Guardian of the Moon Pendant

by Laura J Williams

  I took another long drag on my ciggy and shifted my gaze up the hillside.

  My eyes drifted toward the MääGord standing stones, illuminating in a purple sheath like a magnetic Mad Max Thunder dome.

  What the hell is that?

  Curious, I staggered up the hill, stepping over a low lying iron fence, my feet wobbling along the rocky terrain because my stupid sling was throwing me off balance. I pinched my fingers into the fabric, ripping it off in one swift yank, tossing it down to the ground, and then continuing my hike up into the MääGord standing stones.

  I could see a pale lunar shape suspended within one of the stone pillars, floating all by itself, one for each monolith. My head craned back observing the soft bodies trapped in each stone, their ethereal bodies draped in long sheer robes and frozen in time.

  “And I thought I had a rough day,” I said sarcastically, taking a long drag on my cigarette, my lips pursing and puffing out white clouds into the damp air, its smoke wafting up into the creature’s face.

  Unexpectedly, its eyes popped open, knocking me back a few feet into the center of the stone circle, its moon-like eyes glowing with soft hues of blue and silver, crystal clear and fixing them straight behind me to a massive slab of stone.

  The wind began to wail, carrying a soft murmur in the breeze from the stone faeries: Open the portal.

  Chucking my cigarette to the side, I inspected the cold monolith lying horizontal in the center of the stone circle. Deep into its stone surface was carved an epitaph, with strange symbols of a language I did not know, encircled by a massive double-winged dragon, just like the one on the Dragon Scroll.

  I clenched my left torso, doubling over in pain. The whispers grew louder on the rolling wind; Open the portal, they murmured, open the portal, Dragon Spell. Their voices soon changed into a shrilling sound, piercing my ears, forcing me to clamp my hands over them. Instinctively, I ran away into the night.

  Breathing heavily, I finally stopped in a clearing, surrounded by lush trees, ranged across a rocky hillside.

  Soon a different voice softly began to whisper in my head. This one was soft and sweet, lulling me into an intoxicating stupor. It called to me, urging me to come to her, leading me blindly toward a dark, hollow cavity carved into a mossy mound of earth.

  I didn’t know where it was coming from, but I knew the direction I should head in. Bewitched, I wandered aimlessly toward the opening, aching to see the voice that was calling me.

  Appearing out of nowhere, a large hand shot out, clamping onto my forearm, wrenching me down to the ground behind a moss covered boulder.

  “Is it a death wish you have, lass?” said a scruffy haired Scotsman. He glanced down at my black gloves, laced up to cover the scars on my wrists. “Aye, I see that you do. Surely entering through the front door of the demon’s cave will remedy that.”

  “Demon?” I mumbled to myself, still in a daze, her voice coaxing me in closer to see her. I rose to my feet, desiring to find her, only to have the Scotsman jerk me back down again.

  “She’s in your head, lass,” he said, tapping his index finger to his temple, and then holding out a blue flower before me. “Here!”

  “What is it?” I said crooking an eyebrow at him.

  “It’s a Scottish bluebell,” he stated flatly, pushing the violet bell shaped flower toward me.

  I pursed my lips to the side and grinned cockily at him. “Do you really think it’s a good time to romance a stranger?”

  “Smell it!” he ordered, rattling the flower in his hand.

  I obeyed, taking the bluebell from his hands and sniffed at its petals, the scent delicate with a sweet fragrance, clearing my head of the woman’s voice.

  “Better?” he asked.

  I blinked a few times, clearing my foggy head. “Yeah.”

  “Good,” he said, his eyes sweeping over me, checking me out.

  My cheeks flushed as I looked away.

  “Don’t flatter yerself, lass,” he said mockingly. “I just wanted to see if you had any weapons on you.”

  My lips flattened. Well, now I feel like a dope.

  He leaned in, his eyes fixing on mine. “Good thing the bluebells worked, lass. Or I would’ve had to smack you around a bit.” He laughed.

  Great, I sighed to myself another crazy man has entered my life. I must have some sort of curse looming over my head. All of life’s rejects, please see Izzy MacAlpin.

  The Scotsman snatched my wrist back, twisting it around, studying the leather sheath covering my wound. “Do you always hide yer past?” he asked gruffly.

  “No,” I said with a deprecating laugh, snapping my arm back. “I usually run.”

  His face lit up, his grimace morphing into a dimply smile, “at least you’re honest.”

  The aroma of the flower tantalized my soul, raising my spirits. “You’re a real Casanova,” I said smiling coyly.

  The Scotsman chortled and then tensed up quickly, hearing a rustling of leaves in the bushes. We both whipped our heads to the right, watching a strange man emerge from the edge of the forest, his hands hoisting up his trousers and fiddling with his zipper.

  Frightened, my arm hooked around the Scotsman, pulling him close. He smelled of soap, whiskey and sweaty skin. I sighed. I always seemed to be attracted to the bad boys.

  “Where have you been?” asked the Scotsman to the strange man.

  “Ah’ve been taking a piss,” said the stranger, wiggling his leg and crouching down beside us. His was definitely the scent of beer, whiskey and piss.

  “You’re a real wanker,” laughed the Scotsman, slapping the man on the back. Quickly, he turned to me, his thumb gesturing to the stranger. “I’m Fergus, this here is, John.”

  “Izzy.”

  “Glad to meet you, Izzy,” said Fergus with a nod.

  I stared into his eyes filled with speckles of gold. My heart thundered inside my chest. Stop it, Izzy. There’s a reason why they call them bad boys, and it’s all about the first word: They’re bad!

  Fergus hoisted up a long telescope, placing it firmly into the palms of my hands, sleek and long, tapered with brass ringlets.

  “Have a look, Izzy,” Fergus said pointing toward the cave’s opening.

  “Why?”

  “Are you ready to face the demon, Izzy?”

  I nodded apprehensively, my fingers wrapping around the telescope, raising it to my eye-socket and peering through its eyepiece, its lens magnifying the entrance to the cave. It was dark and something was writhing and slithering in its gloom.

  “Be safe, Izzy,” remarked Fergus as I lowered the telescope. He grasped onto my wrist, looking me straight in the eyes. “Run home!” Fergus punched John, still fiddling with his trousers, in the shoulder. “Stop mucking about, John! Let’s go!”

  The two Scotsmen darted out into the inky night, zig-zagging through the high grass, and then tucking behind a thorny bush.

  I slumped down beside the rock, leaning the telescope against it, and then frantically unlaced my glove, exposing the scar which I had tried to hide for the last three years. Its slim line carved into my wrist, a haunting memory that will never go away. I was still ashamed at what I had done in a moment of tremendous rage, hate, and pain. I allowed my demons to burn wildly inside my soul and then I finally succumbed to them. I would have done anything to get rid of the pain, to finally be free of those demons.

  I played with the bluebell for a moment, twirling it gently between my fingers, a breeze rustling through its petals, soft and tender. A sudden spark of energy electrified my heart. I felt awakened and determined to know more. I wedged the flower underneath my bra, above my heart and sprang to my feet. How can I let the first guy who gave me a flower, without asking for them, run away?

  I leapt over a few rocks in one stride, my platform boots hustling through a carpet of bluebells, swiftly landing behind Fergus and John. My eyes scanned the area, we were on the precipice of a deep hole, carved under a rustling oak, its roots snarled over the
passageway.

  “I see you don’t fear the demon,” remarked Fergus, lifting a shiny ebony chain off his neck, his hands reaching out with his trinket, looping it over my head and resting it around my neck. “Here,” he said thoughtfully, “the Baobhan Sith fears iron.”

  “You mean, Lainahwyn,” I reminded him.

  “Demons should not have first names, Izzy. It gives them too much power.”

  “What about you and John? Shouldn’t you have something with iron?”

  “I have me good looks, and John here,” he said with a chuckle, patting his hand on John’s back, “John here, is screwed! Come on, then.”

  The three of us slid through the meager hole, tumbling down into the dark cave, landing on a damp floor. I heard a few moans in the distance, lamenting in a low grumble. I didn’t know if it was John or Fergus, or if it was from someone or something else. I chose to ignore it, hoping it would go away.

  Fergus flicked on his flashlight, beaming its light around the cavern, exposing dangling roots from the ceiling, a handful of scurrying beetles, and a string of decomposing skeletons chained to the wall.

  I gasped. I was surrounded by death.

  Fergus lifted up the skull of one of the cadavers, its eyes and nose missing, a collection of sparse grey hairs straggling over its hollow face, its flesh now just dried up ash barely coating its bones.

  “How long?” asked John.

  “Decades, I’d say,” said Fergus, tugging at its clothing, brown tattered trousers and a plaid jacket, he slid his hand into the man’s inside pocket, retrieving a tan wallet, flipping it open. “Murdock Campbell, date of birth, 1924.”

  “Nothing we can do for him now.”

  Fergus closed his eyes tightly, his lips moving silently as if he was saying a prayer for the dead man. He took a quick sharp breath in and then reopened his eyes, stuffing the wallet back into the corpse’s body. “Let’s find, Dad,” he said, and then rushed down the pitch-black passageway, his flashlight shooting beams of light against the cave’s damp walls, its light bouncing off the army of corpses.

  My heart raced furiously as we continued through the labyrinth, running with the curve of the wall filled with prickly skeletons, their bony fingers poking out, scratching at our clothing, wanting us to save them, or trying to kill us for not saving them.

  A foul stench of flesh scented the clammy air, tickling my nose, causing my stomach to do a couple of flip-flops. When the light in the cave began to shift, Fergus turned off his flashlight, allowing us to see without it.

  Fergus stopped, abruptly, his fingers pinching the chin of a deceased man, his face wrinkled and pale, his eyeballs bulging, glazed over white like the moon. I noticed markings beneath his leather jacket on his withered arm, deep and black, two indentions centered on his forearm.

  “She’s sucked ‘em bone dry,” stated Fergus, examining his jeans. “Recently, too.”

  “She?” I asked, studying the corpse’s long leather jacket and thinking that would look really cool on.

  “Your demon, Lainahwyn,” whispered Fergus, pivoting and walking away.

  My eyes darted to the long leather jacket with a thick pointed collar. I know it was pretty gross and morbid and all that yucky stuff, but I slid my fingers over its creamy leather and melted inside. I just couldn’t help myself. Slowly, I glided it off the stiff, slipping it past the chains, cracking and popping a few bones before I pulled it completely off with a final yank. I shook it out, a few puffs of dust sprayed out along with the corpse’s left arm, flopping down onto the ground. I scooped it up casually, stuffing it back into his shoulder socket crookedly, and then slipped on my hot new digs.

  I raced down the tunnel to meet Fergus. His eyes swept over me, pinning his lips together into a half grin, and shaking his head. I guess he didn’t approve of my new super hot and sexy leather jacket.

  “What?” I shrugged, “it’s not like he’s going to use it anymore.”

  John was further along the dark passageway, whispering softly to us, “Fergus,” waving his hand for us to come to him.

  We crept over to John, stealthily, steady on our feet, crawling out onto a high ledge, hidden above the gloom of the cave. We peered down into a large cavern filled with ashy zombie-like men, garbed in tattered tartans, moving about a throne room.

  In the center was a beast of a man, his neck thick like a sausage, his body ripping with muscles and tattooed to the hills, on his ugly bald head a scruffy mohawk.

  “Vyx,” I gasped.

  Fergus clamped his palm over her my mouth, pulling me swiftly out of sight.

  I was glad Fergus covered my mouth so quickly. He held back the deluge of vomit I was about to project when I saw that loser, Vyx. Fergus gently raised a finger to his lips, shushing me.

  I nodded.

  A sensuous voice lingered in the air, its tone caressing and kissing us with each harmonious inflection she made, seducing us to a point of elation.

  It was her. The demon.

  “Was your crossing productive?” she asked as all three of us peeked down into her lair.

  Two of her nails were shorter than the rest, sliced off from her right hand, the blunt tips covered in pools of dried blood. She held out her two broken nails, waving her left hand over it. Suddenly, a sparkling purple light appeared within her nails as they grew before our eyes, completely healing herself.

  “I had it in me hands,” said Vyx, irritated and squeezing his fingers into a balled fist.

  I gagged. I could still smell his bad breath from up here.

  Lainahwyn glided across the throne room, her emerald gown buoyant, swelling in the moist air, heading toward a newly captured man, bound to a single stalagmite, its pointy form shooting up from the cave’s floor, his head lolled sloppily to the side, appearing as if he were already dead.

  “These veins are still plump and ripe,” she purred, her nail poking at the hostage’s bulging veins. “Look at how they bounce back. Such a pity they’ll be dry soon.”

  The zombie-like warriors groaned in hunger, moaning, starving for the blood of the imprisoned man.

  “None for you!” Lainahwyn snapped at her zombie-warriors, her eyes flickered with rage and then gradually subsided back to normal as she began to lovingly stroke the man’s cheeks. “This one is for mommy.”

  “The wench caught onto me,” snarled Vyx as his face flashed cherry red.

  Lainahwyn whirled around on her heels, pensively crossing the room, her silvery hair cascading down her slender body, her cloven feet circling Vyx like prey, her nose whiffing the air for his aroma, her spiny fingers slowly angling his head back, revealing his rippled neck as she petted him with her talon-like nails up and down. “You’ve been gone too long, Vyx,” she hummed into his ears. “Nineteen years.”

  Vyx quivered at her touch. “I returned when the Portal had awakened.”

  “You did, didn’t you?” she purred, trailing her fingers down his bare chest, her nails scratching against his taut skin. “To fully open it, I must claim the Moon Pendant.” Lainahwyn’s nostrils fluttered, inhaling Vyx’s scent again. “Your blood smells so strong and robust.”

  Vyx choked back a few mouthfuls of air. “I was your favorite,” he said adoringly. “Remember?”

  “Yes, you were,” she said, releasing him, and began to promenade around the room. “The new Guardian, she’s a bit of a prissy girl.”

  “She’ll be an easy kill,” he growled, cracking his knuckles.

  “Too bad her mother ran away. I rather liked drinking her husband’s blood.”

  “I’m sure the new Guardian will taste fresh and light,” he said with a sneer on his lips. “The young ones always do.”

  “She’ll be at her weakest after each charge,” she said hopefully. “Then we’ll take a slice of her neck,” she hissed, flicking her nails out like switch blades, razor sharp to the touch.

  Vyx held out his forearm, showing two deep indentions in his skin. “It would be my pleasure,” he said reverently,
offering his blood.

  Lainahwyn’s eyes sparkled with pleasure. She reached two fingers out, each with a hollow blade at its tip, furrowing deep into his skin, draining his warm blood from his veins. When she finished, she licked the blood trickling from her nails, and cooed with delight.

  Fergus tugged on my shirt, alerting me it was time to go. We slipped back down into the tunnels, continuing our search for Fergus’s dad, sweeping through lines of rotting corpses, hoping we didn’t end up like one of them.

  “What were those men?” I asked Fergus curiously.

  “Màrmann,” he said to me, his eyes studying the faces of each man we passed by, searching for clues, all of them shriveled up like mummies. “They are the Baobhan Sith’s slaves. Men trapped in her snare of lust, injected by her poisonous venom, once infected they transform into a Màrmann, soulless men, damned to serve her. They thirst for blood as she does. The other men,” he said motioning to the wall of deceased, “become her and the Màrmann’s food supply. They keep for ninety days, but after three taps, they shrivel up like a raisin in the sun.”

  Abruptly, Fergus halted before a large man with a burly white beard. Fergus’s dad was roped to the man next to him, the foreigner appeared to have just died; his body lay limp, corroding as he hung from his shackled chains.

  Fergus prodded his dad’s eyelids open with his thumb, one by one, exposing a milky white coating over each eyeball. He stepped back, his palm lifted high into the air, and in a quick motion, his hand slapped down hard across his dad’s cheek, only to have his head flop down to the side like a rag doll.

  Fergus clasped onto his shirt, white-knuckled, shaking his father violently back and forth, but all he got was a low groan. He dug deep into his pocket, snatching out a fragrant bluebell, shoving it under his nose. “Breathe, Dad! Come on, breathe!” he said angrily.

  His dad let out a louder moan, groggily, his eyes cracked open, revealing his moonlike eyes.

  “You’re in a bit of a fankle, Dad,” stated Fergus, with a whimsical laugh, grappling with the tightly knotted rope.

  “Get out of here, it’s too late,” warned his father.