Disclaimer: I own no characters. They all belong to L.J. Smith or Annie Dalton. Nor do I own a flock of ninja ducks. All plot basis and characters belong to their original and respective author, so please don't sue me.

Arrival

Several hours after he had set off, the boy arrived at the end of a long, winding driveway. He looked over his shoulder at the hill he had climbed and caught sight of the setting sun. He turned back to the large white house in front of him. House was the wrong word. It looked like a palace. Lifting a hand, he pressed his finger to the overly ornate doorbell. The produced noise echoed through the house. Standing back, he waited for someone to answer his call.

Dully through the thick oak doors, he heard footsteps running down a corridor. Then there was a skid and a crash. He could hear what might have been a muttered curse as a person picked himself or herself up from the floor. He chuckled under his breath; perhaps his stay here would be exiting. Ritually, he silenced himself as the wooden door was pulled back.

A girl of around 17 years opened the door to him. She was thin and tan. Her hair was a subtle blend of brown and silver, playing at, but not quite succeeding in being a natural human tone. Her eyes were soulful and amber, but the eyes of an animal, not a human. Calmly, the boy stared at her, making it clear she would be the first to speak.

"Hello, Can I help you?" The girl inquired politely.

"I was told to come here," he said bluntly. "By higher powers." He added when he saw her questioning stare. "They told me to show you these," he fished out what looked like dog tags from under his shirt, "and 'demand entrance'."

"I think," the girl said, after critically eying the tags, "you'd better come in."

As he stepped inside, he saw her scan the area with a hawk-like gaze, before slamming the door shut behind them.

In silence, I led the boy through the maze of corridors of our currant safe house. I took a careful route, so we didn't meet anyone; I had no idea who this kid was, or who the 'higher powers' he spoke of were. Using the time I had, I took in his appearance and committed it to memory.

He was all honey tones. Light caramel skin was stretched over lean muscles. He was slim and fine boned. He wore low-slung combat trousers, a plain indigo t-shirt with a small gold logo in the corner. I had already seen the dog tags around his neck, and I thought I caught a glimpse of a kind of bracelet on his left wrist.

His face was sweetness. His lips, a tone darker than his skin, seemed too full for a boy, but were right on his face. His eyes were an unnaturally coloured and unnaturally clear gold. They seem to burn an everlasting fire, framed in pale eyelashes. His hair was a mix of honey, caramel and toffee, all arranged in a mess of baby dreadlocks. Though there seemed to be deep wisdom in his face, I guessed he couldn't be any more than sixteen years old.

After about five minutes of twisting walkways, we arrived in a deserted sitting room. The décor in the room was a cream theme, but a small fire in the fireplace cast orange light into the room.

"Wait here," I told him. "I'll go fetch some 'higher powers,' who can explain all this better than me," I said adding sarcasm when I quoted him. To my surprise, he blanked me, just nodding absently, as if he were concentrated hard on something else.

Dashing from the room, I ran at inhuman speeds to Lord Thierry and Lady Hannah's room. I halted at the door and brushed dust from my clothes before knocking. I knew better than just barging in there. I had heard from others some of the things they do in there... I cleared my throat.

" Lord Thierry, Lady Hannah, there is a visitor here I think you might like to meet."

The girl took off at a startling pace. It was within bounds for a human being, but only one with incredibly long legs. Much longer than hers. It confirmed what I had suspected. She was not a human.

We walked through the maze of corridors and rooms for around five minutes. In this time we never met another soul. I guessed the girl was deliberately avoiding letting me have contact with any other people. She was clearly following some kind of orders.

She stopped suddenly, startling me, but I didn't let it show. She led me into a small sitting room, well small compared to some of the other rooms I'd seen.

"Wait here…" she told me.

She said something else after that, but I wasn't listening. I needed time to think. I didn't know what had happened to the others. Where had they ended up? Heck! I didn't even know exactly where I was either. I didn't know how long it would take us to find one another again, or how long it would be until our enemies found our trail. I knew barley anything. The one thing I did know was to keep what I could remember to myself. Hastily, I created a shield around my mind. It wouldn't hold under strong interrogation, but it would do for now.

I heard voice coming down the corridor outside. Strange, I hadn't heard the girl leave the room. She entered, followed by two more people, one male and one female. They stood there, but I didn't study their faces. I felt power coming off their auras, and that was far more interesting to me. The guy was sheer power. He stood tall and proud. He had a feeling of ancientness coming off him. He was old, though he looked only nineteen. His age was reflected in his eyes, rather than etched on his skin.

The girl seemed younger, in spirit and in body. But she was still old: though her body was seventeen, her mind greatly exceeded that.

" I am Lady Hannah, and this is Lord Thierry," the young woman gave names for me to give the new faces. "And I guess this is welcome to circle daybreak." I nodded, my eyes meeting hers. She bore no reaction to my unearthly gaze. "We're a group of various humans, witches, werewolves, shape shifters and vampires…" She looked at me strangely, as though she had expected more of a reaction than my blank gaze. "But you knew that right…?" She gave a nervous chuckle at the end.

" I know nothing of this world," I told her, giving her the sweetest smile I could. "I arrived here in the middle of the night and found a letter that gave me directions here. That was after a slight err… accident with a scatter portal." I looked at the mixture of blank and interested gazes. "I have no idea where I am and what I'm doing here, I just know that I have to get home, my world needs me." I looked at three now stunned gazes. " I'm just a little bit lost"

"I'm not sure if we have time to help you get back home," Thierry said nervously, "we're busy preparing for a fast approaching apocalypse."

" … And that is supposed to surprise me how?" I said, raising an eyebrow. " I would be surprised if you weren't going through one! It seems to be all the rage these days." I shook my head. " my world's already finished its. I was one of the four main players, though my main contribution was going missing." Now the faces were truly shocked.

" Oh, I'm Rueben, Rueben Bird."