Nightfire Part Eighteen

Thank you so much to all of you who reviewed! I loved hearing what you thought :-) Thank you: Dwayberry (This is set after Flamechild. Flamechild is the first of the series, Nightfire is the sixth :-) Thanks! I always enjoy writing the characters...they just run away with the plot. ),

Diomede (I'm a big fan of suspense. I'm impressed you remember all those names, especially when they're so bizarre! I'm trying to get the chaps up regularly, exams are getting in my wicked way :-) Thanks!),

Me (Hey, my house is bullet-proof! And torture proof...anyways, there's another story after this one (as ever). Thanks!),

Myst (Hey, rant all you want. I'm trying to break my cliffhanger 'sessiveness. I'm getting there! Cat Stevens, I've heard of him – I'm listening to David Grey at the moment. His 'this year's Love' is so nice.),

Persephone (Can't be nice too long, don't want people to get the wrong idea :-) The upcoming story, Chimera, is about Blue…I'm having a lot of fun writing the various ideas that pop into my head! Thankye!),

Starrika (I think I was having a bad week when I did this chapter – however bad I feel, you can guarantee my characters get it worse :-) One of the perks of writing...there's always someone worse off! Thanks!) and last but infinitely not least,

Starwisher ( Jal does get it a bit in this story...well, someone has to! ::grins:: I hope you like the next part! Thank you!)

As you can probably guess, comments are adored and worshipped; they are the icing on the cake of writing, so please tell me what you think and make life a bit sweeter! If you want to get ahold of me via email, I'm at kiananw@hotmail.com

Hope you enjoy,

Ki

Nightfire Part Eighteen

The hunter who had once been Jallakri ap Ganra ran wild under an open sky, slaughter hot in her blood, and she laughed for the joy of it.

Her smile was fierce as the hawk, a being of untamed death. Where she walked, the helpless cried out, and in their voices she felt her solace. Her thoughts flew out to the boy who followed her. So close now...

She bounded up the last of the slopes with a roaring laugh that bounced back from the smooth stone around her, and spun to wait for him, loving the wisps of chill air that brushed her and power burning in her. The moon spilled full on her face, turned her skin to the pale gold of crocuses smoothed over with frost, and her eyes blazed with a fell light.

She liked this place. It was secure. A shallow cave beckoned at her back, and before her lay only the sweeping ground. Nothing could approach without her knowledge.

The boy moved quickly, movements lithe and supple, emerging from the wings of the gloom. His tainted blood made a foul orange light cocoon him. It hurt her eyes to look at him, sent wriggles of slow pain through her head. His eyes swung up, widening fractionally. A few steps, swift and sure, and he faced her.

The mahogany hair was disarrayed, and the violet shadows of his eyes confused. She saw his wrongness in them, the gentleness of witchblood, mixed with the shapshifter's agile ease and the vampire's careless grace. It made her teeth tingle to tear it from him.

She grinned at him slowly. "Welcome."

To your death.

* * * *

Chatoya, Cougar and Donna Ares were picking their way through the woods carefully. They had left everyone else in the clearing, as the three most capable of dealing with Jal if they met up with her. Chatoya glanced at Cougar. His eyes were golden in the dark, two tiny flames that threw feeble light on his captivating face.

"Hold it." The husky voice belonged to Donna. She had stopped, stooping low to the ground, her nose quivering. Alone of the Pack, she hadn't been terrified by Jal. "They came this way. Both of 'em."

Chatoya couldn't smell anything, but she trusted to the werewolf's honed senses. "Which way?"

Donna stood, brushing the dirt from her chic clothes. Surprisingly for someone so wild, her clothes were always perfectly cut and made an utter contrast with her tangle of russet hair and grimy hands. "Dead ahead. There's blood there too."

"Lots of it," Cougar added darkly. He grimaced, and Chatoya saw the two thin triangles of white indenting his scornful mouth. "It's making me hungry."

"Don't even think about sinking your fangs into *me*, Dracula throwback," the werewolf leader snapped at once. Chatoya sighed and followed after Cougar, making sure she separated the two of them. "We got enough problems without you getting the munchies."

It was stiflingly warm, even in the depths of evening. Above, the moon was a dire reminder of what had happened.

Ahead of her, Cougar stopped. Chatoya cannoned into him and to her surprise, he didn't say a word.

"Oh hell." His tones hopeless, almost baffled. "Oh god. Please..." She tried to move past and was startled when the vampire swung back to her, shaking his head. He actually caught hold of her. Chatoya was startled – Cougar wasn't one for tactile contact, and she could count the number of times on one hand when she had heard that despairing ring to his voice. "You don't want to see this, Toya."

Donna slunk past, and she too drew in a sharp breath, and when she turned back, for once no mockery on her face. She looked younger, softer...exhausted. Her emerald eyes were closed, one fist clenched.

Chatoya looked at her vampire friend. "I don't want to see it," she told him calmly, trying to bury deep the trepidation rising in her. "But I have to. You know that."

A pause, and he nodded and let her by.

She stopped breathing.

Bloodbath. That was what this was, in the truest sense of the word. Around her, the world seemed to stop as she walked forward, her legs trembling between each step and her stomach watery. She knew that face...that pretty, open face that had too often been bitter and hurt. Below the face...someone's meal.

She drew a breath and the world flooded back in on her. Cougar by her, staring down solemnly. "It looks like something Hannibal Lecter would do," the lamia commented glumly.

"Should we hunt down Anthony Hopkins then?" she murmured. It didn't seem real. It couldn't be real. Things like this didn't happen to them, not anymore.

"Yeah, 'cause that film was murder...but after we hunt down Jal." The graveyard humour was a way to keep away the reality. He had made Ruby and once, they had been close. She knew it had to hurt him.

She wished she felt more upset. But she had barely known Ruby. Only known her hatred, her resentment, her anger. She had never shared anything, never joined in the girl-talk, never joined a conversation with anything other than antagonism or sarcasm. Known her for a year, and not known her at all.

Donna Ares, dragging her finger through a pool of liquid and holding it up to the light. "Blood."

"Gee, how did you work that one out?" Cougar drawled shakily. Chatoya put a hand on his arm, willing him to be calm. "I need a cigarette. Hell...I need about five packs."

She could look at it objectively now. That helped. All right...Ruby Luthman was dead. That was one thing to be thankful for; she wasn't alive after that. Something had...gnawed on her. Not something. Jal. Why, though? Ruby was a made vampire. Nothing impure about that—

But there was. Made vampires couldn't have children. The knowledge was Blue Malefici's, stolen from his mind, and for once she welcome the invasion of the cold memory. It made it easier to deal with when emotions didn't get in the way.

Jal was...programmed to kill any half-breeds – and any creature that had no use. That could not add to the glory of the Nightworld. Made vampires were...blights. Parasites. Easily made, hard to destroy.

Thinking about the number of made vampires in Ryars Valley made her head hurt.

"Hey. Witch girl." Donna again. She had stopped by a dark mass, a mass that was disturbingly body-shaped and to Chatoya's surprise, appeared to be dripping blood onto him. No. Giving blood. The way Cougar had for her. "This sweetheart belongs to your lot, I think."

She almost jumped when Jepar sat bolt upright suddenly, his green eyes wide. "She snapped my neck!" he said incredulously.

"Where the hell have you been?" she demanded, worry mixing with relief. He was okay...but he was here. With Ruby.

He shook his head. "Later. Jal...she..." He gestured to what remained of Ruby. "I tried to stop her." He sighed deeply and raked his hands through his hair. He didn't seem shocked but then, he was Nightworld. He had grown up with sights like this. This time, it wasn't anyone close to him getting hurt. "Gods, I don't think even Ruby deserved that."

I don't think. The cool glint in his eyes said that something had happened with Ruby. Something he didn't like.

He stood, smeared with blood that wasn't his and rubbing at his neck with a faint frown. "Thanks Donna. I needed that. It would have taken another few minutes to heal."

"No big deal," the wolf-woman said, peering up through her lazy spirals of hair. "But this Jal girl is. Can't we stop her?"

Chatoya shook her head firmly. This one at least, she could answer. "Not us. There's only one way to stop her now."

"Typical," Cougar muttered. His fangs were glinting; the blood in the air was thick and heavy, and she knew it was an instinct he couldn't help. "And I bet it's fiendishly difficult and dangerous."

Jepar cocked his head, the emerald eyes narrowing. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but she was asleep before, wasn't she? Can't we just do that again?"

"Oh, you're going to *love* this one," Chatoya said grimly. Blue's knowledge was in her veins now, and he knew rather a lot about Jallakri ap Ganra. "Not now she's found Cern. The soulmate bond surpasses the spell. It would wake her every time."

"Why the bloody hell didn't they think of that?" Cougar's scowl would have slain lions at fifty paces. But she didn't let it faze her.

Donna Ares snorted. "Easy one, Dracula. What didn't the Nightworld believe in until it smacked them in the face?"

The lamia groaned. "Soulmates. Damn. So it's death or nothing?" His mouth curled. "So is there *any* chance of us grabbing some popcorn and watching *someone else* risk their life try to save us all from certain peril? At all?"

Yes to the first, no, no. Simply. They saw the answer on her face. Cougar turned away with a curse. The werewolf pursed her dark lips, clearly lost in thought.

"Can't Cern...?" Jepar began, a faint hope shining in his face, one that was cut off as she had to shake her head and shatter that optimism.

"No. He's half-bred," she explained grimly. "Jal would...butcher him." She blinked, realising that they were standing around *talking* while he was hunting down Jal. Deep inside, she knew they couldn't have caught him, but there was no point wasting time here. "Guys, we have to go find him. Jep, can you stay here? Cougar, go back and find the others. Lisa's made – Jal might go after her. Donna and I'll find Jal. We're both pureblood – we should be okay."

As Cougar disappeared back into the night, the werewolf and the witch followed the trail.

* * * *

"Jal?" he said uncertainly. Something was wrong, Every sense screamed that at him, screamed with instinct and ancient knowledge. He was not the hunter here...he might even be the prey.

She held out a languid hand, her smile warm and sensuous. This was not the shy girl he had seen before. Every movement now was honed, aware. She knew exactly how to tilt her head so her long throat glowed in the moonlight, how to purr in a soft voice.

Take it, Cern told himself. Touch her and know. He reached out cautiously, praying that he was wrong and that it would just be the same appealing innocence.

It was molten lava that seared through his head, bringing with it the overpowering stench of death and clammy feel of cooling blood. In his head, her voice bayed endlessly at the moon, howling out her power and need.

He knew what she was. He knew what she killed.

He jerked back, stunned. "You're not Jal," he whispered, as Jepar has said before him. But where Jepar had had only curiosity, in Cern's mellow voice was fear.

"You have no comprehension of what I am."

She stood and stared at him, that flaring gold hair spilling smoothly down her back like a living cloak. It swung to mid-calf, eye-catching now she had let it down, glittering in the silvery light. She was nothing human; not anymore. Her eyes, that icy pale green, were pitiless and filled with a hard desire.

"Evil," he said softly. It hurt his throat to force the words out, but he knew. He knew now and it couldn't be hidden. "Nothing but evil."

"Humans have always labelled what they cannot understand as evil." That throaty, rich voice was not Jal's; there was no hesitancy or wonder in it. Only dry bitterness, one who had seen it all and valued none of it.

"I'm not human."

"Humanity is not a matter of race." She slunk closer and every movement suggested sensuality, suggested burning wants and most of all, dark promise. "It is a quality."

He shrugged and had to force himself not to step back. To run would only entice her. He could taste her aura, his senses flicking out and it was dreadful. It had no colour, but was more like a choking toxic smoke that tried to reach out and draw him in. "It doesn't stop you being evil."

She laughed and it was a full, deep sound. Her mouth was half-parted, and he could see the odd depth of colour to it; the shimmering scarlet of someone else's life. So beautiful in that moment, powerful and terrifying, some dark goddess.

"You see the truth." She was close enough now to caress his face, let her hands run through his hair, curl around his neck, distracting him with, he admitted grimly, a great deal of success. His hands stayed at his sides only with immense self-control he hadn't known he had. "Can you fight it?"

I'm no fighter, he thought. Her eyes were filling with something older and darker, something that rose to the surface from where it had lain silent and waiting. Then she buried her head in his neck, and she smelled of the wild outside, rich and exotic as a desert flower.

And he felt it subtly, the change from woman to beast. Her hands shifting slightly to the back of his neck, the small of his back. The contact that was no longer affectionate, but purposeful. He swallowed hard and heard her sigh. It was unbelievably frightening.

He sent a nudge, a tiny thread of magick at her, felt her leap back as if burned and he stepped away, breathing hard and not caring if she knew how much she was affecting him. "No," he said softly. "I can't fight it. But I can deny it."

"The thing is," she said with a dry little laugh, "you'd love to believe that this isn't your soulmate, your sweet other half. But the truth is that magick can't work on the unwilling. Some part of your lady wanted this. Some part of her loves it, needs it. Because the truth is this; underneath all of us, there's a beast that has been waiting to smell the blood and live the hunt."

"Bullshit."

She chuckled and reached out for him again, her touch burning. "Wrong. This is my beast, Cern. This is my truth." Her eyes hardened suddenly, and flashed an eldritch red. "And here's yours. You cannot live."

If only he had had his magic, perhaps it would have been all right. But the Elders had banned him; they had put spells on him to stop him reaching the core of purple fire that burned inside him.

He had nothing to fight with.

She pounced.

* * * *

She felt the air so cool on her as she moved, flowing along her body like silk, felt his skin open under her claws like paper tearing.

The power was phenomenal.

The hunter felt as though the moon plummeted from the sky and exploded in her heart, striking in a wave of hot white lightning, lighting up every pore and sense as though she was a thing made of diamonds. She screamed with the intensity, screamed her thrill to the heavens, ached to feel the first sting of blood.

He was fighting her dimly, struggling to reach her. She ignored his pleading voice, dipping her head to lap at his blood. Oh, by the burning moon, it was pure power. Pure sorcery.

Then she felt his mind reaching in hers and shocked, the hunter tried to bat him away.

But it was too late. He was within.

She blinked, and she was in the temple, ringed by black marble and simmering torches. She was gold within jet, beauty within darkness. The hunter in the night. Shimmering with power, she stepped down gracefully. Around her swung seven figures, hanging from ropes that were made with the simple creativity of the hunter. And the hunter thought only in flesh and blood.

Those who had made her; six ringing the altar, swinging gently, and one above it. That one with the dark hair and dimmed gold eyes of Kaajen mal Ifiche. Vampire. Creator. Sacrifice.

He was nothing compared with her. Nothing.

Just like this witch boy, with the foolish belief in his eyes and innocence seared on every line of his face. And he stood before her like he was an *equal*. Fool. She would destroy him.

~ No...I won't let you win this one, ~ he said grimly. Determination strong in his voice and desperate hurt too. He loved her, she realised, and he pitied what she had become.

~ You *dare* pity me? ~ she shrieked enraged.

He strode forward and took hold of her shoulders. And to her immense outrage, he shook her. ~ I dare. ~

. ~ I will destroy you. ~ The hunter wrenched herself free, her face contorting furiously

His smile was heartbreakingly sweet. ~ I will find you. ~

Before she even knew what he had done, she saw him glance to the ceiling where the moonlight poured through so thickly. And he put his hands together, as if to pray...and heard him murmur words she didn't understand.

Words she knew were a spell.

But he had no magic. And as she felt a tremendous tug on her mind, she realised he was using her own power to entrap her.

~ No! ~ she cried angrily, and flew across to tug at his hands, to try to stop him saying the words that pulled her power from her, inch by inch. But she, the hunter of the moon, could not defeat the simple words of one halfbreed.

~ Let go! ~ she raged, meeting the velvet depths of his eyes. She felt the power surging in him. ~ Stop it! ~

His eyes met hers, and in them, the summer still flourished though she had tried to tear it from him. Unnatural, unwanted...unstoppable.

~ Yes. ~

Suddenly his grasp broke apart and from it exploded a burning light that ripped through her and tore her away from herself. She felt herself melt under the heat of that light, flung back into the depths where she had smouldered and waited so long...

The last thing she saw was the sadness on his face, this boy who had nothing and with that had defeated her. Their minds peeled away from one another, and she felt the weakness in him, for an instant saw him sprawled limply upon the dark ground.

I will wait again, she swore furiously, as she felt that other weak creature surface. Tumbling now, back into the patient shadows of the soul.

After all – he will not be there to stop me.

I can wait. The hunt continues and one day, the hunter shall rejoin it.

* * * *

The world crashed in on her like a thunderstorm. Jal moaned faintly, and put a hand to her pounding head. Dear gods, what a strange dream...night, and slaughter, and the deep sweet flavour of blood...

No dream.

She sat bolt upright, to find her hands sticky with things she couldn't bear to think about, with her body aching in strange places. She looked up and the moon filled her vision like a sickly eye, looming down towards her until she felt as though she would vomit right there.

She turned away with a gasp, and pushed herself to her feet. She was freezing, filled with an awful limp shakiness as though she had run for her life. And there was an odd taste in her mouth. A coppery, succulent taste. She spat, trying to get rid of it, all the while struggling to recall what had happened.

The hunter had come back.

She remembered now, clear as crystal. Time seemed to spin out inside her head.

"Zade!" A woman screamed for her child, a sweet-faced blond thing, while Jal tore him into pieces despite the woman's frantic fighting. She had been an assassin, she recalled now, called Elise Seille whose crime had been to marry a coyote shapeshifter. Jal had killed that child, and killed their hopes with him.

The dead, dull acceptance in the eyes of a witch-wolf as Jal held her by the throat and crushed the breath from her, and then buried her in molten silver.

The fierce grin on the face of the human-dragon who had fought her for three nights and three days. Until he was but dust, and she was triumphant.

Dozens of memories, all the same brutal horror.

She was a killer. An evil thing. And she could never weep enough tears to atone for what she had done.

Slowly the memory of the night filtered in on her. Of leaping from that circle, while Bane Malefici tried so hard to capture her with old magick. Ruby Luthman...no...she hadn't but yes, she knew she had. The cool voice of Jepar...and the neat crunch of his spine.

And someone chasing her, catching her, pushing the hunter back to the dark where she belonged—

Jal froze.

And slowly, oh so slowly, she turned back to look at the body that was heaped in the shallow niche of the cave.

Details struck her gradually, like glints from a stained glass window.

The disarrayed waves of the mahogany hair.

The parted lips of that wide mouth, no longer curved in a smile.

The broken, lifeless body.

The pool of blood.

The violet eyes, the summer snatched from them.

Jal screamed and screamed and the sound echoed back at her from the sky. There was only her, only him, alone on the summit. And above them, the clouds floated by like nothing mattered. Like nothing was wrong. As if her soulmate wasn't lying there, broken in his own blood.

She ran from what she had done.

* * * *

Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts on this :-)