Luna Dark: Book 3 of the Luna Cycle

By Devon Gidley

The trilogy ending part of the Luna Cycle. Celeste Nix is finishing up college at the Evergreen State College. Together, she and Haruki are trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives. New characters and old push them in different directions. What kind of life should they live?
Orpheus shows them a hedonistic lifestyle, one defined by doing whatever you want. Duncan offers them a honorable path, one defined by a mission and higher purpose. Nisha advises them to live in fear, protect yourself at all costs and survive another day.
In the end, they have to choose for themselves who they will be, how they will live.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Devon Gidley
• Release date: Jun 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311217370

Devon Gidley

Devon:Writer. Traveler. Philosopher. Earned a BA in Liberal Arts. Former independent filmmaker. Calls the Pacific Northwest home. Will answer most questions about the story or characters.

Book preview

Luna Dark: Book 3 of the Luna Cycle

Devon Gidley

Copyright 2014 Devon Gidley

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

For Mrs Odden, breaker of my being

and

Alison and Bo, builders of my confidence

We’re frightened by what makes us different.

- Anne Rice

Table of Contents

Summer Quarter I

Summer Break I

Summer Quarter II

Sumer Break II

Fall Quarter I

Fall Quarter II

Fall Quarter III

Winter Solstice

Winter I

Winter II

Winter III

Spring I

Spring II

Spring III

Summer Solstice

About

Summer Quarter I

I never thought I would be the woman waiting by the phone for her man to call. I didn't remember the woman I thought I would be, but it was definitely not that one. Yet here I was – not just waiting, but staring at the darkened screen just waiting for it to light up with a picture of Haruki.

I wasn't twirling my blonde hair, or strengthening my body for soccer, or studying my summer program homework. I was just waiting.

It hadn't started this way. At first, we had just called each other whenever. After too many unanswered calls on either end, we had set up a schedule. Then, I had set my alarm to remind me he would be calling. As he had gotten further and further away and the time had gotten longer and longer, I had stopped needing to be reminded.

Haruki had been gone less than a month. He and Lupe were already across the country. His picture appeared, and Crystalised began playing.

Hey, I said, before the first bar was finished.

Can I speak to Celeste Nix, please?

Who is this? I asked. The voice was muffled.

It's me, Haruki said, laughing.

Not funny.

I was going for more formal. This is our scheduled time to converse after all. And I know you have caller ID.

Yeah, but hearing your voice is the only way I know you're still alive and not being tortured.

We're fine. We're staying with more of Lupe's Facebook friends of Facebook friends.

Have you found anything yet?

No, he said. It was the pause that gave him away.

But...

We got a lead.

On what?

Nisha.

Oh, I said, letting the silence talk for me. I knew she might have potential answers for Haruki's questions about being a Luna. Except she wasn't a Luna as far as I could tell. She had turned Haruki six years ago. How or why was never entirely clear. I knew she may have been able to tell Haruki what he wanted to know, but that was like asking the devil about hell.

It could be nothing. It sounds like her, but... somethings don't add up. Florida is a long way from Oak Harbor, Washington. And she can't still be in her early 20s. Plus, the guy kept calling her Nishant. That sounds more like a dude's name. Still, it's better than what we have been getting. Which is basically nothing. We're practically in Florida as is anyway.

And if you do find her?

Just like the plan. We're going to ask her some questions.

Does Lupe know anyone else that can go with you?

Don't worry. She can't make me a Luna again.

I don't know what she can't do and neither do you. Be careful, Haruki.

I'm sorry. I will. I don't think it's her anyway. She wouldn't... I don't know.

Exactly.

What's that mean?

You don't know her, Haruki. And she doesn't know you. Maybe she can answer your questions. Maybe she can't. Maybe she will. Maybe she won't. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should always do it.

What's going on? Haruki asked me. He knew me too well. Maybe it made me narcissistic, but I didn't get philosophical insights from other people's problems. I got them from my own. My last statement had been nothing if not a philosophical insight. An old one, but an insight nonetheless.

Pari is going up to a shop in Seattle. Iris suggested the three of us go hang out in the city for the day. I stopped. He waited. It's the kind shop that sells rare books and exotic... stuff. Pari knows the owner. Apparently, he's been a lot of places, seen a lot of things, knows a lot of stuff. Maybe...

He might know about Lunas, but...

Pari may have already talked to him when she was first doing research on Lunas. She didn't find anything we didn't already know.

Maybe she was asking the wrong questions.

That's the problem. Any questions I ask will seem weird. Pari and Iris still think you're dead. If I start asking people about Lunas...

Giselle is alive and a Luna. Pari is still trying to track her and Kachada, right? Or you're worried I may have infected you with my Lunaness before I died. Or you're just curious in general because that works out so well for us.

I snorted because I didn't want to laugh. So I just lie to my friends?

You're already lying to them, Celeste.

I know. It just sucks. You're down there risking your life –

I'm not risking my life.

You know what I mean. You're spending all your time trying to figure out what kind of life we can have together, and I can't even make up some story and ask a stupid question to some old guy.

Celeste, we're going to make this work. We're going to figure out everything that I am, and everything I can do, and we're going to figure out how to be safe and happy together. I promise. I keep my promises.

I know you do. I love you.

I love you, too. I'll talk to you again soon, Haruki said. I sent him an air kiss before we hung up. I put the phone down and went back to waiting for his next call. I may have been doing other things, but underneath it all, I was still waiting.

Up in west Olympia, the sun was setting on the horizon. In downtown, the trees and hills had had already blocked it out, throwing up the mantle of twilight. I gazed out my window. There was nothing to see. Parking lots or office buildings. It was the same as it had been for the almost two years I had lived here. Haruki's old place – the one he had before he died – wasn't much different. A little more grass. A little less concrete.

Still, it had felt different. His place had always felt like him and later on like us. Mine had always felt like me. Who I used to be. The girl I had been when I first moved here – scared, anxious, clinging to my mom like a kindergartener on the first day of school. There had been good times here with Haruki, but it had always felt like he was just visiting. My apartment had never been protected like his home. People needed an invitation to come into Haruki's home. They didn't need one here.

Haruki was right. I was deceiving my friends, but I was deceiving myself as well. This apartment wasn't the shelter and the haven it had been at my lowest moment. It was the place Kachada had once kidnapped me, the place where Lupe had once kissed me, the place where Iris had once betrayed me, the place where Haruki had once and again left me.

In that moment I decided I was moving. Later on, I would rationally justify it by telling myself I wanted to save money for when I graduated at the end of the year. Was that who I was? Someone deciding on emotion and pretending it was rational? Was that who I wanted to be?

One of the things I liked about Evergreen professors was that they wore their street clothes in the classroom and vice versa. Like addressing them by their first names, it really did make it seem like a collective learning community. Pari wasn't wearing her classroom clothes today. She was dressed to the nines. I wasn't even sure what that meant, but it seemed appropriate.

She wore a bold and bright matching skirt and blouse, patterns of red and blue. It would have looked comical on anyone with skin lighter than her Persian SoCal shade. On Pari, with black hair tumbling down her back in rivulets and purple eye shadow her only make-up, the outfit was a master class in color coordination. I wasn't the only one thinking this wasn't an ordinary trip to the big city.

In comparison, Iris and I looked positively like peasants. Me more so than her. Iris wore short shorts and a graphic tee left over from her days of being a hair dying punk pixie. She hadn't cut or dyed her hair since last summer. Naturally it was medium brown and made her look plain when she was anything but. I wore a flowery summer dress with a skirt underneath because it was partly see through in the right – wrong – light. I even had the broad brim hat to go with it. We were both working on our soccer tans.

Pari drove, picking up Iris first, so I had to settle for sitting in the back. I told Pari she looked amazing when I saw her and left it at that. The highway was only a few blocks from my apartment, so we were quickly on our way. Seattle was a hundred miles away and traffic wasn't too bad on this non-holiday mid-afternoon Saturday in July.

Iris broke the silence. Why are you dressing up to go shopping for whatever it is we're going shopping for? I thought the owner was old and a dude.

He's both, Pari said, laughing.

Does he give you discounts or better service if you're looking hot?

No. Probably worse. I thought you wanted to go to some of the clubs?

I do, Iris said. But I didn't think all the guys would be flirting with my teacher instead of me.

Pari, you do realize that Iris is still only twenty?

I have a fake ID, Iris insisted.

Celeste, do you remember one of the first things you said to me?

Probably not, I said. I remembered the first time I met her because I had met Haruki for the first time moments later, and I remembered that like I remembered getting dressed this morning.

You told me I was too young to be teaching college. I could say the same thing about your life – what you have seen and what you have done. Age doesn't define who we are or what we can do. Some things should never be experienced no matter how old you become. We all know that personally. Dancing and music are not one of those things.

If it had been most anyone else, I would have apologized for my sarcasm or sneered at her lecturing. I did neither because I knew she was right. We were young, and we had experienced the world, and we had long stopped being girls. Life wouldn't always be like this – fun and beautiful, surrounded by good friends and free of serious obligations. Today and tonight, we could do whatever we wanted.

You're not going out with us, are you?

No, Pari said. I'm going to visit a friend.

With benefits? Iris asked, as if that was any of our business.

All friendships have benefits. That was Pari's way of not answering the question. Unfortunately for her, Iris didn't see it that way.

What are the benefits of being friends with us?

I had asked myself that same question since the day Pari had come to my house and convinced me to return to Evergreen after my parents died. She hadn't saved my life, but she had helped me to survive long enough for me to find a reason to live: Haruki.

Pari still hadn't answered. She couldn't say what she had said to me then. She stalled for time by signaling and changing lanes to pass a car going five miles over the speed limit. It was easy for me to say what benefits I got from being friends with her. She had given me advice and counsel, comfort and succor on enough occasions that I could have started a list. But what had I given her?

I had given her heartbreak and danger.

You have accepted me and understood me. You have trusted me. You have allowed me to be part of the small community, perhaps the only community in Olympia that knows what else is out there. You have taught me about life.

I had nothing to say to that. I knew she wasn't lying or spilling bullshit. With Haruki and Lupe away, Newman dead, the Brotherhood dispersed, and the other bad guys gone, we three were the only ones that knew. Truly knew. At least as far as I knew. A memory came back to me of our first conversation. Not what was said, but what I felt. Pari really believed in the school philosophy of professors learning alongside students. Maybe I had more to give than what I thought I did.

Thanks, Iris said. It was simple and appropriate.

Yun's Magik Emporium was on an upper floor in one of the buildings in the most Seattle of addresses: Pike's Place Market. The shop was lit with glowing Chinese lanterns and decorated in New Age colors. It felt ancient and authentic, yet modern and novel. It was the kind of place you could buy a dozen different varieties of garlic to protect yourself from vampires or to spice up your spaghetti sauce. You could buy the latest book from the newest self-help guru or the last original spellbook of a dead shaman. It was the kind of place that never took inventory because the owner knew everything he had in stock off the top of his head.

I was pretty sure the guy behind the counter was not the owner. He had brown-blond curls cut short in the Justin Timberlake pre-solo career, pre-movies style. They framed a baby face that probably got him carded wherever he went. Still, his posture told me he was older, or just plain old. It was well into summer, but his tan was weak. He had glanced up from his phone as the old fashion bell rung above the door as we entered. He looked each of us over in turn – Pari to Iris to me, back to Iris for a bit too long, before finally returning to Pari as she led the way forward.

Can I help you ladies? Find anything, he added, as if in afterthought. Pixie dust? Crystal ball? I also do henna tattoos, but only if I like you.

I'm a friend of Yun. He is expecting me.

Ah. Yeah, he said, dropping some of flirtatiousness. He did say a friend was coming to visit him. I just didn't expect... But not all of it. His gaze flickered back to Iris and me. Well, you know. So, hey, if you want to try things out or play around, go ahead. Just ask me first. The old man is kind of crazy with some of the stuff. You can call me Tea.

Like a t-shirt? Iris asked. He smiled, and I didn't like it.

I was thinking more like Earl Grey tea, I said. That made him smile even wider, and I still didn't like it.

Either one works. I never write it down, so it doesn't matter to me.

Are you going to let Yun know that we are here? Pari asked. Tea forced his eyes back to Pari, anger or annoyance flashing on then off his face.

Yeah. I'll let him know, Tea said. He disappeared through a curtain that led to a hidden back section. Pari turned to look back at us.

Anything out here you can touch. Yun keeps the dangerous items in the back.

Think I should get a henna tattoo? Iris asked. I wouldn't. Not from him. Not from a guy who thinks he's all that. I just shrugged as I went to check out the bookcase. There were two. One for new books and people who thought this was all fun and games. The other one looked like used books – like the words in the books were used for something.

Iris asked Pari a question about an aphoristic. I closed my ears to their conversation, concentrating on the books in front of me. The chances of me finding a book on the shelf with info on Lunas was miniscule. The information I needed was more likely in the books he kept in the back. Or in the stories he kept in his head. Even knowing what I was looking for, it would take ages to sift through the dust and mold to find it. If it was here to be found.

Pari Rozmeher, a new, soft voice said. It had been a long time since I had heard someone say Pari's last name. I abandoned the book search. Yun looked just like every old Chinese man I'd never met but always imagined. He was stomped over a cane, more hair on his face than his head, all of it white, his eyes almost closed against the light. Pari kissed him on the cheek. I doubted that was a typical Chinese greeting.

This is Iris and Celeste, she said, waving us over. They are friends of mine.

And students.

Yes.

Welcome to my shop, Iris and Celeste.

You spelled magic wrong, Iris said. Yun smiled warmly in contrast to Tea's smile earlier. And I do not know what emporium means. Still, people come and buy.

Maybe it's your name that brings them in, Tea said. He was watching us all from behind the counter. Yun snorted.

What is a name? It is inside that matters.

Whatever. I know she didn't come for any of the junk out here. Take her to the back and give her the good stuff. I'll entertain her friends out here.

How are your books organized over there? I asked. The real ones.

They aren't, Tea replied before Yun could answer.

I will help you find a book when I return, Yun said as he gestured for Pari to join him in the back. They disappeared behind the curtain leaving Iris and me alone with Tea.

What are you looking for?

Nothing.

She likes to read, Iris said. I went back to the book shelf. I wasn't very good at small talk. Iris could entertain Tea until Pari and Yun were finished. As much as I wanted to ignore their conversation, I couldn't. His voice cut through my concentration.

You don't like to read?

It's okay.

You're not lonely enough yet?

I'm not lonely, Iris said. My back was to them, so I didn't see what he did instead of speaking. Iris must have done something back because the silence hung there. I almost turned around.

Do you want me to give you a henna tattoo?

I thought you only gave those to people you liked? Iris replied. I didn't need to see Tea to know he smiled that smile I didn't like. Do you have any tattoos?

I used to, he said, running circles around her with his words.

You got them removed?

They faded away.

I thought they were permanent.

Henna tattoos aren't permanent.

Oh. I thought you meant you had a real tattoo.

I got just the one for you, Tea said. I had to see this. I abandoned the book search to join them at the counter. Tea was free-handing a design in pen. At first, it looked like one of those knotted Celtic designs, except the knots didn't all tie. Maybe it was really bad Chinese calligraphy.

That's ugly. Don't get it, I said. Tea gave me the same flash he gave Pari.

It's not for you.

I don't think I want that, she said. Can you do like butterfly or something?

Why not a flower? An iris for Iris. The sarcasm dripped from him. I was deciding which reference to his name was the most biting when Pari and Yun returned from the back. Tea crumpled up the weird design and tossed it away. He got out another piece of paper and began drawing what looked like an iris.

Celeste, what book are you looking for? Yun asked.

I think it's probably in the back.

How do you know what I have in the back?

She means it is a book best discussed in private, Pari clarified.

Oh, don't worry. I don't take offense to that whatsoever, Tea said. Yun snorted again.

Come. We will find this book. Yun disappeared behind the curtain again. Pari followed him. I expected as much. Tea was finishing up the flower. It didn't look half bad. I followed Pari, leaving Iris alone with him.

Directly behind the curtain was the back stockroom, and through another door a small empty connecting room that didn't seem like it was meant for anything. Yun opened another door and we entered another room, this one the same size as the main part of the shop. It must have been another retail space Yun had converted into his exclusive collection. There were no trinkets here like up front, only herbs and weapons, extracts and books, and oldness.

Yun plopped down into a plush chair. He rested his hands on the cane and looked at me, waiting.

I'm looking for a book on Luna, I said.

Why?

I want to save one, I said.

"Yun, the girl is being held by a dangerous man. If he finds out Celeste is trying to help her, he won't let her live this time.

No. Kachada hadn't let me live in the woods as he dragged Giselle off. He had let me suffer with a dead Haruki in my arms. If Haruki hadn't been Luna, and if he hadn't come back to me when the moon went dark, and if I hadn't come here to save Haruki instead of Giselle, I would have told Pari all that. But he was, and it did, and I hadn't, so I ignored her misplaced objections.

What do you know? I asked Yun again.

I cannot help you.

You can't or you won't?

I already asked him when you first told me about Haruki, Pari said.

Vampires then. Can you turn a vampire back into a human?

A vampire has lost his soul. If you can give it back...

How do you do that?

Has a Luna lost a soul?

I don't know, I said. But I did know. I knew it from the countless moments that said Haruki cared. Nisha hadn't taken that from him. No. A Luna has a soul.

Then how to give a soul back is not important, Yun concluded. I hadn't come here expecting to find answers to my questions, but now that I had asked them, I wanted answers. Haruki was right to leave, to go search for answers. We weren't asking the wrong questions. We were asking the wrong people.

I thanked Yun for his time and we left. Iris showed off the new henna tattoo on the back of her hand, the deep red standing out on her white skin. Pari transferred whatever Yun had given her to the trunk away from our prying eyes. We grabbed some fresh caught dinner from elsewhere in the market before decamping halfway across town to a park. We laid on a blanket and ate, watching the shirtless Frisbee golf players. Soon, Iris and I had joined them, never playing hard enough to break a sweat.

The sun dipped further toward the horizon. Pari retrieved us from the game and our laughter. We packed up our stuff and headed to the car. What club on the list is closest? I asked. Iris was already checking her phone.

You want to go to a house party instead? There's going to be a live band. Dancing.

With sweaty Frisbee players? No.

No. Tea. He's going to one tonight. He invited us.

You gave him your phone number?

Just in case he ever came to Olympia and wanted to hang out.

I don't know.

Where is it? Pari asked. Iris showed her the map on her phone. It's on my way to meet my friend. If you want.

I didn't want. I wanted to go to a club and dance and listen to bad Euro-trash music and lose myself for a while. I didn't want to go to a house party and drink and sit off to the side watching other people drink. Or worse, talk.

Celeste.

Sure, I said because Iris and I were friends again. This extended trip had been her idea, and I had already done what I came to do. The least I could do was something she wanted to do. We can always go to a club if it sucks.

The house was on a hill. I read nothing into that. Windows wrapped around the back three quarters, revealing the drop down the side below. The party raged on the main level and the one below. It wasn't a college party. It was almost a rave with just fewer glow sticks and less foam. There was no need to wade through the mass of people, for everyone seemed to have found their own nook or cranny.

Iris and I wandered around, no one paying us any mind. There was actual bar with an actual bartender pouring drinks into clear molded plastic that resembled glass. He came up to us. What are your names?

Iris.

Why does that matter? I asked. He ignored my question and began mixing a drink, topping it with a strawberry. He placed the drink in front of Iris and slid an unopened can to me.

An Illiad for Iris.

This is good, Iris said, sipping it.

And I get this?

Tonic water. It will cure your attitude. Before I could retort, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I shook it off, turning right into Tea. He had his other hand on Iris.

Glad you could make it. You should have told him your name, and he would have given you a real drink.

Where's the band? Iris asked.

I'll show you. He's setting up downstairs.

He?

Dubstep. One man band.

This party sucks, Tea. Drugs are a poor substitute for music and dancing, I said.

Come on, Tea said, ignoring me just like the bartender. He took my tonic water with one hand and led Iris away with the other. I watched them go, hoping he didn't try and slip something in her drink.

Celeste, I said, giving in to the bartender. It looked more like a fruit smoothie than a mixed drink until he added the rum.

Cast Away for Celeste, he said. I took my drink and wandered over to the window. The sun had set and the half moon and stars were just beginning to appear above the city. What I could see standing there was bigger than all Olympia. What was I doing here? I forced a chuckle at my own question. It was practical and philosophical, big and small, and the sweetness of the fruit juice was masking the kick of the rum.

I laid my drink off to the side, but it was too late. I had almost finished it, and the moon was bigger and brighter in the sky, and the one man band had started stepping, and Tea was standing next to me, staring out at the same blurry stars as me.

I miss not being able to see the stars. One of the drawbacks of living in the city.

Where's Iris?

She had to go the bathroom, Tea replied. I should check on her. I looked at him. I know where there's a telescope if you want–

Did you already try that line on Iris?

We're just friends.

I have a boyfriend.

Iris told me he died, Tea replied. What? Iris told him about Haruki? Why would she be talking about me at all? Something wasn't right.

I yanked my eyes away from Tea. Downstairs, I scanned the people around the pool table and in front of the big screen. I glanced behind closed doors until I reached a locked one. The bathroom.

Iris? You in there? A couple moments later, the door unlocked and I pushed inside. Iris dabbed her tears with toilet paper, smudging her make-up even more. What happened? Are you okay? She nodded, and I didn't believe her. Did he hurt you? Did he put something in your drink?

He... Iris started, but she couldn't calm herself down enough to talk. Tea was probably still up there. I could catch him. Make him pay for whatever he had done. Or I could hold Iris and tell her that it was over and that everything was going to be alright. I could avenge her, or I could comfort her.

I stayed.

In fits and starts and knocks on the door, Iris managed to tell me what had happened. They had gone downstairs. They had actually had fun losing a game of pool. Then Tea had used the same telescope line on her, except she had said yes. It was in the back bedroom. She had looked at the rising moon while Tea lay on the bed watching her. He had asked her a question, and she gone to lie next to him on the bed and tell him too much. When she stopped speaking, he got up from the bed and cued a song from his iPod. It was that stupid song from last year, fun. We Are Young. Lying there on the bed, she listened to the lyrics, really listened, for the first time. Just as she realized how depressing the song really was, Tea had kissed her. For a moment, she wanted nothing more than to kiss him back and let him take her. But she didn't because she had told him the most intimate things about herself and he had put on a song and kissed her. She pushed him away and locked herself in the bathroom because she felt the same thing for him that she felt for the bartender: nothing.

After the story, I took Iris with me and we left. Tea was gone, long gone I assumed, like the sun. Our flimsy clothes exposed too much skin to the cooling night. I should have been cold, but I wasn't. An internal fire burned within me. It seemed fitting then that we ended up at the only coffee shop open late in the area, El Diablo. We drank Mexican hot chocolate until Pari came and picked us up.

Iris told me I could sit in the front. I didn't. She needed someone to hold her and that was all I could do for her now. Pari drove, and Iris rested her head in my lap, and I ran my fingers gently along her hairline. I knew she had fallen asleep when her hand slipped out. Her tattooed hand. The flower. The second choice.

It came to me all in those moments – the nagging feeling that something was off with him, that he wasn't just some guy, that the tattoo design he had been drawing wasn't random. I should have known it. Iris should have known it. We were both taking Pari's class and we hadn't seen it. He had been writing in ancient Greek, not in order, but letters nonetheless.

I looked out the window at the white moon and wondered if Iris would ever see it the same way again. I looked down at Iris and wondered if I would ever touch her the same way again. In my memory and my mind, I took the pattern he had been constructing and strung it out in order. Theta. Eta. Rho. Omega. Nu. He had been writing his name.

Theron.

Summer Break I

Florida didn't remind me of Mexico despite what Lupe said. His argument consisted of heat, beaches, and Spanish. He could have added Giselle, but he wouldn't do that. My counterargument consisted of him never actually having been to Mexico despite his parents being Mexican. I didn't tell him the real reason. I had been running in Mexico, and I was chasing here. I was chasing a lead; I was chasing knowledge, I was chasing Nisha.

And I was about to catch her.

Word filtered fast on Facebook. It started off small enough. Lupe had just posted a few questions for his Wicca group. In turn, it got passed on to their friends or other groups until six degrees of separation later we ended up in Port Charlotte. We had asked the same follow up questions a few dozen times on the way here and followed up a handful of interesting answers. None were as promising as this.

Like the rest of our nights on the road, we we staying with people – the kind of people that thought our search for some real magic was cool instead of crazy. And true because admitting I was a Luna looking for answers on what that meant wasn't exactly an option.

Earl was our contact here. It was his dirty, stale apartment that Lupe and I were crashing in until we moved on to the next false hope. I was glad I only had to sleep in it for two more days: one to find the dead end and one to be polite. It wasn't anything against Earl personally; hell, I hadn't even met him yet. He was a rigger on one of the Gulf oil platforms. Tomorrow he would be back from his two weeks out to sea. Tomorrow, he would tell us where he had seen Nisha.

Haruki, you hungry? This guy has nothing in the fridge, Lupe said to me as he closed the fridge door. There wasn't much in the apartment in general. Two weeks on the platform, one week back at shore with the water so close. I doubted Earl spent much time inside the apartment.

I'll survive.

There's a bunch of restaurants at that crossroads we drove through. Ten minute walk. Two minute car ride.

I can't.

Oh, yeah, Lupe said, peaking out the closed curtain. The light from the faded sun still touched the clear sky but not the earth, and the waxing moon had already appeared. Well, I need some fresh air. I'm gonna get take out. What do you want?

Something vegetarian, I said. Evergreen had tried for two years to make me one, but it had taken me dying for me to convert. I respected life more and my body.

Okay. See you in a bit. Lupe left the car keys and put on his flip-flops. The walk would do him some good. It was a beautiful night and maybe it did remind me of another like it long ago, one where I had also been chasing something. I had not caught it then, and I wondered if it would be the same now.

I opened a window and cracked the door and hoped that a cool breeze would blow in from the water. The faint sounds of a summer night drift in as I sat back down against the couch. I picked up my journal and flipped absentmindedly through it. It was filled with details of the trip, locations, people, conversations, ideas, leads, anything that might be useful in the future. It was meant to give me perspective, and once in a while, like now, I looked over it to see if patterns would emerge from the pages. None had before, and none did in the minutes before Lupe burst back in.

I just talked to her, he said, closing the door behind him and locking it. He was out of breath, the takeout a mess in the plastic bag he carried.

What?

I just talked to Nisha.

Don't joke about that, Lupe. I closed my journal and retrieved the takeout from Lupe. It was Chinese, the boxes opened from the run. I could see my vegetables mixed with some indiscriminate meat. I was hungry now, but I wasn't sure I wanted to eat after Lupe had ruined the food just so he could make his joke seem real.

She wants to see you.

Knock it off.

Tomorrow at dawn. The Port Charlotte Yacht Club.

Lupe and I had become friends on this trip. We had been able to do that because we both understood and obeyed three simple unspoken rules. We never lied about Celeste, we never talked about Giselle, and we never joked about Nisha. We had come so far without breaking any of them. Now, we were so close, and Lupe had to push the limits.

I spun around to hit him, or at least to grab his shirt and show him how serious I was. I grabbed a fist full of shirt and Lupe reacted by grabbing my arm. I felt him begin to drain me, so I pushed him as I pulled away.

Haruki. We stood staring at each other. His expression hadn't changed the entire time. He was afraid, but he wasn't afraid of me. He had come back that way.

Okay, I said. Tell me. So Lupe did.

It was quiet on the streets. There were a few people out, walking their dogs or coming home from the movies or something. But really, it seemed just like any other neighborhood on any other summer night. I was walking alone, but I didn't feel like I should be worried, like I should be paying attention. So I wasn't. She must have been following me from the apartment though. That's the only thing that makes sense.

I got to the shopping center. The Chinese place was open and cheap and I knew they would have takeout. I open the door and step in and I notice this woman running up behind me, so I held the door open for her. She looked about our age with jet black hair and tropical skin. I thought she was hot. That's as far as my mind got.

Thanks, she said. I grabbed a menu and looked it over. She did the same. What's good here?

I don't know, I said. I'm not from around here.

Me neither. Where you from?

Tacoma, Washington.

Been there. Didn't like it.

Me neither, I replied. She laughed, and I realized she was flirting with me.

What's your name?

Lupe Vargas.

So what are you going to order, Lupe Vargas?

I was thinking about the moo shu pork. I like the little pancakes, you know. And I guess I have to get some veggies for my friend.

Girlfriend?

No. He's just a friend, I said, blushing more as if that was possible.

"So a boy friend, not a