Scott Tracey - Moonset

• Название: Moonset
• Автор: Scott Tracey
• Жанр: Фэнтези

Moonset, a coven of such promise . . . Until they turned to the darkness.

After the terrorist witch coven known as Moonset was destroyed fifteen years ago—during a secret war against the witch Congress—five children were left behind, saddled with a legacy of darkness. Sixteen-year-old Justin Daggett, son of a powerful Moonset warlock, has been raised alongside the other orphans by the witch Congress, who fear the children will one day continue the destruction their parents started.

A deadly assault by a wraith, claiming to work for Moonset’s most dangerous disciple, Cullen Bridger, forces the five teens to be evacuated to Carrow Mill. But when dark magic wreaks havoc in their new hometown, Justin and his siblings are immediately suspected. Justin sets out to discover if someone is trying to frame the Moonset orphans . . . or if Bridger has finally come out of hiding to reclaim the legacy of Moonset. He learns there are secrets in Carrow Mill connected to Moonset’s origins, and keeping the orphans safe isn’t the only reason the Congress relocated them . . .

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Coventry in the 21st Century

Just as quickly as we were reunited, they split us up again. The vans that had brought us to the motel were gone, replaced by a trio of hybrid SUVs.

“The environment, really?” Jenna asked, quirking a brow at Quinn.

“It’s our planet, too,” he replied with a grin.

There was no sign of Virago—Meghan—anymore. Instead, a clean-cut pair of college kids had showed up, looking like the poster children for the Greek system.

“Malcolm, you’ll be going with Nick,” Quinn said, pointing to the frat boy. “Cole and Bailey, you guys are going to be with Kelly.”

Cole didn’t hesitate for a second. “We’re good with that,” he said, speaking for the both of them. Bailey gave him a cross look, but she didn’t argue.

I did the math. “So that means we’re—”

“With me,” Quinn confirmed.

Jenna perked up. “So you’re our permanent guardian now?”

“That’s the plan,” Quinn said absently, barely paying attention to her. “For now.”

I looked between the two of them, considering my next move. Jenna had never thought one of our guardians was hot before. They changed with every new city we moved to, as if a change in babysitters would somehow change the behavior that led to us being kicked out of school.

I tried to predict all the ways that this could turn out badly. The disasters that would come if something d i d happen between them. The disasters that would come if something didn’t happen. The disasters that could come along the way.

Malcolm edged his way towards me. “So?”

When he wasn’t angry and running on emotion, Mal would and could boil down his every thought into as few words as possible. Right now, his “so” contained so many different questions and demands that I could barely handle them all at once.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. It covered as many of them as I could. I didn’t know how to get through to Jenna, I didn’t know if I even could. I looked around, desperate to change the subject. “Do you even know where we are? I was asleep when we pulled in a few days ago, and we haven’t left the room since.”

“No television? They make these things called news channels that could narrow it down for you.” Mal smirked.

“Tried that,” I said automatically, “but they all keep referring to the tri-state area. Nothing that narrows it down.”

He shrugged. “We’re in New York, I know that much. Upstate somewhere, I think.”

“Any idea where they’re taking us?”

“No clue,” he said. “Maine, maybe? Canada?”

Either was a possibility. I overheard Cole and Bailey’s excited chatter, discussing the exact same thing. Bailey was hoping for New York City (which would never happen), and Cole was hoping for a ski lodge, even though he’d never skied a day in his life. As it turned out, Mal was right, and we were closer to our destination that any of us expected.

Half an hour in the car with Jenna and Quinn played out in relative silence. We were definitely in New York: signs heading back the way we came promised arrival in Syracuse, Buffalo, and even New York City.

We alternated between highways that skirted Lake Ontario and back roads that probably hadn’t seen real traffic in a year or more. But eventually, the back roads led to an actual city, and ten minutes after that, a sign appeared, welcoming us to Carrow Mill.

The town doubled as a Hallmark movie set. Small town, lots of churches. Even a Main Street with an ancient green-tinged light pole in the center of a roundabout. Everything moved at a snail’s pace, but at least it could properly be called a town. Byron was a whole lot of farmland with a few houses in between. Carrow Mill was what they meant when they said “small town

America.”

“So this must be a nice change of pace,” I said to Quinn while we waited at one of the traffic lights. “Big change from D.C.”

The supernatural America, much like the natural one, had headquartered itself in the capital.

When it came time for the Witchers to be trained, programs had been quietly set up right in the political world’s backyard. The political covens wanted to prevent another Moonset, and many of them oversaw the training personally.

Normally, our guardians were a little older—rarely old enough to pass as our parents, but still old enough that they weren’t so immature themselves. But we’d never had a Witcher for a guardian.

I wanted to get him talking, maybe get some insight on what we could expect. But all Quinn did was give a little half-shrug.

“Did we ever thank you for saving us?” I tried. Jenna, who was checking her makeup in the passenger mirror, met my glance and pointedly rolled her eyes.

“That’s the job,” Quinn said noncommittally. “See the world, fight monsters.”

“Throw your charge into the line of fire?” I supplied.

“I figured better you than Jenna or Cole,” he said. “Your psych profile made you the best option. Plus, chivalry and all that.”

“I don’t think chivalry covers the undead,” Jenna interjected frostily. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a Neanderthal.”

I could hear the smirk in Quinn’s voice, even if I couldn’t see it. “You don’t really know enough about anything to pin me down.”

“Wait, there’s a psych profile on me? I want to know what it says.” The idea that they’d been studying me, taking notes about my behavior without my knowledge ran across my skin like a steady stream of spiders.

Having a Witcher down the hall made me uncomfortable. Having a Witcher down the hall who had been studying our psyches made it even worse. What did he know about us? Did they know something we don’t?

“I’m sure you do,” Quinn said, “but now’s not the time.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’re here,” he said cheerfully.

We turned down onto a closed street, pulling into a driveway just short of a cul-de-sac.

“Welcome to student housing,” Quinn continued, getting an odd level of enjoyment out of this.

“The Congress owns all the houses on the street, so we’re splitting you all up like normal.

We’re on this side of the street, and the other three on the other.”

Keeping five kids in the same house stopped being healthy back before all of us had reached double digits. Cole was too hyper, Mal too easily annoyed, Bailey too needy. No one ever really questioned it, because aside from our guardians and the witches who knew who we were, we never talked about it. Didn’t invite people over to our houses, never brought it up. It was one of the many things about our lives that was just too hard for normal kids to understand.

“They own the whole street?” Jenna asked, her nose wrinkling up. “How many kids do they have here?”

“Doesn’t matter to me. I’m just in charge of you two.”

I eyed Quinn, who was still all smiley. “You don’t like answering questions, do you?”

“Don’t I?”

Before I could reply, I got a look at our house.

“There’s been some sort of mistake,” Jenna said faintly. We couldn’t look away. Our house was basically the flaming wreckage of a freeway pileup. Well, it wasn’t on fire, but it probably should have been.

“No mistake,” Quinn said, hopping out of the driver’s seat. “Welcome home.”

“It’s some sort of practical joke,” I said weakly. “Right?”

Christmas had come to Carrow Mill, and it had vomited all over our house. I’d seen outside decorations for the holidays before, but never this many. And I definitely hadn’t seen them all in one place.

Not one, but two giant pine trees were decked out with strings of lights stretched taller than the house itself. I counted five different Santas perched around the property, competing with two nativity scenes (although the scene itself was life-sized with its own fully decorated stables), reindeer, wreaths, and a giant sleigh on the roof. And about fifteen miles of Christmas lights decking out every surface they could find.

“Do you think it all lights up?” she whispered.

I could only stare. “Bright enough to be seen from space.”

Quinn unlocked the front door. “Nice, right?” His enthusiasm didn’t hide the mockery underneath. The bastard was enjoying this.

“This is a joke, right?” Jenna asked as we walked up to the front door.

“Just think of it as a little welcome gift,” Quinn said. “In honor of all the hard work that landed you here.” Without another word, or any more mockery, he vanished inside the house, leaving the door open.

“Oh,” Jenna said.

The part of me that wanted to snicker was strangled by the overwhelming embarrassment at having to live in a house that looked like a Christmas village.

She covered her mouth with a hand. “We’re being punished.”

“You’re being punished. I’m being punished by proxy.”

Jenna took a moment, studying the street we were now calling home. “We’re the only house with decorations,” she pointed out.

Most people didn’t know how to deal with Jenna. Sure she was stubborn, occasionally hostile, and had a sixth sense for finding trouble, but she didn’t deal well with embarrassment.

I was pretty sure that Quinn had already picked up on that. And that he was the one responsible for the holiday decorations.

At least the inside of the house was Christmas free. For now, I figured. The furnishings were sparse but livable—all of our homes and apartments over the years had a certain “long-term housing” quality. All the basics were there—tables, chairs, couches, TVs. But there weren’t any personal touches anywhere. No pictures, no collectible figurines, no wacky color palettes.

The house could be filled and vacated with a minimum of effort, ready for the next inhabitant.

That was how it worked for most of us.

Witch children weren’t like most kids. Minor enchantments are taught to kids who aren’t even old enough to attend school. It isn’t until later, in the early teen years, that aptitudes and talents start to emerge. At that point, most witches are moved from their homes to places where they can hone their particular gifts. Thus the need for temporary housing like this.

It wasn’t an entirely infallible system, though. The five of us were the exception—grouped together in one backwoods town after another, trying to keep us out of sight and out of mind.

If we went strictly based on skills, Cole would be down South learning illusions, Bailey would be in the Midwest learning evocations, and Jenna and I would be in D.C. Supposedly, we both had the kind of qualities that would have made us logical choices to join the Witchers. And

Malcolm … well if he had his way, he’d be going to a normal high school, dealing with normal teen stuff.

“I’m taking the master bedroom,” Jenna’s voice floated down from the second floor. We were claiming bedrooms already? I tore up the stairs, only to find that Quinn had beat me, too. He was standing in front of what I assumed was the back bedroom, shaking his head at Jenna.

“You can fight over one of the others,” he said. “I don’t care who goes where.” He cocked his head to the side. “But you might prefer the one down the hall.”

She rolled her eyes, a hand on her hip. “And why would I want that one?”

I worked it out faster than she did and started to laugh, remembering the two giant trees outside the house. Both of them turned to look at me. “The trees,” I said to her. “He heard about Birmingham.” Jenna had managed to make two of the trees grow enough that she could sneak in and out easily, climbing the limbs almost like a ladder.

“Oh, this is going to be fantastic,” Jenna grumbled, spinning around and striding into her new room. She was too classy to slam the door, but there was a definite emphasis to the way the lock clicked into place a few seconds later.

Five

“No one knows why a coven bond forms. Sherrod, Diana, Cyrus, and Emily—they were the beginning. Within days, Brandon Sutter had moved to town, and the bus carrying the runaway Haley Spencer broke down just outside the city limits. Then they were six.

Complete.”

Moonset: A Dark Legacy

The next few days were a mess of activity: clothes shopping, bickering, new cell phones, more bickering, toiletries, at least one sob session, and school supplies. Usually when we left a place, we were allowed to keep some things, but with the way we left Byron, we’d had to leave it all behind.

It wasn’t that difficult for me, because there was nothing I’d had that I’d been particularly attached to, but the girls and Cole were a little harder hit.

“My PS3,” he’d wailed.

Kelly, Bailey’s guardian, had gone with her and Jenna for an entire day. “Outlet shopping,”

Jenna said with only a touch of her usual acerbic flair.

After everything had finally calmed down, we all fell into usual routines.

Monday, Mal and I ended up in the kitchen first thing in the morning. The shower was running upstairs, but I couldn’t figure out if it was Jenna or Quinn who’d woken before noon. Some days it was a toss-up.

We weren’t starting school until after the first of the year, which meant there were two weeks of relative peace before Jenna’s next campaign started. Every school was a little different—

sometimes, she wanted out immediately; other times she didn’t mind a little patience. Only time would tell which one Carrow Mill would be.

“Nick says there’s a gym somewhere in town; I was thinking about checking it out. You want to go?” Mal asked from his spot at the table. I sat across the room from him on one of the barstools set alongside the counter like a breakfast nook. He’d pulled a bowl of grapes out of the fridge and kept playing games, tossing them in the air and catching them in his mouth.

Every time he missed, he looked at me pointedly, like I was the one that was supposed to dig under the oven for the lost grape.

There was coffee brewing, but it wasn’t brewing nearly fast enough.

I shook my head. “It’s too early for working out.”

Mal snorted. There was no such thing in his world. He drummed a steady rhythm against the counter. Rat-a-tat-tat. Rat-a-tat-tat. “So what’s he like? The new guardian?”

What was Quinn like? I still didn’t know. “Hard to say. What about yours?”

“Nick’s all right,” Mal admitted. “I think he’s got a thing going on with Cole’s guardian. Kelly, right?”

I nodded.

“But they’ve gotta keep it quiet. Can’t be fraternizing with your co-workers, and all that. But anyway, he said you guys getting Quinn is pretty lucky. Apparently, he’s a big deal.”