Thank you to: Cece, Ria, Water Angel, and :o) (Yeah, that's where the spelling cmae from :-) I liked it!)
Anything you have to say would be adored and slavishly worshipped. Go on, get into the Christmas spirit…
Hugs n' honey,
Ki
Nightfire Part Four
Oh god. Oh god. He was alive. The man who had tortured her, who had held her soul in his hands and wrenched it apart was *here*.
Then the cold numbness seemed to flow over her mind and her muscles simply gave, as if the control of her motor senses had been snatched away by the shock. The patchy green and brown of the ground filled her eyes and she was sure she would hit it, falling like a broken doll...
He caught her.
And Jal was twisted upright, forced to stare into eyes that were blue as the moon's halo at midnight, impossible, impenetrable blue. She blinked, trying to clear her head, to understand why his hands were wrapped around her upper arms. His face...god, the same. Kaajen to the life. To the death.
"You're alive," she croaked.
"Wrong." The blue-haired boy's strange, cold eyes bored into hers. "Kaajen mal Ifiche died long ago, as *you* should know. But the Nightfire Temple remains, little Jallakri. And so do his descendants." He leaned closer. "You know, for someone who's hitting ten thou, your skin is remarkably wrinkle-free."
And then he laughed and let go of her.
Ten thousand? Ten *thousand*? Insane, she thought. He has to be.
"No," the boy murmured. His smile was utterly charming. "You'd be amazed how many have thought that, but I'm afraid I still have all synapses functioning correctly, despite the best efforts of...well, everyone I've ever met."
"What do you want?"
She was afraid, but her curiosity ate at her like a disease, taking slow, almost painless little bites, but killing her all the same. He knew her. He knew her, but how? Who was she? Surely he couldn't be as old?
"Seventeen." That voice that held arctic swells. One eyebrow arched as she flinched.
Her pale eyes met his and danced away in fear. "Stop reading my mind."
"Dear lady..." he murmured archly, leaning in to touch the tip of her nose with one light finger. "Surely it is not a good idea to be so uncivil to the only person who knows what you are."
I want to know. I have to know. I cannot live forever in this blankness. I cannot spend my life walking in the desert of my mind, but he is so cold, so wrong.
"I..." she hesitated. But what harm could it do to ask? "Will you tell me?"
"For a price," he allowed, and looked amused as she shrank away. "Not *that*. Why does every woman I meet here think that the only way they'll fall at my feet is if I knock them out?"
He wasn't really talking to her; Jal could see a brief distance in him, a thoughtful look that softened his mouth and for a moment, made those topaz eyes light with laughter. Stunning, she thought. But then he shook his head slightly and his eyes focused. And he was not stunning, but chilling.
"What do you want then?" she asked, trying not to back away or show her confusion and fear.
A shrug. "To learn. Isn't that why we're all here?" His tones were oddly confident for someone so young.
"What do you know?" she said, looking up into that detached, almost dreamy face and understanding nothing of how he thought. "Please, if you know something of me, tell me."
"I know that what sleeps in you is eager to awake," he said softly, voice low and intimate. "I can feel it now, wanting the blood, the joy. It's rising to the surface...I wonder how long you can keep it contained?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," she said, but his words sent a slim chill wriggling to her limbs.
A quirk of his mouth. "Of course. That's because you're shockingly unintelligent. The best slaves are."
"I serve no one." She ignored the insult.
He ducked his head close to hers when someone walked by, lips brushing her cheekbone as he whispered into her ear. "But you killed many."
She jerked away, seeing only the cryptic glitter in his eyes before she felt the pressure of his hands on her waist, sprawling across her spine to remind her that she could be broken very easily. One touch. One move.
"You lie."
"Frequently, but not about the important matters." He stared down at this golden-skinned creature who had defiance and fear mingling in her eyes. Her power was like something moving under dark water. Visible only as a sinister ripple, a flash of shining surface. "You are as much a killer as I. And part of Nightfire."
A wrench and she had pulled herself free, the red streak that swiped down her hair seeming to glow. "I am no part of that atrocity. Nor have I been for forty thousand years." The coral mouth trembling, her fear rampant in every gesture, every look. Lovely. Deceptive. Deadly.
Jal tried not to notice the cold pressure of his stare, the perfect stillness, but something in her wanted only to run. To run far and fast and never to look back in case he was there, or worse, in case he was not.
"Believe that if you must. But when I call...the darkness will answer."
She caught an image from his head suddenly, one so starkly cut she was sure it had to be real.
A full moon, hanging bloated in the sky and edged with crimson.
Below it, something that snarled and contorted, and fought with a bundle of white grace that tried to fly, beating frantically with its wings before it was dragged down. A crack, and the white creature collapsed so she could see it was the languid body of a swan, dead and drooping. A glimpse of jagged teeth, a blast of fetid breath before the thing buried its head into the throat, snuffling and twisting.
She forced her eyes open, her heart beating in petrified tumult.
"You cannot disobey the call of blood magick," the boy said calmly. She stared at his arresting face and saw nothing there that was remotely human. "When I call, it will answer."
"No!" she said, shaking her head and backing away. "I will never answer."
He looked at her and smiled slowly. Her eyes opened, wider and wider until her lashes were plastered against her skin like black lace as she stared at him. At the fangs, revealed glint by glint in the pounding, heavy sunlight, as carven as ivory but unmistakably the mark of a predator.
Even his face seemed to transform, thinning somehow so every bone was distinct and so the tail-comet ice in his eyes danced and leapt like shattering glass. Blue in his eyes, and in his hair, and in his heart.
"Who said anything about you?" he asked softly and left.
* * * *
Lisa Ochai sighed contentedly and sat, rolling her shoulders in the warm sunlight that beat down on them all. Her dark skin shone with health and she looked her usual striking self in black denim cut-offs and a glaring lime top that Cern had seen most of the girls in the school fail to pull off, except in the literal sense.
"I love summer," she said exuberantly. "You know what the best thing about it is?"
"Girls in bikinis?" offered Cern, the hints of a wicked smile on his mouth. She swatted her hand at him.
"Girls not in bikinis?" Cougar Redfern said from the other side of the table from where he was indulging his latest addiction – Lilt. He stretched, muscles rippling briefly, and settled back into an indolent heap.
"No!" she said in disgust. "Butter."
Cern and Cougar swapped confused looks. "What the hell do you mean, butter?" the lamia demanded.
She cast a conspiratorial glance at Cern and he grinned back. He was used to her oddness and loved the way she could confuse an entire roomful of people with one word. Today, she only had Cougar and him to practise on, and though they had known her for three years, the success rate was still one hundred percent.
"Well," Lisa, who was a philosopher, said, "me and Toya keep the butter in the fridge, right?"
"I can see how this relates to summer," murmured Cern, who was not. The glare he received could have flattened a tiger from fifty paces.
"Listen – you're so impatient! Anyway, when it's summer, it actually spreads straight from the fridge. And when it's winter, you need an ice pick if you want anything on your bagels. See?"
"How is that the best part of summer?" a baffled Cougar said. "Unless I'm missing some kind of coy meaning for bagels... It's a bonus, yeah, but there are better things." Wicked smile. "Way better things."
"I'll bet," Lisa replied with a touch of dourness. "Well, maybe it's just me."
"I hope so," said Cern wryly. "If there are more of you straight-from-the-fridge maniacs out there, I don't want to meet them." Grinning, he pretended to cower from her glare. Her summer madness was adorable.
"Is that our latest?" a bored Cougar asked, squinting across the campus. "The golden babe?"
Cern glanced over, recognising that fearful, wondering gaze. "Yup." He put his hands to his mouth. "Hey! Jal!" She spun and waved as she saw them, began to hurry over, more relief than anything in her face.
"I couldn't see you," she explained in accented tones, pallid under the soft gold of her skin. "I...got lost."
Her pale green eyes met his briefly. And in the crystalline depths, beyond her relief was fear. Fear and—
A full moon, a slash of crimson blood, a dreadful howl and then clawing agony in his head.
His hands slammed to his head, eyes crushing shut and the pain was gone.
"Cern!" Lisa had reached over; her hands cool to pry his hands away from his temples. "Are you okay? Is it the migraines again? I thought they'd gone."
Migraines. Yeah. That was the excuse he had always used, wasn't it? "No," he said through gritted teeth as the last of the ache seeped away, Lisa's touch a soothing balm. "They always come back."
And they did. They always did.
It was in the blood.
* * * *
"When is Jay going to be back?" Ruby was demanding. It was odd, Chatoya thought, that someone who looked so delicate and sensitive should be so bitter. "I miss him! And I know he misses me."
Yes, because Jepar always develops a strange attachment to people who push bombs through his letterbox. "Tomorrow," she said with a drop of weariness. There was no point arguing with Ruby. "He and Alisha—"
"Her," Ruby cut her off darkly, moving mechanically forward in the lunch queue. "He doesn't love her. Just because they're soulmates. You don't have to love your soulmate..."
"Most do," she said. She was trying to be gentle with Ruby. Goddess knew the made vampire had been through enough, but her craving for Jepar Jubatus, the sunny shapeshifter, had got out of hand long ago.
"Well, I know Jay!"
You know jack about him, she wanted to say. And it's not Jay, it's Jepar. You've known the poor guy for what, six months, and already managed to turn into his stalker. It won't work, he's madly in love with Alisha, they're *soulmates* and you tried to kill him in a variety of extremely creative ways because you were jealous, and I really *don't* think he appreciated being electrocuted with the toaster, by the way, but you still want him, and you're actually *surprised* he's turning you down. And given up toast.
What she said was: "So do I."
Ruby's scarlet lips pursing. "Yeah, you do." Sudden sharpness in her; when Jepar was the subject, Ruby suddenly snapped out of her drifting state of mind. "It won't last, will it? Will it?"
Chatoya opened her mouth to answer, her patience flying out the window.
Hands closing round her waist, spinning her round and someone kissing her hard.
"Miss me, sweetheart?" a voice said lightly and she recovered to look into hooded eyes that seemed to stretch into infinity, if infinity was a blazing blue lagoon that was filled with serene, removed amusement.
For a moment her mind fell away, too horrified to notice what was wrong, to horrified to even think anything but the one word that circled round and round her head.
Him.
Him. With his hands on her waist and that bladed smile cutting at her, and those cold, cold eyes dropping away like the edge of a cliff. Waiting for her to fall and hit the ground below. With his blue hair spiky, a silver lightning bolt through one eyebrow, and that knowing, satisfied expression.
Him. The killer of her friend, the killer of her twin, her parents, nearly herself. Him. Her soulmate.
So clever, to make it seem like a reunion. People were staring. Ruby was staring, her face oddly pale – shock? But they were smiling too. Thinking oh-how-sweet, it-must-be-love. But no, no, no, never that.
"Oh Goddess!" she said and then tried to wrench out of his grip. "Let go of me!"
Blue Malefici had changed, she was realising. The face had altered subtly and if it was possible, he was even more breathtakingly beautiful than before. "What? When it's been so long?"
She slammed her knee up quickly and found his leg in the way.
"So predictable," he said with a languorous sigh. Speaking so no one else could hear, startlingly intimate and unbelievably frightening. "Still. But my, you've grown. Do you still taste as good, I wonder?"
Her hand flew out.
He caught it, turned her palm over and traced her life-line. "Long as your hair," he remarked idly. Those eyes narrowed into electric slits and fear shot up her spine like an icy arrow. "But not as long as your life."
"I'm stronger now. I *won't* be intimidated by you."
"Oh, come on," he said, his voice purring and caressing and promising a thousand things she was sure she didn't want. "You already are, witch of mine. You just hide the truth from yourself. Like you always have."
"Get away from me!" she hissed and let just a tiny bit of witch power nudge him. It would burn like acid.
The world seemed to jolt, his blue eyes fearfully close and then she realised he had picked her up in his arms, but had her in an extremely tight grip that struggling didn't seem to ease. "We need to talk," he drawled and then started to walk. She could hear wolf-whistles and laughter and shocked chatter, but no one stopping them, stopping this venomous piece of evil carrying her away.
She managed to wrench an arm free of that intimate hold and tried to dig her fingernail into the base of his.
"Try that again, sweetheart," he said in a voice only she could hear, "And I'll bite your bloody hand off."
She believed him.
* * * *
"So..." Cern Akafren smiling at her with those deep, dark eyes that were velvet as an indigo evening. Still looking wan from whatever had happened. For a moment, Jal had thought she felt something, a sort of tingle in her chest, but then he had gasped and clutched his hands to his head. "You got lost, huh?"
"Bad luck," she said. It was half-true. For only horrifying luck had cast her as a pawn in a lawless, bloodthirsty game. Her mind still rattled with that brief, horrifying memory of the dark-filled abyss.
"You okay?" A faint, quizzical frown. "You look...shaky."
"Snap," the drawling, clipped voice of Cougar put in. There was something *familiar* about him. As if... "It's nice to see things back to their usual state of knee-trembling fear. I missed knowing my life was hanging by a thread."
Jal wanted to sit down and pour her heart out to the two boys who had been so kind to her yesterday, but there was a strange girl sitting nearby and—
"Oh, you would," the strange girl put in impatiently. There was that same aura of power around her as there was around the other two. Something a little unnatural about the husky, strong voice and quick movements as she looked up at Jal. "That one's a classic male chauvinist and he's corrupting all of them."
The moment passed. Her secret stayed silent, in the darkness of her heart, not in this sunlit place.
"Jal, this is Lisa Ochai." Cern motioned for her to sit down, some colour creeping back into his face. "She's a made vampire and she's itching to draw you, knowing her."
She blinked. "Draw me?"
"She's a bit of an artist, is our Lise." He slanted a fond look at the girl. Jal was startled to see something in Lisa's face light up. She likes him, Jal realised. She likes him a lot. And he doesn't know.
"Not necessarily a good one," Cougar dropped in. "She got me all wrong."
"Yeah, because you aren't at all a moody, sulky son-of-a—"
"Guys!" The shrill voice cut through her head like a knife. Jal saw Cern wince, briefly rubbing his temples.
"Oh god," Cougar muttered. "Kill me now. It's Ruby."
Jal looked over. The girl, her short hair flickering like ferns in a gale and her odd red eyes, was running towards them, with her fragile face dominated by her dark, pouting mouth that shouted words at them.
"What?" Lisa held up a hand as the girl reached them. "I can't hear a word—"
Ruby's face was ashen, and Jal noticed her hands were trembling. "It's Toya... You won't *believe* it. We w-were in the lunch queue and she was raving about Jay, like she always d-does, and then *he* j-just came up to her and k-kissed her and then he carried her off! And he's b-back and he's...more powerful."
Lisa blinked. "Ru? Slow down. Who carried her off? I didn't know Toya had met anyone...guys?"
Jal saw only curiosity in Cern's face. "Haven't noticed, truth to tell."
"Big surprise there when you and Amanda Talver are joined at the hip," drawled Cougar, baring his teeth briefly. "Don't think anyone here doesn't know about your Friday night frolicking."
Cern looked amused. "At the lip, actually."
"Not from where I was standing."
"Yeah? Well, from where I was lying, it was a different story. Unfortunately." Cern saw Jal's curious gaze on him and shut up. "Anyway...Toya's got herself a friend?"
"You're not listening!" Ruby shrieked, her nails digging into the table. Jal gasped as every fingernail snapped off, leaving the red-haired girl's hands a bleeding mess. "It's him, he's back!"
All of them were staring at her flour-white face, seeing the shivers that shook every part of her body.
"Ruby?" Gently Cern reached out to touch her hands. A purple spark leapt and the wounds were healed.
She looked at Cougar Redfern then, her eyes a hooded, haunted red. "Don't you know?" she asked in a scarce-heard whisper. "Can't you *sense* it?"
He looked at her, then something flickered in his face. "Oh god," he said. "Oh god, he kept his promise."
"Who?" Cern said with almost exasperation. "What are you on about?"
Cougar's eyes had an odd, dead look in them. His lips barely moved. "Blue," he said. "Blue."
* * * *
Comments? Thoughts? I'd love to hear what you think…
