Sorry this has taken such a huge fecal matter load of time for me to post. But I really have been ridiculously busy of late (actually, during the whole past month, but who cares, right? :- \ ). Anyway, I hope, hope, hope you enjoy this next chapter…and with any luck I'll soon be having more time to crank out some more…
*Check out Autechre—the music throbs gorgeously…*
Tamashii: Hullo! Hullo! First off, the theme song was astutely selected : ). You know, I really am enjoying the web weavage in this story…it's super fun to get these poor people all tangled up relationship-wise. It'll be interesting to see how Winn and Ruan's relationship develops. Thank you so much for reviewing, and read on!
galaktis: How do, old chum o' mine? About the Winn-Ruan bits, all I can say is: "Heh, heh." I think the real allure—interaction-wise—is when zero to just a bit of skin is showing. I wonder how this'll progress…Anyway, muchisimas gracias for reviewing, and please, please, please read on!
angelphire: Hallo! The plot is just getting more and more tangled up—I can hardly see where I'm going, but that just makes writing it out a ton more interesting…it's kind of like being an onlooker to it all. Thanks five hundred tons for your delightful review, and do read on!
Katherine: Hullo there! You know, Winn really has grown some calluses against that nasty boy, although she still has a ways to go. She can't really help—a lot of the time—being under his control; she's lived a life of submission to others' wishes and comfort, so she doesn't quite have total control over herself. Thank you so much for reviewing, and please read on!
The Mistress of Frost: Nice to meet you, and neatly figured! The whole Myr-Elmyr thing *is* drawn out, but I think it has to be that way because of the character-past-development element going on. Hopefully, though, it'll speed up. You know, Winn and Ruan are just so different, which is why I think they find it so difficult to meet in the middle. It'll be interesting to see how the relationship progresses. Thanks so much for the review, and please read on!
Chapter 10: Marquéd
Upon finally reaching the niche, Winn shoved her hair out of her face and sighed. She hunched her shoulders a bit. Looking up from under her lashes, she noticed Ruan a few meters away, speaking with Sri and Jasper…and someone else.
A stranger, she thought, taking in the young woman's glimmering hair and amethystine eyes. She wore a delicate, violet chiffon slip dress loosely cinched low on the hips, under an ankle-length, slimly tailored, coffee-colored wool coat. She was pretty. No, Winn corrected herself. Not pretty—perfect. And gorgeous and svelte and ethereal.
Looking through sparkling dimness, Winn had the distinct feeling that she had met this girl before…in a dream? She was so familiar…like violets strewn along a beach, the sky overhead overcast and grim.
Suddenly Winn realized the strange girl was staring back at her, her soft mouth curled in a vague smile. Winn blinked and looked away—and was slightly unnerved when she met Ruan's startled blue glance. Glancing away, Winn thought to herself, Ruan is troubled? She hadn't though he could *be* upset.
"Who's this, Ruan?" the girl asked in a light, clear voice that sounded like water trickling over smooth stone. Winn thought she could detect a faint, lilting accent beneath the delicate tones.
Winn flicked a glance over at Ruan, and noted with an odd mixture of relief and uncertainty that his eyes were once again iced over, opaque, and unreadable. "Winn," she answered without waiting for him to respond. "I'm Winn."
Ruan turned away, towards the violet-eyed girl and said in a distinctly bored tone, "Her name's Winnen Fallou, Myr. Winnen, Myr Ó Ceallaigh…"
Disregarding Ruan's tone, Myr smiled wider and murmured to him, "Why, Ruan, she is a pretty little thing, isn't she? How long did it take you, anyway? Ninety years?" Her laughter rang out, tinkling like broken glass.
Ruan didn't blink. Instead of acknowledging the comment, he smiled a perfect, shocking smile, turned away and disappeared into the masses. Winn detected a flash of something sharp and distinctive in her eyes—triumph? Anger? Myr turned to Winn. "Temperamental, isn't he? He's always been that way, I think. But striking that, I think this may be the moment to explain myself…"
Winn didn't answer, just kept looking at her with a bemused, tremulous expression pinching her features.
Myr narrowed her eyes almost imperceptibly, tilting her sandy head to the side. "Do you realize what I just said, Winn?" she murmured softly, as though to herself. "I'm going to *explain* myself to *you*." Something cold and excited flashed in those lavender-tinted orbs, and she whispered harshly, unexpectedly, "There's something about you, Winn—I noticed it the moment I saw you. As clichéd as it sounds, it's something so familiar…as though I've seen it in some long-past reverie…" With a tiny shake of her head, her eyes lost the nebulousness. With a sharp, measuring glance, Myr murmured, "You're certainly a peculiar creature, Winnen Fallou, to elicit such responses from—strangers." She smiled slightly, and beckoned to Winn and the small group of Nightpeople near them. "Come, if you will. I'd like to speak with you all somewhere more private."
They followed her through the entrance to the backrooms, into a spacious chamber far in the very back of the building. The wide, low-ceilinged room was lit by several eccentric, blown-glass lamps; in the center of the chamber was a ring of plush couches and sofa chairs upholstered in muted shades of gold, taupe and brown velvet.
The small group settled into the sofas by now listening with intense alertness, and exchanging puzzled, anticipatory glances. Sri was leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, hands tightly clasped, eyes wide and sparkling.
Perched on an austere, metal-framed chair, Myr smiled at the group: whimsical Jasper, moon-pale Asher, nervous Shelley, gentle Fiona, little Edmund, wild-haired Nona, quiet, sharp-eyed Solo, roguish Jon, smooth-skinned Dianne. "Nice to meet you, I'm sure," she said, and clasped her hands before her.
Immediately, Sri intoned, "Tell us, Ms. Ó Ce-Ce-ah-sorry—" she blushed.
"Oh-Kahl-leh."
"Yes, Ó Ceallaigh. If you don't mind, ma'am, do tell us what it is you plan to do, now that you're here."
Myr nodded and answered, mauve-lit eyes glimmering, "Of course not—Sri, is it? As you must all know, Red contacted me a few months ago, at the beginning of all of this. Unfortunately, I was unable to join him immediately, due to a prior—engagement. Upon contact, Red related to me that he would soon initiate an orchestrated attack on certain members of the Nightworld elite, gathering as many similarly inclined Nightpeople as he possibly could, with whom he planned to craft—"
"An army formidable enough to confront the Marquéd." Heads whipped around to see Red stepping briskly into the dim room. "Hello, Myr."
Myr inclined her head. "Red." She met his gaze, and went on, "I was in the process of explaining to them my presence here."
"Certainly. Pray don't let me hamper you." Winn studied his craggy face, deep-set, steely eyes, and noted a mixture of respect, uneasiness and irritation there. So he respects this Myr—but he doesn't like her, does he? she thought, intrigued. He almost seems—*afraid*—of her…
Turning back to the group, Myr continued, "As I was saying, Red planned to create a sort of army for the rebellion—a sort of paramilitary, if you will. However, I think a different approach would be far more successful. I don't know how many of you realize that the only true members of this group are those of us here and maybe one or two more who are not present. The Marquéd are too many, too widespread, and too loosely joined for us to fight in a single confrontation. Thus, we must fight on their level, as a pervasive organization tightly organized but loosely situated. Sri asked what I plan to *do*. In short—and I don't believe in sparing words—I plan to make assassins out of you."
Exclamations tinged with shock and anger, excitement and horror, rang out.
The young man Solo yanked his tweed postman's cap off with a jerky movement and crumpled it in a fist. His dark eyes glowed with deep anger. "I won't do it," he said in a clipped, husky voice, a distinct accent inflecting the words beautifully.
Nona shook her wild-haired head sadly, and mumbled, "I knew it would happen, you know. I heard it."
Jon arranged his tophat more firmly on his head. Winn glanced at him, and noticed his bright yellow eyes flash with something raw and wild and frightening—something primal and animalistic. She looked away hurriedly.
Little Edmund—he looked as though he might have been ten years old—sprang up from the couch and ran his small hands through his shiny black hair. Winn met his shocked gaze for an instant and was disconcerted to see someone her own age staring back at her from those light-filled, hazel depths.
Myr narrowed her vibrant, crystalline eyes fractionally, her beautiful mouth set in an expressionless line. Her bell-like voice cut through the others' voices. "I told you. I am not one to mince words. I do not care if your sensibilities have been outraged by my decision, and I do not care whether or not you refuse. Red has turned over leadership of this insurgence to me, as I have made surpassingly clear to all of you, and that means that I will do with this group what I consider to be most helpful to us in reaching our objective. However," she held up a hand, and continued, "I am giving each of you the opportunity to choose whether or not you will remain with the rebellion. Understand, though, that if you decide to leave us, you will not be welcomed back—under any circumstances. This project demands utter loyalty from its constituents and anyone too concerned with his or her pretensions and outdated morality is a weakness—a disease within the cause. Leave now, if you so decide, and forget us. Forget that you were ever a part of the one organization that can rid this molding city of its greatest malady—of those who may, if we fail, one day control the world. Forget and live in bliss." Myr's eyes flashed with an almost frightening intensity as she let her slender hand drop to her side.
Everyone was silent.
Winn, heart beating wildly and cheeks flushed the color of rosewater, scanned the faces of the group. Shelley, whose aura almost crackled with untrained power, was palpably nervous—a grimace twisting her friendly, unhandsome features. Tall, pale, wraith-like Asher, his bald skull gleaming like silver in the muted light, bit his bottom lip and clenched is long-fingered hands into fists in his lap. His gaunt, shockingly sweet face held still with some indescribable emotion. Winn shifted her dark gaze to Dianne, the slim, deaf young woman. She appeared, characteristically, utterly calm, her smooth, velvet-dark skin lustrous in the dim light; but when she met Winn's searching glance, Winn saw profoundly heartrending turmoil buried deep inside her bistre-colored eyes. Fiona, Winn noticed, had turned her pale, softly round face up, facing the dark-wood ceiling, drops of crystal shivering on her lashes.
Winn stared down at her lap. Her hands were clenched into white-knuckled fists, pressed against her abdomen. Wrong, wrong, wrong, she thought. An assassin. Funny how I never imagined I'd become a cold-blooded mercenary. Not even with the Marquéd… She would be as bad as her parents, except that after a while she would be killing for money instead of torturing for pleasure. It evened out. She hadn't realized what all of this—turning into a mythical blood-sucking *thing*, being "discovered" by Lif and the Marquéd, meeting Ruan, being sent on this assignment, chancing upon Mara—meant for her. Sure, she knew that it was all positively insane—that it was madness that it had all happened in a matter of days. But she hadn't realized what it *meant*: her already pathetic life had tumbled into pure, unadulterated, Grade A shit. She fought the urge to laugh hysterically, instead squeezing her eyes shut and biting her bottom lip.
Suddenly, a flash of electricity tickled her brain and in an instant the electric connection between her and Ruan's minds burst open. As if all of this wasn't enough, she thought caustically.
~~Don't tell me you thought it would be, partridge.~~
Winn managed not to flinch as Ruan's telepathy burned through the surface of her mind and dipped deep into recesses she hadn't known she possessed. She was almost used to his mental heat—or at least numb to it—but she was still surprised at the striking contrast between his physical persona and his mental presence: one cold as an Arctic night, the other blistering as the naked sun.
~~I thought it would be,~~ Winn projected, a deliberate sharpness edging the thought. She could feel Ruan smile sharply at that.
~~Your hell, your problem. I see you've all met Myr. Nice, isn't she?~~
~~Charming.~~
~~She wants to make an assassins' ring out of you…typical. She always was ambitious.~~ He was almost talking to himself, Winn noted with curiosity.
~~How do you know her so well?~~
Ruan lost the smile and narrowed his eyes. ~~Nosy, aren't you, partridge?~~
But Winn could already sense memories bubbling up to the surface, memories of a seemingly impetuous but in reality ruthlessly motivated girl with sand-colored hair and purple-lit eyes. Old memories.
She didn't want to get involved in that. Instead, she pulled slightly away from his mind, though letting him remain connected so that he could see and hear what was going on more easily, and concentrated on Myr, who had just begun saying something.
"…she the only one, then?" Myr asked, leveling her gaze at everyone, her eyes lingering on Winn, in which Winn thought she detected a piercing, questioning, utterly suspicious glint.
She shifted her gaze to wild-haired Nona, who had moved away from the group, chin tucked against her chest, and was trudging toward the door. "I can't do this…I'm just an old cat…an old woman. Can't do this…" she mumbled, half to herself.
An old cat? Winn thought, puzzled. She must be a shapeshifter…
"Nona," Myr called.
Nona turned halfway around and stared in the girl's general direction.
"You will forget us, do you understand? Forget us entirely. If you leave us, you will have no memory of any of your connections here—to anyone, anyplace, or anything. However long you've known about this place and our plans will be gone from your memory as soon as you walk out of this building—do you understand?"
Nona frowned vaguely and then nodded. She turned to walk away.
"No!" the young man called Solo cried. "She's hardly lucid as it is! She's known about this from the beginning—that's almost a year! She hasn't got anything. Don't take her *memories*," he spat. He turned to Red searchingly, but the older man's eyes were shuttered, his mouth set in a grim line. "Red, you can't let her."
"It's her choice, Solo," Red muttered, turning away.
Myr tilted her head to the side and studied Solo as though he had suddenly become very interesting. Solo took a deep breath and held his shoulders high; his face went very still and he refused to look at her or anyone.
Nona turned and walked away.
"So she is the only one. Good. Now I think you're all wondering how I plan to carry out this notion of mine. I have already made arrangements for us to join a well-established organization."
Sri glanced up, shaking white hair out of her eyes, for once almost subdued, and asked hesitantly, "Which—organization?"
Myr smiled a curiously demure little smile, and answered, "Oh, I think you've all heard of it. We're going to join Morteflame."
* * *
Ruan had forgotten what it was like to feel shock. But once again, Myr had managed to shake him. He knew she must be planning something bigger than this rebellion. Something…apocalyptic.
Morteflame… Ah, of course. He never failed to be surprised at Myr's devastatingly shrewd manipulative abilities. Morteflame was the quintessential Nightworld organization, and embodied the principles of the Marquéd; thus, if the rebels joined Morteflame, they would essentially infiltrate the Marquéd, using the highly classified data only Morteflame could possibly possess to undermine the Marquéd from *within*. The consummate inside joke—pun very much intended.
This would be interesting. But it also meant that until the group was actually inside of Morteflame, he and Winn had to keep Lif from acting. Although, in reality, it would be best for Lif to strike now, while the rebels were all in one place, Ruan wasn't ready for the end of the game.
Yes, Ruan thought, This will be very interesting indeed.
* * *
Ruan strode through the unlit corridors woven through the backrooms, clad in a rumpled t-shirt and jeans, as though he'd just woken up. Actually, he hadn't slept at all; he had been lying in bed, thinking, when an urgent flash of emotion had pierced his thoughts. He had ignored it, dismissing it as one of Winn's dreams, but then he remembered something from the night before, when he had gone after the girl.
She had lied to him.
He had known it the moment she told him, oh so hesitantly, that she had been thinking about her *past*, but she had sidetracked him so effectively with her outburst that he'd almost forgotten. Almost.
She was keeping something from him, and to have distressed her enough to make a scene like the one she had made, it was something important. She knew something, or at least suspected something—what, he couldn't quite say. Which meant that he should find out.
He stepped quietly into Winn's room, several doors down from his own. The girl was curled into a ball on the bed, lost in a huge, grey wool sweater that reached past her knees. He glided over to the edge of the bed and stared down at her.
"Winnen-little," he murmured softly.
Her eyelids twitched and then snapped open. Taking in the dark, moonlit figure standing beside her bed, Winn sat up abruptly, pushing her hair out of her face and shrinking deeper into her sweater. "Ruan? What's going on?" she asked, wrapping her arms around herself
Ruan stared down at her without expression, and held a finger to his lips, signaling to her to speak softly.
Winn's sable eyes were huge in her face; she seemed almost afraid of him.
Ruan's smiled as he peered down at her from hooded eyes. He noticed that the wide collar of her sweater had slipped down on one side; a pale shoulder peeped out, gleaming faintly in the moonlight. He stared pointedly at the exposed skin, until Winn followed his gaze and realized what he was looking at. Flushing, she yanked the sweater back onto her shoulder, and, glaring at him from under her lashes, scooted further away from the edge of the bed, as though it or the vampire before it were oblivion.
With a movement so fluid Winn's eyes could barely follow it, Ruan suddenly appeared, sitting with his legs tucked under him, less than a foot away from her on the bed. Winn jerked away reflexively, and tensed her leg muscles, as though preparing to spring.
Sensing the tension in her, Ruan quirked an eyebrow and smiled lazily. "You know, partridge, you really should relax a bit…I'm not exactly the bogeyman you seem to think me."
"Aren't you, though?" Winn whispered harshly.
Ruan tilted his head to the side, bird-like, and the smile faded slightly. "On second thought, I suppose I am." His eyes gleamed with a cold, opaque fire. "Does that frighten you, partridge?"
Her cheeks blanched to an ashy, bleached-bone color; the usual rosy tint fled her lips. He knew the answer even before she opened her mouth to speak, before feeling her thoughts and emotions through the soulmate link.
Winn stared unabashedly back at him, and replied softly, "You know it does. You know *you* do."
Lips slightly parted, Ruan brushed a strand of unnaturally bright wine-red hair off his milk-white brow. He studied her face. A delicate facial shape, with sharp cheekbones, a fragile jawline, and a slightly pointed chin made her face seem elfin, faerie-like; a small mouth at once submissive and feral made her face a paradox; a soot-black cloud of hair framing the shocking paleness of skin gave her something of the Nightpeople's ethereal quality; large, intensely black eyes, wounded but not lightless, and edged by fine dark brows had the disturbing quality of drawing—no, sucking—in the person at whom they stared. Was she pretty? Ruan couldn't quite decide, and didn't think he cared very much, either.
Amusedly, he watched as her eyes grew less focused, and became clouded with uncertainty—she flushed under his relentless scrutiny.
Finally, Ruan murmured, smiling faintly, "Partridge, I've been meaning to ask you something."
Winn's eyes snapped back into focus, the blush fading, and gazed back warily.
"You lied to me, partridge."
Ruan felt her recoil mentally from the accusation as well as the slender tendrils of thought he sent to probe her mind. "What are you talking about?" she asked, irritation masking the anxiety he could feel gnawing at the corners of her mind.
"I think you remember, my diminutive imp," he said, feeling a current of irrational fear tear through her thoughts. "Your *past* wasn't the only thing you were thinking about last night, now was it? So do tell, Winnen-little, what it was you were so absorbed in pondering."
Eyes widening slightly, mouth tightening, Winn edged further away from Ruan, and answered softly, "It doesn't concern you. My hell, remember?"
"Your hell is all yours, partridge, but your dreams belong to me." He moved closer, a predatory gleam in his eyes, until they were just inches away. In a mild voice, he said softly, "Tell me. If you don't, I can always rip it out of your mind—and you can be sure I'll make it hurt."
Winn clenched her jaw, her brows drawn together. "I can't."
Ruan leaned closer still, until he could feel the electricity between them flare up and crackle, as though it were trying to draw him nearer to her. He smiled at the fear that suddenly flickered darkly in her eyes, and whispered conspiratorially, "I really don't care, partridge."
With a movement too fast for her eyes to follow, he gripped her under the jaws, digging his fingers into the delicate flesh between her jaw and throat. Ignoring the painful intensity of skin-to-skin contact, she instinctively reached up and clawed wildly at his lean wrist, drawing blood.
Eyes gleaming cobalt, Ruan murmured, "I'll rip your throat out, partridge."
"You can't!" Winn gasped, still struggling. "You'd waste—away! I know how this fucking link—works. So you—can't."
"Wrong, Winnen. It would be painful—but I wouldn't die. And I've never been adverse to a bit of pain."
"I hate—you."
"And I couldn't care less about you, partridge, but what's a soulmate to do?" His hand tensed around her throat.
"Let go! Let—go—of me. I'll tell you!"
He released her and she fell back, coughing. Utterly still, he watched the color drain away from her face as she struggled to sit back up.
Winn sucked in a deep breath, exhaled, and said, "I was thinking about something Sri told me—she said that Jasper had given her a—a manuscript about some ancient, Irish vampire called Elmyr."
Ruan felt a surge of excitement, but did not allow himself to show expression, waiting for her to continue.
"I recalled the name from something a friend told me awhile ago, when I was still human," she mumbled, chuckling harshly. "About how a couple thousand years ago there was a vampire woman who was so powerful nothing of the like has been seen since. My friend also told me what she—Elmyr—was supposed to have looked like. Beautiful, she said, with violet eyes and 'sand-colored hair'. And that's it, Ruan Ferrin. That's what you so insisted on knowing." Her dark eyes flared with anger, with fear, with confusion and with something akin to…sadness.
Ruan studied her face…She seemed sincere. The fear, the confusion, the resentment…Yes, she was sincere. Besides, this Elmyr was far more interesting—she sounded like the same woman as the nameless vampire queen he had read about so long ago. He narrowed his eyes. "Wait—you said violet eyes and sandy hair. Was she tall—about ye high? And slim? And you said she was beautiful?"
Winn nodded guardedly.
This was sounding very familiar indeed…But was it even feasible? Or was it merely coincidence? Of course, the Harman witches were famed for their violet-eyed, platinum-haired beauty, but when had he ever seen a vampire like that? Only one in all his years…only *one*. And then there were the names…
He looked up to find Winn staring at him with disgust naked on her face. "Like what you see?"
"Get out."
He smiled and made as though to turn away, but instead ducked closer to her, and from inches away whispered into her ear, "Remember what I said, Winn. Your hell is yours, but your dreams are *mine*."
The next instant, Ruan was gliding down the hall, Winn all but forgotten as he pondered a new revelation.
It was time to have a chat with Myr.
I would love—no, I would *savor* your comments! Ramen and chocolate to all who review!
Your chum,
Mogget ::smiley face::
