Hunter Moon

by Joanne Mallory

  “No! Gods, no. It was before…when you were in Rome. That’s why I sent him with you to the gala dinner. But I couldn’t bloody get hold of you to explain why, because I had to fly to Ireland to learn more about the bloody poxy chalice.”

  “We were followed.” Jess stared at him. “I thought it was me—but they were following him.”

  Jason went wholly still as she spoke. “When?”

  “The night of the gala, we walked home through St. James’s park.” She swallowed the panic, her mind racing a mile a minute. “I know there’s all kinds of things wandering around London, but they don’t usually bother me. I just assumed something foolish had picked up my signature.”

  “What happened?”

  “I, uh…a mirror spell gave it a shock. But it tracked us to the hotel, where I sent it on its way. Hard.”

  Releasing his held breath he rubbed his brow. “`Jesus, Jess, mirror magic! How did you keep Seb from seeing?”

  She lifted her glass, taking more of a gulp than a sip. “It all just fell into place. I’d hoped I’d given it enough of a warning… Has it come back?”

  Jason shrugged. “I don’t know. The chalice is locked up at the museum, but it must have a powerful pull. It’s drawing all sorts to it, so I’ve called in a favor and had the protection spell amped up.”

  Dread ballooned, the sound of her shallow breaths filled her head. “What is the chalice?”

  “It’s purported to have re-animative qualities. Hence the reason it isn’t in the Dublin Museum where it’s supposed to be. Filled with the right substance it can rejuvenate a husk.”

  Jess stilled, hysterical laughter bubbling up within her. “A husk? You mean a dead vampire?”

  All that greeted her was his silence.

  Her mouth dried out as she looked at him. “I thought they’d just about died out.” Her words sounded foolish, she knew, fundamentally, that anything could survive as long as it could hide within the boundaries of humanity. All they had to do was feign civility, and mankind did that every day.

  “Seb left Scotland with it, and travelled for a day and a half with the chalice on his person. Anyone with any kind of radar for power or old energy will have picked it up. And his scent with it. That’s the second time he’s had a near miss, and he has no idea what he’s done.”

  Jason’s image jerked from the screen as he came to his feet, pent-up rage and fear forcing him to move. She watched as he placed the laptop on the table and began to pace. His voice coming in and out.

  “I’ve found every reason possible to keep him either at the Museum or with me, but the exhibition opens Friday, and I need you here. You’ll pick up outside energy much quicker than I will. Can you find some way to cloak him—or strip him of the chalice’s imprint?”

  Jess shook her head, trying to silence the roaring panic in her brain so she could think. “That kind of spell craft just isn’t in my wheelhouse, and you know that interfering with humanity always has a backlash. That’s why I didn’t cloak him before I left, it would just raise the magical stamp on him.”

  She too began to pace, discarding ideas as she worked them through. “You say this is his second near miss with the esoteric world?”

  She heard ice hit crystal before he came back into focus, with a large scotch in hand. “Yeah. He was in Canada a few months back, they had one hell of a snow storm and he had a run in with a loup-garou.”

  “A loup-g…a werewolf. Jeez, Jase, why not just call it a werewolf?”

  “Loup-garou are wild, completely wild—not like lyke. This one must’ve fed recently, as from what I can gather, all he did was give Seb a hell of a fright. He phoned me from the hospital, in Canada. He was pretty delirious, and drugged up.” Releasing a sigh he shook his head. “By the time I got to him a day later, he was his usual self, saying the cold had disoriented him.” Jason went back to sipping his scotch.

  Focusing her thoughts, she tried to push her worry for Seb to the back of her mind. She’d never be able to think clearly with panic clambering to take hold. “Fate has her hand in this, Jason. Surely you can see that? You can’t swim against the tide of what is meant. Fate will find a way to get what it wants. We just need to figure out what that is. Do you think he’s being hunted?”

  “I don’t know.” The urgency in his voice sent shivers skittering up her spine. “Jess, he’s my friend. I know we can’t alter fate, but we can try to sway events in our favor… So what can we do?”

  She grabbed the laptop and put it up on the kitchen side. “Okay.” She took a deep breath, briefly closing her eyes to quieten her mind. “Okay.” She moved a book that she’d left out, sliding it back onto the shelf, straightening others while she was there.

  As she rolled different choices around, following the actions through, trying to guesstimate possible outcomes, Jason spoke. “The chalice will only be here for another three days. By Saturday evening it will be on its way, heading somewhere safe and secure.”

  Just because the chalice would no longer be their problem, didn’t mean anything for Sebastian.

  “I could clear the chalice; it might stop the strength of its emanation. Which might muddy the waters.” She pursed her lips as she looked at Jason. “I could do the same for him—clear his etheric field, but goddess knows how we’d explain it. It’s not something that would work without his consent.”

  She leant back against the worktop, crossing her arms. “You know as well as I do, that any kind of magical signature will mark him. And a human walking around London, with knowledge of our world—no matter how small—will make him fair game. We can’t do that to him.”

  Closing the laptop she curled up on the sofa, laying her head on hands as she stared into the fire.

  Jason had been her best friend since school, she always wondered if they’d recognized that there was something other about themselves. And even as a teenager, when he was growing into making his first full change, she’d never seen him this agitated.

  He’d gone straight to work at the museum when she’d gone to uni, and he’d worked every hour, proving his worth. When he’d begun the prestigious role of heading up the Exhibitions Department for the Victoria and Albert Museum, he’d brought her on board.

  She’d studied constantly. Trying to make sure her knowledge of the industry was solid. She’d always felt a little uncomfortable with having a gifted advantage; being able to read the relics just by touching them.

  Over the last three years, their department at the Museum had become a little more select, and although they still managed exhibitions all over the world, they were handy backup for the authorities in cases of historical art theft and fraud.

  She often ended up appraising bits of junk in dirty back rooms, for questionable clientele. But he didn’t have to worry about her.

  Jason had made it his business to isolate the more dangerous items, seeing them out of harm’s way—out of human way. And she’d ended up as some kind of comic sidekick, crazily backing his crusade.

  But things were different now. Seb was clearly important to Jason, and in the blink of an eye he’d become important to her.

  Chapter Six

  As the train pulled into Waterloo, Jess stayed in her seat. Worry warred with her glee at being back in her city after so long away. The Island and London were opposite sides of the same coin for her, both making up the whole.

  She calmed her breathing, waiting for the crowds to disembark. She made sure she was always a straggler. It was safer to let the river of energy flow around her.

  All their thoughts, fears and joy mixed together, was easier to work with than a direct hit of random positive or negative.

  Thea had been so afraid when Jess had first said that she wanted to study in London.

  Jess knew how much Thea had struggled with the London crowds. But even before Thea had become the strong, self-protected woman she was now, that hadn’t stopped her traveling up, and checking in on her little sister.

  As she watched a sleepy comm
uter double-wrap his scarf against the icy wind, she slowly came to her feet, following him from the train, smiling at thoughts of her family.

  The people before her became a colorful flow of energetic life; a mishmash of emotion that rippled across her, like the snare drum on a jazz track.

  She fed her ticket into the reader on the turnstile, and the arm rotated to let her off of the platform and into Waterloo Station.

  The large Victorian clock monitored time, silently.

  The dozens of display boards updated train times. Pigeons idled across the white stone floor, muddling around feet and luggage.

  The beeps and rings of text alerts, emails and phone calls echoed off of the brick and metal, lifting into the steel girders and bouncing from the glass ceiling.

  She drifted left, following the mass, joining the thrum, heading for the ever downward spiral of the underground.

  The warm, damp air rushed up at her.

  Jess pulled her Jackie Ohhs from her coat pocket, shielding her eyes, as even contact lenses wouldn’t be able to cover her reaction. The escalator ran flat as she stepped on it. She loved the moment it tipped over the edge, easing down.

  People, like statues, stood before her, as the giant mechanical beast rolled endlessly.

  Colorful line maps and a maze of corridors led her to the tube.

  She grasped the yellow handrail, and swayed with the motion of the carriage.

  There was a certain point when the air changed and the silence crackled, that filled Jess with excitement.

  The glittering sensations travelled through her body and settled in the pit of her stomach, radiating waves of anticipation. The fine hairs on the back of her neck shivered and licked at her nerve endings, and the urge to giggle lodged in her throat as she looked at the glum faces of the people surrounding her.

  They were crowded in every available space, bumping and jostling each other as the underground train lurched towards Embankment.

  Feeling the train shudder to a halt, she allowed herself to be taken along with them; off the train, through the tunnels and passageways, that would lead her up to the dark streets of London.

  Her blood screamed around her system, pouring through her body, morphing to a roar in her ears. She felt her patience slipping beyond her control.

  As she came to the dark street she wrenched her sunglasses off, pulled left away from the crowd as they surged up and out.

  The wonderful smell of rain and the chill night air slid through her, as she came to a brief standstill.

  As the hordes around her disappeared off into the night, she savored this moment, heading towards the Thames, feeling its very essence in her blood. Her breath was coming in fast pants as she came closer to the water.

  It was well after 1am, and although the city was never truly silent, the bitterly cold, wet Thursday in October was driving the final few loners from the streets, and for just a small portion of time, this stretch of the city was hers.

  The dark, fog-filled night became a comforting blanket that wrapped around her, protecting her from prying eyes.

  Darting in and out of side streets her feet barely touched the ground, until finally she came upon the river.

  The light from the London Eye was glinting at her from across the water, the heavy damp was lying thick on the trees, and the age old scent of time laced the air.

  Her feet became rooted to the spot as the vibrations from around her sent images and sounds flashing through her mind; all the people and all the noise. The cars, buses and boats that had travelled throughout the day crawled into her system.

  Jess remained completely still, as did the night around her.

  Her body began to fill with latent energies, her long dark hair rippled, coming up and away from her back.

  She knew the deep brown of her eyes had already begun to fade, as the unearthly lavender eclipsed them.

  Pulling in a heaving breath, her exaggerated sensory perception registered every sound, every movement around her. And safe in the knowledge that she was completely alone she let her arms hang down at her sides, and splayed her fingers in a sharp motion that lifted her from the ground.

  Offering a quick whisper to the stars to protect her from prying eyes, she released a surge of power and hurtled at breakneck speed along the water’s edge—reveling in the scents and sounds of her beloved city.

  The long dark tresses of her hair fanned out, and the vibrations from her palms eased her higher. The excitement ripped and jerked through her system as she cleared the tops of the trees along the embankment.

  She arched towards the water darting between the trees, and flicked her delicate hands, hurling herself through the frigid air, her hair whipping out behind her.

  Jess stared at the ceiling as she waited for the 6am alarm to sound. It was still dark. The sound of the wind had her stifling a shiver as she yawned and crawled from her toasty bed.

  She grabbed a hairlip from the dresser and, twisting her hair as high up as she could, she pinned it into submission.

  Staring at herself in the mirror, she smoothed her hands across her cheeks, wishing she’d caught even a glimmer of the summer sunshine to ease her pale complexion through the first of the winter weeks. Her dark eyes, brows and hair left her skin looking a bit ghostly, and a sleepless night hadn’t helped.

  The text-vibration of her phone announced that Jason was going to collect breakfast for the three of them, and forcing down her weird nerves, she texted him back.

  Pinching her cheeks, she headed for the shower, mentally rummaging through her wardrobe as she went.

  The hot water hit her back, making her groan and stretch at the same time. She leaned forward as she washed, trying as much as possible to save her hair from a dowsing. She was in no mood to deal with a blow-dry this morning.

  Shutting off the shower, she grabbed a towel, catching her hair as it slid from its precarious position, heading for her bedroom.

  Make-up helped to cover the worst of the shadows beneath her eyes, and the loose plait that hung over her shoulder softened her face.

  Stopping at the bedroom window she cast an eye out at the dreary rain. The short walk to the Museum was going to be a damp one.

  Zipping up her worn-in brown long boots over her skinny jeans, she pulled a blazer from the wardrobe just to smarten it up. She was doubtlessly going to be in a dusty archive or crawling around the storage department today, but still, she didn’t want to look messy.

  Ignoring the snort of her little voice, she tossed a few things in her shoulder bag and headed out.

  The October rain hadn’t taken on the full chill of winter yet, but it was in the air. The traffic was already in full London mode as she turned onto Cromwell Street.

  As she passed the entrance to the Rembrandt she glanced down the side alley, wondering if Jason could hunt out a trace of whatever it was that she’d sent hurtling down there a few weeks back. Even just a faint idea would give them something to go on.

  Pressing the light on the crossing junction, she sighed. She really should have thought of that sooner. The pouring rain of the last few weeks had surely wiped it out by now.

  Dashing across the road she headed to the front entrance of the Museum, offering smiles and good mornings as she went.

  The energy around here felt different, and she wondered who Jason had called in to beef up their metaphysical security.

  Knowing that taking the elevator would be quicker, she chose the stairs, trying to decide what on earth she was going to say to Seb.

  Pushing through the door into their little HQ, she didn’t get a chance to decide as she all but mowed Jason down.

  Barely able to save his coffee, he grinned at her, the relief in his blue eyes palpable. “Jess. Nearly floored ya. You okay, babe? How’s Adam?”

  Stifling a surprised laugh she loosed the death grip she had on her shoulder bag, hanging it on the coat rack. “Hey. He’s okay, daft bugger that he is.”

  Turning in search of the breakfas
t, she found Seb’s dark gaze locked on her. He sat at one of the desks, coffee in hand. She was saddened to see his lack of a suit today—not that he should be wearing one, but when you wear something that well…

  She sighed at the thought. Still, he was looking fine in a navy sweater, and what looked like a soft shirt underneath and dark jeans. Just fine indeed.

  Filching a pastry from the box, she poured herself a coffee and offered him a smile. “Sebastian.”

  His slight smile in response only lifted one corner of his lips, as dipped his head in acknowledgment. “Jessica.” He said her name slowly, just the sound of his voice had excitement tingling through her. “Everything okay now?”

  There was a wealth of unsaid words in the few he spoke. Jess pulled up a chair to sit opposite him, killing time faffing about.

  “Yeah. All good. Just crazy family stuff.”

  She could feel Jason’s eyes boring into her as he watched them. If she got even a whiff of his hand matchmaking in this she’d be fine-tuning her transmutation abilities, and he’d find himself learning how to live life as a little Chihuahua or Lhasa Apso.

  As if reading her mind, she arched her brow at him, Jason stifled a grin and motivated himself.

  “Okay then.” His overly cheerful tone wasn’t lost on her as he grabbed his laptop and pulled up a chair with them. “Lots to do. The Gods and Worship gallery opens tomorrow night, and we’ve just about got everything in place, all it needs now is unpacking, fine touching and the like.”

  Taking notes as Jason ran through what would be an unspeakably hectic two days, she glanced at Seb who did the same.

  Jason was clearly handing babysitting duties over to her, as she’d been assigned every task with him in tow. She wondered if he’d noticed yet that he wasn’t getting five minutes to himself.

  “And I’ve got investor meetings today, but I’ll be on hand tomorrow, if that works for you both?”

  “Sure thing.” Jess nodded as she stood, heading for her office.

  “Oh Jess, this exhibition has been stepped up, and tomorrow night is black tie.”