Night of Jinxes, A Moonlight Dragon Short Story Read Online Free Page A

too.
    "No biggie," I assured her quietly,
"it's not real. I've never had to clean up anything around it,
so..."
    "Maybe it's better that you don't know
what any of these things do," Melanie suggested.
    I was beginning to think she had a
good point.
    She and I startled as the zombie
nutcrackers on the counter began to chatter as though they were
yelling at each other. I relaxed when I saw they weren't going to
do anything else. But then the cameos started in and they actually
were yelling.
    It's coming! Anne Moody,
it's coming for you!
    It lives with
you…
    Anne Moody, prepare for
it!
    They were annoying enough when they
were only moaning to me but now, with them shrieking, I gasped and
covered my ears with my hands.
    "What is it?" Melanie asked, pushing
up onto her knees. She couldn't hear the cameos. No one else
could.
    "The cameos," I gasped. "They're going
nuts."
    It's coming! It's
coming!
    Coming for you!
    Anne Moody,
prepare...
    "Argh, I can't take it!" I jumped to
my feet and burst through the bead curtain with Melanie just a few
feet behind me.
    At the counter, I slung open the
jewelry case door and sent my dragon inside. Lucky, although taking
the size of a cat in order to fit inside the case, widened his
mouth enough to gobble up the tray, cameos and all. I'd never tried
this before, and to my amazement and relief the harping voices
became a low, indistinguishable murmur while they sat within
Lucky's closed mouth. It wasn't something I could maintain
forever—non-magickal people would see this magickal dragon sitting
there and question what was up—but for now, it would keep me
sane.
    "Thank god," I sighed, slumping
back.
    "Anne," Melanie whimpered, "look!" She
pointed out at the shelves.
    A woman's hand attached to an arm was
sliding along the shelves. It originated from somewhere behind
other, larger items, so I couldn't tell what curse had born it. The
hand and arm both were filthy, as though they'd clawed up through
the soil of a grave. Its long nails were mostly broken and jagged.
What bothered me most about the thing—beside the fact that it
existed at all—was the tension in the limb. Cords of muscle and
tendons strained beneath the dirty skin as the hand crept along, as
though it were angry and looking to seize hold of something, or
someone.
    Would the rest of the woman climb out
of the shelves, too, once she'd found what she was looking for? Or
would she yank her victim into the depths of where she had come
from?
    "No way that's been in here all this
time," I choked out, equal parts horrified and angry. "No
way!"
    Melanie yelped when the two porcelain
dolls leaped off the shelves, landing on their faces on the floor.
Their soft, short limbs moved, pushing the dolls slowly across the
floor, heading toward us...
    Something began to laugh. It was low
pitched and masculine. But then a pair of higher, girlish voices
joined it.
    "What's doing that?" Melanie cried
out, backing against the counter.
    "I don't know," I muttered. "It sounds
like it's coming from everywhere. From—" I swallowed, "—multiple
things."
    Jesus, all these things had been
cursed and I'd slept peacefully just a few yards away?
    And then I heard a sound that really
worried me: the tinny tinkle of a music box. The door to space had
opened on its own right here in my shop.
    "I have to stop this," I told Melanie,
"or we're both going to end up circling Jupiter." White-faced, she
didn't argue.
    I ran to the closest window and yanked
off the sheet. Light poured into the shop. Melanie did the same
with the other covered window, though she yanked so hard on the
sheet she didn't pull the tacks off but just ripped through a
corner of the sheet. I didn't care. She could have blasted a hole
through the front door with a shotgun so long as we got some
sunlight in here.
    The laughter stopped. The arm
immediately shrank back and disappeared into the shadows of the
shelves. No more blood poured from the vase and the cool,
otherworldliness of space no