Blood Moon (Book Three - The Ravenscliff Series) (10 page)

“Well, then, if you will never let me out, perhaps I will have to keep you
here
, in your dreams,” Jackson Muir said, his voice giddy with the idea. “Poor little Nightwing boy, they’ll say as they watch you writhe and twist and thrash about in your bed. Trapped in an eternal nightmare!”

“You can’t do that,” Devon shouted.

“Oh, no?”

Now it was the human Jackson Muir, the tall dark man in his black cape and shiny leather sorcerer’s boots, who stood before Devon, not a foot away. His eyes blazed red as they gazed down on the teenager.

“You forget all the practice I’ve had, Devon. How I’ve had many more years than you to perfect my sorcery. I can do things you can’t even imagine.” He smiled demonically. “And you forget how real the dreams of a Nightwing are.”

Suddenly the Madman’s hands were closed around Devon’s throat. They began to tighten.

“Now, Devon March, prepare to die in your dreams—a death you will live over and over for eternity, here in the Hell Hole of your own mind!”

Devon gasped for breath, his hands useless in their attempts to pry the Madman’s cold fingers from his throat.

“You can try all you want, little boy, little sorcerer, but you will fail,” Jackson Muir told him, his thumbs pressing in against Devon’s adam’s apple.

This is it
, Devon thought, overcome with fear.
He’s found a way to kill me.

It’s your fear, Devon
,
came the voice of his father.
It is always your fear that leaves you weak.

I know, I know
,
Devon screamed in his mind, ready to lose consciousness.
But I’m getting killed here, Dad. How can I help being afraid
?

“Let him go, Apostate.”

It was another voice, one Devon didn’t recognize. Jackson’s grip around his neck loosened slightly, allowing Devon to suck in one meager, twisted breath.

“Who dares—?” the Madman snarled, looking back over his shoulder. “I rule here! Who dares enter?”

“I dare,” said the voice, plain and simple.

“You!” Jackson Muir was startled into dropping Devon to the ground. But there was no ground, of course, only mist. Still, Devon recovered himself and managed to stand.

And to look upon the face of his savior.

It was the ghost from the secret passageway. The young man in the blue jeans and tee shirt who, standing there now, once again made the sign of the pentagram with his hand in the air.

“You dare to interfere, McNutt?” the Madman bellowed. “You should know by now that you are ineffectual in saving anyone, least of all yourself.”

“You have no power here,” the ghost told him calmly, rationally, without any fear. “This is the province of Devon’s dream. Only he has the power to command us.”

Jackson Muir laughed. “
Devon
? Look at him! A shaking, trembling child! Unworthy to call himself Nightwing!”

“Unworthy?” Devon sputtered. Hearing his voice restored his confidence, and he found the Madman’s grip loosening. “I imprisoned you in the Hell Hole, Muir! I think that qualifies as worthy enough for a Nightwing.”

Already Jackson Muir was fading from view, his power ended.

“I’ll get you, my fine young boy, and your little friends, too!” The Madman laughed, and then he was gone.

All that was left was his stink.

“So much for him,” Devon said. He turned to face the ghost, who the Madman had called McNutt. “Thanks for dropping by.”

“I’m sure you would have recovered your courage even if I hadn’t.”

“I appreciate the confidence,” Devon said. “But now tell me about you. Tell me what I need to know.”

“Devon.”

Now
whose voice was intruding?

“Devon, wake up!”

No, I need to talk to this McNutt guy …

“Devon!”

Devon opened his eyes. It was Bjorn.

“You’re going to be late for school,” the gnome told him.

“School?” Devon sat up in his bed. The morning sunlight filled his room. “You woke me up for
school
?”

“When you sleep through your alarm and miss breakfast, yeah, I do,” Bjorn said. “Don’t you have a geography quiz today?”

“Bjorn, I was doing something much more important than a geography quiz.”

“How is snoring like a buzz saw more important than a geography quiz?”

Devon stumbled out of bed, muttering. “Why does everyone forget that I am a Sorcerer of the Nightwing? That my sleep might be
important
?”

Bjorn smirked. “Get dressed. We’re all waiting for you in the car.”

Devon was quiet and moody all the way to school. Once again Cecily had ridden with D.J. Devon just slunk down in the backseat, grumbling to himself. He was grumpy all through first period. He had been
this close
to finding out what he needed to know. Now he’d have to wait until tonight for more answers. He couldn’t exactly go into a trance sitting at his desk. And certainly not during his geography quiz, which he feared he flunked, given that he’d never studied for it.

“Too bad that I can’t just summon my Nightwing power to pass all my tests,” Devon said later, in the cafeteria, squirting ketchup in a spiral onto his hamburger. “It would make this school stuff a lot easier.”

“Uh, careful there, Devon,” Marcus told him.

“What? I like a lot of ketchup.”

Marcus rolled his eyes. “I don’t mean about the ketchup. About what you wish for.”

They settled their trays down at the table. “What are you talking about?”

“Wanting to use your powers for your own personal gain.” Marcus sat opposite him, fixing his eyes onto Devon. “You could probably do it, if you really wanted to. But you know what that would make you.”

“Yeah,” Devon said, smirking. “It’d make me the Honor Roll.”

“It would make you an Apostate,” his friend said. “Like Isobel. Like Jackson Muir. Like all those Nightwing who went bad and who never won in the end.”

“I wonder,” Devon said.

Marcus took a bite into his turkey rollup. “Wonder about what?”

“That’s what they teach us: that the Apostates all were defeated. That none of them made good on their bad deeds. You know, the old ‘crime doesn’t pay’ moral. But is it true? Maybe there’s some Nightwing-gone-bad somewhere who’s living it up, who’s got it made.”

“I don’t like how you’re talking.”

“Don’t worry, Marcus. I’m not going bad. I’m just wondering.”

He looked across the table. There it was: the pentagram on Marcus’s face. This was happening way too often now.

“Look, Devon, you’re my hero,” Marcus said. “Not just because you routinely kick demon butt back to their Hell Holes. You’re my hero because you aren’t afraid to do the right thing. To stand up and be counted.” He smiled with meaning. “To sit at a table in the cafeteria with the fag.”

“Hey,” Devon said, startled back into the moment. “Don’t use that word.”

“Others do. I hear them. But you, Devon, you never think twice about hanging out with me—the gay kid—no matter how it might look to somebody else.”

Devon grimaced. “If those idiots knew what’s out there—what they should
really
be afraid of—if they saw how you kicked demon butt right along with me—well, then, they wouldn’t be calling you any names.”

The pentagram still hovered in front of Marcus’s face. Devon couldn’t ignore it any more.

“You still wearing the pendant?” he asked.

Marcus nodded, patting his chest. “Always, Devon. Ever since you gave it to me.”

“Good. Don’t take it off.”

“Never,” Marcus promised.

Natalie arrived with her tray. She took the seat next to Devon.

“Are you boys talking normal stuff or demon stuff?”

“Both,” Marcus said.

She drizzled a little vinegar across her salad. “Well, I had a dream last night and I just want to make sure everything is okay.”

“What kind of dream?” Devon asked.

“It was stupid,” Natalie said.

“Tell me,” Devon insisted.

“Well, it was like a little kid’s dream. The big bad monster. It was coming after me. That’s all. I’m sure it was nothing.”

“What kind of monster?”

Natalie sighed. “I shouldn’t have even brought it up. Devon, it’s sweet of you to be concerned, but we can’t be getting alarmed every time one of us has a nightmare. It was just a dream.”

“There’s no such thing,” Devon told her. “Not in this group. Tell me what the monster looked like.”

Natalie smiled wryly. “Well, then, let’s see. I can’t really remember. Hairy, I think. Big and hairy. That’s all I remember.”

Devon looked over at her round, pretty face with her dark, sparkling eyes.

The pentagram now hung in front of Natalie as well.

What did it mean? What did the sign of the five-pointed star mean for his friends?

It was a question that haunted Devon all through the next week. Things were quiet, terribly so. No more dreams, no more visions, no more intrusions by Clarissa or anything else. If it weren’t for the pentagram popping up periodically over the faces of Marcus and Natalie, it would seem as if they were all leading very ordinary lives.

Ordinary lives. Devon couldn’t imagine what that would be like.

His father’s ring had proven helpful. At least, Devon thought it had. While it hadn’t given him any concrete answers to the origin of the guy called McNutt and hadn’t answered anything specific about the pentagram, it had filled in a lot of other blanks.

One night, for example, it showed him a vision of Horatio Muir, the founder of Ravenscliff, while he was still a young boy in the little village of Romney Marsh in Kent, England. There, in the background, had sat Horatio’s father, a stern-faced Victorian gentleman named Quentin Muir. He had been sitting in a high-backed chair, almost like a throne, and perched on his shoulders had been several large ravens, occasionally fluttering their wings.

As Devon watched, a series of men in long purple robes—Guardians, he presumed—entered the room and looked down at the young Horatio, sitting on the floor.

“To America,” they each said in turn. “To the New World.”

“Such is my son’s destiny,” intoned Quentin Muir.

“To found a branch of Nightwing in the Western Hemisphere,” said the most wizened Guardian, probably a thousand years old, “and to cap the egregious Hell Hole that has emerged along the coast of New England.”

“But I must correct you, O Wise Ceolwulf,” another Guardian interrupted. “We believe there have long been Nightwing in the New World, but we have lost touch—”

“The Nightwing of the original Americans have gone their own way,” acknowledged Ceolwulf, “and it is our hope that Quentin Muir’s heirs will find a way towards reunification with our long-lost brothers.”

Later, Devon shared the vision with Rolfe. “So there are Nightwing among the American Indians,” he said. “Wouldn’t it be awesome to find them?”

Rolfe agreed. But for the moment, he was more interested in the mystery of the beast. All he’d been able to find, however, were old werewolf legends. Roxanne, watching them as quiet and still as a stone sentinel, could only add that they would get more answers—the next time the moon was full.

On another night, the ring showed Devon a scene from soon after Ravenscliff had been built. Horatio Muir stood on the front steps as hundreds of ravens landed, cawing and flapping their wings. The birds took up their posts all over the house, from the roof to the gargoyles to the windowsills. Horatio, now a man in his twenties, held open his arms and welcomed his wife to their new house. She was holding their baby son in her arms.

The baby Jackson Muir.

Yet as Devon stared into the vision, it wasn’t the incongruity of seeing the Madman as a cooing, innocent baby that held his attention most. Rather, it was the face of the infant’s mother. A strong, broad-shouldered woman, vivacious, full of life.

He found Cecily in the parlor after that. Outside an early spring storm shot hard rain and hail against the windowpanes. The pretty redhead was lying on the couch with her iPad. “Hi, Cess,” Devon said. “What’re you doing?”

“Posting some pics.” She looked up at him with one eye. “Don’t you follow me?”

“I haven’t been online much lately. Been spending most of my time with my father’s ring.”

“Well, here’s what you’re missing.” She turned her tablet around to display a photo of herself and D.J. hunkered down in a booth at Stormy Harbor. They looked very cozy together. “I took it myself. I think I’m getting pretty good.”

“Cecily,” Devon said, “do you really have feelings for D.J.?”

“What’s it matter to you?”

“Well, he’s my friend and I don’t want him to get hurt.”

“Who’s going to hurt him?”

Devon sat down next to her. “Cecily, I’d like you and me to be friends again.”

She laughed. “Of course we’re friends, Devon. Siblings should always be friends.”

He looked at her. He couldn’t deny the feelings he still had for her. She was tempestuous and cocky, not nearly so thoughtful as Natalie, but she was sweet and kind underneath, and Devon hadn’t forgotten how he’d once felt about her. But so long as there was a chance that she was his sister, he had to push those feelings out of his mind.

“We’ve been through a lot, Cess, and we may be through even more,” he told her. “Let’s not be hostile to each other.”

She looked over at him. Her green eyes looked full of pain. She’d had feelings for him, too. “All right, Devon,” she said. “Let’s be friends.”

They gave each other small smiles.

“Why do you say we may go through more?” she asked. “Is something happening? Is your father’s ring telling you something I should know about?”

“I’m learning a lot,” he told her. “I’m not sure about a lot of things, but I’ll let you know what I find. But tell me something. What was Horatio Muir’s wife’s name?”

“Well, let’s see, she was my great-grandmother. Chloe, I think.”

Devon nodded, then waved his hand toward the bookshelves across the room. A large dusty tome slid out from the others and levitated across the room, attracted toward him as if his hand were magnet.

“Show-off,” Cecily said.

Devon set the heavy book down on a table with a thud. Dust rose up into the air as he flipped through the pages. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Here she is.”