Haunted Moon (Otherworld/Sisters of the Moon 13)

What the—

Before any of us could do anything, the spirit vanished from sight, and then a rumbling sound filled the air and the soil of the graveyard moaned—as tombstones toppled over and shattered into pieces.

Chase went down as the headstone he was leaning on crumbled beneath him. I tried to help him, but the ground roiled beneath my feet, and I fell to my knees, the rumbling so loud that I couldn’t hear myself think. Shade and Morio were on the ground, too, clasping their hands to their ears.

Moaning softly, I winced as the sound grew louder. It sounded like a freight train, or a vast army on the run, thundering through the cemetery. As I bent over, pressing my hands to my ears to muffle the noise, a sucking sound joined the mix and I looked up in time to see spirits rising from a number of the nearby graves. Some looked surprised, as if they had been slumbering and were now just wakened. Others looked angry and were resisting, and still others, confused.

“What’s going on?” I screamed over the noise, trying to be heard.

Smoky and Delilah looked perplexed. Chase looked about ready to pass out. He was either dead tired or in massive pain.

“What’s happening? Why are you shouting?” Delilah started to ask, and then she, too, bent over, head to knees. “Oh, hell! My ears!”

The spirits hovered in the air above their graves and then—with a collective wail—were sucked away by some invisible vacuum, into a shimmering vortex that formed in the middle of the air. With one last piercing shriek that almost sent me into a coma, they disappeared, and with them vanished the glowing light. The graveyard fell unnaturally silent, and we were alone in the darkness.

Perhaps this is as good a place as any to introduce myself. I’m Camille D’Artigo, and I’m half-Fae, half human. With my two sisters, I came from Otherworld. We belong to the Otherworld Intelligence Agency—well, actually, now we run the Earthside division of the OIA. We were originally shunted over here ostensibly because our half-human heritage skews our powers at times, but I suspect there was another reason—a matter of revenge aimed directly at me. I’m the eldest, and I’m a witch and priestess of the Moon Mother.

I have three husbands—yes, three gorgeous, sexy hunks—and we’re as happy as four peas in a pod. Or we would be if it weren’t for the demonic war we’re facing. Smoky is half white dragon, half silver dragon; Trillian’s one of the dark and charming Fae known as Svartans; and Morio’s a youkai-kitsune.

Delilah, my middle sister, is a two-faced Were. She resembles our mother, who died when we were still very young. Delilah turns into a golden tabby when stressed, and at the call of the full moon. And she turns into a black panther when duty calls or she gets too angry. She’s a Death Maiden, serving under the Autumn Lord, and Shade is her fiancé.

And Menolly, a jian-tu-turned-vampire, is the youngest. Married to her werepuma wife, Nerissa, she’s also the official consort for Roman, the son of Blood Wyne, the Vampire Queen, as well as his heir. He re-sired her, and it’s created an odd blip in their relationship, but they’ll work it through. They have to.

When we were first sent over Earthside, we expected to be on an enforced sabbatical—a vacation in Siberia, if you will. What actually happened was that we found ourselves planted squarely on the front lines of a demonic war. And we also discovered that we love our mother’s home world as much as we love our father’s and our own home.

As I said—we’re caught in a demonic war. Shadow Wing, the current ruler in the Subterranean Realms, is doing his best to break through the portals that keep the demons from invading Earthside and Otherworld. He aims to ravage through the land and exert his control over all three realms. He’s also wacked—and has been called the Unraveller. If the Demon Lord succeeds, billions of people will die or be enslaved: Fae, human, and Crypto alike. Shadow Wing has managed to establish fronts in both OW and ES—overtly in Otherworld where war is brewing, and covertly here Earthside, where his operatives are working behind the scenes to open up the portals.

Here, Earthside, we’ve gathered a huge assortment of friends and extended family who now know about Shadow Wing. To the last, they’ve pledged to fight him. And back in Otherworld, we’re working with the elves, the unicorns, and some of the Fae.

We need to find the last two spirit seals—we’ve found seven so far, and lost two of them, so we have only five. The spirit seals, gems that once were joined together to form an ancient artifact, can—when reunited—rip open the portals and allow Shadow Wing full entrance into both of our worlds.

Now that he has two of them, Shadow Wing’s starting to make ripples in the fabric of space and time that keep the worlds separated. If he gains any more, the tide may turn in his favor, since his armies are united, and ours are still scrambling to figure out the best defense.

To be honest, we don’t know if we can stop him. But as long as we have the breath to fight, we’ll keep up the battle. Because if Shadow Wing wins, we all lose. And the thought of both of our beloved worlds going down in flames, well, that thought is more than we can bear.

“What the fuck just happened?” Delilah stared at the toppled gravestones before hurrying over to Chase’s side.>“You’d be surprised what I can do. I’m half-Fae, remember?” But the truth was, I didn’t think I could manage to carry him. I could outrun him, outwalk him, and probably fight him down to the ground, but I wasn’t Delilah with her athletic frame, and I wasn’t Menolly with her vampiric strength. “Put away the gun; that’s not going to do any good, and one of us will end up getting shot.”

He tucked it back in the holster. “I didn’t think it would help, but I was feeling vulnerable, you know? From now on, I’m carrying an armory, like Roz.”

“Wouldn’t fit in your suit jacket, babe.” I began to edge away from the gravestone. The bone-walker was getting too close for comfort, and still no sign of Morio or the others.

I had to do something. “Hide behind the tombstone. I don’t want you getting hit by any backfire if this goes wrong.”

Chase knew well enough by now that when I said duck, he’d better move. Fast. And duck he did—crouching down behind the marker as I called down the energy of the Moon Mother. There were enough clouds that I was able to find the key for lightning. As I summoned it, I prayed that I’d have the ability to direct the energy without causing massive damage to either Chase or myself.

The familiar tingle ran down through my crown chakra, into my arms and through my fingers. My muscles and aura felt like they’d just been infused with a huge jolt of caffeine. I began to shake. Yeah, I was too tired for this, but we had no choice. I could run, but Chase couldn’t, and I wasn’t going to leave him alone to get attacked by the bone-walker.

As I took aim, focusing the best I could, I let loose with the energy bolt. The blast ricocheted out of my body, flaring out into the darkening sky. It wasn’t a fork of lightning. Instead, the spell spread out, blanketing a wide swath of grass and gravestones instead of just pinpointing the walking dead. Like a floodlight, my spell lit up the night.

But the energy caught the bone-walker and knocked it on its ass. The creature went flying back, landing hard, giving us precious time while it tried to struggle to its feet again.

Meanwhile, I heard something coming at us from the left. I swung around in time to see a goblin, wearing full leather armor, headed full tilt toward us. He was leading a band of at least twenty other goblins.

“What the fuck? Goblins? You didn’t say anything about goblins!”

“I didn’t know there were any here!” He looked as startled as I was.

“Get that gun back out. Bullets might do some good against them.”