Witching Moon

by Yasmine Galenorn

  Elise jumped down after a bit and I cleaned out their cage, changing their bedding and filling their food and water bowls. After I finished and they were tired from running around, I returned them to the cage and gently locked the door. I leaned against the metal frame, staring at them.

  Thank you for sitting with us. Elise glanced at me. Remember, if I can help in any way…

  “I’ll remember. Thank you for caring.” I opened the window a crack to let some fresh air in, then washed my hands in the adjoining bathroom and headed to the kitchen where Kipa was making breakfast.

  Kipa had breakfast ready when I entered the dining room. French toast dusted with powdered sugar, scrambled eggs, bacon, lattes with thick heads of foam, and a platter of grapes and strawberries. I slid into my chair and forked thick slices of the bread onto my plate, spreading butter on them and then dousing them with syrup. I was the kind of woman who preferred some pancakes or waffles with my syrup, as opposed to some syrup on my pancakes or waffles. The bread was just a vehicle to support the toppings.

  Kipa had fed Raj, who was happily munching away in the corner. Raj glanced over his shoulder at me, spitting food all over the floor as he said “Good morning” before going back to breakfast.

  “You didn’t give him cat food, did you?”

  “I did not. Turns out if you mix a little maple syrup in the oatmeal, he loves it. Go figure.”

  Kipa was dressed in a light green V-neck sweater, the sleeves shoved up to his elbows, and a pair of black leather jeans. He had on a silver belt buckle in the shape of a wolf’s head, and his hair was pulled back into a ponytail. Gorgeous, with golden skin and a dolphin bite piercing in his lip, Kipa also had the darkest brown eyes I had ever seen. He was magnetically handsome, yet a playful, caring energy filled his aura.

  “Well, that’s good to know.” I set to my breakfast, wondering whether I should bring up our sex life—or lack of one. I didn’t want Kipa to think I’d gone cold on him. He probably understood, but given our discussion the night before, it made sense to open up all the way on the changes that had happened lately.

  “Hey, about our sex life…” I licked syrup off my finger and sat back, frowning.

  “You’re not feeling all too safe letting down your guard right now?” He gave me that look that told me he already knew what I was going to say.

  I nodded. “I just don’t want you to think that I’m not interested in you.”

  “Don’t worry. That part of our relationship will fall back into place once you process all this baggage Pandora dumped in your lap.” He finished off a slice of the French toast and added, “Just keep me up to date on where you’re at. I don’t want to push you, or rush you, so it’s on your timetable. I’ll be waiting when you’re ready again.” After a pause, he asked, “What are you going to do today?”

  I wiped my hands on my napkin. “I’m going to examine a building that I ran across last night. It’s abandoned, and I think it has a couple of trapped spirits in it.” I glanced across the table at him.

  Kipa slowly stretched, yawning. Then, in a casual way that was anything but casual, he asked, “Want me to go with you?”

  I shook my head. “No, that’s not necessary. Don’t you have a busy day ahead? I thought Ember said that today they’re going to be reconnoitering some space over on Bainbridge and they wanted you to go along.”

  “Nope. That’s not for another couple weeks, and yes, I do have to go. But today I’m free.” He paused, eyeing me carefully. “Are you sure you don’t want me to come along with you?”

  I thought about it for a moment. Having Kipa along would set me at ease, but I was tired of being afraid. I wanted to feel the way I used to—relentless, capable, sure of myself. And he would try to cushion the blows, which would make me less effective.

  “No, I think I want to do this myself. But if you’re up to it, Raj could use a real run in the park. We didn’t get very far yesterday, thanks to me.” I stared at Raj glumly, feeling guilty.

  “I can do that. But promise you’ll text me if anything happens? Even if nothing happens?” He leaned forward. “I can’t help worrying about you. I’ve never known anybody quite like you, Raven. And I know that I’ve got a bad track record, but now…you mean more to me than anybody I’ve known in…well…centuries.”

  I slowly reached across the table and took his hands. “You know who my last important relationship was with. I know from Ember that you and Herne’s ex…well…”

  “You mean Nya, his fiancée? I knew this would come up some time.” He ducked his head, looking embarrassed. “I admit, at the time I was an asshole and I’m not proud of what I did. At that time, I didn’t give a fuck about anybody else. Nya was pretty, and Herne was so full of himself. Ember doesn’t know how much of a fuckup he could be and I’m not going to tell her, but there were things he did that weren’t any better than the crap I pulled.”

  I laughed. “I believe you. I like Herne but with as long as he’s lived, there have got to be some situations he’s really screwed up. So, tell me…was Nya the woman you last fell for?”

  He leaned back in his chair. “No, actually. I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone, especially Herne. And I don’t want him knowing. The fact is, I wasn’t that interested in Nya until she came onto me. She’s the one who seduced me. Yes, I could have refused but I didn’t. But…I didn’t initiate the encounter. Nya was bored and I was a wild child.”

  “Then you weren’t out to take her away from Herne?”

  “Gods no,” he said. “She was a ditz.” He paused, then squeezed my hand. “No, the last woman I truly loved was from around three hundred and fifty years ago.”

  “Woman…she wasn’t a goddess?”

  He shook his head. “Actually, Venla was human. I lived with her from the day we met—she was about twenty—until the day she died, sixty-four years later. I took care of her. I loved her. I held her when she was dying, and I buried her. And before you ask, no, we didn’t have any children. She couldn’t have any. She had been beaten when she was young and the beating injured her uterus. Her stepfather beat her for refusing him, then cast her out from her family. I found her in the woods one day, when she was out hunting for dinner.” He closed his eyes. “Herne never knew about her. Nobody did. I just vanished for that time period, and after I left the home we had built together, I never told anyone about Venla. Not until now.”

  I stood, circling the table till I was standing beside him. “You gave your heart to her.”

  “Yes, I did. And she’s held it all these years. Until I met you.” He looked up at me, his dark eyes flashing. “I’ve slept with a lot of women since then, but none of them reminded me of Venla. And you don’t, either, not in the way that you might think. But she was a rebel, and strong-willed, and so are you. She never let me forget that I had been invited into her life, not the other way around. She made me a better man while I was with her. And Raven, you make me a better man now.”

  I pressed against him as he draped his arm around my hips. “Never be afraid to talk about her, please. I want you to remember her. I want you to not be afraid to still love her, like I will always love Ulstair. I know that the love you have for me isn’t any the lesser because she held your heart first.” I leaned down and kissed him.

  His expression crumpled, and a tear trickled down his cheek. “Thank you. I’ve never talked about Venla because I didn’t want to remember losing her. And if I had told Herne about her, well, at one time—not now, but back then—he would have laughed at me and called me a liar.”

  I pressed my lips against the tear gliding down his cheek, gently sucking the droplet between my lips. “You taste like the ocean,” I whispered.

  He pulled me onto his lap, his lips meeting mine in a hungry, desperate crush. I kissed him back, and I could feel his urgency build. I wanted him, and I knew he needed me. He needed to remind himself that he was still alive, even though Venla was gone. He needed reassurance and passion and all th
ose wonderful things that went into making up a relationship.

  “Take me into the bedroom,” I whispered.

  “Are you sure?”

  I kissed him again. “I’m sure.”

  So Kipa lifted me up and carried me into the bedroom, and I was able to let down my guard. He loved me, long and passionately, and yet as gentle as the morning breeze that drifted over us from the open window. And when I came, he kissed me again, and he kept kissing me as we lingered in the bed until Raj knocked on the door to ask for a snack.

  Chapter Six

  Kipa offered to do the grocery shopping while I headed out to check on the haunted building. I felt better than I had in quite a while, and my relationship didn’t feel like it was on such shaky ground.

  The drive over the bridge to Seattle went smoothly. It was late enough that rush-hour traffic had backed off, but not so late that the noon rush had begun. I pulled up Broadfen on the GPS and when I got there, had no problem finding a parking space on the cross street.

  The walk down the side street seemed less ominous during the daylight, and the fact that the sky was clear and the temperature was almost seventy-five degrees lent a surreal brilliance to everything. The streeps were out of their makeshift homes, out on the main streets panhandling for money, and there were no shoppers along the route. In fact, Broadfen itself was empty when I turned onto it. While I knew I could handle myself in most cases, some of the streeps could be pretty violent if they were jacked up on crackalaine. It was one of those drugs like PCP that increased strength as well as psychosis.

  The Broadfen brownstones were silent, though I had no doubt some of the streeps had found their way in to use them for cover from the weather. Squatters were common in the desolate areas of the city. I saw a few rats scrambling on the sidewalk and avoided them. While there weren’t any active shops along the street, if there were streeps squatting in the buildings, there would be refuse and debris. On the surface, Seattle didn’t seem to have a lot of vermin, but beneath the glamour of the Emerald City, the seedy neighborhoods and streeps and back-alley rodents were the constant underpinnings.

  I shaded my eyes, wishing I had brought my sunglasses. The sun was glinting down, splashing across one side of the buildings next to me. I crossed to the other side, welcoming the shadow. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the sun, but right now it made me feel too exposed.

  In fact, the juxtaposition almost confused me. Here we were, facing an invasion by the Father of Dragons and his spawn, facing an upsurge of ghosts and spirits and all the undead who walked in Typhon’s shadow, and yet the sun was shining so brightly that it felt like there could be no hidden agenda, no silent war being waged on the world.

  While I didn’t have many friends who were necromancers, I knew enough of them to know they were being run ragged. In fact, Lane, one of the few friends I had actually made on my ill-fated visit to the Spooks group, had called me a week ago to warn me that the graveyards were quickly becoming unsafe for humans. And seeing that she was a powerful necromancer, her warning came with a serious punch behind it.

  But I’m not going to a graveyard, and it’s not nighttime. I’m in the middle of the city, downtown, and it’s broad daylight.

  I came to the chain-link fence that Trinity and I had climbed over. The previous night I had scrambled over thanks to the debris pile, but it was shaky, so I glanced around, figuring how to best clear the fence. The pile of broken bricks and concrete contained enough pieces small enough for me to lift, so I managed to create a stairstep-type pile next to the fence. It wasn’t entirely steady, but since the fencing was only three feet high, all I needed was a step up so I could swing over without catching my skirts on it.

  As I dropped to the other side, I found myself back in the secret garden.

  During the day, the garden was a cacophony of color, brilliant and beautiful, and the heady scent of the flowers under the sun made my head swim. I slowly walked over to the bench and sat down, turning so that I could look at the building in which I had sensed the trapped spirit.

  What had all these buildings been when they were in use?

  Biting my lip, I stood up and trundled my way through the deep grass, brushing away spiders and bugs until I was standing at the fence again, facing the building to the right. It was a few hundred feet outside the chain link. A large sign on the front was faded, but I could still read it: UCHV—Building B, the same thing that was on the sign on the end of the building.

  The doors and windows were boarded over, but from where I stood it looked like it had once been an apartment building of some sort, but more utilitarian than the Broadfen brownstones. This looked more clinical.

  I frowned, glancing back across the garden. The building on the other side looked just as dilapidated, and it also looked empty. I squinted, trying to see if there was a sign over the door, and then finally caught sight of it. This one read UCHV—Building A.

  Okay, so these two buildings went together, and that must mean the one at the end of the garden belonged to whatever complex this had been. I followed the chain-link fence to the end, then turned left and followed it till I was standing in the middle of the garden, at an actual gate. The building directly in front of me had a slightly different look than buildings A and B, but it had the same feel and style to it. They had definitely been built by the same developer.

  The gate was rusty, but I was able to open it. I stepped through, ducking through the natural arch created by a tangle of two maple trees that flanked the gate, pushing past the knee-high grass that had overgrown the entire area. There was a bench on the other side, facing the third building. And then, a thought occurred to me. I brushed away a thick layer of debris on the bench and sat down, pulling out my phone. Bringing up my Maps app, I scrolled through until I found my location. As I expanded the screen, a description window came up. The three buildings made up what had once been the United Coalition’s Home for Wounded Veterans.

  A home for soldiers.

  But I had the feeling there was a lot more to this place than met the eye, so I brought up a browser and typed the name into the search bar. Sure enough, seconds later I found myself staring at an article about the place, dated May 2, 1950—more than seventy years ago.

  On April 23, Mayor Anderson ordered the United Coalition’s Home for Wounded Veterans to close its doors. The nursing facility for wounded veterans of World War II fell into a deep scandal earlier this year when it was revealed that a severe nursing shortage had compromised the care of numerous veterans under the government’s watch.

  In an ongoing investigation that spanned five months, health officials and journalists found over 300 incidents—200 incidents of outright abuse, and at least 100 health violations. All told, during a five-year span, nearly 300 deaths were estimated to be directly related to the ongoing malfeasance. Although the investigation is still active, the facility has been ordered to shut its doors and all patients have been removed from the wards and the residence halls.

  The United Coalition’s Home for Wounded Veterans opened in 1942 with the intent to care for wounded and traumatized veterans from the war. While the investigation only spans the time from 1945 to 1950, the Department of Health intends to do a more thorough investigation, beginning with when the facility first opened.

  Discrepancies were first noted in October 1949, which led to the current investigation. Conditions were deemed intolerable, and an examination of current patients shows indications of physical and mental abuse.

  One veteran, Jonathan K Smith, was first admitted to the facility in order to rehabilitate his leg. He was wounded during a skirmish in Germany. Smith, 25 at the time, was covered in bedsores and bruises. He died of septicemia on December 22, 1949. Gemma Bartlett—a nurse new to the staff—reported his death as being suspicious, which led to the current investigation. She was fired by the United Coalition’s Home for Wounded Veterans two months later, for unspecified reasons, and is now suing for damages.

  All patients hav
e been moved to other nursing facilities, and the director of admissions and the director of nursing have both been arrested on charges of abuse and endangerment. Their trials are set for September 1950.

  I stared at the article, then glanced at the three buildings. The facility had at one time owned the garden, which had apparently been a courtyard. From what I read, it was no wonder there were scores of the dead still here, given the psychological abuse. I flipped through my search results looking for more information. It didn’t take long before I came to an encapsulation of the final result.

  The United Coalition’s Home for Wounded Veterans was permanently closed today as the final results of an investigation into abuse and murder was made public. Investigators named 19 members of the staff, including the director of admissions and the director of nursing, as being directly responsible for over 325 deaths during a seven-year period.

  Charges are being brought against all members, excluding two nurses who turned informant. Charges range from abuse to neglect to negligent manslaughter. The court dates are being set even as this article goes to print. It was suggested that the buildings be razed, however Judge Wilkins ruled against the measure, stating there may still be evidence that will be needed during the trials. So the buildings will stand as long as needed.

  I flipped through several other links, finding a brief mention from 1967, stating that the facility had been sold to a private developer who planned to build a shopping center on the land, but apparently that never happened.

  Hunting some more, I discovered that the complex, including the garden, had been sold three more times, each to new developers. And each time, the plans fell through for actual development. The buildings were currently owned by the Rains Field Design Firm, although it wasn’t clear what the company did. The last sale had taken place in 2008. Frowning, I dropped my phone back in my bag and slung it over my shoulder.