Blue Moon (28 page)

Unfortunately, her opponent had actually practiced. She was forced to give ground just to keep the blade from touching her. Over the elf's shoulder, she saw Dashiel fighting with a cloaked woman. The cloak fell away, and Libby saw the face of the missing coed she'd been seeing on the news.

"Jilly?” she called out, trying to distract her.

It worked, and Dashiel was able to get an edge, clamping his jaws around the woman's throat. The swordsman gave in to the temptation to glance over his shoulder, and Libby almost managed to smack him in the head with her weapon, but he parried.

She grabbed a marble candle holder from her end table. It was green, and slightly round, and made a perfect projectile. She threw it at the man to distract him, but it hit Dashiel squarely behind the head. He fell with a whimper, and the woman kicked him hard as she got up.

Alex, having finished with the other elf, turned his attention toward her.

"That's it,” Libby's opponent hissed, then: “Rita!” he cried. He hit Libby's poker squarely, and the upper half of it shirred away like butter. He turned and with the back swipe nearly took her head off. She jumped backwards, tripped on the coffee table, and fell hard, the sword hovering near her neck.

"Wait! We don't know where the Stone is."

Libby looked at the woman.

"No,” Alex corrected. “Wait because, if you hurt her, I will kill this woman now."

The elf sounded confused. “I care not for her. She is not one of my people."

"And my sister is?” Libby said.

She didn't dare move, so she gambled that his silence meant confusion. “You called her name. Rita. She was my sister."

Alex threw the woman outside. He turned to face the elf. “Let her go."

"Give us the Stone,” the shorter elf said, climbing slowly to his feet. “I don't know who you are, and I'd feel a hell of a lot better if the Stone was in my hands and not yours."

"You have a valid point, Aïs,” the taller one said.

"I don't know where it is,” Libby said.

"Pity."

She felt the tip of the sword against her throat.

"Terisoth?” Aïs asked softly.

"You were right,” Terisoth said. “I have no idea what's going on, but I would feel infinitely safer with the Stone in our hands.” He pushed the tip in another fraction of an inch. “And I am willing to sacrifice much to get it."

"Honon denae?"
Alex said, and Libby looked up at him. What gibberish was this? A spell?

Whatever it was, it froze Terisoth and Aïs in their tracks.

What Alex said, in the elven tongue, was, “Is this how you act in honor?” Seeing Terisoth's look of shock, he continued. “You do not know what you do. You run without looking, figuring possession is the key? Have you looked into her eyes and seen the magic there? Have you looked at me and seen my true form? What do you make of this?

"The dragon peoples have long been charged by Nimue of the Lake to protect this Stone. Would you stand in the way of my duty?"

"Even demons can speak in the tongue of our people,” Aïs said in English, disdaining to answer in his own language.

"Dragon kind have been gone a million years,” Terisoth said in Elvish. “I believe in you not, although my senses deceive me by telling me it's true.” In English, he said, “I will kill this woman, then I will see if your tongue is as facile once my sword has split it."

"No,” Alex said. He met Libby's eyes, and saw that she was ready to die to protect the Stone, but it as a useless sacrifice. She could not have it hidden well enough that, if they all died, it would not be found.

Besides that, he loved her too much to allow it. He'd rather the worlds crashed together.

"I will give it to you, but only if you let me take her away, alive. I also wish to take the dog."

The elven woman reappeared in the doorway, holding her head in her hands—even the bright red of her hair seemed dulled by pain.

"What's going on?” she whispered piteously.

"Terisoth, let's take the Stone and go,” Aïs said.

"I agree,” Terisoth said to Alex's offer, and pulled his sword back slightly.

"Alex, no. Once they get it, we might never get it back."

"It's okay, Libby.” He pointed to the bedroom. “It's under the bed,” he told the elves.

Aïs ran to the bedroom and crawled under the bed. “Aha!"

Alex breathed a sigh of relief. He'd been guessing.

Terisoth raised his sword. Libby stood and ran to where Dashiel lay. Terisoth passed them on his way to the door, where the redhead leaned against him.

"They ambushed me,” she whispered. “I feel so weak."

"It's okay,” he said, and followed Aïs out the door.

They drove in silence for a long while. Finally, Sierra said, “I'll drive you back to the cabin after you get your things."

Zorovin shook his head. “I appreciate it, but my son is too wise to stay in one place for long. He will have the girl and the Stone out of there in no time."

"She was there?” she said with more anger than she intended.

"Aye,” he said. “My son obviously wanted to speak with her alone. So I left."

"We left."

Zorovin thought about what he was going to say. “She would not know you as her sister."

She fiddled with the radio. He took her hand and switched the machine back off. She pulled away.

"I know that."

He took her hand again. The bones felt fine and delicate, the skin smooth and warm. He brought it to his lips and kissed the center of her palm, then the soft skin of the back. He could feel her heartbeat, and her sorrow, and her uncertainty.

"You have done what you could,” he said gently. “There is nothing else you can do now about the stone.” He shook his head. “Avoid Sabin. His visit the other night was an obvious ploy to both frighten you and to show you that he has control. He thinks he might still have a use for you, and he knew you wouldn't flee while Libby might get hurt. If he cannot find you, he cannot use you."

"But my sister...” She stopped in front of the gate on the end of her driveway. She turned and looked at him. “I need to help her."

There were tears in her eyes, and he caressed her cheek. He felt an odd longing, but he pushed it aside.

"That will be my task,” he said. “My son and I are here. We will guard her with our lives.” He paused. “Besides, there are other things you need to do. I have seen inside you. You have suffered enough."

"Yeah, well,” she said, hitting the switch to the gates, “we'll see after we get your stuff."

He got out of the car and went around to her side. She rolled down the window and looked up at him, confused. He knelt so his face was level with hers and kissed her.

She grabbed his hand where it rested on the door and held it tight and kissed him back with all of her being. He felt the depth of her response and, for a brief moment, allowed himself to be human and returned it.

He parted from her. “There's nothing for me to get,” he said.

"You didn't buy anything?"

He smiled slightly. “I lied."

"You did a good job,” she said, and smiled back, a little bitter. “I guess I taught you something, eh?"

He stood. “The things you taught me are much better than that.” He couldn't think of anything more to say, but that did not sound right, like proper parting words. He backed away. “Take care of yourself, wizard woman. The coming night will be ... interesting."

She nodded. She was crying in earnest now, and he didn't know what to do about it. He opened his mouth to speak, but instead he turned away from her house. He could hear her crying until he was well up the road, past the boundaries of her land. It hurt him to listen, but he did not turn back.

Libby needed to think, and after the Stone's loss, she'd been so unreasonably angry at Alex she'd gone for a walk in her woods. She sighed, ran her hands through her hair, then turned for home.

She saw him on the path, perched high on a rock that jutted out from the trees. Waiting for her, she realized. He watched her as she approached but did not nod or wave or speak.

"I'm still pissed at you."

"You're alive,” he said, as if that was all that mattered.

She stopped by the boulder and studied him. A cut ran down the side of his neck from last night, and his eyes looked much older.

"But for how long, Alex?"

He looked at his hands. “Depends, I guess."

"On what?"

"If they use the rock to reunite the lands, on how the places come together. For example, if there are people living now where Mount Olympus used to be..."

"Oh.” The idea was almost too enormous to put her mind around. “So, what's your part in all this?"

He climbed down, and took so long to answer she thought he wasn't going to.

"I don't belong here,” he said. “The Stone was something my people were charged to protect, even though we never had it. It is on this world, not ours. But we kept an eye on it. It was my job to find it, hide it again and return home."

"I'm sorry you lost your memory for so long."

He looked at her and thought, I have no regrets if that was the price of rescuing a beautiful girl. Nor do I regret giving you my amulet, even though I could not ask for it back, and you would not consider giving it to me, so it didn't do its job and remind me who I was when I saw it again.

What he said was “It doesn't really matter now. All that matters is that we find the Stone and get it back. They won't be able to do too much damage right away. Just make weird things happen."

"Do you know what day it is?” She studied the sky, as if the answer were written there someplace.

He shook his head.

"Halloween."

"Well,” he said with a smile, “maybe people won't notice much, then."

People noticed. And they reacted in mostly a few predictable ways. There were the people who, seeing this as a chance for their fifteen minutes, called news stations and newspapers, which all either ignored them as cranks or started working on a full moon madness segment. There were those who firmly believed that this could not be happening, that either they were dreaming, stressed out, tired, sick or just going nuts. There were those who thought that what they saw was real but was either a prank, a magic trick done by some street magician, an episode of
Candid Camera
or a movie effect. Those who knew the things to be real, not just trickery, were either old enough to do so, self-styled mages or so mentally disturbed that talking delphiniums and scarlet screen-eating butterflies were the least of their problems. For some, it was just business as usual.

Children, however, and some elderly people, and a handful of those who desperately wanted to believe in magic—not for the casting of spells but for the beauty of it—they saw things, and believed they were true things and that they had been blessed.

There were flowers that whispered the secrets of growing, and birds that settled down beside them to speak of loved ones passed. There were rippling rainbows across the sky, and for some it was as if the world had been a tight closed bud and was, at last, blooming. The blue moon was kind to them.

But,then, the worse things hadn't woken up yet.

They gathered on the rock. Terisoth and Aïs tried to look nonchalant, but some of the tourists stared. One young man waved and yelled, “Yo! Rennies!"

She looked at them, one brow arched.

"Slang for people who work at Renaissance faires,” Terisoth supplied.

"Terisoth used to go to them all the time. Really impressed the girls with his makeup, or at least that's what he told them his ears and eyebrows were."

Terisoth blushed a little. “Why are we here?"

The queen settled on her haunches and pressed her palm on the great stone. She did not know she placed her hand exactly where Libby's had been. Like Libby, she could feel the sleeping beast beneath. Unlike Libby, she knew how to waken it, and she intended to. She grinned. It was time not just to declare war, but start it. All out, no prisoners.

She looked at the two young men near her. Oh, yes, they would have their uses. Tonight, they would die for their queen.

Sierra ran up the stairs to the garage apartment then banged noisily on the door. Raul answered, rumpled of hair and sleepy.

"You've been crying,” he said.

"Not really. Allergies. Raul..."

"What did he do to you?"

"Uh, who?"

"The guy with the silver hair. The one you've sort of shacked up with. What did he do to you?"

She put her hand on his arm. “Nothing.” She touched his face, and his eyes met hers. “Jealous?"

He smiled a little. “How could I be? You can only be jealous if someone's taking something you think you can have. I never thought you were...” He bit his lower lip. “...attainable."

"I suppose you're right.” She felt her face heat.

"But that's not why you came here."

"No. I came to tell you that you ought to go to your sister's. Tonight is going to be strange. I want you to be there to defend her from the loony drunks."

"I was about to ask you if you wanted to come with me. Tonight, the moon will be in perigee, the brightest and closest to the earth it's been in years. It ought to be quite cool. And Saturn's near opposition. The rings ought to be wide open. It should be pretty intense."

She shook her head. “I can't. I have plans that can't be broken. But, please, please, do what I asked. Go rent some movies, get a pizza and visit your sister and nephew. Don't go out again tonight."

His dark eyes were wary. “Why?"

"I'll tell you in the morning. I promise. Please, just do what I ask?"

"Does it have something to do with that scrawny silver-haired guy?"

"No.” She smiled.

He sighed. “All right, then, I'll go. But you have my sister's number. You'll call, right? And I'll be back here, or wherever you need me, before you know it."

"You bet.” She hugged him tight and kissed his cheek. “You behave, okay?"