Tabitha shook her head. “That I cannot say for certain. Is it a vengeful entity, punishing its servants because they failed to sabotage the forest’s defenses?”
The legs of Bastion’s chair scraped across the floor as he rose from the table. “Say we believe you. Let’s say that some ominous dark power really is out there trying to take out your stick men. What happens then? What’s in it for them?”
“You cut skin open, and what happens then?” Tabitha shrugged. “You pick at the scabs, and it’s the same thing. The blood flows freely, and the hurting begins. The point was to erode the forest’s protections.”
“The blood moon,” I said. “Does that have anything to do with it? All the killings?”
She steepled her fingers together, wrinkling her brow in thought. “I wouldn’t say that it’s entirely coincidental. It all depends on culture and tradition. You, werewolf.”
Gil pointed at himself. “Me? You mean you knew?”
Tabitha scoffed. “Please, like I couldn’t tell. What are your traditions?”
He shook his head. “Not a damn thing. I guess some of us might use a blood moon as an excuse to get together and party, but that’s about it.”
“And you, vampire. Do you hold the blood moon dear?”
I scratched my scalp irritably, raking my fingers through my hair. “It was never a big deal, okay? A time for hunting and feeding.”
“That’s what I mean,” Tabitha said. “A blood moon can bring different things, but here in Silveropolis, modern America? Just small town superstitions, stories for scaring kids. It means absolutely nothing. What, is someone out there really attempting to raise the dead? We’ve got the only qualified necromancer for miles around in this very room.”
Asher looked down at the table, blushing again.
Tabitha waved her hand, gesturing at a wall calendar that wasn’t there, checking for time. “When is that happening, anyway? Tomorrow night?”
Gil was standing by the window, his fingers nudging the curtains open. “Uh, guys? We’ve got a problem.”
Outside the moon burned angry and red, like an open wound in the night sky.
27
Tendrils of smoke rose into the night sky. I watched as the wisps blew across the moon, blood red and dripping.
Asher snapped at me. “Is this really any time to be smoking, Sterling?”
Tabitha shrugged. “Works for me.”
“I already like you,” I said, blowing out another plume. “But Asher, give me a fucking break. I’m stressed. We’re all stressed. This shit isn’t supposed to be happening right now, yet here we are.”
Bastion had rushed us all outside the Twilight Tavern, Tabitha Bridges included. Speaking as a Scion for the Lorica, he must have bought her story about protecting the woods. It did make sense – at least most of it. There was still the question of who was eating the faces of the victims, and why.
“Something is happening right now, somewhere in these hills,” Gil growled. “And I fucking detest that we don’t have a single idea where to look.”
Tabitha lifted her face to the sky, her skin bathed crimson in the moonlight. “Clever, whoever did this. Lowering your sense of security by planting all this talk of waiting for the blood moon, and then rushing it all at once. What kind of dark power could force a total eclipse like this?”
“I hate this,” Bastion said, turning in a circle. Townspeople were oohing and aahing at the moon, phones held out, clicking to take blurry pictures that they would doubtless never look at again. “I was expecting bats flying across the moon, howling from the woods. This doesn’t make sense at all.” He touched two fingers to his temple, like he was activating a headset that the rest of us couldn’t see. “Team, are you people seeing this? Is anyone picking up anything at all?”
“Uriah Everett’s journal,” Asher said absently. “There has to be something in it about all this. We have to go back to the cabin and find it.” He turned away from us, heading to the car.
“Whoa, wait for us,” I said, following at his heels, wondering why he looked so dazed.
“That’s as good a lead as any,” Bastion said. “Fuck the car. I’ll take you to the cabin.”
Tabitha laid a hand on Bastion’s arm. “Take me, too. I have to go back to the woods. Something is stirring. I can feel it in my bones. The Bridges women have a duty to these forests, and I’m not going to be the one descendant to royally fuck everything up.”
Bastion nodded. “Gather around me, in a circle. Over here, in the shade.”