A/N: Finally back with an update. I've been studying a lot this semester, which is good for me, but bad for you. Hopefully, there should be several good updates over Christmas break. Oh, and I know Muscharch's description sounds like someone we all know very well from TDIR universe, but it's not him. I didn't realize the similarities until I re-read this chapter, and by then I was so invested in the guy that I couldn't change him.

Standard Disclaimers: Will Stanton and The Dark is Rising Universe belong solely to Susan Cooper.

Warning!!! There are a few small bad words in this chapter, and one very big bad word. I'm so sorry if anyone's offended, but I could think of nothing else that would get such a reaction from my hero. He's something of a laidback boy, as you may have noticed : ). I fretted over this a lot, however, and I just wanted everyone to know that it wasn't a cheap, thoughtless decision.

Reader Review Responses Below.

CHAPTER TWELVE

"The unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided; but never hit softly."

Theodore Roosevelt

Peter and Annie Davies shoved against the church's heavy wooden doors and stumbled into the winter night. They were moving fast, and momentum caused Annie's thin, impractical shoes to slip on the packed snow. She clutched hastily at her brother to keep her balance. Peter, reeling and unsteady himself, cursed and grabbed at the nearby iron railing to keep them both from tumbling down the precipitous steps before them. Their quest would certainly come to an abrupt and bruising end if both he and his sister wound up in the emergency room with broken limbs.

And so it happened, occupied as he was, that he failed to see the coming attack.

But Annie saw it. "Peter!" she yelled in warning, flinging an arm up over her head to shield herself. "Look out!"

Peter had only a split second to glance skywards with apprehension. Then, with a shrill screech and a flurry of wings, a creature hurled itself into his face. He shouted and disentangled himself from Annie's grasp, raising his arms to swipe at the flapping thing that obscured his vision. It was large and brown and it screamed like a banshee, and the feathery tips of broad wings beat furiously against his skin.

"Hey! Get off!" he yelled, stumbling backwards and trying to cover his head. The creature followed relentlessly, a choking whirlwind that cut him off from the world. He couldn't see. "Annie, help!"

She shouted something he couldn't hear through the whooshing roar of flapping wings. She jumped and tried to beat the bird away with her own thin arms. But she was too small, or her brother too tall, and the bird merely rose just high enough to be beyond her reach and continued its assault.

"Ouch!" Peter cried. A searing pain erupted across his forehead, and his skin seemed to split open and then contract in the icy air. He felt blood throbbing through the veins, and it was sticky warm running down his right temple. The vile thing had clawed him.

Annie stopped thinking. All she knew was that her beloved brother was fighting a desperate battle – and losing. She heard his cries and saw the blood thick and dark in the starlight. A cloud rose in her brain, and her vision went blurry. A rage she had never known consumed her. It was not pleasant. She no longer felt like a child, like a girl dependent on others. If anyone had asked her at that particular moment how long she had lived, she would not have known what they meant.

She stopped her silly flailing and jumping and took several quick steps backwards. The mitten on her left hand she tore off with her teeth and let fall to the ground. The dry taste of yarn was furry in her mouth. She pushed up the sleeve of her jacket and placed her bare hand over the silver bracelet that nestled just above her right elbow. All of a sudden she felt quite cool. Anger vanished, and in its place came a complete confidence.

"Be gone," she whispered softy, voice deadly, eyes narrowed. "Leave, you foul, nasty beast, I command you. You are not one to frighten us."

With a final scream the bird whirled away from Peter, clambered slowly up into the night sky, and soared away over the church steeple.

Peter collapsed on the ground, hand clamped to his forehead.

"Peter!" Annie cried, scrambling over and going down on her knees beside him. He looked up at her dazedly, just in time to see her hastily pull down the right sleeve of her jacket and pull on her left mitten. She looked quite scared, and there was something odd in her eyes.

"Is it gone?" he whispered. He gasped for breath, and the chill air tickled at the back of his throat.

"Yes, Peter, oh yes."

"What was it?" It was a creature of the Dark, a small voice whispered mockingly in the back of his mind. But Peter wasn't used to thinking in this manner, to the labeling of one thing as "Dark" and another as "Light," to the division of the world into such categories; and so he paid it no heed.

Annie, thankfully, took his question much more literally. "I think – I think it was an owl. Did you hear its cry?"

He shuddered. "Yeah. Where did it go?"

She pointed silently up to the night sky in the direction the thing had taken.

He gasped with bitter laughter. "Did you know that an owl flying over a building is an evil omen? It brings death with it."

"Peter, you're bleeding."

He pulled the hand from his forehead and stared numbly at the colorful mitten, its blue darkened to purple where his blood had stained it. He peeled it off and felt his forehead gingerly with his bare fingers. There. Right across the right side of his forehead: a long, shallow cut, running from hairline to temple, where the wicked thing's talons had grazed his skin.

"It's all right," he said slowly, reassuringly. "It's not deep. There's lots of blood now, but don't worry." He tried to speak clinically, like a doctor examining a patient. "There are lots of capillaries in the face, so anytime you get cut there it bleeds a lot. It doesn't mean anything. I doubt I'll even have a scar. Meanwhile . . ." And he pressed the already-soiled mitten to his forehead to staunch the rest of the bleeding.

He scrambled to his feet, Annie following and hovering anxiously an arm's length away. Other people were beginning to leave the church by now, and it wouldn't do to have anyone approach and ask why he was so daft as to sit upon the cold ground. Watching the people drift by him, Peter saw that were mostly other young students, many of them glancing anxiously back at the church with a look of hidden fear in their faces. They steamed past the Davies on both sides and staggered down the steps. A few of the younger children were crying quietly and clinging to each other. He saw no adults.

There was a bench at the bottom of the steps. Annie took Peter's hand and pulled him down the stairs. "Here, Peter, come this way," she said worriedly. "You really should sit down."

"All right." He complied mindlessly and followed her to the bench, which gleamed green in the light from the streetlamps. Annie, with her knee length coat, sat without hesitation upon the icy wooden slats and looked up at him anxiously. Peter, in his shorter ski jacket, looked askance at the wet wood and thought dimly about the discomfiture of wet damp underwear.

The wind kicked up and whipped his hair in his face. He hissed as several strands plastered themselves to the wound on his forehead. A bedraggled sheet of newspaper blew against his ankles. Somewhat meticulously, he bent down to pick it up, planning to place it on the bench as a precaution against soggy drawers. He was just flattening the sheets when the picture of the man on the front page arrested his movement.

"Peter, what is it?" Annie asked, seeing her brother freeze into immobility.

He opened his mouth to respond, failed to speak, and closed his lips and trembled.

Peter was familiar with President Muscharch's face, everyone was. It had been plastered on the television and in the papers for days. He knew well the fire-red hair (so unnaturally bright it could only be the product of a cheap dye-job), the icy blue eyes, and the thin lips that were compressed into a firm line of condemnation against the world. He knew the way the man sat in a chair and gazed calmly at the unseen photographer, his suit expensive and impeccable, legs crossed at the knees, and white, well-manicured hands clutching the armrests. He knew the shiny military medals displayed prominently on the thin chest, and the anger that set the otherwise delicate job into an implacable expression of hatred.

Peter raised his hand and gingerly felt the streak of blood that traced across his own forehead.

And yes, he knew the scar Muscharch bore, the fine line that stretched from hairline to right temple: shiny, pink, and violent. The scar that looked like a sharp knife had cut a delicate incision across that too-pale skin.

Peter knew then the purpose behind the messenger-creature the Dark had sent, the warning they had meant him to receive. And of course it had been an owl, for he was the Boy with the Owl's Eyes. Fear coursed through him, for until now the Dark had been merely some abstract force wreaking general havoc . . . elsewhere. Even the still-fresh horror in the church had been impersonal, something terrible directed against the whole world – even if only he, Annie, and Will Stanton were sensitive to it.

This slash across his forehead was different. It was deliberate, personal, vindictive. They – whoever they were – knew who he was. And they were coming for him.

"Peter!"

He crumbled the paper violently in one hand and hurled it away into the December darkness.

"Peter, please don't scare me like this. What's wrong with you?! Will you look at me?"

He turned his gaze towards his little sister: blue eyes, black hair, and pale cheeks rosy from the cold. And the horrible fear he had first felt when he realized that he had been branded with the scar of a demon morphed and took on a different dimension. For the fear now within him was much more terrible, and it was a fear he felt for his sister, for the girl whom he had always protected, even if she had always been so brave that she scorned the mere idea of his protection. And he didn't know how to protect her anymore – even if she is stronger than me – didn't even know if it could be done, or if they both together were doomed now.

"Come on," he said harshly, grabbing her hand and dragging her up from the bench. He didn't want to sit, anyway. The cloying warmth of the church and of his battle-panic was slowly departing from his skin as he stood in the chill night air, leaving him invigorated and weightless. He wanted to run. He wanted to strip off his heavy jacket and sprint down the empty town streets and howl to the sky. He wanted to run until the cold fury of Dick Winslow's eyes as he spoke Will Stanton's name drained from his memory.

"What? Where are we going? Peter, tell me what's wrong." Annie looked worried as she stared at him.

"We're going to find Will Stanton. I have to ask him something." Oh yes, Will Stanton had a lot to answer for.

"But I thought you said –"

"Never mind what I said! Come on!"

He whirled away, dragging Annie by the hand behind him. Impatience clouded his vision, and he collided with a huge mass of Gortex-covered flesh.

Stan Winslow. And four large buddies standing behind him.

Damn!

"Watch where you're going, Davies," the bigger boy hissed, grabbing Peter by the jacket and pulling him close. The accompanying Cronies giggled and 'ooh'ed. Annie let go of Peter's hand and scampered backwards.

I really . . . dislike . . . this family. Peter cringed, trying to look respectfully fearful. He didn't have time for trouble. "Sorry, Stan," he murmured, gently trying to disengage himself from the ham-fisted grip. He didn't know if he succeeded in keeping the annoyance from his voice. Fury simmered within him, waiting to erupt at the slightest provocation.

"You didn't say the magic word, dweeb."

"It's 'please'!" Annie hissed.

Peter didn't think that was it, but he tried again. "Please let me go, Stan."

"Nah. That wasn't the one I was thinking of. Repeat after me: 'I'm sorry, sir, that I'm such an asswipe. I'd promise not to do it again, but I think I'll always be an asswipe.' Make it something real pretty, use some of that large vocabulary you smart boys know. Oh, and make sure you call me 'sir.' That's the magic word. And what the hell happened to your forehead, Davies? Thinking too hard, are we?"

Peter's cheeks burned. "None of your damn business!" he snarled, knowing he was being foolish, knowing he should simply say whatever silly thing Stan wanted him to say and get the hell out of there and go find Will Stanton.

"What was that, asswipe? What did you say?" Stan's eyes narrowed.

"You heard what I said, you – you subcutaneous mucus growth!"

Annie giggled. The Cronies went "ooh" again.

Stan was staring directly into Peter's eyes. "What was it?" he whispered fiercely, so low that the Cronies standing behind him couldn't hear what was said. The abrupt change of tone from mocking to deadly serious let Peter knew that Stan as no longer referring to whatever wise-ass remark had or had not heard Peter make.

"What was what?" Peter snapped in exasperation.

"You know." The grip on Peter's jacket collar tightened. Breathing suddenly became difficult.

"Honestly, I have no freaking idea what you're talking about, you freaking lunatic," Peter choked out, struggling. He felt grateful for countless hours spent watching Law & Order that had taught him how to put on a false show of bravado.

Stan snorted in derision. "What did that freaky father of yours do to my dad?" he hissed.

"Huh?"

"What did you do to him?!" Stan's voice went loud and high, cracking unexpectedly. It attracted the attention of a few older students standing nearby, who nudged each other and wandered over in the hope of catching a fight.

"Nothing," Peter stammered, his eyes desperately scanning the gathering crowd of kids. There wasn't a single friendly face he knew. Wait, no, there was one; her name was Hana and she was in his math class. She was a quiet girl smart, and had always spoken nicely to him when they met. Now, she was staring at him with pity and unease in her face. Their eyes locked for a second, and then hers skittered away shamefully. Peter knew then that there was no chance of an intervention. "Nothing, Stan, I swear!"

"Oh, and that would explain why he can't remember a thing from that little visit I asked him to pay to your family yesterday morning, huh?"

Peter remembered Will Stanton's incredible blue-grey gaze. Will, what exactly was it you did? "That's crazy," he scoffed, trying to sound scornful and disbelieving and confident all at once.

"Not so crazy, I think," Stan whispered. "Those are pretty creepy eyes you and your dad have. I've heard the stories they tell about you two. Witches, they say. Devil's spawn."

"You tell him, Stan!" someone in the crowd shouted. "We don't want his kind around here!"

What is this, the eighteenth century? Peter thought wildly. What's next? An exorcism? He steadied himself and broke free from Stan's grasp with a nimble twist of his shoulders. He quickly stepped backwards and tried to keep all emotion from his face.

"I've no idea what you're talking about, Stan," he said levelly, shrugging his bunched-up jacket back into place. "But I know we've got more important problems now than whatever silly things your imagination has been telling you."

Stan laughed in genuine disbelief and surprise. "You mean those stupid little bombings we just heard about?" he asked mockingly.

Peter couldn't believe his ears. No one – no, not even Stan Winslow – could be that thoughtless. "Yeah, that's what I'm talking about," he replied, patronization dripping from his words. "Forgive me, but whether your dumb dad has Alzheimer's or not isn't at the top of my list of priorities."

It was a low blow, Peter knew that. Stupid and childish, too, and certainly not as witty as he would've hoped. Still, he reached out and grabbed Annie's hand and turned to walk away, hoping that Stan's musty mental machinations would grind slowly enough to allow them to make a clean getaway.

"Just let him go, Stan," someone spoke up. "He hasn't done anything to you." That's Hana, Peter thought gratefully as he walked away.

But Stan Winslow wasn't listening and he had his pride to maintain. And whatever his moral failings, he wasn't as stupid as Peter wished him to be. He had an undeniable flare for performance that he kept carefully hidden from his philistine friends. (Secretly, his favorite movie was The Sound of Music.) But now, caught off-guard by the unexpected spunk the Davies kid had shown, the drama-club enthusiast hidden in Stan Winslow's id emerged and asserted itself. He raised both arms to the sky in disbelief and spun to address the small crowd. No one said a word, avidly enthralled by the drama unfolding before them. Stan spoke in the grandiose manner of a circus ringmaster introducing the newest and latest freak of nature:

"Ladies and gentlemen, can you believe it?! That –" and he flung one arm out to point at Peter's retreating back "– weirdo actually thinks I give a damn whether some two-bit n&g#ers on the opposite side of the world get blown up or not! Gosh, how retarded!"

There were a few shocked, disapproving gasps from the crowd. Some giggled nervously.

And the retreating back halted abruptly.

There were many things Peter Davies could have done at that point. He could have done his best Humphrey Bogart impression and walked stoically out into the foggy night. Or, he could have patiently explained to Stan Winslow why that particular epithet didn't technically apply to a people whose unique geographical location meant that almost every single ethnicity ran in their bloodlines. Or he could have shot off some snappy, profanity-filled retort about Stan's mama that would've drawn laughter and hoots from the surrounding audience. He could have done any of these things.

But he didn't.

Instead, he did the stupidest thing imaginable.

He dropped Annie's hand, took several swift steps back to where Stan Winslow was standing, and let fly his best right roundhouse at Stan Winslow' thick jaw.

Crack!

Ouch. He didn't know punching someone hurt so badly.

If Peter Davies had been only a few pounds heavier, Stan Winslow would've been down for the count, knocked out cold. As it was, Peter Davies, though tall, was still a rather skinny boy, and his awkward punch (the first he had ever thrown) didn't quite carry the weight it needed. Moreover, the part of him the could not – absolutely could not – believe that it was possible to take down Stan Winslow quivered back in hesitation and injected just enough tentativeness into the blow so that it wasn't quite as effective as it could have been.

Still, it was more than enough to send Stan Winslow sprawling backwards into the snow.

But it wasn't enough to keep him down. And there was no Will Stanton present to shield Peter.

With a roar Stan Winslow surged to his feet, flung himself at Peter, and slammed the skinnier boy's body back against the brick wall that encircled the churchyard. Peter grunted as he felt his shoulder blades crunch against the hard surface. The breath whooshed out of him, leaving him feeling limp and deflated. He vaguely heard Annie shriek and he felt her small body catapult itself against his belly as she flung her arms about waist in some foolish effort to shield him from the wounded bull that was Stan Winslow. Peter clutched reflexively at her shoulder.

It was at this moment that Time conveniently decided to slow down to a near standstill. For Peter, everything began to take on the dream-like clarity that he usually only found in his worst nightmares.

He saw Stan Winslow's fist draw back, poised and cocked to deliver a devastating blow. He noticed the freckles scattered around Stan's eyes and a pale scar he wore beneath his chin. Tiny black hairs sprouted from the approaching knuckles.

Oh, and those knuckles were coming faster now. Peter cringed. Perhaps this would be a good time to think about getting out of the way, Davies. But Stan's hand was at Peter's throat, holding him immobile. So Peter did the only thing he could think of doing.

He slid his free hand into his jacket and beneath his sweater and fumbled blindly at the blue-green stone Will Stanton had grafted onto the silver necklace that hung about his neck. He clenched it desperately in his fingers and wished for this all to end.

Peter had one final glimpse of the raging river of fear and anger pouring from Stan Winslow's green eyes. And then there was a great POP!, and something attached itself to his guts and yanked. Space and time spun, and Peter Davies felt himself fall out of this world and into someplace else.

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silvergenji: Thanks again for the great review! I'll tell you what my best friend always tells me when I start screaming wild-eyed and pounding the steering wheel in a traffic jam: "Patience is a virtue." : ). Pieces will start falling together very soon. Anxiously awaiting your next update!

Chyneua: Thanks as always to one of my most faithful reviewers!

Iaurhirwen: Give yourself a nice, big, congratulatory pat on the back! You got me off my lazy, I-have-to-study-all-the-time butt and back into the mood for writing. Thanks! I'm so glad you like the story, and I love reviews that I get weeks after I've updated. It's very inspiring. As for the inspiration of Muscharch's name, I think it probably was subconsciously mannered after President Musharaff, but it wasn't done intentionally. I don't know much about the details of India and Pakistan's problems, except that Kashmir and religion (now that's a shocker) are somehow involved. You're program sounds like it was really interesting!