Moonset - Scott Tracey

I knew enough about physics to know that when you jump from the roof it’s supposed to hurt.

But landing on the ground was about as painful as jumping off the last step of a staircase.

Ash saw the look on my face and waggled her fingers. “Magic.” Then she turned around and started cutting through the backyard. I rushed to follow. “I parked on Carnegie Street. I figured there’s no way they’d notice my car over there.”

“You’re good at this,” I said in surprise.

“Of course,” Ash said, her face going serious. “Now tell me what’s going on. Where did you get that postcard?”

“I found one of Sherrod’s spellbooks from when he was in high school,” I said. “But I got rid of it,” I said hurriedly, “after I had some time to think. Bridger dropped it off at the house for me last night. He was in our house.”

“Are you sure it was him?” she asked.

“You don’t have to go with me,” I said. “This isn’t your fight.”

“Yeah, but if we save the day, maybe you’ll forgive me,” she said, offering me a weak grin.

She might have been right. The fact that she’d come when I called and still helped me sneak out went a long way. “Come on,” I said, hurrying towards her car.

“You don’t even know where we’re going yet,” Ash said.

We cut through one of my neighbor’s backyards, slipping around a covered up above-ground pool. As we crossed the house and into the front yard, the so-far silent night was interrupted.

“Do you hear that?” Ash asked, stopping and cocking her head to one side.

I didn’t at first, but a few seconds later, I picked up on it. “Sirens,” I whispered. They grew louder and louder until they were nearly deafening. Half a block away, two fire trucks and I don’t know how many other flashing vehicles started surging past, heading towards downtown.

“What do you think’s going on?” I asked, my voice hushed.

Ash looked severe. “Distractions,” she said. “Now, how are you planning to find the others?”

I patted my bag and explained about one of the spells I’d read that morning. Ash didn’t turn on the radio when we got into the car. We drove away from the direction all the emergency crews were heading. If she was right, and it was a distraction, Bridger wouldn’t be setting up anywhere near there. So we drove to the parking lot of a Walgreens and parked near the back.

Ash put the car in park but left the engine running.

“You’re sure this is going to work?”

I pulled my father’s spellbook into my lap. “I don’t have the slightest.”

I kept flipping, searching for one of the first spells I’d managed to translate. I studied it for almost a full minute, piecing together the words that were so carefully lettered in the book and trying to form the cadence of the spell.

To cast the spell wrong might not do anything. Or it might make my brain explode. At this point, brain-explodey Justin was still looking like he’d have a better future.

“Igneus terrous itie,” I said, the words sounding thick on my tongue.

Just like that, and it felt like my vision was clearing. Like I could see in a way that people rarely did, and if they understood, they would want to be like this all the time. I continued flipping through the book, careful not to spend too long on any one page.

“And this spell just lets you … memorize anything you read?”

I nodded, my focus still on the words on the page.

“Your dad was wicked smart,” she said, and it almost sounded like a compliment.

It took time to translate the shorthand-like writing into words, and then to figure out what they meant, but eventually I found the section I was looking for—the one with every spell relating to the Coven bond that Sherrod Daggett had known in high school.

It took five minutes for me to read, comprehend, and store away every spell in that section, and half the spells in the beginning of the book. I sensed Ash moving around while I studied, blocking out the streetlights for moments here or there as she shifted, but my focus was totally on the book.

Each spell I translated and remembered felt like it was being slotted into my brain. It would have been better to know what they all were meant to do, because “Raven in the noontime” wasn’t exactly the kind of name I would have given to a spell. It didn’t take nearly as long as I thought, and I went back and looked over several of the spells I’d already translated. The more practice I got, the faster I could figure out the next spell.

Once I was done, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. As soon as I thought about the book, I remembered the spells perfectly, like I was still reading them from the page. Instant memories. They’d fade eventually, but maybe they would help tonight.

“You okay?”

I had to blink a few times to clear my eyes. “I think so, yeah.”

“Good,” she said, sliding a much thicker journal out of her bag. “Now this.”

“Your spellbook?” I reached out a hand, but then held back. That wasn’t what I was using

Sherrod’s book for—to randomly learn as much magic as possible. The desire was there, definitely so, but this wasn’t the way to do it.

“No,” I said, pulling back and turning towards my window.

“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.”