Blood Moon (Vampire Vigilante Book 1)

by Nazri Noor

  Helga stepped aside, nodding. “At your leisure.”

  Bastion thanked her, turning the doorknob, ushering the others inside. I took a moment to sidle up to Helga.

  “Those scented candles are a disaster.”

  That broke the stern stoniness of her face. She rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it. I told him that we could come up with our own signature fragrance, something that our guests would remember for all time, even take home to enjoy. But no, the All-father said. Variety is the spice of life.”

  I sniffled, trying to get the smell of so many mingled candles out of my nostrils. “I’m amazed you and your sisters aren’t nursing migraines because of all this. Talk later, Helga. Business calls.”

  Helga dutifully stood guard outside the door, which was perhaps unnecessary, but more than appreciated. Never hurts to have a valkyrie have your back. The room they held the witch of the woods in was mostly bare, apart from a plain wooden table, a few chairs, and a pitcher of water. Don’t ever say that the Twilight Tavern ever mistreated its guests. Tabitha clinked her fingernails along the outside of her glass, her chin planted in her hand, looking more bored than anything.

  Asher slipped into the chair closest to Tabitha, and Bastion took the seat opposite. Gil and I chose to remain standing. I nodded at the witch, noting that she looked a little different.

  “Change of clothes, I see. I guess that means you have more than one hideout?”

  The corner of Tabitha’s mouth lifted in a wry grin. “I wouldn’t be a very wily witch if I restricted myself to just the cabin in the woods, you know?”

  She fiddled with her chandelier earrings, flipping her braids back across her bare shoulder. Between the smoke bomb and the Twilight Tavern, Tabitha had found the time to change into a yellow tank top, olive green harem pants, and bejeweled sandals. Whatever else she was, the woman definitely had style.

  “It was a motel,” Bastion said, his lips pressed together in a tight line. “Don’t get too self-congratulatory about your talents at stealth.”

  Tabitha waggled her fingers at Bastion, chuckling softly. “Ninja witch.”

  “Okay,” I said. “This is driving me crazy. You’re not actually a trained ninja, are you? That’s just something you like to say.”

  She tapped the tip of her nose. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you. But fine. No. Smoke is my specialty. Smoke witch in the house.”

  Asher snapped his fingers, looking around at us, beaming proudly. “I knew it. I totally called it. Smoke witch.”

  Bastion cleared his throat. “We need to get down to business. You don’t seem to be very upset about being held here, Tabitha. I trust you understand how very serious the situation is.”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “Big deal, you know? I’ve done the people of Silveropolis no harm. My conscience is clean. Of course, the longer you hold me here, the greater the risk of more people dying.”

  “How do you mean?” I asked, folding my arms, standing legs astride at the head of the table. “Do you know what’s attacking the people of the town? The thing that’s been eating faces?”

  “And no chance of drifting away on the wind this time,” Gil added, lowering his head and the tone of his voice.

  Tabitha shook her head, laughing. “You guys still don’t get it. My family has been keeping watch over these woods for years. You want to know why I’m so young? Because the job passes down through the women in my bloodline. My grandmother guarded the forest for a while. The line skipped my mama. She declined the position, because we should be able to choose, too. And now that you boys have taken me away from my territory, there’s a very good chance that my stick men will stop working.”

  Bastion cocked an eyebrow. “Your stick men?”

  “You’ve seen them around, don’t pretend. Bundles of twigs wrapped together with twine. They look like little stick men. They’re my sentries, extra eyes and ears to watch over the forest. It’s a Bridges family specialty.”

  “Bridges,” I said.

  “Tabitha Bridges, not at your service. Smoke witch, witch of the woods, professional ninja.”

  “Here she goes again with the ninja stuff,” I muttered. “Okay, Tabitha. Say we believe you about the stick men being planted for protection. Then why was the reanimated corpse of the sixth victim screaming at the sight of a bundle of twigs? Why was he so afraid?”

  Bastion held up his hand. “Hold the phone. Reanimated corpse? What did I miss?”

  Asher twiddled his thumbs. “We found the sixth victim, and I, um, I did some necromantic stuff to dig for some information.”

  Bastion leaned closer, frowning. “How did my people miss you?”

  Asher shrugged. “It wasn’t like a high-powered spell or anything, just a quick reanimation to give the dead his voice back. Maybe they didn’t notice because it was just a tiny blip. Or maybe everybody knows I’m a good boy and your Eyes just passed me over.”

  Gil and I snorted. Bastion glared. Asher placed his hands behind his head, smiling.

  “Very cool trick, kid,” Tabitha said, pursing her lips and nodding at Asher in approval. Asher blushed. “But to answer your question, those victims were hardly victims. They were bad people, out to take down the protections of the forest.”

  “So your fetishes,” Bastion said. “They killed those seven people. I don’t see how this absolves you of anything.”

  Tabitha’s smile dropped. She leaned across the table. “My fetishes don’t kill. They can’t. At worst, they can induce terror in those who bear ill intent in their hearts. That’s why your sixth man was screaming. Those people were in service of a darker power. If they took out the protections built by the Bridges witches over the decades, by our many fetishes, then the true bad gets to creep into Silveropolis. Truly evil and sinister forces can come out and play.”

  “But that doesn’t answer anything,” Asher said. “Why are these people dying, if it isn’t your doing?”

  Tabitha shook her head. “That I cannot say for certain. Is it a vengeful entity, punishing its servants because they failed to sabotage the forest’s defenses?”

  The legs of Bastion’s chair scraped across the floor as he rose from the table. “Say we believe you. Let’s say that some ominous dark power really is out there trying to take out your stick men. What happens then? What’s in it for them?”

  “You cut skin open, and what happens then?” Tabitha shrugged. “You pick at the scabs, and it’s the same thing. The blood flows freely, and the hurting begins. The point was to erode the forest’s protections.”

  “The blood moon,” I said. “Does that have anything to do with it? All the killings?”

  She steepled her fingers together, wrinkling her brow in thought. “I wouldn’t say that it’s entirely coincidental. It all depends on culture and tradition. You, werewolf.”

  Gil pointed at himself. “Me? You mean you knew?”

  Tabitha scoffed. “Please, like I couldn’t tell. What are your traditions?”

  He shook his head. “Not a damn thing. I guess some of us might use a blood moon as an excuse to get together and party, but that’s about it.”

  “And you, vampire. Do you hold the blood moon dear?”

  I scratched my scalp irritably, raking my fingers through my hair. “It was never a big deal, okay? A time for hunting and feeding.”

  “That’s what I mean,” Tabitha said. “A blood moon can bring different things, but here in Silveropolis, modern America? Just small town superstitions, stories for scaring kids. It means absolutely nothing. What, is someone out there really attempting to raise the dead? We’ve got the only qualified necromancer for miles around in this very room.”

  Asher looked down at the table, blushing again.

  Tabitha waved her hand, gesturing at a wall calendar that wasn’t there, checking for time. “When is that happening, anyway? Tomorrow night?”

  Gil was standing by the window, his fingers nudging the curtains open. “Uh, guys? We’ve got a problem.”
<
br />   Outside the moon burned angry and red, like an open wound in the night sky.

  27

  Tendrils of smoke rose into the night sky. I watched as the wisps blew across the moon, blood red and dripping.

  Asher snapped at me. “Is this really any time to be smoking, Sterling?”

  Tabitha shrugged. “Works for me.”

  “I already like you,” I said, blowing out another plume. “But Asher, give me a fucking break. I’m stressed. We’re all stressed. This shit isn’t supposed to be happening right now, yet here we are.”

  Bastion had rushed us all outside the Twilight Tavern, Tabitha Bridges included. Speaking as a Scion for the Lorica, he must have bought her story about protecting the woods. It did make sense – at least most of it. There was still the question of who was eating the faces of the victims, and why.

  “Something is happening right now, somewhere in these hills,” Gil growled. “And I fucking detest that we don’t have a single idea where to look.”

  Tabitha lifted her face to the sky, her skin bathed crimson in the moonlight. “Clever, whoever did this. Lowering your sense of security by planting all this talk of waiting for the blood moon, and then rushing it all at once. What kind of dark power could force a total eclipse like this?”

  “I hate this,” Bastion said, turning in a circle. Townspeople were oohing and aahing at the moon, phones held out, clicking to take blurry pictures that they would doubtless never look at again. “I was expecting bats flying across the moon, howling from the woods. This doesn’t make sense at all.” He touched two fingers to his temple, like he was activating a headset that the rest of us couldn’t see. “Team, are you people seeing this? Is anyone picking up anything at all?”

  “Uriah Everett’s journal,” Asher said absently. “There has to be something in it about all this. We have to go back to the cabin and find it.” He turned away from us, heading to the car.

  “Whoa, wait for us,” I said, following at his heels, wondering why he looked so dazed.

  “That’s as good a lead as any,” Bastion said. “Fuck the car. I’ll take you to the cabin.”

  Tabitha laid a hand on Bastion’s arm. “Take me, too. I have to go back to the woods. Something is stirring. I can feel it in my bones. The Bridges women have a duty to these forests, and I’m not going to be the one descendant to royally fuck everything up.”

  Bastion nodded. “Gather around me, in a circle. Over here, in the shade.”

  It didn’t matter that the normals had their heads in the clouds. Protocol was protocol, and Bastion would be nothing if he didn’t uphold the Lorica’s precepts. We followed, huddling in the shadow of a tree just beside the Twilight Tavern. Bastion placed his hand in the middle of the circle, nodding. We each grasped a spot on his arm, a piece of his clothing. The spells differed, but close contact was almost universally necessary for successful transportation magic.

  Bastion muttered something under his breath, the loose circle formed by the ring of our feet shimmering with pale white light. It crept up our bodies in a slow wave, bits of us disappearing as it passed. I held my breath, trying not to panic. My shoes, then my shins, then my entire bottom half vanished as the spell took me.

  Teleportation magic had never been my favorite thing, but I defy you to find a more convenient way to get from point A to point B. Of course, that’s if you ignored the fact that an amateur spellcaster could get himself lodged into the heart of a mountain if he got his coordinates wrong. But Bastion was far from an amateur. He wouldn’t be a Scion if he wasn’t versed in several disciplines of magic.

  But I still clenched my jaw, and my butthole, silently hoping for every piece of me to reappear in the same place and condition at our destination.

  Within a second the murmur and chatter of the normals in the plaza outside the Twilight Tavern had also disappeared, replaced by the hooting of an owl, the rush of a cool breeze through the trees. I opened my eyes, and there we were, standing in the driveway leading up to the Everett House.

  Everything was still red, though. The mundane, unchanged normalcy of the world around us was really starting to get to me. The earth wasn’t trembling. The night birds were unbothered, no flocks of them darkening the sky as they flew away from the trees in murmurations of panic. Had someone gotten everything wrong somehow? Was it even possible for a blood moon to appear prematurely? And then Tabitha spoke.

  “It’s close,” she said, gasping, one hand over her chest. “Oh. Oh no. It’s too close.” Her eyes were huge in horror, looking at something only she could see. Her gaze shifted from the ground to the door of the Everett House itself.

  Where Asher was already rushing. Somewhere in the chaos of teleportation, he’d managed to slip the keys out of Gil’s pocket.

  “Asher,” I shouted. “Wait.”

  I’d never seen him move so fast, his skin lined with sweat as he ran with desperation, and longing. He unlocked and threw the door open in no time at all. I sprinted past the others, reaching the threshold just as Asher reached the journal, still sitting by his laptop on the coffee table. He picked it up with trembling hands, opening the covers, turning the pages.

  “What’s gotten into you?” I grabbed him by the shoulders. “Tabitha says something’s off. We can’t stay here.”

  His eyes searched the pages frantically, looking for something neither of us could name. He glanced up at me, eyes goggling, his lips parting just as he was about to answer me.

  Something clicked.

  Asher screamed. Blood spurted from his hands, spilling in droplets on the table, the floor, in warm flecks against my face. The metal bindings and clasps on the journal’s cover extended like blades, shredding his skin to ribbons.

  Uriah Everett’s journal fell to the ground, its pages wet with blood. Asher’s eyes rolled up into the back of his head. I grabbed him by the waist, helping him onto the couch, settling him slowly down.

  “Asher?” I whispered, my chest clenching. “Are you okay? Jesus, you lost a lot of blood.”

  Gil burst into the living room, his mouth falling open as he spotted Asher, the book, the blood. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, my eyes still trained on Asher’s face. “The journal was trapped. It cut his fingers open.”

  My hand shook as I took one of Asher’s into mine, his skin gleaming with a sheen of his own blood. Yet somehow, all his necromancer blood, it wasn’t a temptation in the moment. I wasn’t hungry. Hard to be hungry when you’re furious.

  Tabitha stumbled into the room, her eyes wide, Bastion trailing after her. “You kept me out of the woods too long,” she said. “It’s too late now. Something’s coming.”

  “Whatever comes, I’ll kill it,” I snarled. “Even if it means tearing it apart with my bare hands.”

  Asher mumbled incoherently, his fingers curling against mine. A glimmer of hope lit up in my chest.

  “Asher?” I whispered, stroking a hand against his brow. His skin and his sweat were so cold. “Asher, can you hear me?”

  “Fine,” he muttered. “I’m fine. The book called me, took over. I’m okay now.”

  Times like these I wish I had even a smattering of talent when it came to blood magic. Never mind turning into bats or wolves or mist. Things would be better if I could put Asher’s blood back inside him, stitch him back together. He’d heal up soon enough, use his necromancy to speed up the process, but what if his injuries were more grievous in the future? What if something worse happened?

  And then it did happen.

  The ground shook beneath us, the walls, the furniture, the shelves trembling in time. I’d lived in California for so long that the regular earthquakes meant very little anymore. But this was different. It wasn’t the earth moving.

  “The house,” Gil shouted. “It’s going to come down around us.”

  I scooped Asher up into my arms, making a mad dash for the front door as the vibrations shook harder. The others piled out into the driveway. The world outside wa
s perfectly fine, the ground even, the trees still, only their leaves moving in a gentle breeze.

  “Something’s coming,” Tabitha said, breathing heavily as she watched the doorway.

  In my arms, Asher muttered something that sounded like “You.”

  “What was that, buddy?” I lifted him carefully, so I could hear him better. “You?”

  His eyes flew open, the sockets filled with sickly green light as they swiveled towards the front door.

  “Uriah Everett.”

  28

  The floorboards in the living room exploded, sending up a geyser of splinters and dust and stone. We’d gotten out just in time, but that didn’t mean we were going anywhere. We were going to make this asshole pay for injuring Asher – and probably also for renovations. Time would tell.

  A globe of bluish light rose from the crater in the living room, stretching into five points, assuming the faint shape of a humanoid: head, arms, legs. The light flickered, and within seconds the ghost of Uriah Everett was standing before us in all his ancient, horrible glory. White hair fell in wisps past his ears and his beard, his leering grin exposing rows of wicked teeth. He looked like a historical re-enactor, and not even a great one, or maybe that was just my hostility coloring my judgment.

  I backed up a few paces, slowly settling Asher down on the grass. Tabitha went to his side, placing a hand on his chest. He nodded at her, giving a weak smile. He was going to be okay. Somehow I knew it, or maybe I just wanted to believe it so badly.

  “How wonderful it is to be among the living once more,” breathed the shade of Uriah Everett. His voice was a rough, rasping whisper, only too loud, and almost painful to listen to. The founder of Silveropolis had been hailed as a wonderful man, a great boon to society. This apparition reflected nothing of the pretty words written in Uriah’s journal, or on his gravestone.

  Everything about him dripped with malice, an aura of taint lingering in the air. He bent low to the ground, groping among scattered planks and splinters, sighing with satisfaction when he found his bloodied journal. Uriah riffled through the pages, not seeming to look for anything specific, but cackling as he browsed nonetheless.