Moonshadow

Moonshadow

By

J.D. Gregory

Moonshadow

By J.D. Gregory

Third Edition 2016

Copyright © 2012, 2016 J.D. Gregory and Rookheart Books.

All Rights Reserved.

Cover art by J.D. Gregory.

All characters and events in this book are fictitious. All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

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For the Moon of My Night’s Sky

Hear, O Daughters of the Moon.

Take ear, Sons of the Shepherd.

The Children of the Fallen brought darkness,

The Thirdborn spawned corruption,

Your fathers and mothers drank deeply,

From the Cup of Elberon’s Wrath.

From the Chalice of the Moon’s Redemption,

Your sons and daughters will drink continually.

. . . . . . .

- The Oracles of the Twelve Pillars; Pillar 4 Canticle 3:1-8

Prologue

Lost in the dancing flames within the fireplace, he almost did not hear the unmistakable sound of shattering glass. The notion of someone breaking into an office below stirred him from his lethargy. In spite of the possibility of danger, he did not move with haste, but simply stood up from his reading chair, walked over to the window, and looked down.

Shadows hiding in the midst of the trees moved swiftly and gracefully as they leapt from the darkness and entered into the building. They had finally come for him, just as Traevion had warned. It mattered not. Soon, he would again be with his beloved.

Since his light had been taken, he had known only darkness and despair. His life had all but stopped. Miles away, the home that they had once shared now stood as a relic of their life together, her room preserved as if she were still living within—like an exhibit. He had not returned since the year she was killed. He had quit lecturing, quit overseeing his own college, he had even quit shepherding the Disciples of the Blood. He wasn't even certain what year it was—1935, perhaps? Nothing mattered to him anymore.

Let them come.
He fumbled in his jacket pocket to find her locket, but it wasn't there.

He panicked. Where had he left it? He looked to the table beside his reading chair to find that it wasn't there either. He must have left it in the chapel.

He was not about to die without holding the locket. With haste, he opened the office window and climbed out onto the fire escape. His soul might feel like an old man on the threshold of death, but his body was still in its prime. He had traveled the world for twenty years, searching for hidden truths and shirking dangers. This would be no different.

He knew they had reached his office as he hit the ground running, but did not turn around to make sure. The chapel was just on the other side of the gardens. He would be able to make it to the sanctuary, and the locket, before his pursuers.

As he ran, he looked around the small campus and surveyed his accomplishments—none of them mattered. Only one legacy had any tangible worth in his eyes and it was safe from the shadows that now hunted him.

When he reached the Gothic chapel of dark gray stone, he opened the great wooden doors and then quickly shut them once he was through. He grabbed the tall iron candelabra to the right and shoved it through the metal handles of the doors. It would only hold them back for a moment, but that was all he needed.

He rushed to the raised altar and the podium where he kept his teachings. Relief washed over him when he found the locket still laying where he had left it—in the middle of the open tome of his own writing like an elegant bookmark.

He swiftly took the locket in his hand before the wooden door exploded into countless pieces, the splintered chunks of debris scattering among the aisles and pews of the chapel. In spite of the present danger, he sighed in relief.

As the dust settled, a troubling face from the past emerged from the newly opened entryway. Two figures, their faces hidden by hoods attached to long black cloaks, followed close behind like walking shadows.

“Honestly, Foxwell,” said the man he had once called friend. “I thought you wouldn't run.” Walking forward, he gestured to the building around them with his outstretched arms. “Choosing to die within the sacred temple of the brotherhood. You always did have a flair for melodrama.”

As if to give a sermon, Foxwell gently grabbed the sides of the podium and shook his head. “As always, Hank, your ambitions blind you to the truth.”

The other man's smug face twisted in anger. He did not appear to find Foxwell's words amusing.

“You have been allowed to live
this
long because we thought you would be of some use. However, since Lottie’s death you have only turned into a shell of the man you once were.”

Foxwell smiled to himself and Hank’s face contorted with rage.

“Why are you so pleased? You are about to die.”

“You think they will let you live?” He shook his head at the naiveté of his old friend. “Your fate will be the same as mine, brother. You will see.”

“I'm finished with you, Foxwell.” Hank quickly closed the distance between them and then produced a knife from within his long gray coat.

Foxwell simply looked at the weapon and did nothing. He hadn't expected his old student to do the deed himself, but he wasn’t surprised by it, either. There had always been a great deal anger and resentment boiling inside of Hank. He never could understand as the others in the brotherhood had.

With a swift thrust, empowered by years of resentment, the student plunged the knife into his mentor. As the blade penetrated Foxwell’s abdomen, he latched onto Hank’s shoulder while his insides burned with pain. The sudden sensation was alarming; he had felt nothing for so long. In his other hand, Foxwell gripped Lottie’s golden locket as Hank dropped him to the ground.

The blood began to flow from his wound and the blackness crept into the corner of his vision. It wouldn't be long now. Morvera was calling to him; the Mistress of Death reaching out to claim her charge. Foxwell had anticipated this moment for many years—when his soul’s fire finally reached out and touched the realms of the Beyond. He had envied Lottie and Traevion for their blessed natures and nightly journeys, but as the swirling shadows of that Netherworld reached out to him with its arms of ravenous specters, Foxwell realized he had been the one truly blessed all along.

Through the haze of spinning darkness, Foxwell saw Hank snatch the book from the podium and panic welled up inside of him.

He hadn’t finished—his grief had made him careless, and now, it was too late.
I failed her Lottie…
How can she live without Ariadne’s Thread?

“That is the look I yearned for, old friend,” Hank said through a smug grin. “Your precious life's work is now mine. You say my fate will be the same as yours?” Though Hank laughed at the notion, Foxwell could sense a disturbance lurking behind his apparent amusement. “I will finally take the knowledge that you horded for yourself. The Chalice
will
be mine.”

One of the walking shadows stepped forward. “You overreach, Plymouth. The Chalice is not yours to be had.”

Hank’s grin twisted with startled fear of his compatriots, and as the darkness overshadowed the world around Foxwell, he couldn’t help but feel all was lost.

After a groan of anguish, the pain suddenly left Foxwell’s body and the only sensation he could feel was the metal of Lottie’s locket nestled in the grip of his hand.

It was time.

The empty blackness called to him—its hands reaching to claim his spirit—but within the gaping maw of Death, a spark began to shine. It grew ever closer, reaching out; fighting the powers of shadow to claim what belonged to it. The blinding light held the darkness at bay, and after years of anguished absence, his soul’s fire danced with his beloved’s once again.

Lottie had come to take him before Morvera, just as she had promised.

Foxwell’s wide smile echoed the profound peace welling up inside of his heart. “You could have seen the dawn,” he said to his old student. “If only you had dreamed with your heart.”

“My dreams are bigger than my heart, fool,” Hank replied and then turned to the others. “Let's go.”

Foxwell’s fading gaze lingered on the book as Hank left with it under his arm. In spite of his sense of failure, Lottie’s spirit filled him with a lingering hope.
She will find her own path through the darkness of the Labyrinth.

In his last moment of life, Foxwell Flinders smiled. Plymouth and his puppet-masters will never unlock his teachings, and with his death, the Chalice of the Moon will remain hidden for all time.

His legacy was safe.

Chapter 1

O evil thread of Destiny woven,

That I should bear this burden accursed.

If this Cup should be taken from me hence,

For its loss I would not profoundly weep.

Powers I pray thee, make me once again,

That Maiden Innocent of Woe of Man.

As the swirling darkness reached out to grab a hold of Diana, the terror of forgotten memories shocked her back into the waking world.

As blurs of green trees and black street lamps streaked past her vision, it only took her a few moments to regain her reality—she was still in her dad’s truck. She must have fallen asleep.

Diana groggily rubbed her eyes as the sound of her dad’s singing filled her ears—Alice Cooper’s
Eighteen
,
again. It was the third time this trip alone—maybe more while she’d been asleep.

Then she remembered the familiar fear.

Shaking her head, Diana refused to acknowledge it. The night terrors were not returning, she was just stressed out about going away to college. Forcing the thoughts from her mind, she focused her attention on her dad’s singing and the meaning held within the lyrics of the song.

Diana was eighteen—and stuck somewhere in the middle of life.

Her dad continued to sing along, in his most successful attempt at rock-star vocals, and Diana lost herself to the words. She had just ridden with her parents for the last six hours—with what of her old life she could stuff into her dad’s pickup truck—to begin her new life at college. Since graduation, she had felt caught between two lives—her past childhood and her future adulthood. She was floating in a confusing limbo. She wasn’t a child anymore, but she sure didn’t feel like an adult, either. As she watched the tall trees through the window, she felt like each passing limb was taking her further and further away from the childhood she had adored for so long. Six hours ago, she had still felt like she could hang onto that part of her life. Not so much anymore.

Who was Diana supposed to be, now?

“Looks like I finally found the place.” Her father said, bringing Diana back to reality as he pulled into the visitor parking lot of the university and turned off the engine.

Diana climbed out of the truck and put her feet on the solid ground, feeling as if she had just stepped out into the rest of her life.

“You doing okay, sweetie?” her mom asked from behind as she gently put an arm around Diana’s shoulder. “You’ve been pretty quiet all morning.”

“Yeah, I’m fine; just nervous.” She laid her head on her mother’s shoulder. “You’d think I’d be used to being alone by now.”

“Sorry, kiddo,” her mom said through a laugh. “Giving birth once was enough for me.”

“For Grandma too, apparently,” Diana said with a sideways grin. “Some more cousins would have been nice.”

“Who needs siblings and cousins when their mom is so cool?” she replied with a wide smile.

When her mother made comments like that, Diana wasn’t sure if she was joking or not. Her mom was rather fun and upbeat, most of the time—unless she was pouting. When that happened, Diana usually just tried to ignore her until she got over it.

“I’m sure you’ll settle in pretty fast,” her mother continued. “Flinders University seems like a nice enough school. Your grandma would be proud.”

Diana smiled at the thought. “I think so too.”

“I know Mom is with us; she always wanted to see this place.”

“Grandma Lily is the only reason I applied here.”

Diana could still feel her grandmother’s arms around her as they cozied up together under a blanket while she spun daring tales of the college’s founder, many putting Indiana Jones to shame. A British gentleman, Alexander Foxwell Flinders had been the archetype of the adventuring archaeologist. Her grandmother’s aunt, Charlotte, had been Flinders longtime companion and accompanied him on several expeditions around the world. A decade or so after the First World War, Flinders left England and Archaeology behind to settle in the American Mid-West as a spiritual leader.

Diana’s gaze danced about the trees, rows of flower beds, and green lawns of the campus quad. “Ohio won’t be too bad. It feels pretty much the same as home; I just have to get used to being an extra hour ahead.”

Her dad joined them after stretching his legs a bit. “You ready for this, baby girl?” He always called Diana his baby girl—she was going to miss that. “I’ll take you right back home if that’s what you want.”

With a pained smile Diana shook her head. “No daddy, I’ll be fine. But if I’m not, you’ll be the first to know.”

As her dad began to unload some of her things from the truck, Diana took her rolling suitcase in hand and then swung her backpack over her shoulder.
No turning back now
¸ she couldn’t help but think. Her parents grabbed their initial loads as well and they began making their way to her dorm building.

Diana hated to admit it, but she was already lost, and the campus wasn’t even that big. Flinders was by no means a small school, but it was nothing compared to some of the schools she had visited.

At least it was a beautiful campus.

Trees and flowers lined every sidewalk that she could see and the buildings all had that wonderful look of Old World stonework, even though many were not as old as they appeared to be. As she looked towards the middle of the campus, Diana saw the building that would no doubt become her favorite place—the library.

The pamphlet she had read before choosing the university had said the library was one of the oldest buildings on the campus, commissioned by Flinders himself, when he settled in the area. The Gothic stone structure began its days as the grand church in which Flinders pursued his ministries. Looking at the magnificent stone tower, Diana wondered if the bell still rang from time to time.

As if knowing her thoughts, the bell of the tower struck with one base-toned gong. As the metallic note reverberated across the campus, it shook Diana to the core. Her gaze lingering on the old stone church, the bell continued to ring its mournful knell within Diana’s ears. Where the bell rang in her core, she felt a familiar pull, however, the sense of forgotten fears did not follow close behind. Instead, Diana felt a curious wonderment.

“Earth to Diana,” her mom called out. She sounded annoyed, as if it wasn’t the first time she’d said Diana’s name. “Do you know where we’re going?”

“Yeah, sorry.” Diana tore her gaze from the church and looked down at her campus map.   After a few moments of gaining her directional bearings, she quickly found her dorm building.

The area was in chaos. Diana was only one of a large number of freshmen moving into the dorms that day, and people were everywhere. She saw many students carrying boxes of their belongings to their rooms, parents giving a helping hand and saying their goodbyes, and older students serving as dorm residents, guiding their younger peers to where they needed to be. Luckily for Diana, she would be living on the first floor.

“There’s a lot of boys going in and out of that building,” said her father in a playful tone that masked the serious concern Diana could feel echoing within his heart.

Diana took note of the various males going in and out of the building, as well, dreading the thought of living in such close quarters with the opposite sex. She had an awkward enough time around her own gender.
I’m pretty sure I already hate this.

Her mother chuckled at the sight. “I bet you just can’t wait for your first run in with a guy in a towel in the middle of the hallway.”

“Oh
joy
,” Diana replied with the largest amount of sarcasm she could muster. “I’m probably not going to be able to have a real bath until I come home, am I?”

“Nope,” her mom said with a smile. “Communal showers for the next few months. It’s probably like summer camp.”

“I never went to summer camp—I hate camping.”

She was going to miss her nice long soaks in the tub with a book—one of the many beloved past times that would be gone for the foreseeable future.

“Peabody Hall, eh?” Her dad asked, changing the subject away from unclothed boys. “Sounds like some rich stuffed shirt with too much time on his hands.”

“You’re probably right on the money, dad,” Diana replied as they walked inside. “That’s usually the type of people these buildings are named after.”

As they walked down the hall, Diana took note of the various name tags that the RAs had placed on the doors, finally finding her own at the very end of the hallway—right in front of the big metal door to the stairwell.

Nodding to Diana with a smile as he walked past, a boy opened the door to ascend the stairs and it quickly shut behind him with a loud reverberating slam that made Diana’s teeth hurt.

“Great,” Diana said, sounding defeated. “I can’t wait to be woken up by that at three in the morning.”

She sighed and looked to her room door, wondering if her roommate had already moved in. Having never shared a room with anyone before, Diana wasn’t looking forward to living with a complete stranger. She read the name next to hers—
Gigi Bradley.

“My roommate sounds like a French runway model,” Diana declared.

“Or a stripper,” her dad chimed in.

Diana chuckled. “Even better.”

Diana took a deep breath before opening the door to her new room. Her roommate
had
already moved in, but she was no longer there.

“Let’s snoop,” said her mom with a hint of mischief. “You can always tell a lot about a person by their stuff.”

“Please don’t,” Diana pleaded as she sat her backpack down on the bare mattress. “The last thing I need is for my roommate to find my mom snooping through her stuff. Do you want her to think I’m crazy on the first day?”

“Okay, fine,” her mom said before sitting her own load on the bed. “We’ll just judge the girl by the stuff we can see.”

“Thanks mom.” Diana just shook her head and then began taking note of her roommate’s possessions and various decorations. She had set up her own TV, and her thin white laptop was already on the provided desk
.
The flowery blankets and pillows of yellows and blues made her roommate’s bed look warm and inviting.

She appeared to be a typical eighteen-year-old girl.

On a cork bulletin board she had pinned a collage of pictures of people that were no doubt her friends and family back home, and Diana concluded that her roommate was the girl that appeared most frequently.
This Gigi is very pretty
. She had shoulder-length blonde hair, with just the right amount of curl to it, piercing blue eyes, and a slim build. She also looked to be the perky sort of girl. She was quite the contrast to Diana’s generic thick brunette hair, pale skin, and unremarkable hazel-green eyes. Diana had always considered herself “librarian-chic”, but pretty in her own plain sort of way
.
Her roommate was very much the cheerleader type. Of course though, if she
were
a cheerleader, those would be the most prominent pictures. Not a single pom-pom graced the collage and Diana was thankful; she had never had much luck befriending cheerleaders.

The only other notable wall decoration was a black and white poster of Audrey Hepburn from
Roman Holiday
.

“She likes Audrey, I approve,” Diana said to her mother. “Much better than Marilyn.”

“Why?” her father asked from behind. “Hepburn is okay, but I like Marilyn—she’s much hotter.”

“Exactly.” Diana smirked at her father’s comment and shook her head. “Most girls are either a Marilyn Monroe fan or an Audrey Hepburn fan, not usually both. I’m not usually keen on the Marilyn Monroe types. They tend to steal your boyfriends.”

After a few trips back and forth to the truck, all of Diana’s belongings were now in the room, waiting to be unpacked. The next few hours would be spent putting everything away and organizing her new living quarters.

As she looked away from the boxes to her parents, her heart ached and her eyes began to water.

“I guess this is goodbye for now,” she managed to get out before she got too blubbery.

As usual, her mom quickly became the bigger mess and Diana took her into her arms. “You’ll be alright mom; you can call me whenever you want.”

Her dad put his big arms around both of them. “Expect a ring in about an hour.”

“We’re gonna miss you so much,” her mom said through the tears. “I’m pretty sure we’re going to have to get a dog or something, now.”

“Wow, that makes me feel great,” Diana said through a laugh. “Replaced by a dog, I can’t wait to come home for Thanksgiving. Save me some scraps.”

Her dad spoke up. “Now, all you have to do is call me if you need me. I don’t care if I have to drive six hours, I will be here and you know it.”

“Oh I know it; I have no doubt in my mind.”

“I love you, baby girl,” he said as he gave her a final, loving, bear hug.

Knowing she would soon be a bigger mess if they remained much longer, Diana walked her parents down the hallway and out the door of Peabody Hall. She decided it would be best not to walk all the way to the truck with them. Watching them drive away would be too much.