This update was faster than a drunk Dolly Parton. I think I'll go reward myself now with pumpkin pie.
NOTE: I've changed how the characters' *thoughts* are written into the text; now only projected thoughts and telepathy have these ( ~~ ) things around them. Sorry!
SECOND Note: While I was writing this, I was listening predominantly to MÚM'S MOST EXCELLENT ALBUM, FINALLY WE ARE NO ONE! Do try it out.
I love reviewers…
Tamashii: How can you not like jelly?! I think—I think I having a hernia—ugh— ::gurgle, gurgle:: But moving on, thanks a ton for reviewing…read on…
torn violence: Wow. Yours was my first-ever super-long review. I absolutely relished and reveled in it. First off, I'm so glad you're liking the story. Yeah, I agree on the whole bad-boy attraction thing—I personally find their dark enigma intrinsically magnetic. Call me clichéd, but I think it's also especially interesting when there's a blatant contrast between the obvious beauty of their outer selves and the hidden, sharp-edged, perhaps nonexistent, complex beauty within. Ruan's definitely a sometimes freakish, often shitty character and I'm falling ever deeper in love with him. : ) And the compulsion/extortion aspect of the story was perfectly fitted, I think, to Ruan and Winn's peculiar complexities, augmenting the inevitable clashes between the disparities and similarities in their natures. Mmmm…then the dry-kiss scene ties into the theme of compulsion, revealing both characters' disgust and agitation towards each other…Fagin, huh? You're right, it wasn't intentional, but now I think of it, there is a definite verbal/conduct resemblance between them. I love writing 'bout Winn…she keeps changing (without my consent)…The criticism was delicious. You're right, I do get lazy sometimes, especially at the ends of chapters, and it was utterly good of you to point that out. I tried (usually) to keep this chap clean, but the lazy monster still's got it's claws in me, so tell me whether or not I improved at all. About the POVs, once again, great criticism. In some writing, I do like to explore, but it's probably wiser (and easier for readers) if the POVs are less sporadically arranged. I'll definitely work on it. Thanks sooo much for your delightful review, and please do read on… P.S. I'm liking spiderland most superlatively, so please keep writing…
galaktis: ::grudgingly hands the jelly over:: Fine! You can have it! Just take it!! Anyway, just remember that my jelly is your jelly (wow, that sounds strange). Thanks a barrel o' monkeys and keep the reviews coming…read on…
Katherine: I'm seriously blushing, here. : ) Thanks for the cool words and please, please, please read on…
neona-deniker: Sorry 'bout the shortitude last update, but I'm thinking this chapter is super-long compared my most recent. Enjoy the jelly (you strawberry-eating fool ; ) ) and the story…thanks a ton for the review and do read on…
Chapter 8: Marquéd
Winn's eyes flicked from side to side, instinctively scanning the dark, wet streets engulfed in a bluish fog. Three a.m. and I'm skulking, she thought amusedly. Who'd've thought I'd ever skulk? As she hurried past a stack of stinking garbage cans, she caught a glimpse of sudden movement—and jumped. A cat's wide, incandescent yellow eyes gleamed back at her. Feeling a shiver like cold fingers trail along her spine, she moved on, thinking, And I'm rather good at it.
Soon she approached the old woman's—Mara's—tiny, plastic-wreathed shack bordering the wide, empty Myrtle Avenue. Standing quietly in front the shack's entrance, Winn peered into the soggy cave, searching automatically for a glimmer—a spark—of feverish yellow.
"Why are you here, girl?" a scratchy, withered voice quavered. Mara's wasted face, with the shrunken mouth and glassy yellow orbs set deep in the skull, swung into view. As though recalling something important, she asked pointedly, "And without the *boy*?"
Winn held herself still, feeling her cheeks drain of color and fill with an unhealthy pallor. "I have a question."
Mara squinted impatiently. "Go on then, chicklet, do."
"How am I supposed to bring you Ruan—"
"Eh?"
"The boy—Ruan, he's the boy."
"Of course he's the boy. Don't I know this? Eh?"
"I thought—"
"Never mind what you thought, chicklet! Get on with it!"
Winn clenched her fingers into bone-colored, sharp-edged fists. "How am I supposed to bring bad Ru—the boy—to you? He—he's far stronger than I am."
At this, Mara chortled with bubbling mirth, her eyes snapping with a paradoxical blend of irony, venom, and genuine amusement. Head shaking with the side-to-side swing common to the aged, Mara responded gleefully, "Don't you know, chicklet? Haven't you any idea?"
Puzzled and wary, Winn asked, "I suppose not—what should I know?"
Mara smiled knowingly. "I think you have an idea, chicklet…a bitty idea. Your Ruan certainly does…" She paused, thinking. "Mmmm. Should I tell her?" Pause. "Certainly I should!" Mara crooked a finger, beckoning Winn closer, and Winn, almost involuntarily, obeyed.
Leaning close, Mara said softly but clearly, "You are she. She who was…she who will be…she who died in the coldly burning inferno of her own power…"
Winn glanced sharply at her, looking closely, but the furrowed old face was utterly serious, almost enraptured; the woman looked as though she were in some kind of waking trance, her eyes wide and abstracted—a religious, feral ecstasy. "What—what are you saying?" Winn whispered urgently.
But the fervent prayer-like chant died on Mara's thin lips and, abruptly shaking her head, as though to get the cobwebs out, she muttered, annoyed, "Are you deaf as well as dumb, girl? I was saying what it was I was saying."
Winn stared at her evenly.
Mara, meeting the cold, waiting eyes with a sideways glance, hunched a bit and mumbled, "Fine, then—oh, fine." The corners of her creased mouth quirked up, her yellow eyes almost lucid, and she continued, "I suppose your Ruan did not tell you then? Of course not—he is *cruel*!" She burst into shrill laughter. "Mmmm. Well, chicklet, it seems I must enlighten you, and, coincidentally, it is all the same to me." Her eyes flashed. "Winnen-little, rapidly approaches the day you *die*."
* * *
Ruan, lying half-clothed across his new, cool bed, was awake.
He stared at the dark ceiling, eyes an indefinite shade of deep blue, and reached out with his mind, the delicate tendril of thought stabbing through the shadowed distance between his mind and hers. She was not in her room; he had sensed it when she had crept out of bed, quiet as a street-weary cat, through the dusky corridors, and out into the early morning freeze. Indifferent, he had allowed her to duck reflexively away from his mind, and had drifted back into half-sleep.
But thirty or so minutes later, he had felt a violent tug and drag on his hazy thoughts, and, eyes snapping open, drew sharply awake. And now he lay sprawled, displeased and alert, mentally searching for some other sign of Winn.
There she was…He dipped into her sharply hued mind and scanned her fire-red thoughts; the glaring flashes of pure, dripping crimson were giving him a headache. Shit. He searched deeper for coherent thoughts; there: a single sentence echoing over and over.
~~Rapidly approaches…the day that…you will *die*…~~ His eyes narrowed. Who was she talking to?
Quick as a darting sparrow, he thrust his mind fully into hers, and for a second—less—he saw through her eyes: a flash of piercing, canary yellow eyes, set deep in an old face; waxy hair trailing down the narrow shoulders; a figure framed in darkness. A *witch*, he realized. He pulled away mentally, backing out of her perception.
He felt her mouth open a bit in shock; she could feel him. ~~*What are you doing!* Bad Ruan! Get out—out!~~ He smiled deliberately at the mental shriek.
~~Is something wrong, partridge?~~
He distinctly felt Winn narrow her eyes, wary; he sensed that she was both outraged and fearful at his mental intrusion. ~~Ruan-boy, you must stay out of my brain.~~ A pause as she held her breath.
Amused, Ruan returned, ~~Partridge-little, that's not for you to decide. I control *you*, or don't you remember?~~
~~Control, Ruan?~~ she snapped, though he detected a quiver beneath the hot words. ~~You did not *control* me—~~
~~Strange. Why, Winn, are you trembling?~~ Eyes gone a deep, playful shade of turquoise, though a stray shaft of early-morning light caught a glint of something…dark… in the richly-hued depths, Ruan projected a near-tangible image of icy fingers tracing the delicate, fluid curve of a pale shoulder.
He smiled lazily, sensing the tremor that automatically—involuntarily—ran through Winn's slight form. She didn't reply.
~~Has the veritable cat caught your tongue? I think it does; I can hear it growling. But enough with the whimsical bullshit.~~ His eyes were hooded and dark; his face comfortably expressionless. ~~Who are you talking to, Winnen Fallou?~~
He felt her go still, calculating. There was something here, he knew; something not quite right. Not bothering to keep the acid from his mental voice, he murmured, ~~You know, partridge, I can *feel* you. You're in my mind just as I am in yours. Don't bother hiding anything—I'll just rip it out all the harder.~~
Winn seemed to hold her breath for a second, then tried to button up her shamelessly bared surface thoughts. With an effort, she replied, ~~This does not concern you, Ruan Ferrin. Stay out.~~
He felt a rapid buildup of power in her, as she tried, repeatedly and unsuccessfully to screen her mind; the condensed mass of electric energy swelled hotter, greater. The tips of his long fingers prickled with anticipation and electric response to Winn's power; this was interesting. Ruan's irises gleamed a dark, vivid indigo.
With a sudden, almost audible crack, the electric, burning pulse in the girl's mind burst in a frenzy of color that blended and twisted together until all he could see was a shaft of pure, white light radiating from two wide, obsidian eyes.
A fraction of a second later, Ruan was staring at a greyish ceiling, ivory pale in boxers, stretched languorously across a chilled and rumpled bed.
Yes, he thought, And so the game begins.
* * *
Winn's eyes snapped open. Taking a deep, shaky breath, she met Mara's intrigued yellow gaze. A dainty smile pulled the corners of her lips up as she waited for Winn to calm down.
"So, your boy wants to know who I am, eh? Eh?"
Winn nodded, subdued.
"I know what you did, chicklet; I *felt* it. You pushed him right out, didn't you, girl?"
"I don't know what I did," Winn replied dully.
"Of course you do, chicklet! You did it!" She cocked her head, bird-like, to the side. "And because you were so successful, chicklet, I am invariably led to believe that you are indeed she."
"Who is *she*?" Winn whispered harshly. "You tell me I am *she*—she! And you tell me that I'll soon be *dead*—but you don't say *why*! So, Mara, *why*?"
Mara gazed intently at Winn. "First, girl, do not interrupt. You wonder who I speak of, this 'she'." A filmy glaze fell over her old, old eyes, as though she were remembering something long past, long forgotten. Staring into those polished gold-ringed eyes, Winn felt herself begin to drift…
"Her name was Elmyr and she was beautiful. A face as purely oval and ivory-pale as drops of pearl; hair the silken color of winter-sand; swan-throat slender as young birch; tall and lovely as the laurel, she was. And the *power*! Oh, it was grand. All of Ireland—her land—feared her for it; for her power, Born within her when she died, was beyond anything the world had yet seen…she was, in a word, the flesh-and-blood embodiment of power. Add to that her frightening, pristine, and utterly intrinsic cruelty, and she was invincible. This held true from perhaps 200 B.C. to 0 B.C.—nearly two centuries during which she inflicted more glorious horror and chaos on Ireland than that vermin imposter 'Vlad the Impaler' could ever dream of doing to his Romania. But then came her collapse. After a bloodfeast during which three hundred humans were sacrificed over the course of dinner, Elmyr, hands, mouth and hair sticky with gore, began to *burn* with an undreamed-of blend of cold-hot power—her own! She drowned in it—in her own, demon-kissed power, and when the storm had passed, naught was left but a shriveled, unidentifiable husk," Mara finished. She blinked, and the fever surged back into her eyes, her lips pulled back in a grin-slash-grimace.
Winn gave her head a slight shake, snapping back to reality. Raising an intensely perturbed gaze to Mara's face, she whispered slowly, "What does this have to do with me?"
"Mmmm. I think you *know*, chicklet, surely I do. You see, Winnen Fallou, you are her equal…untapped reserves of unimaginable power lie dormant in your scrawny self. In a word, Winnen Fallou, you are *marked* as she was marked."
Winn bit back an angry rebuttal, and softly replied, "And I will die as she did…in freezing fire. Is this what you mean?"
"Certainly."
"How do you know all of this?"
Mara whipped her head up, stringy hair splayed in jagged edges about her shoulders, and retorted angrily, "I tell you I lay curled in the womb and I *knew*! I *know*—simply that!"
Digging her short nails into her palms, Winn quietly inhaled the smell of sodden cardboard and wool. With receding patience, she asked, "But what is it that tipped you off?"
Glowering, piqued, Mara replied sharply, "You pushed the boy out! He is *strong*, chicklet, and knows it! But you—a *youngling* no less—pushed him out easy as though you've done it your whole miserable life! And that's not all of it, no; you can move from place to place in an instant, can't you, girl? Don't look shocked. That was one of Elmyr's first-discovered powers. I *know*, Winnen Fallou, and well."
Winn drew in a sharp breath. "What are you?" she asked.
Mara's face suddenly changed—her mouth tightened and her outlandish yellow glare softened into a reflective, faraway expression. "*Vermin-witch* they called me, and cut me here," she murmured and held out a wasted palm; in its middle was a thick mass of scar tissue, as though from a puncture wound. "And there." She bared the other palm, and in its center was another deep and angry scar. "Because I knew...and I could not help knowing. They ruined them, my lovely hands! Ruined." She smiled gently. "And because I knew and would not—could not—stop knowing, they took my hands, my feet, my *ears*, and put shafts of lovely gold right through them…I ran away then, after."
"Who was it that ruined your hands?" Winn asked cautiously.
"Vampirae, girl. I was a slave, you know, born and bred in the Blackwater enclave, not the most famous lamia families, but certainly one of the cruelest."
"Enclave?"
Mara sighed again, tiredly. "Aye, chicklet, enclave. You don't know much 'bout all of this, do you?" Winn shook her head guardedly. "Yes, this I knew. He hasn't told you anything at all, your boy, and do you know why? Of course you don't know why; you don't seem to know much of anything. He hasn't told you, Winnen Fallou, because he wants you weak as possible. I told you, he already suspects your power, and he is eager—so eager!—to use it for himself and his own ends. He wants to mold you, chicklet, into something so soft and empty you'd be *gone* and he wouldn't have to worry about his connection to you—he wouldn't have to *see* you. Your power would be his power and as long as you were just empty and not dead, he could live his endless life as though you never *existed*. That is why he hasn't told you a thing, Winnen Fallou. He knows that if you knew the rules to his games—the *Nightworld's* games—you might just be a threat." The faraway look had returned to her eyes.
"You sound as though you know this from experience."
"Not my own experience, chicklet. Never my own experience. You see, Winn, I live other people's lives. I feel their hurts, their loves, their rage and their quiet. I may be a witch, chicklet, but not so ordinary as the esteemed Blackwaters thought. Truth is, Winn, I don't know what I am. A witch, yes, but not quite a witch. And now my blood runs numb, chicklet, after a life of swimming in the emotions of others."
Winn gazed at the old face that was no longer quite so repulsive with great dark eyes filled with a bit of empathy, perhaps, but more fully with comprehension and near-respect. Winn realized, with a vague jolt, that crazy Mara was not so crazy after all; it was a put-on: something Mara did to keep away the people who so intensely tortured her. Winn frowned; another thing bothered her.
She tilted her head to the side. "Witches?"
* * *
An hour later, Winn sat cross-legged on her new bed in her new room. Witches, shapeshifters, and werewolves oh shit, she thought, faintly dazed. She was bloated with an influx of new knowledge, all of it related to the huge, frighteningly complex underworld of preternatural overlords: the Nightworld.
Recalling how outrageously ignorant she had been—she scowled. Ruan. She wasn't surprised, though, having been perceived as scum, as dirt, as *nothing* all her life. All my life, she thought. All my stupid life. Something turbulent and fierce filled her eyes with an undulating dark, and it was utterly alien to her usual wary nervosa.
Suddenly, she felt something tugging at her mind. Ruan, she thought distastefully, biting down hard on her bottom lip. A stab of mental heat made her wince. Most definitely Ruan. Narrowing her eyes, she concentrated on a single, vivid image of a huge, polished-steel wall, trying to shield the thoughts he found so easy to pluck from her brain and read. Just as his tall, lean form stepped lazily through the doorway, she slammed the image into place, eyes wide and shocked—how had she done that?
Ruan leaned against the door frame, staring narrowly at Winn's profile. Holding herself still as a terrified deer, and struggling to hold the wall-image in place, she peered at him from the corner of her eye. His vibrant, rumpled, wine-colored hair framed the sculpted face in almost boyish cowlicks, and his eyes were a startling sapphire shade.
"Partridge."
She turned her head and stared back at him.
"Time for a visit with our old chums."
She blinked with a deliberate slowness, hoping he wouldn't detect the furtive look that had crept so daintly into her eyes. A wispy thought dangled alluringly just behind her wall…
I suppose it's time to play, Ruan.
* * *
"Lovelies! Hullo, dears. How does the wind blow on the other side?" Lif asked jovially; his eyes sparkling more green than grey just now.
Ruan and Winn stood, an incongruous pair, in the same elegant, Tiffany-lamp-lit room in which they had been assigned their present task. Lif leaned comfortably against a tall, rosewood bookshelf, while the red-haired Danna examined the visitors vigilantly from her deceptively relaxed position on the satiny sofa.
Ruan gazed at Lif with eyes half shut and answered with a vaguely ironic drawl, "Slightly to the west, if I'm not mistaken." He half-glanced at Winn. "Am I, do you think?"
She immediately recognized the allusion for what it was—*East of Eden* was her favorite novel. Winn narrowed her eyes at his pale neck and answered softly, "Perhaps. But then, I imagine it blows more to the east." She blinked and looked away from the ivory-colored swathe of skin.
Danna's reddish brows arched and Ruan's eyes widened fractionally; he seemed faintly intrigued at the prospect of debate. "Do you really? And have you misplaced your loyalties, partridge?"
Winn, staring ahead, returned, "Loyalties, Ruan? And where are these loyalties?"
Ruan glanced at her and answered briefly, "We'll see." He glanced away, turning his attention to Lif, dismissing Winn.
Danna and Lif exchanged mystified looks. Lif, who had been watching them amusedly throughout their miniature, quiet-voiced quarrel, smiled a little, his slightly narrowed eyes meeting Ruan's dark ones. "My lovelies are having troubles, are they?" he inquired softly.
Winn set her level stare on Lif's exquisite features; his face was almost too pretty for a man, but some subtle curve of cheek or jaw gave it balance, making him look not handsome, but beautiful while still retaining his maleness.
Lif turned to Winn. Meeting her darkly analytical gaze, his eyes sparkled wickedly, as though he knew what she thought of him. "I hope not; I detest bickering so." Returning his glimmering gaze to Ruan, Lif went on, "So, my dears, what can you tell me about our local pond scum?"
Ruan shrugged blandly. "We've yet to find something conclusive."
Winn threw a sharp glance at him from the corner of her eye. What was he talking about? They had plenty of data; they already knew most of the entrances and corridors in the backrooms, and where a few key offices were located. They could even give a feasible estimate of how many rebels were involved. Winn stared with hard, confused eyes at her scuffed shoes. Not that she cared, really, to "rout" the "insurgents" quickly or at all; in fact, recalling the sweet faces of Fiona, Asher, and Nona, and the friendly, half-feral smiles of Sri, Jasper, and Jon, she thought she wouldn't mind if they lived. Play along, Winn, she thought.
Casting a slightly bored expression over her features, Winn nodded.
For an instant—or was it her imagination?—Lif's eyes seemed to *burn* with something ancient, molten, and utterly terrifying. Winn glanced away.
"Ruan, it's already been, what, three, four days? Why haven't you found anything *conclusive*?" Lif murmured softly, dangerously.
"Three days. And we haven't found anything conclusive because we are in the process of earning the rebels' trust…whatever you might think, Lif, these—vermin—aren't entirely lacking in the brains department. I doubt they believe us."
"Why haven't you wiped them, then, Ruan?"
Ruan laughed harshly. "I doubt even I can wipe a whole fucking agency, Lif, *dear*."
"Do you really? And is it also beyond you to fucking wipe the fucking *leader*?" Lif asked, still in the same, almost mild, tone.
"Wipe the *leader*? Sure, if you point him out for me."
"Fuck, Ruan."
"Language, Lifling, is the proverbial road to success…"
"Surely, surely." He sighed. "Ruan, I want data—*conclusive* data—in two weeks."
"Ciao, Lifling."
"Fuck off, dear."
Do comment, lovelies, do!
Much love and scary bunnies,
Mogget : )
