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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