Scott Tracey - Moonset

The spellbook. Of course. “I left it in your car,” I said, starting to panic. “I didn’t get a chance to sneak it away. They had someone watching us the minute we woke up.” She bit her lower lip, shaking her head. “That’s not funny, Justin. The book isn’t in there. I checked. ”

“Then you made a mistake,” I said, moving for the parking lot. Before we even crossed into the actual lot, Quinn’s black SUV approached.

He waited just ahead of us while we got into the car, and though I tried to circumspectly look for the spellbook even with him sitting right in front of us, I didn’t see any sign of it. And I couldn’t start digging under the seat until he pulled away.

“Just drive,” I said, squirming down in my seat and feeling in all the gaps between the seat and the console.

But the book wasn’t there. Neither was the bag I’d brought along with us. All of my stuff was gone. Even Quinn’s athame. “So what happened to it?” Ash said, her voice low as if Quinn would be able to hear her from fifty feet in front of us.

My fingers brushed against something, in the spot where the spellbook had been. Thin, like paper, but harder. I trapped it between two of my fingers and pulled it up. The postcard that had been left in the book.

Something about it didn’t look right. It was still the Golden Gate Bridge, with a glimpse of San

Francisco in the background. But it’s not the half of the postcard I had before. I flipped it back over. Two words were written on this half.

Well played.

Another wave of cold swept up my spine. The spellbook was gone. Bailey believed one of the

Abyssal Princes had escaped. Sooner or later Robert Cooper was going to pop back up wanting revenge. And Cullen Bridger, the last living link to Moonset, was sending me congratulations.

I glanced across the car at Ash, whose face was screwed up in concentration and exhaustion. It had been a long night, and tomorrow might be longer still.

“I think you owe me a makeup date,” I said.

THE END

Scott Tracey (Avon Lake, Ohio) lived on a Greyhound bus for a month, wrote his illustrated autobiography at the age of six, and barely survived Catholic school. His gifts can be used for good or evil, and he strives for both for his own amusement. Witch Eyes was his debut YA novel.