Disclaimer: The Night World is the property of L.J. Smith.
Spoilers: None so far it is based on the Night World Series but I
don't spoil any of the books, just the Night World concept really.
Author's Notes: I am so, so sorry that this part took so long but I found it incredibly hard to write this part as well as having lots of other things taking up my time as well.
Anyway it's finally finished and I have to thank Mandy and Athena for reviewing the last part, thanks a lot you guys.
Part 17.
Hazel sat silently as Midir followed the other car slowly through the small, country roads. She had to admit it felt really weird just sitting there between two werewolves been driven around by Midir Boyce. Weirder still was the fact that it didn't seem so terrible, he didn't seem so terrible, in fact he seemed like a pretty nice guy. That was what was so bizarre someone who had been so feared by so many seemed like a nice guy.
She wondered what had made him change. Something had to have happened to make him choose to change, guys like him didn't change for no reason. The few cases like this she had heard of put the reason for the transformation squarely on the shoulders of the soulmate principle but Midir had decided to join Daybreak ever before he met Emma, which begged the question, why exactly had he become a Daybreaker? Emma asking her something brought her out of her thoughts.
"Huh," she replied.
"What exactly is Mrs. Ahern doing?" she asked.
"She told us earlier. Were you not listening?" Psyche asked innocently.
"Of course I was," Emma replied, "I just," she paused, "I just forgot."
"Sure, sure," Hazel said with a knowing smile. "She had a small compass with her and she did a spell that causes it to point towards the origin of the spell on Truth. That's why Truth had to be there so it could pick up the trace energy still around her and track down it's beginning. It's kind of like giving a dog scent."
"She can do that?" Emma said in surprise.
"Apparently so."
"So this shouldn't take too long," Athena said.
"You got somewhere better to be?" Fiachra snapped.
"Yes," she replied, "I do have a life, which is a lot more interesting that traipsing across the country because someone's pissed at your friend."
Emma could see Fiachra's face getting redder and redder and she could almost hear his teeth grating together. She knew from experience he was about to explode and they were in for a shouting match. She wasn't in the mood to be listening to them yelling. She felt compelled to play peacemaker but Midir beat her to it.
"Look if you don't want to be here I'll stop and let you out," he told Athena. "Otherwise shut up because you know if it was one of your friends you'd want Fiachra's help."
Emma smiled to herself as Athena sat back and clamped her mouth shut and Fiachra visibly deflated. She felt even better when she saw Fiachra looking at Midir with begrudging respect. Wonders would never cease.
"Anyway," Hazel said with a grin, "What I was going to say is that I don't know how long it will take because the arrow just points in the right direction. It could point through fields and hedges or anything so we might have to drive around for a while."
"As long as we find out what's going on before someone else gets hurt who cares how long it takes," Fiachra said with a pointed glance at Athena.
Athena just gazed out the window with feigned indifference.
Emma spent most of the two hours they spent driving around catching up with Hazel. It was so easy to fall back into the easy flowing banter they had always had, it felt almost as if nothing had changed.
"Nothing has changed," Hazel told her, "not between us anyway."
After two hours of what seemed like aimless driving around Emma began to feel very bored and very tired. Sitting in the stuffy car doing nothing was draining her energy. She leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes. She dozed a little until the car hit a pothole and her eyes jolted open.
Emma knew something was wrong but she was so disorientated it took her a full minute to work out what it was. She couldn't see. Everything was black well almost everything, she could kind of make out some darker shapes around her, which she assumed were Midir and the others.
"You guys," she said softly but no one heard her or else no one took any notice of her.
"You guys," she repeated loudly.
"What is it Em?" Hazel asked.
"I can't see."
"What?" Midir exclaimed.
"I can't see," Emma replied.
Midir took his eyes from the road and looked at Emma. She looked a little pale but that was probably the shock and the real problem was the film that covered her eyes obscuring her vision.
He stopped the car right then and there.
"Oh Em," he said softly reaching for her.
As Midir comforted Emma Fiachra took charge. It was the role he was used to leader, decision maker. He told Hazel to inform someone in the other car what was going on and get them back there while he tried to work out what exactly they should do next.
Mrs. Ahern looked at Emma with such gentle compassion it made Midir sorry she couldn't see it. She shook her head and sighed deeply like this attack on Emma somehow wounded her as much as it did his soulmate.
"I don't understand it," Mrs. Ahern said softly, "I don't know what could drive someone to do something like this. I don't know what was so terrible that it made this witch turn on her heritage like this, her calling, her belief. To turn against the rule so strongly and to do such senseless hurt it doesn't seem rational to me."
"I think all signs point to this person not being rational, actually I'd say there about 100 miles shy of rational," Fiachra's father said.
"Yes but to know these spells, to work these spells this must be a capable, determined person."
"There's only one way to find that out," Fiachra replied.
"That's true," his father agreed, "Midir can take Emma home and the rest of us can continue on, I think that's the only sensible thing to do."
"No," Emma said sternly, "I want to stay, I want to know what's going on. I want to stay."
"I don't know," Mrs. Ahern began.
"If it was you, what would you want?" Emma asked. "Look the sooner we find this person, the sooner we find out what the hell's been happening and the sooner I get cured, so lets not argue lets just find this person and get this over and done with."
It felt so strange to Emma not to be able to see, surreal even, she could hear, she could feel and she know they were moving but she didn't know where, she couldn't tell what was making the noises she heard though she could tell what direction they came from. Truthfully it scared her, scared her to death. What if she never got her sight back, what would she do then, what if she never saw her parents again, Midir, her friends. Somehow not being able to see made her feel very alone all of a sudden.
"This is strange," Hazel's voice said somewhere to her right.
"What's strange?" Emma asked. "It must be something pretty big if it's strange after the day we've just had."
"We're heading towards your house," Hazel replied.
"My house?" surprise rippled through Emma. Her house?
Silence settled in on the car and the only way Emma knew she wasn't alone was my hearing the others breathing or the occasional shuffle from the back seat. About 10 minutes later she heard the crunch of gravel beneath the car's tyres.
"I guess we're here," Fiachra said.
"Yeah, but where's here?" Emma thought to herself. The others didn't seem too forthcoming with that information so she just let Midir open her door and lead her from the car. She would know soon enough.
When they stopped she could tell they were all huddled together around a doorway and she heard Fiachra's father pound loudly on the door. Then after a few minutes steps and the door opened.
"So you finally got here," a familiar voice said, "I was wondering how long it would take."
Something went cold inside of Emma as she discovered who exactly had done this to her.
"I knew you were coming," Aine continued, "that's why I knew I had to hurry if I was going to finish what I'd started."
Emma didn't need to see Aine's face to realise there was something slightly unhinged about the girl, she could hear hysteria in her voice.
"Oh child," Mrs. Ahern said softly, "have you any idea what you've done?"
"I know what've done," Aine said her voice holding a hard, cruel edge, "I've done what was needed to be done. I've taken my retribution."
"Retribution," Truth spat, "what have I ever done to you?"
"Nothing," Aine replied.
"Then why did you do this to me?"
"Because he had to learn," Aine told her.
"What?" Fiachra asked.
"He had to learn it wasn't right, that he shouldn't be allowed to have a life, to have friends, to have love, not after what he did. Not after he took that from them, I was just taking from him what he has taken from so many."
"It is not your place to hand out justice," Mrs. Ahern said, "you know that."
"Yeah well no one else was about to. He was here living a normal life when he didn't even let them have a life. He probably doesn't even remember them, they were probably just another job to him."
Emma could hear the pain in Aine's voice, deep, soul scarring pain and any anger she had once held faded to pity.
"They were so in love and he was just a baby," Aine whispered, she wasn't talking to any of them any more only herself. "You should have seen how happy they were when they brought him home form the hospital, how sweet and clean and beautiful he was and then just blood, just a bloody lump, he wasn't even a person anymore. How could he do that to a baby?"
"I didn't," Midir's voice broke through her outburst. "I know who're you talking about now, Aengus and Cliona Collins and their baby son."
"My sister and nephew," Aine revealed, "You killed them because she married a human."
"I didn't," Midir said again, "I was supposed to, I was ordered to but I couldn't, I couldn't kill a baby. That's why I left, that's why I joined Daybreak. I tried to warn them, to protect them but they were afraid of me."
"No," Aine screamed, "No, no, no, no, no. It was you, it was you."
Fiachra's father caught her as she fell into a dead faint.
"I think you'd better go," Mrs. Ahern told them, "she needs help, more help than I can give her. Poor child, so confused, so much pain. We'll get her the help she needs."
"What about Emma?" Midir asked.
"I'll get her to remove the spell or I'll do it myself," Mrs. Ahern told him, "Right now I think the best thing would be to take her home, tonight's taken a lot out of her, out of all of you."
"So this is it," Midir said gently, "This has been what has caused all this trouble a confused, unstable girl."
"I'm afraid so," Mrs. Ahern told him, "Sometimes our pain is so great that that which we cause others seems miniscule in comparison."
****************************
A week after they had found out Aine was behind the spell Emma found herself sitting in the Rising Moon with Midir, Hazel, Truth and Fiachra.
"I tried so hard to be angry with her," Emma told the others, "but I just couldn't do it, I just felt so sorry for her."
"I guess it just goes to show that nothing is black and white," Hazel said softly.
"I wish it was," Truth said softly, "It would make things so much easier, I wouldn't feel so confused. I still feel angry at her but I fell sorry for her too and sometimes I feel terrible for being angry with her and sometimes I feel I'm right to be angry at her. Why can't things ever be plain, simple and straightforward?"
"That would take the fun out of it," Fiachra told her.
"For who?"
"I don't know," Fiachra replied, "I guess for whomever's up there watching us."
"So what time are Clea and Nathan getting here?" Hazel asked.
"I don't know they're supposed to bring Trist with them," Truth told her, "They should be here soon."
"It will be good to have everyone together again," Hazel said.
"Yeah even Hayden's coming," Fiachra joined in.
"That's not everyone," Emma said wistfully.
"No it's not," a voice behind her agreed.
"Stella," Emma exclaimed.
"Yep it's me."
"What are you doing here?"
"Well as much as it pains me to admit it, I was wrong. I guess I was just scared and being stubborn. I mean I guess if you can give Midir a chance I can too, I guess everyone deserves a second chance, that's what coming here's all about. And I guess I should realise that everyone can't be practically perfect like me."
Emma smiled happily, "Well pull up a chair Mary Poppins before your umbrella carries you off God knows where."
Stella grinned and grabbed a chair from a nearby table.
"And Stella?"
"What?"
"I missed you," Emma told her.
"I missed you too, hon. I'm sorry I was such an idiot."
"Like you said," Emma replied, "nobody's perfect, at least not all the time. And at least you made it clear how you felt, at least you didn't hide what you were feeling, at least you didn't conceal what you were feeling in your heart."
"Well if there's one thing you're certain to get from me it's honesty," Stella agreed and then joined into the conversation with the rest of the group as if she'd never been gone.
Emma leaned back in her chair and smiled, her little group of friends were back together again with an extra member and they're was nothing that could have made her happier. Whatever secrets they may all have, whatever hidden events lay in their pasts; they had all opened their hearts to one another and that was what made their friendship so special.
It is finally over, you cannot imagine who relieved I am to have finally finished. Well I hope you enjoyed it.
Spoilers: None so far it is based on the Night World Series but I
don't spoil any of the books, just the Night World concept really.
Author's Notes: I am so, so sorry that this part took so long but I found it incredibly hard to write this part as well as having lots of other things taking up my time as well.
Anyway it's finally finished and I have to thank Mandy and Athena for reviewing the last part, thanks a lot you guys.
Part 17.
Hazel sat silently as Midir followed the other car slowly through the small, country roads. She had to admit it felt really weird just sitting there between two werewolves been driven around by Midir Boyce. Weirder still was the fact that it didn't seem so terrible, he didn't seem so terrible, in fact he seemed like a pretty nice guy. That was what was so bizarre someone who had been so feared by so many seemed like a nice guy.
She wondered what had made him change. Something had to have happened to make him choose to change, guys like him didn't change for no reason. The few cases like this she had heard of put the reason for the transformation squarely on the shoulders of the soulmate principle but Midir had decided to join Daybreak ever before he met Emma, which begged the question, why exactly had he become a Daybreaker? Emma asking her something brought her out of her thoughts.
"Huh," she replied.
"What exactly is Mrs. Ahern doing?" she asked.
"She told us earlier. Were you not listening?" Psyche asked innocently.
"Of course I was," Emma replied, "I just," she paused, "I just forgot."
"Sure, sure," Hazel said with a knowing smile. "She had a small compass with her and she did a spell that causes it to point towards the origin of the spell on Truth. That's why Truth had to be there so it could pick up the trace energy still around her and track down it's beginning. It's kind of like giving a dog scent."
"She can do that?" Emma said in surprise.
"Apparently so."
"So this shouldn't take too long," Athena said.
"You got somewhere better to be?" Fiachra snapped.
"Yes," she replied, "I do have a life, which is a lot more interesting that traipsing across the country because someone's pissed at your friend."
Emma could see Fiachra's face getting redder and redder and she could almost hear his teeth grating together. She knew from experience he was about to explode and they were in for a shouting match. She wasn't in the mood to be listening to them yelling. She felt compelled to play peacemaker but Midir beat her to it.
"Look if you don't want to be here I'll stop and let you out," he told Athena. "Otherwise shut up because you know if it was one of your friends you'd want Fiachra's help."
Emma smiled to herself as Athena sat back and clamped her mouth shut and Fiachra visibly deflated. She felt even better when she saw Fiachra looking at Midir with begrudging respect. Wonders would never cease.
"Anyway," Hazel said with a grin, "What I was going to say is that I don't know how long it will take because the arrow just points in the right direction. It could point through fields and hedges or anything so we might have to drive around for a while."
"As long as we find out what's going on before someone else gets hurt who cares how long it takes," Fiachra said with a pointed glance at Athena.
Athena just gazed out the window with feigned indifference.
Emma spent most of the two hours they spent driving around catching up with Hazel. It was so easy to fall back into the easy flowing banter they had always had, it felt almost as if nothing had changed.
"Nothing has changed," Hazel told her, "not between us anyway."
After two hours of what seemed like aimless driving around Emma began to feel very bored and very tired. Sitting in the stuffy car doing nothing was draining her energy. She leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes. She dozed a little until the car hit a pothole and her eyes jolted open.
Emma knew something was wrong but she was so disorientated it took her a full minute to work out what it was. She couldn't see. Everything was black well almost everything, she could kind of make out some darker shapes around her, which she assumed were Midir and the others.
"You guys," she said softly but no one heard her or else no one took any notice of her.
"You guys," she repeated loudly.
"What is it Em?" Hazel asked.
"I can't see."
"What?" Midir exclaimed.
"I can't see," Emma replied.
Midir took his eyes from the road and looked at Emma. She looked a little pale but that was probably the shock and the real problem was the film that covered her eyes obscuring her vision.
He stopped the car right then and there.
"Oh Em," he said softly reaching for her.
As Midir comforted Emma Fiachra took charge. It was the role he was used to leader, decision maker. He told Hazel to inform someone in the other car what was going on and get them back there while he tried to work out what exactly they should do next.
Mrs. Ahern looked at Emma with such gentle compassion it made Midir sorry she couldn't see it. She shook her head and sighed deeply like this attack on Emma somehow wounded her as much as it did his soulmate.
"I don't understand it," Mrs. Ahern said softly, "I don't know what could drive someone to do something like this. I don't know what was so terrible that it made this witch turn on her heritage like this, her calling, her belief. To turn against the rule so strongly and to do such senseless hurt it doesn't seem rational to me."
"I think all signs point to this person not being rational, actually I'd say there about 100 miles shy of rational," Fiachra's father said.
"Yes but to know these spells, to work these spells this must be a capable, determined person."
"There's only one way to find that out," Fiachra replied.
"That's true," his father agreed, "Midir can take Emma home and the rest of us can continue on, I think that's the only sensible thing to do."
"No," Emma said sternly, "I want to stay, I want to know what's going on. I want to stay."
"I don't know," Mrs. Ahern began.
"If it was you, what would you want?" Emma asked. "Look the sooner we find this person, the sooner we find out what the hell's been happening and the sooner I get cured, so lets not argue lets just find this person and get this over and done with."
It felt so strange to Emma not to be able to see, surreal even, she could hear, she could feel and she know they were moving but she didn't know where, she couldn't tell what was making the noises she heard though she could tell what direction they came from. Truthfully it scared her, scared her to death. What if she never got her sight back, what would she do then, what if she never saw her parents again, Midir, her friends. Somehow not being able to see made her feel very alone all of a sudden.
"This is strange," Hazel's voice said somewhere to her right.
"What's strange?" Emma asked. "It must be something pretty big if it's strange after the day we've just had."
"We're heading towards your house," Hazel replied.
"My house?" surprise rippled through Emma. Her house?
Silence settled in on the car and the only way Emma knew she wasn't alone was my hearing the others breathing or the occasional shuffle from the back seat. About 10 minutes later she heard the crunch of gravel beneath the car's tyres.
"I guess we're here," Fiachra said.
"Yeah, but where's here?" Emma thought to herself. The others didn't seem too forthcoming with that information so she just let Midir open her door and lead her from the car. She would know soon enough.
When they stopped she could tell they were all huddled together around a doorway and she heard Fiachra's father pound loudly on the door. Then after a few minutes steps and the door opened.
"So you finally got here," a familiar voice said, "I was wondering how long it would take."
Something went cold inside of Emma as she discovered who exactly had done this to her.
"I knew you were coming," Aine continued, "that's why I knew I had to hurry if I was going to finish what I'd started."
Emma didn't need to see Aine's face to realise there was something slightly unhinged about the girl, she could hear hysteria in her voice.
"Oh child," Mrs. Ahern said softly, "have you any idea what you've done?"
"I know what've done," Aine said her voice holding a hard, cruel edge, "I've done what was needed to be done. I've taken my retribution."
"Retribution," Truth spat, "what have I ever done to you?"
"Nothing," Aine replied.
"Then why did you do this to me?"
"Because he had to learn," Aine told her.
"What?" Fiachra asked.
"He had to learn it wasn't right, that he shouldn't be allowed to have a life, to have friends, to have love, not after what he did. Not after he took that from them, I was just taking from him what he has taken from so many."
"It is not your place to hand out justice," Mrs. Ahern said, "you know that."
"Yeah well no one else was about to. He was here living a normal life when he didn't even let them have a life. He probably doesn't even remember them, they were probably just another job to him."
Emma could hear the pain in Aine's voice, deep, soul scarring pain and any anger she had once held faded to pity.
"They were so in love and he was just a baby," Aine whispered, she wasn't talking to any of them any more only herself. "You should have seen how happy they were when they brought him home form the hospital, how sweet and clean and beautiful he was and then just blood, just a bloody lump, he wasn't even a person anymore. How could he do that to a baby?"
"I didn't," Midir's voice broke through her outburst. "I know who're you talking about now, Aengus and Cliona Collins and their baby son."
"My sister and nephew," Aine revealed, "You killed them because she married a human."
"I didn't," Midir said again, "I was supposed to, I was ordered to but I couldn't, I couldn't kill a baby. That's why I left, that's why I joined Daybreak. I tried to warn them, to protect them but they were afraid of me."
"No," Aine screamed, "No, no, no, no, no. It was you, it was you."
Fiachra's father caught her as she fell into a dead faint.
"I think you'd better go," Mrs. Ahern told them, "she needs help, more help than I can give her. Poor child, so confused, so much pain. We'll get her the help she needs."
"What about Emma?" Midir asked.
"I'll get her to remove the spell or I'll do it myself," Mrs. Ahern told him, "Right now I think the best thing would be to take her home, tonight's taken a lot out of her, out of all of you."
"So this is it," Midir said gently, "This has been what has caused all this trouble a confused, unstable girl."
"I'm afraid so," Mrs. Ahern told him, "Sometimes our pain is so great that that which we cause others seems miniscule in comparison."
****************************
A week after they had found out Aine was behind the spell Emma found herself sitting in the Rising Moon with Midir, Hazel, Truth and Fiachra.
"I tried so hard to be angry with her," Emma told the others, "but I just couldn't do it, I just felt so sorry for her."
"I guess it just goes to show that nothing is black and white," Hazel said softly.
"I wish it was," Truth said softly, "It would make things so much easier, I wouldn't feel so confused. I still feel angry at her but I fell sorry for her too and sometimes I feel terrible for being angry with her and sometimes I feel I'm right to be angry at her. Why can't things ever be plain, simple and straightforward?"
"That would take the fun out of it," Fiachra told her.
"For who?"
"I don't know," Fiachra replied, "I guess for whomever's up there watching us."
"So what time are Clea and Nathan getting here?" Hazel asked.
"I don't know they're supposed to bring Trist with them," Truth told her, "They should be here soon."
"It will be good to have everyone together again," Hazel said.
"Yeah even Hayden's coming," Fiachra joined in.
"That's not everyone," Emma said wistfully.
"No it's not," a voice behind her agreed.
"Stella," Emma exclaimed.
"Yep it's me."
"What are you doing here?"
"Well as much as it pains me to admit it, I was wrong. I guess I was just scared and being stubborn. I mean I guess if you can give Midir a chance I can too, I guess everyone deserves a second chance, that's what coming here's all about. And I guess I should realise that everyone can't be practically perfect like me."
Emma smiled happily, "Well pull up a chair Mary Poppins before your umbrella carries you off God knows where."
Stella grinned and grabbed a chair from a nearby table.
"And Stella?"
"What?"
"I missed you," Emma told her.
"I missed you too, hon. I'm sorry I was such an idiot."
"Like you said," Emma replied, "nobody's perfect, at least not all the time. And at least you made it clear how you felt, at least you didn't hide what you were feeling, at least you didn't conceal what you were feeling in your heart."
"Well if there's one thing you're certain to get from me it's honesty," Stella agreed and then joined into the conversation with the rest of the group as if she'd never been gone.
Emma leaned back in her chair and smiled, her little group of friends were back together again with an extra member and they're was nothing that could have made her happier. Whatever secrets they may all have, whatever hidden events lay in their pasts; they had all opened their hearts to one another and that was what made their friendship so special.
It is finally over, you cannot imagine who relieved I am to have finally finished. Well I hope you enjoyed it.