Sunny - Mona Lisa Awakening

"Bask?" I had returned. "What's that?"

He had looked at me, stunned. "Basking is when we stand beneath the full moon and the Queen opens herself and the moon showers down upon us her rays of light, renewing us all."

And so I came to learn a bit more about the children of the moon. Queens were precious indeed, because only they had the ability to pull down the moon's rays and allow others to Bask in its energy. Without Basking, the Monère aged more quickly, like humans. Queens held the ultimate power: they prolonged life. I, unfortunately, did not know how to Bask. Oh well. But at least we now had the perfect moment for entering the premises with the least chance of detection.

A cool wind swept the tree branches, causing a flurry of red and gold leaves to dance and flutter to the ground. An owl hooted as we swiftly crossed and blended into the shadows of the building's northern wall. Gryphon entered through a second-story window like a shadowy ghost. A moment later, he opened the front door, letting me in.

All the lights were off, but darkness was no obstacle to our kind. Our eyes were equipped to see things as if night were day. It was deserted inside. That was no surprise. The surprise was how richly furnished—opulent, really—the interior was, with veined marble flooring, finely woven Persian carpets, and a magnificent crystal chandelier. I followed Gryphon up the grand, winding staircase in silent wonderment and down a hallway that held nothing but a single door at the end.

My skin prickled as an acute fragrance rushed toward me from that door. A fragrance feminine and jarring, giving me a sense of being in a place where I ought not to be, as if I was impinging upon another's realm. It had to be Mona Sera's chamber.

Gryphon opened the door and disappeared inside. Taking a deep breath, I followed him and entered into the spacious living quarters of the master bedroom. It was lavishly furnished with plush carpeting and heavy, gilded frames of art. One I recognized as a Renoir, another a Rubens. A huge, draped four-poster bed dominated the room. It was twice the size of a king bed, enshrouded by curtain wisps that framed it in sheer decadent glory.

Gryphon's touch broke my spell and I blinked at him. He gestured me toward the adjacent dressing area while he went to the bed and began searching it. The dressing area was a room as big as my living room and decorated much, much nicer, with framed prints, carpeting, draperies even, and a comfortable chaise. I opened the closets. Mona Sera's gowns and apparel lined the racks with her shoes in the space below, numbering well into the hundreds. I shook my head in bemusement. What did you know? Mona Sera had a thing for shoes.

I looked carefully on the shelves and through the custom-fitted drawers, ran my hands down the clothes, peered in the shoes, prodded the little toes within, but found nothing. I even ran my hands along the walls and floor but could sense no hidden seams or compartments. I returned to the boudoir and looked at Gryphon. He gestured to some vials on the mirrored bureau top. I came to his side, lifted the lids, smelled nothing but perfume fragrance, and shook my head. We searched the rest of room, even peering under the mattress of the huge bed but found nothing except a simple vial hidden in a bedside drawer.

Before I could lift the stopper of the vial, Gryphon was at my side, his hand over mine, shaking his head furiously. Carefully, gingerly, controlling my movements with dreadful care, he put the vial back and pulled me into the bathroom where he had me wash my hands three times before continuing our search. It was fruitless.

Disappointment weighed heavily in my heart as we slipped back out into the hallway and made our way back down. We had agreed beforehand to search only the Queen's private quarters where the antidote would most likely be hidden. Gryphon waited for me down by the front door, but before I reached him, I stopped and turned. Something drew me, some amorphous thing coming from the east wing. Instead of leaving, I veered right, following the irresistible pull down an empty corridor.

Gryphon stopped me, a hand gripping me urgently, shaking his head and urging me back toward the entrance. But I shook him off, called onward by something I could not deny, some force that pulled me forward until I stumbled into a grand hall. Only then did I recognize it. The feel of power, old power. It hit me with a spine-tingling rush.

The great chamber was exposed to the full moon through an open skylight. A score of men and a handful of women faced away from me, their faces lifted to the streaming rays bathing them in pale light. On the center platform, a woman lifted her arms in joyous welcome to the round, luminous planet that had once been their home, her hair streaming down her back, hair so black that it shone blue in the silvery light. She was naked, unrestricted by clothing, her flesh pure and unblemished, her breasts jutting out full and proud. From the waist down, her body was a serpentine flow of smooth, rippling muscles covered by glistening scales. She had no legs, just the body of a snake. I looked at her with wonder and thought lamia , what the ancient Greeks had called the snakelike creature they had believed to be vampire, a creature of legend and lore that I would have claimed only a moment before did not exist.

A moonbeam fell on the snakewoman and the power that filled the room grew. With a burst of brightness, little butterflies of light showered down from the heavens, darting into her and entering into all the men and women around her, making them gasp, bowing their backs as the light streamed into them until they glowed with blinding brilliance.

And still the power did not abate but continued to grow, tightening more and more within me until I felt as if I would surely-burst. And then it seemed as if I did. With another flash of light, moonlight darted to the back of the hall, to me, finding me and touching me with cold light, showering me with flittering energy and sharing that invigorating power with Gryphon, making us gasp and glow with radiance. Only then did the power fade with one last loving caress, leaving us behind in the quiet afterglow with all eyes turned upon us and the cold discovery that several men had moved behind us and now held us captive.

Basking, as far as I was concerned, hadn't been worth it.

"Well, well, well. What have we here?" Mona Sera purred. A forked tongue flitted out in the air, tasting us. I felt a surge of energy. Before my eyes, the lamia's vertically slitted pupils rounded out and her scales melted away into legs that flowed with sinuous grace toward us.

A woman brought a robe to Mona Sera and she slipped her arms into the garment and belted it, to my immense relief. The fact that a naked woman coming at me was scarier than the warrior behind me, holding me captive in an iron grip, said a lot about my priorities. Homophobic, me? Nah. I just felt more comfortable fighting. Street fighting and a hodgepodge of other disciplines thrown in.

With a twist I broke free, my arm slipping out at my opponent's weakest point where his thumb and fingers met. I grabbed my captor's arm. Another twist, a grunt from me as I bent and lifted, and the man went sailing over my head to land with a nice thud on the ground, surprise darkening his eyes.

Geez, he was a massive brute, at least six-four and close to three hundred pounds I'd bet, with a barrel-like chest and arms and thighs as wide as my head. I was surprised I'd been able to throw him, and surprised even more at what he wore at his waist—a genuine sword sheathed in its very own scabbard, like what they used back during the Crusades.

One of the two men holding Gryphon lunged at me and I ducked back. Let's see, two opponents in front, twenty behind me. Forward, definitely forward, was the way to go. Knives suddenly in hand, I leaped and slashed a white-haired warrior in my way, slicing his chest and drawing blood, then darted past him as Gryphon plunged an elbow into his opponent and dropped him with a kick. The stench of Gryphon's blood filled the air. Damn, his belly wound had broken open again.