Firstly, I'm sorry about the time this has taken! Secondly, and most importantly, thanks to all of you who commented last time round! Thank you - you made the week a joyous one!
Thank you to: Aquilla, Myst, Persephone, Angelic Angel, Linnet Jo, Dead Flower, Tough Fluff, Cynical Leaf, Kitty Katt, Jen, Starwisher, Gwenseth, and the divine Dark Angel.
As might be a tad obvious, I absolutely adore, cherish and revere comments like I do chocolate, sunlight, summer and F1 - please tell me what you think; I love hearing, both goods and bads.
The lyrics come from Fiona Apple's 'Never is a Promise' which is a beautiful, bluesy song. Hope you enjoy!
Remember Part Six
You said you'd never let me fall from hopes so high.
The study was in chaos. And Rob was not in a good mood.
There was a girl crying on the floor. He pulled her up and pushed her in the direction of the door, glancing round to see if there was anyone else not running for their life. No. Good. Time to get out of here-
"Ohhhhh," a husky voice said slowly, "you're so chivalrous."
Therese was in front of him, tall and menacing. Her black mouth seemed swollen on her face, somehow wrong. She wasn't smiling, and her eyes were fixed on him with an intense craving.
She licked her lips.
Oh no, he had not come here just to get some girl attached to his neck. Especially not Therese Orage, who was to sanity what the Monkees were to the Beatles. Not even close.
"Get lost, Therese," he snapped in the tones of the terminally confident. After all, he reasoned, there was easier prey than him around. "You've ruined the party, okay, now go."
"Darling, darling," she sighed, shaking her head. He wondered absently what colour her hair had been, if it had been as dark as those eyes, as bewitchingly soft. "I'm not here for the party. And neither are you."
"Really?" he said brightly. "What gave me away? Was it the high-powered weaponry? The revelation of the master-plan? The proverbial neon sign that said 'helpless prisoner of loopy model'?"
Her face blazed with zeal. "There are weapons?" Damn.
"Excuse me," he said, edging past her. "I have to go and give a monkey the key to the banana plantation."
He was aware the room was emptying around him as people found the exits. Ellie was gone. First in the room; first out of it too, damn her. He made a mental note to buy himself a cattle-prod very soon.
He almost got to the door, last in the crowd of people shrieking their way into the great beyond.
Next thing he knew, he was flying across the room.
Pity the wall was in the way. Rob hit it with an almighty thump that knocked his breath away, and made the world split into harsh rainbows, his head pounding like someone was playing pinball with his skull.
Unfortunately, when his vision cleared, Therese was above him.
Her eyes were burning.
It was at that point Rob realised he was in more trouble than just a hungry vampire. She could have chosen one of the other tail-enders. But she'd chosen him. Lucky, lucky him.
"Oh, no, no," she purred. "I hope you're not trying to escape."
"Not at all," Rob assured her. "I was just going to shut the door so you could tear my throat out in peace."
"In pieces," she said absently. "I could never get it out in one chunk. Blue's more skilled at that. You're keen to die." Her smile was heart-stopping, appealing as a kitten chasing its tail. "I like that in a man."
"So do I," he said wildly. Sarcasm obviously didn't work with her.
She blinked. "What?"
Perfect. He gave her the widest, most manic smile he could muster, scrambling to his feet. "Sorry, but I don't think you have the qualities I'm looking for in Mr Right. So not interested."
The dark eyelashes lowered slowly, veiling her eyes. "I don't care. I like a challenge. You'll be my human slave...I'll make you beg and plead just to be near me...you'll love me."
"Did you have a traumatic childhood?" he said, watching her with a dreadful fascination. He had never seen anything so deadly, or so truly beautiful. It made his heart ache just to look at her.
Creatures like this were what had been missing. She filled an empty hole inside of him, a part of him that sometimes woke up in the night and wondered what prowled under the blind and secret moon, that knew the horror stories were true, that whispered that there was something else out there somewhere, something that would have all the answers to the questions that made his life so confused and unbearable.
Here she was. And god, he thought that he'd never seen anything so enticingly predatory. His fear had curled up like a dying spider, and left this strange void.
Her stare told him he should submit. Her every word told him that he was nothing to her splendour.
His own thoughts told him she was right.
She was beautiful, and she pulled at the part of him that ached for perfection, but even so...he didn't want to die. Or he didn't think he did. Or maybe he didn't think he should.
He didn't know anymore.
She had a smoky laugh, and that willow-branch of a body swayed backwards and forwards. "You might want to try Aspen if you're looking for that. I didn't come here to listen to your questions."
"What did you come here for?"
She wriggled like a cat in the sun. Rob knew no one should be able to move like that, as though every bone she had had dissolved into heavy ribbon. "You."
You really do walk into these things, the tiny voice that he thought of as his inner adult said.
"What the hell do you want with me?" he said curiously, genuinely confused. Rob couldn't imagine why anyone, even a vampire, would want him. He simply didn't see what others saw when they looked at him.
His life, Rob decided, was lacking something. About six bodyguards for starters.
"You smell...nice."
You had to be normal, the voice nagged. You couldn't have had a socially disfiguring hygiene problem.
He didn't know whether to move or stay still. Staying still meant being too close to her famished eyes, and those slick, wicked teeth. But moving meant tempting her. "So did half the room."
"Not like you." Her hawkish face held him, exotic yet familiar. "You smell like storms and sweetness."
So the Lynx effect really did work. "I don't really see that as a good reason to kill me. I mean, no offence, but I'd like to at least die for a good reason. Old age would be tops."
She was drooling.
"Okay," he said cautiously. "Do you know that that is incredibly unsanitary, never mind disgusting?"
"I don't like my food to talk," she said, gliding forward. Her head swayed back and forth, and there was a strange blankness in her expression. I really don't want to die, Rob realised. Not like this.
"Maybe you should switch to inorganic food then. Much more healthy, I hear. And free of those nasty gristly bits." Rob was backed up against the wall, and her gliding steps would bring her within touching distance soon. "Did I mention that I'm actually an android?"
"No..." she said vaguely. "You're going to taste so good..."
Way too close now...he was flat against the wall, feeling his eyes widen until the cold air brushed them, every muscle gone taut and painful. "I gave blood two months ago!" he yelled. "My doctor said I should wait another four months!"
"Screw your doctor," she said lazily.
"I don't think the Hippocratic oath covers that one," he muttered.
That soft, smoky laugh rolled around his ears again, and she was tipping up his head. Rob tried to duck his head, keep his veins protected but there was too much strength in her. Those black eyes were filled with ancient promise, glistening like mica in coal. "Stop fighting. I can make this feel very good."
"By going far away?"
She licked his throat...and oh god, she had a forked tongue. Rob was paralysed for a moment before he brought one hand round in a no-holds-barred punch.
There was the cold sound of flesh meeting flesh as she caught his arm in one hand then wrenched it at an angle that would have made his trigonometry teacher's eyes water. Rob screamed a word that caused pulses of seashell radiance to writhe in her eyes.
"Later, darling," she promised, and bit him.
X - X - X - X - X
Once:
He loved her, of course.
It was a secret that the comte had buried deep within his heart. It was one that stung at him often, making the mask of coldness and composure he showed to her ever more difficult.
He loved her, but he would lose her.
The witch had been certain of that. He remembered the murky colour of her eyes, thick as a quagmire, and the way she had stared before the click-clickety-click of her knitting needles had clattered on the air.
"You've had lives before this one, you know," she had remarked, quite casually. He had understood why his parents revered her so; ancient and ugly and withered though she was, she was far more clever than he would ever be. Clever, and perhaps a fraction cruel. They had sent him to her to see his future. "With her."
"I have?" he said, fighting to hide his astonishment.
"Of course, mon enfant. But you have failed her every life. And this one won't be any different!" A laugh of glee. "There's another, you see."
It felt as though the guillotine had hissed on his head. "Another?" he had sputtered. "She's betrayed me?"
The witch had laughed, and the clack of the needles had ceased briefly. "Who knows? If she hasn't yet, she will. It's been that way since time begun. You have lost your soulmate to darkness."
His heart was ice, numb with shock. It helped him to calm himself, tell himself she was only an unsightly crone who had nothing to do but toy with others, reading fortunes for a pittance. "How?"
"Because the darkness understands her," she said, her voice as clear and chiming as the rest of her was not. "It will coax her and lure her, and speak softly to her where you turn away. She'll betray you, mon enfant, and maybe she already has. And until you understand her, and give her yourself, she'll walk into the darkness's arms and be glad of its comfort until the moment when it tears her apart."
"I have given her myself," he said guardedly.
She snorted. "No, you haven't. She's given you everything that she is and what have you given her? Trois fois rien. Nothing. You say sweet words, I'm sure, and bestow sweeter kisses, and maybe more, as all men do, but you hide the secrets of yourself from her."
He had left there in a blinding fury that had chilled into this numb ice. If she would betray him, then he would not show by word or deed that he cared. She deserved none of him, and he wanted none of her.
He had told himself.
He saw now that he had driven her into the arms of that Other. He had seen the way the Court whispered about him, and how they looked on her with fondness as she became bright and lovely again, and as he became ever more miserable.
He had given her a choice.
And that day in the maze, she had made it at last, after days of dithering, of piteous tears and soft pleas. He was not immune to them, far from it. She had crushed his heart and trampled upon the pieces.
"I am a bird in a gilded cage!" she had shouted in the privacy of her rooms. "It may be pretty, but it is still a prison! Why will you not smile? Why will you say nothing? I refuse to believe love can disappear."
"You believe it can be born with one glance," he had said in the cool tones he had to use to stop himself losing his temper. "Why can it not die with one?"
He had only himself to blame.
But still, it had hurt. What he had done had hurt.
She had chosen the Other. He had watched her walk the path of darkness, darkness that wooed her with velvety voice and voracious eyes.
The Other had looked at him or a moment, and behind the cool blue eyes, a black hatred had squeezed out to pierce him once, before disappearing. Afterwards, he wondered if he imagined the loathing.
She had chosen the Other. She had chosen death.
He remembered his own words. So empty, and cold, and if only she had known, filled with all the hurt he would never express. "Death, I think, will become you."
He had gestured to the guard, and the light had gleamed an icy blue from the axe.
And the guard had raised the axe, and stepped towards his lady love. Had given her the blade, and those lovely eyes, so innocent and fresh, had widened. The soldiers had left; only the three of them remained.
"Strike off my head," he had said flatly. "It would be easier than watching you dance to your own death."
She had given a little cry, and let the weapon clang to the floor.
The Other had turned those slow, cold eyes on him. "You are cruel, lord."
"You are fortunate," he had said stiffly, and left. He mourned silently for her loss, and waited out the days. It became harder to be merciful within his province; he found that he hated the faces of the pretty girls in his home for now and again, one would tilt her head or laugh like Ana, and he would dream of her.
He had not long to wait.
X - X - X - X - X
The world swept around Tam like wings unfolding.
"What was that?" she asked, feeling more confused than ever. Already the memory was fading away, cleaving into pieces of words and thoughts that made no sense. She stroked Aspen's hair completely absently, loving how kitten-soft it was, and the careful, close way he was holding her.
Aspen blinked, his strange eyes focusing on her slowly. "It was...I don't know. I can't remember."
She opened her mouth to remind him, but the details were already vague and hazy. She only knew that there had been sadness, and betrayal, and intense, awful isolation that she couldn't even grasp.
"I guess it doesn't matter," she said contentedly, shrugging.
The shy, startling smile made her heart melt into a sizzling puddle. "Maybe not...but what you did matters." He paused and the words came out, she thought, as though they tasted strange. "Thank you."
"It was my pleasure," she said, pleased with the way she was handling this.
See, no nasty bite-marks, no tantrums from either side, no one running in and shanghaiing them. Just two normal people, having a perfectly rational conversation, in a garden, in the middle of a party...that had not been merely crashed, but totalled, taken to the scrap yard and made into a little cube of useless metal.
"Was it? I...don't want you to feel like you have to be here, you know," he said softly. "You can leave if you want. I'm...not an easy person to be with." His smile had vanished like the sun passing behind a cloud.
"Aspen, I think that's the worst understatement I've heard all year. You're crazy, and you're a vampire, and you're unbelievably messed-up, and I think just being here is risking my life-"
With every word, she saw his face crumble a little more, the first cracks spreading across his eyes. It was a good act, he put on, and as long as no one saw under all the meanness and wacky violence, it was safe. But if you knew where to hurt him...it was too easy to pry him apart.
"-but apart from that, you're the sweetest guy I know, and you really are too cute for anyone's peace of mind. Oh, and we're destined for eternity."
He stared at her, the dimming light throwing strange patterns on his face. He, she felt, was something wild that had strayed into her arms by pure and blessed mistake, and at any moment, he might snap or run.
"I want this," he muttered quietly, eyes dropping to stare at the ground. "You're the only thing I've ever wanted in my life. I never asked to be who I am, or where I am, or what I am, even if people would kill to be those things. I just..."
She understood him perfectly. "No one will mess it up," she said firmly, believing it with a hopelessly firm faith she hadn't felt in a long time. "I won't, and you won't and no one else stands a chance."
He was hers. She felt it with a deep, protective instinct. He was on her list of the people she loved fiercely, who she would let no one hurt and who she would fight to the death for.
"Why did they tell me vermin were bad?" he asked her, his fingers tracing up and down her spine, arms curling around her. He was someone who needed contact like air, she recognized, contact that didn't threaten him. "They told me that you were food, and that you didn't care about anything but yourselves."
"They?"
She didn't like the fragility that fluttered in his eyes like a butterfly caught in a tornado. "No one."
"Someone," she corrected. Were they the ones who had made him this way? "Who?"
"No one," he repeated, the first note of panic in his voice. "Leave it alone, ver-Tamara. It's...nothing."
As she heard his fright, she realised that it was her hurting him. She didn't hurt her friends, and she didn't hurt him. "All right." His arms relaxed about her a little. But under her fingers, his pulse was pounding like the feet of a fugitive. "Why did you come here, Aspen?"
Both of them jumped when another voice answered.
"It seems obvious to me." There was a sharp click, and it sent terror spilling down her veins. She knew that sound.
It was the safety on a gun.
Tam turned, and Ellie was there. Calm and stunning, immaculate as the shine along the rifle. Tam recognised it; it was the same one Ellie had held to her head and threatened her with. It had been a birthday present from her father who reckoned that all girls should be able to do three things: cook, dance and shoot.
It was the last one that had clued Tam in to just where Ellie got her interesting perspective on life from.
She moved forward, hands out. "Leave it, Ellie. This isn't your business." I must be mad, she thought. I'm approaching someone with a gun and a serious mental problem.
The girl laughed. There was the reckless abandon in her eyes that Tam had seen while she chased petrified shifters through the woods and fields. "This is exactly my business. This is how it's meant to be."
For a moment, Tam was thrown. Meant to be? What did she think this was, some kind of game? "You are not going to shoot anyone. Don't you get it? I'm not playing your game anymore."
"Because of him?" She gestured, and Tam swallowed as for a second she stared down the barrel. Silver bullets, she knew, and the gun oiled with oak resin. A simple combination that would kill anything Nightworld. Oh, and her. Last time Tam checked, she wasn't bullet-proof.
"Not just that," Tam said levelly. She couldn't seem to drag her eyes from the gun. "Because killing anyone is wrong. I don't know why you don't understand it, but that's how it is."
"I saw you with him." Ellie smiled faintly. "I thought I'd got it wrong at first. But it was you two, together again."
She had seen them the first time? She hadn't noticed anyone, but then...Aspen was enough to take anyone's mind off anything, especially when he was being psychotic.
"Get out of the way," Ellie said curtly. Her eyes were cool, shadowy wells, and her skin was camellia-blossom silky. She could have been a Nightperson herself, and maybe she should have been.
"Make me."
"No!" It was Aspen, and he was shaking his head. Tam turned to look at him, making sure she kept herself between the gun and him. "Tamara...don't. It's okay." His eyes seemed to flick up for a moment, above Ellie's head.
Tam followed his stare...and saw a flash of shadows and cobalt. Blue! Her heart leapt. Blue was there. He was Aspen's friend...
Her soulmate pushed her out of the way. His pupils were enormous, swallowing up his eyes, but calm. "It's all right," he said. "I am a monster. I know that. I guess I deserve to die."
Blue was poised, a lean coil in the green-tinted light. The sun had almost set now, and their silhouettes were impossibly long and thin.
She looked at Aspen. Trust me, his eyes said. I eat people like her for breakfast. Literally.
And stepped aside.
Ellie laughed, and raised the gun.
Now, Tam urged Blue silently. His blue eyes flicked her direction for a second, electrically bright. Then he shrugged, and relaxed, and blew her a treacherous kiss.
She was screaming as the gun fired.
Aspen's eyes were burned into her mind as he fell to his knees. For a moment, she thought he would be all right. It was a tiny hole, a neat cut in his shoulder. Then she saw the exit wound. It had blown a hole the size of her hand in his shoulder.
You promised no one would hurt us, the bleak horror in his eyes whispered. You lied to me.
I lied, Tam was screaming silently, while she ran to his side, stupid, whimpering sounds escaping her, and a strange numb disbelief spreading across her body as she tried to stop the bleeding with her hands. But she couldn't, please no, she couldn't.
Oh god, I lied.
But never is a promise, and you can't afford to lie.
X - X - X - X - X
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