Moonlight Burns

by Meredith Medina

  I needed to decide what the fuck I was going to do. More importantly, I needed to think, and I did my best thinking in the shower. At least that was something I could accomplish without talking to anyone.

  The water pressure wasn’t great, and the water itself wasn’t all that hot, but it was better than some of the baths I’d had in the past. As the water soaked into my hair and beat against my shoulders I tried to make a mental list of everything that had happened in the last few weeks.

  I’d turned eighteen. I’d never left Seattle before that day, and then I’d put myself on a bus to New York to see a band play. A vampire band, I reminded myself with a shiver. Then I’d been chased by a bunch of thugs that wanted to kidnap me and burn me alive and rescued by a young woman who told me that I was, of all things, a witch... and that I might be eighteen, but if I played my cards right, I’d have almost 800 years left to live on this earth.

  I’d seen magic, I’d seen it come out of Ophelia’s hands, felt it hit me as she wielded it, and felt the birthmark, the witchmark, on my arm burn and itch when it happened or when something was about to go really fucking sideways.

  If I’d been able to accept that... why couldn’t I accept that Lacey was, what she was. She didn’t ask to be a vampire. Just like I didn’t ask to be what I was.

  I stood under the water until my fingers started to prune, and I still wasn’t sure if I’d figured anything out.

  With a towel wrapped around my hair and a bathrobe belted around my waist I leaned on the vanity again and leaned into the mirror. I stared at my reflection for a long time, trying to see something in my face that gave away what I was. But I didn’t see anything.

  I pulled up the sleeve of the bathrobe and looked at my birthmark in the mirror before holding up my left hand and closing my eyes, willing my power forward. Begging it to show itself, to confirm everything that I’d been struggling to normalize.

  I felt the pull of the magic, and an itching in my fingertips as the power surged forward. I opened my eyes as my left hand was engulfed in a gentle rush of blue flame. It rippled around my fingers, and the blue light reflected onto my face, making my eyes glow silver in the mirror. I closed my fist and let out the breath I’d been holding and the flames extinguished as gently as they’d appeared. I looked down at my hand, turning it over to examine every part of it before pulling down the bathrobe sleeve again. In the mirror, my eyes were the same as they’d always been, the silver sheen gone, replaced only by the muddy blue they’d always been.

  Fine. I could do this. I didn’t really have a choice anyway, did I?

  Chapter 18 ~ Ophelia

  Lacey and I waited in the hotel room for what seemed like hours while Maia raged in the bathroom. She shouted, she threw things, but after a short period of silence, the shower turned on, and I settled into a chair to wait it out.

  “We freaked her out a little bit, didn’t we?” Lacey said haltingly.

  “Yeah, maybe just a little. I should probably have warned her first...”

  “How would you have done that? She’s totally in love with Eli, and I thought we were off to a super great friendship too... she reminds me of a little sister I never had.”

  I didn’t say anything, but I knew that Lacey could tell that I felt the same way.

  “She’s going to be fine, Fee. I know she will be. And if she’s not, we’ll tie her up and put her in the closet until it’s time to fly home...”

  I laughed shortly, it was a tempting idea. It would definitely keep her out of harm’s way until we could get all of this shit figured out.

  The fan in the bathroom snapped off suddenly, and quiet descended on the room. The bathroom door opened and Maia stepped out. She was wrapped in a bathrobe and a standard issue hotel towel was wrapped around her red hair.

  “Maia... I just want to say—“ But I didn’t even get to start my apology before she interrupted me.

  “I’ve done a lot of thinking. And if you expect me to be okay with all of this... bullshit... then you can’t tell me not to freak the fuck out. I’ve never seen any of this shit before. So if you’re going to be rocking out any more crazy news, lay it on me right now.”

  I smiled just a little, “There’s nothing else.” That wasn’t a lie, she knew everything I did. Maia looked over at Lacey, who shrugged and chewed on her fingernails.

  “Fine.” Maia crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ll get dressed, and then we’re going to go find some food. I’m starving and it’s not quite midnight.”

  “Works for me!” Lacey leapt out of her chair and wrapped her arms around Maia before she could flinch away. Trapped in Lacey’s embrace, Maia could only make frustrated faces and grunts.

  “I’m glad you’re not scared of me,” Lacey said breathlessly, finally letting Maia go free.

  “Scared? I’m more afraid of the bathroom fan,” said Maia, gasping dramatically for breath.

  “Okay, now that we’re all settled, let’s get our shit together and get something to eat.”

  “Be careful,” I said, watching Maia as she tried for the fifteenth time to open the hotel room curtains. Lacey was covered in blankets, so the sunlight that flooded the room with every attempt was doing my hangover more damage than anything. “Concentrate. Visualize what you want to do, and then relax into the motion. This isn’t about forcing something to happen, it’s about willing it to happen.” I rubbed my temples and sighed, trying to find of the best way to explain what was happening. “Think of it this way: you’re exerting your will on the object and your magic is just doing it for you.”

  Maia’s freckled nose wrinkled as she tried again. This time, the curtain slid back slowly, catching every few inches before moving again. She knew what she wanted to do, but it was making her brain shut up that was the problem. It had taken me a while to figure it all out too, but I’d grown up in a different time and instant gratification wasn’t something I was overly concerned about.

  Maia, however, was used to getting instant results, and she’d knocked the curtain rod down more than once in her hurry to get it right and move on to something else.

  Maia slumped back against her chair in defeat. “Can’t we try something else?” she asked, with a hint of a whine in her voice that for some reason irritated me more than it should have.

  “I’m not moving on to anything else until you make that work. Try it again. This is all about building blocks. Once you get this, other things will make more sense.” If my headache would go away, I might be in a better mood, but that just wasn’t in the cards right now.

  Maia let out a furious sigh and aimed her focus at the curtain again. This time, she pushed too hard and the entire curtain rod came tumbling down with a crash. The sliding glass door that led to the patio slid open with a violence that almost lifted it off its track.

  I groaned audibly as Maia dropped her hand to her side and rushed out of her seat to pick up the curtain. The lump on the bed that was Lacey didn’t move. Sleeping like the undead.

  “I’m sorry, I’m just... I’m just frustrated.” Maia closed the sliding door carefully, squinting up at the afternoon sun. “Maybe if I got some fresh air, y’know, clear out the cobwebs...”

  “You can’t go out by yourself,” I snapped. Maia’s shoulders slumped just a little as she hung the curtain rod back over the door. Shit. This headache really was taking its toll.

  “I’ll try again...” she said, sitting back in her chair and lifting her hand again.

  “No. No, I think a walk and some fresh air would do us both some good,” I said with a sigh. I should really have apologized for snapping, but she had to know how annoying she was being.

  Maia looked relieved as she grabbed her bag and I pulled the curtains shut with a flick of my wrist. Maia let out another frustrated sigh as she watched the curtains slide smoothly along the bar to block out the sunlight. I should have said something encouraging, but my head was pounding and I suddenly wanted more than anything to get the fuck out of there.

&n
bsp; As we stepped into the midday heat, the pressure of my headache seemed to lessen just a little, which was more of a relief than I was willing to admit.

  “Where should we go?” Maia asked. She was trying to be cheerful, but I could tell that she was disappointed in herself and feeling more than a little dejected in her inability to grasp what I was trying to teach her. She’d figure it out, but it might take some time. If her mother had been able to teach her at a younger age... maybe things would have been different.

  “Where was the palace? The one you said was burnt to the ground.” It seemed like as good a place as any to start.

  “The palace? I mean, it’s not the same one, but the original palace was nearby. It’s across from the Cathedral... it’s not far from here. That’s why I booked it, don’t you remember?” Maia seemed hurt that I hadn’t been paying attention to the travel plans that she and Lacey had arranged. All I’d done was buy the tickets, everything else was a blur. I tried to give her a reassuring smile, but my headache surged again.

  “Right... this way, then?” I turned, not waiting for her to agree with me, it just felt like the right way to go.

  The streets were narrow and paved unevenly, but my footsteps were sure and I was convinced with each passing moment that we were going in the right direction.

  “Ophelia! Wait!” Maia ran to catch up with me and tugged me down a side street. “This way, where are you going?”

  “It’s not this way,” I said through clenched teeth. My headache was getting worse. Maybe it was the heat, but everything was pissing me off. My bad was too heavy on my shoulders, the tag on my tank top itched, my boots were tied too tight. Everything was bullshit. I shook off Maia’s hand. “You go that way if you want, but I’m going this way.”

  “But, you said I couldn’t be alone...” Maia mumbled.

  “Then you’d better follow me,” I said sharply, turning and heading back in the other direction, away from the Cathedral and the throngs of tourists I knew would be filling the square.

  “What’s going on?” Maia called after me as she jogged to catch up again.

  “Nothing. We just have to go this way.”

  “Why? It’s literally the opposite of where we’re supposed to be going!”

  I gritted my teeth, I hated being questioned all the time. Was this what it was like to have a teenager in your house? “Look, I don’t know why I’m going this way, I just have a hunch... something’s pulling me this way. It’s hard to explain, you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Why wouldn’t I understand?”

  Shit.

  “I didn’t mean it like that, you’re just... you’re just not as sensitive to this shit yet.” This was not the conversation I wanted to be having right now.

  “What if it doesn’t happen? What if I’m just not cut out for this... what if I’m not supposed to even be a Daughter?”

  I stopped in my tracks and turned to Maia, grabbing her by the arms and staring into her face. “Listen to me. No matter what’s happened to you in the past, no matter what happens in the future, you were always meant to be a Daughter of Hecate. She chose you.” I pulled up the sleeve of her shirt to expose her witchmark. “See that? That means you’re one of us, and because of that, you’re my sister.”

  Maia’s eyes filled with tears and I felt my headache start to pound in my ears again. Sharply over my eyes this time. I gritted my teeth against the discomfort.

  “You have the same magic running through you as I do, the same power hidden in your blood. You just need to trust that it’s there, and know... know it more that anything that it’s there for a reason. When I was younger my aunt told me that Hecate doesn’t choose just anyone. Remember that, it’s helped me get through a lot of bullshit. The goddess doesn’t make mistakes.”

  I released her and turned to walk down the street again. Maia stood there for a moment, thinking about what I’d said, before I heard her boots thudding on the paving stones as she ran to catch up with me again.

  We walked in silence along the busy street until the amount of tourists on the sidewalk began to dwindle and the shops gave way to residential houses, tall stone structures that rose two and three floors above us. There were bars on the windows and the nondescript grey stones were dusty and muted, as though the sun had baked all the life out of them.

  I turned another corner, pulled by something I couldn’t explain, when I felt it. A sharp pain in my leg as my witchmark began to burn. Beside me, Maia slapped her hand over her left arm. She’d felt it too. She looked at me with wide eyes, as though understanding why I’d been pulled in this direction.

  We stood in front of a three-storied house, but unlike the others on this street, it was ruined. The door had been brightly painted once, but now it hung chipped and heavy from its broken and rusted hinges.

  The windows behind the black painted bars were broken and covered in a layer of thick grime. I peered through the bars, but the interior of the house was dark and I couldn’t see anything more than some rotted timbers that had fallen from the ceiling above. It was derelict, abandoned... but still, there was something inside that was pulling me here. My head pounded, and I gasped sharply as it intensified, leaning heavily on the window bars as I tried to bring my blurred vision back into focus.

  “This is it... this is the place. We... we have to go inside,” I gasped, holding on to the bars tightly.

  “Now? You want to go in here right now? Fuck no. Fuuuuck no,” Maia replied. She was nervous, there were people looking out of their windows at us. Two lost American tourists poking their noses where they shouldn’t.

  “Can’t you feel it?” I whispered. “She’s here. I know she’s here.”

  “Who is?” Maia was agitated now, she wanted to leave, but I knew that if we left now, we’d have to come back. There was no way we weren’t coming back here.

  “Urraca de Leon... she’s here. Or, at least, a piece of her is here. She was a Daughter, I can feel it now. The people, they burned the palace because they thought she was a witch. They were right...”

  “You’re freaking me out, Ophelia, I want to wait for Lacey to be awake. I’m not going in there without her.”

  “Are you afraid?”

  Why did I say that?

  “Yes! Yes, I’m fucking afraid,” Maia whispered harshly, “and you should be too! We’re getting out of here, now!” She pulled on my arm, dragging me away from the house and the ruined door. My headache began to fade, but the burning sensation in my leg didn’t. This was the place.

  I allowed Maia to lead me down the street, my legs were heavy and unwilling to move, but I made them. She made them. I could feel her pushing me with her magic, and even if she didn’t know she was doing it, she was starting to believe.

  Somehow Maia was able to find the way back to our hotel, it was closer to the Cathedral than I’d remembered, and as we approached the pealing of the great bell rippled through me. My headache was almost gone, just a thin layer of fog hanging over my forehead.

  “Lacey will be awake soon, and then we can go out again. I promise we’ll go out again,” Maia said as she pulled me through the lobby of the hotel.

  I nodded blankly. The sun was just about to set, we’d be able to go back soon. Maybe then we’d be able to get the answers I was looking for.

  And if Urraca de Leon was still alive—but she couldn’t be.

  We waited in the hotel room for Lacey to wake up. The jet lag hadn’t hit her like it had hit us, lucky shit, and as soon as darkness began to sweep over the city, the lump of blankets in the middle of the second double bed began to move.

  “I’m hungry,” Lacey announced as she sat up. Her face had been creased by her pillow and her hair was a mess. It was hard to be annoyed with her. Maia looked a little uncomfortable with Lacey’s pronouncement, but she was still getting used to the idea that Lacey was hungry for more than a chicken skewer and pita bread.

  “Lacey, get up. We have to go out,” I said shortly, pulling my jacket off the
back of a chair.

  “Out? But I just woke up!” she whined, stretching and yawning dramatically. Maia’s eyebrows shot up as she spied Lacey’s fangs in the dying sunlight that was peeking through the curtains, but she didn’t flinch.

  “Ophelia found something, but I didn’t want to explore it without your help,” Maia blurted. She was nervously shredding a napkin left over from our takeout meal the night before.

  “Ugh. Fiiiiine,” Lacey said, throwing off the blankets and bouncing out of bed. “I’m taking a shower and then we can go. I love the way this city smells at night, have you noticed? It’s like jasmine and something else I can’t quite place...”

  “Have your shower, and then we’re leaving. But hurry up!” I snapped.

  Lacey shrugged and padded to the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. As the jet liner fan roared to life I sat heavily in a chair and rubbed at my temples again. My headache might be gone, but I still felt weird.

  What was going on? I never snapped at Lacey.

  “Are you okay?” Maia asked.

  “It’s nothing,” I said sharply. “I just want to get moving again, we’re wasting time.”

  “Wasting time? But we just got here—“

  “Do you want to sit around in this hotel room for the next three days drawing on maps and walking through dead ends, and probably running into a bunch of Malleus assholes while we do it? I wasn’t planning on having to face off against a bunch of thugs in broad daylight. You know they’re here. I know you saw them in the lobby.”

  Maya stiffened at those words. Great. That meant she hadn’t noticed.

  “There were three of them waiting for us, two outside, and one in a chair by the concierge,” I said flatly. The protection and masking spells I’d put over the room had done their job, otherwise I was sure that we would have come back to a scene I didn’t even want to think about. Lacey was vulnerable during the day... I saw the realization dawn over Maia’s face.

  “I don’t need to tell you what might have happened, do I?”