Moonset - Scott Tracey

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 wasn’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.

Jenna’s eyes went to her phone, her lips pursed. My screen remained blank. She was waiting for more.

The Harbinger we met; he killed himself. He said there’s a warlock here.

You said he was crazy, she thought-texted .

I thought he was. But there was something there. Something in the air.

Jenna frowned. What else did he say?

It was weird, I thought, shaking my head. He said they were coming. And something about only needing one.

One what?

I shrugged helplessly. Oh, and I saw the symbol again. Only this time it was made out of his blood.

Symbol? And then I remembered that I hadn’t told Jenna about the Moonset symbol, or how many times I’d seen it lately.

I let my empty hand fall, and went over to her desk. Quick as I could, I drew the circle, shading all but the crescent moon on its side, and the six tentacles sprouting from it, three at the top, and three at the bottom.

I held it up to Jenna, then raised my hands to return to the spell. It’s theirs. Moonset’s. And it keeps showing up. As quickly as I could, I told her about how Mal had found the first symbol and about the fire that had burned down the building.