Black Moon Rising

by Ann Simas

  “But what, Sunny?” her father asked.

  “I had a recurring dream the week before Zach died. I had no idea…oh, my God! Maybe I could have warned him! He might still be alive today.”

  Libby reached over and put an arm over her shoulders. “Stop right there! Those were dreams. What you’re having now are wide-awake visions. That’s not the same thing at all.”

  “It’s all precognition,” Sunny argued. “Maybe Zach’s parents were right to blame me for his death, after all.”

  “Zach’s parents are lunatics,” Libby said. “They’re not right about anything.”

  Harry said, “Your sister’s correct, Sunny. The Fyfes are lunatics. You need to get the notion that you could have saved Zach out of your head.”

  The rational part of her brain knew they were right, but when doubt reared its ugly head, it was difficult not to wonder what if.

  Her head jerked left, seeking out her two-year-old daughter, who was staring off toward the back fence.

  Sunny couldn’t help but wonder if Maisie was daydreaming or if there was something there, something no on else could see.

  One by one, Libby and her parents followed the direction of her gaze.

  Please God, let my daughter be free of this…whatever it is.

  Once Carson and Maisie were tucked into bed and asleep, which happened quickly because they’d had a weekend jam-packed with activity, Sunny, Libby, and Angie met in the kitchen to review and discuss all the information Sunny had gathered.

  At the end of the evening, the three were unanimous.

  No cancellation would be issued for the Monday night gathering.

  . . .

  All day Monday, Sunny regretted that she’d called together the confab, but broadening the discussion regarding her visions, and what she’d learned from them, seemed imperative at this point. Especially since she was now certain she knew who wanted to take her children.

  Her anxiety grew with the first knock on the door. Everyone, except maybe Darren, knew about her new ability, if that was even the proper term to describe seeing variations of a future event. She considered defining it as a talent, as her sister had, but that didn’t make it sound any better. The thing was, no one else knew about Libby’s ability, or how the “gift” of precognition had been passed down to them. After tonight, they would.

  Sunny escorted everyone to the kitchen as they arrived. Her parents. Luca and Trey. Darren. Libby and Angie were already there. Her sister had made a batch of brownies earlier. Coffee had been brewed, because that’s all her parents drank, and served alongside pitchers of iced tea and lemonade.

  Sunny didn’t force goodies on anyone, but let them know they were free to help themselves whenever they felt like it. She closed the door between the kitchen and living area and flipped on the baby monitor, a device she hadn’t used for over six months, so she could hear the kids if they needed her.

  She took her seat at the table and perused the somber expressions trained on her. Her parents looked especially worried, but then who wants to know that one daughter has visions of bad things to come and the other hears things in her head that no one else can hear? Come to that, perhaps their worry wasn’t worry at all, but guilt.

  Sunny would have liked to have some magic words at her disposal to ease their concerns, but none occurred to her. Either way, her parents were probably wondering what kind of bomb shell she planned to drop on them next.

  Darren and Angie sat across from her parents, their expressions less serious and more expectant. Sunny got her first inkling that Luca may have already filled in Sentinel’s head of personal security about the visions.

  Libby sat at the other end of the table, her brow creased in a worried frown, and no wonder. Tonight, she’d break the news to a man she was interested in having a permanent relationship with, that she, too, had some kind of precognitive ability and that it had been going on a lot longer than Sunny’s.

  Finally, Sunny’s gaze landed on Trey, then bounced to Luca, where it lingered for several heated moments. She could only imagine what was going on in that brain of his, but if his thoughts were anything like hers, they’d both rather be in the bedroom making love than in the kitchen, having this discussion.

  Snap out of it! she chastised herself in silence. Business before pleasure.

  She blinked and re-evaluated the two detectives. Luca and Trey both had on their cop faces. Solemn, and other than that, unreadable. Leave it at that. It might make what she had to say easier.

  “Thank you all for coming,” she began, as if she were leading a prayer meeting or moderating a conference for ESP fanatics. “I believe everyone here now knows about my visions the week before Luca’s sister was hit on her bicycle.”

  A roomful of nods confirmed the statement, but Darren said, “I’d like to hear the story from you, Sunny.”

  “Me, too, even though I’ve heard some of it before,” Trey said, earning a scowl from Luca.

  “All right.” Wringing her hands in her lap as she spoke, she painstakingly detailed the visions she’d had in New York. She deliberately made eye contact with each person in the room as she spoke. Each time she related the events, it became easier to encapsulate them, which she considered a blessing.

  Darren, his brows formed into a V, was the first to speak when she’d finished. “Have you ever experienced anything like that before…or since?”

  Sunny shot a quick glance at Luca, then looked back at Darren. “Not before.” Taking in a deep breath to help fortify her next words, she continued. “Since then, I’ve had four additional visions unrelated to Della’s incident. One I had in the hospital, one while I was at the Amorosi’s, and two since I’ve been back home. Like the visions I had of Della’s hit-and-run, they are all variations of the same initial event.”

  Darren leaned forward, planting his elbows on the table. Out of her peripheral vision, she noticed Luca and Trey lean forward on the barstools they occupied at the island. Her parents didn’t move except to gravitate toward each other.

  Sunny glanced at Libby, who gave her a nod of encouragement, then at Angie, who did the same.

  When she hesitated, Darren said, “Please expound.”

  “The vision at the hospital involved Carson and Maisie and my parents. The kids were playing on the swing set in the back yard and Mom and Dad were watching them. Two people, dressed all in black, crept up and injected my parents with something, then one of them grabbed Carson when he came down the slide and landed in the grass and the other one took Maisie from the slide steps. The second vision was almost the same, except that Maisie was grabbed first as she slid down the slide and Carson was grabbed from the steps.”

  She reached for the water bottle in front of her and took a long swallow. “In the third vision, my parents were both….” Sunny felt her lungs begin to seize. God, could she say this out loud, in front of her folks? She should have told them everything the day before, to give them time for the shock to wear off.

  Her mother reached over and grasped her hand, squeezing it. “Deep breaths, Sunny. In and out. Don’t worry about what you’re saying or how it will affect us. Just say it.”

  Sunny worked to get her breathing leveled out. “In the third vision, I knew that Mom and Dad were killed by whatever had been injected into them. In the fourth vision, one person shot Mom and Dad both in the back of the head, while two other people grabbed Carson and Maisie.”

  “Do you need to take a break?” Luca asked, sounding concerned as he slid off his barstool.

  “Maybe she should,” Harry said, exchanging a worried look with his wife.

  Sunny had used her nebulizer just before everyone arrived and Libby had gone out earlier in the week to pick up the rescue inhaler the doctor had prescribed for her. She put up her hand to ward off further comments, and withdrew the inhaler from her pocket, taking two consecutive puffs. Within seconds, her breathing became less labored.

  “I need to get this out,” Sunny said. “I’ve had four
visions over the past five weeks. Since the incident with Della and these with the kids are my first experience with visions, I don’t how to calculate how many more of my children being abducted are still to come. If I base number and frequency on Della’s hit-and-run, I’d render a guess and say I have one more vision in my future and the kidnapping will occur sometime within the next week or so.”

  Agitated, she heaved a sigh that was part desperation, part frustration. “Of course, this is all speculation because I have no idea in hell if the first five visions set the precedent for future visions. Add to that, the kids aren’t being allowed to go to my folks’ house right now, so I’m at a complete loss about why the visions keep portraying the kidnappings there.”

  She reached again for her water bottle and took another long swallow. “Unlike in the Della visions, in the third vision, I also saw a facial profile.” She locked eyes with Luca. “One of the men who grabbed my children looked like Zach. Initially, I thought either my imagination was running rampant, or Zach is still alive and wants to steal his children.”

  Luca moved closer, fully in cop mode. “Didn’t the Navy make formal notification of Zach’s death to you? Did you not see him in his casket? Didn’t you get official paperwork concerning his death, and don’t you receive death benefits?”

  “Zach’s body was badly injured and the casket was closed, so no, I didn’t see his body. It’s true the Navy made the notification in person. They left paperwork with me, which I’ve since reread, and yes, I do get survivor benefits.” She hung her head for a moment to compose herself before she continued. “Just to be certain, I contacted Zach’s commander and asked him point-blank if it was possible Zach had not died. He assured me there wasn’t a chance in hell.” She swallowed hard. “I also inquired if it was possible that Zach had been killed by non-combatants and again, he assured me it wasn’t possible.”

  Luca pressed on. “You think someone put a contract out on Zach?”

  “I considered the possibility, but after talking to Zach’s commander, I’m convinced otherwise. However, the person in my vision looked like Zach, and the only other person I can I think of who fits Zach’s general description is his brother. It has to be Zeb who plans to take Carson and Maisie.”

  Luca withdrew a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. He laid it on the table in front of her.

  Sunny leaned forward and examined the enlarged Colorado driver’s license for Zebedee Cain Fyfe. The resemblance to her dead husband was uncanny. She looked up at Luca and nodded. “To add to all this, in the fourth vision, the man holding gun also seemed familiar, but I’m not quite sure why. He was larger than the whoever injected my parents in the earlier visions, and I really only saw him from the back.”

  “No idea at all?” Luca pressed.

  “None. All I can do is keep thinking on it…or wait for the next vision.”

  After a shocked silence, the room began to buzz with chatter. Only after a strident, “Quiet!” from Luca did the gathering grow quiet. “So if it is Zach’s brother, why does he want your kids?” Luca asked, continuing his interrogation.

  His rapid-fire questions, which were not unexpected, came across more as accusations, which disturbed Sunny more than she imagined they would. She tuned out the inquisition, concentrating instead on drawing each breath as her lungs again began to close up. She cursed the asthma that had chosen this time in her life to reassert itself. “I need…to go use…the neb,” she managed to get out. “I’ll be…back….” She bolted from the room, expecting Luca to yell after her, but he didn’t.

  In fact, no one said a word.

  . . .

  Luca’s eyes went immediately to Libby. “What do you have to say about all this?”

  “Not a damned thing until Sunny gets back. She needs to tell this in her own way.”

  Luca stormed out of the room, eating up the distance to Sunny’s room.

  She was already breathing in the nebulizer solution when he got there.

  “Is it working?” he asked, his voice laced with concern. He didn’t like to see her suffer, even when he was half-pissed at her, but he realized right away that his question was ridiculous. Not only had the pulmonary specialist at the hospital told him the breathing treatment wasn’t an instant fix, but Sunny couldn’t speak with the nebulizer in her mouth. As if to verify his observation, she lifted her shoulders in a shrug.

  Why couldn’t she have told him about the latest vision the other night when they’d been out under the stars, sort of having sex?

  The horny bastard in him immediately forgot about the vision and his anger and focused instead on the lips secured around the mouthpiece, remembering how they’d felt for one brief moment on him.

  Sunny waved her hands to get his attention, effectively bringing his thoughts back to the present.

  “Do you want something?” he asked.

  She nodded and made a shooing motion with her hands.

  He could see that it embarrassed her to have him see her taking a medical treatment. Tough. “Here’s the thing, Sunshine. I take you as you are, warts and all, just like you’re supposed to take me as I am, warts and all.”

  She made a choking sound, which he took to be a giggle.

  “Okay?”

  She nodded and extended her hand to him.

  He moved over to take it and dropped to his knees beside her. “I’ll do whatever I can to make this easier for you, babe. All you have to do is tell me how.”

  She stared at him, some deep emotion churning in her eyes.

  “Do you understand what I’m saying?” he asked softly.

  She lifted her hand and removed the cup from her mouth. Vapor from the little plastic cup spilled out in a small cloud from both ends of the mouthpiece. She put her free hand to his face and said, “I don’t know how this happened, Luca, but I am deeply in like with you.”

  She returned the neb cup to her mouth and closed her lips around it.

  Luca was surprised to hear himself say, “I’m deeply in like with you, too, Sunshine.”

  He was even more surprised when he realized that he meant it.

  . . .

  Sunny had to take two nebulizer treatments before she felt comfortable enough to think about continuing her discussion with the others.

  Afterward, she rinsed her mouth, and after that, she spent several minutes kissing and being kissed by Luca.

  No words passed between them. Their brief exchange of passion and love needed no verbal explanations.

  They returned to the kitchen hand-in-hand, which earned them some speculative glances from more than one person in the room.

  Libby jumped up and gave her a hug, whispering in her ear, “You’re doing great. Just take it slow and tell it your way.” She got Sunny a fresh water and claimed the barstool next to Trey.

  Darren moved to the other end of the table so Luca could sit closer to Sunny.

  Sunny thanked them both with a smile and took a long drink before she began. “I’ve never met Zach’s brother Zeb, but Zach used to carry a picture of him. They were just a little over a year apart in age, and from what I remember, they looked enough alike to be twins.” She sighed. “I’m sorry, let me give you a little more Fyfe family history so you’ll understand why Zeb enters into this.” She chewed her bottom lip for a moment, then said, “Zach’s parents were involved in founding a cult called Vale Luna.”

  “A cult?” Bebe managed with a choked voice. “You never mentioned that before.”

  “I know, Mom, and I’m sorry. I just thought you and Dad might worry unnecessarily if you knew about it.”

  Her parents exchanged a look, as they often did, communicating without speaking.

  Sunny rushed on, not because she expected any chastisement to come her way, but to delay questions for the moment. “Miriam and Ezekiel were somewhat over-zealous about Armageddon. When Zach was ten, they met this wacko named Preacher Bill, who shared their fanaticism. Initially, he preached from the ‘bully pulpit,’
as Zach called it, and later, he created World’s End, a relatively small group, which was strictly an Armageddon-based cult, based on God personally ending the world.”

  Sunny’s gaze roamed the group, landing last on Luca before she continued. “Bill was new to the cult scene and his organization apparently lacked structure and organization. It disbanded when he was arrested for blackmail. Not being the brightest bulb on the tree, his extortion campaign consisted of having sex with a member who happened to be the daughter of a wealthy Hollywood icon. Once he learned the icon’s secrets, he tried to blackmail him, but the icon called the cops, and Bill ended up behind bars.”

  She reached for the water bottle and took another drink. “While Bill was in prison, Zach’s parents switched gears. Somehow, they became fixated on the end of the world coming in February twenty-eighteen. By the time Zach turned fifteen, Preacher Bill was released, and as Zach put it, ‘the sparks of lunacy went ballistic.’ Zach got himself emancipated at sixteen and went to live with his grandmother, who he said was sane, until he graduated. When he was eighteen, he joined the Navy and focused on getting himself into the SEALs program.”

  Luca being Luca, latched on to her comment about the date. “What’s so special about February twenty-eighteen?”

  Chapter 26

  . . .

  Sunny glanced at her sister, who gave a small nod, then looked back at Luca. “I have a box of letters that Zach wrote to me while he was deployed. I’ve recently reread them all several times. Among them were three that mentioned his parents and their cult, Vale Luna, in detail. There were other mentions of Vale Luna in some of the other letters, as well, but not to the same extent.”

  “Vale Luna. That’s Latin, right? What does it mean?” Trey asked.

  “I looked it up, because it’s been a while since I had Latin. It means ‘farewell the moon.’”

  “I’m getting a bad feeling about his,” Darren said. “Without the moon, arriverderci Earth.”

  Again, Sunny nodded. “Before I explain the rest, you need to know something else. I was kind of having a mini pity party over the visions, and, well…”