Chapter 16: Chapter Sixteen – New Moon

Chapter 16

 

"A vampire? What are you talking about?" Lina laughs nervously. I feel her panic, or maybe that's my own panic, or maybe both.

Nadia crosses her arms, blocking the exit from our room. "Yup, a vampire." 

"Look Nadia, I don't know what you're talking about, vampires aren't real." Lina says, her eyes darting back and forth to me and the small air channeler confronting us. 

Nadia leans forward and pinches Lina's arm. 

"Ow!" Lina flinches backwards. 

"You seem pretty real to me." Nadia says, impatience spread across her face. 

Lina fumbles through a string of vaguely word-like sounds. "Uh look, uh umm... Nadia uh-" 

"Oh stop, I heard everything. I heard your conversation with Dihya last week. I heard your conversation with Lua last night, and in the storage room on the roof." Nadia says.

"It's really more of a closet though, isn't it?" I awkwardly mumble. 

Nadia looks at me, as if noticing me standing sheepishly behind Lina for the first time. "Uh what? Oh yea, whatever. Anyway, you don't have to say anything. I know you will put us in danger by confirming it to me. It doesn't matter anyway. What does matter is that I'm coming with you." 

Lina's panic doubles. "What? No. No way! You can't come with us. We are going places that are secret, it, it uh- it's dangerous. Yea, it's dangerous!" Lina's voice cracks as she gives her best attempt to convince the young woman blocking her path. 

Nadia rolls her eyes. "Yea, no it's not. You would never take your precious little, eh what did you call her? Thrall? Into danger like that. That's really weird by the way, what you two have going on." Nadia waves her finger between Lina and I. "But I'm not judging or anything!"

Lina huffs. "What about your research? What about the Imam and Dihya, aren't they like family to you?" 

"Oh course they are, but I'll come back someday, and I'm taking my research with me!" 

Nadia's serious expression breaks into a big grin as she reaches around the corner to heft a massive bag onto her shoulder. It's a huge beige rucksack with a metal backframe, clumsily stuffed to capacity with Nadia's equipment. Metal tools and instruments poke out the top, with gemstones, bones, and feathers dangling from strings anchored to every surface of the bag. 

Lina jumps back with a yelp as the light pink head of a flamingo curiously pokes into our room to look around. A leather lead fixed to a tiny collar at the base of its neck stretches out to attach to Nadia's bag.

"Besides, what's more interesting to research than dark magic, vampires, and their uh... pets." Nadia gestures at me with a dangle of her small, delicate hand. 

Lina huffs and puffs, struggling to compose herself and find her words. 

"C'mon, we've got a train to catch!" Nadia shouts with delight, as she skips off down the hall, flamingo in tow. 

Lina grabs my hand, and drags me out the door, rushing to follow Nadia. "You can't bring a flamingo on a train!" she shouts at the air channeler's back.

"She's a service animal!" A distant voice replies.

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The hot summer sun beats down on us as we walk through Oran. The streets are busy during the morning rush hour. All four of us, including Nadia's flamingo, who's name I've learned is Qasira, walk side by side, filling the length of the sidewalk. Nadia happily munches on a makroudh cookie as she bounces along beside us, her giant rucksack on her back.

“Dihya isn’t going to be happy you took all the makroudh.” Lina says.

“That’s why I took it all. We won’t be here when she finds out!” Nadia grins, bits of the savory cookie falling out of her mouth. 

"How come you let her bring all that, but I could only bring two sundresses? Her pack must weigh fifty kilos!" I pout up at my vampire, gesturing to Nadia's bag clattering and clanging on her back with the noise of all her instruments stuffed inside. 

Lina looks at Nadia. "Because if she gets tired in the middle of the desert and can't walk, we'll just leave her behind." Lina's annoyance is clear in her voice. "Besides, I'm not in charge of her, like I am you." Lina smirks, wrapping an arm tightly around my shoulders. 

Nadia giggles. "I'm an air channeler silly!" The small woman effortlessly flips the bag off her back, and spins it upside down with one hand to show us four large glowing green stones tied to the bottom of the sack. "It weighs almost nothing to me!" 

Nada giggles more as she skips ahead of us and into the crowded train station, joyfully tossing her massive bag into the air, Qasira prancing along beside her. 

"Well, she certainly draws plenty of attention." Lina says, shaking her head. 

We soon learned that was quite the understatement. Every eye in the crowded station is watching the ascentric woman with amusement and confusion as we join her in line at the ticket counter. 

We purchase four seats on the first train to Tunis, and make our way to our platform. We take a seat on a hard wooden bench, causing a middle aged woman with a small child to quickly scurry away from Nadia's bird as she curiously sniffs around the platform. 

A TV attached to the wall above us plays a European news channel. A young woman with shiny black hair, wearing a red blazer sits at a desk, reading a report to the camera. 

"The European Federation deploys military security units across Portugal and Spain this week in response to a Black Sun attack in Lisbon that left two women injured. Authorities are searching for Lua Silva, a water channeler wanted on terrorism charges, who CRB agents say is armed and violent. If seen, leave the area immediately and dial one-one-two."

A photo of me appears on screen, dressed in my mermaid costume, holding up the logo of the beer company that sponsors O Celeiro de Lixo, clearly taken from the club's website. 

"Oh no." Lina and I say in unison. 

"Whoa, you're a terrorist?! That's so cool!" Nadia cheerfully shouts way too loud, as she punches me in the arm. "I never would have guessed you had that in you!" Nadia giggles. 

"We have to leave, now." Lina says, standing up. 

Nadia grabs her arm and drags her back down. "Oh calm down grumpy goose! It's fine, Algerian people don't talk to cops, especially not European ones. Besides, we support magical rights here, the Black Sun are freedom fighters to most people in Algeria, not terrorists. Here, if you're so worried about it, take this-"

Nadia digs in her bag, sending metal tools, beakers, and jars rolling around the train platform noisily. She finally pulls out a lacy light blue scarf, and wraps it around my hair, partially hiding my face. 

"There, you look great! Not a single blond hair in sight!" She cheerfully reassures me, briefly holding my shoulders with both hands before scurrying off to collect her belongings littered around the platform.

Nadia crawls up to a bench occupied by a group of university students and shoves her way under their legs to grab a jar. As she comes back up her flamingo takes advantage of her position to nip at her ear playfully. Nadia giggles and rolls on her back, reaching up to rub the pink bird’s belly. Qasira flops down on top of her human, and the two roll around in a happy pile of pets and giggles that send the group of students fleeing to the other side of the platform.

“You do look great.” Lina says with a smile at me.

“Do you think anyone will recognize me?” I ask, worried.

“I don’t know, but I’ll make sure nothing happens to you.” Lina takes my hand, and gives it a comforting squeeze, just as the train pulls up to a screeching halt at the platform.

Lina and I step onto the train hand in hand. I turn to look back at the giggling pink and white pile of bird and human on the platform. “Should we get Nadia?” I ask. 

Lina shrugs. “Nah.”

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