Moonset - Scott Tracey

Ash appeared at my side, punching her fist forward. “Lex divok!”

The Santa went flying back, spinning up in the air like a top. My brain went spinning in much the same direction. Ash just used a spell. Ash just used magic.

I opened my mouth, expecting to confront her about being a witch, but what came out instead was, “You knew who I was all along?”

She looked guilty, but determined. “Justin, we’ve got to get them out of here. I’ll explain later.”

“The hell you will,” Bailey muttered, a suddenly fierce expression crossing her face. “Now, Justin?”

I shook my head, trying to regain my focus. “Yeah,” I said, my mouth dry.

When people thought about which of us was the most dangerous, they always picked Jenna.

Occasionally Cole. Rarely me. But never Malcolm or Bailey. But Bailey had the talent for evocations, and an inability to understand the difference between when to use her powers and when not to.

Bailey dropped her head, whispering words to herself.

Fascinations were brainwashing spells, in which the subject is literally fascinated into believing whatever the witch wants them to. Witchers were basically the reigning lords of fascination magic—they used it the most frequently, and they limited who they taught it to. But Bailey’s gift was self-taught, something innate she was born already knowing how to do.

The night of the Harbinger’s suicide, the Witchers had split the crowds up into fours and fives because that was the limit that most people could influence at one time.

Bailey looked up, and near on thirty pairs of eyes stared at her blankly, awaiting orders.

“Tell them to avoid the Santas, to help each other, and to head for the emergency door,” I said.

Bailey nodded, concentrating. She didn’t have to say the words out loud.

“You can’t let them go outside,” Ash said. “ Lex divok!” She turned her palm towards the

Santa at the top of the chain on the stairs, and pulled. Instead of flying forward, the Santa went tumbling back, and like a stack of dominos he knocked down every Santa below him until the entire line was off their feet.

“Why not?” I demanded. “We have to get them out of here. Did you miss the big warning?” I gestured towards the screen. “They’ll kill everyone.”

“And if this is just a trap to get you out in the open?” she snapped back. This was not a side of Ash I’d seen before. Confident and in control, yes, but never angry and harsh. Even knowing she’d been lying to me since the beginning, I was fascinated.

“Do you have a better idea?”

It turned out that she did. “Clear a path to the main door. Get everyone out into the lobby.

The Witchers are probably on their way already.”

Right. Witchers. “They’re already here.”

“And if they’re not in here, that means they’re neutralizing whatever else is going on.

Distractions to keep the Witchers busy while the warlock came after you.”

“Lex divok!” I shouted, sweeping my hand from left to right. The Santas I’d pushed from the door had climbed to their feet, only I knocked them back down again, sending them sliding against the concrete floor towards the other wall.

“Bay, change of plan,” I said. “Make them go for the lobby exit. We’ll clear a path.”

Bailey didn’t say anything, but there was a brief jut of her chin that I took for understanding.

She was sweating. I wondered how long she could keep the spell going before it overwhelmed her. Mind magic was a lot of things, but easy wasn’t one of them.

As hard as it was to admit, Ash and I worked well to-gether. She kept the demon Clauses on the stairs tumbling down, and I knocked the ones that had blocked the exit toward them.

Between the two of us, we kept most of them down at all times. Bailey stayed behind and between us, head down and hands balled up into fists.

She’s not going to be able to do much more. About half of the kids were in the hallway, moving orderly but a bit slow. But the way everyone was moving, I didn’t think Bailey would be able to hold out until we all out of the theater.

“Can you set off the sprinkler system?” I asked, looking over Bailey’s head at Ash … who wasn’t in much better shape. Constantly using the knock-down spell was taking a toll on her, too. I was barely winded, but she looked like she was in the middle of a marathon.

“What?” Ash squinted up at the ceiling. “Why?”

“Can you do it or not? I would, but I don’t know the right spell.”

“I think so,” she said. “When?”

“When I tell you.” I leaned over, put my arm around Bailey’s back. “Bay, when I tell you, you’re going to drop the spell, okay?”

“But everyone’s still—” she tried to protest, her voice flimsy and weak.

“I’ll get everyone out, okay? You did good.” I rubbed her back, then nodded my head at Ash, who concentrated on the ceiling. Fifty feet above us, tiny fires sparked to life, in tune with the spells coming out of Ash’s mouth. One by one they circled, until each of them targeted one of the sprinkler heads. Just as the first drop of water struck my head, thirty people regained awareness and my sister started to drop.

I scooped her up immediately, having expected exactly this. “Fire!” I shouted. “Fire!” One side effect of fascination was the period of disorientation after the spell ended. Minds were jumbled around, and it took a minute for the brain to reboot itself. Unless, of course, you provided people with a shock. Like a fire in a movie theater.

There were screams and shrieks, but since everyone was already in the process of leaving the theater, they kept at it, only faster. Ash and I were the last two in line, and before we even reached the doors, a man and a woman in black suits appeared. The Witchers. Finally.

“In there,” I said, gesturing backwards with my head. “The mannequins.”

“Get them out of here,” the man said to his partner. She took one look at Bailey and nodded sharply.

“We’re fine,” I insisted. “Bailey just used too much magic. Is there anything else out there?”

“We banished the rest,” the woman said. “We’ve been checking theater by theater to make sure we got it all.”

“Big mess in there, then. Might take both of you.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Ash said quietly from my side.

Whoever she really was, they seemed to know her. “Make sure they stay in the lobby. No one’s being allowed to leave until the mess is cleaned up.”

Once out of the theater, we saw people milling around in groups near the lobby, but the theater hallways were clear.

“You have an in with the Witchers,” I said as we headed for the concession stand. There was an argument going on between two of the groups, trying to decide what had happened. One side thought fire, the other suggested a gas leak, but neither could explain why the building hadn’t been evacuated yet.

Ash was subdued. Quiet. “I’ve been training with them since I was a freshman.”

“Of course you have.” I shifted my grip on Bailey, and Ash looked up immediately.

“I can help,” she offered, but I shook my head.

“She’s my responsibility.”

“Justin … ” but she couldn’t follow it up with anything. What could she even say? Sorry I lied to you? Sorry I knew all along who you were? Sorry you thought I was normal and bizarre and sweet?

It was almost ten minutes before the Witchers emerged, declaring the threat banished. The

Santas had dropped almost as soon as we broke for the doors, but Maleficia could have been lingering in the shadows and corners of the theater. Backup, in the form of a half-dozen plainclothes twenty-somethings with a military way of moving, arrived not soon after.

It only took another ten minutes to turn a potential attack into something less stable than a dream. The Witchers worked quickly, wiping memories and replacing fears with a sense of calm. Under their direction, kids with footage on their phone deleted the evidence, and the theater’s security cameras were erased. I looked around while all this was going on, not sure what I was looking for exactly, but knowing I didn’t find it. Something’s not right.

They decided to blame it on a gas leak, exacerbated by someone, probably a teenager, pulling one of the fire alarms and setting off the sprinkler system.

Quinn arrived with the reinforcements and grabbed Bailey out of my hands after I stumbled.

“I’ve got her!”

He shook his head. “You need to take a minute. Catch your breath. Stretch.”

“I can take care of my sister,” I snapped, reaching for her.

“You already did,” Quinn said in a soothing tone. “You kept her from getting hurt. But now we need to take care of both of you and make sure you’re both okay.”

I didn’t like what he was implying. “We’re fine.”

“Maybe it looks that way … ”

I reached out and grabbed for Bailey. Quinn only resisted for a moment before he helped shift her weight over to me. “We’re fine. We kept the warlock from hurting as many people as we could. And now you’re just going to imply that there’s something wrong with us?” My stomach turned. “We saved people tonight. And you’re still looking at us like we’re the bad guys.”

“Justin, that’s not what he’s saying.” But I didn’t want to hear what Ash had to say either.

I moved for the exit. Righteous indignation or not, carrying Bailey was a struggle. I wasn’t born in a gym like Mal—my arms only had so much strength. I might have moved a bit quicker than necessary, but they’d blame it on the anger.

There was a car out front, and I slid Bailey into the back, laying her head carefully down on the seat. She started to stir as soon as I pulled away. “Jus … ?”

“You’re okay,” I said, swallowing. “You did really good, Bails. Saved the day.”

“Not yet,” she murmured, shifting until she found a more comfortable position. She was out again almost instantly.

Quinn wasn’t one of the Witchers who drove us back to the house, and the two who rode with us didn’t try to say anything or interfere at all. I carried Bailey up into her room, passing Cole’s shut door and hearing the bass of his music rattling the walls. He didn’t even open the door to see what was going on.

Jenna appeared at the top of the steps when I walked into the house. “Quinn called. Told me what happened. Are you okay?” She looked like she was about to fly down the stairs, and that was a remarkably un-Jenna like thing to see.

“I’m fine. We’re both fine. Bailey wore herself out. She’s sleeping it off. I’m about to do the same.” While I’d been fine slinging magic around at the time, now that the adrenaline had started to disappear, exhaustion crept in and took its place.

“Right,” she said quietly. “Everyone’s meeting over here tomorrow. They want us to stay inside again for a couple of days. Totally ruins my plans for the weekend.” She didn’t sound too broken up about it.

“Have you noticed how every time there’s a problem, they try to pull us off the streets?” I wondered, grabbing the railing post at the bottom of the stairs. “I thought we were supposed to be bait.”