The Festival of the Moon (Girls Wearing Black: Book Two)

Chapter 1

Melissa found Dominic in the shadow of the Onyx building. They kissed, briefly. Only a taste of the lips was necessary to feel the power of their bond. Then they were off, disappearing into the darkness together. They leaped onto the first floor ledge of the Wilson tower, then across the alley, landing half-way between the second and third floors of The Bonaventure Hotel.

“Where are we going?” Dominic asked.

Melissa smiled at him and said nothing, bounding ahead down L Street, leaping from building to building and knowing that Dominic was right behind. It was a game of chase now, the two of them dancing in the world above the street. They were wraiths in the night, finding the dark spots between windows and streetlamps, unseen and unheard by the bustle below them. They found a group of teenagers on the rooftop of the A&H building and Melissa decided to stop there. One of the teens, a boy with a blonde crew cut, stood dumbfounded at the sight of her, and dropped the bottle of booze that was in his hands. It shattered at his feet and he barely noticed.

“Good evening gentlemen,” Melissa said.

There were four of them. They smelled like they were all between eighteen and twenty.

“Enjoying a little rooftop party, are we?” said Dominic.

“We were just leaving,” said the blonde.

“Good thing,” said Melissa. “I’m starving and you all smell delicious.”

At that, all four boys were on their feet and running for the door they had propped open on the far end of the roof. Melissa let them get a few steps ahead before she started her chase. She decided the blonde boy, who was now in the lead, looked the most appetizing. He had soft skin stretched over healthy muscles and moved like a horse. She allowed him to get through the door and onto the flight of stairs before she made her move, flying towards him like a bullet. She brushed the other three aside, sending two skidding onto the concrete, and a third, who was just inside the door, down the stairs. Then she descended upon the blond boy with fangs bared.

She loved to listen to them scream as they died, their voices fading as the blood rushed into her mouth. Melissa drank deeply, inhaling the boy’s blood the way kids at Thorndike sucked at their sugary coffee drinks. When she was done she let the boy’s body fall to the floor.

“Was someone feeling a little hungry?” said Dominic.

“More than a little,” said Melissa. Three hours earlier, she was one of nine immortals who participated in a ceremonial hunt at Renata Sullivan’s mansion. She was the only one of the nine who came up empty on the hunt.

Dominic jumped over the railing and landed next to Melissa.

“She really isn’t coming back, is she?” he said.

He was referring to Daciana, queen of the Samarin clan, whose name was on Melissa’s mind as well. Daciana wouldn’t approve of free range hunting like this. For decades, Daciana and Melissa had worked together to create a food supply for the immortals that didn’t threaten the humans or disrupt their lives. They built the Farm, a giant complex in South Florida, where Melissa oversaw the growth and enslavement of thousands of humans who had no families to miss them when they were gone.

The Farm had given every immortal a well-stocked pantry of human slaves, ready to be eaten whenever their masters felt the urge. It allowed the immortals to integrate themselves into high society. No longer were they monsters who stole young people off the street; they were exotic super beings who met their needs with agriculture, just like everyone else.

Safe, stable, and boring—that was life for Melissa and every other immortal.

But Daciana was gone. There was no denying it now. She had missed the Masquerade, and none of the nine immortals who attended the hunt tonight knew where she was. No one had heard from her in weeks.

“No, I think she might be gone for good,” Melissa said, kicking the blonde boy aside. Beneath them, on the landing below, the boy’s friend was writhing in pain. Melissa had thrown that one down the stairs and it appeared he broke his leg in the fall.

“Are you hungry?” she asked Dominic.

“I could eat,” he said.

Melissa gestured down at the boy, who was letting out small, pathetic shrieks as he tried to pull himself up on the railing.

“Please,” the boy said. “Please don’t.”

Dominic smiled, his fangs out, and jumped to the landing. As the boy let out his final scream, Melissa went back to the roof, where she heard the other two boys hiding behind an air conditioner unit.

“Nice night to come out and party, isn’t it?” she said.

The boys didn’t answer, but she could hear them both cowering. Their breathing and heart rates were at panic levels. She could smell their adrenaline on the breeze. These two would make tasty after-dinner treats if she was so inclined. But she wasn’t. She had other plans for them.

“If you come out now, I promise not to hurt you,” she said. “I’ve already had my fill for the night on your friend.”

No sound from either of them.

“Come on boys, this works so much better if you do what I say. Come out now and you won’t be harmed. If I have to go back there and get you, all bets are off.”

They were whispering at each other, one of them encouraging the other to move. Then a tall boy with shoulder-length brown hair appeared.

“There you are,” Melissa said. “What’s your name?”

The boy was shivering. He was a skinny kid in a black T-shirt and jeans.

“Seth,” he said. “My name is Seth.”

“Hello Seth,” said Melissa, looking in his eyes and making the connection. Seth was the ideal subject: weak-willed, soft, and scared. Before Melissa even spoke a word, she was in Seth’s mind, firmly in control.

“Tell your friend it’s okay to come out,” she said.

“Come out Martin,” said Seth. “She’s not going to hurt us.”

Martin’s head appeared from behind the air conditioner then ducked away again, like a rodent poking out of a hole in the ground only to change its mind. In that second when he appeared, Melissa saw behind his thick glasses and put a hook into his brain.

“It’s okay, Martin,” she said in a soft voice. Martin appeared again, unable to control himself now. Melissa had gotten inside and he was drawn to her voice. “That’s it. Come out little Martin.”

He was a short kid who tried to make himself taller with thick hiking boots. His glasses were scuffed up and ill-fitted. His lips curved into a permanent fish face in front of his horridly crooked teeth.

“Hi there, Martin. My name is Melissa.”

“Hi Melissa,” Martin said.

Behind her, she heard Dominic returning to the rooftop, apparently done with his midnight snack.

“Now listen to me boys,” Melissa said. “You both belong to me now. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” said Martin and Seth at once.

“What are you doing?” Dominic asked. “Are we taking these boys back to Florida?”

“No,” said Melissa. “They’re staying here to keep an eye out for us.”

“We’re creating spies in Washington? What’s going on, Mel?”

“Take a seat, boys,” Melissa said to her new slaves. Seth and Martin both dropped to the ground, sitting cross-legged like children in elementary school. Melissa turned to Dominic.

“I found her,” she said.

“Found who?”

“The one who got away.”

Dominic’s eyes opened wide with understanding, and, for the first time in hours, Melissa felt relaxed. What a comfort it was, after all that had happened on this night, to be with her bond, to have someone she could talk to about everything. So much had been going wrong for so long, and tonight it felt like everything was coming to a head. Daciana was missing, Renata was out of control, the clan was weakening, and Falkon Dillinger, the strongest of their many enemies, was positioning himself for an attack. Were it not for Dominic, lovely Dominic, with his piercing eyes and perfectly narrow face, his soothing voice and elegant manner—she was alone in this world except for him now. She couldn’t trust her sisters and brothers in the clan any longer. Every day that Daciana was gone the clan inched closer to demise. The familial loyalty that once held it together was turning to jealousy, rivalry, and disdain. She and Renata had almost come to blows during the ceremonial hunt.

“She’s the newest member of the Thorndike senior class,” Melissa said. “She took the spot the Evans girl left behind.”

“You mean she--”

“Yes, she is the new girl who showed up to the Masquerade wearing black.”

Dominic ran up to her in excitement. “But surely this isn’t a coincidence!”

“Of course it’s not,” Melissa said. “We find her on the streets and bring her to the Farm. I give her the standard reprogramming that I’ve given to thousands of kids before and since but with her it doesn’t take for some reason. She runs away in the night with nothing but the everglades all around her for miles, but somehow she survives and gets away. It all makes sense now. She wasn’t some crazy anomaly after all. There was nothing wrong with my reprogramming. It wasn’t my fault. All this time, I knew it. She isn’t a normal girl. Far from it.”

“But what is she then?”

“She is Falkon Dillinger’s spy,” Melissa said. “Or rather, she was his spy. I paid her a visit after the dance. Now she belongs to me.”

Dominic was pacing now, the silk blend of his Italian pants flowing like water as he moved. In a world of stunningly beautiful creatures, Dominic was a standout, not only because of the handsome eyes and face he brought with him from his human form, but because of his impeccable fashion sense. As years stretched into decades, it was so easy to lose interest in whatever trends were flowing through the human world, but Dominic never did. He visited Paris and Milan every season and came back energized with the latest fashions. While other immortals grew into tired anachronisms, stuck in whatever century they liked best, Dominic was a vibrant, dynamic form, changing with the times, and looking all the more beautiful for it.

On this night he wore a blue button-down that was perfectly fitted to show off the sleek form of his torso underneath. He had a wide, black leather cuff on his left arm—it was worn and rustic with a buckle closure. Atop the cuff sat a gold medallion with an engraved monogram showing Dominic and Melissa’s initials intertwined.

“So your research was a success,” he said.

The research. The years and years of research. The second-guessing of herself and her abilities. After the girl escaped from the Farm, Melissa lost herself in a six-year quest to understand what went wrong. She experimented on the minds of hundreds of young men and women, turning their brains to mush as she sought to understand how one little girl could simply stand up and walk out the front door.

“Yes, the techniques I perfected in my research worked this time, and now I finally have the complete picture. The first time I met that girl, Falkon had closed off her mind and trained her to deceive me. But using the techniques I perfected in the lab, using pain and fear to really pry her open, I got inside.”

Dominic laughed. “Not even the great Falkon Dillinger is your match in matters of the mind. Truly, you are the greatest hypnotist among the immortals.”

Melissa allowed herself to enjoy the praise. At least someone recognized her worth. It was a shame that she couldn’t tell anyone else in the clan about her triumph. Telling even a little bit of this story would lead to questions she didn’t want to answer, questions like:
How did the girl get away in the first place? Why didn’t you tell anyone when you learned the girl was gone? Why didn’t you immediately go to Daciana?

These questions in turn might lead to the big one:
What else is going on at the Farm that the clan doesn’t know about?

If anyone in the clan ever chose to ask that question it would be Melissa and Dominic’s undoing. Truth be told, there was a lot going on at the Farm that the clan didn’t know about.