"How have the witchcraft sessions been coming along?" Thierry addressed Melusine, Thea and Dani several mornings later.

They smiled at each other and around at the other members of their small group.

"We're getting along nicely, I think," Thea replied.

"Wonderful," Thierry said, sounding genuinely pleased. "It was a good notion to put into place here, Poppy," he added.

Poppy smiled, gladdened by the compliment.

"However, I am forced once again to bring to everyone's attention of another. . . rather strange pairing that has come to our attention," Thierry continued.

Silence came over the table as they waited for Thierry to fill them in.

"It seems that a rather well known among some circles human vampire killer has been found by her Night World soulmate." Thierry paused for effect. "He is Quinn."

Ash almost choked on the blood he had had up to his lips. James' eyes widened as though he could barely believe what he had just heard. Jade turned to her sisters and mouthed 'Quinn?'

Only the newer comers to Circle Daybreak seemed genuinely unaware of the significance of this pairing.

"Who's Quinn?" David asked blankly.

"One of the more deadly made vampires within the Night World," Ash answered. "Even worse than. . . in some ways, much worse than even I used to be."

"He has a human soulmate?" Rowan asked incredulously. "Are we sure it is that Quinn?"

"Quite sure," Thierry answered. "And I'm also sure that this is another one of those cases where Circle Daybreak members are going to be needed on the scene."

"Well, I can't be seen there," Ash said, surprising everyone at the table at first. He was usually the one to jump at all new projects that came to Circle Daybreak. "He knows me. Anybody he hangs around will be able to recognize me. I can't do any good in this."

"Ash is right," Thierry agreed. "And for the same reason, none of the lamia will be able to go on this mission, or for that matter, myself. And as this is far too dangerous a situation for humans, the only other options we have left to us are witches."

At once, Thea realized the reason why Thierry had asked about the witchcraft sessions this morning in particular.

"Have you. . ." She stopped to clear her throat. "Have you anybody in mind as of yet?"

"I do," Thierry said. "I thought that you and Blaise might be best to oversee this situation. And, if you think her ready, Gillian as a third powerful Harman descendant may be quite helpful to your cause."

"Count me in," Blaise said quickly, without looking at anyone, least of all her cousin.

Thea blinked her surprise at Blaise's willingness, but getting over that, she remembered that Thierry's question still hung over her as well.

"Oh. Of course. I will go as well," Thea said, still sort of put off. "And, um, Gillian. . ." She looked at the eager young witch who appeared to be silently pleading to her with her eyes. "I think that she will be ready to go. When?"

"We can't leave this too long, I fear," said Thierry. "As soon as you three can find yourselves ready, I will arrange a car to take you on your way. Nilsson, is there any among your employ..?"

"I think I could have someone in mind," Nilsson murmured.

"It is set then," Thierry decided. "As soon as you can manage. This one could be potentially most harmful. I think that what Quinn is currently involved in might go much higher than just him. If something happens to Rashel though this, well, we could all too easily lose both of them."

*

Fayth glanced around at the Circle Daybreak members, people, witches and vampires who had become so much a part of her life and friendship group in such a short amount of time. It was amazing to her still. She could not quite get her head around the idea of such dire danger as her witch friend had described to her before she had left. There was none of that to be seen here. Even the other humans here, if you overlooked the forlorn expressions ever present on Eric and David's faces with the continued absences of their soulmates witches, were in high spirits, all of the time.

No, she just couldn't see how this thing that Thea, Blaise and Gillian had been sent to soothe could be such drama. Mark was a human and everything was great between him and Jade.

Slowly an idea started to form into her mind. She was Circle Daybreak, wasn't she? And solving this type of thing was what Circle Daybreakers were supposed to do. Maybe they had approached this wrongly, sending witches off when it was something that primarily concerned humans within the Night World. And she had enough experience both with her own life and watching the lives of others to be a real help. Wouldn't Thierry and the others be proud of her when she came back from the mission successful? She might even be able to bring in a few new recruits if she was lucky. Yes, that was what she would do.

She planned the idea in her mind for a while before she put it into action. It would be best, she decided, if she just stole away in the dead of night. Otherwise there might be the awkward questions of why she should go when she'd been here the shortest time and any answer to that would only sound conceited. For everyone concerned, she would probably do best by leaving them a note to find later.

Lucky it was that she did not share her room with anybody at the moment and so didn't have to worry about waking anyone up. All she did after packing her bag and dressed in dark clothes ready to set off was leave a white note that was bright in the darkness for them to find in the morning when they looked for her.

It was best this way.

*

'Don't worry. I'm not in any danger. I've gone to Boston to try and help in this Rashel and Quinn situation. I know what I'm doing. We will see you all soon when we get back again. Thanks for everything you've done for me so far; I know you'll understand.'

"It's signed 'Fayth'," Melusine said, holding the sheet of paper up in front of Thierry. She had walked in to find Thierry and Lupe deep in some sort of serious discussion that had come to an abrupt end at her entrance. As she had begun talking, Lupe had glanced across to the Circle Daybreak head and left the room.

"I found it in her bedroom this morning after she didn't show for the witchcraft session this morning. I asked James and Ash who were in the next room along from her, but they didn't hear anything when she must have left."

James and Ash who were also standing solemnly in the room nodded their agreement to this fact. Thierry took the sheet from Melusine's fingers and read it slowly for himself. Worry lines began to crease his otherwise perfect features.

"We've got to let Thea, Blaise and Gillian know about this," he muttered.

"Already done. Dani and I worked through that just after we found this out." She shrugged. "We thought it best that no time be wasted."

"Indeed." He handed the paper back to Melusine. "Well then, there's no hope for it. We must make arrangements for some of us to go after her."

Melusine nodded her head and quietly left the room. Ash and James remained.

"I thought you decided it wasn't safe for too many of us to be seen there," Ash questioned.

"It's not safe for Fayth to be there in the first place," Thierry said, looking at Ash. "Unfortunately, general safety can't stay first on our priority list any longer. We need to find Fayth and worry about her safety. Besides, it's hardly like we're going to be announcing our presence. Only the right people will even be aware of us being there."

"You keep on saying us as though. . ." Ash started, before Thierry raised a significant eyebrow towards him.

"As though you're in on this mission? Because you are. Both of you are. You think I haven't noticed the way you've been withdrawing further into yourself since this whole thing started? As of now, the three of us are to get ready for this battle. Since the last time I spoke to you all, I've heard of some things that are even worse than we originally thought. The lamia are not going to be pleased about this."

*

"Stupid idiot," Blaise muttered. "Look at her! Not only does she set off without letting Thierry or any of the others know, but she goes and gets caught in the bargain. We can't even go and do anything about it without getting caught ourselves. Stupid!"

"I'm sure she didn't mean to get caught," Gillian murmured. Her eyes were wide and scared. "What do you think they're going to do to those girls?"

"Thierry said that it was some kind of slave trade that someone is bringing back," Thea answered while Blaise was still seething. "It's been illegal in the Night World for ages. Certainly longer than I've been alive. But now somebody is trying to start it up again."

A girl appeared suddenly to fall or be thrown out of the truck that the girls had been loaded into. It wasn't Fayth, but whoever it was was running for their life. . . and into another girl.

"That's. . . is that Rashel?" Thea asked Blaise. Though it was dark, there was a certain way about the girl that jumped out to Thea, even down to the way that she was helping the blonde girl away, all without the vampires quite realising what was going on there.

Blaise nodded slowly, but inside she was still incensed.

"How could she? What did she think she was doing? Was she trying to be smart? Get them off their guard? I mean, why would somebody go and do something like that?" she continued a little time later.

The moments of most extreme danger were out of the way. The truck and the vampires and girls was long gone. Thea stood up to stretch her legs and looked down in curiosity at her cousin.

"Somehow why do I get the sense that you are not talking about Fayth any longer? Is there something going on with you that I don't know about?" Thea questioned.

"Something going on?" Blaise scoffed, also getting up. "Of course not! Why would there be something going on?"

"Uh guys, are we just going to keep standing here arguing, or should we try to get to some shelter and figure out what we are going to do from here? If that really was Rashel, and one of those vampires was Quinn, we've got a lot of trouble to be sorted out on our hands." Gillian paled beside the beauty of the other sister witches, but in some individual way, she stood out in her own right. She was becoming more assertive in her power the longer that she was in their company and knowledge of her heritage.

Thea hesitated for a moment before relenting, but she cast Blaise one last meaningful glance first.

"Don't think we won't talk this out later," she warned.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Blaise answered icily, before they set off back to the hotel room that they'd rented out for their stay here.

*

Thierry, James and Ash got into contact with the three witches as soon as they drove into Boston a few days later. Thea filled them all in on the events of the days as they'd watched it and insisted that they hadn't stepped in on anything, as had been ordered, before they'd arrived.

Rashel and Quinn had come into contact with each other. In fact, Quinn had managed to get captured by Rashel's group of vampire hunters before for some reason, she had let him loose again. Blaise rejoined by letting them know not to assume any personal closeness at hand as the very next night, Rashel and the blonde girl she had previously saved had been captured, willingly they supposed, by Quinn's group of vampires, and he had not let her go.

"Typical," Ash muttered derogatively, before shutting up to let the girls continue their story.

And all of this had happened after the night that Fayth had gotten herself captured by the very same group.

Thierry went silent, although it was obvious from his stance that he was thinking and his mood was less than great. In the end, their decision was to go to the docks the next night and see what they could find out from there.

The night after was interesting. From what the six Daybreakers could tell, the slave traders, if that was indeed what they were, had stopped rounding up girls to send off here. Either that or they already had enough, James had pointed out. After a while of searching and coming up with nothing, the small group had believed the night to be a bust, until Gillian had pointed out to sea at two boats holding several young girls aboard each sailing unmistakably towards them.

"Should we back away until we are sure they come with good intent?" Thea asked.

"No, they are fine," Thierry said. "Shaken up though from the looks of them. They will need as much support as we can give them once they reach us."

"Hey, isn't that Fayth in that one?" James asked, pointing.

Minutes later, James, Blaise, Thea and Gillian were rounding up and comforting the girls who had made it back from the island they had been sent to. More than one of them were piping up about something to do with 'Shelly' and Nyala, but making very little sense overall. Thierry and Ash were standing either side of Fayth.

"That was very dangerous what you did. Do you know how many people could have been hurt in this?" Thierry asked, though keeping his voice relatively mild.

"I helped save the girls," Fayth pointed out. "I helped from the inside. No offence to the witches you sent, but they couldn't have known what was going on inside of this. It wasn't just slave trade, Thierry. This was set to be a blood fest. Three girls for every vampire there. Eight very powerful, and I'm guessing mightily pissed off made vampires now that their three course meal has just fled."

"A blood fest," Ash said, looking sharply up at Thierry. "Between a group of made vampires. . . This could be war between the made vampires and the lamia."

Thierry gritted his teeth and nodded once.

"Yes, I know," he answered. "Fayth, while I congratulate you on your information, it was still very reckless the way you went about getting it."

"Okay, I'm sorry," Fayth admitted. "But Shelly, I mean, Rashel. . ."

"Where's Rashel?" Thea asked, suddenly walking up behind them. "She's not among this group."

Thierry and Ash's looks were joined by Blaise's in silent questioning.

"I. . . uh, she made us leave without her. Told us to stay away, that she had to fix this up herself," Fayth murmured. "I had to think of the girls. . ."

Over the top of her last words, an explosion erupted from across the sea. Bright fire lighted up the sky and gas made the very air shimmer. On this side of the land, many assembled there fancied that they felt the wave of heat hit them.

"Rashel," Fayth whispered.

Thierry was grim, watching carefully out towards the island that was plainly lit for all to see. He was already wondering how many of the made vampires had made it out of there alive and would right now be making plans to set the same little number up again in some later date.

"We should take these girls back to some safe house," Thea said, breaking the silence after a moment or so had passed. "They need help, and since we can't do much more good here. . ."

"We lost them," Ash muttered. "So, the soulmate principle doesn't counter everything after all."

James shifted his gaze from the water to his cousin, knowing that the older vampire was thinking about Mary-Lynette. In that one moment, he actually felt sorry for Ash. He'd been trying so hard. He'd never known for Ash to try this hard over anything before.

"Wait! Look, what is that?" Fayth said, suddenly animated again, all but jumping up and down in her nervous eagerness.

The tall sail of a yacht were becoming clearly apparent through the dense clouds of smoke that was rolling over the water. Thierry took a look to see what the fuss was about.

"Hunter Redfern's yacht," he uttered tiredly. "I don't think we are enough of a force to go up against him right now. We should clear out of here quickly before he realizes that we were here. Thea's right, we can do no more good here."

"But that's not Hunter in the boat," Ash cut in suddenly. "It's a vampire, certainly. A little boy vampire as well. And. . . two girls. . ."

"That's Rashel," Fayth said. "Which means that that must be Quinn in there with her. And Nyala. I don't know who the little boy is though."

They came into the coast, where Fayth, Thea, Thierry, Ash, James and some of the girls who had gotten away from Gillian and Blaise were waiting eagerly for them. Some shied away a little when the got a good glimpse of the little boy and the larger vampire who was holding him back.

"Rashel, you're okay," Fayth said, stepping forward to her.

"It certainly appears that way," she answered, looking up towards her soulmate with a loving smile, before realising that they were not there alone. "Hey, who are all these people?"

"Rashel, this is Thierry, Ash, Thea and James; some of the other 'damned Daybreakers'," Fayth answered her with a hint of a smile.

"Oh," Rashel muttered, sucking in her lips. "Knew I should never have made that comment."

"Ash," Quinn addressed formerly from behind his soulmate and with a nod of his head. "Didn't expect to find you here."

"Maybe you should have," Ash answered. "I'm sure rumor has gotten around."

"That it has," Quinn agreed. "Seems I should make an apology to you and yours. Maybe that rumor's about to be added to."

"Welcome to the club then," Ash said, but without any open sign of welcome.

Quinn nodded again, for once in complete understanding with the other vampire.

"We'd like that," Rashel murmured. "Make for a nice break to be accepted for a while."

"Let's go then," Thierry decided, arms outspread and all encompassing. "Back to Circle Daybreak."

*

"We've still got to talk," Thea reminded Blaise on the way back to Los Angeles from Boston.

"I don't know why you always insist on talking things out. It never helps," Blaise responded grudgingly.

"Come on, Blaise. We've always been able to be open with each other before." Thea put her hand over Blaise's. "Even when we haven't seen eye to eye."

"Wasn't that way when you found Eric," Blaise muttered. "It was all about him, saving him and keeping him alive then, wasn't it?"

"Is that what this is about?" Thea asked in confusion. "That I've found my soulmate and you haven't?"

Blaise laughed, but it was without joy.

"If only it was that," she said without looking at Thea. "Don't worry, Thea. This has nothing whatsoever to do with you and Eric."

"What then?" Thea asked, deliberately ignoring the slur Blaise had placed on her soulmate's name. "Please tell me."

"You really want to know?" Blaise asked turning suddenly to face her. "Fine. Kestrel Redfern is my soulmate."

*