Thank you so much to all your lovely people who reviewed last time round :-) I loved hearing what you had to say

Thank you so much to all your lovely people who reviewed last time round :-) I loved hearing what you had to say. Thank you: Dead Flower (I live on the control ::evil laugh:: It's so much fun tormenting characters – the next story is about Toya and Blue :-) Things get interesting.), Dee (I have a lot of fun writing Blue. He has, to quote 'Friends', a quality. I don't know what it is...but it's there! Jal was a part of Nightfire, but she doesn't think she is anymore. All will be revealed! Thanks :-) ), Me (A book report? On the Lord of the Rings? That'd take forever! Thanks everso!) Myst (France was excellent. I haven't had so much fun in yonks!)

I love knowing what you think – comments, crits, questions, thoughts, opinions, I love and welcome them all! Please tell me what you think, how this can be improved, anything!

Nightfire Part Twelve

Bane Malefici was annoyed.

"What do you mean it's wrong?" His voice stayed perfectly calm, but under the serene waters, sharks wriggled. "Are you telling me that you spent enough money to make Bill Gates faint on a piece of technology that *doesn't work*?"

"Well, not exactly," the reedy voice on the other end of the line said. "Just...not working right now. Sir."

"Be specific." Deceptively ordinary words, but the witch began to stutter through a hurried explanation.

"Well, astronomy i-isn't an exact science. Even the b-best technology c-c-c-c..." The speaker swallowed. Blue could hear them trying to get control of themselves. Finally, displaying a little sense. "Can go wrong."

"Really. Now, explain to me carefully, without that ridiculous stammer, just *how* wrong."

"Y-y...I mean, of course. The hunter's moon isn't in three days time. It's tomorrow."

"So...information an almanac could tell you, and you got it wrong. I'm...vexed." He didn't look vexed. The pale, prideful face remained impassive, the eyes thoughtful. "Tomorrow."

"Yes, sir," the voice said timidly.

Blue sighed, staring out of his window at the sky. No moon that he could see, but he could sense it, moving silently and invisibly. Yes, he had thought it was more powerful than usual, but assumed that was simply the fact that it was the hunter's moon and he, as a hunter, was attuned to it.

He had been wrong

Still, it was only his second mistake. He had one more to go before it was time to get concerned.

"And what do you propose to do about this, pray tell? Have you told anyone, for all the good that will do?"

Silence.

His eyes narrowed into slender blades like tiny crescent moons. "I see."

Those bottomless pupils spread outwards, swamping his eyes in obsidian silk as the air grew thick and heavy, and faint echoes hung, voices screaming. Death flared around him like the Northern lights...anyone who listened carefully would hear pleading and begging and sobbing...and in answer, receive only silence.

Dragonfire leapt from him and at the other end of the phoneline, there was a terrible whining sound, like an animal caught in a trap. It grew and grew, bubbling into terrified shrieks, then cut off abruptly. Silence.

"You're fired," he said mildly, and hung up.

Outside, the air was simmering gently on his skin as he looked up into the cerulean sky. His voice was filled with ice-age cold, his pale face expressionless. "So it's here," he murmured.

The moon of the hunter was rising soon...but who was the prey?

* * * *

Strange feelings were roaring around Jal's head, a heaviness that was thick and clammy as blood.

She followed the girl dumbly.

The girl. How could none of the rest of them see her? One minute, Jal had been sunning herself on the green expanse of the campus, listening to Cern explain some nickname, and the next, the girl had appeared, sitting primly on a bench with her dark bloated eyes staring at Jal and her blue-tinged mouth half-agape.

She was quite obviously dead.

Maybe that was why no one else saw her. And then the roaring feeling had started in Jal, first like the high uncanny yowl of a wolf transmuted from sound into vibration, then deepening and thickening into this odd light-headedness, the feeling that she somehow wasn't in control.

"I know what you are." The words had been full, slurred as if the girl couldn't speak properly. "Murderer."

~ Who are you? ~ Jal had said, trying to fight the strange feeling. Somewhere, she was aware that she had stood up and something, someone was saying words in her voice to the others.

"Follow me." Her drowned, pallid face remained blank while, body dripping silently, she walked away.

And drawn, Jal had followed her, that feeling taking over her. She wanted...something. Something this girl had once had. Something dark and rich and full of life, that would sate her snarling hunger.

It was here, in these people. She sought for the word in her dreamy state...it was...blood. Yes, that was it. Her eyes passed over each person and judged whether she would let them live or die, while the vacuum in her soul yawned, yearning to be filled with their heated being. For now, she left them. Her power was not quite ripe yet. To strike now would lead only to failure. But sweet soon, the hunter's moon.

Walking, walking, walking. They were deep in the woodland now of Ryars Valley, while the drowned girl drifted ahead, lank hair unmoving in what little breeze there was. And hungry, silent, Jal moved behind her.

Parts of it, she knew, ran wild and untamed. There were places where even those people she had spoken to a minute ago...suddenly their names slipped from her mind like morning shadows...didn't tread, places filled with ancient creatures and death.

Looking round the clearing, she knew this was such a place.

As she thought that, some of the haze left her mind, and she felt more like herself. Jal shivered. What had *that* been? What was the hunter's moon? Judging people...the heat had to be getting to her.

But I was brought up in a desertland, she thought, and pushed that uncomfortable observation out of mind.

"Why have you brought me here?" she said aloud.

The dead girl was on the other side of the clearing. She couldn't be very old, Jal thought. Little more than a child, dressed in clothes even she knew as old-fashioned.

"I wanted to," the thick babyish voice said. The girl stared at her, never blinking, then the small mouth turned down in a frown. "You are...different. You were *bad* a minute ago."

"That wasn't me," Jal protested, but surely, if it was in her mind, waiting there, it was her. Had she felt that rush of stinging blood-drenched power? "Who are you? What do you want?"

The child's face brightened slowly, filling with tinges of lost colour. "Come here and I'll tell you."

Jal hesitated. This child was a *vision*. Was it a good idea to listen to her? No, a voice whispered. Of course not. But she's the closest thing I have to an answer. And only a child. How can she hurt me?

I have to find out, she decided. This power...it is weak now, but what if it's strong soon? What if I...if I lost myself in it? What would I become? Worse, what would I *do*?

The child fixed her oddly luminous stare on Jal and began to whisper something in her slurring voice. Only those vast black eyes gave away any hint of vulnerability.

"I can't hear you," Jal said gently, her fear almost drowned by pity for this tiny girl, dead so tragically.

"It's a secret," the child said in her high voice. "You have to whisper secrets."

There were weeds clinging to the girl's clothes, Jal noticed absently as she walked over to the child, slow as if she approached a trapped beast. She could just make out the beginnings of the words.

"...going to...like me...going to...me..." It was like a mantra, soft and eerie. The words whispered into the hush of the place. Dead silent. That wasn't right. There should at least be the feathery fingers of the wind.

And then she could make out the child's words.

"I'm going to kill you, just like you killed me. I'm going to kill you, then you'll be like me..."

The floor gave way beneath her.

* * * *

Dear god no, she was falling into darkness, into that endless abyss again...

Her world jolted, and Jal opened her eyes.

Not the abyss. Just the weeping infinity of the ocean, and the bowl of the sky carven from heated pink sunset above her. The sun sank into the horizon while opposite, the moon was full and fat as a blind eye.

She stood, calf-deep in cool water that licked at her skin, salt crusted in a shimmering layer on her skin, saline in her mouth and filling her nostrils. Under her toes, sand was gritty and pliant. What on earth...?

"It's early yet." A pleasant voice, with something of innocence chiming in it. I was like that once, Jal recalled sadly. A child, before the night took me. "The hunter's moon only has power in darkness."

She spun, the water swirling around her feet. There was a boy there, with his dark, shoulder-length hair turned a deep unnatural orange in the dusk light. A vision, she thought, fear rising. Not another, not again... "What is it?"

He glanced up, and she saw his skin had a curious pale sheen, like the drowned girl's, and dark bruises in the shape of hands enclosed his throat. "The last of the old ways. You're as beautiful as I remember."

"I'm not," she demurred hastily. Something about him was unnerving her. She cast around for a weapon, but only sand, sea and sky stretched into the distance. Helpless. "Please, tell me what you mean."

He ignored her question and walked closer, the water swishing in white crestlets until he was close enough to touch her. Jal found she was frozen still, so afraid she felt nothing but gripping cold as he reached out.

"You don't remember me, do you?" the boy breathed, his thumbs stroking her cheeks with infinite care.

She stared into his large, tranquil eyes. They had an oddly dreamy, remote quality, as if he was staring into another world that held such beautiful things he could not drag himself away.

"I don't know you," she told him, trying to push away his hands. It was useless.

"I know you," he said and paused to brush his lips along hers, touchingly shy as his eyelashes fell to hide his dark, dark blue eyes that were like slices of the deepest night. It was like kissing death, so chill and lifeless that Jal wanted to jolt back, but her strange paralysis held. "I know you so well."

"What did I do?" Her mouth trembling with uncertainty she couldn't stop. "I killed you, didn't I?"

"You?" He kissed her again, strong beyond belief as Jal tried to wrench away without hurting him. She had enough angry spirits after her...she didn't know how to deal with a horny one.

His wistful face gazed right through her. "Oh no, not you. Your face, your beautiful body, but not you." His hands trailed up into her hair, tugging gently and winding through the gilt strands like some astonished traveller, lost for words and purely lost. "I could drown in you."

His touch felt strange, alien and frozen. It was gentle as rain upon her hands, so, so gentle that she thought her heart might break. This boy was not like the others. Not angry, not wild or insane, but simply wandering uncertainly. Knowing only that he had to come to her, to tell her...

"The water was lovely that night," he said vaguely, fingers trailing down her neck. "So deep and dark, like drowning in ink. I remember how cold it was. It seemed to seep into my bones until I was a part of it..."

Images fell into her head with that terrible clarity. How it had felt smooth and sharp on her skin, how she had loved the pain of the cold and beckoned him, lying back in the water so her hair fanned out on it like golden feathers, gleaming and glittering in the moonlight. A siren, stretching out her hands and arching her back and calling to the innocent, hesitant boy who had been trapped by her smile.

Yes, she had been that bloodthirsty creature then, laying her poison web, the one who cared for nothing but that she had judged him impure, and so he must die. Impure, because he was...he was...

"You didn't feel the cold at all," he said, wonder in his pure clear voice. "Lying there, glowing silver like a unicorn. You were singing, singing a song that stole into my heart and drew me closer to listen to you..."

And she had let the night air and the water carry the throaty rich sound of her voice, singing ancient lays of the night's darkest secret in a language that spoke of blood and caresses, of desire and death entwined in one blazing, lethal tumble. He had drawn close, eyes so tranquil and marvelling, the salt water winding down his body like crystals, thousands of brilliant crystals.

"You took me in your arms and you said..." He laughed, a happy soft sound.

And she heard the husky, silky sound of a strong voice that sounded like her, that was old as the night and filled with all its cunning...that was soaked in death. That had taken her over.

"Half-human, half-vampire, but all mine." And she remembered his skin, warm and shuddering and his touch, sweetly sure, the way that she had kissed him, dragged him under the water and held him there, her hands hard around his throat until the water seized him in its icy, voracious grip and took him for its own.

Because he was a halfbreed.

She had let him go, and stared dispassionately at his floating, shimmering body. The moon above had been bright, glutted on the secret of this night, and looking up at it, she had felt it pull her close, wrap her in its cloudy shroud until she had howled for the joy of it. Over and over, baying for the killing joy. Howling at...

The hunter's moon.

She shuddered. Another memory, another terrible, awful thing that seemingly she had done. And yet...the memory did not fit. There was no gap in the dreadful darkness she had drifted in for so long.

"So many were killed," he said absently, his eyes caressing her face. Not a ripple in the deep pools of his eyes, only serenity. "But of all of them, I was the only one who loved you." He smiled and kissed her throat. It was almost reverent. "The others wanted you. They desired you. But I...I loved you. You threw us all into darkness, but alone of them, I did not care because I had one memory, one instant of true bliss."

"What am I?" she begged, staring into the compassionate face.

"Not you," he told her. "You are looking at this the wrong way. They blame you because they look at your face. I do not blame you because I look at your heart. You did not kill me. What was planted in you did."

"What was...?"

"There is one who will help you," he murmured. "I feel them now, when I draw close to you from the abyss. Burning bright, like you do. In a way, they are part of you. A forgotten part. Discover them and you will discover the answer. Burn brightest, Jallakri ap Ganra, and free us."

"I don't understand." She clung to him now, the only one who had given her answers. "Why must I burn?"

"You burn now," he said quietly, "because the pure part of you is awake. It was almost swallowed by the darkness – the hunter's moon will rise soon, Jallakri, and then you will be out of time. You must burn brightest, Jallakri, you must banish the darkness and we will be free."

"Does it hurt you?" she blurted. Halted, unsure, then looked into that clear face. A face she had never known, yet a comforting one. "Being there...in the abyss." She shivered. "I found it so terrible...so awful."

"It was not so bad." He ducked his head. "I understand why I am there."

"Why?"

"The abyss is not a punishment. It is a place of suspension, between life and death. You killed us unjustly; and so there we wait, unable to live and unwilling to die. Until the injustice is gone. Then...we will be satisfied." He kissed her again, then drew back. Those dreamy, gentle eyes smiled. "You were there, too, once. You died, yet still had a way back...I heard you screaming in the lonely chasm. I do not know why you woke. But there is a reason...something calling your soul back to the waking world. It calls you now."

As he said it, she felt something, an almost magnetic force tugging at her. "And the dark calls me." He looked straight at her and there was nothing dreamy in his eyes. "I can bear the dark because I understand what I am. Know what you are. Go back to the waking world. You belong with the living, not here. Find the one who can help you...they are part of you, and you will know them."

"Wait!" she called after him, desperate. He turned briefly. "Will I remember?"

"Perhaps. If you want to. Nature is hard to fight...harder to defeat."

He walked into the deeps, despite her calls, her pleas, until the inky ocean swallowed him. And slowly, darkness drew down about her, however Jal fought and struggled. It took her over, slow and sweet and pushed her back out into the waking world...

To see only a nightmare staring down at her.

* * * *

Cern shook his head a little, wishing his headache would go away. It had begun just minutes ago, with startling intensity, and he had the bizarre sensation for a moment or two that he was falling. But that was stupid; he was sitting down.

"All right, I have one," Cougar Redfern was saying with a touch of his former glee. "What do you do if a werewolf throws a pin at you?"

The Circle swapped vaguely confused looks, or at least the four of them there did. Tali had flitted off to hassle someone about something. She was that kind of person. Finally, Lisa shrugged. "No idea. What do you do when a wolf throws a pin at you?"

Cougar flashed her one of his reckless grins. "Run, he's got the grenade in his mouth."

"That's lame," the made vampire complained. But still, Lisa had to admit Cougar's exceptionally lame jokes were making her feel better. "But it's nice to see you smile."

The black-haired lamia lost his smile instantly. "I feel a Oprah moment coming on."

She pulled a face. "No chance. Your problem, you sort it out. You don't need my help."

Cougar shrugged. "Look, I've apologised to Ria. If she's going to sit there and insist I tell her every goddamn secret I have, she's mistaken. I need some privacy. I can't live my life in someone else. I'm not like that—" He stopped, the angry flush fading from the devastatingly sharp cheekbones. "Sorry. I've just...had enough, you know?" And Lisa thought from the dangerous curve of his mouth that he was being honest. Cougar had been pushed too far. "Anyway, what about you, Lise? Is there anyone special in your life?"

"Yes, me," she said dryly.

Cougar pulled a face. How he still managed to pull off devastatingly attractive at the same time, she would never know. "No, I mean someone you treasure and want to keep safe from harm."

"Hmmm…" She put a finger under her chin, thinking. "Still me, I'm afraid."

"Infuriating female," he muttered.

"Wasn't that redundant?" Cern put in. He looked pale, she thought, as if he was in pain. "No, please don't hit me," he added hastily as Lisa eyed him with mock-menace. She wouldn't, of course. His wry smile warmed her heart a little.

She poked Cougar in the shoulder, changing the subject. "Anyway, what do you think of the Pack's latest?"

"The Pack's latest?" Cougar blinked and interested, Cern pushed his head awake and sat up to listen. "Hadn't noticed. Too busy watching Cern's better half cause trouble. Where?"

"About ten metres away," Lisa said dryly, wondering how men were so *blind* sometimes. "That girl giving you daggers. Actually, she's been watching us for a while."

All three of the guys looked over, she noticed with amusement, to the stocky female whose grey eyes were spitting loathing. She had short hair that fell to her earlobes, apart from a fringe that was left long and swept to cover one eye. And it was an unusual colour too; Lisa had never seen anyone with truly copper hair, every bit as shiny and glittering as the metal.

"Guess she didn't like the 'wolf joke," chuckled Jepar. "What are the chances of you apologising?"

"Why did the wolf stare at the orange juice?" Cougar said promptly, his gold eyes glittering. He never took well to people glaring at him. The girl got up and began to walk over, slowly, purposefully.

"I have no idea," Cern said, and Lisa noticed he was surreptitiously glancing around to see if there were any weapons around. Jepar had sat up, intrigued, but looking completely unthreatened. After all, as a cheetah, he could handle any trouble that came his way, and it was surprising how much did.

"It said 'concentrate'," the lamia said brightly and looked up at the sturdy girl with his usual insolent stare. "Can I help? Or hinder, either's fine with me."

"You can stop cracking insulting jokes," the girl said. Her voice was surprisingly clear and chiming, at odds with her severe black clothes and masses of eyeliner.

"It's hard not to when you're dressed like that," Cougar murmured, his eyes falling to the spiked collar around her neck. "I'm Cougar Redfern, by the way. And apart from being very attractive, you are?"

"Pissed off."

Lisa fought to hide her grin. No one ever talked to Cougar like that, except for the Circle, and it was fun to watch him blink, startled. "Nice name. Sounds like your parents had the same sense of humour as mine."

"Speaking of humour," the copper-haired girl said, flicking her head so her long fringe showed both sullen eyes for a moment. "Here's one for you. Know what the problem with vampires is?"

"How would you like the list, alphabetically or chronologically?" Jepar said dryly. The girl stole a quick glance at him, apparently deciding she liked him about as much as Cougar. Cern, her eyes rested on briefly and filled with a glittering heat. Lisa wondered if there was *any* occasion on which homicide was acceptable. Don't be so stupid, she told herself. He's not yours.

The girl stared down imperiously at Cougar. "They suck."

The vampire only laughed. Lisa was impressed; last time someone insulted Cougar, it had all ended in tears. Someone else's, naturally. "Yeah. At least we don't bite."

"Isn't that true!" a new, husky voice said. It was unexpectedly grim, and Cern knew it. Would he never be free of Donna Ares?

The Pack leader surveyed them all. "I don't know why you're flirting with vampires, Felicity Serafine," she said icily. "Especially after your last encounter with them."

The copper-haired girl looked suddenly uncertain. "You told me to find them," she muttered.

Ignoring her minion, Donna turned her hard green stare on Cern. "That girl you rescued is back in the woods. She fell into our trap." The berry lips pursed. "She's under your protection, remember? So she's your responsibility." Glee flickering in her sly eyes; yes, she saw she had power over him now, but she didn't know the whole story. And Cern wasn't about to tell her. "We're going to try her. The Pack way."

She laughed delightedly, husky voice rippling, and Felicity smiled too, hard and cold as the spikes on her collar. "We thought you might want to witness."

The Pack way. Dear gods.

Trial by combat.

* * * *

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