I SNEAK IN the front door. There are no locks here. Not anywhere I’ve been yet, anyways.
I creep up the stairs past the bedrooms, the parlour, the giant bear looming claws-out in the hallway.
I stop, step up into his terrible, tooth-filled maw and his dead glass eyes.
I bare my teeth, and I dare him to move.
“Boo.”
THE ROOM IS dark, save the moonlight streaming through the open window. Instead of turning on the light, I duck into the bathroom, strip the borrowed clothes off of me, and start the shower in the dark.
I come out and stare at the long table full of exotic bottles, tasting the memory of those thousand whiskey burns on my tongue. I’m almost surprised, and certainly pleased, that it offers me no further urge. They’re just bottles. Just things piled up on a table. No saviour, no friend, nothing more than bottles.
“Are you going to have one, or just stare at them all night?”
There’s a clink in the corner. Ice on crystal. My distraction at the events of the night has betrayed me.
She leans out of the shadows in the corner and shakes her glass at me.
“What are you doing, Emma?”
She’s out of the chair and slinking toward me through the moonlight that casts down in sparkling slivers through the half-drawn blinds. She turns to set down her glass and I see the amulet catch the light, the moon bouncing like a mirror, dangling from her neck, but there’s something strange about the light. It seems diffused, muted, as if there were a fine mist of grey fog surrounding it.
Emma moves closer, barely dressed in a short piece of lingerie, what I think they call a teddy. Black silk against her milk-white skin, hard nipples poking against the fabric.
“Finn,” she purrs. I feel the accumulated energy of a lifetime climb up into my throat. My whole body feels electric and jittery, like too much coffee on top of too much speed.
“What are you doing here?” I repeat. “Did Simon send you here?”
“Simon?” she says softly, close enough for me to feel her breath. “Forget Simon.”
Her hands are on me, light touches, running up my naked thighs, over my side, and up to my chest as she moves in front of me, pressing her soft, silken body against me. The vanilla and chocolate smell is gone, replaced with something lighter, softer. It smells fresh, like rain. She reaches fingers around the medallion at my neck.
“What’s this?” she asks in a whisper. “You’ve been up to see the witch. I suppose you’ve made the change?”
Her voice is all wrong, it carries an echo of somewhere, as if she’s throwing her voice, or there’s a speaker in her throat. It’s her voice, but not her words.
Her fingers curl around my neck, up into my hair, pulling me close. Her lips, pink and full and so perfect, brushing against mine. As they separate, the tiny tip of her tongue drags across my upper lip, teasing, welcoming. Her other hand slides down the front of me, over ribs and past my hip, down to my balls before sliding up and around the shaft of my hard and ready manhood. I tremble and draw a stuttering sigh.
“Emma,” I groan, wrapping an arm around the small of her back and pulling her into me. Her back arches, and her neck falls open to me. I wrap my lips around the skin there, kissing, licking, tasting her up to her little ears, burying my face in her hair and breathing deep of the smell of her. I pull her hair back, hard, to look down into her face, those delicate cheekbones, those luscious lips, those dark eyes, olive green and deep as the ocean.
Except they’re not.
There’s a smoky haze over her eyes. The same haze I’d caught in the moonlight, seeping from that thing around her neck. I shove her onto the bed, the spell broken. The energy falters, fades, but it’s replaced by the fury of knowing that I’m being played for a fool, and that Emma is being used like a marionette.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
She crawls forward, lust dripping from every movement. She twists and poses and opens herself up to me.
I grab her shoulders with rough hands, shaking, part of me wanting to throw myself on top of her and devour her whole. The other part of me wants answers, wants the real Emma. Not this puppet in silk.
She smiles, wan and confused. Something slipping in the fog that’s covering her. I grip the moon medallion in my hand and a tremor of filthy energy crawls up my arm. I yank, I pull, I tear at the frail-looking chain, but it won’t give. Emma slumps, as if she’s drunk and exhausted, falling limp as I pull at the foul thing around her neck.
I step away, frustration and anger boiling up under the skin. Slapping my hand against the silver at my own neck, I take a breath, close my eyes, and feel the world spin again. I beg for more power, and I feel it course through me.
The smoke whirls around me, and I crumple and change, reborn into the beast inside.
The chain is hot and evil between my teeth. I can taste the darkness of it, death and unnatural power.
I twist, and growl, and grind my teeth against it, until I feel it disintegrate and give, and the momentum leaves me scrambling backwards.
Emma lurches and sucks in a huge breath, falling back against the bed as the mist flows out of her and dissolves into the air. She sits bolt upright on the edge of the bed, panicked and confused until her gaze falls on me, crouching in the shadows.
I sniff at the amulet lying in front of me, draw back, bare my teeth at it. I snatch it up by the chain and whip it with my head, growling as it spins through the air and lands near the door.
“Finn?” she whispers. There are tears in her eyes. “You’re beautiful.”
She sits, hand outstretched, until I creep closer, sniffing at the fingers, unsure of whether the evil has left her entirely. All I can smell, even in this form, is that light, airy perfume, like fresh rain on the wind.
Emma ruffles my white fur, hands digging deep, fingers pushing hard into my skin, sending waves of pleasure rifling up through my spine and into my head. My eyes roll, and my legs buckle at her touch.
“Come back?” she says. “Please?”
I step into the shadows and will Finn back into reality. This time it’s easy. The smoke swirls, and I spin out into the ether, reforming and standing stronger and more powerful than I’ve ever felt in my life.
The medallion is still lying by the door, still oozing its black evil. I pick it up by the chain and take it to a drawer in the bathroom, drop it in and close it, as far away from us as possible, leaving it in the dark.
“I don’t understand,” Emma says, holding her drink in her hand. “Aunt Raigan gave me that.”
“Did you ever take it off? Lose it?”
“No. I wear it all the time, just like she told me to. Except . . .”
“Except, what?” I ask, taking the glass from her hand and dumping it into the sink.
“Hey!”
“No more of that. For either of us. That’s how he got in, got control of this place.”
“He’s my husband,” she says, crossing her arms tight against her chest, the same way she’d done when we met.
I sit next to her on the bed. The fresh boxers I’ve put on feel weird and unnatural now. I understand why Kev and Jamie walk around their house naked.
“Do you even remember meeting him?” I ask. “He said you met in Seattle, but you didn’t seem to know for sure.”
“He . . . He . . . The amulet. Aunty Raigan’s amulet. The chain broke. I woke up and the chain was broken. Simon offered to get it fixed in town.”
Her hand is soft in mine, comfortable, fingers fitting together effortless and true. As if they were made to interlock that way.
“He’s not who you think he is,” I say. “He’s lied to you. He killed my father, our aunts and uncles.”
“No. He’s my husband. He wouldn’t . . .”
My voice is calm and reassuring. Decades of sitting in support groups and listening to Doctor Rhodes trying to keep me calm and talking. I guess it was worth something.
“When did he come here? He and McQueen.”
“I don’t . . .”
“Was that when everyone started dying? My father? The others?”
She pulls her hand away, puts it to her mouth. I can feel her quivering beside me, the reality of it all sinking in like a ship taking water.
“Oh God! I brought him here.” She weeps into her hand.
“No. He sought you out. He’s a magician, a con-man. This is a long con, coming here, taking over, and killing off anyone who poses a threat. Who’s left? With you and Jules under his spell, it’s just an old man and a couple of kids. He needs something. What is it? Why did he bring me back here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did he send you up here tonight? To seduce me? So he can take control of me too? For what?”
“He couldn’t have sent me. For that? Did we? He’s my husband, for Chrissakes!”
“Emma,” I turn her face toward mine. “He’s controlling you, using you.”
She pulls away and turns to stare at the side-counter full of booze.
“Where were you, Finn? It was supposed to be you. They’ve been telling me that as long as I can remember. Finn will come back. Finn will be your one and only. Finn will make you whole. Do you know how fucked up that is? To have the memory of some little boy as your one and only hope for happiness? To have everyone around you feeding that insanity?”
My heart sinks.
“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” It’s a different misery than I’ve ever felt. Guilt and failure, but tempered with reality. No melodrama, no blame, just honest regret.
She lets go of my hand. “They’ve told me my whole life, you know? It was supposed to be you and me. Like an arranged marriage. Do you know what that’s like? That kind of expectation from everyone in your life? I went off to college, I was afraid to even talk to anybody, to ever have a relationship. Nobody else would be you, nobody else would be enough for them.”
“I didn’t know. Any of it. I’ve been floundering. I’ve wasted a whole lifetime thinking I was someone I’m not. My mother took me away from here, lied to me my whole life. I was a completely different person until a few days ago. Jimmy Finn. Fuck-up. Maniac. Loser. Drunk and angry for thirty years. Until Simon brought me here. McQueen helped me escape from the police, and told me to come here. McQueen told me my father was looking for me. Then I come here and he’s been dead for a year. You want to talk about mind-fucks.”
She sniffs back tears, rests her head on my shoulder, slides an arm around the small of my back.
“Finn, I’m so sorry.”
It feels good to be next to her. Like a missing piece of myself. She’s been a phantom limb my whole life, and now the missing piece is regrown and whole.
“I dream about you. About us. When we were kids. I’ve felt my entire life like we were meant to be together, and I didn’t even know who the hell you were. If you were even real. I’d ask my mother, and she’d tell me you weren’t real!
“What the hell does that mean?” I wonder out loud. “How much does that mess somebody up? I’ve dreamt of you every night of my life, and never even knew who you were until yesterday. I couldn’t remember. What the fuck does that mean?”
“I always hated them, hated being told that some little boy I barely remembered was my destiny. I hated you.”
I wince, but I understand.
“I’ve hated my mother every minute of my life for taking me away from this place, even though I had no idea what it was, what we are.”
“I remember your mother.” Emma tells me, a soft hand on mine, “She was beautiful, but sad. Always so sad. I dream about you too, and her—telling us to run away. I don’t hate you, Finn.” She smiles and puts her hands to my face. Her kiss is light, tender.
“I think it all means that they were right.” The words start coming more easily, more confidently. “Not that we were destined to be here, but that we have always been together. Raigan said we were joined. That I could see through your eyes. That we’re connected beyond anything my mother, or Simon, or anybody else could understand.”
I put my arms around her, feeling closer to this woman than I have to anyone in my life.
And we fall into it.
Savage and natural, fierce and passionate, the room swirling as we melt into each other. As we merge our bodies and our minds and our fates. Her body gives way to mine, and mine to her, and we come together, in the cascade of moonlight, howling together with the fury of our family exploding in our blood.
The king and queen of the moonlight. Lovers of the night. Warriors of the moon.