Black Moon (The Moonlight Trilogy) (26 page)

The sun slipped under the horizon, and twilight turned the mountains to indigo shadows. The full moon winked above the mountains, taking over the sky for the night. Finally, Simon said, “What was it like going back to the cave?”

In a whisper, Willa answered, “Terrible. That place is so . . .”

“Yeah, I know.” Simon pulled her a little closer.

“No, but there
’
s something else we didn
’
t get to tell you.” Willa shifted her head to look up at him. “We found bodies buried in the ground outside the cave.”

Simon flinched, pulling his chin in to see her face better. “What?”

“I know. The ground was all torn up, and Rowan saw the bodies. The trees told him that they were sacrifices.
Sacrifices
, Simon, of human bodies. The quakes in the spring, all those people missing.”

Simon shuddered and Koda lifted his head as if to listen more intently. Willa looked at the wolf as Simon said, “It all happened at the cave? That
’
s really . . . Holy moon! Does that mean it was Rachel? Who else knows about that place?”

“
We don’
t know. Some of us are starting to wonder if Archard really did die.”

Simon
’
s jaw dropped. “But Rowan checked.”

“Yeah, but it
’
s Archard.”

Simon exhaled. “Oh, man. How messed up would that be?”

She nodded. “And there was one more thing we learned up there. Remember the Lilly in Camille
’s grimoir
e?”

“Yeah, of course. It
’
s your and Solace
’
s new mystery.” He smiled.

“
Well
—get this—Lilly was Amelia
’
s daughter.” Willa
’
s heart beat a little quicker. She couldn
’
t wait to tell Solace. Her friend had had a memory of Amelia having a baby a couple months ago; Solace had known Lilly. At least Willa would have some good news to go with the bad.

“Whoa. That
’
s crazy.”

“It
’
s possible she
’
s still alive. Amelia said Camille promised to get her to safety when the Dark covens came here. She
’
d be in her eighties, I think, but
if
she
’
s alive, that means the Plate bloodline still exists.”

“That
’
d be amazing.”

Willa nodded, her mind turning, working in historian mode. “How cool would it be to find her, talk to her?”
She sighed,
“But there are no clues in the grimoires as to where Camille took her. Maybe she took her to Italy.
So it
’
s nearly impossible to find her.”

“
Too bad,
” Simon said. Thunder cracked in the distance, and both of them—
and Koda
—flinched.

Willa leaned forward. Angry clouds had gathered in the last few minutes, clogging up the sky and swallowing the mountains. “Where did those come from?”

Simon leaned forward too, eyes narrowed at the clouds. He shook his head. “
No idea. It
’
s been clear and hot all day.”

A sudden wind plowed through the yard, yanking leaves off the trees, and throwing Willa
’
s hair in her face. She pulled it away in time to see several skeletal arms of lightning pulse across the sky. “Sun and moon!” she whispered.

Simon grunted in agreement, and Koda growled at the sky. “We better get in. I got a lot to talk about with Rowan anyway.” He looked over at Willa, eyes heavy with meaning. “If I
’
m going to learn to control all the mess inside me, we need to get started right away.”

Her heart squeezed tight. “
Good idea.
” Her smile was interrupted by a tremendous burst of thunder.

Koda stepped to the edge of the porch and howled at the darkening sky.

Chapter 32

Blessing Moon

July—Present Day

J
uly’s full moon, the blessing moon, climbed the sky, steady and bright. Its bone-white light gave objects below a sublimely spectral quality, as if the world were something viewed through an ancient mirror.

Archard was ready, any margin for error eliminated. The time had come to test his skills. Dressed in his finest black suit with matching shirt, and
shoes
polished to a high sheen, he stood like a vogue wraith at the gates of the Twelve Acres cemetery. In his hands, he held the iron box.

Rachel, also in black, tight and sleek as a machine, stood next to him. Behind them, a passenger van. Inside the van, ten random strangers lay unconscious.

Rachel said to Archard, “I
’
ll go and set up the barrier.” As she trotted off, she pulled a vial of blood from her pocket. The spell—pulled from Bartholomew
’
s book, of course—would keep them hidden from the town and prevent any interruptions as they pulled the ghosts from the Otherworld.

When she returned, the spell in place, Archard nodded to the van, “Let
’
s get them into place.”
Rachel
stepped up to the van and threw back the door. She took a pouch from her jacket pocket. Carefully, she sprinkled a powdered potion on each face and then backed out of the van.

“Move!” she commanded. Soon the ten people stumbled from the van, reeling like drunkards, to follow her into the cemetery. Their eyes stared vacantly ahead, unaware of the danger.

Archard took a large bag from the van and followed. Anticipation was alcohol in his veins, making his head spin giddily. No one in history had ever attempted this. It was ingenious, revolutionary.
Legendary.
He imagined the stories to future generations.
Archard the Dark created a Covenant of ghosts. He pulled the souls from the Otherworld as easily as pulling apples from a tree.
Eyes would widen following such statements, and listeners would gasp in
wonder, envy
, and—best of all—fear.

Archard the Dark: the only witch worthy of the same title as Bartholomew.

His stomach fluttered, his smile grew.

Rachel organized the drones into a line behind the headstones of Ruby Plate and several members of her Covenant. Archard knelt and placed the iron box on top of her grave, the moans growing in pitch, floating out of the metal.

“I
’
m coming for you, Ruby,” he hissed to her grave.

The brilliant Light Luminary had escaped the clutches of his grandfather several times. Archard
’
s grandfather, Horace, had tried and failed to form a Dark Covenant. He had been able to break Ruby
’
s but nothing more. Tonight, Archard began the long-awaited process of erasing his ancestral shame. No one would remember Horace
’
s mistakes after Archard
’
s triumph.

While Rachel corralled their ten victims—
random
ly kidnapped from Denver for the occasion—Archard opened his bag of supplies. He placed white pillar candles all around the graves, a large flickering circle, yellow flames
contrast
ing the white moonlight.

Finished with the victims, Rachel handed a moonstone marked with a black skull and crossbones to Archard. “Is it time?” she asked, smiling, but unable to hide a flicker of fear in her cool blue eyes.

Archard dismissed it; he couldn
’
t expect anyone, not even Rachel, to be as open to the Darkness as he. No one was like him. He bent and pulled Bartholomew
’
s grimoire from the bag, reverently running a hand over the round silver medallion on the cover.
At least not anyone living . . .

He placed the book next to the box of souls but didn
’
t open
it. Archard had all the elements of the spell memorized, etched into his brain. The grimoire was there for symbolic reasons only.

“Yes, it is time.” Shivers of pleasure moved down his spine as he thumbed the glass-smooth moonstone.
It
’
s time!

Rachel nodded and went back to their victims, forcing each one to his or her knees. Their bodies bent easily but stiffly, their heads wobbling as she pushed them down. Brushing her hands off, Rachel then joined Archard at Ruby
’
s grave.

They knelt together in front of the boxed souls. Archard must open the box to release the power of the souls but must keep them contained. The instant the box opened the souls would try to flee to the Otherworld, but he had to harness them, ground them, or he
’
d lose their power. From the bag Archard pulled the needed ingredients.

First, he unscrewed the lid of a mason jar and carefully sprinkled crushed shells on Ruby
’
s grave to form a square. Next, inside the shell-square, the blood of a crow formed two intersecting arrows pointing in the four cardinal directions. Lastly, he placed the iron box in the middle of the square and folded several strands of dried seaweed over the lid.

Archard put his hands on top of the box—his fingers instantly growing cold—and mumbled the words that would keep the souls from escaping. Then he turned to Rachel. “Remember, it
’
s your job to make sure none of the souls escape. Keep close watch. If they start to break the barrier, we must close the box at once. I
’
d rather start over than lose them.”

She nodded solemnly, her eyes fixed on the box. “
We won
’
t lose any.”

“
Good.
” He inhaled. “
Here we go.
” With another spell, Archard pried open the iron box. The metal groaned in protest before the lid snapped open. In an icy rush, the souls flooded out of the box, only to be stopped by a dome of magic. The invisible dome filled with the ethereal white ghosts, their bodies without real form, mixing together like
a cloudy, milky liquid.
Faces, screaming in protest or pain, swirled inside the trap, mouths stretched wide, eyes elongated in frightened, angry grimaces.

Archard leered back, drinking in the potent power.

Pleased that the trap was solid, he stood and moved to his living victims. He paced, scanning their empty, unfocused eyes. Ten i
gnoramuses’
lives in exchange for ten ghosts pulled from the Otherworld. He swiveled his head. “Rachel, bring me the stones.”

She dug in the bag and produced ten moonstones, each
strung on
a length of twine and etched with a sinister death’s head. Archard hung one around each victim’s neck. They hung heavily at each chest, the small ovals nearly the same color as the trapped souls a few feet away.

The night, still and silent until a moment ago, now filled with the sounds of tossed leaves and rustling grass as the wind raged against the dark magic. Somewhere down the road,
a screen door
creaked open and shut again and again. Thick gray clouds gathered, swelling and crackling with lightning. The full moon soon vanished behind their thunderous walls.

Only half of the witches Archard wanted were actually buried in the graveyard. Their souls would be easy to pull, their graves acting as a magnet. It would require the exchange of one soul for the other, a sacrifice, to pull the five remaining ghosts whose graves were elsewhere in the world. He
’
d decided to use a sacrifice for all ten anyway as an extra precaution.

Archard moved back to the first of the kneeling victims. He held his hand to the man
’
s high, dry forehead and called to his fire. His palm flared red-hot. Numb to the pain, the victim only blinked as the witch branded a name into his head, the letters burned there for the Otherworld to identify.

The first name:
Charles Plate.

Archard moved down the line, burning a name into each forehead, wiping off bits of charred, red-black skin from his hand with a handkerchief.

Ruby Plate

Amelia Plate Moore

Peter Moore

Jennifer Plate Garrett

Carson Garrett

Camille Krance

Ronald Krance

Solace Krance

Rupert Holmes

Nine Light witches and one Dark, the Light witches in honor of his ancestors who tormented them and almost
destroy
ed them completely. And the one Dark witch, Holmes, as punishment for the epic failure of letting Wynter escape, which directly resulted in Archard
’
s own failure at the cave. Five women and five men to complete the two True Covens, with himself and Rachel at their heads.

The temperature dropped steadily, but the power of the spell kept Archard hot, feeding his fire. Sweat poured down the back of his neck and trickled along his spine. Sniffing lightly at the smell of burnt flesh, the witch moved back to the
trapped
souls. He slipped his own moonstone from his pocket.

Archard glanced at Rachel, who shivered in the cold. She nodded in encouragement. He dropped to his knees in front of the trapped souls, still swirling in the magical dome, their moans now loud and haunting the air.

A deep breath.

A look at Bartholomew
’s grimoire.

He thrust the hand holding the moonstone into the dome. Instantly, the ghosts started gnashing and biting at his flesh. He pushed his teeth together, ignoring the pain, sending heat to the limb to try to protect it from the ghosts and the glacial cold inside the trap. Eyes closed, heart jumping in his chest, Archard began his chant, a slow slur of words so Dark that the earth shuddered beneath him.

The air temperature plummeted fiercely, the clouds roiling overhead. The smell of snow filled the air. Archard continued his chant, over and over, his voice rising in volume with each repetition. Rachel joined in, throwing her power into the words.

A visceral crack snapped in the air, and then a flood of moonlight broke through the clouds, pulled to the moonstones. The stones around the sacrifices
’
necks glowed bright, sucking in the light and then throwing it back out in tremulous lines that all connected to Archard
’
s stone.

He
’
d breached the Otherworld, thanks to the power of the trapped souls, whose cries and screams opened the door. The Otherworld would try to pull them in, take them back, but he
’
d keep them there as he pulled the witches
’
souls from the embrace of the world beyond death. The trapped souls were the key, and he
would
use them to rob the Otherworld.

Sudden screams rent the snow-scented air, sounds so terrible even Archard winced.

The first ghost floated into view.
The great Ruby Plate.
Archard sneered as her flickering form rose from the grave. He guided her toward the dome and her white body slithered inside, trapped with the others. Archard took strength and satisfaction from the horror and shock on her face.

The sacrificial victim with the Light witch
’
s name burned in her forehead collapsed, dead, eyes now clear with fear and realization.

The next few ghosts came quickly, easily, snagged from their graves and shoved into the trap. More bodies thudded to the ground. The power of the souls grew with each addition. So much that Archard
’
s grin became a permanent addition to his devilish face.

So much power!

More!

The snow started to fall in thick white curtains. Soon it covered Archard
’
s head and shoulders. His hand in the dome was now a tattered, bloody mess, and the flesh had grown unbearably cold. Frostbite would be unavoidable.

He ground his teeth hard. Now he must pull the grave-less ghosts.

Archard
’
s chant changed, the words specific to pulling ghosts without graves. He had no doubt that the power behind him would be more than sufficient.

Give them to me!

The Otherworld fought hard, but in the end, it had no choice but to bow to Archard
’
s terrible might. The screams continued to fill the air, but the thick snow now deadened the sounds. Rachel, teeth chattering and skin blue, put her hands to her ears and collapsed to the ground, moaning.

Archard ignored it all, singularly focused. Not even the pain of his dying hand could stop him now.

A few more.

Soon the remaining souls slithered out of the slate-gray sky and into the dome. The trap was no longer sufficient to hold so much power and anger. Archard had only seconds before he lost them all. Quickly, he moved his hand downward, screaming in pain as he pushed the box closed, pulling the white fog of souls inside it.

The ground quaked under him, outraged at the savage betrayal it had endured. Archard collapsed next to Rachel, cradling his hand to his chest, shaking violently. He blinked up at the snow, the feathery flakes landing on his face like whispers.

His triumphant laugh echoed
through the night.