Elfmoon (4 page)

I clenched down on his cock as he slammed into me one last time and he burst inside of me, his body convulsing on top of me. He moaned into my mouth, finally letting his eyes flutter closed as he came. I wriggled under him, pressing against him as he came, making tiny electric shocks dance over my body, enjoying the happy little orgasms running through me.

I released his lip, licking his blood from my lips, and he collapsed on top of me, pressing me deeper into the ground. His arms went limp, and he released my leg. I draped my legs around him, resting my calves on the cushion of his ass, and wrapped my arms around his neck. He turned his face into my neck again, trying to catch his breath. I felt his lips against my skin and closed my eyes, enjoying the calm moment.

Sounds from the fair had come back to me then, and the light of the moon and stars were brighter now. This was nothing like it had been for us in the past; if I wasn’t careful, I could become struck by Daniel, so different from anything else I knew, being a human. A tiny part of me didn’t mind the idea of being struck by him, but the bigger part of me didn’t want to give up Corbin and Andre. Luckily, Daniel didn’t expect me to.

“Do you hear that?” Daniel asked, picking his head up.

“What?” I asked, watching his face as he tried to strain to listen to something. I could hear the noise from the fairgrounds, and it had in fact gotten louder, but I assumed they had already lit The Great Bonfire and people were singing and cheering.

“The screaming, you don’t hear the screaming?” Daniel asked, pushing himself off of me to sit back on his heels. He was looking over his shoulder back the way we had come as if he could see what the commotion was about.

“Now that you mention it,” I started, sitting up with him, turning my head to the side to try to catch the sound. “Yeah, that does sound like screaming.” What I had taken for cheers now sounded like screams to me. We both scrambled to our feet, gathering up our clothing and dressing as quickly as we could without getting tangled.

“What do you suppose?” Daniel asked as he pulled his boots back on. I was struggling with my tights, trying not to topple over as I pulled them up.

“No idea,” I said, shaking my hair out of my face. Daniel handed me my skirt and I shimmied into it. “Maybe someone got out of control?”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe a fight or something? Maybe the police are trying to collar someone.” I felt my stomach coil into a ball as I said the words. I had only ever seen someone get collared on the news, but it had always been a sad and terrible sight. The enchanted iron burned many fae creatures and rendered them a drooling, pitiful mess. I really didn’t want to see it in person.

“That’s an awful lot of screaming for a collaring,” Daniel said. He was facing towards the fairgrounds now, his arms crossed over his chest as he waited for me to get put back together. I was down to pulling on my boots now and was ready in another moment.

“Well, I guess we should go find out,” I said, touching his arm to let him know I was ready.

“I guess,” he agreed half-heartedly. Daniel helped me through the maze of the garden, through the hedges, and back to the sloping hill we’d come down. I was surprised to see that the sky wasn’t very bright; if The Great Bonfire had been lit, the sky above the fairgrounds would have an amber blaze, blotting out the stars above. But instead, the sky was just as dark and dotted with stars as it was above us, so many hundreds of yards away.

“That’s strange,” I said slowly as we got to the top of the hill.

“What is?” Daniel asked, not turning to look at me as we walked.

“The fire isn’t lit, but the sun already set; they should’ve lit the fire,” I explained.

“Well, that’s not very promising,” Daniel said, his voice dull, and spoke to the dread I was feeling. As we neared the fairgrounds, the screams became louder and we could see people running in every direction. It was pure chaos. Something had obviously happened, and I suddenly thought of Roxy, out there alone in the melee.

“Oh, gods,” I whispered behind my hand. “Roxy!” I darted forward, ready to run into the fray, but Daniel caught me around the waist, spinning me around and setting me back on my feet.

“Tare, you have no idea what’s going on, you can’t just go running in there!” Daniel said, his voice as firm as his hands on my shoulders.

“Daniel, Roxy is in there, alone.” I pointed past him, seeing a spark of agitated power light the tip of my finger.

“I understand, and I’ll help you find her, but we can’t just go running blindly into this.” I knew he was right, but my fear for Roxy was roaring in my ears, making me itch to dodge past him to find her.

“Fine,” I said after a moment of deep breathing. Daniel turned to face the fairgrounds with me. People were still running, screaming, knocking into each other, not bothering to help each other. A few people ran passed us. I tried to stop a few of them to ask what was going on, but no one wanted to stop and explain.

“Oh, shit,” Daniel hissed, and I turned to see what he was looking at. Just then, a grotesque figure loped forward, hands little more than claws outstretched as it crashed into a man, mounting his back, and then began ripping into him. It tore at his flesh with teeth and claws, throwing back its head to howl at the sky, sending chills down my back.

It looked very much like a wolf with tuffs of fur all over its body and an elongated snout, sharp, dripping teeth, like a mouthful of serrated blades. Its limbs were all angles and claws, but what struck me was the shredded remains of clothing clinging to it. They were like those old movies about werewolves before people knew they were real and what they really looked like after they shifted. As I watched, horrified, I felt the pendant on the chain around my neck begin to vibrate against my skin, becoming warmer and warmer.

“What’s that?” Daniel asked, seeing me lift the pendant and look down awkwardly at it.

“A fairy gift,” I said, realizing the amethyst crystals were beginning to glow.

“What’s it doing?”

“No idea,” I said with a shrug and let it fall against my chest again. I took a moment to close my eyes and concentrate on the magic inside of me, calling it forward, directing it down into my hands until they were lit with frantic, electric power.

“Hey,” Daniel yelled, catching a man by the arm, forcing him to stop.  “What the hell is going on?”

“The madness,” the man said through panted breaths. When I turned to look at him, I realized he was the little brownie man I had bought the sausage rolls from earlier.

“What?” I asked, shaking my head in confusion.

“The Mood Madness,” he repeated, fear clear in his face. I could see that he was still pulling against Daniel’s grip.

“What is that?” Daniel pressed, but the brownie man managed to rip his arm out of Daniel’s hand and waved a dismissive hand towards the chaos in the fairgrounds.

“That,” he yelled over his shoulder as he ran away. Daniel and I turned back towards the fair.

“Look,” I said, drawing Daniel’s attention. “I can’t just stand here, I have to go find Roxy. You can go, though.”

“I can’t just leave if you’re going in there,” Daniel said with a shake of his head.

“I’m not playing games, Daniel. This isn’t a test or anything. I mean it, you can go.”

“No, I’m going to help you.” A knot loosened in my stomach; I really wouldn’t have blamed him if he left, but I wasn’t going to ask him to leave either. Without another word, we moved forward. The beast that had attacked the man in front of us was still tearing at his carcass, totally oblivious to our approach. The man was dead, his screams long ago silenced, but I didn’t want to let the beast devour him – leaving nothing for his family to bury or burn.

The magic still swirled at my fingers, and as I lifted my hand, I concentrated my attention on the beast. Bolts of power shot forward out of my hands and struck the beast in the back. He arched back, flesh and blood arcing in the air as he threw back his head with a howl of pain. The power coursed through and out of me, striking at the beast until he toppled over off of the body of the man he killed and lay dead on the ground. I reined in my power, pulling it back into my body with a gasp.

“Remind me to never piss you off,” Daniel offered next to me. Though his words were light, the look on his face was wide-eyed and a little scared.

“I doubt you’ll forget,” I replied, trying to smile, but I think it looked like a grimace. I caught my breath and moved forward, already feeling the effects of expending so much magic. When I was close enough to the bodies, I nudged the beast in the shoulder with my toe. His body jiggled, but otherwise didn’t move. He was definitely dead. The shredded clothing still struck me as odd, giving me a prickling feeling on the back of my neck.

“What do you supposed they are? Werewolves?” Daniel asked as he stared down at the body with me.

“No.” I shook my head.

“How can you be sure?”

“Have you ever seen a werewolf shift?”

“No.”

“I have,” I said, turning my face away from the bloody mess at my feet. “They don’t look like this, they look like wolves – huge, giant, terrifying wolves, but wolves nonetheless. I have no idea what the hell these things are.” Fewer people were running around now, many having made it out of the park and running for home, but I could still hear cries of terror down the midway. The Great Bonfire was  standing sentential in the middle of the clearing, unlit. The torches around the fire were still burning, though one was lying on the ground, the flame guttered out against the dirt.

“It looks like when the sun set, they were about to light the fire, but then these things came and all hell broke loose.” I turned on my heel, taking in the scene around me. “And they’re wearing clothing, and that brownie knew what it was.” I looked up at the sky then, seeing the full moon hanging high above us. “The Moon Madness, that’s what he called it, right?”

“Right,” Daniel nodded.

“Do you think the full moon on the solstice did this to people?”

“People? Like normal, non-were people?” Daniel asked, his voice pitching in fear.

“Yeah,” I nodded.

“If they aren’t weres, then they have no control over this,” Daniel said, looking up and around. I could almost feel his anxiety rippling off of him. “And they won’t be able to stop themselves.”

“Right, and that also means they’re just innocent people.” I glanced down at the beast I had just killed. “And that means I’ve just killed someone.” My legs gave out. If Daniel hadn’t been standing right next to me, he wouldn’t have caught me in time. I clung to him, getting my nerves under control before I could stand on my own again.

“You okay, luv?”

“Yeah, I think so, but I have to find Roxy.”

We walked to the midway, keeping close to the tents and stands, trying to keep to the shadows to hide ourselves. I was trying to keep my magic close to the surface, but I didn’t want it to light my hands or eyes and give us away. Keeping it at bay would cost me a few moments when I wanted to call it, but it was a risk I had to take to keep us safe as we searched for Roxy. We could hear the snapping of bones and growls and screams and howls all around us, making my already nervous stomach lurch as we moved. At one point Daniel stopped me, pulling me close to his body, deeper into shadow, as one of the beasts loped past us, its claws churning the ground as it ran, leaving the stench of death in its wake.

Just as we were about to continue forward, we saw another beast running down the midway, followed by a pack of them, all of them following the first, headed back towards The Great Bonfire. When the last one ran by us, I chanced a look and could see them attacking the bonfire, pulling it apart just as they had the innocent people.

“What are they doing that for?” Daniel whispered over my shoulder.

“I’m not sure,” I said slowly, “but we light the fire to cleanse us and protect us.”

“Cleanse and protect?” Daniel repeated. “Cleanse and protect from what exactly?”

“Uh,” I hesitated, thrown for a moment by his question and the nerves still racing through me. “Evil spirits, psychic attack, you know, the usual stuff.” I lifted my hand to the pendant around my neck again; it was warmer now and a thought started to form in my mind.

“Evil spirits,” Daniel repeated again, and I knew a similar thought was forming in his mind. We turned to look at each other; the noise of the beasts ripping apart the bonfire seemed louder somehow. “So they’re ripping apart the one thing that could stop this?”

“I think so,” I answered, nodding my head slowly. We turned back towards the midway, leaning out of our hiding spot to get our bearings. No more beasts were running past us, but it looked like half a dozen of them were destroying the bonfire. In the distance, we could hear other beasts howling, mingled with the screams of their victims.

“Do you think if we lit the bonfire, it would stop this?” Daniel asked.

“No idea, but I suppose it’s worth a try, right?” I stepped out of our hiding place and led the way, creeping down the midway, back the way we’d come. I could feel Daniel behind me, grateful I didn’t have to keep checking over my shoulder. We crouched behind an overturned picnic table once we were out of the midway. The closest beast was still a few yards off, but I was deathly afraid that he’d realize we were there at any moment. We saw that the torches were now pulled out of the ground and no longer burning.

“All of the torches are out,” Daniel whispered. “How’re we supposed to light the damn thing?”

“I suppose I could try,” I said, snapping my fingers close to his face, showing him the spark of magic that ignited. “Although I don’t know how much I have left after what I did to that first beast.” I tried not to dwell on that thought. Daniel placed a comforting hand on my shoulder; I nodded, accepting his support.

Closing my eyes, I concentrated on the residual energy swirling inside of me again, calling it back to the surface of my hands. I could see the bright white light through my eyelids, and when I opened them, I saw my hands were laced with the electric power of my elfin magic. I stood up slowly, trying not to make any sudden moves and attract any attention to me before I accomplished my task, but the beasts were too preoccupied to notice me. I lifted my hands above my head, feeling the power jumping between them, growing in intensity as I concentrated, until my arms were vibrating with the contained power. In one sweeping motion, I brought my hands down as I spun on the spot and threw the magnitude of power at what was left of the bonfire.