The Last Moon Witch Read online

  Jun closed his eyes. “Let me tell you his name.”

  “No.” Notia’s voice was firm. “The fewer ties he has back to you, the better. The less likely his mother is able to find him.”

  “You know, then.” Jun felt his heart sink.

  “It was disclosed to me, yes. Taking your son is a risk, but it is one my coven and I are willing to accept.” She held her hand out for the bag. “Now, I need you to trust me, Jun Takamori.”

  Jun flicked his knife closed, pocketing it and carefully slipping the bag off his shoulder. “They gave him a sedative, but I don’t know how much longer it will last.”

  “The trip won’t take long.” Notia reached into her satchel and retrieved a black pointed crystal on a leather cord. “The obsidian will protect him until I can get within the coven’s wards.” She then motioned for Jun to open the bag.

  The baby stirred at the fresh air, his eyes squinting at the disturbance, tiny hands rubbing at his face.

  “There now, little one.” Notia slipped the cord around the baby’s neck. The babe whimpered as Jun zipped the bag back up and handed it to Notia. She slung it across her chest, tightening the strap down to keep it from bouncing.

  “May the goddesses keep your path safe.” Notia clasped Jun’s hands in hers.

  “Farewell,” Jun told her solemnly, offering her a bow, which Notia returned.

  The jangle of metal on metal made them both jump.

  “What have we here?” An old monk leaned on his ringed staff, smiling down at them serenely from a perch atop a rock. “Star-crossed lovers? Or perhaps you’ve gotten lost on your date? Or . . . perhaps you’re aiding a witch?”

  A shudder went through Jun, leaving him cold and sweating. The monk from the train. But that was impossible. He was still sleeping when Jun had gotten off. “What’s a Buddhist monk doing at a Shinto shrine, anyway?”

  The monk chuckled. “Oh, the place makes no difference to me, not when there’s witchcraft involved.” He jumped down from the rock, landing in a crouch before them.

  Jun drew his knife, activating the plasma blade. “This doesn’t concern you, old man.”

  He saw Notia free her sickle from her belt. “He’s a Union Enforcer.”

  “Right you are, my dear. My name is Chynn.” The monk bowed, the rings on his staff jangling merrily as he did. “And you are a moon witch. We’ve been after your coven for quite some time. You’re a tricky lot.”

  “I can pay you, whatever you want. Name it and forget you saw anything,” Jun told him.

  Chynn shook his head. “What could you offer me that is greater than the satisfaction of seeing magic destroyed?”

  Shit, a warrior monk. Jun stepped between Notia and Chynn, blocking the monk’s view of her. Chynn smiled wide, an aura of quietude surrounding him. “This isn’t personal, but it is for the greater good. Magic itself is a plague that must be wiped out. Now.”

  Chynn sprang at them, the rings on his staff clattering as he swung it over his head. With a grunt, he thrust it forward.

  Jun met the attack, the plasma of his knife sparking against the metal staff, breaking Chynn’s flow. He grabbed the staff just below its deadly tip and pulled himself past the dangerously sharp point.

  He lunged forward, heart racing as he closed in on the monk. His arm drew back to slash at Chynn, eyes focused on the monk’s exposed neck and where to plant the blow.

  Chynn’s leg snapped up, kicking Jun in the ribs. Jun staggered, wheezing for breath as he dropped down on one knee, losing his grip on the staff. Chynn yanked his staff back and rammed its razor-sharp ornamental tip forward.

  Jun threw up his hand to deflect the attack, but the monk outpaced him. The point of the staff sank into his stomach. He gritted his teeth against the piercing agony that blossomed from his belly.

  Warm wetness seeped into his shirt. Jun knew that the trickle would become a cascading waterfall that would bleed him dry if he allowed Chynn to rip the spear out of him. With a snarl, he grabbed the shaft of the spear.

  He had to buy Notia enough time to escape.

  Chynn jabbed the staff deeper into his stomach, tangling its deadly point with his vital organs. Spots dotted Jun’s vision as he cried out, his grip on the staff faltering.

  As it did, Chynn yanked the staff back. The sopping, squelching sound of blood and innards splattering filled the air as the monk flicked a length of intestine off his spear.

  Jun clutched at the wound, his vision darkening. His knife was forgotten as he tried to push the viscera back into the wound. His hands shook. He couldn’t fail now. He had to get back on his feet. Had to—

  Chynn swept the staff forward, smashing it into the bottom of Jun’s jaw.

  His teeth cracked as he fell backward. One of them crumbled in his mouth, mingling with the acidic taste of bile. Chynn towered triumphantly over him.

  Wind howled through the skeletal forest around the shrine. The voices of every dead soul on the mountain rose in protest to the life about to be taken. The persistent clouds parted, and the courtyard of the shrine was bathed in the white light of the full moon.

  A flash of light caught Jun’s eye as Chynn raised the staff to deliver a final blow.

  Notia materialized, snatching Chynn’s head, and slashed her sickle across his throat. Blood soaked the temple’s holy ground in deep red.

  Chynn let out a garbled choke as he released the staff, grasping at his throat as he fell to his knees. He collapsed face first in the dirt, his body twitching as life leaked out of it.

  A shiver of relief went through Jun. Each heartbeat echoed in his ears as the wound in his gut continued to weep. He was going to die, but his son would live.

  “Go,” he rasped at Notia.

  She gave him a final look, her lips moving, but the words were lost to him. Then she turned and fled into the forest. As her figure faded into the tree line, Chynn groaned.

  Jun looked back to see the monk slowly pushing himself back up to his feet, the gaping flesh on his neck stitching itself back together with silver threads.

  He should have been dead! What unnatural force kept him moving? Magic? Machinery?

  “Enough of this,” the monk growled. A wave of his hand inspired the staff to spring upright and float to his hand.

  Magic, it had to be. Chynn was a traitor to his own kind.

  Jun reached for him, motions laggard and hands heavy as the blackness crept at the edge of his vision. It didn’t matter if the monk had magic or not. Jun couldn’t let him follow after the witch.

  But his vision was fading, and with a whoosh of the staff, the metal crashed against his skull, sending him into darkness.

  3

  Notia ground her teeth, struggling to keep steady as she coursed through the dazzling blurs of light within the ether, the precious cargo hugged against her chest. She had to warn the coven. If the Enforcers knew about her meeting, there was a chance their contact in Japan had been compromised. Or worse, their entire network.

  Almost there, just a little further . . .

  Her feet touched down on the barrier that separated reality from the hurricane of magical energy. With a snap of her fingers, it gave way, exploding outward in fragments of crystallized starlight.

  Notia landed in a crouch at the edge of their commune, sheltered within the great California redwood forest. But something was wrong. The warmth of her fellow witches’ wards was absent, only an icy chill in its wake.

  Thick smoke snaked its way up from the village and into the trees.

  An attack. Was she too late?

  Screams reached her ears, the sound scorching her brain like hot coals. Her eyes scanned over the village below, searching for their source through the smoke.

  “DeOndre! Aki!” Notia shouted as she rushed toward the commune, sickle in hand. She had to get them out of there. “Cynthia! Yooah!”

  The high-pitched whine of plasma fire sliced through the screams, leaving silence in its wake.

  Notia skidded to a sto
p and pressed herself against the metal siding of a house. Another volley of shots rang out, a hail of locusts bombarding the air around her.

  She peeked around the corner of the building, her hand trembling as she tightened her grip on her sickle.

  A group of black-clad soldiers stood in a semi-circle around a woman and a boy. Their helmets were wired to their scalps to relay synaptic messages to the matte black exoskeletons they wore. Raised visors revealed eyes that glowed crimson with infrared implants as they trained their guns on the boy they had surrounded.

  “No,” Notia whispered. She recognized the short woman with her hair pulled back in a tight bun beneath her military cap that paced in front of the captive. Lola Thorsted, head Enforcer for the Union, a terrifying specialist when it came to hunting and interrogating witches. She had exterminated fourteen different covens worldwide and had seventy-six confirmed kills by her own hand.

  “Tell me where your safehouse is.” Lola paced. “You wouldn’t want to end up like your comrades, would you?”

  She gestured behind her at a pile of smoldering bodies. Notia felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. Chynn hadn’t been the real threat, only a pawn to distract her. The cloaking wards had been weakened while she was away, giving Lola the perfect opportunity to strike.

  “Even if I knew and even if I told you, you’d just kill me, anyway!” the boy shot back. “Fuck you and fuck the Union! We’ve done nothing wrong!”

  “Such language.” Lola tsked. A mechanized beast sidled up to her. Its trapezoid head was featureless save for a panel flickering through a variety of colors as one of its six articulated taloned feet pawed at the ground.

  A magic sniffer.

  Lola absently patted the beast on the head. “I can do this all day. Provoking me won’t make your death faster.” She crouched in front of her captive. “Tell me where your safehouse is.”

  “Not here, obviously,” he snarled.

  Lola snorted. “Then I’ll just have to let FE-68 play with you.” She snapped her fingers, and the sniffer lunged at him, knocking the boy onto his back as the bot’s claws began to tear into him.

  Notia jerked back, pressing a hand over her mouth as his shrieks of pain filled the air.

  Goddess, why?

  Every instinct in her screamed that she should run to his aid, but she would be dead before she reached him. If it had just been the Enforcers, she might have stood a chance, but Thorsted’s presence meant more soldiers and having to engage Thorsted herself.

  A sharp crunch rang through the air and the boy’s screams were cut short. Notia clutched at her chest. The magical current in the air shifted as his life force faded, his magic draining back into the earth.

  There wasn’t time to mourn the boy as a chill crept into the air, making her breath come in white clouds.

  “Chynn, your report.” Lola’s voice broke the silence as the monk approached her with a bow.

  “Regrettably, the high priestess escaped,” he told her, poking at the dead body with his staff.

  “And the child?”

  “She managed to acquire it.”

  Lola sighed, rubbing at her temples. “Tell me you at least took care of Takamori.”

  “He won’t be bothering us any longer.” He turned from Aki’s body and put a hand on Lola’s shoulder. “We should withdraw for now.”

  “You know what is at stake here!” Lola glared at him. “If we allow her to escape with the child—”

  From within the duffle bag the baby let out a curious babble, and Notia shrank back behind the building.

  Lola’s head whipped around, eyes narrowing as she searched for the source of the sound.

  “She’s here. Find her!” Lola barked at the soldiers. “I want her and the child alive!”

  Notia launched out of her hiding place, bolting for the trees. The bag jostled against her as she ran and the babe began to wail. She didn’t have the energy to warp again. She needed to buy time.

  The heavy booted footsteps of the soldiers weren’t far behind her. A bolt of plasma grazed her arm, leaving a black scorch mark on her flesh. She gasped as her skin sizzled, heat radiating along the limb.

  Another aimed low and sliced at the back of her ankle. A razor sharp pain coursed up her leg as the tendon was severed, and Notia cried out as she tumbled forward at the edge of the forest.

  The baby shrieked in earnest. Notia tried to stand but instead fell to her knees, her damaged ankle refusing to hold her weight.

  “Did you really think you could run?” Lola’s voice came from above her.

  Notia desperately tried to crawl away, but the Enforcer stepped forward and brought her boot down on her wounded ankle.

  Torrid lightning shot up her leg as her vision whited out. Her burnt flesh cracked under the pressure. She couldn’t scream, couldn’t breathe as the fire coursed through her veins, leaving her coated in a cold sweat.

  Lola removed her foot and gestured at the soldiers. Two of them approached and hoisted Notia off the ground.

  “All you have to do is give me the child.” Lola held out her hand.

  “Try and take him from me,” Notia hissed.

  “Impudent to the last, I see.” Lola reached out and yanked the duffle back off Notia’s shoulder and set it on the ground. The baby cried pitifully from within at the rough treatment. Smirking, Lola crouched down and unzipped the bag.

  There was no baby inside.

  “What is this? Where is the child?” Lola reached around in the bag, flipping it inside out.

  “You didn’t honestly think I’d give him to you that easily, did you?” Notia scoffed.

  Lola seethed as the duffle bag faded away in her hands. Illusion magic. Damn this witch. She drew a plasma knife from her belt and pressed the scorching blade against Notia’s face.

  Notia screamed, twisting and thrashing against the soldiers’ grip in a frantic attempt to escape as her flesh split open, her blood smoking under the blade’s assault.

  “Tell me, or I’ll carve you up while you’re still alive,” she hissed in Notia’s ear.

  Lola dragged the knife up Notia’s cheek, watching with glee as the witch’s skin sizzled and burned away.

  She stepped back, letting Notia suck in frenzied gasps of air. “Tell me where the child is.”

  The witch shook her head, jaw tensing. She could barely remember her name, the pain dominating her every thought.

  Lola slashed at the witch’s face, the plasma blade rupturing one of Notia’s eyes. The milky fluid within it broiled until it smoked.

  “I’ll t–tell! I’ll tell!” Notia screamed. Overhead, the crows roosting in the redwoods took flight, their symphony of cries joining Notia’s voice.

  Lola raised an eyebrow and took a step back, idly twirling the knife in her fingers. Notia bowed her head, struggling to string words together as her freshly burnt flesh split open with every motion of her lips.

  The pain shattered her concentration and any hope she had of gathering energy for a warp portal. But there was one thing she could do. A last resort. Dark Moon Magic.

  “Well?”

  “I curse your eyes,” Notia moaned in the tiniest voice. “I curse your lies.”

  “What was that? Speak up.” Lola grabbed her jaw and forced her head up, staring into the witch’s face.

  “I call down a plague of flies.” Notia met Lola’s gaze, her good eye rolling back in her head to reveal its white.

  Lola’s lips curled in disgust as she slapped her. “Your magic can’t save you.”

  Notia’s head jerked back under the assault as a smile stretched across her face, twisting her features as she called upon the fury of the goddess. “Blood go black and flesh go blue, evil from me and back to you,” she intoned, her voice low and reverberating. Her hands clenched into fists. “I curse you because you forced me to.”

  “Get back.” Chynn grabbed Lola’s arm, pulling her away. He thrust his staff forward, uttering a sacred mantra to create a shield for himself and
Lola.

  The soldiers dropped her, clawing at their helmeted heads in agony. Their bodies swelled beneath their uniforms. The synthetic fabric tightened against their flesh, magnifying the rippling boils beneath it. Then, the graphene-armored cloth could contain the pressure no longer, and their bodies burst, showering the forest with rotten viscera and maggots.

  Notia rose from the ground, her feet levitating above the earth. The power of the dark moon coursed through her abused body, snapping her hair free from its braid. It flowed out in tendrils like the mythical Medusa. Tucked against her breast was the baby, tears staining its tiny face.

  Lola sidestepped Chynn, pulling her side arm. “FE-68, kill!” she shouted.

  The sniffer lunged forward at Notia, its head splitting into razor-toothed segments. A whip tail extended from its back, tethering itself to the witch’s ankles. An ear-splitting screech began to resonate from its maw as it reeled her back down to earth.

  Notia raised a hand and slowly curled her fingers into a tight fist. As she did, the sniffer began to decay, its rhodium skin twisting and curling away from its chassis, exposing the intricate circuitry beneath.

  The tail lashed to Notia’s ankles snapped and the sniffer’s legs began to give way, bowing to the pressure her magic asserted on it.

  “You must know that you have debts to pay. Those you scorned will collect one day.” Notia clutched her sickle in her hand. She traced the weapon around in a circle, pulling magical power to her.

  “Why won’t you die?” Lola roared, opening fire on Notia.

  The plasma bolts ricocheted off an invisible field around her, leaving tiny trails of smoke as they lodged themselves in the trees surrounding them.

  “The lady of the dark moon sees all, and through her eyes I see your fall,” Notia murmured. The sniffer’s mechanical body shattered under the force of her ethereal compression.

  Lola’s gun clicked, its charge spent and clip empty. She threw the gun to the ground in frustration. “No matter. You can’t float there forever. I have more than enough fire power to bring you down. You can stop one gun, but you can’t stop a firestorm of white phosphorus.”