Thank you to the lovely, lovely people who commented on the first part ::beams:: You made my day! Thanks Water Angel (Hi! I didn't know you were on here!), Millennia (It is FoF 6…y'all are the first to read it so I'm very nervous!) and Nixa (Thank you so much!) Je t'aime, je t'adore…
I would love, love, love and fervently worship any reviews/comments/criticisms, almost as much as I worship the people who comment. :-)
Kiana
Nightmaze Part Two
He didn't see the wolf until it leapt at him, teeth bared to snap down.
Cern Akafren was beginning to regret being a witch. So far, all it had brought him was a lot of trouble with the Elders of Ryars Valley. And round here, the Elders' idea of punishment ran along the lines of death, execution or loss of life. Which one you chose was up to you.
It had started quite harmlessly. With Cougar Redfern, obnoxious vampire extraordinaire, making the idle comment that if witches were any use, they wouldn't be so easy to kill. Cern hadn't been in the best of moods that day and put a speech spell on Cougar in quiet revenge. The vampire had walked around speaking Inuit for the rest of the week.
Needless to say, the Elders soon heard about it – when they found a translator – and the result had been the unpleasant three hour interview and lecture he had just had. By the time he left, he had to walk back while the wolves were out hunting. And just to add to the fun, he had been banned from magick. The Elders had known as well as he did that the wolves didn't care *what* they killed on a hunt night.
He had got about half way back before the trouble really started.
Cern had pushed a branch out of the way. The woods overhung the road, casting spiny shadows. It was a good hunt night; a clear moon with only a few clouds that feathered harmlessly across it. But still...although the howls were far away, he had the uncanny sense that he was being followed.
All the warning he had was a growl and the sound of feet on the ground.
He moved instinctively and felt hot air and the snarl of a wolf in mid-spring flow past him, smooth as thrown water. It landed with a soft thud and he turned, his night vision showing him the sinewy, slinky shape ready to launch itself at him again. He recognised the reddish tinge to the coat at once. Donna Ares, the Pack leader. And here he was with no magick, facing a row of teeth that gleamed silver.
"Donna," he said calmly, knowing better than to show fear. She fed on it. "I have not had a good day."
The wolf's green eyes glowed and sparked as it shapeshifted, then he was staring into the avid eyes of a young woman whose face was as arrogant as her casual stance; one hand on her hip, feet evenly spaced.
"Well, what are you doing in these parts so late?" she inquired, her voice husky and alluring. "I can assure you, your day will only get worse from here onwards."
"Kamikaze mission," he answered cheerfully, relieved she was in human form. "I spelled Cougar, I got punished. You know how it is." He looked at her pointedly. "Aren't you cold?"
See, there was one other thing about Donna Ares that added to her overall air of a mysterious enchantress stepping out of the woods. She had lovely, flawless skin that had a silvery sheen to it. And he could see all of that skin right now.
Donna's sensuous smile danced like light off a ruby, tongue flicking out to moisten her berry lips. "Why don't you come and keep me warm, darling?" she purred. Her eyes glittered a green challenge from under her eyelashes. It was moments like these when he wasn't sure whether to bless or curse his night vision.
"And have your Pack come running as soon as you've got me sufficiently distracted?" drawled Cern. "No thanks, Donna. I've heard about that little trick before."
The enticing expression disappeared as Donna's eyes narrowed. She held her head up, glaring at him, one hand tapping on her stomach edgily. "Pity. I suppose we'll just have to fight it out."
He shrugged. What she didn't know wouldn't hurt her. "Go ahead. I'm brimming with magick tonight. And I'll bet your little gang are just *burning* for another defeat."
Fury turned her gaze a bright blazing red for a second. Her leg twitched convulsively and Cern couldn't help but smile, though he kept it hidden. She was so predictable. Donna's hold over the Pack was precarious and he guessed she was too fond of her respect and power to throw it away on a witch.
"We'll discuss this another time," she said finally. Her teeth were gritted. "And then it will be between you and me, Akafren."
"I'll bring the wine," he offered. "You just bring your charming self, Donna."
As she glared, fingers hooked into claws, he held her gaze. Unafraid. He had won now, they both knew that. Then Donna was gone and he was left alone with the wind sighing around his ears.
And that, he thought, was the end of it.
* * * *
Now he stared as the unfamiliar girl ran towards him, her face ashen with panic. He was only a half-mile or so from the home he shared with a shapeshifter and a human friend. But it was far enough, obviously.
She stopped, almost falling forward. Long legged, with pale eyes that were full of emotions he couldn't quite qualify. There was fear, relief and maybe excitement too. Then her face was hidden as she leant forward, breathing hard. Where had she come from? She *couldn't* have been walking in the woods. That was pure insanity.
"Are you okay?"
He reached towards her, intending to heal the cuts and bruises she sported. Not running for pleasure, but the wild uncontrolled flight of someone afraid and hunted. His mind was working fast.
There was something out there this girl wanted to run from. And he realised with a jolt that he couldn't hear the howls of the Pack anymore. Just the silence, and the girl's breath like the rhythm of feet on grass.
She hit his hand away, plastered with mud that clung to her in a second skin. As she moved, flakes crumpled off from her flesh and from her clothes. She said something, but not in English.
"Can you understand me?" he asked quickly, his voice a knife blade. "Who is chasing you?"
She said something again, then snapped her teeth at him and growled. A perfect imitation. And they were in trouble. Because the wolves wouldn't have forgotten her. Possibly they let her go, to prolong the hunt, or perhaps she *had* managed to outrun them. But with the aroma of the blood from her cuts, they wouldn't have to look too hard.
"We have to go," he said urgently, pointing towards the town. They couldn't see the streetlights from here, bit it wasn't far to go. Five minutes running. "There's people there who can—"
It was then he noticed her gaze had slid over her shoulder, her muddy hands pressed against her mouth. The jade lights seeming to almost float towards them from the inky black of the night.
The eyes of the Pack.
* * * *
"Well," Donna said with a bright, hard smile from where she knelt, hands supporting her. Around her the Pack circled lazily. "Look who it is again! The boy who's been casting forbidden spells. Tut-tut, darling. And do you know what else we heard on the howl?"
"Do enlighten me," Cern drawled. But the look on her face didn't make him feel so good about bluffing his way out. "How would I survive without hearing the flea-bite gossip?"
"They banned you from using your magick for a moon." Her laugh was brittle and hungry, her body leaning towards him like a stone in a catapult. Ready to fly at any moment. "Isn't that interesting?"
"Isn't it just?" he answered evenly. "But I'm sure there's better hunting over the other side of town."
Her teeth flashed, a shimmer of saliva falling from the corner of her lips. "But I told *you* we'd discuss this. And maybe there isn't just you and me, Akafren, but I've always said the more, the merrier."
Her mirth seemed to infect the other wolves who growled and wriggled and flexed muscles, fur gleaming messily, rough and unkempt as Donna's snaking red hair.
"I've never agreed with that." Cern muttered vaguely.
His ears told him that a wolf was strolling behind him, the pat of its paws like raindrops. He turned and calmly slammed a foot into the wolf's ribs. Right where it would do the most damage.
"This food has bite," he said with a careless smile. "Care to find out how much, Donna dear?"
Her eyes were confused. She hadn't expected him to attack like that. Wolves fought fair. And now...he could read the indecision in her eyes. If he would strike when unprovoked, would he break the binding spell the Elders had put on him? He silently dared her to find out.
Then her mouth relaxed in a smirk. "Yes, I think I would."
Her form rippled...and she leapt.
* * * *
It was all chaos for a second.
Then the wolves were springing – some of them at her, Jal saw. Her mind spun briefly, then she was moving, not down, but up, jumping with reflexes she hadn't even known she had. The night air rushed coolly on her face, and she was back on the earth. Out of that lethal, snarling circle.
The wolves turned and one charged her. Aiming for her throat. She waited, knowing that she had to because they were so godscursed *fast* and then slammed a foot up and out. She had never fought, she *was* no fighter, but her body seemed to know what to do. And she let it. The wolf tumbled back, but another was in its place. It leapt and—
Jal's hand slammed out.
She screamed as it bit her, that same stabbing pain that she remembered from years ago and for a terrifying second, she thought she would fall into blackness again, plummeting in blood spirals and her voice shattering into fragments.
But something strange happened. There was a cracking sound, a blaze of fire in the night and the wolf slumped. All the noise and activity stilled.
And the man who stepped forward was grinning in a very nasty way.
* * * *
Cern had been in the midst of kicking and clawing his way out of the Pack, thanking Dragon Tiamat, his shapeshifter friend mentally for all the self-defence lessons, when the shot cut through the air. Suddenly, wolves were falling away from him, the jaws that had closed on his leg releasing as they all turned to look at the person holding the revolver.
Not very old, was Cern's first judgement. Maybe his age. And his second thought; vampire.
The boy was grinning, his fangs showing deliberately. The blue eyes matched the spiky cobalt hair and there was a supercilious, vicious smile as he held the firearm with perfectly steady hands. He reminded Cern of someone, but he couldn't think who. All his attention was concentrated on the gun.
"Why don't you all run home to your kennels?" the boy suggested. Fingernails tapped the barrel of the gun. A metallic, clacking sound. "This thing's loaded with enough bullets to put a large dent in your pack."
One of the wolves shapeshifted abruptly into Donna Ares. She stood up and pushed her fiery hair back as if it irritated her. "Who the hell are you?" she demanded furiously. Eyes blood red.
The stranger didn't balk at the werewolf's sky-clad form but merely raised a critical eyebrow, a lightning bolt in it glinting silver. Cern was shocked to see Donna Ares of all people, flush.
"I think I preferred you with the fur on," the boy commented in a cool, emotionless voice.
Donna grinned but there was no humour in it and her teeth, still far too jagged for a human, glinted. "I think I'd prefer you with your head gone."
"Like her, you mean?" the boy said, his strangely piercing eyes flicking sideways.
Cern turned and saw the girl who had caused all the trouble. And breathed in sharply. Oh *gods*. One of her fingers was missing; bitten clean off.
He faced Donna again and glared back. "Why the hell are you hunting her, Donna?"
"Because she was there, witch boy. What's she to you?"
Question for question as the girl didn't cry, or wail, or do anything but sit with her hand clutched to her and her knees drawn up. Blood was welling around the missing finger and he knew they had to get rid of the Pack and get this girl somewhere safe.
"Nothing. But you know you're not supposed to attack people. And she asked me for help."
Donna rolled her eyes. "Oh, and I bet you had to lend a hand out of the generosity of your heart." She snorted contemptuously. "Pull the other one, Akafren. I bet if she didn't have those big puppy-dog eyes and those long legs you'd have thrown her to the wolves."
"Are you supposed to attack your own kind?" The stranger watched her face carefully, looking for a reaction. Donna had been studiously ignoring him.
"We don't attack wolves," she said now, hands on hips. "We look after our own."
"Why'd you attack her then?" The boy with the spiky blue hair gestured to their prey. The gun stayed locked on Donna though and her mouth curved down with sullen ire.
"She's not..."
But the protest died on Donna's lips as they all turned to stare at the girl. She looked wary and moved away from the Pack leader slightly. Away from the blue-haired stranger, too. And Cern could see what he hadn't noticed before; there *was* the same slinking action to her movements, that spark of wildness in her eyes and the way her lips skinned back slightly to show perfectly normal teeth...but the moment anyone came near, he bet they'd be dealing with a full set of fangs.
"Oh, I think she is," Cern said quietly. "And I think you should be more careful, Donna, or you're going to kill someone who'll matter." He gave her an angelic smile as the Pack snarled in warning. "Why don't you take your hunt somewhere else tonight? Somewhere *far* away."
Her short, blunt fingers twisted in anxiety. "Yeah," she said. He knew what she was thinking; the Pack had attacked one of their own. They had broken even the one rule they kept. And if the Elders heard... "You keep schtum about this, y'hear?"
He pretended to consider it. Come on, Donna. You're going to have to do better than that. "And...?"
"And what? You expecting to get something out of this?"
He chuckled, and the mud-covered girl looked up at him sharply. Maybe she didn't hear laughter very often. "Of course I am. How about a little bit of immunity? For me *and* the Circle – and that includes her," he gestured to the girl and she bared her teeth at him. "Oh and this guy, in case you get any smart ideas about revenge." The stranger raised a sardonic eyebrow and muttered thanks.
Donna stamped her foot, clearly hating the idea. "Fine," she snapped. "But we're even now."
He dared to laugh – at her this time, and could see the headstrong Pack leader storing that away.
"Donna, you will always be odd."
* * * *
The Pack was gone not much later. The depths of night were starting to close in; the hot valley air was cooling now and soon the wind would be chill. But that wasn't what Cern was worried about.
The healer part of him did not like the look of that impromptu amputation at all. It had stopped bleeding as much, mostly due to the fact she had her other hand wrapped tight round the injury, cutting down the blood supply. But the wound still looked very nasty and under the dirt, her skin had gone a chalky colour.
"Come on," he said gently to her. He glanced over at the stranger. "Give me a hand, would you? I don't know if she'll be okay to walk."
"Sure." The vampire threw the gun into a rucksack on his back. "Know her, do you?" The question seemed casual, but there was a cagey note to it that puzzled Cern.
"Never seen her before." They hauled her onto her feet. Close up, the clothes she was wearing were strange. Old-fashioned and made of basic materials that he didn't recognise. The mud coating her was a thick layer; maybe as much as a centimetre on her arms. "Why are you walking the ghost roads this late?"
"The ghost roads?" Almost amusement in that voice, with something barbed beneath it.
"Yeah," he replied as the girl pushed them away irritably, saying something in her language, musical, almost like birdsong. "We call them that because if you walk up them at night, you'll soon be a ghost."
"How quaint." A pause for a few minutes as all three concentrated on walking. Up ahead, the town lights grew brighter. "I'm new in town."
Cern grinned and stopped to grab the girl as she stumbled. She flinched away and then hissed something at him. He guessed it wasn't polite thanks. "I realised. Everyone knows everyone else round here. It's pretty small-town."
"With all the people that have come this way?" The stranger saw the alarmed glance Cern shot at him. "I've...done my research. Your population's about half what it should be."
He shrugged. The girl stumbled again, and this time, when he steadied her, didn't swear or spit at him. "People die a lot. You know they won't let you leave now?"
"They couldn't stop me. And they wouldn't even try."
Cern blinked a little at the boy's arrogance. He obviously didn't know what the Elders here were like. "They'd try all right. And succeed. Once you're here, you stay. Either in town, or in a grave."
The town lights were clear now and as they stepped onto the first illuminated area, the girl sighed in relief. He glanced at her. In the glow, her eyes were a radiant pale green. She gave him the barest smile, but it held a warning. Don't come too close.
"They couldn't stop me." The voice was filled with ice and steel. And Cern believed the boy. " I'll make my visits, and I'll go. I do what I want."
"Visiting? Who?" Jepar Jubatus' house, where Cern was staying since his last house had been blown to shards, was the next street along. There were no house lights on now. Strange things happened when the shadows fell, and people didn't want to see them. "Most here don't have family. Except for the humans."
"My brother. My older brother, to be exact. And I've some...matters that must be sorted out."
Jepar's house was just up ahead. The girl seemed to be listening to them, turning her head from one to the other as if she was deciphering everything, but the pain had made a line in her forehead and her steps seemed to drag more. "We're almost here. Thanks, by the way." He held out a hand. "I'm Cern Akafren."
The vampire accepted and grinned lopsidedly. "Blue Malefici. You'll probably see me around." He looked at the girl and for a brief second, something unpleasant glittered in his eyes. As if he were holding that gun again, dangerous and cold. "*You'll* certainly see me around."
"I hope you find your brother," Cern said politely. He unlocked the door and ushered the girl inside. She gave him a single suspicious glance, but the alertness in her eyes had been overshadowed by a wooziness that alarmed the healer in him. He stepped in and shut the door.
* * * *
As soon as they were gone, the vampire's friendly attitude disappeared. The cobalt eyes became cold, cruel and they seemed to draw in the darkness. His face was thoughtful, but the tiniest hints of an icy smile were turning up his mouth. His brother. Here. But not, hopefully, for long.
The Nightfire Temple had sent him here because of his success last time. Last time. His eyes narrowed fractionally as he ignored the unpleasant memories of his previous trip here. So the girl was awake. And the question was; what did she know of who she was?
Neither the girl or the witchboy saw the vampire's vengeful smile. Or heard his words. "Yes...so do I. I've come to kill him. And the rest of you."
* * * *
