or a lack of willpower – which is why Amber’s eternal OCD and my slowly fading PTSD from killing Sean doesn’t get talked about in the family. We make allowances for each other, but God forbid we should ever discuss our issues and deal with them.

  “Your father will never admit it, of course,” she continued.

  “Maybe it’s hormones,” I interrupted her and Amber laughed. “No, really! Has he had his testosterone checked? Because I hear that men with low testosterone can experience ennui.”

  “Ennui? In layman’s terms, Miss Lexicon,” my twin spat.

  “Lethargy or lack of anticipation for life,” Rhonda said. “You may be right, which brings me to the second reason I’m here. I’ve heard through the grapevine there is powerful magic here in Knightsbridge. And frankly, I need more than what I can do with my minor hearth-craft to help your father.” She looked over at Amber.

  “There might be some herbalists I could recommend,” Amber hedged. Across the twin-bond I saw a mental flash of the magic cookbook that sat on the kitchen shelf. Bet she was going to hide that soon.

  “Well, all I know is that when I told a wise woman I know about what I was going through, she told me I needed to join the Street Witches association and they told me to get my carcass to a convention.”

  “I’ll call Sister Lena in the morning. She’s the head of the chapter here and I’m sure if anyone here can help you, she can,” Amber said. “Now, if you don’t mind…” She yawned and we all followed suit. “I’m exhausted and we can catch up more in the morning.”

  “Of course,” my stepmother said. “Ashlee?”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty tired, as well,” I yawned and began to gather up our mugs and glasses to put them in the dishwasher. Amber sent me an internal thank-you on the twin line as we retired, them to bed, me to the pool house.

  But not until Amber dropped a bomb on me.

  Oh, by the way, I’ve volunteered us to assist Con with the magic show Friday during the opening night of the Street Witches Convention. He needs identical twins to pull off the vanishing act.

  Are you friggin’ kidding me?

  You weren’t doing anything that night, were you?

  That’s not the point.

  It’s just for one trick. I go in the box on one side of the stage and you come down the aisle from the back of the auditorium; you’ll be in and out in half an hour, tops.

  I’d better, I thought at her as I looked around my kitchenette. “I saw The Prestige and frankly I think two Scott twins is plenty.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” Colby said, looking up from her laptop.

  “Nothing. I sometimes talk to myself. Just ignore me.”

  I know I do, Amber said and closed with, we’ll be rehearsing tomorrow, then Thursday night for dress rehearsal.

  Oh goodie, I sighed. So much for a half-hour commitment.

  I can’t wait to see you in a rhinestone-studded thong and sparkly pasties, Siegfried added.

  “Siegfried!” My sister’s voice echoed across the yard in mock outrage. At first I assumed that it was the inappropriate comment, until I got a visual of my sister’s nose turning up at an awful stench.

  Ashlee, please don’t feed Siegfried tofu from the stir-fry. Push it around your plate and toss it in the garbage if you don’t like it, but for God’s sake don’t sneak it to the familiar. Gives him gas like you wouldn’t believe.

  Colby looked up at me again and I shared with her how I’d given the familiar flatulence. We giggled like schoolgirls and I made us each a cup of tea as I sat down at the table to take care of correspondence I’d been neglecting.

  The next day I walked in on Rhonda and Amber having a heart-to-heart. At least that’s what it looked like. Elle was at work and Amber was working from home finishing up the swag bags for the convention attendees.

  “I’m sure it’s going to be just fine,” Rhonda said, patting Amber’s hand. When she pulled away, her jewelry caught on Amber’s possess-me-not leather bracelet. “Oh dear,” she said, reaching into her knitting bag for a pair of shears.

  Before I could get in a word to prevent the disaster, Amber touched Rhonda’s silver charm bangle, the snap broke open and all of the charms on her bracelet went flying onto the floor.

  I reached to rescue a turtle from the rug before Spanky had it in his mouth and yelped as the thing burned me. I dropped it. I’d forgotten about the effect of silver on a werewolf. Though I wasn’t normally as susceptible as a lycanthrope – yay lupine power – it appeared that my wolf being pregnant with the pups made me more vulnerable than normal.

  “Are you all right, Ashlee?” my stepmom asked.

  “Yeah, must have caught it on a carpet staple or something,” I fudged and stuck my finger in my mouth.

  Amber covered for me and Siegfried trotted over with a let me see it in his eyes.

  I showed my boo-boo to him when Rhonda’s back was turned. He licked it and surprisingly enough, it was all better. You sure you’re not a vampire?

  Vampire, daemon. All in the same ballpark, he replied.

  Hmm.

  It turned out that Con wanted to use us both for more than just one magic trick. He also wanted to saw the two of us in half and put us back together with the wrong parts, as in a box with a pair of wiggling feet stuck out of each end and another one with two heads. He’d mix them up again until we both had our feet and heads on straight. Don’t ask me to reveal the secret, but it did involve smoke, mirrors, extra helpers, and hidden compartments.

  One trick I thought was particularly clever was a sash and tube that went around Amber’s waist, and a fake sword that had the flexibility of a contractor’s measuring tape. It would look like she was being disemboweled, and to be honest, I wished I could perform more than just the illusions that demanded an identical twin.

  As far as I could tell, Con wasn’t doing any actual magic to perform the tricks themselves, but his expert sleight-of-hand, seductive patter and his command of suggestion and distraction would keep even a sharp witch entertained. And judging from the way my nose was itching, it was either the vanilla-scented dry ice mixture or he was using the mental vampire whammy to help things along with the audience.

  Our costumes were simple fishnet stockings and high-heeled tap shoes, crowned by a unitard that kept threatening to ride up my ass like a thong, plus a tuxedo shirt, vest, and bowtie. I swear we looked like Zatana, Dr. Fate’s daughter in the Justice League.

  We topped off the ensemble with a top hat, tails and a cane and I got dirty looks from Amber when I kept doing a soft-shoe in the background. Shuffle-hop-step. Shuffle-ball-change. Shuffle-hop-step. Shuffle-ball-change. By the time I was through, she was ready to have me stuffed, mounted, and shuffled off to Buffalo.

  Rhonda came to watch us rehearse and she gushed so much about our performance that not only did she get herself roped into being a volunteer, but she appointed herself makeup maven and costume assistant to help with a few quick-changes we had to do before the final trick where he levitated us all. Again, not going to reveal the trick, no how, no way. I can keep a secret.

  Friday night soon arrived, the opening ceremonies of the convention. All the hotels, motels and airbnbs in Knightsbridge were full up, with street witches coming in from all over northern California. Main Street was expected to be packed and they closed the thoroughfare to all but foot traffic, which enabled them to use a lot of fog machines. They even hired actors to portray some of the scarier monsters from horror films.

  Not being able to cruise Main was annoying, even oxymoronic, as the Street Witches were supposed to be all about keeping cruising safe, but the police figured that if people came to party, they didn’t have to do it by driving up and down. The parking lots on the perimeter were filled with enough classic and customized vehicles to make a car show, though. Technically they weren’t cruising if they didn’
t, well, cruise.

  Adam had his team stationed throughout the audience at the convention center and it was a packed house. There were people from all over the country determined to keep cruising a safe part of their communities, and underneath it all, a thread of magic that threatened to make my nose itch for days.

  My nerves were shot and if it hadn’t been for Amber’s tea of tranquility, I would have tossed my cookies then and there. As it was, I drank so much of the stuff I kept having to pee, which was so not convenient in the costumes we were wearing.

  Sister Lena opened the show with a welcome and a quick run-through of the agenda for the next day and a half. She warned everyone that for tonight, Main Street was open to foot traffic only, to which there were quite a few groans, but she explained that there would be a car rally and parade the next morning terminating at the local fairgrounds with a daylight offering of show cars, followed by a spiral dance at the Veterans’ Memorial Hall.

  “And now,” she continued, “without further ado, we’d like to present the Great Shelby, a wizard in his own right, bringing astounding magic for your entertainment.”

  At that cue, the orchestra began a rumbling drumroll that grew in volume as a swirl of vermillion smoke poured up from the center of the stage. When it cleared, a solitary black top hat sat on the floor with a live white rabbit atop of it. Above, Con floated as if sitting on air, legs crossed in lotus position, petting a large black cat. At least I think it was a cat, I suppose it could have been somebody’s familiar. It didn’t smell like a shifter.

  “I was wondering where I left that.” Con said to the audience’s delight as he unfolded his legs and stood. He moved the rabbit and the cat both to the floor. The feline took the bunny by the scruff of its neck like a kitten and loped off-stage. “Don’t worry,” he told the audience, “I’ve raised those two together since they were born.” Then he picked up his hat and Amber’s head appeared under it.

  “Mr. Shelby, I think you forgot something,” she said and he laughed.

  He put the top hat back down over her head before backing up and taking his foot to it as if he were kicking a soccer goal. The hat exploded in a shower of confetti and I was suddenly lit by follow-spot, sitting above him on a half-moon, as if he’d kicked Amber across the room.

  The audience cheered as Shelby moved a rolling ladder into place and helped me descend to the floor. “Ladies and Gentleman, my assistant, Ms. Scott.”

  The rest of the tricks rolled out as planned: floating zombie balls, juggling zombie heads, assistants vanishing and reappearing, even some mind-reading. After a particularly disturbing blackout illusion where I walked around in the same costume as Amber with a hood over my head as her disembodied head seemed to float behind me while ghosts, ghouls and goblins took up residence in the audience, I ran backstage for Amber’s last costume change.

  “Amber dear, I don’t know how to tell you this,” Rhonda whispered as Con mesmerized the audience and did a few mind whammies on them with his vampire powers, “but your zipper’s stuck and I can’t get it undone.”

  I went to try to help, but it was useless.

  “Ashlee, you’re going to have to go on for me,” Amber said, pushing a costume into my hands. Of course, trooper that I am, I began donning the costume. The show must go on, after all!

  Rhonda wrapped the sash and tube around me and I realized that I was getting to do a trick I’d been envious of anyway, the one with the flexible fake sword. Amber pouted, but she was being a good sport about it. She shoved me onstage and watched from the wings as Con motioned to me.

  “Ah, Miss Scott, there you are,” he said. He had just finished showing the audience the sword that he was theoretically going to plunge into me – the real one, not the one that we used for the trick.

  I took the sword from him and placed it in the colorful metal canister he’d been using to pull objects from all night long.

  “And how fortunate,” he said, “that tonight, to help me with this trick, we have your own stepmother, Rhonda Scott, to assist you.”

  I guess this was the trick she’d volunteered for.

  “I truly hope this isn’t payback for calling her a step-monster,” he said melodramatically, and the audience laughed.

  Rhonda strode out onstage, confident as could be, grabbed the sword from the canister and came toward me. Con was making a show of instructing her where to position the sword and asked the audience to count with him as he made airy-fairy hand gestures as she got ready to put the trick sword into me. The drums began to roll as the audience counted down.

  “Three! Two! One!” they called, and before the push, I heard Amber scream and come running on stage, to the delight of the audience. They must have thought it was part of the act.

  I looked up at her, my brow wrinkling, opened up the twin bond wide, but only felt fear and terror in her heart. I looked from her and then into Rhonda’s face, twisted with unexpected hatred.

  With the force of a pile driver she shoved the silver sword through my body and out the other side. Silver! The pain was so great, I doubled over in shock and felt something vital rupture around the blade. The silver burned and I recoiled against the agony, straightening my body again.

  I could see the horror on Con’s face and the audience whooped with delight, still convinced this was all in fun. The vampire’s fangs came out as blood stained my costume and dripped down my thighs.

  Rhonda stepped back in triumph and crowed. I saw the spirit of Jeanetta Macdonald rising out of her body, and then my stepmom dropped like a stone. I seemed frozen in place, upright but barely conscious.

  “No!” Amber ran toward me.

  Con stepped forward, snapped his fingers, and the audience froze, except for Lena, Nayala and the inner circle of the coven. I guess I could drop the “Sister,” since it appeared that I was dying; we might as well be on a first-name basis.

  Adam ran in from the opposite side of the stage where he had been watching the show. His team took up positions in front of the stage. “Nayala! Stasis spell! Lena!” he cried, but Lena was already chanting.

  Numb these wounds from stem to stern

  Stem the blood flow in the urn

  Hold this lupine timeless

  From the consequences of this violence

  Not a bad rhyme, made up on the spot as it was. Mercifully, I couldn’t feel anything. I could turn my head. I could see, and hear and speak, but as far as the rest of my body was concerned, I was paralyzed.

  Before I knew it, I was surrounded by the pack. The lycanthropes yipped and vocalized and I could feel pack magic supporting me, buoying me against the tide of pain I knew would catch up with me. The witches were chanting as well and I was being held by Con’s intimates who had been working backstage as stagehands.

  The audience remained frozen, minds held by the power of Con’s magic. The next thing I saw was Will’s face and then Jackson’s pressing next to mine. Sully’s face captured my attention, wavering like smoke before my eyes.

  “We’ve got you Ashlee,” Sully said. “But I’m afraid it’s punctured something vital.”

  The pups? No, they shouldn’t even be there when I was in human form, right? Oh, God, please let it be so.

  Above the smell of blood came the aroma of rotting putridness, of sewage and bile. And if I’d had the stomach for it, pardon the pun, I’d have hurled.

  Then Con was moving in; he’d slid up his sleeve and used his fangs to puncture his own arm, and his thick vampire blood quivered heavy in the wound.

  “No!” I yelled at him.

  “Ashlee, he has to,” Adam said, taking Sully’s place in my limited view. “Otherwise we can’t take the sword out. The werewolves can’t touch it and the witches can only keep you in stasis for so long. I can purify the injury, but Con’s blood is the only thing that can save you for sure.”

  “No blood debt,” I growled at him and turned my head to Con. “You hear me. No blood debt. I know how you work, and I owe you nothing. This is yo
ur choice.”

  “You owe me nothing.”

  “And neither does my family.”

  “I absolve you of all obligations, for you and all of your family. I’m doing this for purely selfish reasons. I need my pack intact.”

  “Pack included,” I added.

  He hesitated at this, and then sighed.

  “Fine. Pack included,” he said, then shoved his bleeding wrist into my mouth. “Suck it.”

  I sucked, and no, it’s not so erotic when it goes the other way.

  “I’m not going to lie to you, Ash,” Adam said. “This is gonna hurt.” In one fell swoop, without any more warning, Adam slid the sword out of me while Will and Jackson held my shoulders. If I thought the damn thing hurt going in, it was ten times worse coming out.

  Adam placed his one hand on my sternum and the other on my back. Where he touched, the blood disappeared as if absorbed by his skin, and his hands began to glow. My brain went a little loopy for a moment as I tried not to retch from the taste of copper pennies in my mouth. I could feel my insides rearrange as the stasis slipped off me.

  “Enough!” Con yanked his arm from my bloodstained mouth, licked his arm clean and rolled his shirtsleeve back down. The pack caught me before I hit the floor.

  Will propped me up against his chest and I saw Elle standing onstage with her arms around my sister and Colby behind them looking helpless.

  With help from Jackson, Sully and Adam’s help I managed to stand, and though my body was tingling, it felt perfectly whole. In fact, better than whole. I felt like I’d run a marathon, won the damn thing and had energy to spare. Damn, vampire blood is powerful, I thought, then wondered about the side effects. Guess I’d have to ask the Con-man later.

  A couple of Adam’s men mounted the stage and proceeded to pick Rhonda up off the floor and carry her past Colby, who took one look at her, snarled and said, “I hate stepmothers.”