FULL MOON

by Jennifer St. Clair

  It hadn't been quite a century since he'd been in the castle. And even the reams of gossip had not escaped his notice.

  But no one had warned him about this.

  He stood at the broken gate and stared at the destruction–-the blackened wood; the soot-stained stone–-and wondered if Elinor's absence had a more sinister aspect. The house–and it was a mansion, in truth–-had been in her mother's family for centuries. When had it burned?

  And how? There were safeguards against something like this in Faerie; magic ruled everything, but did not allow for mundane inventions like fire departments. If he sought out Lucien's home, would he find more of the same?

  He ventured down the silent path, every sense straining towards the faint hope that there had been survivors. But as he grew closer and saw the scope of the destruction, he knew that the arsonist--and this was no natural fire--had left no stone unturned.

  The whole middle of the house lay opened to the elements as if a bomb--or worse--had dropped from the sky. The fire had not spared a single room; broken glass and scraps of parchment littered the grounds; he picked up a heavy skirt, sodden with soot and rain and wondered if its owner lay dead inside the shell of the house.

  Or, worse, outside of it.

  He found her--or what was left of her--chained to a stone bench in the gardens, the silver links untarnished by time or weather. With a sort of numb detachment, he gently slipped skeletal wrists out from the shackles and lay the body down across the bench. When the sun broke free of the clouds, the earthly remains of Elinor's mother crumbled into dust, leaving only her blackened gown behind.

  Elvish vampires did not burn as well as human ones, he thought, and filed that observation away for later. Only after he'd turned to look at the house again did he realize what this meant. If someone--and he could not help but see Meinren as the villain in this--was murdering the potential heirs to the throne, then he was in danger, too.

  And so was Gene.

  Ceidrin closed his eyes and tried not to imagine what Gene would say when he told him that couldn't come home. Wearily, he cast a finding for the inevitable spell; the maker of this had to have left some sort of alarm behind to catch unwary visitors. Had Elinor been caught by such a trap? He had no idea if she would have burned like her mother; it had been years since he'd spoken to her. He still thought of her as a child, perpetually serious, an exotic blend of what happened when a human wizard married an elvish vampire.

  Was her father still alive?

  He found the spell, disarmed it, and waited a moment before casting another spell--this one to find any sign of life inside the remains of the building or the grounds outside. This spell was the only warning he had before the hounds attacked; he sensed their presence just as they burst through the remnants of the gates.

  They were elvish hounds, lean and long and mottled grey, but they moved with a fluidity that made him wonder if they hadn't been tampered with at some point in their lives. They were also utterly silent; not a single growl between them. If he hadn't cast that spell, he would have been dead before he realized what was happening.

  As they approached he retreated up the wide marble stairs that had once led to the mansion's front door. The door hung on broken hinges, and could be blocked against them, but the shattered windows and half-fallen walls would not protect him for long.

  And even then, he felt no fear; no thrill of death; no despair. Perhaps he was still numb from the shock of it all; the very openness of treachery where such a thing had always been hidden, before.

  The hounds spread out around the base of the stairs, hemming him in, then slowly advanced, tensed and wary for any sign of attack. When the first one lunged, Ceidrin drove it back with spells and wards, but there were five hounds. They would break through his paltry defenses eventually; elvish hounds were bred for their stamina.

  Had they attacked anyone else? Had Elinor returned home to find her mother dead and the house in ruins, and had these hounds killed her?

  He ducked into the gloom of the house, slipping a little on wet ash. The nearest hound lunged at him, but they didn't follow him inside what was left of the building. Short of finding or forming a portal or trying to make his way across the destruction without killing himself, they had blocked his only exit.

  And someone else's exit as well. At the bottom of a pile of debris--newly formed by the look of it--lay a body.

  Or, at least, Ceidrin hoped it was a body, since all he could see of it was a foot and part of a leg. He glanced out the door to make sure the hounds had not followed him, then sifted through the pile, tossing stones and charred wood out at the hounds, who were not pleased by how well he managed to aim his makeshift missiles.

  At the bottom of the pile, once he managed to remove enough of the debris to uncover most of the body, lay a bruised and bloody elf, his eyes closed, his face waxen and pale under the filth. From the look of it, he'd lain there for a day at the least; his clothing and hair were sodden from the recent rains.

  It actually took Ceidrin a moment to recognize him, and when he did, he felt a bit of the tension release from his shoulders. He'd found one missing heir--Lucien--and he was, at the moment, alive.

  Ceidrin cleared away more of the debris before attempting to wake him. His pulse seemed slow. Shock, perhaps, or the ragged wounds that covered his body, wounds made by teeth, Ceidrin realized, and wondered if the hounds' bite carried any sort of infection, like a werewolf's bite. Sennet would be able to tell, but he had no way of contacting Sennet, except--except for the fact that he did.

  Gene had asked him on more than one occasion to carry a cell phone for emergency purposes. Ceidrin hadn't seen the point at first, but he did have to admit that they came in handy at times like these where magic fell short.

  He glanced at the hounds--they growled at him in return--and dialed Sennet's number.

  "I think not," a voice said from behind him--a growling voice, alien and cold. Before Ceidrin could turn to defend himself, a clawed hand tore the phone from his grasp and tossed it away.

  There were four hounds now, and one...creature, too misshapen to be anything but someone's experiment gone awry. It leered at him, but Ceidrin twisted away from its grasp and cast a ward to drive it back.

  "I don't know who gives your orders, but--" his voice trailed away.

  The creature shifted shape again. Not into a hound, but into a passable imitation of an elf, the only anomaly a certain look in its eyes. This time, it held a tiny crossbow in one hand, pointed not at Ceidrin, but at Lucien, who was just beginning to stir.

  Ceidrin stepped in front of its aim. "Stand down," he snarled, his fury both sudden and white-hot.

  In response, the creature shot a bolt out of the crossbow, and then three more in quick succession. Ceidrin's anger helped deflect the first two, but the third one found its mark, and so did the fourth one. Not mortal wounds, no, but they drained him of both strength and fury as if they had been poisoned. He stumbled, then fell to his knees.

  "A warning," the creature spat, and buried another bolt in Ceidrin's kneecap. "Do not get involved in this."

  Ceidrin gasped as the pain uncoiled through his body, freezing both thought and mind in an unbreakable embrace. "You dare--" He touched the bolts--one in his shoulder; one lodged in the bone of that same arm--and tried not to faint.

  The creature raised the crossbow and again took aim at Lucien. "This will be your only warning," it said, and pulled the trigger three times. Desperate, Ceidrin threw up his hand--his other arm was frozen now, unmoveable--and poured the last of his strength into a ward to surround both himself and Lucien. He pulled power from the house itself and felt what was left of its structure groan and sway. But the effort left him panting and drained, his vision speckled with grey.

  When he could see again, both the hounds and the creature were gone.

  He jerked out one bolt and stared at it; a dull, heavy metal that shouldn't have been in Faerie to begin with. Could he die from iron poisoning?
Would Sennet be able to track his phone call?

  Lucien moaned behind him and Ceidrin turned as much as he was able, his vision swimming now; the pain a dull roar in the back of his mind. His last desperate attempt at a ward had worked; none of the three bolts had met their mark. But he still seemed no better off than before.

  When Ceidrin tried to speak his name, his teeth chattered together. Shock, he thought, feeling as if he watched himself from a distance. And you're probably going to die from the iron if Sennet doesn't realize you called. You do realize that?

  He tried to shut out that voice as much as he could, but it wormed its way into his mind. With a strangled oath that never made it past his lips, he tore the bolt from his knee and felt a great rushing warmth spread through his body. Not healing, no, poison, and he could do nothing to save himself.

  He should have gone home. But if he had gone home, the hounds could have shown up there, and he would have had to watch Gene get slaughtered instead of Lucien.

  Of course Lucien was still alive--for now--so maybe not.

  Ceidrin closed his eyes and slumped back against a pile of rubble. His mind ran in unending circles, refusing to submit even after the darkness rose to carry him away.

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  Chapter Seven

  She did almost miss the turn off. The snow had blown into drifts around it, but she managed to find a passable path through the mess. With fields and forest on either side, she didn't really have to worry about ending up in a ditch. But the road dipped and the car sank into pothole after pothole; she had to force herself not to glance back at her passenger for fear she'd finally killed him with one too many lurches.

  By the time she reached the end of the road and spotted the small house nestled under a canopy of oak trees--a bonus, indeed--her own bones were aching from the repeated impact. She pulled the car up beside the house, taking care to park out of sight of the road. Only then did she turn to glance at her passenger again.

  His eyes were open, at least; she could see a faint glitter from reflected moonlight.

  "I'm going to turn on the light again, okay?"

  It took a moment for him to reply. "Okay."

  When she turned on the light, he winced away from the brightness, his eyes streaming tears. The dog squinted at her from its spot beside him, its tail thumping against the back of the seat.

  At least it looked like he had stopped bleeding. "When I touched you before--" She tried her best to meet his gaze, but she couldn't help but retreat from the look in his eyes. "Your right leg is broken. And there was some internal bleeding; I'll fix the rest of that when we go inside. And frostbite, of course; I can fix that, too." There were other things as well; the ghosts of old wounds--and the scars--but she decided not to mention that just yet. If she could heal him before she herself collapsed... "You hit your head, too."

  He watched her silently throughout all of this, his face blank. "And what--what would you want from me in return for the healing?"

  Elinor swallowed hard. She had known he would ask this; he had already shown himself not to be a normal human, if there were such a thing. And she had considered her response all through the silent drive to his house.

  "A place to stay for the day and nothing more," she said. "And then, after dusk, I will leave you in peace."

  "And what of those who hunt you?"

  "They--" She hadn't thought that far. What if her aunt's hunters found his house? What if they found traces of her presence--especially back where she had begun to heal him? "They have no reason to search for me near here." She hoped.

  He nodded, then, and closed his eyes. "My wards will let you pass. Be welcome in my home."

  Elinor glanced out the window. The snow had stopped now, at least, but it was still a long and cold trek to the porch. "May I have your name?" she asked.

  He opened his eyes--bottomless pools of murky green--and stared at her for a long moment. "Edward. Edward Lange."

  "My name is Elinor," she said, and tried to smile at him. "I can't remember if I told you before."

  "You did." He tried to move then or to brace himself for movement, and his face turned an alarming shade of grey. "Perhaps you should--leave me here. I won't--I can't--"

  "I'll wrap you in the blanket and drag you across the snow," Elinor said. "Then all we'll have to do is get you up the stairs." It sounded easier than she expected it to be. First, she had to get him out of the car.

  With his limited help, she did manage to slide the blanket beneath him, and wrap it around his body. She left the car running until she was ready to slide him out; more for the warmth than for anything else, since the journey over the snow would not be pleasant at all.

  When she opened the door, he closed his eyes, shivering helplessly as the cold seeped into the car. The dog hopped out on its own and stood there, waiting, as if trusting her to treat its master with care.

  Somehow, she managed to slide him out of the car. Dragging him over the snow was a bit more difficult; when she reached the porch stairs, his eyes were half-open, but unaware of her presence. And for a moment, until he took a shallow breath, she thought that she had killed him.

  He blinked. "Up. The. Stairs." She could barely hear his voice.

  "Yes." Mindful of his injuries--which she had caused--Elinor gently maneuvered him up the stairs. Once onto the porch--which was a lot sturdier than it looked--his wards closed around them.

  They were good wards, strong and certain in their strength, anchored in the bedrock under the house and--as far as she could tell--impervious to any suggestion that they crumble.

  The vague knowledge of the hunters faded from the back of her mind so completely that she had to struggle to connect to them again. They weren't close. Even hunters had trouble on icy roads.

  The front door opened at her touch. She looked for a light switch, but found nothing; only after she glanced out into the yard did she realize that she hadn't seen a single telephone pole since she turned off the main road. So. Edward lived without electricity. That was no matter; it only took a tiny scrap of strength to form a light. She pulled him inside, waited until the dog had entered, then closed the door against the cold.

  And as soon as her light illuminated the interior of the house, she wondered if she'd brought him to the right place. The windows were boarded up--from the outside--letting only stray beams of moonlight into what would have been a parlor in any other old cottage. The house itself seemed to have weathered the test of time without much trouble, but there was no visible evidence of heat--and the ancient, dusty furniture would not give off much warmth.

  Despite that, the house wasn't freezing cold. The stones themselves gave off some sort of warmth, or perhaps the heat came from the wards. Either way, the walls pulsed under her hand when she touched one of the stones.

  With the wards in place, she knew her duty: to heal Edward before he died from his wounds. He wasn't awake when she dragged him inside and unwrapped him, and he didn't wake up when the first strains of her talent seeped into his body. She thought, perhaps, that it was better for him to sleep through the healing. She didn't want to see the look in his eyes when he realized how close she'd come to killing him.

  With that thought in the forefront of her mind, she pushed everything else away and concentrated on healing.

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  Chapter Eight

  Sennet had left the castle with more questions than answers, but she had to keep reminding herself that this was really not her affair. Ceidrin had asked her to come along, not to help him complete his task.

  If the treachery he saw from every corner was truly real, there was little she could do about it. Healers were neutral, after all. Sometimes, she despised that distinction.

  "Well met," a low voice said from the trees as she walked back along the path.

  Sennet stopped. "That all depends on whom I'm meeting," she said evenly.

  The voice laughed, a low,
musical tone. "I'd really rather not say. Can Healers be hired?"

  "Not as such." Sennet tried to see past the leaves, but the owner of the voice remained hidden. "But we tend to watch out for our friends."

  "Do you count Ceidrin as your friend, then?" the voice asked. "Because I am fearful of his safety."

  Sennet glanced behind her at the path, but there were no evident eavesdroppers. "He said he was going home."

  "He did not go home," the voice said. "When I saw the hounds--"

  "Hounds?" Sennet asked sharply. "Whose hounds?"

  "I cannot say," the voice whispered. "Please--he is in danger. Can you go to him?"

  "I--" Just at that moment, Sennet's phone rang. It was Ceidrin's number, but no one answered when she said hello. She thought she heard a voice, though, in the distance, but the crackle of static drowned out everything else.

  "Do you know where I live?" she asked, her voice cold.

  "Yes, of course, but I--"

  "I want a straight answer," Sennet snapped, angry with all the intrigue and plots. "Ceidrin is one of my oldest friends. If he's dead, I may blame you." Surreptitiously, she moved towards the trees, straining to get a glimpse of her informant.

  "I had nothing to do with this," the voice whispered. "Truly, I did not."

  "If you knew anything about this and did nothing to stop it, then you are as guilty as anyone else," Sennet said. "Tell me your name, so when I find him dead, I can curse it."

  She heard a movement in the trees, and saw a shadow--nothing more--vanish into the underbrush. And then, far off in the distance, something howled.

  Hounds, the girl had said. Fearing for the worst, Sennet listened to the static through the open connection, used that connection to pinpoint Ceidrin's approximate location, and pulled herself to that place.