Long time, no write. Humble apologies for the delay (now over; I have a whole summer to write in.), and enormous thanks to the wonderful people who were kind enough to review last time round: thank you girltype, CalliopeMused, leian, Shards-of-Ice, no one, Bex Drake, tracing-tt, Miss Mary Lou, Enigmatic Piscean, yutakalamia, K'Ranna, I'm Freaky But You're a Freak, goldenshadows, annmarie delacour and the lovely Indygodusk. You made my day!
Comments and criticisms are much adored – I'd love to hear what you think. Hope you enjoy reading.
Lyrics belong to Roberta Flack's Killing Me Softly.
Ripples Part Ten
I felt all flushed with fever,
Embarrassed by the crowd,
I felt he'd found my letters and read each one out loud.
After Jo and Celia left for home, it was a silent journey into the suburbs. Riose's body kept most of the cool night breeze from her, and she left her head in the crook of his neck.
"Do I need to tell you how lucky you were?"
Despite the quiet tone, Phi knew he was angry. She could feel it in the tightness of his grip.
"No," she admitted. "I didn't think."
Understatement: how avid she had been. Chasing freedom, chasing hope, finding only the copper eyes of a kindred soul and smooth white bones.
"What the hell were you doing there? The Ghost Roads, Phi! Of all people, I thought you knew better." He dug his fingernails into her side as a sort of punctuation.
"Don't poke me," she snapped. "I was visiting Iry Lupine."
"Was that one of Finn's stupid dares?"
"No." Phi produced her trump card. "My father asked me to."
"Did he tell you go on your own?"
"He didn't tell me not to," she hedged.
He heaved a sigh, some of the tension vanishing. "Common sense doesn't run in your family, does it?"
"Nope. Just the sixth sense," she said glumly.
For a while, the only sound was the pad of his feet, almost in time with the throbbing in her head. "We're here."
She raised her head, blinking away fuzziness. Sandwiched between a pair of derelict warehouses was a building strung with fairy lights and neon, a gaudy tribute to the god of tastelessness. Letters ten feet high read: The Chill. The distant thump of music came from the half-open door, guarded by a bouncer who gave them a flinty stare. Ryar's Valley's lone nightclub was always popular, if only by default, known for its cosy atmosphere and its cheap drinks.
Not known, in other words, for its ability to heal concussions.
Baffled, she kept quiet as Riose wandered up an alley to the back of the club, where he kicked at a door.
It swung open to reveal the club's proprietor, Cougar Redfern, glaring at them. "What do you..."
The glow from inside gave him an angel's radiance, belied by the hard, angular face and grim mouth. There was rarely trouble in the vampire's club: regardless who started it, he would finish it.
"She needs a healer." It was a demand, not a request, and not one she would have dared make. "The Pack got bored."
The lamia didn't even hesitate before gesturing them inside. "You're in luck, Orage. Best damn healer in the whole town dropped in for drinks tonight."
The door opened straight into an anteroom, filled with chairs and a sagging sofa. The whole room had a battered look, except for an enormous chandelier that glittered in the centre of the ceiling. Cougar vanished through another door, leaving Riose to lay her on the sofa.
"Have you come here before?" she asked, careful to keep her voice low.
He perched on the arm and gave her a little nod. "Once. The Furies started threatening my mom. He put a stop to it."
She didn't bother to ask why a nightclub owner had influence with the Furies. Somehow, she had the feeling it would be safer for her not to know.
I was lucky, she told herself. If it hadn't been for Sam, if it hadn't been for Zeke...
"In here," she heard Cougar say, and opened her eyes to see a woman bending over her.
Fingertips touched her temples and she felt a cold web sink through her head, as if the witch was casting a net to catch her pain. She held still, staring up at her unlikely saviour.
The eyes that seemed to look straight through her were moss-green, narrowed in concentration. Black hair was pinned back loosely, escaping to curl at her neck and ears, but the witch was the only person in the room wearing anything resembling a smile. The scent of herbs billowed from her, mixed with perfume and soap.
Behind her, Riose was watching, arms crossed. But it was Cougar Redfern who caught her eye, his face unexpectedly tender, almost vulnerable, his lips parted as if he were on the cusp of confessing something.
This ordinary woman had elicited a hunger extraordinary in its intensity, had poised Cougar Redfern's world on the edge of some immense tumble. Would someone ever look at her like that? Would she ever glance up, unknowing, to see that same heat in someone's face, to realise that she had seized their breath and halted their very heart in its beating?
God, how she wished they would, how she wished for someone to leave her yearning, burning, to fill her with passion and erase the acid taste of loneliness.
"You've got an impressive concussion," the woman announced, straightening. "What you need is a couple of days rest..."
Phi opened her mouth to interrupt, and the witch held up a hand.
"But," she continued, "I have this funny feeling you're going to tell me that you don't have time to rest."
"I don't," agreed Phi, craning her neck so she could see the witch's reaction. "Nightworld business. Pod business."
"And what's a pod girl doing getting tangled up with the Pack?" Cougar asked from where he leant against the wall. "We all know they like you about as much as they like me."
She met those heated eyes, and swallowed her nerves to put on her father's polite smile. "Like I said, pod business."
His smile widened. "All right, keep your secrets. But take it from one who knows – at least let your friends in on it. Deep, dark secrets have a way of coming back to bite you on the ass. Right, Orage?"
Riose's stare was icier than liquid nitrogen. "Only if you turn your back on them."
The witch ignored them both and turned back to Phi. "I do love it when they get territorial," she muttered. "Vampires. They've got more pride than sense."
"It could be worse," Phi offered. "If they were wolves, they'd start peeing on the carpet right about now."
The witch covered her mouth, but the crinkles at the edge of her eyes gave her away. When she took her hand away, her face was solemn again. "You really should leave that wound to heal on its own. I can fix it quickly, but it's going to hurt, and it's going to leave you pretty tired for a day or so."
"Please," she said quietly.
The woman sighed. "Hold still then."
She placed her palm flat on Phi's head, sending a tide of sensation rushing from her cheek to her crown. Phi gasped as the pain intensified, as if the woman's fingers were sinking through her flesh to the deepest point of the damage, adding a new sting: this one sharp and stabbing.
Those bladed fingers seemed to curl about the pain, holding it tightly, containing it. Had Phi been concentrating, she would have seen a faint green glow around herself and the woman, as tangible as the sweet scent of oregano and lemongrass that rose into the air.
The fingers clenched, closed...and then tore from her flesh, bringing a yelp from her throat.
Eyes watering furiously, gasping for breath, Phi sat up, holding herself up with one shaking arm. The pain was gone – her head was clear.
The woman opened her fist and dusted off her hands. "Done," she announced. "Get some sleep. Try to keep the beatings to a minimum. Avoiding the Pack will help with that."
"I'll try," she offered, swinging her feet onto the floor. Her legs felt watery, and there was an ache seated deep in her body, but hopefully a few hours of sleep would help that. "Thanks. I owe you one."
The witch shrugged. "I don't keep score."
X - X - X - X - X
She woke from groggy dreams full of smoke and secrets. A glance at her clock told her it was late in the morning, but the feeling of having been run through a mangle and then thoroughly wrung remained. And she had her father to face. At least he'd agreed it was best to keep her mother in the dark about the whole mess.
He was waiting at the table when she came down, looking as weary as she felt. "How are you this morning?"
She shrugged, wary. "Okay. Tired."
"Do I need to tell you that going on the Ghost Roads alone was foolish?"
"No. I didn't think."
He rubbed his forehead. "I should have warned you, but I didn't think the wolves had become so violent. Phi, I don't want you to go anywhere near the Pack if you can avoid it."
"Did you tell Don that too?" she asked sweetly.
Her father frowned. "Why on earth would I need to?"
"The Pack took me because he ordered them to," she revealed, her voice as flat as she could make it.
Her father sat up straighter, and she saw something close to resignation settle onto his face. "Phi, that's ridiculous. You know as well as I do that Don dislikes the Pack – which is a situation I'm not comfortable with, and you can rest assured that I'll address it soon, and to suggest he's...he's ordering them to attack you-"
The worst part of it all was the disappointment heavy in his voice, soft and pitying in his eyes.
"I'm not making it up," she protested. "The wolves said-"
"I'm sure the wolves would like nothing better than to cause trouble among us," he interrupted, his voice firm. "Oh, Phi, if you've seen Jess, then you know there's bad blood between the Pack and the pod. This isn't the first time they've tried to divide us with hearsay, and I doubt it'll be the last. What better way than to convince you Don was behind it all – especially when it's no secret you two have had your differences."
"We're still having them," she reminded him tautly. "Dad, if Don did-"
"No more of this, Phi!" She flinched back at the harshness of his words. The anger was gone almost at once, and only regret was left in its wake. "I'm sorry, baby. I didn't mean to snap. It's just – when I think how much worse it could have been...if I'd been less preoccupied..."
"It's okay," she said quietly, but a lump was working its way up her throat.
"Is it?" he asked, sounding young and bewildered. She didn't know how to cope with this man, who was not her sure, confident father. "Sometimes I wonder."
She didn't know what to say: she had no words of comfort or solace, nothing but a feeling of limp helplessness. If you don't know what to do, she thought at him, how am I supposed to?
He let out his breath in a long sigh. "Phi, do you have any proof that Don was involved in the attack on you?"
Nothing but words, nothing but her own certainty of his character. "No," she admitted reluctantly. "But...he knows I don't want to marry him."
He nodded. "All right, baby. I'll bear in mind what you've said. And if you go to see Iry, take some of your friends."
"My landlubber friends?" she said, more of a bite on the words than she intended.
His eyes, the same dreamy grey as her own, were wry. "It's your mother who dislikes them, not me. You know I've always supported your right to choose your own friends."
"Yeah. Sorry." She wanted to say something else, to try and dissolve the terse atmosphere, but she knew that it was more than just the events of last night. If her father was still encouraging her to see Iry, whatever the werewolf had to tell her had to be unimaginably important, but she couldn't think what it could be. It puzzled and worried her in equal amount. "Riose and Jo are going with me this afternoon."
"Good." He offered her a half-smile. "Don't be too hard on your mother, Phi. The pod's all she's ever known. She's lived for us."
The thought surfaced in her head with the vicious promise of a shark's fin: and she's dying for us too.
X - X - X - X - X
Zeke had avoided Avy for as long as he could, but he knew he'd left it too long when the first jolt of a spell woke him from exhausted sleep.
Before he could react, he was on his feet, being pulled towards her. He tried to resist, but felt his joints straining, trying to go in two directions at once. Still, he threw his weight backwards, slow pain starting to swell in his spine and knees.
If there was one magic Avy was born to, it was compulsion, and this particular spell had been laid on him after Aurora's death. Insurance, she called it, this invisible leash always waiting to tighten and haul him back to her like a dog.
It was stupid to fight it, he knew, but he wasn't ready to face her. If she caught even the faintest wisp of his intent to betray her...
So hide it, he told himself. It won't be the first time you've hidden something. Hide it in the truth – that's the safest place for it. Yes...if she thinks you're just trying to win Delphine Thetis's trust, but that you like her, that your guilt comes from betraying Delphine, not her...
It might work. But he would still have to be careful.
The ache in his body was building to unbearable heights. Finally, though it galled him to do so, he gave in, letting the spell guide him back to Avy, back to his jailer.
X - X - X - X - X
Riose and Jo deposited her at Iry Lupine's door with martial efficiency. The journey had been a stream of quiet scolding from Riose with Jo throwing in the occasional sarcastic line, and by the time they got there, Phi felt so drained that she could hardly muster a reply.
They're only doing it because they care, she reminded herself after yet another lecture on the perils of wolves. Really, they are.
"Now, try not to annoy this wolf," advised Jo as she settled herself by the front gate, idly swinging a baseball bat in one hand. "From what I hear, he doesn't have a pit of spikes, but he does have a nasty bite."
"A very nasty bite," confirmed Riose, perching on the fence post. "Be careful."
"I'll do my best," she said dryly. Both of them shot her stern looks, but Phi pretended not to see them and turned her attention to Iry's home.
So this was where a lone wolf hid. The house stood in the midst of a swathe of cleared land, poking up like a fang. It had a hasty, ramshackle look to it, but touches of care showed in the neatly gravelled path and the large sign: "Beware of the dog."
The stones crunched under her feet as she approached. No bell; Phi banged as loudly as she could on his door.
It was yanked open with a mutter of "I told you, I ain't interested in double glaz-"
And then his eyes took her in, and he blanched under a leathery tan.
For a moment they only stared at one another, wolf and mermaid, and she saw the scars of old love, etched in the shocked slackness of his mouth and the bitter hope widening his eyes.
Then he breathed in raggedly. "Delphine? Dan Thetis's little girl?"
Not Aurora. Whatever you were hoping. "That's me."
"You'd better come in. Dan told me you were comin' over, but I ain't seen you since you was knee high."
Dan: he spoke like he knew her father well. But everyone knew Iry Lupine was a hermit with a tendency to aim a gun at anyone who put a toe on his land.
Yes, and lately, she was finding out that what 'everyone' knew was often a glossy lie. Why shouldn't this be too?
Still, he was a wolf, and after her earlier encounter, she was determined to keep control of the situation – and that meant keeping him off-balance.
"And you haven't seen Aurora in a while either," she said bluntly.
His shoulders twitched, and he came to a stop, but didn't move to face her. His voice was rough as sandpaper, but whether it was anger or sorrow, she couldn't tell. "Show me someone who has."
I could show you a dozen, she thought. How many of the pod look at me and see her? Do they see some sort of salvation too – is that why they think I should lead them? Is that all anyone wants me to be? Someone else, something else – anything else.
He led her into a messy sitting room with a stiffness that said he wouldn't forgive that remark easily. Nothing special about the room, except for one striking portrait that only stood out because she had seen it in miniature earlier.
She studied the frozen face of Aurora like the map of a strange country, a realm that would lie forever undiscovered. The set of her eyes and nose were unnervingly similar to her own, her irises the same cool grey, but the tilt of the smile was different: wicked, making promises that she might or might not keep. Around the unembellished strokes of her face, the bright tangle of red hair was harsh, allayed by the hand that was brushing it back behind her ear.
Alike and yet different.
"Strikin', ain't it?" His dry voice interrupted her, and she glanced over to see Iry stood by the door, arms crossed.
How had he looked back then, when Aurora had lived? Not so hard, surely, nor with the lines of his face so deeply grooved. He was a jumble of earth colours, from the pewter streaks in his hair to the ashy colour of his eyes, tanned from a life spent running wild.
"She was very beautiful," she said gently, hoping he would take it as the apology she meant it to be.
"She was. An' she knew it. Just like I guess you know you've got pieces of her right there in your face." He studied her. "You ain't beautiful, not by any means, not like her, but you got the same look in your eyes."
Charming. She might have been insulted if she'd had the energy, but as it was, Phi settled for: "What look?"
"The one that says the world's done somethin' to offend an' you're goin' to pummel it till it's put right."
She had to smile grimly. "Sounds about right. Maybe you can help me out."
Iry moved to sit down, and even here there was a lightness to his steps that said he might spring at any instant. "Well, I'm thinkin' that's why you came a-callin'. If you know about Aurora, you've already spoken to Jess."
"She said it was your fault my parents got married."
His eyebrows shot up. "That's a bit of an exaggeration. I might have been around for a lot of it, but I did not tell Marie to drag your father under the mistletoe and give him a dental exam, not mention a phys-"
"Ew!" She clapped her hands over her ears. "No gacky details, please! They're my parents."
He eyed her. "An' just how do you think you got here?"
"The stork," Phi answered firmly. "So let's keep this at a nice, safe U rating, okay, with rose-tint where necessary."
"All right, you can have the clean version. It's still full of scandal. Did Jess tell you about the changes Alwyn made after Aurora died?"
However lightly he said it, she saw the flash of pain that passed through his eyes.
"Some of it," she said. "She didn't agree with him, though."
"A lot of the pod didn't," Iry revealed. "And a lot did. It split them straight down the middle, but Alwyn had enough support from the people with influence. Jess and her friends got married off to people they were mostly indifferent to. But she made the best of it, an' Ray – would'a been your godfather, I 'spect – was a good man. They managed to find love in the whole mess. But not everyone did."
Sadness mingled with a rush of affection for her godmother.
"Well, the unease was growin' among all the kids who had to live with Alwyn's rules. Your grandparents were lucky in some ways – they married young, before all the furore with Aurora came along – an' unlucky in the worst way."
He fell silent, his expression unreadable. "It went on like that for a while. I was just about the only one of the Pack who still talked to any of the mer, an' Jess had to sneak out late to meet me. By the time your parents were old enough to get hitched, the atmosphere was gettin' nasty. There'd be shoutin' matches so loud you could hear 'em in the woods."
"Alwyn was furious that his own son – your granddad – was tryin' to defy him. He'd already got your dad picked out as his heir an' he wasn't lettin' anyone put 'crazy ideas' into his head."
The more Phi heard about her great-grandfather, the less she liked him.
'Course, by then, your dad had already got them ideas – I reckon he'd had 'em ever since he helped Marie move house. It's only a little thing, I know, but it was the first time they'd really been alone. See, Marie was engaged to Laurie Ivan, so she was always with his best friend. But that day...well, it was throwin' it down-"
"You were there?" she asked, startled.
He nodded. "Marie's family didn't mind me. They were my friends before Aurora, an' they wouldn't let someone like Alwyn tell 'em who to see. Well, yeah, it was chuckin' it down with rain, an' your mother was drippin' wet, all that ridiculous make-up she used to wear was gone and you could just see it in his face when he looked at her."
There was an intensity to his voice she couldn't identify. "See what?"
"That he was seein' her as more than their prophetess – more than a girl who'd tell him how to live, more than the celebrity who got paraded in front of 'em every so often. She didn't have many friends, your mother, not with Alwyn treatin' her like a museum piece, keepin' her away from everyone."
He gave a heavy sigh. "An' well, that changed it all. Not at once, but suddenly you'd go into a café an' they'd be there, havin' an argument about some book. Or you'd find 'em out walkin', an' there'd be somethin' about 'em...always made me think they'd be holdin' hands if they thought they could. Jess told me that they never took much notice of each other in front of the pod, but the fact that your dad was Alwyn's heir an' Marie was the seer - well, it gave 'em an excuse, you know?"
"But...why was that so bad?" She spread her hands. "I mean, surely that was good for the pod."
"Not in Alwyn's eyes. He was the one who decided Marie should marry Laurie Ivan. See, the Ivans were some of his strongest supporters, but Marie's parents were against the changes. He wanted to get her away from bad influences. Your dad – well, Alwyn thought he could keep him sweet by letting him have some choice, and at the time, he'd decided he'd like to grow old with Michelle Thelassoe."
She leaned forward. "But I still don't see why there was such a huge furore. Why's it taboo?"
He stared at her and a slow realisation passed over his face. When he spoke, his tone was very gentle, and she didn't understand why, only that it worried her. "Because all those marriages were sealed under blood-oath. And your parents broke it."
Still, it meant nothing to her. In fact, if it had been broken before, why was such it a big deal for her to break it again? If her parents, of all people, had discarded such a vow-
"Maybe I'm just being dumb, but I don't understand what that has to do with it."
The werewolf scrubbed at his hair. "I don't know how to deal with this," he muttered, more to himself than her. For a moment there was silence, then he said simply, "Why do you think you don't have any grandparents?"
"They're dead," she said. "They died before I was-"
And then it hit her.
Disbelief was her first reaction; disbelief, followed by a slow subsuming horror. She could only stare at him, willing the words to take on different meaning, but the pity in his eyes was terrible confirmation.
And suddenly a dozen things made sense. Why so many of the elderly treated her like she was their grandchild. Why no one ever spoke of her parents' marriage. Why the rift between Laurence Ivan and her mother had never been – could never be – mended...except, perhaps, by another oath and another marriage. Why her parents threw themselves so completely into every aspect of the pod.
"No," she whispered, but the denial wouldn't stick. She could feel her naivety crumbling around her, feel her confidence eroding like sand under waves. She had to know, one way or another, and so she met his eyes. "Did they really do it? Because my parents broke blood-oath?"
He nodded, and she thought she felt part of her heart shatter. "The pod killed your grandparents."
I prayed that he would finish,
But he just kept right on...
strumming my pain with his fingers,
Telling my whole life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song.
X - X - X - X - X