Moonset - Scott Tracey

“It was Luca,” I said. “I thought … I thought it was someone else. But he released more of the darkness. I know. It talked to me.”

Quinn’s self-possession got the best of him, and he spent the next several moments like a gaping fish in front of us. Mouth opened. Mouth closed. Opened. Closed. “Now you listen to me you little asshole,” he managed to get out, though his voice was strangled. “You don’t remember anything. Anything. Any of you.”

I went to argue, to say something, but Jenna caught my eye and shook her head. It became an elaborately silent conversation, with complex thoughts expressed only through our looks.

I have to tell them what happened. They need to know.

She tugged at her hair, trying to create some order out of the chaos. No they don’t. But you’ll tell me later.

Of course I will. Don’t be stupid. I scratched at my forehead, my fingernails coming back dark with dried blood. My second attempt was much softer, more uncertain. There wasn’t any wound I could feel, no sensitivity, but nevertheless there was a whole section of my hair that was plastered against my scalp, congealed with that same brownish red.

Is everyone okay? Jenna’s head didn’t move, but her eyes moved around quickly and anxiously. She didn’t have to say anything. I read the question on her face.

I shrugged. That in itself said everything I knew.

“Ahh, it’s about time they began to awake,” Illana Bryer was suddenly above us. Her outfit was some sort of strange mesh of skintight slacks with a black shawl hanging nearly down to her ankles wrapped around her.

“So helpful of you to keep an eye on the two of them, Quinn,” she continued, staring down at us. I met her eyes only for a moment, enough time to see the calculating coldness in them, before I turned and scooted closer towards Jenna. “But someone will be around shortly to take care of them.”

“Take care of us?” Jenna’s voice was acid. “Considering something attacked us, and my brother looks like someone beat the shit out of him, you’d think a little medical care wouldn’t be out of the question.”

Illana’s lips thinned. “Yes, well that was before the five of you were found cavorting with a known warlock.”

“Who?”

She didn’t seem to like my question. Or maybe she didn’t like the challenge in my voice. “Luca

Denton, obviously.”

Jenna, God bless her, started to laugh. The kind of Mean Girl laugh that said she enjoyed other people’s misery just a little too much. “Luca?” She glanced at me, amused deception in her eyes. “This is some kind of joke, right? Or some sort of test?”

“I assure you this is a matter of the utmost gravity,” Illana said.

“I’m sure,” Jenna laughed, throwing her head back a little. “Luca invoked the black arts without screwing it up? He’s Maddy’s little lapdog. If he’d even had an original thought in his life —and I seriously doubt that’s the case—then I can’t even picture him doing it right in the first place! He’s a loser.”

“That’s enough, Jenna,” Quinn said.

“You’re awfully silent,” Illana murmured, and I looked up to find her homing in on me with her laser eyes. “No reaction? No protests of innocence?”

“I remember something,” I said, fully ignoring the advice of Quinn, whose posture tensed immediately. Even Jenna was sitting straighter now.

“I thought you might,” she said, her emphasis on the “you” sounding much like I was the only one she expected would. Her tone was hungry for it, her expression wolfish. “Tell me.”

“We know about Kore,” I said, my tongue stumbling over the name. “Who really killed her.”

Illana stared at me, her expression cool, her eyes searching mine. I don’t know what she saw there, but after a few moments, her lips parted and her eyes widened.

I watched as the effect of the name took its hold over her. At first, there was shock. Then uncertainty. For the first time, perhaps ever, Illana Bryer dropped her gaze and turned away.

“Where did you … ” she whispered, her voice trailing off. And then, as if she realized that she’d forgotten herself, all of the arrogance and prestige of being Illana Bryer came flowing back into her. “Quinn, with me,” she suddenly snapped. “Evanson and … you with the hair, come here.” Two adults, a man and a woman, were suddenly in front of us as well. “No one is to speak to them,” Illana announced, glancing over her shoulder down on us, and then over to

Quinn. “No one at all, until I send for them. The others are gathering as we speak.”

Once she was gone, Jenna leaned into me. “What was that?” she whispered. “What did you do?”

I shook my head and shrugged. I really didn’t know.

Despite what Illana had dictated, they didn’t keep us in the field for much longer. Jenna and I were bundled up, blankets thrown around us, and taken away by Evanson and … the one with the hair a short while later.

But they didn’t take us home.

The storm had finished passing over us, and already the temperature was starting to rise slightly. The driver seemed to have no trouble on the roads.

Entering the high school in the middle of the night wasn’t my idea of a good time. By this point, I’d long since been picturing my bed, and planning a long, long recovery from everything that had been going on.

We entered from the rear parking lot, walking through one building after another as we headed towards the front of the school.

“I want to know where the rest of my family is,” Jenna demanded of Evanson. “We haven’t seen my brothers or my sister since we woke up outside that … farmhouse.” Somehow, she made farmhouse sound like it something reprehensible.

Evanson didn’t say anything, however. Neither did the redhead who walked behind us.

“It’s just like the drivers,” I explained to her.

“They’re not going to talk, no matter how much we try.”

“If Maddy would have taught me that spell to set his boxers on fire, I’m sure he’d say something,” she sniped. I thought I caught a glimpse of a smile on Evanson’s face.

As we approached the main building, there was more activity in the halls. Men and women, stationed at every intersection. The closer we got to the front of the school, the more guards we saw. All in all, we probably passed thirty to fifty, and that was just down the main thoroughfare of the school. Every single one of them stopped what they were doing long enough to watch us pass. No one said a word.

Our guards led us towards the main office, a place that was quickly becoming my home away from home. From there they led us back into the conference room where I’d been spending so much time lately. Only this time, there weren’t only one or two people inside. There was a full-on dozen. The long rectangular table was full on three sides, with Illana Bryer in the dead center of one of the long sides. Across from her, the entire side of the table was empty, except for two empty chairs clearly left for us.

“Oh no,” Jenna whispered, as Evanson held the door for the two of us. One look at all the closed, emotionless faces in the room and I think we both knew that this wasn’t just a simple expulsion.

“Thank you, Aaron. That will be all,” Illana said formally. Once we were in the room, Evanson nodded once and closed the door from the outside. I watched him disappear down the hallway through the slats in the blinds.

“That’s Robert Cooper,” Jenna whispered at my side, nodding to a white-haired man who was so sour he looked like he had lemon juice running through his veins.

“This is a troubling night for all of us,” Illana spoke first, but she was speaking to her gathered comrades, not to us. We were the only two in the room under the age of fifty—although with witches you could never really tell. Some could have been close to one hundred. “For the past several months, we’ve all heard the whispers and scandal that has been plaguing this town.”

“Excuse me. But before you convene the lynch mob, the polite thing to do would be to introduce yourselves.” It was the standard Jenna response. However, it wasn’t Jenna who was speaking. I was.

Illana Bryer stared at me in shock. Twice in one night, I’d caught her by surprise. But I didn’t stop there. “And before you start with anything, the least you could do is inform us how our family is.”

“Absurd!” Robert Cooper glared at us from Illana’s right. “I don’t answer to you, Moonset. ”

In the corner of the room, where I hadn’t noticed him before, Quinn pushed himself off of the wall. “Grandfather … ”

“And I’ve heard more than enough out of you,” the man continued with a brief look to his left, his voice dripping with contempt. “You’re lucky you aren’t seated next to the warlocks.”

Conversation began to spring up between different groups around the table. Two women to my left were murmuring about how it was “so upsetting.” A group of men who looked like they should have been at a sports bar were grunting about “mistake letting them come here.”

Jenna had taken her seat, but I didn’t. For once, I wasn’t going to be the one trying to placate everyone, and make things better. Besides, this wasn’t a fire we were just going to walk away from.

Screw the good twin.

“Excuse me!” My voice rang throughout the room, and all movement stopped. Quinn’s grandfather looked like he’d swallowed his tongue. “Are they okay? Where are they?” I kept my voice loud, and controlled. I thought I caught a glimpse of approval on Quinn’s face, but with him it was so hard to tell.

“Your family is fine, dear boy,” Illana said, her voice smooth and uncompromised. “As is the girl, I can assure you.” She, too, looked less murderous than some of the others around the table, but her tone wasn’t entirely respectful either. “They’ve shown no adverse effects to their

… trials this evening.”

“Where are they?”

“Safe,” Illana said.

“They were not deemed a threat,” Robert snapped.

“He has a right to know what’s going on,” Quinn fired back.

There was a moment’s pause before Illana stepped in. “Justin Daggett. Jenna Bellamont.

We’ve been gathered tonight after accusations that you have been known associates with a warlock.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said, feeling fire in my veins. “Jenna wasn’t even involved. She was as much a victim as the others.”

“Nevertheless,” Illana continued, as if I hadn’t said anything of value, “those are the accusations in play.”

“We’re the only ones they’re scared of,” Jenna murmured quietly, looking up at me. “They don’t care about the others.”

Robert Cooper cleared his throat. “And that’s all you need to know. Now then—”

“I am not bait.” I took a deep breath, and looked at the members of the Congress. None of them, save Illana, looked particularly intimidating. “And this is the last time you’ll use any of us like that.” Someone had to stand up. Someone had to put this to an end.