The Moon Rises (49 page)

The necromancer frowned when Gigi didn’t move.
“Bow, bitch. Can’t you do anything right?”

Shaking violently, Gigi thought of Sara’s smile.
She thought of Sara’s hugs. She thought of Sara’s dreams. Then she thought of
Sara’s scream as the monster took her away and ate her.

“Sara was going to be a teacher. She told Simon
no because she had a dream to be a teacher and now she can’t be a teacher.”

“I don’t care,” the necromancer hissed, flicking
her fingers again. The monsters also hissed then the female threw her arms out
and the lights in the room darkened. “Maybe I will tear you apart slowly after
all.”

A gush of wind whipped through the sealed room while
the lights flickered. Gigi knew the necromancer was using her magic, but she
didn’t care about the lights or wind. She only cared about how Sara couldn’t be
a teacher or get married and have children. Sara was gone and death was final.

A flash of light drew Gigi’s attention behind her.
On the shelves, two lines of containers covered by black sheets began to
tremble. The black sheets peeled back as a light illuminated each container and
Gigi saw faces – dozens of faces, all girls with dreams like Sara, now nothing
more than floating heads in some freak’s rundown house.

Gigi studied all the faces from the top row to the
bottom until she saw Katia who looked asleep. Next was Monica who cried when
the Weres hurt her feelings. Finally in the last jar was Sara, her blonde hair
floating around her.

“Sara was going to be a teacher,” the necromancer
mimicked in a whiny voice and the light in the jars grew brighter as the heads began
to tremble. “She told Simon no because she had a dream to be a teacher and now she
can’t be a teacher.”

Suddenly in the jars, the heads morphed so their
mouths gaped in silent screams and their eyes opened in blank horror. Gigi shuddered
at the sight of Sara screaming, just as she must have screamed the night the
monster took her life.

“Don’t be fooled by their pretty little heads,”
the necromancer said while the heads continued their silent screaming. “I ate
their brains and filled up their heads with rocks. Even though none of them
were as stupid as you, the rocks were actually an improvement to what their
brains ever accomplished.”

Gigi stared at Sara’s dead eyes. They were a
milky blue and held no life in them. None of the heads were alive, yet they
screamed – not in fear, for their fear was gone. Gigi’s rage told her how they
screamed for vengeance, begging for retribution. Their rage mixed with Gigi’s,
fueling it until she could barely breathe.

Turning away from the heads, Gigi stared at the
necromancer who was smiling in the friendliest way. Gigi’s hands flexed out
then back into fists then out again. Each movement fed the rage as her teeth
grinded together. The female watched her with amusement.

“Angry, bitch?”

Gigi couldn’t answer for the rage was all she saw
and felt and loved. A low growl erupted from within Gigi. When the growl
deepened, echoing in the room, the necromancer finally lost her smile.

“I’m done playing with you.”

The monsters darted forward, planning to tear
Gigi apart. The darkness inside her wanted to feel their claws tear at her
flesh. She wanted violence and she wanted destruction and she wanted death.

When Gigi screamed – giving a voice to the still
screaming dead girls behind her - the rage could no longer be restrained. Gigi
reached out for the necromancer, wanting to feel her skin rip away, to feel the
hot blood under her fingertips, to feel the life leave the female who took away
those innocent girls.

The monsters squawked, not in rage, but suffering
as their bodies flamed. Gigi ran past them towards the necromancer who waved
her hands and did her chants and whirled her magical spells. Still screaming,
Gigi grabbed the female and they both fell to the ground.

The necromancer scratched at Gigi and cried out
for her magic. Instead of salvation, the female began to disintegrate as the
magic she hungered for devoured her. Digging her nails into the female, Gigi
screamed again and let the rage free.

The rage burned the walls and the floors,
consumed the shelves with the now silent heads, and even charred the air. The
surviving monsters fled, but the rage chased them down and set them ablaze.

Underneath Gigi, the necromancer broke apart,
burning and flaying as both the rage and magic torn her to pieces, feasting on
her as she had feasted on Sara. The magic faded as the female’s energy did, but
the rage flourished. Sending waves of heat and destruction into every hallway,
up the staircase, into the attic, burning every inch of the house, consuming
evil with evil until only a three-story fireball remained. Burning for hours,
long after the house was gone and the fire engines dumped gallons of water, the
rage burned all night long, until the sun rose the next morning.

Standing hidden in the blaze, Gigi wept and
growled and laughed and screamed and prayed. She could kill the necromancer a
million times, but it would never return big sis. Sara was gone. They were all
gone.

Outside the blaze, the creatures of the Circle
marveled at the fire. They gossiped about the strange female who lived in the
house – kept to herself but was friendly enough. The Alphas visited and surveyed
the damage. The witch clans all came to witness the unending fire. Everyone
wanted to enjoy the spectacle. While Gigi watched them, she let the rage rise
up inside her because it felt good to let it free.

Just after dawn, as the sun threatened to burn as
hot as the fire, Gigi sensed Millicent with her - felt a chill in the heat of
the fire. The ghost’s white hair flowed in the furious breeze of the blaze and
her dark eyes looked frightening against the paleness of her face. Millicent
flinched at the rage which swirled around her.

“We should go before he comes and punishes you,”
Millicent said and Gigi thought the ghost sounded very dignified like a lady
from those movies where women wore corsets. “I will keep your secret for now,
but you must make the rage sleep, Gigi.”

Gigi didn’t remember who “he” was, but she felt
something cracking in her mind. Memories tried to push forward and she felt a
sharp pain as what no longer wanted to be hidden tore at the walls. If “he”
returned, those memories could be stolen again so Gigi did what Millicent asked
and pulled back the rage.

Gigi thought of Mamma Celeste singing to her. She
thought of Sara laughing. She thought of Finn kissing her with his soft lips.
Gigi thought of cooking and her kittens and her polka dots and Crystal Gayle
and Nina Simone and Mike throwing fits and Ella shaking her ass and all the
happy things which survived even with death and evil all around her.

Gigi thought of joy and blessings and Sara in
Heaven with Katia and all the other girls who were stolen away when they still
had dreams to achieve. When Gigi filled her soul with love, the rage which
hungered to burn everything forever instead smoldered then folded inside her
and slumbered.

Gigi couldn’t tell Finn why she was sad, couldn’t
explain to him about what she had let loose the night before, couldn’t reveal
what evil might be hiding inside her. Like Bethany, she was willing to deceive
the male she loved so she could keep him.

Even without knowing, Finn comforted her by
talking about cars and trying to bore away her tears. Gigi finally laughed when
his descriptions became so technical she thought he was speaking another language.

“I love you,” he said. “You can tell me whatever
is bothering you.”

Gigi knew he believed his words, but Finn loved
her because she was sweet. What she did the night before and what she released
from within wasn’t sweet. Evil and ugly, it needed to remain hidden from Finn
and everyone else.

Maybe it was the Circle or something in the
necromancer’s house which set off the rage inside her? Where she had created a
blaze which burned for eight hours, she couldn’t even light a candle wick now.
Gigi wanted to believe something the necromancer did in that house made the
rage become what it did. Gigi needed to believe the rage was dead much like the
female was, but it was a lie she had difficulty believing.

“I think Sara is dead,” Gigi finally said. “I’m
grieving my big sis.”

“She might still be found.”

Gigi nodded, her eyes studying his handsome face.
He was hers, but he would leave her. Finn wasn’t a tease like the other Weres,
but he wanted her to be a certain kind of female. Just as Simon needed Gigi to
be a Vamp so he could love her, Finn needed Gigi to be essentially human. She
didn’t know what she was exactly, but she knew she wasn’t human and maybe never
had been. The thought of Finn hating and rejecting her brought Gigi to tears.

Finn scooted around on the couch so he could take
her face in his hands and force her gaze to his. He was so beautiful and so gentle
and he would be repulsed by her evil.

“Does the reason you’re sad have anything to do
with the fire from last night?”

Gigi flinched and panic ravaged her as she tried
to find a way to keep him.

“Why would you think that?” she asked too
strongly.

Finn smiled softly. “It smelled like you.”

“What?”

“You have a very distinct scent. The fire last
night was so hot and it lasted for so long that the whole Circle smelled of you.
I was sitting at Mike’s and heard about the fire, so we stood out on the
balcony and watched it from his place. When I smelled you, I called, but you
didn’t answer. I was terrified something happened to you. You were there,
weren’t you?”

Gigi couldn’t avoid the truth, couldn’t keep Finn
with her, and so she wept. He held her and told her it would be okay, but she
knew he was lying.

“I killed her,” Gigi whimpered.

“Was she the one who took Sara?”

Gigi nodded and shook with panic. “She ate Sara.
She ate them all like they were food and she didn’t even care. She killed my
friend and thought it was okay because someone hurt her first. She was evil and
I got so angry and…”

Unable to look at him, Gigi hid behind her hair
and waited for him to leave.

“You had to kill her. Even if you weren’t angry and
didn’t want revenge, you had to kill her. Once she knew you had found her, she
had to die. Anyone would have killed her. If you had told someone where she
was, they would have killed her. Instead you did.”

“You’re not mad?”

Finn studied her with his beautiful eyes and
smiled. “You scared the shit out of me last night. I couldn’t get hold of you
and I was sure I’d lost you. That part upset me, but I’m not mad that you
killed some murderer. Why would I be?”

“Because I have evil in me.”

Finn gave her an oddly sympathetic smile like
when he had to explain how things worked. It was the same look he gave her when
she asked why the light didn’t turn on anymore in the bathroom and he had to explain
about light bulbs.

“I know you don’t understand what I am, but Weres
aren’t dogs. We have to work hard to keep our beasts in check so we can live
normal lives. If someone hurt you, I would lose control. I would kill that
person and I wouldn’t do it in some reasonable way. I would tear them apart and
I’m sure if anyone saw me do it, they would be scared and think I was evil. The
Circle is full of darkness. What you did was ugly, but it was necessary. That
bitch needed to die. Everyone knew that.”

Remembering the rage and how it only wanted to
destroy - not just the necromancer but everything - Gigi wasn’t sure Finn truly
understood what she was capable of. “I think I might be evil though.”

“I have evil in me too. Everyone does. I know
you’re still learning things and so you think what you feel is wrong, but you
didn’t hurt someone innocent. You didn’t kidnap young women and eat them. You
killed someone who came to the Circle and started feeding off the locals. I
would have killed her, if you had told me where she was. Does that make me
evil?”

Face still wet, her crying was over. Finn stood
and pulled Gigi to her feet. Walking to the bedroom, he kept her wrapped in his
arms.

“How did you make the fire though?” he asked
quietly as they reached her dark bedroom.

“I don’t know. I got so angry and I’m not
supposed to get angry. I guess I know why now.”

“And you just kept it burning all that time?”
Finn said, pulling her shirt over her head. “Could you not stop it?”

“I didn’t want to,” she admitted. “The power felt
good and I was still angry, but Millie said I needed to stop or else the male
who hid my memories would punish me.”

“And you just turned the power off?”

“Yes.”

Instead of looking horrified, Finn seemed impressed.
“You have some mad skills, don’t you?” he teased as he joined her naked in bed.
“Toxic blood, able to take down flying monsters, and the power to burn a fire
like that. Pretty badass, Gigi.”

“You’re really not mad?”