Evening, all. Many, many thanks to the lovely people who commented last time - I love hearing what you think! Thank you Bruised Heart, Meg, Starwisher, Aquilla, Nokomiss, Water Angel, Diomede, Cynical Leaf, Amy, Me, Denise, Kat, Queen Kat, Dead Flower, Spellcial, Sapamfa, Starhawke, Dark Princess6, Tiger, Alissa, Shinki, insane, Starseeker, Kichiko, Midnight Haze, Labhaise, Sianna Keyna, Mandy, Baby Loca, Jewel, Lotty, Dianna, Blaze Baelfire, KensingtonGold, Ellie, Elwing Alcyone, Pandie Katteken, Die Hard, not n' angel, oli, Cianna Greenwood, Annabelle, Cacat-angel, Yodel, Sharmeen, Nostawen Allesiel, Whoever, Bridget, angelkatz, Dayna, Mental Twitch 'Sh33rs', silverclaw13, Apricitas, LifeSuckWithoutRealVamps, Georgie, yuki456, terriestal-angell, hidden jewel and last but never least, Cherrysinger. Thank you for taking the time to let me know.
On with the show: lyrics come from Fiona Apple's lush Shadowboxer (Album: Fiona Apple). Italics (aside from the opening quotations and emphasis) indicates telepathy.
I hope you enjoy reading!
Chapter One
Oh, you creep up like the clouds
And you set my soul at ease.
She stumbled downstairs with a groan, rubbing her forehead as if that could rub away the dream.
No one...no one... no one will ever hear...
Chatoya Irkil had dreamt of those words every night since they had been spoken.
They were the words of her soulmate, whose soul seemed older than his body, who was dark and wicked and without any compassion. He was an assassin, and he had tried to kill her once and discovered instead that their souls were inextricably bound.
By all the laws of life, she should have loved him passionately; he should have reformed, becoming good and true as fashion and fairytale romance dictated, and they should have lived happily ever after.
Unfortunately, reality being as lawless and chaotic as it was, she loathed him with a fiery passion.
He had killed her twin, her parents and her friend, for no better reason than spite. Their faces haunted her as surely as his words, but they were gone and he lived on, sure, cruel, seemingly motiveless in his malice.
Bane - or Blue as he was better known for his spiky cobalt hair and endless, elsewhere azure eyes - had the same attitude to killing that most people had to breathing and Murphy's Law being what it was, had decided to breathe on Chatoya.
After a series of events in which they both tried unsuccessfully to send one another to meet their makers; Chatoya had made one very fatal mistake.
She had annoyed him.
His promise dangled over her every thought, her every movement. I will leave you to rot in darkness, to long for friends and love that will never come.
"Morning, lazybones!"
But the friends were here now, she thought, and smiled tiredly at her housemate.
"You looked like something the cat dragged in," Lisa Ochai continued cheerfully, busy making her famous kamikaze pancakes. The beads in her intricately braided hair clicked as she looked round.
"Haven't touched her," the merry voice of Jepar Jubatus said. The cheetah shapeshifter grinned at her. "I was windsurfing up at the lake and figured I'd drop in for brunch." Well, that explained why his hair, a deep gold spattered with brown circles like a cheetah's fur, was tousled and damp.
"How'd you sleep?" Cougar Redfern put in. From the slight windburn on his sharp cheekbones, and the way his short hair had dried into thorny spikes, he'd been at the lake too. "I didn't 'cause JJ here woke me up at five in the bloody morning."
"I told you we were leaving early, Rip Van Pillowthrower," the shapeshifter said, his green eyes aglitter.
"Early is eight o' clock. You woke me up at five o' clock. That's so goddamn early it qualifies as late." The pair were sat at the table, eyeing the pancake batter with some trepidation. "Still - it was worth being woken up. I was flying today. Lise, that pancake done?"
The African girl frowned, jogging the frying pan. "Just got to toss it."
Cougar opened his mouth, and Chatoya just knew some comment like 'how many times have I heard that?' was going to fall out of his mouth. She smacked him across the head before it did.
"Thanks," Lisa said without turning round. "Slip of the tongue there."
Chatoya backhanded Cougar just as he began to speak. The lamia scowled, his golden eyes blazing. "Hey! It was going to be a perfectly innocent remark."
"Yeah," she said, settling herself down at the table, "and you're joining a nunnery."
Lisa snorted. "Wouldn't be a nunnery long in that case." She flipped the pancake and in true kamikaze style, it hit the floor with a sad splat. "I swear, it's this frying pan!"
"Lise, while you make a mean carbonara," Jepar said dryly, nudging her out the way to start cooking a pancake that had a ten percent chance of making it to the plate, "you aren't any good with pancakes."
"So," Cougar said mildly. "How are things with my half-brother, Toya? Still simmering with hate, resentment and rage, I hope?"
That was the other thing. Blue Malefici was Cougar's half-brother. And Cougar detested him even more than Chatoya did. They both had the same disturbingly striking faces, a bone structure to die for and the smouldering glare that could make men spontaneously combust and women spontaneously...well.
But where Cougar's spitting eyes and sullen smile made him proud, Blue's thoughtful, primordial gaze could strip the shields from your soul, and his smile was enough to run fear through your veins.
It would kill any hopes you had that the world might be better one day. Look into him, and you would see the sun snuffed out and replaced by the cold glow of a leprous blue-veined moon.
"Still the same," she said calmly. "I haven't seen him in two weeks, and that's how I want to keep it."
She had told them about the threat. Chatoya had been around Ryars Valley too long to keep secrets.
"Hey, Lise..." Jepar said wheedlingly. "You know your curtains?"
"Not personally, but one day I'll have to have a chat with them," Lisa replied, from where she was now sitting on the lino trying to untangle a pair of earphones. "Why?"
"Can I smell smoke?" Cougar put in, hiking up one eyebrow meaningfully.
Chatoya wrinkled her nose. He was right. Then her eyes widened. "Can I see flames?"
"What?" Lisa screamed, leaping to her feet. "Jepar Jubatus, I'm going to make you into a pancake!"
Cougar raised a hand. "I'm bagging the maple syrup."
Lisa picked up the frying pan and hit Jepar with it, her face livid. "You stupid-" Thunk "-moronic-" thunk "-annoying-" thunk "-shifter!"
Chatoya stared, baffled. In three years, she had never seen Lisa hit anyone with a frying pan. With her fists, yes, with a shovel, yes, even in a fit of pioneer innovation, with Cougar Redfern (something appreciated by neither Cougar or the six members of the Pack he collided with), but this was too surreal.
I'm losing it, she decided. It's either me or Lisa and she's the sanest person I know.
Sane people, however, did not pick up a whisk and threaten to whip up other people's intestines into the world's largest steak and kitten pie.
"Whoa!" Jepar held up his hands, already red from batting away the frying pan. "Lise, calm."
"Is now a good moment to mention that the fire's spreading to the wall paper?" Cougar put in, without batting an eyelid. Or moving a muscle.
Lisa turned her fury on him. "No, but it's a good moment for me to mention how decidedly unattractive you'll look with a whisk stuck up your-"
"Okay!" Cougar got up resignedly. "I'm helping, I'm helping. Put the whisk fantasies away."
Lisa was still threatening Jepar, who was listening in the intent way that meant he had wholly switched off.
"Lisa," he said finally, as she paused mid-rant, "Sorry, okay. I didn't mean to set your curtains alight-"
There was a hiss, and the entire wall caught fire.
"Shit," Cougar said, looking at the empty Evian bottle he was holding. "That wasn't water, was it?"
"No," Lisa said in a dangerously soft voice, "that was where we put the Bacardi to stop you two getting your grubby hands on it." Her eyes were glittering, and her voice slid into a full-blown scream. "What is it with you two? Why are men so bloody useless? Can't you even put out a damn fire? Why can't you just stay out of trouble? Why do you always have to be getting hurt, and, and..."
And then she burst into tears.
Of course, Chatoya thought, Lisa was worried sick about Cern Akafren, the witch who seemed to have a death-wish ever since his soulmate had died. Who wandered into trouble in the hope it might kill him.
Horrified, Jepar hugged her. You're better at this than I am, Toya, he said telepathically. Lisa had a death-clutch on him, crying helplessly. The kitchen filled with smoke as the fire continued to smoulder. What do I do?
Doesn't Tali ever cry? she said, going over to the sink and pouring a bowl of water that she promptly threw over the wall. It doused most of the fire, and the last drops of her magic did the rest, but the wall was charred and the curtains were smoking shreds, and she was drained of magic and energy again.
He shrugged, patting Lisa in the vague way of men who didn't know what to do with a crying woman. Yes, but she throws things at the same time. I stay well clear. And this is Lisa. She doesn't cry!
Make her laugh, Cougar suggested. Let her see your face.
As I recall, last time you made Lisa laugh, Jepar said bitingly, it was an entirely different part of you she was seeing.
Meow! he said, flushing faintly. Kissing Ria works.
I don't want her to get the wrong idea.
Why not? the vampire threw back. You've kissed everyone else round here. Toya, Tali, Ria, Ruby...can't you keep your mouth off anyone?
According to your soulmates, Chatoya put in, sensing Lisa listening, both of your mouths have been places I don't want to know about.
There was a shocked silence.
They tell you that kind of stuff? a horrified Cougar said.
I'm going to kill her, was Jepar's input.
Lisa began to giggle, still crying, but she let go of Jepar, wiping at her cheeks and sniffing. "You're classic, both of you," she said, sounding more cheerful. "We talk about everything."
It was Tali and Ria's extreme misfortune to wander in just then.
X - X - X - X - X
The pure, fragrant scent of the bluebells hung thick as gasoline. Akin to a pale blue mist, delicate and fleeting, they lay over the floor of the glade and shivered as Chatoya Irkil drew her fingers through them.
She had left the house when Cougar started throwing kitchen implements. Since the first time she'd seen him lose his phenomenal temper, she had never underestimated the power of a high-velocity ladle.
And here she had come, to her refuge, her sanctum, her bluebells.
They bloomed out of season, fed by magic that Chatoya had rooted in here long ago. The last remnants of a magical battle some years back, when she had fought for her friends' lives, and eventually, for her own.
It was her place though, a place drenched in memories so intense that past and present seemed separated only by the thinnest of membranes. She could almost hear the echoes of Cougar Redfern's cutting voice, of Lisa Ochai's single awful scream, and finally, of wild and joyful laughter.
Lying on her back, she sprawled among the flowers that swayed in the breeze and brushed her skin. The sky was a simmering, periwinkle blue circle ringed by trees, unmarred by clouds or cares.
Above her, blue, below her, blue, beside her...Blue?
She leapt to her feet to sprint away, stomach swirling with fear and confusion because he was here, and she was in danger again-
He slammed her back against one of the trees so hard it knocked her breath clean away. Flaking, crinkled bark dug into her like nails, but nails were nothing compared to the icy viciousness in his eyes.
"How goes it, witch of mine? Destroyed any more lives without thought for the cost?"
His voice was dark, seduction soaked in promise and then frozen by cruelty. It was pure, utter Blue, and for a moment, she couldn't quite think straight to answer.
She knew his face, with those endless, arcane eyes that were the luminous blue of a dawn-flushed sky, impossibly vivid and immeasurably cold. Knew the sharp angles of his jaw and cheekbones, and the arch of that nose, and even the surprising silk of a full mouth that was the only soft and sensuous thing about him.
He was beautiful, and he was a monster, and he cared about neither.
"I thought that was your prerogative," she said sharply, wondering if there was any chance of her wriggling free. But he had his arms planted either side of her head, and had very neatly stopped her trying the age-old female route to freedom via a swift knee by leaning his weight onto her legs.
His slender, disturbing smile was in place.
"When you do it so much better?" he declared silkily, showing no sign of the effort, if any, it must have taken to keep her still. "Even I have yet to unleash a ten thousand year-old butcher on an unsuspecting population."
Jallakri ap Ganra. A werewolf who had died, but taken too many people with her because Chatoya had stopped Blue from murdering her. He had made her that promise then: she had no doubt he would keep it.
"That was an accident," she defended. "And excuse me, but who created her?"
"Much as I'd love to play god...I don't create life." His voice was scornful, cool. "I end it."
"I'm not afraid of you."
The lie got easier each time she said it.
"So you insist." His eyes were filling up with gold, the summery colour of cornfields. "But somehow...I don't believe that."
"Why are you here?" she demanded.
"Didn't you cover that in biology?" he drawled. "Oh, stop scowling, witch of mine. I have an offer for you."
"Whatever it is, the answer is no."
"Let me rephrase that. Your friend Cernnunos Akafren is currently trying to kill himself in a number of creative ways because his darling soulmate died. Either you help me, or he succeeds."
"You wouldn't dare-"
His eyes such a deep colour that they seemed molten, his lips slightly parted. His hands moved to clasp her face, a touch hot and firm, and in that moment she thought she had never known anyone so stunning and so dreadful.
"I dare anything," he said in a voice that was a touch huskier than usual.
This was the side of Blue she feared the most. The side that had lost a little of that immense control, that was unpredictable and instinctive, and looking at her in that eerie, hungry way.
"I dare you to let me go," she said flatly.
"Almost anything. You have a lovely mouth, witch of mine."
What kind of thing was that to say?
She struggled, but to no avail against supernatural strength. His weight pressed in on her, warm and solid, and his hands were like steel. He was her cage, and Chatoya wanted to be free of him.
"Very lovely," he murmured. "I can see your blood pulsing there."
"Oh no!" Chatoya could hear her own furious voice, but her mind seemed to be detaching herself from what she knew must surely come. "No, you are not drinking from me!"
Spell, dear goddess, think of a spell. Blow him into smithereens, even turn him into a frog, anything...
"Try it and I'll hurt you," he warned absently.
"Oh, that'll make a change," she snapped and dragged power from deep inside her. It burned up through her veins, and Chatoya hurled every ounce of magic she possessed at him.
And as she stared, astonished, it sank into his body with no effect, dissipating under his skin.
His mouth curved into a satisfied smirk. "You should know you won't win with me."
And then there was nothing left to do but pray. His mouth sank onto hers, and then she felt the cold, thin sting of his teeth in her bottom lip.
Bastard, bastard, bastard, she thought as the tears sprang up and she pressed them back. Although he had learned to block their mind-link long ago, she knew he would dip into her thoughts if he felt the slightest hint of her despair or her fear. To him, it would be a victory as sweet as death.
Her head was spinning now; she realised his weight had lessened, and he was distracted by her blood. Not enough yet, but a little longer. Blood did for vampires what about six shots of neat vodka did for humans.
Wait, and wait, and hold onto yourself, hold onto awareness. Wait, and ignore this blood-kiss, and concentrate on his eyes, becoming a deeper shade of gold, becoming tarnished, and then bronze and then pure, liquid black-
He had left her hands free. Stupid, she thought, and thank god. She moved slowly, bringing her hands up against his chest. His stare leapt again with fire-
She pushed him, and as he fell, kicked out and heard a very satisfying crack in the region of his kneecap before she ran.
Another thing that Blue and Cougar had in common was the ability to curse loudly, extensively, creatively and in several languages.
It wouldn't take him long to heal - seconds. As she struggled through the woods, she knew it wouldn't be enough. His footsteps crunched in her ears, ever closer and louder even though she was sprinting full-pelt against the branches tearing at her.
His footsteps disappeared.
For a moment, she thought he had fallen, or given up-
No, he had pounced.
Just as she realised, he landed in front of her. She couldn't stop in time, and he caught her easily.
She ended up kneeling on the floor, with one arm twisted up behind her back and an alarmingly impassive Blue sat beside her, lotus style. His feet were bare, streaked with mud like his tattered clothes.
"I suppose you think I deserved that," he remarked.
In a variety of participles, verbs and adjectives, Chatoya told him exactly what she thought he deserved
"Like I said," he purred. "Lovely mouth. Shame about what comes out of it. However...I didn't come here to play. My proposition, witch of mine. You'll do it, or I'll start hunting your friends. Starting with my brother, and then running alphabetically."
She knew he would. Knew it like she had known the moment she had seen his soul that here was evil, or if not true evil, the closest thing on the earth there was.
"All I want is a spell," he said. "Simple, even for you."
"Why me?" she said. "I'm sure you could call in one of your Nightfire denizens to do it. Someone more powerful."
"I want someone I can trust." He laughed at her expression. "The only hold I have over them is money. But you...oh, witch of mine, I have your soul beneath my foot, and all I have to do is step forward."
Knowing it was true made it no less humiliating. She thought of her friends, and especially of Cern Akafren with his shadowed eyes the colour of bruises, and his gaunt face.
"All right," she said flatly. "But you promise you'll leave my friends alone."
"All of them?" Those mocking brows arched. "No. I will give you my word that one of them will be safe."
"Your word is worth nothing to me."
"It's all you'll get," he said with a shrug. "Give me the name. And there's no backing out of this, my witch. Once you're in, you're in until you meet your grave, which may be sooner than you think."
She had no choice anyway. "Cern," she said. "You leave Cern alone if I do this."
"Done," he said delightedly . "Now here's the interesting part about this spell. It's highly illegal, it's extremely dangerous..." The ring of gold around his eyes brightened, turning them a heavy, lustrous pearl colour that shone palely with all the colours of the rainbow. Fascinated, she stared. She had never seen Blue like this before.
His smile widened until he was nothing remotely human, only terrible and exquisite.
"And it raises the dead."
Then you let your love abound
And you bring me to my knees.