Stalking the Moon

by Angel Leigh McCoy

  “C’mere,” he said and held his arms out to me.

  I couldn’t have been more than a step or two away from him, but before I could reach him, a force slammed into my body and threw me to one side. It knocked the wind out of me and left me sprawled in the dirt, gasping for a breath, a sharp pain in my side.

  “Aubrey,” said Nathan. There was no mistaking his voice. “Don’t you think you’ve been naughty enough for one century?”

  “Fuck off, Nathan. Why don’t you go back to Gehenna and tell Father he can—”

  “Do stop. I don’t share your appreciation of Earth colloquialisms. I find them crude and distasteful. Turn around so I can bind your hands.”

  “Never.”

  “We’ve danced this dance before. You know you can’t win.”

  Colin’s voice took on an added edge. “No way I'm going with you, Nathan.”

  I finally managed to take a breath, and immediately regretted it as a spark of pain lit up my side. I gasped in shallow bursts.

  “Hm,” Nathan replied. “That may be so, but what I do have is your lady love. If you don’t go with me, I’ll kill her dead, dead, dead. Go on, I dare you. Give me a reason to melt her insides.”

  Colin growled on an inhalation. It was the scariest sound I’d ever heard him make.

  I tried to sit up, but the best I could manage was to roll onto my side and lift up onto an elbow.

  Nathan and Colin stood facing one another, staring into each others’ eyes, but the palm of Nathan’s hand was aimed toward me.

  Colin shouted, his face red and twisted with anger, “Can’t you see? Father is going to war with Apfallon. Is that what you want?”

  “Whatever it takes,” replied Nathan. “All I want is to get out from under this curse. We've suffered enough. Apfallon is our birthright."

  "I'm living proof that we don't have to stay in Gehenna. We can live here, among the Normals."

  Nathan laughed. "Here? Normals are a scourge. They systematically destroy wielders. If our people came here, we'd be sentencing them to a life without magick. It would be the end of our race. We need Apfallon.”

  Colin shook his head slowly. “Some Normals have more heart than you’ll ever have. With a little encouragement, we can bring magick back. They’ll believe again.”

  “You're wrong, brother. You do remember the Inquisition, don't you? How about the Vatican? The KKK?”

  Colin glanced over at me. “Times are different now. Let us go, and I'll prove it to you.”

  “I can’t do that. You know I can’t do that.” Nathan straightened his arm, tensing it, and his fingers crackled. “Don’t make me. I was just starting to tolerate her.”

  Doc Bella had predicted this moment so long ago in her office. Colin’s battle, his war, was my own by extension, because I loved him, and because I’d promised to be his partner. If he was willing to die for his cause, then so was I.

  “Go, Colin! Leave me! He won’t hurt me after you’re gone.”

  Nathan hissed, “Oh yes, I will.”

  Troubled, Colin hovered between leaving and staying. “Viviane, I…” His hair shone with brilliant copper highlights in the sunlight, the curls thick. The color had drained from his face, leaving him pale, his freckles standing out in sharp contrast.

  I hesitated only a moment longer, then said the words Bella had armed me with in the midst of her warning: “I’m not worth the sacrifice.”

  Colin twitched as if waking from a trance. “I'll never forget this, Nathanatos. Never. And one day, you will pay for it!”

  Colin flapped his wings hard and lifted up off the ground. “Chase me if you dare, Nathan.” He waved sparking fingers in an arc that sent a bolt of lightning toward Nathan, thunder as immediate as life.

  Nathan dodged, rolling to one side. It took him a moment to reorient himself and get to his feet.

  “I’m not the one who will pay!” Nathan shouted. He watched his brother rise, but made no move to go after him. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

  Colin’s voice grew distant as he cried, “Viviane! I’ll come for you!”

  Nathan glared at me with all the terrifying threat of a predator, and I was the prey.

  My voice croaked as I said, “You. Need. Me.”

  His jaw tensed on one side. It pinched his face into an expression of rage.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t.” He strode over to me, bent, and grabbed me by the throat, lifting me up onto my feet with one hand, his strength supernatural.

  I couldn’t speak. He'd cut off my air and the blood supply to my brain. I stood on tiptoes to lessen the pressure under my jaw. If I'd doubted it before, I no longer did. I was going to die.

  He eyed me up and down as if I were a dirty rag and said, “You have no idea what you just unleashed upon your realm. Sadly, you won’t live to—”

  Before he could finish, Bella shouted from the back door. She stretched both hands toward Nathan as if she could push him from afar. Her words came out garbled.

  A shimmer moved through the air, a heat wave, heading straight for Nathan and me.

  Before it arrived, he raised his free hand and said a single word I didn’t recognize. The shimmer reversed course and sped back at Bella.

  She saw it coming but had only a second to respond. She took a step back, and her foot kept going down as if there was nothing under it. She fell out of sight as if into a well.

  The shimmer passed through where she had been and dissipated.

  Nathan harrumphed.

  When he turned back to me, I was ready. I pushed the straight pin into his eyelid. It slid all the way into the head.

  Nathan howled and released me immediately.

  I fell to the ground, gasping for breath. My only thought was escape, and I crawled toward the house. Every breath, every movement, was accompanied by pain in my ribs.

  Abruptly, Nathan’s howling ended, and he was gone—just gone.

  The taste of blood was bitter in my mouth. I had no strength left.

  Then Bella was there. She bent over me. “Viviane? Are you all right?”

  My voice came out as a hoarse gasp. “I’m alive. Where’s Colin?”

  Bella’s gaze scanned the skies. “Far away, my dear.”

  “Nathan was going to kill me.”

  Bella nodded gravely. “Yes.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “He chuted back to Gehenna. We’re safe for now.”

  I thought of Ajani. He wasn't safe.

  Bella got an arm under me and helped me to sit up. It made it a little easier to breathe.

  She said, “It’s time for you to go home.”

  “I don’t have a home.”

  “You can still have a normal life.”

  “I don’t want a normal life.” I never thought I’d say that, but there it was, and I felt its sincerity all the way to my core. “I want to fly away with Colin.”

  A gust of wind lifted Bella’s curls, more silver than auburn. They danced briefly before lying still again. “I know. But your mother and grandfather need you. Colin doesn’t need you. He may want you, for now, but that’s different. His selfishness nearly cost you your life.” Bella ran her fingers down my cheek. “I’m so proud of you, Viviane. You handled this whole mess with courage, strength, and good heart. Your mother will be proud, too. I’m sure of it.”

  A shout sounded inside the house, and Bella glanced back over her shoulder. “I have to go,” she said. “Take care, my dear. Your future is in your hands now.” She lay me down, then stood and backed away a few steps.

  “Wait,” I said, but to no avail.

  Bella stepped back one last time and fell out of sight.

  I laid my head down on my arm and focused on breathing.

  ♦

  Some unknown time later, Detective Hayward crouched down beside me. “Help’s on the way.”

  “Why…are you here?” I asked on a wheezy breath.

  His voice had none of the sarcasm I normally heard in it. �
�I got the pictures you sent.” His hand came to rest on my shoulder, a light, comforting presence. “I came to take Dr. Rosenblum in for questioning.”

  “You believe...me?”

  “I believe the evidence.”

  When the paramedics arrived, he backed away.

  They rolled me out on a gurney, around the house, saving me from having to see Ajani's body. In front, the ambulance and police lights flashed red, white, and blue in my eyes, turning the whole world into an emergency.

  ♦♦♦

  CHAPTER 36

  Everything felt wrong. My side hurt, my chest ached, and my head pounded. I moved a little, but it hurt more. I couldn’t think. I drifted in and out of consciousness, drugged and exhausted, but I remembered seeing Richard talking to doctors, giving orders, and overseeing my treatment. He was, after all, my physician on record.

  They rolled me into an ambulance and took me back to the Center. Jared, the receiving clerk, came into view, concerned.

  “You’re going to be all right,” he said—or something like that.

  ♦

  I awoke in my bed at the Center, restrained. The last place I wanted to be was back there. If I could've turned back the clock, I’d have begged Colin to take me with him. But that wasn't what I did.

  Richard came in, his smile insipid and condescending. “You’re awake. How are you feeling?”

  “I had a collapsed lung and three broken ribs, and now I’m back here. How do you think I’m feeling?” I was all acid and attitude.

  Richard took the desk chair and swung it around to face me, then he sat. “I heard you had quite an adventure.”

  Quite an adventure. That was psych talk for I heard you went bat-shit crazy.

  I replied, “Today I’m pain. Tomorrow, a stain.”

  “Okay," he said, his tone controlled. "How about we build up to it gradually?”

  Richard was mad at me. I could see it in the tightness of his face and posture.

  I took the bull by the horns. “Why are you mad at me?” I asked.

  “Maybe because you ran off and tried to kill yourself? Christ, Viviane.”

  “I didn't try to kill myself.”

  “You let yourself get so deep into your delusion that you almost died.”

  I resented that. “It wasn’t a delusion. I found Colin.”

  Richard looked down at the floor and sucked on his teeth. That meant he was trying to regain control of himself. “This is my fault. I saw it coming. I knew I should have increased your medication. No matter. You’re back on it now. We’ll build the dosage gradually and stop when it’s right.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Don’t I get a say in this?”

  Richard said, voice tense, “You were found out in the middle of nowhere, at some farmhouse, having been assaulted and raped. That is not my definition of fine.”

  “I wasn’t raped.”

  “We found evidence that you were.”

  The horror built in my stomach. “How do you know that?”

  “I know because I had them do a rape kit at the hospital. I didn’t know what you’d been through.”

  Silence hung in the room, heavy and thick, as I processed what he’d just said.

  Eventually, I told him, “I was with Colin.”

  He sighed heavily. “Colin is dead.” The words held no real power, and they came out flat. We both knew Colin wasn’t dead.

  Richard took a deep breath. It was the patience-inducing breath he had taught me, in through the nose and out through the mouth. “Vivi, listen to me. You have a mental illness that causes you to hallucinate and have delusional thoughts. You know this. You know that not everything you see and hear is real. It’s chemicals and neurons misfiring in your brain.”

  “Not this time.”

  “You were babbling at the hospital about flying with Colin. You said he had wings. What part of that wasn’t a hallucination?”

  I knew how it looked, and it terrified me.

  Richard said, “How many men have you known who could sprout wings and fly?”

  “Two.”

  Richard smiled a little like he thought I was being cute. “Don’t you think it’s more likely that your subconscious twisted him into an angelic hero who was there to rescue you from the man in the car?”

  I knew it sounded made-up. In my old reality, people didn’t get kidnapped by their doctors. They weren’t hunted by their brothers. They weren’t princes from other realms, and they didn’t have wings.

  Richard pushed onward. “If you believe the voices and the visions, then you feed them, and they get worse.”

  In my old reality, ghostly hags didn't kill people.

  Richard said, “Your grief has made you vulnerable. You’re in the midst of an episode. But, you’re going to pull out of it.”

  In my new reality, however, help was just a knock away. A double rap sounded on the door.

  Richard shouted, “In session!”

  The door opened anyway, and Detective Hayward stuck his head in.

  Richard stood abruptly. “You can’t talk to her right now, detective. She’s still in a fragile state. You’ll have to come back later.”

  “I don’t think she’s nearly as fragile as you want her to be, Dr. Reuter.” Something in Detective Hayward's tone made me look more closely at him. For a change, he wasn’t studying me. He had Richard in his sights.

  Richard walked toward the detective “She’s been through a lot. I think you should go.”

  Hayward stuck his tongue in his bottom lip, gaze dropping to the floor. After a moment, he said, “I can’t deny that Miss Rose has been through a lot, and to be honest, I can’t think of a good reason to bother her right now. However, I do have some questions for you, Dr. Reuter.”

  “For me?” Richard’s surprise was evident. “I don’t have time for that.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to make time. Would you come with me, please?”

  Richard’s cheeks went splotchy, as if he had a rash. He didn’t move. “It will have to wait. I’m in the middle of—”

  “I’m not asking, Dr. Reuter. I’m telling. You're wanted for questioning. I’m here to accompany you down to the station.”

  “Whatever for? If you insist on talking to me, then we can do it in my office, I suppose.”

  “No, sir. We can’t.”

  Richard crossed his arms on his chest. “What the hell is so damned important?”

  Hayward sighed. “Why don’t we start with the fact that the body in the photos I sent you wasn’t Colin Aubrey. I have to admit, I’m very curious about why you didn’t say anything.”

  Richard’s mouth opened on a half-formed word. He changed his mind and closed it, then started again. “I never looked at those photos. Are you saying it wasn’t Colin they pulled from the lake?”

  Hayward gave an amused chuckle. “You need to come with me, doctor.” He opened the door and waited for Richard to accompany him. “Let’s not impose any more unpleasantness on Miss Rose.”

  "I didn't identify the body. Rosenblum did. Why don't you talk to her?"

  "Trust me. When we find her, we'll have a ton of questions for her. Now, please, if you would come with me."

  Richard turned to me and said, “I’ll be back later.”

  Just before Hayward closed the door, one side of his mouth quirked up, and the detective winked at me.

  As if she’d been waiting for them to leave, Corona rushed in a moment later. She came straight to the bed and started undoing my restraints, no easy feat with one arm in a cast and sling.

  “Wish I could help,” said Simon from the end of the bed.

  I was happy to see them. “I'd hug you, but I’m on a no-hug diet for awhile.”

  “Then kisses it is.” Corona planted one right on my lips. There was nothing sexual about it. It was warm and soft, sweet and full of love. It brought tears to my eyes.

  Corona asked, “Did you hear they fired Marsha? A lot of things came out about her.”

&nb
sp; “That’s great. But, how did you end up back here? How’s your arm?”

  She waved her good hand all around. “Don’t worry. It’s no big deal. I called Jake. He worked things out for me.”

  “Worked what things out?”

  “I’m going to live at his haven in Wyrdwood, Oregon. He’ll be my doctor from now on.” Her eyes shone with excitement.

  In my old reality, psychologists didn't rescue you from cruel institutions.

  She put her hand on my cheek and her nose to mine. Her eyes crossed. “You should come too.”

  “It sounds nice.” I was a bit in awe of Corona. She had so much hope.

  “Talk to him. Besides, he's got the ashes. I left them with him, for safekeeping.” Corona dug in her pocket and pulled out the business card I'd thrown away. She held it out to me. She had taped it back together. Printed on antiqued card stock, with old-fashioned lettering, it said “Jake Lamb, M.D., Wyrdwood, Oregon.” It had his phone number on it.

  She produced my cell phone from her other pocket. “I snuck this back in with me. Call him. What have you got to lose?”

  "Just so I can get Jaxon's ashes back," I said.

  I took the phone and carefully dialed the number.

  Corona bounced.

  When Jake answered, he said, “Lamb, here.”

  “It’s Viviane. Viviane Rose. I'm calling about the gym bag Corona left with you.”

  “Hi. I'm glad to hear from you. How are you?”

  “Recovering.” My whole being was vibrating. “Corona tells me you're taking her to Oregon.”

  “True. There's a spot for you too, if you'd like."

  "Answer me this. Have you ever been to a place called Apfallon?"

  Jake was silent. When he answered, his voice was soft, as if he were afraid to spook a nervous horse. He said, "Yes. Many times."

  My heart skipped a beat. “Can I bring my mom with me?”

  “Absolutely. I wouldn't have it any other way.”

  His answer lifted a weight off me, and I inhaled as if I’d been holding my breath. Peoria had lost me.

  I could never go back to the laundry, to the daily—tick tock—grind that I’d used to shelter myself. I wasn’t that woman anymore. I had uncovered aspects of myself that I couldn’t put away again. I’d had a glimpse into the world beyond, and I wanted more.