Blood Moon (Book Three - The Ravenscliff Series) (24 page)

The question now was: how would that curse begin, and how could it be stopped?

Devon realized the only way to free Marcus of the curse of the beast in the future was to prevent Ogden from ever being cursed in the first place.

One more bit of history he was determined to change.

Devon had now been in the past for almost as long as he had lived in Ravenscliff in the future. It was a strange realization. His life here had become normalized.

He no longer woke up expecting to see Cecily, or Alexander, or Bjorn. He no longer automatically reached for his phone to send a text or check Facebook. He no longer jumped when the telephone on the kitchen wall rang, or thought it was odd to use a rotary dial to make a call. He no longer missed his old television shows, or his favorite music, or felt surprised when he saw old-fashioned cars on the road. In fact, they no longer looked old-fashioned to him.

I’ve become part of this time
,
Devon thought.

I’m never going back to the future.

But no. He wouldn’t accept that yet. Not until after Halloween. He was here until then. After that, he would go home.

He was here for a reason, he believed.

I’m here to change history.

But to do that, he needed people to do things differently than they had in the original course of events.

He decided to tell Miranda everything.

She sat there, listening to him with wide, shocked eyes. He told her everything that would happen. He told her how Emily would die—and how he would end up fighting the Madman in his own time.

But Miranda would hear nothing bad about Jackson.

Her face darkened. “I know how cunning you Nightwing can be,” she seethed. “My father and my grandfather warned me about it when I came here. How you sorcerers play tricks with people’s minds to get them to bend to your will.”

“No, Miranda, no true Nightwing would do such a thing. But a renegade like Jackson might …”

“It is
you
, Teddy Bear, who walks the path of the renegade! You who flirt with apostasy!”

Devon made a face. “You’re even beginning to talk like him now!” He leaned in close. “How does he plan on doing it? Tell me! How does he plan to convince Emily that your child is hers? Will you be sent away? Will she be hypnotized even further?”

“I’ll tell you nothing.” She folded her arms across her chest and glared at him with her dark eyes. “Our friendship is over, Teddy Bear. Sad but true, but this is the place where we must part. Do nothing to interfere, I warn you—or else I will tell Jackson about you. You will have forced me into it.”

“If it gets to that point, I
will
erase your memories of me,” Devon threatened right back. “It will be
you
who will have forced
me
into taking action.”

She spun on her heel, her black hair swinging behind her, and stomped off. Devon let out a long sigh.

If Miranda wouldn’t budge, then he would have to approach someone else. Someone else who might be persuaded to stop the tragedy before it occurred.

Jackson Muir himself.

Devon spied on him, protected by his invisibility. The Madman stood once again at the Hell Hole in the middle of the night, saying nothing, simply staring at the portal and resting his palms against its metal door. When he made a move to turn and head upstairs, Devon leapt ahead and met the renegade sorcerer as he walked up the basement stairs.

“Sir,” Devon said.

Jackson’s eyes met his, annoyed as he might be by a pesky fly. That was all Devon was to him in this time. An annoying little insect.

“What
is
it, boy?”

“I just wanted to go over the plans for the Gifting ritual with you.”

Jackson sighed. “It is late. I am tired. Talk to me tomorrow.”

“But, sir, I plan to meet with Mrs. Muir first thing. If I could just ask you a question …”

Jackson stopped, leaning against the wall and closing his eyes. He looked so human, so vulnerable, that in that moment Devon couldn’t fear him. He was just a man, a weary, and perhaps even frightened, man—frightened of what he was about to do. He was taking a great risk. If he’d ever cared about his brother before, the idea of putting Randolph and his family in such danger must have troubled him, even a little bit.

Devon stepped forward and cleared his throat.

“Well, sir, what I want to know is how I should to talk with her about the responsibility that comes with great power.”

The Madman opened his black eyes and fixed them on Devon.

Devon continued speaking. “A Nightwing pledges himself or herself to the light, to the pursuit of good, forsaking all personal gain. Isn’t that right, sir?”

Jackson Muir just continued to stare at him with eyes as black and glassy as a raven’s.

“This is what the Guardians have always taught,” Devon said, astonished that he was actually standing there lecturing the Madman about good and evil, right and wrong. “Good is its own reward,” he said, and his voice was steady, calm, and cool, “and the path of greed and desire can lead only to apostasy. These are the truths that have been affirmed by all great Nightwing, from Sargon to your father, Horatio Muir.”

Jackson’s eyes narrowed as he studied Devon.

Is he hearing me? Might I be able to reach him? Might I touch the conscience I know exists within him? Might I be able to stop him even now, to change his plans, to forever change the course of history?

What would happen if Jackson Muir truly repented his evil ways? Emily would live. The cataclysm that would one day descend upon Ravenscliff would be averted, and the Muirs would not have to renounce their sorcery. Instead of bitterness and denial, the great house of the future would be filled with welcome when Devon arrived there—welcome and eagerness to train him in his powers and teach him his heritage …

Or else, time would collapse in on itself.

That’s what Randolph warned would happen if I tried to change history.

But Devon couldn’t help but make the attempt. Halloween was getting closer and closer …

“With Nightwing power comes responsibility,” he said again, remembering the lessons taught him by both Montaigne
père
and
fils
. “And accountability …”

“Do you think I do not know the lessons, little Guardian?”

Jackson spoke in a soft, calm, unemotional voice, but there was emotion in his eyes. Devon could see it. Anger, sadness, regret, guilt, fear. And he could feel the heat now being put off by Jackson. A staggering, damp, sorcerer’s heat …

Devon swallowed. “I’m just going over what I will teach your wife.”

“My wife has all good qualities. You need not teach her anything she already knows.”

“But that is our role, sir. We Guardians teach …”

Suddenly the Madman’s arm thrust out and grabbed Devon by the shirt collar.

“I need no lessons,” he snarled, “from a boy such as you.”

Devon choked back his fear. Jackson loomed over him now, bearing down at him with his black eyes and twisted mouth.

“There’s something about you, boy,” he said. “Something I don’t like. You’ve been an inconsequential little gnat to me up until now. But suddenly I don’t like the way you
smell
. I don’t like the curve of your lip or the light in your eyes.” He moved in even closer, his whisky breath in Devon’s face. “I don’t think I want you around here any more.”

“I serve at your brother’s pleasure,” Devon reminded him.

“Ah, yes. My brother.” Jackson snorted. “The Master of Ravenscliff.”

He let Devon go.

“Be gone out of my sight, little gnat,” the Madman growled. “Cross not my path from here on. And know that I will be watching you.”

Devon knew it was time to make a hasty retreat.

All he’d managed to do, he realized, was harden Miranda’s resolve and further Jackson’s suspicions. If he’d been trying to prevent what was destined to occur, he’d made a major muck of it. He’d probably made it
more
likely to happen now, not less.

History cannot be changed.

“I won’t accept that,” Devon said out loud, alone in his room. “Not while there’s still time. Still hope. If Randolph can still have hope, then so can I.”

But things began to happen that tested that hope. As the leaves began to change into a deep rusty bronze, then fall from their branches under the cold northern wind, noises were heard emanating from the Hell Hole in the basement. Concerned over the reason for the demons’ restlessness, Randolph built a room around the portal, sealing off the entrance to anyone but himself.

“No one,” he assured Devon, “will now have access to that portal except for me.”

Yet a few days later a demon was detected perched on one of the eaves of the house, pretending to be a stone gargoyle. Randolph sent it promptly back to its Hell Hole, but talk in the great house centered around where the creature came from, and why it was here. “I am beginning to question,” Greta Muir said to her husband, “exactly how much apostasy Jackson left behind.”

Devon was eavesdropping from his room.

“I am watching him,” Randolph assured his wife. “I still want to believe he is reformed, but I am prepared for him if he is not.”

But on a crisp late October morning Amanda woke up screaming.

There was a snake in her bed.

A long, green, shiny snake with the head of a cat. It hissed as Randolph approached, followed by Greta and Devon.

“Back to your Hell Hole!” Randolph shouted.

The snake was gone. The girl was safe.

But Randolph turned to Devon, a deep sadness in his eyes, and asked simply, “It’s beginning, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir, I think it is. I think—”

Randolph lifted a hand to silence Devon. “I will have Greta take the children away today. I do not want to risk their safety.”

So Greta Muir, pretending a visit with her family in the Midwest, bundled the two children into the long black car and drove off.

Later that same day, Ogden McNutt sought out Devon. “Jackson is doing something in the room off the upstairs parlor,” the English Guardian informed him. “He won’t let anyone in, not even Emily. The servants have told me how they hear him in there, struggling, grunting, crying out, as if exerting some huge effort.”

“Randolph should know about this,” Devon said.

“I told him. He said he’d given the West Wing to Jackson to live in. He is bound by a sorcerer’s honor not to move in and take it back from him.”

Devon slammed his right fist into his left palm. “You know, all this noble Nightwing crap is making me want to puke!”

“Sir—?”

“The Madman is planning to take down this house and Randolph sticks to this ridiculous code of honor!”

McNutt looked aghast. “It is clear, Devon, you are
not
a Guardian. For if you were, you would never call the Nightwing honor code ridiculous. It has been what has kept us all on the path of light. It has been what has kept us allied with the angels instead of the demons, what separates us from the petty wizards and witches—what keeps true Nightwing from the Apostates. You can be sure that Randolph will not be caught unawares. He is too clever for that. But neither will he trample on our sacred, cherished beliefs. He is a true and noble Nightwing.”

Devon felt suitably chagrined.

There was no mistaking that the energy in the house had changed. The servants avoided Jackson as much as possible as he stalked through the house, rarely dressed in anything other than his ceremonial sorcerer’s costume of black cape, red shirt and trousers, and tall black boots. “He’s a madman,” Devon heard one of them whisper.

It was a phrase repeated in the village as sightings of strange creatures among the trees suddenly became widespread. Schoolchildren reported seeing flying monkeys and two-headed tigers. A huge flying creature was spotted soaring over the cliffs. “If I didn’t know better,” said the farmer who’d seen it, “I’d’a said it was a pterodactyl.”

The old legends about ghosts and demons at Ravenscliff resurfaced.

Blame was placed on the strange Muir brother who had returned from his world travels amid stories of dalliance with black magic. Once again, as they had during the days of Horatio Muir, the villagers began to suspect supernatural activity taking place in the great house on the hill.