Authors Note- Blame the plot bunnies that are devouring my soul for this story not me.

All hail my sister who was able to make sense out of what I originally wrote so that everyone else could understand it to (I don't know how she did it) If you find anything wrong with it, I'm sorry.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything to do with the Labyrinth, if I did you'd have to pay to read this.

………………………………..........................................................................................

Moonlight

Chapter Three Fear-

Sarah felt the creatures breathe on the back for her neck and almost screamed. There was no point in pretending that she did not know the fey were there. Any human would know it was there. It was not hiding. It wanted to be seen. The thing that stopped Sarah screaming was the knowledge that many fey enjoyed scaring humans. They would only torture Sarah if they knew that they could scare her.

"What do you want?" she asked, more bravado than she felt. She felt something sharp - a claw - touch the back of her neck. It did not cut her but it ran across the back of her neck, almost gently, as if the thing was playing with her.

"Your fear," came the reply. The deep and cruel voice sent a shiver down Sarah's back. To her it sounded like death. A voice that came from beyond the grave. The creature's breath smelled like decay, a rotting corpse.

"I'm not afraid of you," she lied, still not turning around because of the claw, now resting on her neck. What did it want with her? Why had it chosen her? Was it a coincidence or did all this have something to do with Jareth and the labyrinth? There was only one way to find out. "Who or what are you and why did you chose me?"

"I am an Affer but what I am is unimportant. We have been searching for you for a long time." This did not sound good. It was targeting her directly. Sarah was shaking with both fear and cold by now. The cold that came with this Affer was making it hard to breathe. "My master will be pleased that I have found you at last, after so much searching. You were hard to find."

"Why me? Who sent you?" Sarah asked again. She thought she knew. Jareth must have sent this creature to get his revenge on her. She had always known it would happen one day. She just hoped that he would be happy with taking her own life and leave Toby alone.

"It doesn't matter who sent me. I now know how to find you and your brother." These words filled Sarah with an overwhelming dread. It must be Jareth, Sarah thought, only he would go after both of us.

"Leave him alone!" she yelled. "If Jareth wants his revenge he can do what he wants to me but tell him to stay away from my brother!" Now she was shaking with anger not fear.

There was a long pause. "You think the Goblin king sent me?" The voice sounded disbelieving, then it started to laugh.

"Well, didn't he?" she asked uncertainly.

"No." The dread came back, but this time much stronger. She had said too much.

"Then who sent you? Tell me! Stop answering in riddles and tell me what's going on!" The cold now felt like a knife digging into her. The pain was becoming unbearable. "Fey can't lie so tell me what is going on."

"No."

"Then kill me if that's what you've come to do but get on with it because I'm not going to beg. I won't make it fun for you."

"I'm not going to kill you. Not yet anyway. My instructions were to find you. I am not to harm you. My master was quite clear on that point. You're lucky though; if I hadn't killed those two children tonight I may have been unable to resist..." Those words filled Sarah with a terrible anger.

"You! You killed those children!" she screamed. Although she could barely move now with the cold, she stumbled to her feet and turned to face the Affer. She squinted though the dark room trying to see the creature. She could not see much, just the eyes glowing above her head.

Her fear forgotten, she pointed a trembling finger at the Affer. "Get out of hear now" she demanded. "You can't hurt me but that doesn't stop me from hurting you." If she had been thinking straight Sarah would have properly realised that there was little chance of hurting the Affer. She had nothing to defend herself with and the Affer was stronger than most other fey.

"I could take you with me without harming you" the Affer answered almost reasonably. "But that is not my instruction. I will go but myself or my kind will be back for you soon, you and your brother."

Sarah screamed in anger and lunged forward, arms outstretched, towards the Affer. She did not know what she was planning to do but as her hands reached the place where the Affer had been, she found it empty. The Affer had turned and moved deeper into the shadows. Before her eyes, it seemed to lose its shape and fade, turning from flesh to shadow. The Affer laughed as it faded and it then disappeared from the human world altogether.

Sarah gasped in shock at the sudden disappearance. For a few minutes, she stared at the spot were the Affer had been, feeling nothing but anger. That creature, and others like it, had killed children in the most horrible of ways imaginable. Murdered them in cold blood. She hated them more than she had ever hated anyone or anything.

Then quite suddenly she was afraid, but not for herself. The Affer had said it knew where to find her brother! It was not allowed to kill her but it had not said anything about being unable to harm Toby. Even if it could not harm him, that didn't mean her dad or step mum would be safe. She could not help thinking about the news report. What if the same thing had happened to her family? No. She could not complete the thought. She had to know they were OK.

The electricity still was not working when she tried to use the phone to call and see how they were. Sarah ran up to her room and spent a desperate panicked minute looking for her mobile. Eventually she found it in the bottom of her sock drawer, of all places.

Breathing hard she quickly pressed the only number she had on speed dial. Just before it went to the answer machine, her dad picked up the phone.

"Hello," he said politely, despite the fact that it was almost midnight.

"Dad" she sobbed, crying with relief that he was all right. There was no worry in his voice; if anything was wrong, she would have been able to tell.

"Sarah, what's wrong?" he asked, his voice full of concern for his daughter.

Sarah hiccupped tears still running down her face. What could she say? That she had seen creature of magic which was the murderer of all those children and she thought it was after Toby? No, he'd think she'd gone mad. She didn't know what he could do but she had to be with them to protect them if anything happened. After slightly too long a pause she answered, "I think someone broke into my flat."

"What happened?" he sounded very worried now.

Sarah sniffed and tried to stop the tears running down her cheeks. "I've been getting threatening emails for about a month now" she lied. She was a good actor and sounded convincing. "They all said thing like 'I'm coming for you,' 'you don't have long to live,' that sort of thing. I thought it was a sick joke so I ignored and deleted them.

"Yesterday I got one that said 'I'm coming to find you tomorrow.' When I got home after the show, I found my front door open. It hadn't been broken or forced open, it was just left ajar. I went in and found the lights didn't work. They didn't take or break anything but things had been moved around slightly.

"I don't know what to do. I'm scared." she whispered.

"Call the police." he answered, anger that someone had threatened his daughter seething in his voice. "They won't get away with this."

"I already have. They said they would come tomorrow because it's not an emergency. I don't want to stay here alone tonight. I know it's late but could I please come over and stay in my old bedroom at your house? Just for tonight."

"Of course you can. I'll come pick you up right now," he answered almost before she finished speaking. Sarah smiled though her tears, glad that at least something had gone right today.

"Thanks dad. I love you."

"I'll be there in five minutes," he promised.

The five minutes Sarah spent waiting for her dad's arrival felt like some of the longest of her life. She tried to turn it all over in her head. Some dark and very powerful fey were on Earth killing innocent children and now they were interested in herself and Toby. She shuddered at the thought of anything happening to him.

At first she had thought that Jareth was behind everything but the Affer had found that idea funny. Besides, Jareth would not let any of his subjects kill a child. Thinking about it, it had always been one young child or baby and one older child that were killed together. Could that mean that someone was ordering the Affers to kill the wished away children and the wishers? That would mean that whoever was behind this was an enemy of Jareth's. That could explain why her friends hadn't answered her call earlier tonight, that now felt like an eternity ago. If whoever was behind this was Jareth's enemy, why were they bothered about her and Toby? Surely they would know he hated Sarah? None of this made any sense. She heard her dad's car pull up outside.

Tomorrow, she would do the one thing she had sworn never to do again. She would call Jareth. Sarah had sworn never to call him again because she feared he would hurt the ones she loved but if she didn't call him now, that was going to happen anyway. She would make sure she was alone, away from her family. If he wanted revenge, which was more than likely the case, the only person he could take it out on was her.

………………………………..........................................................................................

Authors Note- Thanks for reading. If you want to review please do, if not don't. Be as harsh as you want. All I ask is you give me a reason why you don't like it, if that's why your commenting. You don't need to comment on my spelling I have dyslexie but it has been proof read by my sister. Thanks agene for reading.