Chapter 19: A Moment of Weakness

  When Elias screamed, I’d been washing my hands, trying to erase the images of today from my brain. I rushed in with Emma, thinking Elias was hurt, but when he saw me, he’d fallen onto the floor. He crawled back, looking up in terror at Emma for a few moments, but soon stopped. Not relaxed, mind. Just stopped. He looked around, panting like he’d run a mile. I drew closer, trying to calm him down, but he flinched visibly. I pulled away. He looked up at me. “How long have I been out?”

  “Maybe five minutes?”

  He looked befuddled, and curled up in a ball against the wall. Emma went to go get The Major, and I knelt down in front of him as his breathing slowed. I kept my movements slow. I didn’t ask if he was okay. I knew the answer. I just gave him my hand, as he pulled himself to his feet.

  When the Major came, she told us she’d managed to finagle a deal with the Army so we could get home. I insisted to Elias that I would walk him home at the very least. Maybe staying overnight was a little bit much, but I couldn’t just leave him alone in the streets.

  As we walked towards his house, people were already cleaning up and repairing stuff, taking stock of the damage. Soldiers roamed the streets, looking for anything that might have been hiding out somewhere. It’d been a long time since I’d seen scenes like this. Sure, back when I was a teenager, it was a simple matter of okay, fight’s over, clean up now, but we’d never seen anything at this scale.

  When we finally got back to his apartment, we stood at the door, neither of us making a move, or knowing what, if anything to say. I swallowed, feeling the lump in my throat, and blurted out the dumbest thing I possibly could have, given the circumstances.

  “You lost somebody, didn’t you? That’s why this is so personal.”

  He looked away from me, staring into the distance. Way to go, Amy, you insensitive fuckwit, I thought. I apologised, but I don’t think he heard me.

  I could smell something unusual: lemon and ginger, maybe. It smelled really good, until I realized it was coming from Elias. I hadn’t realized just how close together our bodies had drifted. I don’t know who made the first move, but before I knew it, I was holding him tightly enough to hear the rhythm of his heart against mine and feel his breath against my hair. He didn’t answer, but something in the way he was holding onto me told me everything I needed to know.

  Eventually, we released each other. I pulled away, adjusted my hair and my glasses. “I don’t hate you, Elias. I promise. Please don’t scare me like that again.”

  He nodded, before heading back inside without a word. From the balcony, I looked out over the beach, off into the distance. Weird: I could see Manannàn’s house from here. Maybe Elias was right when he told me he was going on a beach run that night. I pulled out my phone. Another text from Manannàn, this one asking me to come over tonight. I pursed my lips. Any other night, I’d be sorely tempted, but a combination of knowing I might have a stalker and almost seeing people die in front of me has a way of putting a dampener on my mood. I texted him back as I walked along the beach, looking at the stars over the water.

  Not tonight, sorry. Cops are telling people stay off the street while they deal with any of those monsters. Maybe once things calm down a bit.

  I was walking home when he followed up with a picture of himself with his arm in a sling. Fair. One of them shoved me down a flight of stairs. Ended up in hospital. You haven’t left my mind all night.

  I frowned. This guy was way too casual for somebody who had a broken arm. I shook my head as I walked along the beach. A figure was running along the beach, and to my horror, I realized he was naked. I screamed and ran, and didn’t stop running until I’d reached home.

  I fed and changed Feather Locklear’s water before collapsing on the couch. My dreams weren’t vivid: a flash of golden eyes here, a scream there, nothing coherent.

  When I finally woke, I decided, one last time to try transforming into the Crystal Guardian as I tried to think of Manannàn, but once again, it was fruitless. I didn’t bother with Elias or Emma. I knew the answer.

  After breakfast, I checked my mail. Some asshole had stuffed a whole stack of papers into my mailbox, ensuring there’d be no room for anything else. Grizzling to myself, I pulled Paper Mountain out of my mailbox. Another letter fell to the ground. I picked it out. Another threat letter, with letters cut out from newspapers, this one reading “I KNOW YOUR SECRET. BUT DO YOU KNOW HIS?.”

  I looked over the papers that had been stapled together haphazardly. On the front of the documents read the details of a coronial inquest, somebody called Sophie Kessler. The name didn’t sound familiar, but the Australian Defence force logo on the front was ringing alarm bells already. The photographs were awful: a young woman with ginger hair, whose eyes had been pushed into her skull. She would have been about my age now. I should never have looked: I had enough horrors haunting me as it was. But the next part was the horrifying bit: A warrant, for Elias’ arrest.

  I did the only responsible thing. I took photographs, then sent them to The Major, praying that I was wrong. Not Elias. Not the guy who’d found my umbrella and found me crying in the rain. Not the guy who’d tried to stand up for me in a back alley, with no powers of his own. Not after I finally stopped hating him. Not him.

  My thoughts were interrupted by my phone ringing. The Major was calling me.

  “You’re going to start by telling me how the FUCK you managed to access these documents.”

  “I think the stalker sent them. They’re accusing Elias of killing a soldier, and there's photographs, and-”

  The line went quiet. “Is the name of the victim Private Sophie Kessler?”

  I checked. How the fuck did The Major even know this? I began pacing. “Yeah-“

  “Geez, not this fuckin’ bullshit again. Hang on Amy, I’m sending you an email.”

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  I booted up my computer and checked the email. A big document was attached. I cocked my head to the side. “The hell is this?”

  “Details of the court-martial, if you really want to read them. Problem is, Elias had an alibi, placing him on doing latrine duty as punishment for breach of the fraternization policy, which is why the court martial found him not guilty. Elias didn’t actually kill Private Kessler: he’s just the poor bugger who found the body.”

  “But then why blame him?”

  “Because the little fuckwit was stupid enough to touch the corpse and contaminated the scene. Also, again, he was actually in breach of the fraternization policy. They’d been on a date through some website, Down Under Connections or some shit, but apparently broke it off when they worked out that technically, he was her direct superior.”

  I began pacing. “So if Elias didn’t do it-“

  “The death was subsequently ruled a suicide, after a proper investigation was done. Coroner ruled she’d killed herself after an unexplained psychotic break. Somehow, the initial investigation missed that she’d painted a bunch of names in blood all over the dormitory, names like Dagon, Kulkulkan, Tangoroa. But the interesting one that I noticed was Rahab. Do you understand what I’m getting at here?”

  I was beginning to put two and two together, but I wasn’t willing to jump to conclusions just yet. “That woman, was she ever in Staaldier? I don’t remember there being any female pilots.”

  “She wasn’t. Just an innocent bystander, who went on a single date with a former member of Staaldier. But somehow, she knew Rahab’s name. I don’t know what was going on for her, psychologically. Worst possible outcome is that somehow, Rahab somehow reached out and drove her to suicide. If you really want the gory details, read the email. Otherwise, shut the ever-loving fuck up. And whatever you do, don’t tell the others about this. This is between you and me.”

  In a strange way, I understood what The Major was getting at. Until I turned about 20, I had occasionally tried to convince myself that post-magical girl life was all the result of a terrible mental attack used by some monster, and that I’d wake up one day, Sebastian would never have cheated on me, and I’d never have been forced into the life of an office drone. And while I’d never outright faced a monster that actually used mental attacks, especially not to that extent, I couldn’t rule them out. Look, my understanding of the monsters that used to plague Port Moonstone was limited to how to defeat them in combat. I was never really given a lot of specifics, just a set of powers. In combat I wasn’t really much of a thinker or a strategist, despite my grades in school: Emma and I had that much in common. Come to think of it, maybe Elias and I had that much in common.

  The clock ticked in the background. I felt like I was missing something. I hid the letter from the stalker, and began researching some of the names that The Major had given to me. On a whim, I re-read the letter by Sonia Greene and began thinking. Deagon sounded a bit like Dagon, despite Ms. Greene's protestations, so I started there. After a bit of googling, though, I didn’t find much that I thought would be helpful. Sure, Lovecraft wrote of fish-people and horrifying sea gods, but sensationalized accounts and stories didn’t really help. I frowned. I tried some of the other names mentioned, but I don’t really know that much mythology to begin with, and none of it seemed to be relevant. The more I searched, the less useful the information seemed. I huffed.

  Sailor Moon never had to deal with this bullshit.

  I needed to take my mind off of things. After getting ready for the day, and dealing with the remaining admin bullshit I had left, I decided to go walking in the city. It was a nice sunny day. Funny how that always seems to happen after a major monster battle. I stuffed my umbrella into my purse as I walked. There wasn’t as much devastation as I’d expected. Soldiers were beginning to clear out of the city now, and the city was beginning to return to life, as repairs began to be conducted.

  I didn’t know what I would do today. A lot of places were still closed, still cleaning up. Farrugia’s was still open, but that was no surprise: no matter how bad things seemed to get, Farrugia’s would still somehow be open and operating within an hour. Maltese are just built differently, and I’m living proof. I considered getting a bite to eat, and watching the world go by, but I wasn’t hungry, so I just kept walking. When I first started to work full time, I used to complain about not having any free time to pursue my interests and hobbies. Now that I’d worked for so long in Real Adult Jobs?, I’d almost forgotten what they were. Maybe I needed to start picking them up again.

  Emma was busy with the podcast that day, but promised me a guest spot on the next episode. It had occurred to me that outside the Crystalline Sisters, I didn’t exactly have a huge amount of friends: at my age, making new friends wasn’t easy. For lack of anything better to do, I decided to go surprise Manannán, maybe Netflix and chill or something along those lines. And maybe we were moving a little fast, but if we were going to do that, I wanted to really get to know him as a person, and see whether or not it was worth really going after this relationship. And I was beginning to feel really guilty. I’d gone into this with the wrong motivations, and I recognized an unhealthy relationship when I saw one. Keeping secrets, ulterior motives, and a lack of knowledge of the other person. Could I salvage this? Did I deserve to be able to? I mean, I’d based this whole thing on the fact that he was A). hot, and B). could theoretically provide another way for me to awaken my powers. He’d not done the second, but it wasn’t like it was his fault or anything, right?

  I checked my outfit, using a nearby shop window as a mirror. Cute enough, I guess, not really a date-night fit, but it was fine for a casual hangout. I had to let him see me in a t-shirt and jeans at some point: it might as well be now. Plus, it was finally spring, and the world was beginning to warm up again. Big heavy jackets and jeans were finally giving way to lighter clothing, and slightly less of it, but the weather was still a little brisk. I did some googling for some cute relationship quizzes, found a questionnaire by Marcel Proust that a bunch of interviewers and writers use. It seemed like a step above Cosmo or Buzzfeed at the very least. I also decided I’d at least hold off on getting physical with Manannán until I knew more about him. I was definitely holding off on the photography, anyway.

  I walked along the beach, wind flowing through my hair, thinking about how to weave these into just normal conversation. I checked my phone. Plus, that letter from Sonia Greene was giving me all kinds of heebie-jeebies. I get collecting letters from a famous writer, but something that personal? And sitting in a goddamn bathroom in Port Moonstone of all places? Like, come on, Manannán, I expected better of you.

  After walking along the beach, I arrived at Manannán’s place. Before I knocked, however, I saw a white car outside that I didn’t recognize. It looked fancy, not too fancy, like a Bentley or a Rolls, more like something that a person who wanted to appear professional and have status might have. The simplest way I can explain it is less rock star or major rapper, and more lawyer or executive rich. “Get it together woman. No gold-digging”, I thought to myself as I came up to the door. But before I could knock, I heard the doorknob jiggle. Out of instinct, I stepped aside, as Sebastian Giallo stepped out and stormed to his car, furious expression on his face. Goddammit, he was somehow even prettier than high school, and his suit looked like it cost my annual rent. As he peeled into his car, my blood ran cold.

  Manannán stepped out and saw me cowering. He shrugged, as the smell of brine filled the air and my nerves began to relax. “Sorry. My roommate’s a bit dramatic, and it's a bit of a bad time. I was about to ask you, if you’d like to come to that new casino when it opens?”

  I nodded slowly. Why couldn’t I form normal words around him? Why couldn’t I resist? I didn’t even gamble: Why would I want to go to a casino? And while a part of my mind was raging at the fact that his roommate was my cheating ex-boyfriend, most of me was lost, and was already melting.