The Mooncalf

A/N: So, I've had this posted in the romance section for a few weeks now, and it occurred to me that maybe it should be here, too. Let me know what you think, and I will smile a lot.

ddf


Chapter One


The day my dad left me here, he gave me a goldfish. For a fifty cent fish, it had some pretty nice digs, ‘cause Dad got the fanciest tank and fake plants and everything. He even got it a tiny ceramic skull to hide in. Dad thinks he’s funny. As if people don’t think I worship Satan as it is.

Goldfish, I read somewhere, have a memory span of three seconds. Every three seconds, they totally forget they’re swimming in their own poo. I think that would be nice.

Better than boarding school, anyway.

As punishment, I think this is about as Inquisitorial as they could get without Child Services going all Armageddon on their collective asses. I mean, this place totally blows. Their menu features way more trans-saturated fats than ought to be legal, and the vegetarian options consist entirely of yellowing lettuce and ranch dressing that smells a little off. It’s an awful lot like the way Dad used to describe the second level of Hell.

Then again, I guess I deserved to be punished. I lie. I lie a lot, actually. Mostly about how much money bus passes cost, so I could supplement my craptastic allowance with the extra little bit. And there were the underwear models under my bed. Not real, you know, people. Just pictures. Tell people you’re evil once, and they think you’re all into the maiming and the killing.

I’m not into the maiming and killing, just to make that clear. Not yet, anyway. They tell me that since I’m becoming all teenagery and hormony, that might become worse.

Which brings me back to why I’m in boarding school. A good portion of the reasoning was devoted to ruining my life, I’m pretty sure. They also want to keep an eye on me, so I don’t bring on the Apocalypse.

I blame my father. Him being born an incubus was a really bad life choice, since it made me all half-demony, a Cambion. Now, I bet you think I’m making all this crap up to get attention, or that I’m a delusional nutcase, but Cambions exist. It says so on Wikipedia.

There I go, lying again. Cambions don’t exist. A Cambion exists. (That’d be me, you morons.) There used to be others, but they all . . . They were disposed of. That’s what they do with evil things like me. They kill us. Frankly, I’m surprised they’ve let me live this long. I never expected to make it to sixteen.

And no, “they” aren’t the voices in my head. They’re the Guardians, this stuffy society of old people with smelly books and smellier rules. I can’t help shoplifting lipsticks and earrings. Hello? Half-demon. I’m evil. I mean, really, I don’t know why they were surprised when the cops brought me home. Anyway, the Guardians raised me, hoping that they could use their godly, goodly influence to keep me from destroying the world and releasing the Devil from Hell. My mom is all godly and goodly—she’s a nun now, vows of silence and the whole bandicoot—so I suppose they think there’s some hope for me. Of course, if they had bothered to ask me, I would have told them I had no intention of destroying the world or letting loose Lucifer. Humans are wrecking everything well enough on their own, what with the greenhouse gases and blowing each other up and stuff. Sure, Lucifer would take care of everything much faster, but I really liked curly fries, and saw no reason to give them up before I had to.

And you know the worst part? Despite the fact that stupid Galmon Academy deep fries anything and everything they find in their freezer, they have never served curly fries. Not once. And I’ve been here three freaking months.

“Aw, look, if it isn’t goth girl angsting in the ladies room!” a voice twittered.

Marabell. She’s more like something from the fourth, or even fifth level of Hell. That is, she’s probably just your average popular chick. (Wholly human. I had the Guardians check.) She’s got that long, glossy blond hair, and a perfect tan from a bottle, and shoes that could double as a lethal weapon.

I wanted to tell her I’m not goth. Pastel colors just make me itch. They’ve been associated with Easter and the Ascension far too long to be comfortable. And white is just totally out of the question. I get hives from loose leaf paper—I’m definitely not surrounding myself in that awful color. But telling her that would be against the Guarding Rules.

So instead I chopped my hands towards the fly of my jeans, in that universally offensive gesture meaning “suck my cock”.

“You are so disgusting,” she disparaged. How can she talk with a lipgloss wand at her mouth? Maybe she is a demon.

I waggled my tongue at her. She’s so easy to bait.

Marabell looked down to my hands.

“What is that?” she shrieked.

“Well, if it looks like a dead fish, and it smells like a dead fish, it’s probably a dead fish. Wanna check and make sure?” I hung it in front of her face and grinned at her girly little scream. “I’m sort of busy with my Satanic ritual, so if you could leave now, that would be nice. . . . Unless you want to help.”

She didn’t. When I had the bathroom to myself again, I turned back to the stall and dropped my poor dead goldfish in and flushed.

When I got back to my room, the fish was in the tank. I knew it was the same one, because its left fin was tattered in the same way. It floated belly up for a minute, then flipped over and went back to its normal fishy routine. Except that it never let any bubbles out of its mouth.

Trust my dad to make my fish one of the undead.

Well, I’d have to worry about my new pet problem after lunch.

I stuck out in the lunch room. Okay, I stuck out everywhere in this school, but it must have been surprising to outsiders to see a hall full of sweet little high school students in white oxfords and plaid ties, and one me in black. I think the Guardians told the principle that I’m allergic to white dye. Whatever.

I sat at my usual table, the one in the exact center of the room. Though the round table could have seated seven others, I sat alone. Even the teachers were a little creeped out by me, I think. Well, what else can you expect at a Catholic school? These were all upstanding citizens who paid their taxes and stuff. Anyway, I preferred being alone. Fewer people to have to be civil to.

Except Stick. I think other people called him that because of how tall and skinny he used to be. I called him Stick because he was a stick in the mud. Or, more accurately, he had a stick up his—you get the picture. I was pretty sure he wanted to convert me.

I could have told him it’s hard to have faith in the Lord when you’ve grown up with some of his homeboys—I already know.

“Hi, Cam,” he said and dug into his tater tots and chicken-fried chicken. (What does that even mean? Humans are beyond imbicillic.) I didn’t say anything. I never do. It would only encourage him.

Actually, Stick rarely speaks to me. He just hovers, glowering at me whenever I terrorize freshman and Marabell. If I were nice, I would try to get the Guardians to give him an internship with them. It would suit him to a tee, I think. Then again, I’m not nice. I suggested once he become an accountant. I think he took offense, too. One of my finest moments at this institution.

After he came back with seconds—um, gross; I hadn’t even managed to choke down one plateful, even without the redundant chicken—he looked at me before before he began to shovel food into his God-fearing face.

“How’s Grigori?” he asked. Grigori is my goldfish.

“Dead,” I said. See? I tell the truth sometimes.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” But Stick sounded a little weird about it. He probably heard Marabell whining about me tormenting her with the corpse. I smiled.

“But as long as I love him, he isn’t gone from my heart.” Or my tank, apparently. Stick just grunted and shoved four tater tots into his mouth. A tray crashed down next to mine.

“Howdy,” Jane said, grinning.

“Are you skipping?” Stick groused.

“Good Lord, no. If I were skipping, I’d be someplace interesting. Preferably with a cigarrette. I dropped art.” She kicked the chair out and dropped into it. Jane is having an identitiy crisis. Today she was goth, though she isn’t allowed to wear black during the school day like me. The quarter-inch of eyeliner she wore made it apparent anyway, without breaking dress code.

“But your so good at it,” Stick protested. Unlike me, Stick doesn’t lie.

“But I don’t like drawing fruit. And I wanted a double-long lunch period. So I stopped handing in my assignments until the teacher let me drop failing.”

“Nice plan,” I said, impressed. “Making yourself more trouble than you’re worth always works.”

“I thought you’d approve. Anyway, now I get to eat with you every day.”

Jane isn’t so bad. She has no idea who she wants to be—last week she looked just like Marabell, God help her—so she just seems to admire me for knowing exactly what I am. Though, of course, I haven’t broken the cardinal Guarding Rule by telling her exactly what I am. I think I might, though.

The Guardians will shit bricks.
Of course, they might decide that’s enough to kill me. Maybe I’ll hold off another week, figure out what’s with the undead fish first. What would I have to feed it now? I didn’t think fish flakes would cut it. Maggots, maybe. Dad would know. In fact, I’d ask him now.

I picked up my brownie off my tray, blew the powered sugar sprinkled on top into Stick’s face, and left the tray for someone else to clear away.

“Later, losers,” I said as I breezed away.

“Bye!” I heard Jane call behind me as Stick grumbled.

But calling my dad would have to wait. Someone had left a message on the whiteboard on my door.

“MOONCALF.”

My eyes shot up and down the hall, and though I didn’t see anyone, I knew someone had seen me for what I was. Someone knew.

The Guardians were so going to kill me.