My humblest, deepest thanks to the people who reviewed the last part; thank you so much! I loved hearing what you think! Thank you to: the mysterious :-), the wonderful Water Angel, the magnificent Millennia and the lovely Lisa ~ you're all amazing.
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Nightfire Part Three
As soon as he had shut the door, Cern Akafren looked up to find two pairs of eyes staring at him and the strange, mud-covered girl who was holding her maimed hand in a temporary torquinet. Explaining this one would be fun.
One pair were a deep shade of gold, filled with curiosity and permanent bad temper, belonging to the tall boy with the crow's wing hair whose sullen mouth was curled in a sardonic smile. Cougar Redfern looked every bit the moody, irritating vampire that he was.
He could be cruel, vicious and crabbier than a seaside restaurant, but right now he was in his depressive missing-estranged-soulmate cycle of life and therefore a little more considerate than usual. And also why he was staying at Cern's house while Jepar Jubatus, the house's other inhabitant, had gone to visit friends in Vegas with his soulmate.
The other pair belonged to Thom Ausner. Nothing much surprised Cern's housemate and he just raised an eyebrow in the seen-it-all way of an Old Soul, elbowing Cougar out the way so they could get into the lounge. His hair, so pale that it was almost white, kept falling in his short-sighted eyes.
"Hi," said Cern breezily, watching their reactions. "Guess what...funny story."
Now Cougar's golden eyes widened as he saw the girl's hand, his lips drawing back in a brief, surprised snarl. They were a mess, Cern admitted ruefully as he looked at the girl. A dozen dark clotted scratches that he could see, and probably more hidden under that skin of dirt. The missing finger and frightened eyes.
A few minutes later, they were settled in the lounge with cups of steaming coffee. Black. Strong. Just how coffee should be. The girl eyed hers and didn't take a sip until they all had, curling her good hand protectively round the mug. It was peculiar, as if she'd never seen it.
"Is it human? Is it a golem?" Thom shrugged, mouth curling with distaste. "Who can say?"
"It's a she, for a start," Cern informed him. Thom might be an Old Soul, but that didn't stop him being insensitive as hell at times. "And she's a werewolf. Though she doesn't like shifting much."
"Gods, Akafren," Cougar muttered. He was half-slumped on a chair, his striking face snapping with rare interest. Smoke drifted lazily from the cigarette he was holding. "What did we tell you about picking up strange women?"
"As I recall, bring us some back next time."
The vampire half-smiled. His eyes were on the girl and Cern wondered what the lamia was sensing with his honed senses. "You could have left this pretty thing on the road, Cern. She's wrong."
What? He made her sound like a math problem and Cern stared blankly. "Wrong? What do you mean?"
Shrug. "I don't know. I just have this sense that something's...missing in her somewhere. Broken."
The girl looked from one to the other, the mud cracking in places like crazy paving. He pitied her, alone, unable to understand them. And the fear was plain to see in her face; the way the sound of their voice made her start each time. How if Thom or Cougar leaned forward, she cowered back where she was sitting.
"She doesn't say much, does she?" murmured the lamia. "We don't bite, you know. Well...not right now."
"You're wasting your charm, Cougar," he said wearily. "She doesn't speak a word of English."
"Hmm." The vampire leaned forward, classic features fixed in concentration. "Well, there's some stuff that goes past language barriers." He pointed to Thom, who was talking on the phone and said clearly, "Thom."
She looked at him blankly and he repeated the word. Then he motioned to the witch. "Cern."
She looked at them, then her mouth curved up fractionally. Her teeth were white, clean. Maybe the only part of her that was. "Jallakri."
"See?" Cougar looked smug. "She's called Jallakri. Pretty name, but will the lady be as lovely?"
Cern pointed at Cougar. "Moron." He winked at the girl as the vampire boy scowled.
She looked at him, frosted-apple eyes sharp as icicles. "Moron?" she said questioningly.
It was impossible not to smile at Cougar's enraged glare. "Well, we need something to make us laugh. We can't look at you *all* the time," Cern drawled. He moved fast as a paperweight flew through the air and broke the window.
The girl gasped in shock and fear, staring at the lamia. Her face was white as moonstone.
"You can pay for that," Thom said without looking over from the phone and carried on blithely. "...no, I wasn't talking to you." A pause. "Cougar. Cern was being smart, or maybe I mean stupid—" Cern raised an eyebrow and tapped an empty glass meaningfully. "—on second thoughts, I mean smart. Yeah. See you in a minute. No, you still need to use the door. There wasn't *that* much damage, Cougar's aim is too bad..."
"Are you done mocking me?" Cougar drawled in contrived exasperation. "What did the Elders say, anyway, Cern?" He yawned and stretched, looking like a darkly dangerous panther.
"No magick for a moon." Cern snapped his fingers and added facetiously, "Alakazam. See, nothing."
"Then they sent you back to deal with the lovely Donna and friends?" He cracked his knuckles. Cougar and Donna had had more than one scrap. And she always came out of it worse. "Nice of them."
"Yeah, remind me to ring them and thank them for nearly sending me to an early demise."
"That was Toya. She's coming to heal you two." Thom collapsed onto a chair. "Oh well," he said philosophically. "Could have been worse."
"Really?" Cern said. The teeth marks in his legs *stung*. Not to mention the other cuts. "How?"
A corner of the Old Soul's mouth tipped up. "It could have been me."
* * * *
"You were lucky," was Chatoya Irkil's verdict. Her slender, pale hands were careful as she bandaged Jallakri's mangled hand. "Goddess, Cern, what were you thinking? Taking on the Pack like that."
"She asked me for help," he protested. Toya smiled vaguely as murky green fire sparkled in her palms. Her face sweet and fresh, that of a dryad, though he would never tell her that. "What was I meant to do? Run?"
She sighed and sat back, cloudy swamp eyes placid. "It would have been smarter."
"I thought we'd agreed that I was incurably stupid," Cern said wryly and leaned forward to ruffle the older girl's hair.
"Hey!" She frowned, though there was no anger in it, patting down stray strands "Touch not the hair!"
He gave her a lazy smile. "I'll agree, there are other parts of you I'd far rather touch." She flushed, much to his private amusement.
The wolf-girl had cleaned up very unusual; the mud had turned out to hide a warm bronzed skin and long gold hair that, once freed from its rattails, fell down her back with a slight wave at the ends. Her chin was pointed as a cat's, setting off the pale green eyes that still held a glacial, wary glow to them. It had taken half an hour before they could persuade her to let Toya heal her.
But that wasn't the weirdest thing; Jallakri had a bright red streak that shot down her gilt tresses on the right side. And it hadn't washed out.
"So have you tried to talk to her?" Toya said, accepting some coffee from Cougar with a grateful sigh. She choked and put a hand to her throat. "Gods, Cou, just how Irish *is* this coffee?"
The vampire shrugged morosely. "It's purer than my blood, babe. 'Cause while late nights are my speciality, I figured you set with the sun. And we can't talk to her – the chica doesn't speak English."
"Have you tried telepathy?"
The boys exchanged glances. "No," they chorused.
Toya rolled her eyes, sooty hair flying as she shook her head. "Men!" she muttered, disgusted. "Always got to do it the hard way." She glared. "And stop grinning like that! It was a perfectly innocent comment."
"Well," Cern said, looking at Cougar. He thought the vampire looked older than he ought; the lamia's relationship with his soulmate was coming apart at the seams. "You're our resident telepath."
* * * *
She had been watching them. Their world was so *different*. The house made of material she had never seen before and their looks. As if everyone had bathed in a rainbow river, with different eyes and hair, strange clothes that glowed with intense colours...it was amazing. Dazzling. She was shocked silent.
And then there had been the boy. The blue haired one. Jal shivered. He hadn't smelled good, no, not at all. Her sense of smell had been honed in her years of sleep.
Sleep. That was what she had to call it, wasn't it? But there was no word for the terror and the darkness and how she had fallen for endless years in that place, caged in the depths of her own mind. And she had found it more horrific and cold than the blackest ocean.
But him...her mind kept returning to him, as if pulled by a magnet she could never outmatch. He had smelled of the winter, sharp and fresh but under that, there had been something else. The sickly sweetness of something that was dying and rotting, heady and even a little intoxicating.
He knew me, she thought uneasily. I saw it when he looked at me. But his eyes had held only loathing and an awful blankness. No mercy, no pity, no compassion. Only time stretching out a skeletal hand.
~ Hey, gorgeous. Can you understand me? ~ The voice jumped into her head like a crackling fire. A picture formed; the black haired boy, the one with the spitting stare and melting smile, so akin to Kaajen yet with something infinitely innocent in his eyes, despite his glowering face. The fallen angel.
~ I...how are you doing that? ~
A cool laugh, the sense of sour oranges smouldering. ~ I can talk mind to mind. I'm from the Nightworld. ~ His mind opened a little, guardedly and from it Jal understood what this 'Nightworld' was, something fatal and corrupted, like a cobra slinking through a mire. And that he was a boy who was something else...like...like...Kaajen. Her mind darted away quickly. ~ So are you. ~
~ I'm a human, ~ she informed him. ~ Not Nightworld. ~
~ No, ~ he corrected firmly. ~ You're a werewolf. I'm a vampire and we're both Nightworld. You don't believe me? Typical. Well, it's true and I'll take you to that flea-bitten Pack and they *know* their own. ~
She could sense his mind changing track, smooth as stones clicking. ~ You...don't remember, do you? ~
~ No...almost nothing, ~ Jal answered. She couldn't hide her grief and felt this stranger's awkward pity. He understood; a kind of pain glimmered blackly in him. ~ How can you talk to me? Our languages differ. ~
A pause, velvet puzzlement. ~ I think...well, I'm not so hot on explaining but telepathy sort of goes past all that. But you can learn to speak my language if you want, just take it out of my head. ~
A little hesitation - he didn't relish the thought of her seeing his mind.
She accepted the offer, felt time pass as she absorbed what he knew, what he let her see, and decided that she liked this peculiar boy. His psyche was shuttered and shied away from her, as if someone had hurt him deeply, but she could relate to that. Something about his...soulmate?
The word seemed familiar...had she met one? Was she one? Hadn't there been a desert, and a promise sealed in sorrow...? Awful fear struck her hard and the memory slid away. But oh god, even forgetting hurt.
~ Thank you, ~ she said finally, when she had recovered. He hadn't noticed her lapse. Good.
Jal opened her eyes.
The mahogany haired guy who had brought her here was watching television. Even though she knew what it was now, it astounded her. As she stretched cramped muscles, wincing a little at the pain in her hand, he looked round and smiled cautiously.
"I didn't have the chance to thank you," she said in his language and was surprised how easy it was to speak. And it was a beautiful tongue, full of liquid sounds and livid words. Almost music.
Those extraordinary purple eyes narrowed, then he recovered. "It was my pleasure. I'm Cern Akafren." A languid half-lift of his mouth. "Short for Cernunnos. Why were the Pack chasing you?"
She hesitated. Why had they hunted her? Maybe simply because she was there. Animals didn't need reasons. They lived on instinct. "I—"
"Cern," Cougar had gotten up and was walking around gingerly. She guessed his long legs, like hers, had gone dead. Pain tingles were inching up her body and she squirmed, trying to move into a more comfortable position. "She's got amnesia. And you know what those Pack bastards are like."
"So is she here to stay?" asked the boy. She had gleaned from Cougar's mind that Cern was a witch. Jal stared and wondered how anyone so innocuous could hide power that burned and killed.
Cougar shrugged. "Looks like it. You want to stay here?" he asked her and smiled a little. It was dark, but appealing too. Jal couldn't help but beam back and wonder how anyone had ever managed to hurt him. "I got to admit, for a bolthole, it ain't too bad. Acres to hunt in...necks to bite..."
"Vampires to stake," Cern said lightly, ignoring the slit-eyed glare that earned him. His face was unreadable and Jal felt an urge to know what thoughts were simmering behind that enigmatic face. There was something undeniably tantalizing about him. Maybe it was the air of mystery, or the unexpectedly endearing way he would smile shyly and look away, a mannerism that utterly belied his laidback attitude.
"But dozens of ways to live," the vampire finished, blatantly ignoring the comment. "And die."
The mahogany-haired boy shrugged, his voice wry. "Yeah, but we're all still here. Our friends will probably adore you." A critical stare. "You're smart. You survived the Pack. You have a lot going for you."
She stood unsure. Her past already haunted her. She didn't want it to disturb them, too and from what Jal understood of amnesia from Cougar, it might. Something inside her wondered why she had wanted to forget it so badly. Forget everything except odd flickers of a desert night and endless pain.
"Cou's right, you'll like it here." The healer girl came back in, carrying cans of soft drinks. "You know you and Cougar were talking for five hours? And anyone new's welcome. As long as you have no insane ex-lovers, demented sisters, cults, assassins or vengeful friends after you."
"Shut up!" Cougar said indignantly. "You *know* Ria couldn't help that demented sister."
She set the cans down and poked the vampire playfully while he glared. "That soulmate of yours knew a lot more than she ever told you, Cougar hon."
So close. Comfortable with each other in a way Jal had never known. She had no family. She had no friends. And once she had tried to change that hadn't she? She had... But the memory had flown.
"Are you okay over there?" A soothing voice roused her from the ghosts of times past. The witch, Cern, didn't smile but looked sombre, making her uneasy. Could he read her mind? "Only a little," he answered.
Jal gasped and tried to throw up walls in her head. It didn't work though; the sheer panic left her shaking. Oh *god*, what else would he see? Would he know what had happened to her? She didn't want him to see the paralysing fear and blackness that lay at the very back of her mind. And the things that were buried, that she couldn't remember but that made her body tense even trying to.
"It's okay," he said gently. "Really. I didn't mean to startle you. You just thought that one *very* loudly."
"Cern?" Chatoya glowered at him sternly. Even in anger, her mouth stayed soft and serene. "She's a *guest*. And I thought you couldn't read minds very well..."
"Leave off, Toya." The amethyst eyes returned to Jal briefly and she thought she saw a flicker of apology. The mellow tones comforted her somewhat. "I didn't mean to. She just had interesting thoughts. Sorry."
"Don't worry, Jal," Cougar's dark tones purred. "Cern doesn't get to experience thought very often. You probably startled him." He ducked as the witch threw an empty can. "See, you can't aim either, Akafren."
Chatoya grinned at Jal and the friendliness there surprised her. They seemed to accept her so effortlessly. And they wouldn't if they knew, that insidious little voice inside her said. They wouldn't if they knew.... Knew what? Jal searched her mind but the idea had fled. The dread it had left behind did not.
"Are you sure you want to stay in a house with this lot?" Chatoya said humorously. "They can't cook, they can't clean and I think all of them believe that unless a door's locked, it's okay for them to walk in."
"Where else is she going to go?" demanded Cougar hotly. "Tali's swanned off with Jep, Ria..." his eyes dropped, "doesn't need company right now. You and Lisa have no room in that dinky little flat the pair of you call home. And Ruby...let's just say I've met saner megalomaniacs."
"I suppose. Just...don't eat *anything* they cook, okay?"
Jal smiled. It felt good. Finally there was something she could be certain about in a world that seemed to hold too many possibilities. "I'll try."
* * * *
"Welcome to Ryars Valley High School," Chatoya said later that day. "We got in touch with the Elders and they weren't too pleased that you'd arrived without them knowing - they don't like being outwitted. But they signed you up for some classes. We're a little late…" It was early afternoon and they had obviously arrived in the middle of lunch. "But I'm sure—"
"Chatoya!"
The witch spun, groaning as if she didn't care much for whoever was calling her.
"That's Ruby," she explained. "I have to go and discuss a project with her. Just wander. Head into the cafeteria and pick up some food. The guys will be around somewhere." She walked over to the girl.
Jal stared curiously at the girl who had shouted, a waiflike face framed by short, shiny cherry hair. Not the fiery shade that some here had, but a deep hue of crimson reminded her uneasily of something. Gone was the friendliness she had seen in Chatoya's face; in those alien eyes, she saw cold crimson fire.
Jal dropped her eyes. She had no wish to be burnt. The cafeteria, then. Where was that? *What* was that? She looked round, trying to see where people were going. The sun hurt her eyes, painfully hot and intense and she mentally thanked Chatoya for lending her some light clothes that were far more suitable than the tattered rags she had been wearing.
The sounds crowded in on her; dozens chatting and laughing in all tones of the scale. Colours everywhere, blazing like flags. One or two glanced at her and she nearly froze in panic. Hundreds of people, strangers who might be, might be...the thought dropped into the dark and she didn't chase it. She couldn't.
"Goddess," Jal whispered to herself, hands clasping and unclasping together as she was caught between awe and fear. Hearing her own voice hammered in the reality. "There's so many of them."
"It's almost like being in a nightmare, isn't it?" a deadly soft voice inquired. Before she could move away, alarmed, a hand caught her arm with startling force. Not enough to hurt, but to keep her there. "You needn't run. I feel no need to bite. Yet."
The impossibly blue eyes of the boy who had rescued them from the wolves last night stared back. The emptiness there chilled her. Drowning in his stare would be so easy, just to fall into the darkness there and keep falling. And then she understood why he scared her so. The shadows that lurked in her deepest fears leapt out from his face. Someone else who had been touched by pain, by grief, by blood. I'm running away from my own fears, she realised with a pang of shock and relief. That's all it is.
"I haven't thanked you yet," she said, looking up at him. Now that she knew why he worried her, the power the horror had over her dissipated in the light. "I'd have been dead if you hadn't shot that wolf."
He smiled then, but it was cold as a corpse's hand. "And it's such a short fall to the shadows, isn't it?"
She froze. For those words were struck into her soul with a brand hotter than any the earth held. They were the words of a man who she had summoned across the world. The words of a man whose babe she had once carried. The words of the man who had tortured her and killed their child.
And he was alive.
* * * *
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