PART 10
Aly knew that she was being followed as she walked home from The Dove's Flight, a Circle Twilight supply shop. A trained spy, like Aly, knew how to sense such things, or else she wouldn't have lasted very long undercover. She decided from her shadow's silent movement that it must be Kaelin, one of Gabrielle's little lackeys. The witch was such a boot-licker that Aly was surprised Kaelin could even speak without Gabrielle's say-so. *Hell, maybe she can't.*
Alyson Roze let her pursuer on a grand chase, but always she could feel Kaelin behind her. The Midnight witch might be a lackey, but she did know how to trail somebody. But if Aly paid close attention, she could see Kaelin clinging to the shadows of the street. It didn't matter. Kaelin could do nothing by herself, she wasn't powerful enough to stop a Roze witch, and she most certainly wasn't powerful enough to break all the protection spells that Eddie had cast on her. And after her trip to the store, Alyson had everything she needed to make her mission a success. *Well, almost everything. I do need to get the sapphire necklace from mom's room. Then I'll be ready.*
Trying to ignore Kaelin during the rest of the short walk back to her house, Aly thought through her plan. Using the sapphire charm to enhance her powers, she stood a good chance against the Circle, but just to be sure she'd bought many charms of protection as well as the ingredients to a spell that would let her look into the mind of any witch and know what they were thinking—for the duration of the spell, at least. Aly hoped that she could get close enough to Gabrielle to use the spell, and then get away safely to report to Circle Daybreak what Gabrielle's Circle had planned. It was risky, to be sure, and any number of things could go wrong, but it was her only choice. She had to complete her mission. She didn't know why, but Aly had a feeling the fate of the world lay with her.
*Pressure? What pressure?*
She was walking a fine line, she realized. She was stressed and she was tired and she felt like she could snap at any moment, and that would be a very bad thing. She hadn't always been a spy. She'd been an assassin first, and she'd been a very good assassin, right up until the actual killing part of the mission. She hadn't choked. She'd killed the vampire bastard that had been her mark, drove a stake right through his blackened, evil heart. And right after that she'd had a fit of conscience so fierce that her whole body convulsed in disgust and disbelief.
But that didn't change how she'd felt during the act of killing itself. She'd felt free. Free and powerful. And she was terrified that she was a monster because she had enjoyed killing. That joy made her little better than the vampire she had murdered.
But right now, anything could set her over that edge, and make her break the vow she'd made to herself to never kill again. If something annoyed her enough right now, she would lash out with all her potent witch energy, and the result would likely kill anything in its path. Kaelin was getting very close to being on the receiving end of orange witch fire. If she continued to flicker in and out of Aly's range of vision, she'd end up getting fried.
A shadow flickered at the corner of her eye. Aly gritted her teeth, but continued walking. She was very close to her house now, very close to the wards that would protect her from all members of the circle. She just had to restrain herself for five minutes. She could do it; she'd been trained to be calm under pressure. Unfortunately, she was so angry that she had let things spiral so far out of control with the whole Circle issue that she didn't care who she hurt. At least it would get some of the angry tension out of her system.
Another shadow flickered. *All right, I've had just about enough of this!*
"Kaelin! Stop following me like some fucking coward! Show yourself and we'll have it out right now. Or are you chicken?" taunted Aly. She thought she heard an incensed gasp a few feet away, but it might have been the wind.
"Chicken?" called out a voice angrily. "You dare to call me a coward? I have been a part of things so dark that your fragile Daybreaker mind would have pulled the covers of its proverbial eyes!" cried the Circle Midnight witch as she stepped out from the shadows that she'd been cloaked in. She held her arms calmly at her sides, but her fists were balled up and shaking with repressed fury. Her gray eyes burned silver with the force of her outrage. "I have been witness to the Calling of the Spirits! I have killed many, many people, and they didn't even know I was there until they felt my knife biting deep into their throats. I am the scariest bitch you'll ever face, and you should be the one quaking with fear right now. The shield on you can only protect you from magical damage, not physical." Kaelin smiled. "Be afraid, be very afraid."
Aly almost dropped her defense because she was so surprised. This bootlicking witch thought that she was a match for Aly in a knife fight? *Guess they didn't check out the background of the youngest descendent of Briar Roze.*
"You wanna fight? By all means then, let's get it on," said Aly, unsheathing the seven inch knife at her side. She had two others on her, one in each boot, but Kaelin didn't have to know that. Aly like to have something up her sleeves for emergencies.
The two witches stood only a few feet apart from each other, lamplight glinting off their drawn blades. They gauged each other for physical weakness, as any well trained fighter would do before closing in battle. Suddenly, betraying her plan by neither movement nor thought, Aly leapt forward and lashed out at the Midnight witch with her left fist. The blow caught the gray eyed witch square in the jaw, and she fell back under the force of the punch.
Not giving her opponent any time to regroup and retaliate, Aly unleashed a quick roundhouse kick to Kaelin's unprotected stomach. The Midnight witch groaned as the kick connected and sent her body flying to the pavement and knocking her out cold. She was bleeding badly from her nose, but Aly didn't care, she was lost in her lust for destruction. All Aly wanted right now was to see her enemy destroyed, to choke her to death with her own hands. To feel the life force drain out of her until her angry silver eyes glazed over with death.
The Daybreaker Assassin was in her full glory right now; Alyson Roze had given in to her beast.
PART 11
Griffin stood slack jawed as he watched Aly, his soulmate, pummel Kaelin Lieber into a bloody pulp. *Oh my God, Aly's going to kill her* he realized, recognizing the killing rage in his soulmate's very stance and movements. *I have to stop her. She's not rational. Neither one of us should have to kill anymore.*
Moving with mind and body in accord, Griffin stepped into the fight. Aly was so intent on her fallen victim that she didn't even realize that he was sneaking up behind her until it was too late. Griffin disabled her with a blow to the head, using just enough force to knock her out for a while without leaving any permanent damage. Inwardly, he recoiled at the act he'd just committed. *But it was the only way. She wasn't sane; she couldn't be reasoned with.*
It didn't matter. Maybe to the Griffin Weald of a few days ago, it would have justified the action, but now he just felt sick. Gently, as if to balance his ruthlessness with gentleness, he picked his soulmate up off the street and carried her back to the corner where Madeline waited for him.
"Is she all right?" asked the former Midnight witch in a voice laced with genuine concern.
"She'll be fine in an hour or so, except for a mild headache. I'm more worried about the psychological damage attacking Kaelin caused. I mean, Aly hasn't given in to the assassin's insanity in a long time. What will she do when she realizes that she could have easily killed again if I hadn't stepped in?"
Madeline sighed deeply. "I don't know. And more to the point, there are no spells to deal with this sort of thing. None that I know of, anyway."
"Well, we can't just stand here all night and wait for Gabrielle to unleash Armageddon. Let's get her home first. Then we can talk to Mrs. Roze about contacting Circle Daybreak for reinforcements."
"What are we going to do with Kaelin?" asked Madeline, gesturing toward the fallen witch.
"Leave her, I suppose. Nothing else we can do, really. She's not badly injured; she'll come to in a few minutes, I think. Another good reason for us to be gone."
Madeline looked slightly dazed, Griffin noticed, as if she couldn't quite believe what was happening all around her. He himself would be wearing the same expression, but he was far to intent on his plan (such as it was) to give in to shock. He pushed all emotions from his mind, especially those concerning Alyson, and walked as quickly as he could toward his soulmate's house at the end of the street, praying all the while that her mother would be home.
***
The doorbell rang from downstairs. "Who could it be at this hour of the night?" she asked to herself. Alyson had gone out for supplies, and Eddie didn't expect her back for another half hour or so. She walked down to the front door unhurriedly, but not fearful. That changed the second she opened the door to reveal her daughter's apparently lifeless form in the arms of the young male witch who had accompanied those Circle Midnight girls to her house the other day. Her heart seized up in her chest; she felt like she could barely breathe.
"Sweet Mother Hecate. Is she…." Her voice trailed off, unable to speak the word for fear of making it a reality.
"No. She's unconscious. She should be all right in a half hour or so," replied the female witch behind the blond haired boy.
"Thank the Goddess," she said, placing her right hand over her fast beating heart. "Well, you can't just stand there all night. Come on in, please."
The blond boy and the girl walked wordlessly inside and closed the door behind them. "We didn't have the chance to introduce ourselves last time. I am Madeline Clearwater, and this is Griffin Weald. We've broken from Circle Midnight, and we are looking for temporary sanctuary. Will you grant us this?"
"With open arms," she replied formally.
"Thank you, Mrs. Roze," replied Griffin, as he walked over and set Aly on the couch. "You, uh, wouldn't know how to reach Circle Daybreak, would you? It's kind of an emergency."
"All I know is that Aly's contact was named Garrett Prinze. I don't even know how to reach him." She shook her head, "I wish I could tell you more."
"Me too. We'll just have to wait until she wakes up then," said Madeline.
Eddie didn't know what exactly was going on, but she was a strong enough witch to sense the tension and the sense of urgency that filled both of these young witches. *Aly-bear, please wake up soon* she prayed mentally. *These people need you.*
