Disclaimer: The Night World and all its wonderfulness belong solely to L.J. Smith, I just play in it.
Authors Note: Thanks for the reviews! I'm glad you guys liked it and hope this chapter lives up to the first!
Chapter Two
She was walking through a hall of mirrors, and everywhere she looked she saw her own reflection. There were no warped mirrors that twisted her face into grotesque caricatures and no tricks of the light, but each mirror held a reflection of her that was, at the same time, most definitely not her own.
Odette continued to walk, observing the images out of the corner of her eye. They moved when she did, paused as she did, casually reached up to brush a stray strand of hair as she did. They wore the same black shift, a standard Circle Midnight Maiden's shift, with a slit to the left hip for easy movement and a soft leather belt tied in a simple thet knot. When she stopped and turned to face a mirror head on her reflection did the same.
It was taller than her. The reflection nearest to it was too short and had electric blue eyes instead of emerald green. Did the reflection on the right have longer hair than her? Hesitantly she reached out to touch the glass. Her reflection did the same, and the glass was cool to the touch and rang softly, as if it were made of something much finer than mere glass. Her reflection laughed then and took it's hand away first with a feral grin full of sharp teeth that glittered brightly.
"Welcome home," it said, and it's voice was totally inhuman, it echoed with the sound of the wind and the howls of hunting dogs.
She went down to breakfast uneasily, with the voice ringing in her ears still. The dream had the ring of prophecy, but Odette had never dreamt the future before, even when she had cast spells to aid her. Her mother had, she knew, cut a lock of her hair every year at Halloween to scry with. Elvie had always been something of a magical prodigy though. People said she was almost as good as the maiden, Aradia, or would have been if she had only worked more at it.
A boy with hair the colour of deep mahogany was sat at the Albrights kitchen table. The room was drenched in early morning sunlight and looked like it had come straight from a picture of what family kitchens should look like. He was shovelling toast in to his mouth while Rose gently scolded him. Rose looked like a princess, with her heavy golden locks coiled atop her head and her simple midnight blue shift dress, she held a coffee cup in one hand and a paper in the other.
The boy, who could only be Aiden, and looked much older than she had expected, swallowed quickly when he saw her standing in the doorway and offered her a bright smile. He looked like Stephen, like her mother, she noted dispassionately, the same hair, the same deep violet eyes and straight patrician nose.
"Morning cousin," he said cheerfully, he had an easy manner to him that suggested he made friends more easily than most, "I'm Aiden, good to meet you."
"Yeah, you too," she sat down awkwardly opposite him and regarded him warily.
Rose immediately began fussing and pouring tea and orange juice and piling her plate with toast and eggs, "You must be hungry! Aiden said you were out cold so we didn't want to wake you last night for dinner."
"I was really tired," she agreed, absently sipping at her juice and staring at Aiden, he knew she hadn't been asleep. He winked at her and continued eating. She took a bite of her toast and chewed thoughtfully for a moment before swallowing painfully. Food still tasted like ash. Rose had poured chamomile tea she noted, there was also a small enchantment for calming and relaxation placed on it. Faint and well hidden, but there if you knew to look for it. Odette avoided it and took another sip of juice.
"I'm sorry about your mom," he sounded sincere, at least.
"It wasn't exactly your fault," she shrugged, she had heard enough apologies during the funeral. From friends of her mother, old lovers, even rivals who had only really attended to make sure Elvie Albright was actually dead. A few had already been hungry to take her place in Circle Midnight, to build a reputation greater than hers.
He affected a solemn expression, "It's good of you to say that, but I know what I did."
Rose's mouth, no doubt open to admonish Aiden snapped shut at the snort of surprised laughter that escaped Odette.
"So, I hear you're Circle Midnight," he went on.
"I am," she replied evenly, much more inclined to humour him now. Her mother would have appreciated his dark humour and forthright manner. At any rate she knew this was something she should be prepared for, "What's your point?"
"No point," he replied innocently, "Just wondering how you'll find Circle Twilight. If it will be very difficult."
"I don't plan to join Twilight," she replied, "I can do without Circles until I graduate."
"Oh, that's too bad, witches here mostly socialise through the circles."
"And how exactly do you suppose it works in the world outside?" she asked.
"I gathered your mom made you travel a lot, too much to form a real Circle," he shrugged, "thought you might not know how it worked."
"We weren't outcasts," she snapped, offended at the implication that her mother hadn't provided a stable magical environ, "We took part in Circle Midnight wherever we went and attended the same summer circles every year. Just like everyone else does in the Night World."
Aiden rolled his eyes. They were incredibly expressive eyes she noted, she was willing to bet he was a terrible liar; his lack of regard for the Night World outside Blackwater was made clear in that one simple movement. This place really was like an enclave, she realised, elitist and old fashioned in the extreme. She wondered if they even had any dealings with the rest of Circle Twilight.
"You'll be late for school if you don't get a move on," Rose said brightly, "There's Caleb pulling up outside now! We don't want him having to come get you now do we," she cast a quick anxious look in Odette's direction, who surmised that they weren't quite ready to introduce her to the rest of the towns people yet.
Aiden cast a rueful smile Odette's way as Rose shooed him out, the tense air of moments ago forgotten, "Enjoy your last day of freedom. I'll see you later."
Stephen was long since gone, as town Sheriff he kept odd hours. Rose, the head of an elementary school, had taken the day off. That was how Odette found herself trailing behind the radiant blonde in the town centre as they went shopping for new school things. Her mother hadn't been exaggerating about the high Night People population, she realised. There was a sizeable witch population and, according to Rose, a whole pack of werewolves, made up of several prominent families. A few shape shifters and vampires added flavour, but the witches and wolves were obviously the ones in power.
"The Night World Elders also hold prominent positions on the town council," Rose explained over a quiet lunch in a witch run café. It was enchanted, so that humans would not even note its existence, but Odette still felt uncomfortable discussing the Night World so openly in public, "The leader of the Pack, Brandon Lowell, is mayor, his son Caleb is a good friend of Aiden. Stephen is Sheriff, I run the elementary school, Rowan Edwards is head of Blackwater High, that will be your new school, and Fiona Philips, lovely woman…"
Odette picked at her food and stopped listening then. She already knew that the Night People controlled the town. That witches and werewolves had formed a sort of Utopia here where all Night People were equal: the second class citizen status enjoyed by 'shifters and 'wolves was non existent here. That the so called 'peace' in Blackwater relied on a strict monitoring of who came and went and a banning of Circle Midnight and all perceived dark magic. That for all they advocated equal rights for Night People they still regarded humans as vermin, and would have killed her mother had she not run away after falling pregnant by a human man.
Their one mistake was equating sex with love. Odette didn't think there was any way her mother could have loved her father. She'd never even met the man and had only his name to show for parentage: Fairchild. Did that matter to these people? She wondered. Every Night Person she'd seen was well to do and held a position of authority or power. They all seemed impeccably well bred, her own maternal great grandmother was a Harman, and the Albrights were an old family. The Lowell's had a reputation even outside of Blackwater as an authority among werewolves, in so much as werewolves could have an authority. She could see how they wouldn't take kindly to sullying of the bloodlines.
So why had they went to so much effort to take her in?
Dinner with the family was an awkward affair, saved only by Aiden's incessant chatter about Blackwater High. He seemed to have taken it upon himself to be Odette's guide and she wasn't quite sure whether she wanted to indulge him or tell him to shut the hell up.
"It's about one third Night People, two thirds human," he explained, "Which is probably a bit different to what you're used to."
"I was one of five witches at my last school," she acknowledged. "We didn't interact so much with werewolves and shape shifters either. I know you're all equal here," she added upon catching the uncomfortable look that passed between the three Albrights, "Mom was pretty liberal too."
"That's good," Aiden said encouragingly, "Because werewolves and witches make up over two thirds of the Night People here and we all celebrate the full moon and holidays together after, you know, we all do our own things."
"That's great," she was putting some effort into being polite but was finding it hard to erase the listlessness she felt. She was also quite sure her water was laced, again, with an enchantment to calm her. She knew they meant well, she knew she looked like hell. Not even makeup could hide the dark circles under her eyes-not that she'd bothered with makeup- and her hair, while washed, was piled haphazardly at the top of her head. Concentrating enough to hold a conversation longer than ten minutes in duration was beyond her at the moment.
Stephen said suddenly, in his quiet fashion, "You shouldn't miss a year of Circles." She was beginning to realise that he was always like that. Quiet and steady as the earth, and his word was probably law because he spoke so rarely. "Seventeen is an important age, you need to decide what you'll study. Twilight can help you with that at least."
"I'll think about it," she acknowledged. Aiden smiled and started talking about what she could expect on her first day of school. Rose chimed in with interesting anecdotes about some of the students and Stephen and Odette quietly responded to any questions and avoided each other's gaze. He was very reserved, but he had a firm and authoritative manner that reminded Odette of her mother on her calmer days. Days when there was a need for solemnity, when she would stand up and impose her authority among the leaders of Circle Midnight and remind them that she was in charge, always. Even if it didn't always seem like that.
Her mother who had never really spoken of him, except to remark that he had always been a stickler for Blackwater's rules and that he had been the responsible child. She couldn't imagine him as an older brother, or what relationship they might have had. She wondered how he could have allowed his younger sister, pregnant and afraid to leave town, to be targeted, when his own wife was pregnant. He had to a very hard man under that quiet blanket of authority, she decided. And Rose a hard woman for all her warmth and humour.
Later, when the Albrights were asleep and Aiden had climbed out of his window on the floor below, Odette set about casting spells that would cleanse her mother's room and guard it against interlopers. Only to find some very complicated ones already in place. Each mirror was overlaid with a series of complex spells, for truth and safety. Each one was framed in iron. Enough to kill a witch if hit hard enough over the head with one. There were iron filaments scattered across the window ledges and the french doors and overlaid over each was a spell to keep them in place with her mothers unique signature, and a nasty backlash should someone even try. She couldn't puzzle out their use though, or why Elvie had gone to such pains to make sure they could not be moved.
The first day of school was the same anywhere. Odette had moved around enough with her mother to know that at least. It didn't matter what species you were. You dressed well, avoided anything that made you look easy, and tried not to look like you were nervous as hell. For a Night Person entering a mostly human school this was easy, there was a confidence born of natural power that made it difficult for people to ignore you, and there was always a small group of Night People that were sure friends. Minorities had to stick together after all.
Odette followed her usual routine automatically. She made sure her hair was presentable, but in truth there wasn't much to do with the waist length copper waves. It looked it's best when it was a little bit wild, something that it was more often than not these days. She used a minimum of makeup: just enough to cover the dark circles, she didn't want a reputation as the crazy grieving girl, and selected a navy oversized loose knit sweater that was casual but pretty with grey boots and leggings. She looked understated but presentable, she decided. Under normal circumstances she would have made a bigger effort, she knew.
Rose insisted on driving her to school early enough to get her class schedule. Aiden, apparently, rarely strolled in until just before first bell. The school was an impressive old building of deep red brick and soaring arches. The interior was modern and understated and the hallways were filled with Night People. Mostly witches and werewolves, a few shape shifters. A few of the teachers looked like vampires.
There was a specific hierarchy to Blackwater High, Odette realised. There was the usual selection of cliques and subcultures found in any high school. But the Night People, were firmly at the top, and the humans were all suitably impressed. Aiden, she realised, was extremely well thought of, as an Albright that made sense. But overall she got the vibe that the teenage Pack members ruled the roost. The female werewolves stalked through the halls or stood in courtyards, relaxed and tanned and impeccably dressed. The guys all seemed to be involved in some kind of sports team and had strong shoulders and easy strides. It was like walking through a photo shoot for some teen drama.
She got a mixed reaction. She was beautiful. All Night People had an indefinable aura of attraction around them: it came with their predatory natures. Add to that the fact that she was Aiden's cousin and the humans she met immediately liked her. The other Night People, however, knew she was Aiden's cousin and so they treated her with courtesy. But they also knew who her mother was, and so there was a wariness present just under the surface. Especially among the witches, who were both repulsed and fascinated by Circle Midnight, by Elvie Albright and the daughter she had raised, Outside. It made for a mixed reaction and she couldn't help but treat the wolves she encountered warily, they didn't look or act like any werewolves she had ever met before. She had, she realised, never even encountered a werewolf pack. It changed everything. Outside wolves were second class citizens, usually in a minority, easily dismissed and mostly hired as bodyguards or assassins. The wolves in Blackwater had a discernable aura of power and confidence, there were even a few who walked around with arms casually slung around witches shoulders. Being a part of a Pack appeared to make a considerable difference to wolves, something her mother had never told her, and no wolf she had ever met had ever implied.
Odette was packing away her shiny new biology books when a pretty blonde came up to her. She had the kind of healthy golden glow and toned body that made her look like an Abercrombie and Fitch model, but her eyes were a predatory golden brown. The alpha female, she guessed and pasted a friendly smile on.
"I'm Annette Loupe," her teeth were a bright white and her canines just a little bit too sharp. You saw that in wolves sometimes. Usually the fiercest, " You're Odette Albright," it wasn't a question.
"Hi, yeah, it's Fairchild actually," Odette tucked a stray piece of hair back; her smile felt stiff and forced.
Annette's smile became slightly mocking. Oh, she knew Fairchild was the name of the human man her mother had slept with, Odette couldn't help the mocking twist that formed on her own lips and the way she held Annette's eyes with a challenge in her own. It was chancy to treat a wolf like that but she was damned if she would let a werewolf look down on her. She watched as Annette visibly reformed her smile. Courtesy of the Albright's status in Blackwater of course, but Odette thought the other girl was maybe a bit surprised at being stood up to.
"Come eat lunch with us?"
"I'd love to," Odette kept her voice light, "But I have to go meet with the guidance counsellor. Dead mother and all." It was the first time she had been able to mention the fact casually. Even if it was solely to save face.
Annette was still staring at her awkwardly when she offered a final smile and strolled out of the room. It wasn't like her, usually, in a new place she would usually make nice with the right people. It wasn't wise, but it made her feel better.
Besides, for the first time in her life though, she had a choice. She didn't have to immediately make nice with the first Night People she met because she was bound to meet more. There were hundreds of Night People in Blackwater.
She skipped the counsellor, the last thing she needed was some earth witch trying to counsel her on loss and grief, and started looking for somewhere quiet to have lunch. The halls were eerily quiet as she moved away from the direction she assumed was the cafeteria was in.
Except for two people. Odette came upon them by accident and immediately regretted it. The human was backed against the wall, her eyes closed and her heavy lashes trembling against her cheeks. A boy, a wolf, with wild blond hair was leaning over her, caging her in with his arms and murmuring softly. She would have to walk past them to get anywhere and it wasn't an overly large corridor. Odette suppressed a sigh and prayed they wouldn't notice her. She almost made it out.
"Please, Roman, I swear I didn't tell her..." the human's voice was breathy and pleading. she wasn't excited, Odette realised and turned around, she was terrified of the werewolf.
"Mary, Mary, quite contrary..." he crooned, "I can hear the lie in your voice." He could smell it, Odette realised. The smell of the humans fear had probably overpowered her own scent. And the wolf was obviously focused on a hunt. "You've made me very unhappy," he continued in a confidential whisper, "I think you should get out of my sight before I do something I might regret."
He finished with a soft growl and Mary gave a frightened squeak and took off down the hall, the way Odette had came, her heels clattering on the floor. He was going to chase her, Odette realised, and probably herd her somewhere even more deserted. She could see his shoulders tense, preparing for a hunt. Would he change in school? Mary wouldn't be able to tell anyone about a wolf chasing her through the school, they would think she was mad and the Night People would do their best to encourage that perception, leaving him free to torture her further.
He was going to change, she could feel the tension in the air, the odd form of magic that all shape shifters gathered to them before a change that built into unbearable tension and smelled faintly of forests in the case of wolves. Forests and death and moonlight.
"I don't think so," she muttered. It was incredibly irresponsible to do something like this in a public place in daytime. And the human had looked so terrified, so completely stricken, as if she had never expected to find herself in such a position. Not even humans deserved that kind of treatment. Odette threw out her power, aimed it like she would a well placed punch and sent the wolf to his knees.
He was on his feet in a second and in front of her, lightning fast and snarling. "What do you think you're doing witch?" he spat out the word.
She merely smiled pleasantly at him, "Don't even think about it sunshine."
"You're new," he paused, a slow smile spreading across his handsome features, his eyes were a deep stormy grey that she imagined smouldered quite nicely when he was so inclined. They were like ice at the moment, "You're that Circle Midnight witch everyone's talking about, from Outside," he leaned in, trying to box her against the wall just as he had the human, "Half vermin, as well," he inhaled, "You certainly don't smell like a normal witch. You're tainted."
Odette had seen predators pick out prey before. Usually it was vampires, food and sex were so mixed to them that it wasn't uncommon for them to make the hunt enjoyable on both sides. But it wasn't uncommon for werewolves to do something similar: they simply viewed seduction as another form of hunting, without the killing part at the end, and they both went about it the same way. They scented the human, incorporating the much more sinister act of tracking into a practiced routine. They crowded, made the human feel small, trapped but desired, and the desire was the important part. If the human felt desired, then the thrill of adrenaline that was really their body's way of warning them became something quite different, and humans were usually too stupid to realise what it really meant.
Roman either wasn't very good at the desire part or he genuinely wanted to scare her. She had taken away his fun after all. Odette had met wolves and vampires like that as well, they flouted Night World law openly. None had ever dared to do so with her though.
But then, the outside world viewed a half human witch very differently than Blackwater apparently.
The hallways was full of shadows, she realised, they were positioned away from any windows, Roman obviously liked his victims to feel isolated. She could work with shadows though. Shadows were the bread and butter of a Circle Midnight witch. Shadows and in between places, like doorways and the hour between midnight and morning, between mid-day and afternoon. Such moments and places were rich with possibility and it was very easy to reach out and tweak reality to your own design.
Odette smiled sweetly, she was very good at tweaking things to suit her. "Stay," she said clearly and watched in amusement as Roman looked first puzzled, and then annoyed and steadily furious as he realised his feet were stuck to the ground, his hands frozen at his sides, "Good boy," she said lightly and patted him on the cheek, "Now let me make one thing clear: if you ever approach me again with that attitude I will chain you in my backyard with silver at midnight and let the night terrors take you away."
"You can't do that he growled, there's no such thing."
"I'll make such a thing," she said seriously, "If you ever try and mark me as prey again I will get inside your head and I will pick out the things that scare you most in the world. I will get inside your dreams and I will make sure you don't wake up until I am finished with you. I will destroy you mutt, and no witch in Blackwater will know how to save you because no witch in Blackwater knows what I know."
"You don't want to mess with me," he growled, "the Pack isn't like the puny werewolves you have Outside, we own this school."
"You can continue to own it," she replied pleasantly and started to walk away, "Just stay out of my way and I will happily stay out of yours," she threw over her shoulder.
She ignored his shouts and kept walking until she had passed the last of the lockers and classrooms and started heading up. Most schools had rooftops, she had found, rooftops that most people forgot about unless something was leaking or flooding. And in schools that were soaked in magic leaks and floods just did not happen. You just had to find the right stairway.
Odette was very good at finding things, her mother had always joked that it was an innate magical talent, something she tapped into automatically. Odette never got lost, or misplaced things like other people did. So she knew just where to go to find the door on the second floor that led to an old stairway that bypassed the other floors and took her straight to a rooftop with an ancient greenhouse tucked at the very back of the building. There were several benches scattered about that had probably been painted white once and a veritable jungle of vegetation sprouted through the open doors of the greenhouse. She wondered how it had flourished when it had obviously been forgotten about.
It was perfect for her purposes though, she decided as she slid down against the wall of the green house to sit on the sun warmed cement. It was secluded, forgotten, and would do nicely as a hideout for the rest of the day. Once people found Roman her reputation as a dark witch would be cemented, she may as well add to that by skipping class.
She was in the forest and all around her things were moving, whispering and giggling, accompanied by the sound of bells and music. But she wouldn't let them distract her, and she wasn't to dance. She didn't have the time for that.
"You look tired," Aiden's sympathetic voice pierced through her thoughts hours later waking her from dreams of shadows and dancing. Odette kept her eyes closed and concentrated on the feel of the smooth glass of the green house at her back and the firm concrete she was sat on and the bite of the late Autumn air on her skin. She was a calm oasis. She was not going to open her eyes and she was going to be left in peace to sleep.
"How did you find me?" she asked finally, a bit annoyed once she realised he wasn't going to leave.
"Perks of having a best friend who's also a werewolf," Aiden said cheerfully, "Caleb followed your trail to the stairway. How did you manage to find it by the way? I didn't even know we had a roof here."
"Most buildings tend to have one," she muttered and opened her eyes. Aiden was stood above her and several feet behind him was a tall boy with tousled black hair and fierce amber eyes. He certainly had the body of a wolf, with strong shoulders and arms that looked like they belonged on a movie star. He moved with a hunters grace and came to stand beside Aiden and slightly in front of him. Protecting him. He looked grim. So, come to think of it, did Aiden. They were watching her as one would watch a stray dog. With pity, but wary of her bite.
"We heard you...made a new friend," Aiden said delicately.
Caleb scowled and cut in, "We saw what you did to Roman. He was stuck in that hallway for over an hour before anyone found him."
"He does like his dark and secluded corners, doesn't he?" Odette stood up and brushed at the seat of her pants absently, "Maybe he'll be more careful of them now."
"What did you do to him?" Caleb's snarl was much more impressive than Roman's had been. He was an Alpha through and through. And he had already made up his mind about her, she could see. He obviously knew what Roman was like, she doubted either of them was unaware of Mary's predicament, or the predicament of other girls like her, because predators like Roman were rarely content with just one plaything.
"I put the mutt in his place," she said finally, "And I was a lot kinder to him than he was to Mary."
Caleb looked scornful and Aiden guilty at the mention of Mary. "You shouldn't use words like that," Aiden said finally, quietly.
"Aiden, I don't know what you and your family think is going to happen with me here. If you expect me to play along with your ideal little town, your little Circle Twilight gatherings, your twisted social hierarchy, you're sorely mistaken. And if you think I'm going to let a pack of wolves treat me like prey, you're delusional. Roman could have fared worse, and if him," she jerked her head at Caleb, "Or any of his little minions come after me they'll get worse."
"We're not all like Roman," Aiden sighed, "And Mary..."
"Be quiet," she groaned, "it's just as damning if you allow him to do those things. And your nice act is really getting on my nerves, because you obviously know what he was like long before I came along."
Her cousin left without a word and when she was sure he was out of earshot she closed her eyes and let out a sigh. Her mother would have been proud of her display of bravado, but in truth it had drained her more than it should have. She didn't even feel particularly proud of herself. She felt tired. And what she had done to Roman had been petty, what she had threatened him with had been downright cruel. It saved her the trouble of being polite though and now she had the whole weekend to sleep in her mother's old room and pretend the outside world didn't exist, free of well meaning interruptions.
She walked home from school, cutting through the dense woods that lay between the centre of town where the high school was situated and the old wooded road where the Victorian structure that was the Albright home stood. She noted with a vague delight that her car had finally arrived: a well loved navy VW Bug with a convertible top that had made long drives to the beach bearable in the summer time. The keys were in the ignition, waiting for her and it seemed to have suffered no damage from the journey. It almost made her day seem better.
She didn't notice the perfect circle of red leaves that surrounded it, or the way the shadows of the trees reached towards her as she sailed into the house, ready to face an undoubtedly furious Stephen and Rose.