Shadow Rising

The horrible fight played over in my mind all the way home. I was in no doubt that Trevor’s aggression toward an innocent Vanpari kid was fueled by the outcome of the Vanpari Trials and the suns’ increasing distrust of moons. Now it seemed like the Vanpari didn’t even need to be accused of a crime to get hounded. They just had to have the audacity to walk down the street.

The whole thing made me sick.

It was almost completely dark by the time I made it home. I decided to sneak around the back way, hoping no one would spot me coming in late, so I could just innocently emerge from my bedroom later and pretend I’d been there all along.

I found the back wall to Geiser’s mansion and walked the perimeter, fumbling around for a gate. I went along the whole length without finding one. Of course William’s house would be as secure as Fort Knox.

There was only one thing for it. I’d have to climb the wall. No problem. My Elkie strength was perfectly designed for such an activity.

I hopped and reached up so my fingertips gripped the wall. Then in one fluid motion, I swung my legs up.

I crouched on the wall like a cat, gazing down at the dark lawn ahead of me. Light was spooling from the windows of the mansion and the swimming pool was lit in blue, making wibbly lines dance across the grass. I couldn’t see anyone around—no maids or security staff—so decided it was safe to jump.

I went to launch myself over the wall but as I did, I slammed straight into some kind of barrier.

What the heck?

An invisible force field had prevented me from jumping over the wall. I pressed my hand forward and felt it collide with something rubbery. I squinted and saw a faint shimmer.

“Curfew spell,” a voice called up from the gloom.

I jumped a mile. Scanning the garden beneath me, I was stunned to see none other than Nikolas Storm emerge from the shadows like a specter. He glanced up at me.

My heart slammed in my chest. In the pool lights, Nikolas’s features looked even more stunning. His jaw was defined in that chiseled kind of way you saw on male catwalk models. I had to remind myself he was a complete jerk and I wasn’t interested. Not that my tingling nerve endings would listen to reason.

“A what?” I asked in the most casual voice I could muster.

“A curfew spell,” he repeated. “Geiser’s whole campaign is centered on the Twilight Curfew. He can’t exactly have his own kids out and about at night getting papped having fun with a Vanpari.”

I sat down on the wall. “I’m not his kid.”

“Will be soon.”

I paused and frowned. Why was Nikolas Storm talking to me all of a sudden? He’d made it perfectly clear at school that he wasn’t interested in anything I had to say. Maybe it was something to do with the fact I’d seen his moon tattoo? He’d definitely been rattled by me mentioning it. If it was a secret, maybe he’d come out to aggressively remind me again not to speak about it aloud.

Just then, I realized Nikolas was muttering something in Latin under his breath. The shimmering barrier disappeared. He must have cast some kind of spell using his Mage magic.

“You can come down now,” he said.

I pressed my palms forward. Sure enough, Nikolas had created a gap in the force field.

I jumped down and landed with a soft thud on the dewy grass. The shimmery barrier pinged back into place behind me.

As I straightened, I flashed Nik a skeptical look. “Why are you helping me? You could’ve just left me up there to face Geiser’s wrath.”

He let out a dry laugh. It was the first time I’d seen anything even remotely resembling a smile on his face. It suited him. He had dimples when he smiled.

“You have a pretty low opinion of me,” he said.

Now it was my turn to laugh wryly. “I wonder why?”

Nikolas turned to face me, his eyebrows raised. “You’re the one who broke my ribs in Battle Class.”

I winced. “I broke your ribs?”

“Yeah. Thank god for Adarna Daimons.” He jammed his hands into his pockets and leaned his back against the wall.

“I really didn’t mean to hurt you,” I told him. “I’ve never used my Mage magic before. It’s all new to me. I don’t know where my powers begin and end.”

He shrugged. “Sure. Being a half-breed is confusing.”

I frowned. “Half-breed?” It sounded like an insult. I wondered what Retta would have to say about the term.

“Never mind,” Nikolas replied.

I decided not to press it.

“You never answered my question,” I said. “Why are you helping me?”

He paused as if considering whether to say his next words or not. “You’re out at twilight. That’s a good sign.”

“A good sign of what?”

He turned his face to me fully and the moon reflected in his pupils. Then he shoved up the sleeve of his right arm, showing me the moon-class tattoo in its full glory. Black twisty lines forming a perfect circle. “A good sign that I can trust you about this.”

He spoke in a slightly stiff manner, as if this whole topic of conversation made him tense.

“To be honest,” I told him, “I don’t understand the significance of it. Mage stuff goes way over my head.”

“It means I have dual powers.”

The expression in his eyes was so intense, I could tell this was a huge deal. But I just didn’t understand why.

“So, what does that mean? Dual powers? That you draw your magic from both the moon and sun?”

“In a nutshell.”

“And that matters because…?”

A look of relief came over him. His features relaxed. “Because for thousands of years Mages have been forced to choose. You make your decision, you get your mark, and you stick with it. Not choosing is like sticking your middle finger up at tradition.”

I smiled. “I’ve never been one for tradition,” I replied.

For the first time, I felt admiration toward Nikolas. It took balls to go against the grain. By taking on dual powers, he was rebelling. And now that he wasn’t acting like a total dick to me, all the intrigue I’d felt about him before came flooding back. Along with those sensations. You know, the tingly ones…

Warmth rushed into my cheeks. Luckily, it was too dark for him to see me blush.

“But the thing is,” he continued, “No one has to choose. Moon powers and sun powers come from the same branch of magic. They’re not opposites like we’re led to believe. I mean, you can literally see the moon during the day! Bit of a giveaway, don’t you think?”

I could see passion spark in his eyes. Whatever Nikolas was divulging to me, it was something he cared about deeply.

“Go on,” I prompted. “This is already blowing my mind.”

“Okay,” he said, sounding increasingly excited. “So the type of magic that’s opposite to sun is night.”

“I learned about night magic at school,” I said. “It’s like some old ancient evil thing that got eradicated thousands of years ago, isn’t it?”

“Huh,” Nikolas scoffed. “That’s what they want you to think.”

I thought of Sister Celeste’s inaccurate history class. Could Sunny’s be just as guilty of misrepresenting the past as Zenith?

“Are you telling me that night magic still exists?” I asked.

Nikolas nodded. “Yes. Invoking it is illegal, but there are underground groups that are drawn to its lures. But with all this sun versus moon crap going on at the moment, the actual bad guys are going under the radar. Because of a constant need for an enemy—which I’m sure Freud has something to say about—the sun-class transferred their night-hatred over to the moon-class instead. We became the bad guys. Driven underground, away from the daylight.”

Huh.

I’d grown up ignorantly believing that suns and moons were naturally opposed. That there were innate divisions between us that the peace treaty was doing its best to manage.

“Hold up,” I said, as a sudden thought sprung to my mind. “Are you guys even nocturnal?”

“Nope. At least, not by default. We’ve only become that way because we had to.”

“Well, shit.” I rested my back against the wall, stunned. “So, let me get this straight. You took on sun powers to make some kind of political statement?”

“Er…” Nikolas shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot.

“Then why hide your moon tattoo? Shouldn’t you be all out, loud and proud, and in everyone’s face?” I thought of Gus as I said it. He refused to quell his flamboyant gayness. It was one of the things I admired the most about him.

Nikolas looked away evasively. I noticed his hands were now clenched into fists. Clearly, I’d poked a sore spot.

“Sorry, that was personal,” I said.

He shook his head. “I didn’t switch to make a grand political gesture.”

“You didn’t?” Maybe I’d been a bit hasty letting my lady bits reignite for this guy.

“You know the Vanpari Five?” He looked at me with intensity in his dark eyes. “The ones who just got sentenced to death by a sun court for murdering a Celestial woman?”

“Of course…” I said, not knowing where this was going.

Pain flashed in his eyes. “They’re my friends. They were framed. The whole case is a farce. I had to come overground to clear their names.”

My eyebrows shot up. I recalled Nik’s face during the TV report in the cafeteria, and how furious he’d looked. No wonder he was being so standoffish toward me. He was going through some seriously heavy shit.

Just then, I remember the escaped Vanpari in Bear Mountain. The look of wild terror in the eyes. He’d looked scared for his life. And not even remotely like the vicious murderer the press had painted him as.

“I saw the one who escaped!” I cried.

Nik’s expression changed in a split second, now a sudden mixture of confusion, relief, and shock. “What?” he whisper-cried. “Where?”

“In the mountains back home. Bear Mountain. It’s about fifty miles north from here.”

Suddenly, Nik grabbed my hand and pulled me into the pool house. He seemed completely rattled. I should’ve been more perturbed, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that I was holding hands with Nik!

As soon as we were inside, he let go and shut the glass door securely. I felt the absence of him straight away, longing to feel his cold, smooth skin against mine again.

He turned to face me.

“Okay. Tell me everything from the beginning,” he said. “You saw Elliot? Where?”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. My mind seemed completely cuffuddled from the sudden physical contact with him. I had to shake my head to get back my senses.

“Elliot? The Vanpari. Right. Okay. So I saw him in the forest in Bear Mountain.”

“Shit.” Nikolas grabbed his forehead with his hand. “He’s going to get himself killed.”

“He dropped something,” I said, suddenly remembering. “A medallion, I think.”

I reached inside my jacket pocket. The necklace was still in there. I held it out to Nikolas.

He touched it with his fingertips.

“Take it,” I said with a nod.

Nikolas clasped it in his fist. Emotion sparked in his eyes. Then he coughed as if clearing it from his throat. “Bear Mountain. How far away is that?”

“Like an hour’s drive north from here,” I replied. “But, Nik, calm down. You’re not going to run off to the forest and try to find him, are you?”

“Of course I am!” Nik replied. “He’s out there alone. Lost. On the run. He needs my help.”

He was starting to sound frantic.

I placed my hands on his shoulders to ground him. “He’s safe. Okay? I know those mountains like the back of my hand. They’re dense. Barely penetrable. Even if law enforcement tracked him that far, they’ll have a hell of a time finding him inside. Trust me. With everything going on against the Vanpari right now, he’s safer there than anywhere.”

Nik paused and stared into my eyes. The worry shining in them made my heart skip a beat. He really cared about his friend.

“I have to help him,” he said meekly.

“You will,” I told him, firmly. “Just not right now. Not in the middle of the night.”

My admiration for Nikolas ratcheted up by a million percent. He’d switched to sun-class to help his friends. He’d left his home behind to come to the sunlight, to fight for something he believed in.

Finally, Nik exhaled, giving in to my reasoning. He paced over to the couch and slumped down. His head fell into his hands like a stone.

I hesitated, caught between wanting to go over and comfort him and wondering how welcome such a move would really be.

“But what makes you so certain they were framed?” I asked.

“I just know,” he replied, looking pained.

“Why don’t you tell me? Off-load.”

He shook his head. “I can’t. It’s too dangerous.”

“Dangerous because…”

“Because it goes all the way to the top!”

He was getting frantic again.

“To the top?” I asked. “Do you mean… Geiser?”

I suspected my stepdad-to-be was a shady dude, but to be actively involved in something like the Vanpari Trials? In framing innocent kids for murder? What motivation would he have to get involved in that sort of shit?

Nik stood up and went over to a desk. He pulled out a box file and beckoned me over. I paced across the stone floor tiles and joined him at his side. He turned on the desk lamp. Light gleamed off a photograph. It looked like it had been taken by a telescopic lens, like the type a PI would use.

“What is that?” I asked, feeling my heartbeat begin to quicken.

The grainy photograph was of a café, looking through its window at two people sitting at a table. One was unmistakably Geiser. The other was a Celestial woman with blond hair and delicate wings.

“Recognize anyone?” Nik asked.

He flicked to the next photo. Same café. Same couple. Slightly different angle.

As he pored through the images, I suddenly gasped. I knew who the woman was. It was Carmella Reed, the woman who’d been murdered, supposedly by the Vanpari Five.

An unpleasant feeling began to squirm in my guts. “Carmella Reed knew Geiser?”

“She more than knew him…” Nik said, flicking to the next photograph.

In this one, Carmella was leaning across the table kissing Geiser.

I gasped and grabbed the image. My eyes fell to the date. The photo was just a month old.

Immediately, I started freaking out. Geiser had been with my mom and this woman at the same time—this now very dead woman. I’d watched enough true crime shows to know that the boyfriend was always suspect number one, and their likelihood of being the killer went up exponentially if they had such an obvious motive as cheating on their partner!

My heart raced in my chest. I was on the verge of hyperventilating.

“My mom’s marrying a murderer!” I squeaked, my voice pitching up like a chipmunk.

I was so loud, Nik’s owl familiar squawked in alarm. Quick as a flash, Nik turned and cupped his hand over my mouth before I could scream the word murderer again.

“Shhh!” he warned me, his dark eyes penetrating my soul.

I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat. Then I forced myself to breathe more slowly.

When Nik could tell I was done freaking out, he removed his hand.

“I shouldn’t have told you,” he said.

“You goddamn sure as hell should have!” I contested. “Man, I knew he was a creep. He gave me the heebie-jeebies.” I shook the photograph of Geiser and Carmella Reed kissing. “Now I know why!” I stage-whispered. “He’s a frickin’ murderer!”

This was all too much to take. I walked over to the couch and fell into it. My mind was swimming.

“So Geiser was having an affair with Carmella Reed,” I said, putting the narrative together in my mind. “He knows it’s not going to look so good from a PR perspective to have two women on the go at once. Mom is clearly the better choice in the public eye because she’s a Mage, a mother, and also, you know, not a lap dancer.”

“Right,” Nik affirmed. He came over and sat beside me, eyeing me with caution.

I scrunched up my face with disgust. “So he had her killed? Rather than, oh I don’t know, break up with her like any normal fucking person would do?”

“Dead people can’t talk,” Nik said, exhaling sadly. “Why do you think the Vanpari Five got death sentences?”

I felt a tightening in my chest. This was all too horrifying to accept. Geiser being a psychopathic murderer was one thing, but framing a bunch of innocent kids in the process was totally sadistic. And then there was my mother. She was sharing her bed with a lunatic!

“Why did he choose them?” I asked, searching Nik’s eyes as I struggled to comprehend it all. “Why a bunch of kids?”

“Plenty of reasons. First off, they’re Vanpari. We all know that most people automatically assume Vanpari are violent. Then there’s the club Carmella worked at. It had a reputation for letting in underage boys. They’d all visited it the weekend before the murder, so it was easy for the prosecution to prove the connection. Third, they’re young enough to be susceptible to the types of interrogation tactics that elicit false confessions. And finally…” He took a deep, sad breath. “It’s more salacious. A better story. Why accuse one Vanpari when a gang of them is just so much worse? What better way to whip up hysteria about the moon-class and the twilight hours? Geiser has a pretty good PR guy pulling the strings behind the scenes, you know.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “This is so screwed up.” I looked up at him with concerned eyes. “What the hell are we going to do?”

“We?” he asked.

“Well, duh,” I replied. “I’m part of this. He’s about to become my stepdad. We need to expose him.”

Nikolas’s lips twisted to the side. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea for you to get involved. I have protection. You’re vulnerable.”

“Protection?” I asked.

“My mom,” he replied.

Of course. Mayor Storm was the moon mayor. She was in the position parallel to the one that Geiser wanted. If—or when—he got into power, he’d have to cooperate with her. I recalled Heidi telling me they were family friends. Perhaps it was more a case of keep your enemies close?

“So what, you’re some kind of spy?” I asked.

He nodded slowly.

I whistled air out between my teeth. This was a lot to take in. I wasn’t sure yet that I fully understood everything. But what I did know was that Nikolas Storm hated William Geiser just as much as I did.

“Look, you need to sign me up to the anti-Geiser brigade,” I said with determination. “I need to stop that asshat from winning the election and marrying Mom. Besides, I’m totally well placed to get evidence. What’s better than a spy in the pool house if not one under the same roof?”

I grinned to show him just how confident I was. But his expression remained grim.

“This isn’t a game, Theia. We’re talking about a really dangerous, powerful man. Who knows what Geiser’s capable of if he finds out?”

I looked out the window at the mansion. It looked so tranquil, beaming warm yellow light out the windows. But I knew that it was hiding dark secrets, and one very twisted soul.

“Let me help,” I said.

“How?” he asked.

I nodded at the medallion Nik was still clutching tightly in his hand. “I know Bear Mountain like the back of my hand. I can track Elliot.”

“No offence,” he said, “but an Elkie isn’t out running a Vanpari. And since there are already people on his tail, you’d only freak him out more. There’s only one person who stands a chance of convincing Elliot to come back and testify, and that’s me.”

“Okay...” I say, choosing to let the Elkie comment slide. “Say you do manage to find Elliot and convince him to come back and testify. Then what? Who’s to say anyone will believe him? They didn’t before. What’s different now? The fact you have a few photos?” I shook my head. “That’s not enough. You need more evidence. Hard evidence. And I’m in the best place to get it. I live with the man!”

Nik looked unconvinced.

“What’s better than a spy in his pool house?” I said, with grandiosity. “If not a spy in his house-house?”

Nik blinked at me. I cringed. That had sounded better in my head...

“And what do you expect to find?” he asked. “A neatly labeled file called ‘My Diabolical Plan’ in his study?”

“No,” I conceded. “But there’ll be something. There’ll be more somewhere. We need enough evidence to really nail him. A photo won’t be enough. Even if we have a Vanpari boy’s testimony to back it up.” I looked into his eyes. “Give me a couple of days, okay? See what I can get out of him. Then we can talk about finding Elliot. Because you’d get lost in five minutes in Bear Mountain. Trust me.”

Okay, so maybe I wasn’t going to let the whole Elkie comment slide afterall.

I looked at Nik, studying the medallion in his hands, clearly deliberating.

“Do we have a deal?” I pressed.

He held up the medallion. The small, silver crescent moon spun, catching the light. He took a heavy breath and nodded. “Deal.”