My thanks all the lovely angels of you who commented last time round :-) Sorry this took a while; I've been ill. (Fun.) Thanks to:
Meg: Chatoya is probably up to coping with what she saw; Lisa, I think not :-) Yes, they don't have an easy time of it! Thanks!
Kitty Katt: I have to stop somewhere! And that was it :-) Thanks everso!
Baloo: This is the downside of posting the sequel up first :-) Blue won't get everything his own way - but then again, neither will Toya. Merci beaucoup!
Rain: The significance of the slashes comes in a couple of chapters (and it is significant.) She was so - intent on getting after Blue that she basically used her magick like a bettering ram and prised the gates apart. Thanks muchly - I hope you enjoy!
OnkloudNyne: If you've run out of praise go for criticism! I am not averse to it. I've been told cliffhangers are one of my worst and most irritating habits, but I really can't help it :-) Thank you for all the compliments - I'm knocked out!
Spellcial: Can anyone stop Blue when he has his mind set on something? For me, this is posting pretty soon! Alas, Heath Ledger's DNA is proving elusive ::mutters darkly:: Maybe I'll aim for Orlando Bloom's next... Thanks!
Comments are very muchly loved, criticism is equally adored. I hope you enjoy reading!
Ki
Shimmer Part Fourteen
No time.
Chatoya was running with loping steps that tore away the distance between her and the two people she was focused on. She could sense them in her minds like gnats, far away and humming with energy.
She was powerful. More powerful than she had ever been before, with magick not a distant pool of water as it had always been, but a leaping fire that was crackling under her skin, just waiting for her to tame it. So powerful and yet unable to move any faster, to reach those people who were so important.
She wasn't even sure why. There had been a time when everything had been certain and she had known why people were important, why everything *mattered*. However...now, something had gone and she wasn't sure quite what, but suddenly there didn't seem to be anything to do except watch the world spin by.
She had seen the boy who was her soulmate and she had known what he knew and understood what it was that had drawn her to him. He, too, had no cares, no duty to follow the morals, the workings of society.
But she wouldn't let him hurt Sonj Jameson just because her blood wasn't pure. That wasn't his concern. And Sonj had helped her, had kept her alive when her soulmate had tried to kill her. Chatoya *owed* Sonj and now she would pay the debt.
Speed. She needed to move faster. She reached for the magick and ignored the way it burned her. The spell seemed engrained in her head; she was murmuring the syllables of it before she even knew and then the trees and buildings at the roadside began to fly by. There was pain on her feet; she knew the road would cut her shoes and eventually her feet to ribbons but that didn't matter. There was only one thing left that mattered.
After that was gone, she wasn't sure what - or who - would remain.
* * * *
"This is not good," Cougar Redfern hissed in typical understatement as he, Jepar and Lisa ran through the corridors. "My little brother almost *killed* Toya last time and this time, he'll finish the job. His idea of mercy is leaving all internal organs in neat piles. She'll save Sonj and he'll kill her."
"And where's her goddamn ghost-twin with the reassurance this time?" Jepar's eyes glittered fiercely.
The three of them made a formidable sight; Cougar with his dark hair and eyes like amber mixed with gold, unbelievably inhuman and not caring at all. Jepar, striding sinuously, his hair moving as if an invisible wind brushed it, looking as though a tail should be lashing from side to side. Lisa's mouth drawn tight and her skin glowing as though the sun beat down on it, her feet snapping on the floor viciously.
"From what I know about ghosts - and I've met a fair few," the girl said tightly, "they're on a limited timetable. Josh is what we call a wreccan, a ghost bound to someone else by a close link, usually twins or triplets. They have from the time they died until dawn to walk on the mortal plane. After that, they belong to wherever the dead go."
"So no eerie help until evening?" Cougar kicked a door open ferociously. "Great. We're on our own."
"So's Sonj," Lisa said and that shut them all up.
* * * *
Here. Finally.
The door was shut neatly. And what lay behind would come leaping out at her like a tiger. This was where it stopped being a dream she was living. This was when reality came crashing out like a hurricane.
Through the hallway, barely noticing the glass that lay smashed on the floor and the pain that flared in her feet. Out into the kitchen, to the open doorway and seeing the figure lying there, pathetic and limp.
Blood. There was so much of it that it looked as if someone had hurled a red, clinging cloth over Sonj, as if she had been bathed in rose petals. That crown of sleek, fiery hair was tumbled beneath her, blazing against the ice of her skin. Fire and ice.
In Chatoya's head, pain leapt like a tiger raking its claws across her. It was so intense she fell, grabbing at the doorframe to keep upright and gasping as her nails snapped. Icy-cold detachment vanished and she was blazing with emotion before the spell leapt up like a wall of stone shielding her from the awful reality.
Except for that treacherous thought that pounded on her head like a macabre bass beat.
Sonj is dead.
He killed her.
It's my fault.
And then Chatoya was stumbling forwards, the pain in her head so intense she could barely think, crushing her like the weight of the ocean and threatening to spill and shatter at any moment. She knelt down beside the girl and all she could think were stupid, incoherent things that didn't make any sense.
Blood roses, dozens of tiny roses still blooming on that pale white skin. Blood roses pushing at Chatoya's temples, thorns stabbing at her head until all she could see was red, red flowing, red burning, red drowning and choking.
You killed her, she hurled at a boy whose eyes blazed like alien skies, whose heart held only shadows. You killed her and I will kill you for it. I will watch you die, I will hear you scream and I will do as you did.
I will stand back and laugh while you suffer.
"I'm so sorry," she said gently. "I'm so sorry I wasn't strong enough. I should never have run from him." There would be no answer. No redemption, no justice. But there was.
"Don't..." A rasp. Half choking, death rattling in the voice like a snake coiled to strike.
She stared. Oh Goddess. She was alive. Still alive under all that blood, under gaping gashes that bled as if she had been mauled by some raging predator, clinging on though her life lay around in a spreading pool.
"Sonj?" she managed to say, hearing a high wheeze in her voice, the pain in her head so terrible that her hands had clawed and a high siren shriek sliced through her thoughts, a keen razor.
"It hurts." A plaintive sigh, soft as the brush of a butterfly's wing.
"I know." But she didn't. She couldn't imagine. "If you wait, I can get the others. They can change you." It was a falsehood. Nothing could save her. Not vampire blood, not magick, not even the gods themselves.
"Don't lie." That one eye looked up at her, a slender rim of silver around a vast pupil, as if the shadows had fallen into her gaze and waiting to flow out and swallow her whole. But that wasn't the worst of it.
Fear lay over her face like a moth's wing, ghastly, gripping horror that writhed and fought with death.
Not the strong, brash girl that Chatoya knew, who loved the thrill of the fight, whose mind was skewed and yet somehow filled with generosity and hope. Who had been rejected by life because she wasn't perfect, and who had managed to find perfection in someone else.
Just a frightened child, really. Tiny and piteous, ice and fire on blood and grass.
"Will you...do something?" Sonj's voice fading so she had to lean close, so close she could smell blood.
"Of course," she said tightly through the horrible clawed hands that gripped at her head.
Josh's words flicked through her head. ~ Spells like that don't stop emotion. It's just like putting a dam in your mind. Everything builds up...and someday, it'll snap. ~
And it was snapping and it was more horrible than she could imagine. The force of the emotions shook her so she could barely concentrate on the real world. Emotions slapped at her like tidal waves until she wasn't sure what she feeling; gripped by irrational anger, by grief so intense it broke her heart, by guilt and sorrow, by everything she should have felt but hadn't.
She pushed them back one last time, her jagged remnants of nails digging into her palms. She was not important now. Listening to Sonj was, holding her breath to catch those soft, dying words.
"In the kitchen...there's a knife."
The words sank in slowly. And Chatoya stared at her, shaking her head frantically. "I can't...no, I can't...please don't make me do that. It's not fair, *it's not fair*!"
A sudden flare of strength in Sonj's words, almost anger. "You have to. You owe me that. Please. It hurts so much." She was crying now though the tears pooled uselessly around her eyes until they overflowed down her face. "I just want it to stop. Please, make it stop."
She stared down at that piteous face. Yes, he had done it cleverly. He had hurt her so much, but her death would not be quick.
It would not be slow.
It was easy to find the knife. It was easy to kneel down by that still body. It was unspeakably painful to look into those eyes that were still aware through all of it. That was the worst of it. That she had known everything he did to her.
~ You're not a killer, ~ he had told her once. She had replied she would kill if she had to. Now she had to.
"Goddess take your soul," she whispered. "May you cross the Bridge of Swords safely to the other side. Wait for us there. I promise you'll see us all again."
"I'll wait." Soft sigh. "Tell them...tell them I'm sorry. Tell him..." Those long eyelashes covered the dying eyes and when they lifted again, Sonj's one clear eye glittered like a falling star. A star that would burn out soon and fade into the night. "Don't tell him I love him. I don't want to hurt him."
"I..." Could she do that to Rob Slivan? Pretend that for Sonj, it had all been a game. "I promise."
One final question from the voice that was wavering with pain, from the girl who seemed nothing more than a child now. A child, Chatoya thought, sickened. A girl who had loved roses and romance and whose only crime had been the wrong parents.
"Will it hurt?"
"Not for long," she promised. "Please, if you see my parents, tell them I'll see them soon. And don't be afraid. No one will hurt you now."
She remembered how it had felt when she had realised she had power over Eleanor Saxoine. Now she held someone's *life* in her hands, surely the greatest power of all. But she didn't want it.
She did what she had to.
She waited until she saw Sonj's soul fly from her eyes to cross the Bridge of Swords, to join the other people who waited there. Her parents, her brother. Maybe Sonj's own family. People she would never touch again in this world where she walked alone.
"Goddess grant us mercy," she whispered into the warm air while the summer morning played out and the blood dawn took its sacrifice. "No one else will."
She hadn't known Sonj was a friend. She hadn't known she was family. And now someone had taken her family away from her for a second time.
She knew what she had to do.
Another falling star in the heavens. Burn bright, burn fast because nothing lasts.
* * * *
"Looking for someone?" They were halfway up the road when the voice stopped them.
Lisa looked over. Blue was lying lazily on someone's wall, hands linked behind his head. "What have you done?" she hissed, remembering what it had been like to feel that horrible love of killing, to hold everything around you in contempt.
"Done?" He sat up, looking amused. "My dear vampire-"
"I am not your dear *anything*. I am however, your elder and better."
"Well, that's not exactly difficult, is it?" the lamia boy said and yawned. "You should stop taking life so seriously. *I* certainly don't." Those endless eyes were watching their reactions with distant interest. "But if you want to help your half-breed friend, you'd best hurry. The time is running away from her."
Lisa was torn. She wanted to stay and rip this boy to shreds. But Sonj was more important. His death or her life. No comparison. "I hope the demons eat your soul," she hissed, reverting to her old childhood curses.
And through all the chaos that followed, through the curtains of fire and grey grief, she thought she would always hear that lovely, melodious laughter following them down the road as they ran.
"Too late, my dear, too late."
* * * *
Step after step through sleeting grey mists that were thick and damp.
At first there was light above, a gigantic web of sparkling lights that stretched as far as she could see. Then one by one, those light snapped out, plunging her deeper and closer into darkness.
Until there was one dim thread of light that lit the way. One way. She hesitated. What if it was a trap?
The mists thickened around her. Why would it be a trap? She didn't even know where she was.
The light flickered, beginning to fade and hastily she followed it. Behind her, the darkness closed in, chasing her.
The pain drew away with every step, thudding hollowly on the stone. Several times she slipped and felt blood spring from new grazes, but she pulled herself up again and carried on walking forward. Voices called her forwards, crying out her name.
And then the mists drew back and she saw the bridge.
It stretched across an abyss darker than the night; as if the shadows of all time had gathered there and it moved unnaturally, rippling sometimes like an ocean and at others as if hands pushed up the darkness. Now came other sounds; dreadful, mewling wails that could come from nothing living.
The bridge lay across the dark, a path of swords laid side by side with hilts interlocking and glowing with a humid sheen. The mists welled all around it and from the other side were those voices that she had missed so desperately, the people who she had so often thought she saw and it had been a mere illusion.
She had to go to them.
And as she set foot on that first sword, the blades cut her feet. But she bit her lip and stepped forward again, the darkness swaying below and waiting to catch her should she falter. And though the way was painful, with each step, she felt the lesions on her body heal and in her left eye, lights began to glimmer.
The voices grew until she could understand the words that they were saying.
They had been waiting so long for her. So many years while she stumbled through the world, lost without them and always so afraid. Always pretending.
That last step and vision flooded into her left eye until she could see again. All the pain was gone and as people stepped forward, she should see the one she loved above all. She ran, across the slick stone and into her waiting arms, looking into eyes as silver as her own and a sweet, affectionate smile that would never be taken from her again.
"Oh Mama," Sonj whispered, smelling the sent of roses her mother always wore. "I missed you so much."
* * * *
...I know how to find you now...
Chatoya didn't move from where she was kneeling, her black hair hiding her from the world like a shroud. Above her, clouds began to gather and spread across the sky, a crow's wing unfolding.
...I am coming for you. And you do not even know it...
Call on that magick, that beautiful crackling black fire. Twist it into a tight lethal arrow that is tuned to your target. Force the unbearable pain into power you can use.
...But you will know. You will know when you see me. And you will see blood-roses before you die. Hundreds of them, blood-roses that grow from you...
Fire the arrow, feel it fly through the air and widen, change until it is a shrieking black dragon bearing down on the one it hungers for. Magick, seeking and shrieking until the screaming is filling your head and you are no longer sure whether you control the magick or it controls you.
The dragon pounces and in the clean black sheen of its scales, you see an image.
A boy, walking.
A boy, smiling. Wistful eyes like the sky being born, lean hands swathed in cloying, clinging scarlet.
...and you will hear me laughing. It will be the last thing you hear...
Feet swishing silently through long grass and wild green. Walking on ghost roads, walking out of the sunlight and into the shadows.
...because I know now that you were right. I am just a mirror...
Movements stealthy and fluid, a predator darting through the jungle. Other shadows drawing close to him, only bright eyes and glinting triangles of teeth showing. Shadows turning away from him, afraid.
...but I am no ordinary mirror...
His steps picking up pace, the curve of that proud mouth altering as his own teeth glint. And those eyes, big and dark and eternally blue, changing, filling with fire. Above him, thunder crashes across the sky.
...because you see, you changed me. Now...
Gold swelling around the rim of those fathomless pupils, growing and spreading until the blue is hidden under reams of molten honey spilling out from the hunter that surfaces within him.
...I...
Trees rustling agitatedly as he pushes past, hands sliding to haul that lithe body up through the tree branches, melting into the dark as if it is his own. The first drops of rain clatter on the leaves.
...am...
Empty space, nothing for him to pounce upon. But still that lean frame leans forward, poised.
...just...
He leaps, smooth and swift as an eagle swooping. Leaps at one of those shadows that slid away from him, his mouth hooking into that tiny, satisfied smile before his fangs slide out.
...a broken mirror...
He strikes.
The dragon disappears within him and you release the spell, a faint tingling in your head leading you to him, leading you to the signature of that black magick.
Chatoya stood up, following that thread of magick through the minotaur's maze of buildings and nature. Step after silent, certain step. Towards the boy with the killer's eyes.
She was angry and she had a dragon's magick in her hands.
From the depths of the clouds, lightning seared.
Broken mirrors are *sharp*.
* * * *
Thanks for reading - I'd love if you'd tell me what you think!
Meg: Chatoya is probably up to coping with what she saw; Lisa, I think not :-) Yes, they don't have an easy time of it! Thanks!
Kitty Katt: I have to stop somewhere! And that was it :-) Thanks everso!
Baloo: This is the downside of posting the sequel up first :-) Blue won't get everything his own way - but then again, neither will Toya. Merci beaucoup!
Rain: The significance of the slashes comes in a couple of chapters (and it is significant.) She was so - intent on getting after Blue that she basically used her magick like a bettering ram and prised the gates apart. Thanks muchly - I hope you enjoy!
OnkloudNyne: If you've run out of praise go for criticism! I am not averse to it. I've been told cliffhangers are one of my worst and most irritating habits, but I really can't help it :-) Thank you for all the compliments - I'm knocked out!
Spellcial: Can anyone stop Blue when he has his mind set on something? For me, this is posting pretty soon! Alas, Heath Ledger's DNA is proving elusive ::mutters darkly:: Maybe I'll aim for Orlando Bloom's next... Thanks!
Comments are very muchly loved, criticism is equally adored. I hope you enjoy reading!
Ki
Shimmer Part Fourteen
No time.
Chatoya was running with loping steps that tore away the distance between her and the two people she was focused on. She could sense them in her minds like gnats, far away and humming with energy.
She was powerful. More powerful than she had ever been before, with magick not a distant pool of water as it had always been, but a leaping fire that was crackling under her skin, just waiting for her to tame it. So powerful and yet unable to move any faster, to reach those people who were so important.
She wasn't even sure why. There had been a time when everything had been certain and she had known why people were important, why everything *mattered*. However...now, something had gone and she wasn't sure quite what, but suddenly there didn't seem to be anything to do except watch the world spin by.
She had seen the boy who was her soulmate and she had known what he knew and understood what it was that had drawn her to him. He, too, had no cares, no duty to follow the morals, the workings of society.
But she wouldn't let him hurt Sonj Jameson just because her blood wasn't pure. That wasn't his concern. And Sonj had helped her, had kept her alive when her soulmate had tried to kill her. Chatoya *owed* Sonj and now she would pay the debt.
Speed. She needed to move faster. She reached for the magick and ignored the way it burned her. The spell seemed engrained in her head; she was murmuring the syllables of it before she even knew and then the trees and buildings at the roadside began to fly by. There was pain on her feet; she knew the road would cut her shoes and eventually her feet to ribbons but that didn't matter. There was only one thing left that mattered.
After that was gone, she wasn't sure what - or who - would remain.
* * * *
"This is not good," Cougar Redfern hissed in typical understatement as he, Jepar and Lisa ran through the corridors. "My little brother almost *killed* Toya last time and this time, he'll finish the job. His idea of mercy is leaving all internal organs in neat piles. She'll save Sonj and he'll kill her."
"And where's her goddamn ghost-twin with the reassurance this time?" Jepar's eyes glittered fiercely.
The three of them made a formidable sight; Cougar with his dark hair and eyes like amber mixed with gold, unbelievably inhuman and not caring at all. Jepar, striding sinuously, his hair moving as if an invisible wind brushed it, looking as though a tail should be lashing from side to side. Lisa's mouth drawn tight and her skin glowing as though the sun beat down on it, her feet snapping on the floor viciously.
"From what I know about ghosts - and I've met a fair few," the girl said tightly, "they're on a limited timetable. Josh is what we call a wreccan, a ghost bound to someone else by a close link, usually twins or triplets. They have from the time they died until dawn to walk on the mortal plane. After that, they belong to wherever the dead go."
"So no eerie help until evening?" Cougar kicked a door open ferociously. "Great. We're on our own."
"So's Sonj," Lisa said and that shut them all up.
* * * *
Here. Finally.
The door was shut neatly. And what lay behind would come leaping out at her like a tiger. This was where it stopped being a dream she was living. This was when reality came crashing out like a hurricane.
Through the hallway, barely noticing the glass that lay smashed on the floor and the pain that flared in her feet. Out into the kitchen, to the open doorway and seeing the figure lying there, pathetic and limp.
Blood. There was so much of it that it looked as if someone had hurled a red, clinging cloth over Sonj, as if she had been bathed in rose petals. That crown of sleek, fiery hair was tumbled beneath her, blazing against the ice of her skin. Fire and ice.
In Chatoya's head, pain leapt like a tiger raking its claws across her. It was so intense she fell, grabbing at the doorframe to keep upright and gasping as her nails snapped. Icy-cold detachment vanished and she was blazing with emotion before the spell leapt up like a wall of stone shielding her from the awful reality.
Except for that treacherous thought that pounded on her head like a macabre bass beat.
Sonj is dead.
He killed her.
It's my fault.
And then Chatoya was stumbling forwards, the pain in her head so intense she could barely think, crushing her like the weight of the ocean and threatening to spill and shatter at any moment. She knelt down beside the girl and all she could think were stupid, incoherent things that didn't make any sense.
Blood roses, dozens of tiny roses still blooming on that pale white skin. Blood roses pushing at Chatoya's temples, thorns stabbing at her head until all she could see was red, red flowing, red burning, red drowning and choking.
You killed her, she hurled at a boy whose eyes blazed like alien skies, whose heart held only shadows. You killed her and I will kill you for it. I will watch you die, I will hear you scream and I will do as you did.
I will stand back and laugh while you suffer.
"I'm so sorry," she said gently. "I'm so sorry I wasn't strong enough. I should never have run from him." There would be no answer. No redemption, no justice. But there was.
"Don't..." A rasp. Half choking, death rattling in the voice like a snake coiled to strike.
She stared. Oh Goddess. She was alive. Still alive under all that blood, under gaping gashes that bled as if she had been mauled by some raging predator, clinging on though her life lay around in a spreading pool.
"Sonj?" she managed to say, hearing a high wheeze in her voice, the pain in her head so terrible that her hands had clawed and a high siren shriek sliced through her thoughts, a keen razor.
"It hurts." A plaintive sigh, soft as the brush of a butterfly's wing.
"I know." But she didn't. She couldn't imagine. "If you wait, I can get the others. They can change you." It was a falsehood. Nothing could save her. Not vampire blood, not magick, not even the gods themselves.
"Don't lie." That one eye looked up at her, a slender rim of silver around a vast pupil, as if the shadows had fallen into her gaze and waiting to flow out and swallow her whole. But that wasn't the worst of it.
Fear lay over her face like a moth's wing, ghastly, gripping horror that writhed and fought with death.
Not the strong, brash girl that Chatoya knew, who loved the thrill of the fight, whose mind was skewed and yet somehow filled with generosity and hope. Who had been rejected by life because she wasn't perfect, and who had managed to find perfection in someone else.
Just a frightened child, really. Tiny and piteous, ice and fire on blood and grass.
"Will you...do something?" Sonj's voice fading so she had to lean close, so close she could smell blood.
"Of course," she said tightly through the horrible clawed hands that gripped at her head.
Josh's words flicked through her head. ~ Spells like that don't stop emotion. It's just like putting a dam in your mind. Everything builds up...and someday, it'll snap. ~
And it was snapping and it was more horrible than she could imagine. The force of the emotions shook her so she could barely concentrate on the real world. Emotions slapped at her like tidal waves until she wasn't sure what she feeling; gripped by irrational anger, by grief so intense it broke her heart, by guilt and sorrow, by everything she should have felt but hadn't.
She pushed them back one last time, her jagged remnants of nails digging into her palms. She was not important now. Listening to Sonj was, holding her breath to catch those soft, dying words.
"In the kitchen...there's a knife."
The words sank in slowly. And Chatoya stared at her, shaking her head frantically. "I can't...no, I can't...please don't make me do that. It's not fair, *it's not fair*!"
A sudden flare of strength in Sonj's words, almost anger. "You have to. You owe me that. Please. It hurts so much." She was crying now though the tears pooled uselessly around her eyes until they overflowed down her face. "I just want it to stop. Please, make it stop."
She stared down at that piteous face. Yes, he had done it cleverly. He had hurt her so much, but her death would not be quick.
It would not be slow.
It was easy to find the knife. It was easy to kneel down by that still body. It was unspeakably painful to look into those eyes that were still aware through all of it. That was the worst of it. That she had known everything he did to her.
~ You're not a killer, ~ he had told her once. She had replied she would kill if she had to. Now she had to.
"Goddess take your soul," she whispered. "May you cross the Bridge of Swords safely to the other side. Wait for us there. I promise you'll see us all again."
"I'll wait." Soft sigh. "Tell them...tell them I'm sorry. Tell him..." Those long eyelashes covered the dying eyes and when they lifted again, Sonj's one clear eye glittered like a falling star. A star that would burn out soon and fade into the night. "Don't tell him I love him. I don't want to hurt him."
"I..." Could she do that to Rob Slivan? Pretend that for Sonj, it had all been a game. "I promise."
One final question from the voice that was wavering with pain, from the girl who seemed nothing more than a child now. A child, Chatoya thought, sickened. A girl who had loved roses and romance and whose only crime had been the wrong parents.
"Will it hurt?"
"Not for long," she promised. "Please, if you see my parents, tell them I'll see them soon. And don't be afraid. No one will hurt you now."
She remembered how it had felt when she had realised she had power over Eleanor Saxoine. Now she held someone's *life* in her hands, surely the greatest power of all. But she didn't want it.
She did what she had to.
She waited until she saw Sonj's soul fly from her eyes to cross the Bridge of Swords, to join the other people who waited there. Her parents, her brother. Maybe Sonj's own family. People she would never touch again in this world where she walked alone.
"Goddess grant us mercy," she whispered into the warm air while the summer morning played out and the blood dawn took its sacrifice. "No one else will."
She hadn't known Sonj was a friend. She hadn't known she was family. And now someone had taken her family away from her for a second time.
She knew what she had to do.
Another falling star in the heavens. Burn bright, burn fast because nothing lasts.
* * * *
"Looking for someone?" They were halfway up the road when the voice stopped them.
Lisa looked over. Blue was lying lazily on someone's wall, hands linked behind his head. "What have you done?" she hissed, remembering what it had been like to feel that horrible love of killing, to hold everything around you in contempt.
"Done?" He sat up, looking amused. "My dear vampire-"
"I am not your dear *anything*. I am however, your elder and better."
"Well, that's not exactly difficult, is it?" the lamia boy said and yawned. "You should stop taking life so seriously. *I* certainly don't." Those endless eyes were watching their reactions with distant interest. "But if you want to help your half-breed friend, you'd best hurry. The time is running away from her."
Lisa was torn. She wanted to stay and rip this boy to shreds. But Sonj was more important. His death or her life. No comparison. "I hope the demons eat your soul," she hissed, reverting to her old childhood curses.
And through all the chaos that followed, through the curtains of fire and grey grief, she thought she would always hear that lovely, melodious laughter following them down the road as they ran.
"Too late, my dear, too late."
* * * *
Step after step through sleeting grey mists that were thick and damp.
At first there was light above, a gigantic web of sparkling lights that stretched as far as she could see. Then one by one, those light snapped out, plunging her deeper and closer into darkness.
Until there was one dim thread of light that lit the way. One way. She hesitated. What if it was a trap?
The mists thickened around her. Why would it be a trap? She didn't even know where she was.
The light flickered, beginning to fade and hastily she followed it. Behind her, the darkness closed in, chasing her.
The pain drew away with every step, thudding hollowly on the stone. Several times she slipped and felt blood spring from new grazes, but she pulled herself up again and carried on walking forward. Voices called her forwards, crying out her name.
And then the mists drew back and she saw the bridge.
It stretched across an abyss darker than the night; as if the shadows of all time had gathered there and it moved unnaturally, rippling sometimes like an ocean and at others as if hands pushed up the darkness. Now came other sounds; dreadful, mewling wails that could come from nothing living.
The bridge lay across the dark, a path of swords laid side by side with hilts interlocking and glowing with a humid sheen. The mists welled all around it and from the other side were those voices that she had missed so desperately, the people who she had so often thought she saw and it had been a mere illusion.
She had to go to them.
And as she set foot on that first sword, the blades cut her feet. But she bit her lip and stepped forward again, the darkness swaying below and waiting to catch her should she falter. And though the way was painful, with each step, she felt the lesions on her body heal and in her left eye, lights began to glimmer.
The voices grew until she could understand the words that they were saying.
They had been waiting so long for her. So many years while she stumbled through the world, lost without them and always so afraid. Always pretending.
That last step and vision flooded into her left eye until she could see again. All the pain was gone and as people stepped forward, she should see the one she loved above all. She ran, across the slick stone and into her waiting arms, looking into eyes as silver as her own and a sweet, affectionate smile that would never be taken from her again.
"Oh Mama," Sonj whispered, smelling the sent of roses her mother always wore. "I missed you so much."
* * * *
...I know how to find you now...
Chatoya didn't move from where she was kneeling, her black hair hiding her from the world like a shroud. Above her, clouds began to gather and spread across the sky, a crow's wing unfolding.
...I am coming for you. And you do not even know it...
Call on that magick, that beautiful crackling black fire. Twist it into a tight lethal arrow that is tuned to your target. Force the unbearable pain into power you can use.
...But you will know. You will know when you see me. And you will see blood-roses before you die. Hundreds of them, blood-roses that grow from you...
Fire the arrow, feel it fly through the air and widen, change until it is a shrieking black dragon bearing down on the one it hungers for. Magick, seeking and shrieking until the screaming is filling your head and you are no longer sure whether you control the magick or it controls you.
The dragon pounces and in the clean black sheen of its scales, you see an image.
A boy, walking.
A boy, smiling. Wistful eyes like the sky being born, lean hands swathed in cloying, clinging scarlet.
...and you will hear me laughing. It will be the last thing you hear...
Feet swishing silently through long grass and wild green. Walking on ghost roads, walking out of the sunlight and into the shadows.
...because I know now that you were right. I am just a mirror...
Movements stealthy and fluid, a predator darting through the jungle. Other shadows drawing close to him, only bright eyes and glinting triangles of teeth showing. Shadows turning away from him, afraid.
...but I am no ordinary mirror...
His steps picking up pace, the curve of that proud mouth altering as his own teeth glint. And those eyes, big and dark and eternally blue, changing, filling with fire. Above him, thunder crashes across the sky.
...because you see, you changed me. Now...
Gold swelling around the rim of those fathomless pupils, growing and spreading until the blue is hidden under reams of molten honey spilling out from the hunter that surfaces within him.
...I...
Trees rustling agitatedly as he pushes past, hands sliding to haul that lithe body up through the tree branches, melting into the dark as if it is his own. The first drops of rain clatter on the leaves.
...am...
Empty space, nothing for him to pounce upon. But still that lean frame leans forward, poised.
...just...
He leaps, smooth and swift as an eagle swooping. Leaps at one of those shadows that slid away from him, his mouth hooking into that tiny, satisfied smile before his fangs slide out.
...a broken mirror...
He strikes.
The dragon disappears within him and you release the spell, a faint tingling in your head leading you to him, leading you to the signature of that black magick.
Chatoya stood up, following that thread of magick through the minotaur's maze of buildings and nature. Step after silent, certain step. Towards the boy with the killer's eyes.
She was angry and she had a dragon's magick in her hands.
From the depths of the clouds, lightning seared.
Broken mirrors are *sharp*.
* * * *
Thanks for reading - I'd love if you'd tell me what you think!