Blood Meridian, Or, The Evening Redness In The West Novels & Stories

They were wet and red upon sight. Blood. Disoriented, I braced myself against the tree...but my blood-slicked palm pressed flat against its bark. The rune beneath the roots ignited violently. The sky shifted immediately. I looked up to see that the once bright and silver moon... had now turned red. Glowing red. The Blood Moon had risen. Panic squeezed my heart as I shook my head. “No...no..no..no...no!” Pain exploded in my head, causing me to fall weakly as the darkness pulled me in..

The moon is wrong. What should have been a pale, distant silver hangs low and swollen in the sky, its surface stained a deep, visceral red, as if the heavens themselves have been wounded. The blood moon. My pulse stutters violently, a cold dread blooming in my chest even as my wolf stirs uneasily beneath my skin. Of all nights. Of all cursed, ill-fated alignments. This had to be the blood moon.

My throat feels raw, scratchy from crying earlier, and I need water before I can go upstairs and lock myself in my room and pretend today didn’t happen. I head back inside, the lounge is quiet when I get there, wide sofas arranged around a low table beneath a crystal chandelier. I sink into one of the cushions near the window, finally letting my body rest. I sit there watching through the glass as the light continues to fade outside, turning everything soft and shadowy. Time feels strange when you’re this tired, like it’s moving too fast and too slow all at once. Eventually I force myself to stand up and limp to the kitchen for water, filling a glass from the tap and drinking it too fast, th

But not the light of the Holy Lands. Not the blue-silver of the hidden city. Not the cold clarity of the new moon sky above them. *Red.* Deep. Ancient. The red of volcanic fire seen through miles of stone. The red of blood moving through living things. The red of the sky at the edge of the world where the sun went when it was done with daylight. It poured through the breach like warmth through an opened door in winter. Luna felt it on her face. On her skin. In the demon blood—

I saw the exact moment the moon turned red. I crash through the pack house doors, breathing hard. "Alpha!" I shout. "Alpha Dante! Emergency!" Beta Marcus appears from the main hall. "What the hell are you screaming about, boy?" "The moon," I gasp. "The moon turned red. And the river. The river is boiling." Marcus goes very still. "What did you say?" "The forbidden river. It's boiling. Steam everywhere. And I saw them. I saw a wolf and a vampire. They were fighting by the water."

My in-laws' place was a three-story house with a yard, so whatever happened in the yard was visible to the street. Maeve stood up and grabbed my hand. "She's Lydia! Lydia, how could you do something so cruel? You're on your own this time!" The neighbors started whispering to each other. "So it was Lydia who hit those people a few days ago!" "She seemed so quiet before. How could she be so vicious? That baby was only a month old, and she ran over them twice!" Their words triggered the grieving family. One of the men shoved me to the ground. "You little tramp! So it's you. Don't bother denying it. Your outfit gives it away!"

The curse accelerated at midnight. Elena's starlight bled red and would not stop. Not white-gold faint glow. Not black and gold giggling. Red. Like Blood Moon Rising is thirty-five family bleeding small, like seven days left is thirty-six family counting down small, now thirty-seven family accelerates.

James’ eyes widened, and he exclaimed, “Oh! It’s working! But I’m not sure how to do this right. Can you get me a map of meridian points?” Lesia did not reply, but a red light quickly flashed in James’ eyes. Then, the map of a human body’s meridians appeared before him.

The red moon hung like a bleeding wound in the sky, casting a baleful glow that painted the world in eerie shades of crimson. His own fur, usually midnight black, seemed to shimmer with an unsettling reddish tinge under the lunar fire. The rest of the pack was in no better state. They paced and snapped, claws raking at the earth, whimpers twisting into unnerving growls. Even the elders, their eyes dulled with age, flicked their ears nervously, heads low and whispers rattling amongst them. The red moon, an ill omen from ancient lore, hung heavy in everyone's mind.

I say. "For what she expended." Maret chooses her words carefully. Sets them down like objects she is placing on a surface she isn't sure will hold them. "What she carries, what was revealed tonight, it isn't something we have a reference for. Not in living memory. The Moonblood hasn't manifested fully in generations." She pauses. "She used a significant portion of it in a very short time. The shift. The fight. And then what she did for you." She says that last part without inflection.