Moonshine

by Jasmine Gower

  On the edge of the dance floor, Daisy could see Angel facing down an aggravated youth with Rudolph and Regina hiding an arm’s reach behind her. Amelia was closer to Angel, just behind her and shouting something at the man facing them. All around, the entire place had devolved into a tavern brawl, except the magic scene seemed a bit more skittish than typical barflies. Daisy could hear people bandying about accusations of being plants or spies for the cops – the man shouting down Daisy’s friends was making a similar claim, and the insinuations of his claims must have been nasty indeed to get Amelia so worked up.

  It might have been amusing if Daisy weren’t so keenly aware of a number of armed club-goers, many now brandishing their weapons to defend against the mysterious shooter who had hit Frisk. The man facing Angel was one such individual, although he was not so reckless as to actually fire at anyone. Not yet.

  They didn’t have time to wait around for things to get even hairier. Daisy called out to them. “Angel! Amelia!”

  Amelia whipped her head toward them at the sound of her name, and the man took poorly to their shouting match being interrupted. Wild in the eyes – maybe from mana, maybe only adrenaline – he hollered a rapid string of further accusations of espionage and ratting to the coppers before lifting his gun. Regina screamed in terror, and before Daisy could think to do the same, Frisk gathered up what little strength she had to yank Daisy away toward the stage, closer to the armed man but out of his range of vision.

  When Daisy gathered her wits, she saw there was a shimmer in the air around her friends, and the bullet fired at them hung suspended in the air in front of Angel’s outstretched hand.

  Daisy’s breath caught – as much magic as she did herself, she had never actually seen methodical magic utilized in such a defensive manner. As the bullet floated in place, it began breaking into pieces, little shards and slivers of lead splitting and drifting to form a metal cloud. The man who had fired watched with a stricken, slack-mouthed expression. While he was distracted, Angel pushed Amelia back toward Rudolph and turned to lead them in flight toward the Gin Fountain’s back exit. Daisy was about to take ahold of Frisk to chase after the four of them, but there was another bang of a gun, and Frisk cried out and stumbled into her.

  “Frisk!”

  “I wasn’t… I’m fine. Just spooked me.” She gasped against her pain, and the sound came out like a bark. “Bunch of dummies with guns getting worked up into a panic. Nothing worse.”

  “You’ve already been shot enough. Let’s get you out of here before this gets any more chaotic.”

  With the crowd rushing toward the back of the club, Daisy didn’t think there was any hope of them sneaking out that way. Looking toward the front door, she couldn’t see anyone with weapons near it.

  “Come on!” Daisy kept one arm firm around Frisk’s shoulders and hurried her forward. There were shouts as they scurried toward the front door, but Daisy couldn’t tell what they were saying or if they were directed at her.

  “The others,” Frisk wheezed, hand still on her wound and wincing with every step. “They went–”

  “I know, I know. We’ll have to catch up to them later.” They reached the door, along with a few other straggling club-goers who had also been too late to beat the crowd rushing any possible back exits. Outside, a few of such escapees gathered to check each other and ramble in a panic about whether or not to call the police.

  “We’ll get busted – all of us!” Daisy overheard one young woman say.

  “There were gunshots and spells being fired – someone might have died in there,” one of her companions argued, but Daisy didn’t linger to listen in. She kept running with Frisk limping quickly at her side. The only destination she could think to reach was the car.

  “Do you have your keys?” Daisy asked. Frisk’s purse had been with Amelia’s, but she nodded.

  “Yeah, in my pocket.” She gasped as she staggered onward, but Daisy pushed them to keep going until they reached the car. While Frisk leaned against the door, Daisy dug in the pocket of her skirt to fish out the key, but she hesitated once she pulled it out. Frisk was bleeding more than just a trickle, and her already pasty face was growing ashen, her eyes unfocused. She was in no condition to drive.

  “There’s an oil rag in the glove compartment,” Frisk said, shifting aside and curling in on herself in an effort to curb the blood flow. “It’s mostly clean. Grab it.” Daisy did as she was told, but just as she pressed the rag to Frisk’s wound, there was another bang at the nearest corner, and a flush of green smoke flooded from the connecting street. A magician acting in self-defense, she assumed, or another pugnacious one instigating more trouble for everyone. Regardless, she didn’t much like the sight of the conflict creeping near them.

  “We should book it,” Frisk said, shoving herself roughly from the side of the car to scramble into the passenger’s seat before Daisy could protest. Frisk didn’t know she couldn’t drive, but once Frisk was settled inside and leaned her head back, Daisy could see her beginning to fade. She had lost too much blood, and she couldn’t hold consciousness for much longer. Daisy hurried to the driver’s seat, determined to figure out how to drive passably enough to get them away from the scene, if nothing else.

  Looking down at the dashboard and stick shift, though, she questioned her ability to wing it. She shoved the key in the ignition and turned it to wake up the vehicle, since she knew at least to do that much. “All right, Frisk, the thing is, I don’t really know how to…” She cut off as she glanced over, finding Frisk slumped against the door with her eyes closed. She was still breathing, but when Daisy reached over to shake her, she didn’t react. Daisy bit her lip and gripped the steering wheel with both hands, glancing between the stick shift and all the dials on the dash as she tried to figure out what to do, when her eyes passed over her charm bracelet.

  She had lost the dove charm, but the nickel charm – which could propel over a ton of weight – might be just the thing she needed. Shifting her arm to adjust the bracelet until the charm brushed against the heel of her palm, she channeled her energy into it, trying to keep focused on the flow of magic rather than the nearing shouts she could hear in the background.

  The car shot forward with a screeching jolt. “Shit!” Daisy lost her focus on the trinket, and the vehicle pulled to a halt just as abruptly as it had moved. They had gone forward several feet, one tire now lodged over the precipice of the sidewalk, and she could smell burnt rubber. Daisy cursed herself as she grabbed the stick, jerking it from its forward-most position to one notch back. She knew about putting a car in park, too – she had just forgotten.

  With the vehicle now in what she hoped was neutral, she tried the spell again, and this time they were launched forward more smoothly, but that left Daisy the task of steering while they moved. Gripping the wheel until she thought her knucklebones were going to poke right out of her skin, she kept her eyes on the road and her mind on her magic. Her spell had them going a bit below freeway speed, and the steering wheel was more sensitive than Daisy expected. Just a hair too far left or right had them rolling back onto sidewalks or brushing by other cars parked along the nighttime streets.

  Her heart hammered each time they almost – or did – run into something, but she never hit anything solid enough to stop them or severely batter the car, until she hit an aluminum trash can head-on, which bounced off the windshield and left a tiny crack before rolling over the top of the vehicle. Choking down alarm, she tried to focus on the names on the street signs and steer herself home. Her goal was to go as generally south as she could, toward the direction of her neighborhood, but she tried to avoid other drivers or nightly pedestrians. When an oncoming taxi turned onto her current road, she jerked the steering wheel left to swerve out of its way and onto a side street, and from there she had to swing three more left turns down what felt like ever narrowing backways before her careening trajectory was aimed again toward home. Frisk flopped limply between the car door and Daisy’s shoulder, b
ut Daisy couldn’t pull her attention from the road long enough to check on her.

  In about ten minutes, she was two blocks away from her apartment, and she decided to let go of the spell there. She figured it was worth it to carry Frisk inside if she had to, so long as it meant spending less time careening through the streets like a drunken racehorse. This time she remembered to put the car in park and turn the ignition off before scurrying out and over to Frisk’s side to pull her out. Frisk was still unconscious, and none of Daisy’s charms had abilities that would help much in getting her to the apartment – not gently or in one piece, at least – so she had no choice but to hook one of Frisk’s arms over her shoulder and half-drag her two blocks.

  Getting her up the stairs was the hard part, and when Daisy didn’t have the strength to carry Frisk up, she laid the other woman down on her back and, gripping her under the arms, pulled her up the stairs to the second story. Once inside her apartment, Daisy didn’t have the energy to lift her up onto the bed, but she went to the box of trinkets to remove her bronze amulet and slip it on. It wasn’t powerful enough to lift Frisk entirely, but it was able to levitate her a bit, easing the weight enough for Daisy to haul her up.

  Once she was settled, Daisy found herself a glass of water and the armlet to replenish her energy. Feeling a little steadier, she removed all her trinkets and piled them back into the box before going to the bedside to examine Frisk’s wound.

  It had stopped bleeding, and even after all that jostling around, it hadn’t opened up again. Daisy picked at the tear in Frisk’s dress, caked with dried blood, to try to get a look at the wound itself and determine how serious it was. She hoped that the bullet had only grazed Frisk rather than lodged itself inside her, but Daisy was no medical professional and she couldn’t tell. All she could see were dark brown flakes clinging to Frisk’s skin and clothes.

  Daisy’s heart was startled nearly to a stop when her phone rang. When her head jerked instinctively up at the sound, a searing streak of pain raced across her neck and right shoulder. How long had she been crouched over Frisk, trying to get a peek at the gunshot wound? She pushed herself up and staggered over to the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Miss Dell, is that you?” It was Mr Swarz. But of course. Who else would call at that hour?

  “Yes, sir. How did you–?”

  “Angel brought the others to my home and told me what happened. Is Frisk with you? Are you hurt?” She couldn’t quite tell with the sound scratched over the wire, but she thought there was a frantic twinge to his voice.

  “No, Mr Swarz, I’m not hurt but Frisk got shot. She’s here with me, but she’s unconscious, and I don’t know if the bullet’s in her or–”

  “Frisk was injured,” she could hear him say to someone on his end of the phone. Angel’s voice answered back, but Daisy didn’t catch the words. “Yes, good idea. Miss Dell? I’m going to contact Jonas and send him over to treat Frisk. His magic is not quite up to mine or Angel’s levels, but he knows quite a bit more about first-aid healing than either of us. Could you remind me of your address?” Daisy told him, and she could hear the light scritch of pen on paper as he recorded it. “Thank you. I’ll call you back once I’ve talked to him.”

  “All right, Mr Swarz. I’ll be here.” She waited until she heard the click, and it sent a pang like reverberating metal through her core. It had helped to hear his voice – to hear any voice – but now she was left alone again with Frisk passed out on her bed, unconscious, maybe dying. Daisy did what she could to hold Frisk over until help came, covering her with a blanket and trying to dribble a bit of water into her mouth. Even preoccupied with fussing, time drawled too slow before the phone rang again.

  “Jonas is on his way,” Mr Swarz said when she answered. His voice was a bit smoother now, and she could feel her heart begin to settle again upon hearing it. “He has to walk, but he has long legs, so he shouldn’t be long. Miss Dell, do you know what happened at the club? Angel was not able to tell me much, except that there was a gunshot and people fell into a panic.”

  She shook her head, as though he could see it over the phone. “I don’t know. There were two folks with guns – one shot Frisk, I don’t know why – and by the time we tried to get away, everyone else was so afraid that it sent them all into a mad fury. Frisk and I escaped through the front door while everyone crowded the back ways, and we ran to the car a few blocks away. There was a big boom sound when we were out there, and some green smoke, but I didn’t see much more than that.”

  “Are you sure you’re unhurt?”

  Her arm felt nearly dislodged from hauling Frisk’s limp body around, but she didn’t mention that. “I’m fine. How are the others?”

  “Well enough. Angel nearly drained herself into a stupor portalling herself and three others to my house, but I’ve got plenty of mana here for her. The others are untouched, but Miss Estévez won’t stop wailing about Frisk.” Amelia shouted something at Mr Swarz, earning a scoff from him. “Yes, yes, I’ll ask. She wants to know how Frisk is faring now.”

  “Unconscious, but she’s not bleeding anymore. I shouldn’t…” She hesitated, knowing it was a stupid question. “I shouldn’t take her to the hospital, should I?”

  “Ideally, that is something we’d like to avoid. It will be too difficult to explain, and if any traces of mana are found on her she could be arrested. Miss Estévez, do you know if she drank any mana tonight?” There was a pause as Amelia answered. “Yes, it’d be best if you simply allowed Jonas to do what he can. At least with mana in her system, Frisk’s body will be working in overtime, allowing it to repair itself faster. Which is probably why she’s not bleeding now, though that will prove to be a problem if the bullet is lodged inside her.” Daisy’s stomach churned, stirring bile until she felt it rising in her chest. “If it comes to the matter of life, you may take her to a hospital. I’ll let Jonas make the ultimate call on that.”

  “Thank you, Mr Swarz. I…” She paused, swallowing down an abrupt sob that rose in her throat. It felt silly to cry, but it had been a stressful turn of events. “Mr Swarz, do you know why someone would do this? Attack folks at the Gin Fountain?”

  A soft huff of air blurred through the speaker. “I’m sure there are many who have their reasons. A rival establishment, a personal or political enemy of the owner, morality crusaders, fascists chased from their homelands trying to stir up trouble here, general anti-magician trash. It’s hard to say. Did they target Frisk specifically, or just someone at random?”

  “I think… I think it was me they were targeting, actually. I don’t know if it was random.”

  A stretch of silence. “Did anyone see you using magic?”

  She had only used her magic on the car, but she recalled the dove charm. It had fallen loose sometime in the night, probably back at Walter’s. “I lost one of my trinkets,” she admitted. “Earlier in the night. Maybe someone found it, but I’m not sure how they would have figured out it was magic or that it belonged to me. I didn’t use it all night.”

  “You lost an artifact?” His question was soft, and there was another long stretch of silence following it. “Well, I am glad to hear you are well, if nothing else. I will give you a while to rest and help Jonas tend to Frisk, and I’ll call back in a few hours to check on her progress. Is there anything more you need that I can provide?”

  “No, sir.” There probably was, but even with the boost of energy from her bronze bracelet, she was too tired to commit to that much active thinking.

  “Very well.” There was another pause, but he didn’t hang up. “Thank you for protecting Frisk. She may be a pain, but she is an invaluable member to our organization and… just, thank you. It sounds like you’ve been very brave this night.” Daisy had to swallow back another sob. She was too exhausted to be receiving heartfelt praise from her steely, hard-ass boss. “You don’t have to worry about coming in to work tomorrow. Tell Jonas the same, and Frisk, once she wakes up. Just focus on taking care of her, th
en take the day to see to yourself.”

  “Thank you, Mr Swarz,” she said, hoping he didn’t notice where her voice cracked.

  “Goodnight, Miss Dell.”

  After hanging up the phone, she checked on Frisk – her breathing was even but weak – before grabbing a nightgown from her dresser and changing in the bathroom. Frisk’s blood had smeared on her dress. Her shoes had left bruises on her feet from all the scurrying about, too, and she supposed she should count herself lucky that she didn’t sprain an ankle hauling Frisk around as she did. Licks of coiling hair came loose from the slicked mass framing her head, but she was too tired either to try to tame them or to wash out the pomade. She returned to the main room to grab a scarf to wrap around her hair until she had the energy to deal with it in the morning. Settling on the edge of the bed, she allowed her mind to empty while she stared at the hazy night sky through the kitchenette window.

  She didn’t know how long she was lost in absent reverie before she heard a knock at the door. The front of her building was never locked – few of its residents had anything worth stealing, anyway – so Jonas would have been able to walk right up. She went to let him in, having to press herself nearly flat against the wall once she opened the door and gestured him inside. Human apartments weren’t made for ogre bodies, but he didn’t complain about having to duck his head under the low ceiling.

  “Hi, Miss Dell. How is Frisk?”

  “Alive. She’s on the bed.” Jonas went to see to her, and Daisy trailed behind, hovering like a nervous mother with a feverish child. She hated feeling helpless, and a part of her blamed herself for Frisk’s condition, unreasonable though it was. Perhaps if she hadn’t dragged Frisk up a flight of stairs, she would have at least regained consciousness. Thoughts of her lost trinket flared through her haze of concern, too.

  Jonas set a knapsack by the bed as he knelt – or rather, sat – on the floor to lean over his patient. He flipped open the top flap, revealing a collection of mana vials, some bandages, and a metal tool (tweezers, perhaps) that looked like it would be too small for his meaty hands. “She seems to be resting easy, at least. What happened?”