His attention shifted back to Monette as she teased him. “Maybe you should consider getting your own pet. A dog or cat could do you good now that you have your own place. How does it feel to be a real adult without roommates, anyway?”
“Good,” he breathed out a sigh.
“I said I wanted to graduate before moving out, but after seeing your new place, it makes me want to move out, too.”
“Please, Mona, save your money. Moving out is not all it’s cracked up to be.”
“I’m just so excited to decorate my own place. And . . .” she paused. “Well, it’s not that our parents aren’t getting along. I just think they need space. Honestly, I think they should figure that out sooner rather than later.”
Leo met her eyes, wavering for a moment. “Are they fighting?”
Monette hesitated. “No, but they don’t hug and kiss anymore. They don’t have conversations the way they used to. I think they’re in a rut. I’m afraid I’m in their way . . . or maybe I'm the only glue keeping them together.”
“Hey.” Leo frowned.
“I’m just being real. Sometimes marriage goes south. Sometimes relationships don’t last, and that’s okay. It’s not uncommon with an empty nest. Maybe they’d be happier with separate lives.” Monette looked away, tears welling up in her eyes.
“And maybe they’ll rediscover that spark.” Leo took her hand. “All we can do is be there for them, no matter what. But don’t blame yourself for where you are. Be grateful for what you have.”
A single tear rolled down her cheek, framed by her raven hair. Leo peered into her stormy eyes, then he pulled her into a hug.
“No matter what, we’re in this together. That’s what twins do.”
Monette grasped his jacket with her fingers and sighed into his shoulder.
“Thank you, Leo. Sometimes I just worry about the future. Everything is moving so fast. I think I’m just over-worrying again.” She laughed weakly, pulling out of the embrace. “It seems like yesterday we were playing on the beach and dancing to the jazz bands on the street. Speaking of, you still have a lot of obsolete CDs. Are you going to sell any?”
She swept her arms toward the box she had unceremoniously dumped on the ground. It was filled with old CDs and Nintendo games.
Leo grinned and rolled his eyes. “That’s my prized collection!”
“Of no-name indie artists and games you don’t play anymore?”
“They’re signed CDs. And I can’t part with the classics! Super Mario Bros? How could you ask me to do that?”
“Okay, okay. I give up this round.” Monette put her hands up in surrender, but a sly smile touched her dark pink painted lips. “One of these days I will convert you to minimalism.”
Leo rolled his eyes and leaned his head back on the sofa.
“Hey . . .” Monette leaned over tentatively, wrapping her legs underneath her. “You have any gigs coming up? I wish I could make it to one sometime. It’s just with my doctoral program, it’s so hard . . .”
“I know. Don’t worry about it.” He smiled reassuringly. “You can always catch another show anytime. I’ve got a Cosmic Reed gig next Saturday, and Blood Oath in a couple weeks. Slow month, honestly. Blood Oath wouldn’t be so bad, except our lead guitarist is . . . difficult to work with.” Leo sighed, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Wow. That’s a nice way of saying he’s a major dick!” Monette laughed. “What about the cute drummer?”
“Oh, Bea? We’re friends.” Leo grinned, appreciating how his sister’s tears and apprehension quickly faded away. Her emotions were mercurial, like water which ebbed and flowed too fast for him to keep up with.
“If you’re not going to make a move, maybe I will.” Monette smirked.
“You need to focus on school. Not flirting with every woman in New Orleans.”
Monette stuck her tongue out.
“I think it would be fun to play music for a living, but it just sounds tedious.”
“Sometimes,” Leo shrugged. “It’s work, but it’s fun work. Your studies sound worse.”
“Well, so it goes.” Monette nodded her head slowly. “Speaking of which, I’m afraid I’ve got to head out. I have some papers due in a few days and translations to work on, but I’ll be back in a couple weeks to help you unpack some more, and maybe convince you to sell or donate some of your things.” She winked.
“Gee, thanks.”
She hugged him once more. His eyes traced the jagged scars on her right arm as she pulled away. A feeling stirred inside him, a spark of fear and confusion.
“Hey, Mona . . .” he trailed off, reflecting.
“Hm?” She turned back slightly as she reached for the door.
“You remember when that wolf attacked us in the forest?”
Monette traced her fingers over her scar, rubbing her arm nervously and averting her eyes. “How could I forget?”
“It wasn’t like any wolf I’ve ever seen,” he said slowly, choosing his words carefully. “It was bigger. Its eyes . . . they weren’t normal. Red.”
She didn’t respond, still rubbing her scar and now biting her lower lip.
“When we were little, you used to disappear when we played hide and seek. I could . . .” he hesitated. “I could grow flowers in the palms of my hands.”
She shook her head and laughed weakly. “We were kids playing around. It was all pretend!”
“You don’t remember?”
“You always had a wild imagination,” she scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “Think about this logically, scientifically. You can’t grow flowers from thin air, Leo. I can’t really turn invisible!”
Leo frowned deeply. Just as he feared, she wasn’t taking him seriously. She thought he was crazy. Maybe he was, but he couldn’t deny that weird things had happened to and around him.
Before he could rebut, she continued with a sharp tone. “People have invented supernatural explanations for millennia because we don’t understand the natural world around us. Mythology is fascinating, but now we can use the scientific method. Now we can uncover the truth. There was an aggressive, abnormally large wolf in that forest. And it attacked us. It’s shitty, but that’s all there is to it.”
“Mona . . .” he protested, taking a step forward. Just because he couldn’t explain what happened doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, or wasn’t supernatural. How else could he explain the humanoid wisps in the fog, the raven with the monocle, the beast with smoldering eyes? Her condescending attitude was starting to grate on him, but he wanted so desperately for her to confirm what he vaguely remembered about their childhood. He didn’t want her to leave.
“Uh-uh. This move has got your brain all fried,” she said as she pulled the door open. “Please rest. You get weird when you’re sleep deprived.”
She waved as she strode across the courtyard to head for the nearest trolley station. “Love you. Get some sleep!”
He waved back weakly. Then he nervously set his gaze to the far side balcony. No bats. No cats. No crows. Only spiderwebs near the drain spout.
For the next week, Leo kept glancing across the courtyard toward the balcony where he’d seen the crow, but nothing odd happened. He asked a few of his neighbors about that apartment. No one seemed to have any complaints or even know who the tenant was. Finally, as he passed the landlord one morning, he got an answer.
“Well,” the landlord stroked his beard. “The tenant’s name is Lydia Colophon.”
“Does she have pets?”
“She has a cat,” he nodded. “And a young niece lives with her.”
Leo thanked the landlord and decided to drop it. Yes, the animals were weird, but she sounded like someone just trying to get by and take care of her family. He needed to focus on paying the bills, anyway. Even with all the gigs and busking solo on the street in between, it was tight.
The Saturday afternoon after Leo moved in, he was on his way home from playing a gig. That’s when he saw her.
A young
woman stepped out of the apartment across the courtyard. Her strawberry-blonde hair spilled over her shoulders and was almost reflective in the sunlight, her skin a light golden brown. She had full pink lips and dark eyes. She was also somewhat short, around five feet without heels, but wore high-heeled black boots. She strolled across the courtyard as a panther might stalk her prey. Fluid and commanding. She seemed to know exactly where she was going and was completely focused on her mission.
“Hey!” Leo called out.
The woman nearly tripped over her own feet, and then whipped around to see who was yelling, a scowl forming on her face. Leo jogged over to her with his travel acoustic bass strapped across his back.
“My name’s Leo.” He reached his hand out, flashing a grin. “I just moved in over here.”
She glared at his hand, then up to his face and back down. She kept her arms crossed over her chest.
“Hi,” she said flatly.
Leo’s hand was still awkwardly extended toward her. He quickly ran it through his curly black hair and laughed nervously.
They stood there for a few beats. Leo faltered for words. His face started to flush and sweat ran down his back, even though it was a cool day. She was much cuter than he expected, and even worse, he saw her narrowing eyes and deepening frown. Her body was poised to flee, one foot pointing toward the courtyard exit where she’d been heading before he interrupted her. Desperately, he pulled a flyer out of his jacket pocket.
“Hey, um, if you’re free next Friday . . . I play in a couple bands, and, uh, we’re playing a show at Bootleg Bourbon.”
He handed her the flyer. She snatched it and then cocked her head to the side as she read.
“I hope you can make it.” He smiled sheepishly.
“Thanks,” she murmured and peered back up at him curiously, noticing the bass strapped to his back. “We’ll see.”
And with that, she turned on her heel and left.
Chapter 2
Leo didn’t see his mysterious neighbor again at all the following week. He tried to find Lydia Colophon on social media, but she didn’t appear on any platform or even a Google search. All he could find was a region in ancient Greece by the same name.
Between not existing on the internet, her ever-so-endearing saltiness, and having strange animals on the balcony, he wondered if he shouldn’t have introduced himself in the first place. But the mere possibility of seeing her at his show made butterflies dance in his stomach, and he dismissed any negative thoughts about her.
Bootleg Bourbon was a hole-in-the-wall bar in the French Quarter, not far from Leo’s apartment. It had a rustic, 1920s theme with worn wood paneling and gilded embellishments. In fact, Leo speculated that it simply hadn’t been refurbished since the 1920s. Leo liked it because the pay, the booze, and the sound person were all above average and the bartenders were friendly, which is about all he could hope for in a venue at this point. It even had a storage room which doubled as a green room for the musicians.
Setting up for the show was uneventful. A few people trickled in, paying the doorman and chatting around the bar. But not her. Not Lydia.
“Oi, Leo, get your shit together!” Nathan shouted from across the stage as he plugged in his guitar. His dirty blonde hair was coiffed up and he wore a V-neck under his black leather jacket. “You’ve been out of it since we got here, and we need to do a sound check.”
“Got it,” Leo nodded. He caught the eyes of their drummer, Beatrice, who rolled her eyes at Nathan behind his back. Leo stuck his tongue out at her. She laughed and twirled her drumsticks playfully.
“You do look a bit distracted,” Bea said with her familiar, warm Australian accent. Her mussy dark hair was stark against her pale skin.
Leo nervously scratched the back of his head and shrugged.
“I think we’re going to have a full house tonight,” he explained. “I’m just excited, I think.”
“Sure . . .” She looked at him slyly, as if she could hear his heart pounding in his chest. “You do look it. Maybe just not for the show.”
“Can you toss me a chord, Leo?” Arnold asked, his oak brown bald head glinting under the multicolored spotlights. He was older than the rest, middle aged with graying stubble along his jaw and wrinkles near his chocolate brown eyes. Leo nodded and shuffled over to the equipment to help hook up Arnold’s keyboard.
Showtime approached, and there was still no sign of Leo’s mysterious neighbor. He grabbed some drinks from the bar for the band and they took shots together.
They played their first set to a hot, crowded bar. People danced and cheered. The sway of bodies and booze became a blur. The thrum of the music under his fingertips was invigorating. Everything swept away with the music while he played. The cheers and applause of the crowd sent adrenaline coursing through his veins. With Blood Oath, the notes were dark and brooding, somewhere between grunge and punk metal. With Bea leading the beat, Leo loved to dance his calloused fingers down the neck of his bass guitar melodically. Nathan’s voice was coarse as he screamed into the microphone. The music was guttural, wild. Leo nodded his head vigorously to it, feeling the pull of the melody and swaying as he played.
Leo began to give up hope of seeing his neighbor and tried to focus on just playing the songs, floating off with the melody beneath his fingers.
At the end of the last set as Nathan tore out another solo on his guitar, Leo scanned over the crowd and noticed a familiar face near the back of the bar. Her rose gold hair was swept over her shoulder, and she eyed the crowd like a hawk. He gasped and stumbled over a couple notes. Nathan glared at him, though the crowd didn’t notice at all—they were too drunk and too busy dancing to care. Leo gazed back down at his fret board and centered himself.
Okay, he told himself. She came to your show. She’s interested. You’re going to ask her out. Right after this song, and after we pack up . . .
The crowd cheered as the song ended. Leo was too giddy to care. This was it. He couldn’t say he was very successful in the dating department recently, and the worst that could happen is that she said no. And that was okay, or so he kept telling himself.
Leo helped Beatrice with her drum kit and Arnold with his keyboard. But Leo also ended up assisting the sound guy wrap cords, and halfheartedly listened to him rant about their sound and similar artists to them. Nathan was nowhere to be found. After a few minutes, Leo looked up from the stage only to find that his neighbor and most of the audience were gone. A few stragglers were finishing their drinks at the bar. He cursed. Of course she wouldn’t stay, not even to say hello. He started thinking about ways to talk to her again in the courtyard, if he ever saw her again, and considered honestly that she may not have been too impressed with his playing.
Leo sighed and let the thoughts slide away. Then he picked up his bass to bring it back to his case in the green room. He entered, and immediately noticed Nathan with a brunette girl pinned against the wall. Leo rolled his eyes. Of course Nathan would be in here with his tongue in a girl’s mouth.
Except, that’s not where Nathan’s tongue was. In fact, it wasn’t Nathan’s tongue Leo was worried about at all.
Leo watched aghast as Nathan cocked his head toward the woman’s neck, fangs protruding from behind his lips. The woman was frozen in horror.
I’m not drunk. This is really happening. The blood drained from Leo’s face, and his mouth was suddenly parched.
Leo was not a fighter. He’d never thrown a punch in his life. But flashbacks of the creature in the forest gnawed at his nerves. His fist was faster than his brain, and before he knew it he was across the room. He struck Nathan on the side of the head. The next few seconds were a blur.
Leo’s hand hurt like hell. Nathan was unfazed from the blow. He hissed and turned on Leo. The woman, released from Nathan’s hold, screamed and ran out of the green room. Nathan swept the dirty-blond hair from his green eyes. Then he grabbed Leo by the front of his bomber jacket and shoved him against the wall, hard. Leo saw stars.
“You fucking piece of shit,” Nathan growled. “You lost me my dinner. You could’ve just walked the other way . . .”
“Nathan,” Leo gasped. “Why—?”
“You’ll have to do now. Too bad I’m losing such a good bass player.” Nathan shoved Leo against the wall again. Leo’s vision blurred, his ears ringing.
“But honestly,” Nathan sneered into Leo’s ear. “You’re replaceable.”
Leo couldn’t move. He only trembled weakly as Nathan leaned forward to sink his teeth into Leo’s neck. Leo tried to close his eyes, but he couldn’t. He tried to think of a way out, but Nathan’s hands were like iron against him. Leo’s heart raced. This was the end.
But Leo didn’t feel the piercing fangs. Nathan was suddenly on the floor, curled in a ball.
“Fool.”
Leo’s legs gave out from under him, and he crumpled on the floor next to his fallen bass guitar. He looked up and saw . . . her.
His neighbor’s right hand was balled into a fist and her eyes were fierce, fiery. Red.
“Did you not recognize me at the bar?” she smirked. “Or maybe you don’t know who I am.”
Nathan groaned, clutching his side. Leo realized she had a bloody piece of something in her fist.
“Next is your heart. Any last words?”
Leo’s mouth was dry, his throat hoarse. He had no idea if she was going to murder him next, but he managed to make a sound before she leaned down to kill his bandmate, who was lying on the greenroom floor.
“Wait!”
She stopped, dead still.
“Don’t . . . don’t kill him,” Leo pleaded.
She slowly turned back to look at him, really look at him. Her face was like marble. Then, she laughed coldly.
“You don’t want me to kill him? This vampire, who hurt an innocent woman and then tried to kill you for saving her?”
Blood Moon (A Louisiana Demontale): Book 1 of the Crescent Crown Saga Page 2
