Skip to: Part Six - Part Seven - Part Eight

I'm a misanthropist. So sue me.

That's why, when Ralf Dufrane walks - or rather limps - out of my life, cursing my name and swearing to rent (and I have the nasty feeling he doesn't mean with money) me limb from limb, I'm not expecting a happy reunion culminating in a round of songs and Morris dancing.

I'm right. No change there then.

But I am wrong in thinking he'd leave me alone. First time for everything, right?

Alone. It sums up how I feel very well. It doesn't matter how thick a crowd I lose myself in, how many people are pushing and squashing me, none of them are really there for me. They might as well be invisible. My mind's flying down ghost roads I haven't trod in years, so grey and thin now I'm walking on smoke, flying past stars and worlds we haven't learnt to see yet, back into that dark, dim place we call memory.

I haven't been there in a while. I'm a creature who likes to live in the present and push the past far away, but I can't do that anymore. Not when the man I thought was buried, starting to die even in my memories as each year, his laugh faded away a little more and the smile in his eyes became harder to see, has returned.

Don't ask me what I'm looking for. I don't think I'll find it. It's the dreaded four letter word, the one that makes grown men quake in fear and women faint in a combination of ecstasy and horror. It's inspired books galore, most of them including the archetypical tall, dark and handsome stranger and most of them a waste of paper that could better used wiping people's asses. But that's just my opinion.

I don't know what I feel anymore. I barely notice as a man cannons into me, as a car screeches to a halt because I forget what red lights mean. Something between desperate yearning and trembling fear. A bit like looking down the drop of the biggest rollercoaster in the world, and it's called life. I think I left my stomach behind and they don't give refunds on the tickets for this one.

Distantly, I realise someone is calling my name, but I push it away, focused on my thoughts. I have limited capabilities and asking me to breathe, move and think is pushing your luck. I realise my forehead is knotted with tension and that my shoulders actually ache from being bunched so tight. Forcing myself to relax, I carry on, winding my way through the crowds. Finally I find where I'm looking for and turn off into the obscure, scrubby street that's filled with graffiti (you'll never guess what Dave did last Saturday and who woz 'ere yesterday evening).

That's when he grabs me.

I have this really bad reaction to being grabbed. Zoë calls it a street handshake. It involves driving your elbow back and down, right where it's going to hurt. I hear someone swear furiously, rapidly toting up more profanity than the average teenager. And I turn round, ready to give them the street footshake.

And stop short. I recognise the tousled blond head and cursing, snarling voice. Under most circumstances, Chris Lockston has the voice of the devil himself, all gravelly and sensual and full of promises you know he's just itching to keep. Not so now.

"Jesus," and the man considered saviour of the earth by a large proportion of it acquires a whole string of middle names, "-ing Christ, Tals, what are you trying to do?"

"Lobotomise you," I snap without any sympathy. He looks a little grey under his tan, but the bottle green eyes glitter with life and wrath. "You should know better than to just grab me."

"I've been yelling at you for about half an hour," he says exasperatedly.

He's changed a lot. When I first met him, Chris was a sullen, silent Daybreaker with a love of violence. Unusual for a Daybreaker you might think, but believe me, dear reader, he had reasons. And he used those reasons to make him the best hitman (and also kick, punch and break man) Daybreak had.

He was the one who fetched me, when Daybreak wanted a word about a certain boy they had held in their prisons. Not that they'd call them that of course. But to me, that's what their padded cells were. And when it all went so wrong, some months later, I got my revenge. I made him a vampire. I figured he would hate me, maybe try to kill me and then we could have a little fun. Hell, a lot of fun. But I got it wrong, didn't I? The Redfern curse strikes again, but this time, it struck with a little less accuracy. Shame Chris didn't.

It wasn't that I had made someone marvellously powerful, or evil or anything of that nature. Just that Chris forgave me. It took him a while, years when he roamed angry and maybe a little afraid of what he had become. But I forgot, didn't I, when two minds link, it cuts both ways. You know them...and they know you too. Turned out Chris knew me better than I did myself. Turned out we were very similar in too many ways. Both lost our soulmates. Both lost everything that made life an experience to remember.

And we both decided we'd had enough of being pathetic, hating people. Hell, while we're here, let's make an impact. And oh boy, did we ever! Look through the Nightworld and you'll find our names on every hitlist there is.

I shrug. "I was elsewhere."

A flash of sympathy and a mournful smile turns up that humorous mouth. "Him again?"

"You could say that. But…" I eye him dubiously. If anyone will understand, it's Chris. "Something turned up. Someone tall, and handsome and a bit more than I could handle."

"A man a Redfern can't hack? Literally, I take it." We stroll into the club together and into the back rooms. And because Chris has a half hour or so before his gig onstage, I find myself telling him everything. And he doesn't laugh, or berate me in anyway. He just has this funny look on his face that I can't decipher at all. And then when he talks, it's so unlike Chris, in a low, fast voice I can barely hear, that I sit up and take heed.

"Go find him."

"What?" I stare at him. "He hates me, Chris, hates me."

His grin is crooked and suddenly I see the shadows under his eyes that have been etched there from pain and grief. "Hate is just love without affection. They're just two sides of the same coin, and all you have to do is take a little chance, Atalssa, and maybe you can trade one for the other. Don't you get it? You have a second chance, and this time round you can right all the wrongs and say all the words you never had a chance to say. I'll never have that chance. All I can do is put flowers on her grave and try to smile."

He doesn't say what I wish he would; that it's my fault he has to stick around and wait without any hope. If he did, then maybe I could get mad and shout at him and it would be easier than having to sit there and stare into his face and know that there's hell burning in his heart.

"Chris…" I whisper and he shuts me out. I see the screen roll over his eyes and the darkness shines out from behind it, no matter how he tries to hide it.

"Tals, go away," he says tiredly and I obey. But I can't get his words out of my head.

~*~

We call it Hades. That's not its real name: the Roadmender, it says on the neon sign outside, but for us it's Hades. I love it there - black room crowded with a press of energetic, recklessly thrill-seeking humans with metal glittering everywhere, with hair all colours of the rainbow and personalities all colours of the cosmos. Strobe lights spike red and green and purple all around, light leaping across the crowd like a search beam, people dancing like demons, though you can't really call it that. Dancing implies some sort of grace.

The inner room is small, with standing room only and it's usually packed with a couple of hundred people at a time, a huge crowd that moves like some sort of living sea with feverish dilated eyes and wild screams and bodies writhing, jolting, twisting to music that blasts out of stereos above the stage. Sweat shining from skin, the heat fogging your head. There are empty drinking cups crushed all over the floor, the cheap plastic kind and sometimes people too, when it gets really bad.

It's a place where we go to forget.

It's very easy to forget there. Forget the cemetery in Chris's eyes, forget the smouldering coals inside me, forget all the hopes and all the fears in a wash of gorgeous, living music.

By now, I've been dancing solidly for a couple of hours, snapping my body back and forwards, my hair fallen out of the intricate style that not even cement could hold against the mad gyrations of the body that music like this demands.

The beat pounds out of the stereos, running through me in a powerful current that you just can't stand still to, bass thumping, drums beating lightning quick, as if the drummer's having convulsions, it's that fast, those demonlights swivelling over my face, blinding me briefly as the crowd all around whips backwards and forwards in the odd, jerky movements the strobe lights produce. There are screams and yells as crowdsurfers tumble overhead, towards the lead singer who has the most amazing voice and moves across the stage like someone possessed. Right now, his blond head's thrown back, back arched as he holds a low throbbing note that matches the music's heartbeat.

I give myself up to the music, let it take me away. The song finishes on a final chord that seems to go on forever, pulsing through the floor. There's a split second lull as the crowd realises the set's over, then people are clapping and stamping and cheering.

"Tals!" Zoë bounces up to me, elbowing her way through the masses, but now she's a lot taller. See, about a week ago, Zoë decided that being five just wasn't for her. And while lamia can't become any younger in the aging process, they can become older. Zoë is now about sixteen, with her hair dyed a bright purple that even the lighting can't quite hide which emphasises her blue eyes.

I wipe the sweat away from my forehead, but my clothes are still all clinging. I'm almost shaking from all the energy brimming in me. Plug me in and I could power Europe. "How're you liking Hades?"

She grins, runs her hands through her short spiky hair. She looks something like a punk hedgehog, only a lot prettier. I see people looking at her with desire (men) and envy (women). "Why didn't you tell me being older was so much fun?"

I can't stop the sour smile that hooks the corners of my mouth up. "It isn't always."

"You still not over that guy?" she demands. I haven't told her just who she threw out. I can't bring myself to; Zoë would be guilt-stricken if she knew. "I know he beat you, Tals, but it was a one-off. 'Sides, you're living somewhere else now - how's he going to find you?"

"Lots of ways," a new voice says and Chris gives me a soul-melting grin and a tight hug that lifts me off my feet. As though the scene backstage never happened. While I try to breathe through my crushed ribs and punctured lung, he gets a good look at the girl who's looking at him with not-quite-hidden adoration. His jaw nearly makes a dent in the lino. "Zoë?"

Zoë gives him a coy smile. She's had her eye on Chris for as long as I can remember and he's still unaware. "Hello, you burning hunk of manflesh," she drawls. "Still pulling in the crowds, I see."

"And pulling the crowds," I mutter dryly. "The female half at least." Chris is a welcome distraction.

Hw gives us a one-shouldered shrug, as if to ask, what can I do? "I can't help being so devastatingly attractive," he quips. "So Chandra," he says to Zoë, "What's with the image change? And who am I going to take to Disneyland when I need an excuse?"

Yes, dear readers, even seven thousand years on, Disneyland is still around. Just a little bigger, a lot more technologically advanced and with prices through the roof and touching the sky. We just can't stay away from the thrills of It's A Small World. And, dear readers, running into this pair proves that it is indeed a small world. Chris is touring at the moment. Singing; his new hobby. Voice like the devil, the critics fawn. Voice like a sick frog, if you stop him 'influencing' you with a touch of telepathy.

"You can still take me," she says. Her smile is just as sweet and I can't help but notice Chris's famous focus wavering a little when he looks at Zoë. "And maybe I just wanted a change. I've been five for sixteen millennia. Learning the alphabet is only amusing for so long."

"And now she's finally learnt it, she's going to start on basic education." I dodge as Zoë aims an elbow in my direction, mock-anger on her face. "Go on, devil voice. Go and show her a good time."

"Yes, please," Zoë chirps. We all laugh, but inwardly, I wonder if Chris will ever work it out. She hauls him off and he gives me a quick goodbye. They make an odd pair. Tall, blond and vocally challenged; small, purple, higher than a kite on a NASA rocket. My old friend Chance is playing in this game.

I can't help but hope Zoë gets her wish. She's been lonely for too long; alone in the crowd. And maybe that's the saddest thing of all, that she's lived for thousands of years, outlived her whole family - most of them died at the hands of a human mob - and even though she was walking around as a sweet child…no one wanted her. They could see the killer inside her and without even realising it, they turned away from her, no matter who they were or what the situation was. It seems only fair to me that everyone should get one dream come true once a lifetime. Even if you have to wake up the next day.

I meander my way through the crowds for a while. The air reeks of alcohol, sweat and adrenaline. I'm concentrating on trying to push past a man who should be in the army. Hell, with those slabs of muscle, he is an army. I put on my best expressionless look and ignore his drunken pick-up lines that I've seen him try on every girl to go past, and eighty percent of the men, too.

But, lucky me, he seems to have got to the stage where he's too drunk to give up. I smile politely and try to back away when he grabs me.

Next thing he or I know, he's lying several metres away wearing a dazed look and I'm being propelled away from the carnage wearing an equally dazed look, by a man whose eyes match a geyser in full searing fury and whose mouth is curled up in a sea-steaming smile.

And, bless his heart of gold, he's holding a knife to my spine.

 A knife to my spine and a man with a grin. Just take a look at the mess that I'm in.

 I freeze quite still, wishing Chris and Zoë hadn't walked off. Murphy's Law at its finest, treasured friend. They say the easy way is always mined...but if this is the hard way, roll on the mines. Because I'm fairly sure they'd be a lot less lethal than Ralf on the rampage.

 "Just move, Atalssa," an amused voice murmurs in my ear.

 "Is this really necessary?" I hiss, trying to squirm out of the iron grip. I feel a lancing pain in my spine as the knife digs. Some people reckon being stabbed is rather like intensive acupuncture. Go and see an acupuncturist. Then go and get knifed. Come back to me alive - that part's pretty important - and then we'll talk comparisons.

 "No," he drawls. "I just love having women powerless before me."

 "Run them over, then," I snarl and try to elbow him, to no avail. By now, we're out of the club and despite the crowds queuing to get in, no one seems to take much notice. They're all smoking and chatting and paying no attention to anyone but each other.

 My soulmate just laughs and I hear the lion's roar in it. His arms snakes round my waist so the knife is pressed against my belly. Now I don't to be paralysed; I get to be living spaghetti if I try anything. To anyone else, we might look like a pair of lovers. A pair of loathers maybe. But there's no love here, dear reader, only a soul's longing and time running through the hourglass.

 "Such a comedian," he says, his mouth close to my ear. I notice how he keeps our skin from touching. "Here's something funny; I wanted to kill you a week ago." The knife pokes me.

 "Really?" I murmur back, wondering just how I can extract myself from this situation as we stroll past the line of mortals, oblivious as an ant colony watched by a child. Until a foot comes down and you're looking at insect sushi. And believe me, I'd like nothing more than to stomp on these blind idiots. "You know what? I would never have guessed if you hadn't told me."

 "Maybe I still do," he muses as if I hadn't said anything. Only a dart of pain, sudden as a nettle sting, tells me he noticed my comment at all. "I should kill you. I know that. Especially after you tried to attack my sister."

 "What?" I stop and gasp as he casually delivers a mental blow that has me reeling. Dear readers, I didn't even know he had a sister. The thought of one Dufrane running around is frightening. But two of them? That constitutes a national emergency.

 "Keeping going, dear." His sardonic tone is no salve to my pride or my wound. "And don't lie to me. You should know better."

Talk about guilty before proven slightly less guilty. Why do all the mad ones have the knives? "I am not lying!" I twist to stare at him. His eyes hold no affection, only stormclouds and serenity. An odd mixture, but one he carries off with alarming sincerity. "I didn't even know you had a sister. Ralf, please-"

  "We'll see," he answers smoothly and by now, the hum of the club dims until it's as insubstantial as cobwebs in the evening. The area isn't particularly well-lit and I see several bodies slumped in doorways and under any shelter they can find. Welcome to the dark side of life. Poverty, pain, people. They stare at you and you can see that they are already dead, because they have no hope. And we are nothing without that.

 He stops by one of the buildings, still pushing me before him and casually kicks the body out of the way. I glance down at the corpse and almost freeze. The eyes are fixed, flat and terrified. A beautiful shade of emerald green, set in an ordinary average face. And for a moment, I think I see my own terrified face staring out at me, the mouth wide in a silent scream. Then the vision shivers and I see just a girl, drained and dead.

 "Can we at least talk?" I ask. I have to prove to him that I'm not lying. That he is wrong, before I end up joining that corpse.  Why would his sister lie? Why? It is as if I'm walking through a maze filled with spikes and pitfalls and I don't even know if I will find an angel or a monster at the end of it. "Won't you at least listen to me?"

 He says nothing then spins me abruptly. But on this occasion, he remembers his mistake of last time and not only does he catch my wrists - and I notice with a knot sinking cold in my stomach, that he's wearing gloves deliberately - but he locks his legs around mine. We're so close, I can feel his heartbeat, his breath, all of him. Smell the scent of waterfalls, that wonderful freshness you get after rain.

 The emotions I feel shake me to my soul. I barely notice the knife pressed to one wrist, the silver in his eyes. The ghost roads solidify and suddenly I'm walking on nails into a memory that is sharp and clear as a Polaroid photograph as inside, I bleed away.

 An incident I had almost forgotten, buried with my soulmate of long ago. The snake-eyed boy with the black hair, catching me playfully and smiling, holding me the same way as I threatened to walk out if he didn't start listening to me right now. The colours of our room all around; cool blues and greens.

And now the man of the present. Still my soulmate but, oh, the difference. No smile. Holding a blade to my wrist. Different face, different person.

 "Talk then," he says and I hear a new note, his voice rough.

 "I didn't hurt your sister." Nothing in his face changes. "Why would I? I didn't even know you had a sister. I wouldn't hurt you or your family-"

 "You killed my father." Great. Trust him to remember that. One small mistake and I pay for it over and over. His mouth is set, and my eyes linger on his face longer than is proper or polite. But I think we went past either of those sentiments on his previous assassination attempt.

 "Ralf," I begin, then give up. "Oh, what is the fucking point and yes, I know it's the one on the end of that bloody knife," I snarl as he seems about to say something "We had this conversation before, remember, last time you tried to kill me? You won't listen, you won't even give me a chance. I'm not lying and maybe you'd know that if only you'd trust me!"

 I pause, lips parted for breath and glare at him fiercely. I draw in breath to continue my tirade. And his mouth cuts me off with a hard kiss that near shatters me into pieces as our psyches surge into a link I can't deny. Both his mind and his mouth probe, search. And in both instances, I'm absolutely helpless, half-afraid and half-elated.

 I hide nothing but my past; there are some parts of me no one will ever know and that is one of them. A dark secret, one that has lived with me and that will die with me. All else I let him see; and he wants everything, a storm swept into my mind with an energy and a power as overwhelming as it is intense. No words, but only emotion, suspicion and coldness that edge through my head. Seeking, rifling my thoughts with devastating ease and carelessness. It hurts as surely as if he had thrust that sword in my heart and futilely, I hurl back my own infuriation, my hurt.

 And there's so much rage buried in me, it's as if a star is being born but one that feeds off the dark in me until it is everything, until I have only the dark to look at. Below that, older feelings surface. The pain, the grief, the sorrow for a boy whose death made me scream at the sky and take my price in blood. Nights drowned in tears, days overshadowed by anguish. Times before my soulmate came, when I was hurled from place to place and person to person, nothing more than a tool, a little entertainment, a scapegoat.

 Before I can move to shield those thoughts that reach for me again,  his mind flickers through them, a searchlight, blinding and yellow-hot. He sees my pain and I expect him to push it aside with that cool detachment that is all he has shown me so far.

 Shock flares a sunshot orange in his mind as he sees that, and suddenly I can read nothing of his thoughts, only feel a sudden compassion.

 And then the storm ceases, melting into gentle waves of turquoise-blue as his lips soften on mine. No longer ruthless but gentle and caressing. I could withstand the invasion, the plundering of my mind and memories. Violence, abuse, torture...all these I learned to deal with long ago. But tenderness? I have no defence against that.

 His mind is subtle as the note of a chord; no longer opposing but blending with mine, lazy and comfortable and sensuous. Rapid protectiveness and a flash of emotion I can't decipher. Of course, he feels my hurt and he tries to perceive the memories that I have locked away in a dark room where even I go rarely.

 Atalssa? The query, soft-spoken touches my soul. Let me see. I know they hurt you. /P>

 No, I whisper back. I can't. Not those memories, not the haunting recollections that steal my sleep. That can plunge me into a nadir that drags like an arctic whirlpool. Please, no. /P>

 Bafflement and maybe hurt. Don't you trust me? His mind is wrapped around mine as smoothly as a jungle snake on a branch, and I can feel the wall between he and I thinning, some of the pain slipping through. Fragments assail us both; a heart-rending shriek. The smell of ordure and death, the touch of clammy hands. A pair of staring eyes; the most stunning sea-green but dead and lifeless. The taste of stale bread and sour water.

 I have to get him away. I can't let him know, can't let him see, the wreckage in my head threatening to shake me apart. You hold a knife to my wrists and you dare ask me that?

 He freezes and I can read neither his mind nor his expression, although so far, both have proved to be far more entertaining than a good book. Fury emits from his mind, a burnt umber cloud that billows towards me and that I know hides the fireball underneath. Then his mind slams away from mine as if a portcullis dropped across it.

 "And let's just remember why I do hold a knife to your wrists," he grinds out. His voice is sudden and for a second, unreal in as the world beyond the link is. Then I swing into focus and everything is as it was; empty streets, cold night, sharp knife, empty, cold and sharp man. "I promised my sister I would bring you here, and I will."

"Usually it's the sister setting me up with her brother, not the other way round," I remark quite innocently, hiding my shaken self under curt words. But hell, why should anything about the Dufranes be 'usual'? Judging on the two members of the family I've met so far, well, let's just say their antennae don't pick up all the channels. "But I guess your family tree got planted upside down."

 The temperature drops a few inches at his glacial glare. "And you can't quite cut it down, can you? You managed to kill my father...but you couldn't stop my sister." There's pride in his voice at that. Family ties and all, though in this case I think the ties most likely belong to a straitjacket. Maybe that's how the Dufranes manage to remain so restrained at all times.

 "Head is thicker than water, eh?" I mutter, still aware that he's far too close for comfort. Gods, I'd rather be facing a great white shark right now. Less teeth and a far sweeter personality. "Don't you believe me after...what just happened?" I dance around the subject as carefully as I can, but still I hear the metaphorical crunches of broken glass.

 He smiles. It's not pleasant; tigers would have shrieked and run with their paws clamped over their eyes. "You've had eight thousand years to practise your emotional wreck act. I fell for it once. I won't make the same mistake twice."

 "You just did." A puzzled look, then he disentangles himself from me and, opening the door, gestures me inside. It looks very courteous. Except for that damn knife that catches the light with proper dramatic irony.

 "I'm sure you'll get on with Kelly," he murmurs and the malice in his voice has dimmed a little. I think perhaps he's not so sure as he was...but not unsure enough. "She's dying to meet you...or maybe that's the other way round."

 And somehow, I have the feeling Kelly and I aren't going to be best friends. This will be interesting.

Dead interesting.

 The first thing I noticed is the reek of blood that hangs in the air. It's thick and cloying, swamping my senses with a rush of hunger and inhuman responses I can't control. It stems from the body thrown in one corner, reminding me of a can someone's hurled out of a car window that's squashed into a shapeless mass. A slight lift of the chest and I know with a horrible sort of pity that whoever is in there is still alive.

 Normally, beloved friend, I wouldn't give a damn. That's the sort of leaving people like me prey on. But I have the feeling that might be how I end up. And that isn't anything I'm looking forward too. So. That leaves me in a fix.

 "Well, well, well." The girl doesn't do anything as common as walk out from the dark. She sashays. I've always wanted to use that word and never found a single situation where it's appropriate, but here it is. "My brother's soulmate. Cupid really missed when he shot you, didn't he?"

 I lift my eyebrows and stare hard at her and those winter mist eyes gaze right back, steady if not sane. "It's him you should feel sorry for. If I was related to you, I'd have been adopted as soon as humanly possible."

Not Ralf, but his younger sister. A lady I've heard much about. Violent, cruel and cold as liquid nitrogen, she's rumoured to carry the family streak of insanity. Now, she's smiling. Barely. Her lips are a dark vibrant purple, her fangs pure white and touched with blood at the bottom; her mouth seems to dominate her face. Ever seen a Venus flytrap? Think that, with Revlon.

 Her smiles frosts over a little more until it matches her drastically bleached hair and her eyes, the exact shade of Ralf's, narrow. "I wouldn't recommend you try to be smart with me."

 "I know," I say apologetically. "Lower life-forms do have trouble keeping up."

 "Are you deaf?" she inquires with a voice as honed as a razor. She makes cutting replies into a reality. I frown suddenly. Her voice is familiar. Where have I heard it before...?

 "Yes, but not dumb or blonde, happily." I let my face reflect only boredom. What is going on?

 "Ralf said you were quick," the girl says, stepping closer. I notice she has no weapons. Insane, or merely idiotic? It's a tough call. "He didn't say you were cruel."

 I snort and look down at her. Ralf's sister doesn't have his height, for all she's inherited the same dominating character. In him, it's magnetic, in her, it's like having a chainsaw held to your face. "Being held at knifepoint makes me tetchy. Being held at knifepoint for trouble not of my making makes me mad. Who are you supposed to be, anyway?"

 "Kelnra Dufrane," she replies. She rakes her hands through thick hair, grinning almost wolfishly. "Second and last child of the Dufrane house."

 "Probably the reason why they discovered birth control." I stand my ground, using my height to my advantage. Looking down on her isn't hard. "What do you want with me?"

 "Oh," she sighs and her hips sway as she strolls away, trading softly as a cat. The kind of cat that has spots and teeth and when it comes to sit on your lap, it ain't because it's feeling friendly. "I suppose you want an explanation. But," and she executes a perfect pirouette, her hair snapping round swift as octopi tentacles, "you won't get one. Other than this: I'm going to kill you."

 "Are you expecting thanks?" I murmur, watching her closely because she may look slow, dear friends, but so do cobras. "I'm afraid you're a little...precocious. Two of your family have tried to kill me so far and unless there's something I've really haven't noticed, they've failed."

 "But they didn't use magick," Kelnra explains with a gleeful grin. Yes, she has the family problem. The wheel's spinning but the hamster's dead. Probably of starvation.

 I laugh and the sound rolls through the room with an odd echo. "And as a vampire, you're planning to find magick where, exactly?"

 She flicks her fingers at me. "You don't know very much about our family, do you?" Her arrogant tones are again oddly recognizable, though I can't place them. In my mind, a fragment of an idea begins to wink.

 "No." I'm careful to keep my voice amicable. "But it's nothing that a trip to the zoo won't fix."

 Her eyes glitter dangerously. Glazing over with the silver sheen of a vampire in the same slow, spiky patterns of ice over water. I can tell you for free there's cracks in the ice. "We know very little about you."

 And before I can even move, fire leaps between her hands and writhes around her like a separate entity. The same wine-dark colour as her mouth, flickering a dim light into the shadows, throwing a blood-like glow onto everything. Her smiles stretches and the fire with it, luxurious and opulent as a cat curling round her feet. "But it's nothing that a trip to the mortuary won't fix."

Shock is a cold dagger in the small of my back as I place her dead, flat voice. "You hired me to kill your father!" But she can't have done! Everyone knows how notoriously close the Dufranes are. "That's why you want to kill me!" Somehow though, I don't exactly feel any better about my situation. It's just that I'm no longer merely trapped in a ruined building with a maniac. Now she's a maniac with a motive.

 "Correct." Her voice is clipped, an odd rattle clattering in her throat. "When my brother marched in after failing to kill you - it was laughably easy to fiddle with Father's files so he found the contract - I knew something was wrong. Ralf never gives up." Her bony shoulders lift in a shrug. "It wasn't difficult to drag it out of him."

 It's not hard to work out what she doesn't say. Kelnra has a hunger for power and with her father's death, more of it passed to her. And so she killed him and sent Ralf to kill me...or to be killed. Yes, Kelnra had planned everything rather cleverly. Then we messed it up. Ralf and I weren't supposed to be soulmates. Mind you, Ralf wasn't supposed to turn out to be a small-minded petty bastard either. Can't have everything.

 "I don't think I want to hang around," I say calmly. The witch fire unnerves me. There's only one way to fight magick; with more magick and I don't have that.

 The bruise coloured fire springs from her hands in a silent rush of energy. It latches round my wrists with sharp, blazing pain and forms a translucent cocoon around me, sizzling against my skin with the same intense heat as the sun through glass. I struggle frantically and futilely; the magick just moves as I do, and the pain increases until I have to bite down on my tongue to stop from screaming.

 "I don't think you have a choice," Kelnra murmurs. Her eyes watch me with a tranquil detachment, as if I'm a bug that has wandered across her floor. And she's just burning to crush me flat.

 "Let me go," I rap out and play the only card I have left. A joker. "If you kill me, you think I won't make sure your brother knows? Knows just who sent his soulmate to the fire…and then where will you be?"

 She laughs, sharp as nails dragged across a blackboard squealing, and in it I hear the constant fear and devil-may-care attitude of someone walking the knife edge. Savouring the moment where everything hangs in the balance of one gamble. My life undetermined as the fire burns into my eyes which stream furiously.

 "Who will Ralf believe?" she mocks. "His little sister, so helpless, so defenceless? Or you? Who has already tried to hurt him, who has betrayed him. It's not much of a competition, Atalssa." She talks to me as if we are close friends. I hate it.

 "Oh, I don't know," a familiarly lazy voice drawls. "Why don't you keep talking, Kelly, and we'll find out?" And both of us stare as Ralf jumps down from the shelter of the rafters, landing fluently as a tumbler. He dwarfs her easily, those long legs tensed to move and an easy smile curling the corners of his mouth before the expression is smoothed away.

"How long have you been there?" Kelnra demands, looking from me to him with narrowed eyes. Obviously suspecting a plot with her eyes suddenly gone bright and burning, the silver sparks of moonlight on a blade. In her shock, the spell around me breaks.

 A one shouldered shrug. He's chosen expression number three: international man of mystery. "Long enough. Obviously." He looks at me, mouth set in a stubborn line. "Well, my prayers have been answered."

 "Oh good," I answer. "Maybe my mail-order madman will arrive soon." I step forward and glare at him. He smiles slightly, eyes glittering like points of starlight on water.

 I slug him in the jaw.

 He swears furiously and suddenly that wine-dark fire leaps around me again, burning so much that grey lights dance in front of my vision or maybe that's just Kelnra Dufrane's triumphant face as she realises I'm not exactly bending over backwards to seduce him. Though that would be kind of painful.

 I dare to meet those eyes and they hold me. Maybe there's a warning in his face. Soon as I get loose there'll be a few more dents in it. He stood there and watched while I suffered? That doesn't rate high on gallant gestures. But it does rate high on useful distractions. Now Kelnra's eyes are off me, I move my hands slowly towards my neck and the charm I'm wearing. The sting of the fire is becoming unbearable.

 "I was actually thinking about how maybe things work out after all, but obviously someone out there likes me." His teeth show in a brief smile. "Well, Kelly, what are you planning to do with Atalssa?"

 "I thought I'd take her shopping," Kelnra says scornfully. "Isn't it obvious, Ralf? I'm going to kill her and then I'm going to hack her into pieces and bury her all over the world."

 "All over the world?" he replies with a half-smile. Oh yes, Ralf, that's the part to focus on. "Where?"

 Kelnra smiles happily and they look scarily similar. "Brazil, the Congo, Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia and Australia." She giggles. "Doesn't that sound delightful?"

 "I can't wait," I say obligingly. "Oh, please won't you start chopping me into mince now?" This time the look Ralf shoots me is definitely a warning. But am I going to listen to him? Am I fuck.

 "It sounds wonderful, Kelly," he tells her. She giggles again. God, this family are just a laugh-a-minute. How would I have made it through the last few weeks without this kind of entertainment? "But it's such a waste of all that blood. And she's old too. Think of all the powers."

 Kelnra's face alters remarkably as her brother watches with impassive eyes. I begin to wonder uneasily just who he is acting for. "Yes..." she muses. I wriggle in the sheath of plum fire that glides over my skin, the warmth tightens around me, clutching like heated hands. "Maybe we should wait..."

 Two pairs of winter eyes fix on me though I try to keep my face blank. I've never been good at hiding my emotions. Guess I picked a bad time to start trying.

 "...or maybe we could just start now," Kelnra doesn't skip a beat as she studies my face. "You're right, brother. Power oozes out of her like fear."

 I glower and my anger inches up as the pain of the flames does. "Do you ever wonder what life would be like if you'd had enough oxygen at birth?" Ralf rolls his eyes. "There is no way you are getting your teeth on my blood. I'll kick you into next week."

 "How, pray tell?" A smug smile plays on her plump, shining lips.

 My scrabbling fingers have hold of the charm. "Like this." I give her my best weathergirl smile and then grip the charm so hard it cuts through my palm and blood surges between my closed fingers. The magick springs into life and the fire around me dissolves. Thank the gods for witches and thank the gods for blackmail.

 Kelnra goes a nasty colour. Nasty girl, nasty colour. It's apt. "How did…you can't have…you…you…"

"V?" I offer. "I just did." I look at Ralf and maybe a little respect and approval rests in his eyes. "You stay out of this. Or I will kill you." Yeah. And the aviation industry will start hiring pigs. He laughs, but something flares in his eyes, a promise so powerful my breath is snatched away. And then a subtle agreement; this is my fight. He knows what Kelnra has done, and perhaps it's just sodium chloride in a scratch.

 "I'll stay out of it," he says in a low voice. "Kelly?" Ralf's voice has a blade in it. Words can cut and my, cherished reader, how Kelnra bleeds. Her face goes absolutely pallid for one second at the fact that he listens to me. "You killed our father. You're on your own now."

 "I always have been," she says and giggles, though for a brief pause, I think maybe I see something in her face fracturing as delicately as spun sugar. "I chose it that way. I made it that way."

 "You killed it that way, dear." His steady gaze has shifted to pity. "You killed everything there was."

 "I'll kill her," she hisses. Her back hollows slightly, almost like a cat. This is one maniac who watches too many horror flicks. I don't bother with all that melodramatic crap. I step forward and hit her in the face. Her head snaps sideways with a funny little click, like you get when you hit a letter on a keyboard. And why stop at just one letter? Why not a whole sentence?

 But Kelnra is up before I complete that thought, and has her hands locked together. Either she's going to try a double-handed punch or she's about to drop to her knees and beg for forgiveness. When no penance seems forthcoming, I duck the wild swing and stand up again briefly, to hit her neck with a swift chop.

 And fall neatly into the trap. The witch fire screams up my body and I don't even have time to gasp as my skin is scorched away in searing agony. My entire body arches in an effort to escape the fire but there is none, and suddenly I'm falling, but I can't even tell if I hit the ground. My world becomes the fire and the fire becomes my world. I find my voice again and the only words I have are screams.

 Goddess, I think dully, this is getting tedious.

Yeah, and the classic line, oh shit, I'm on fire and burning to death never crosses my mind.

 The last thing my failing senses hear is a voice, calling my name. One I know so well; and this time, I think sadly, it will be he who waits for an answer that will never come. He who will listen to the wind hoping to hear a legend borne out, look at every face to see if any is familiar. And he who will eventually fall into the shadows with no hope, no love.

 And in the midst of all this hurt and panic, the pain drops away like a plummeting elevator and I'm stranded in the sky that grows in my eyes, or maybe it's my mind. It's hard to tell anymore. But up here, it's beautiful, and it's peaceful and breathing the air is like breathing chocolate; sweet and sensual and gives your immune system one hell of a kick.

 I realise what's happening with a sense of inevitability. I've looked Death in the face before, but never like this; close enough to smell his breath and find out that he doesn't use Wrigley's gum. No, he uses that good ol'-fashioned scent of rot and decay. Beats Calvin Klein every time.

 And all these little thoughts crowd out the one thought I try to push away until I feel darkness hit me like a sack of bricks. And as the world drops into an endless well, and I with it, I remember what's going on.

 I just died.

 Most people wake up in one of two places after they experience death:

Either it's a bed, and there are varying degrees of bliss; there's king-size comforter, hopefully with accompanying man and satisfaction. Or there's rock-solid prison cell, hopefully without accompanying man. Satisfaction optional.

 Or it's in some form of afterlife, usually hell because that's more interesting, to find someone twirling a garden fork and saying, "I bet you really wish you'd chosen the other door now, eh?"

 When I open my eyes, there's no bed. But on the other hand, there's no one remarking how good my intestines would look as curtain ties either. In fact, I feel an awful lot like I'm still I the same place as I was when I got hit by enough heat to cook breakfast for Satan. Some like it hot. I'm not one of them.

 I don't know about you, but this continual dying is really starting to get on my nerves. Between Ralf's family, there isn't one of them who hasn't taken a stab - you'll excuse the pun, I'm sure - at me. I've had more potential funerals than a werewolf who likes chasing cars.

 And as I open my eyes, I realise that everything's the same. Almost. One tiny detail is different. I have this nasty feeling I'm not alive. I stand up easily, as though I'm floating and around me, the room has a soft, pearly cast. Insubstantial, with light falling onto my face in startlingly strong beams that glow golden.

 I eye a wall. It looks like nothing more than smoke to my new senses. And confidently, I stride towards it, unflinching as the grey stone looms in my vision. Ghostdom, here I come. And I find myself looking forward almost to being able to hang around. A sort of guardian angel, though I think I'd fail the purity test with flying colours. And what about-

 There's a sharp crunch and a blast of pain as might result from walking into a wall. Smoke my ass. It's bloody brick. Obviously what I've heard about the afterlife - or afterdeath, if we're going to be accurate - isn't true. My curses should have woken anyone else floating in this beautiful, almost silent world. Almost silent, because two voice cut through the air like someone murmuring very softly in a nearby room.

 I turn and see the other people whom I had forgotten. With spiriteyes, they look quite different.

 Ralf Dufrane is kneeling beside my body. His face shows nothing, nothing at all but an icy detachment as silver fire, radiant as a lone star in the night sky, flows all around him like a second skin and floods into me. I look closely at the girl that was...is...could be me, for I understand instinctively that I have a choice now. Here. Or there. And I like it here, in the beauty and the silence and the peace.

 See, that body there, that useless limp thing, has such suffering carved onto her face. All the happiness is suffused by a look of haunted sorrow, the brightness cloaking Ralf and his sister absent. The only light my spiriteyes see comes from the ring I have always worn since the day I was given it. An eternity ring, the gemstones glowing with sweet emerald and silken silver. Silver for Ralf. Emerald...for me?

 My choice. I frown and wish the irritating background sound, those two voices, would shut up. I'm trying to rest in peace here. And of course, concentrating on them merely makes them louder and clearer.

 The first is high, feminine with a sharp, ragged note to it that makes me think of dropped glasses and discordant notes. Almost a mantra in the intense rhythm of the words.

 "He can't love her. Why would he love her? He knows what they do to people like us. They just get in the way. He doesn't need her! I didn't need him…" And the last word is almost a choke, almost a soul breaking before the speaker - the arctic, ruthless voice of Kelnra Dufrane, reasserts itself. "He doesn't need her and she can't live...Ralf isn't strong enough to heal her-"

 With my new vision, she looks utterly different, beloved friends. The light around her isn't pure or blazing, though it is bright. Around her, it is a sick swirl of wine and black and fireshot orange, all twining round each other like a nest of snakes. As her emotions peak, thorn shapes appear in the orange. Just looking at her is enough to know she is somehow essentially kaput.

 And the second voice, rolling underneath her like the pulse of a waterfall with a power and a vitality intermingled with emotions I can't identify, because maybe it's been so long since I've felt them that it's all too easy to forget how one person can stir our soul.

 "So stupid. Oh god, why didn't I listen. Should have known...since that time, Kelly's been wrong, all wrong. Will I be like that too if she doesn't...?" Fresh despair overlays the other emotions, sweet and sorrowed as the last note of a lament. "Why isn't she waking? I know I'm healing her, I knowiknowiknow. Atalssa!"

 The call of my name stuns me from the hypnotic chain of his thoughts and suddenly it isn't so easy to decide anymore as I stare at the figure, tall and grim and yet whose thoughts call me with fire and promise and maybe love, and am forced to chose between the world caught in a storm and this world, hanging in a peace as gentle as it is formidable and real.

 Not much of a choice, is it, dear friends?

 And as I hesitate a bare second, then walk towards my half-healed darkened body, the voices of the two become stronger and stronger until they crash in my ears like the world collapsing. Sinking into my form, the peace vanishes and is overlaid by a new sensation, one of pain and burning and piercing agony...but there is light too, an intoxicating emerald light that brightens until it fills my vision, and the silence is gone.

 Behold the light.

~*~

 "Ouch," I say vaguely through the pain haze. Understatement, but it's the best I can get out.

 I hear Kelnra Dufrane screech in rage and suddenly fire returns, intense and awful and I know I can't take another blast of this torture. My scream clashes with hers. It takes a stronger soul than mine to laugh at torture. Usually they're the one standing outside the piranha tank and stroking a white cat.

 And I realise that perhaps my decision was wrong as my world is snatched away in the fire for a second time. But then I hear someone shout furiously and blinding silver replaces the wine colour that danced across my vision. The pain is taken in a rush of cooling, gentle energy that curls round me like angels' wings. Insubstantial and yet more real than anything I've ever known.

 "Atalssa!" I am on the floor, of course, knowing whose magick chased away the pain. How humiliating. I push myself up, waiting for the sunspots to leave my vision and feel arms helping me up. "Are you okay?"

 "Yeah, I get cooked to a well-done steak every day," I say and gasp involuntarily as a line of pain arcs from my eyes, thankfully leaning into Ralf. "Your reflexes need a little honing."

 "I'm sure you meant to give me your eternal gratitude," he murmurs and as I blink frantically, trying to see what the damage is, he gives me a vague attempt at reassurance. "But seeing as you look like artists could draw with you, I'll forgive you."

 My vision blurs and then focuses. I stare at my skin in horror. It's black. Not grey, or sooty but pure, kiss-my-burns black, with the odd streak of red. A ghostly silver lattice clings to my skin, magick, and I can feel it hastening the healing. But my anger is more significant. "How generous. We'll just forget your lack of faith then?"

 A resigned sigh. "Okay. I was wrong. Kelly lied to me. But come on, Atalssa...we've been through so much together."

 "Yeah, and most of it was your fault. Any other lines you'd like to trot out?" He mutters something under his breath and I think he would have shaken me, but for the jarring pain that would have caused. For him, not me. Men are so fragile, however much macho crap they manage to produce.

 And so here we are. He and I, jousting with words again. That odd veil of knowledge between us, though perhaps with his arms cradling me so tenderly, some of the ice has melted. You'll have to excuse me mixing my metaphors; death does that to me.

 "Anyway," I say, looking up at him. "Why did you save me?"

 His old look comes back. Cagey. Because god forbid he, a man, should show any emotion beyond being contemptuous and being horny. And with the devil dancing in his eyes, I'll swear there's two horns about to sprout. Then it dissolves as he hears what I'm thinking and that slow smile appears. "Well," he says dryly. "If you don't know, I don't think I can help you."

 "What did you do that for?" Kelnra shrieks. She flaps her hands agitatedly and I remember the bitter tangle of her thoughts that I heard. "You don't want her, Ralf!" A snicker. "Mine was only a human. So easy to take care of..." This time it's a cackle. We're bordering on apple-poisoning and oven-shoving territory here, dear readers. "You know what soulmates bring."

 "Yes. I know what they bring."

 "It's only death," Kelnra says simply, with the calm assurance of those not looking Him in the face. "Surely that doesn't bother you. After all, what does something like her have to live for?"

 "Me." I nearly choke at his arrogance, never mind the fact it's true.

 "Normally," I put in, "I'd say I'd rather die...but having been through that one once tonight...I have to agree with you." He just looks at me and one corner of his mouth lifts very slowly in a knowing smile.

 "So nice of you to be honest," Ralf remarks with elaborate casualness. "Especially since we both know you lie very badly." He looks at his sister then, face stern and imperial. "You know who Atalssa is, Kelly. I know you do. You will leave her alone."

 "You missed the 'or else I'll rip your throat out and feed you to the wolves,'" I murmur calmly, looking up unflinchingly at him from the support his arms give me. From this angle, his face is gaunter, eyes seeming dark as the gloom of the crypt, the arch of his nose regal. Rather like looking at a statue's face, though be it fair or foul, I can't tell.

 He doesn't look my way. "She's family. Maybe one day you'll find out what that is."

 "Is that an offer?" I say archly and grin as his eyes flare in an answer. So maybe Ralf isn't as unaffected as he pretends to be.

 "Spare me the romance," Kelnra drawls in her poisonous tones. "You two make me want to vomit."

 "You make me think someone already did," I mutter and hiss as the wine-fire blazes bright, hurled towards me. It hits a silvery shield of witch fire that leaps around me, much to my relief. If man was meant to fry, God wouldn't have given us spicy chicken wings.

 "Enough." And curiously, she obeys Ralf. Their eyes meet and I could swear sparks fly from their locked gazes. I think they're arguing telepathically from the way both pairs of grey eyes flicker with stormy colours and threads of silver. "You killed your soulmate, Kelly." His voice is soft yet Kelnra flinches from each word. "Grant me mine."

 With a snarl of anger, she turns and stalks away as she recognises her brother will not yield. At the door she turns and Ralf points a finger at her. "No," he says firmly. "No last minute snappy remarks. This isn't the movies."

 Her face contorts and to both our amusement, she leaves in a flurry of door-slamming.

 And finally, I have his undivided (can you imagine if there were two of him, cherished friends?) attention. Yet I look at him with unsure, frightened eyes, years of memory flooding my head. "Will it work?" I ask him. "You and me? We argue all the time, Ralf...what if..."

 He shrugs slightly. "I don't know." He tilts his head on one side, regarding me with a thoughtfulness that hums through our soullink. "But do you really want to live your life on what-ifs?"

 I look back and then make up my mind. His touch, his smile, the look glowing from his face tells me everything I need to know. "What if...what if we gave it a try?"

 He grins infectiously and then his arms tighten around me, caressing and his voice lowers to a husky whisper. "I don't know if it'll work, Atalssa," he says though his eyes tell a different story. "But god, it'll be fun finding out."

 I have to agree. Oh yes, I have to agree.

"Well," he says and dips his head close to mine. The rest of the world dulls into insipid fog. "We have a lot of lost time to be making up for."

 And, oh my, we do.

~*~

 What? You thought I'd finish there?

 Happy endings are all very well, but is there ever really an ending to anything? This isn't a romance novel; life doesn't end at sex, though it often begins there. It isn't horror either; the monsters can't be killed with some weird ritual involving lemons and dancing counter-clockwise on your hands holding a stake (Though they might be onto something with the stake). Real monsters live on in us.  

 However, it's true my half of this tale is finished. I have what I wanted and waited for. Five millennia was a very long time, dear friends, but I spent it well. My monster has retreated; loneliness and bitterness no longer drive me in my work. Which, by the way, is still hacking off parts of people for green paper. If you were expecting me to turn all sweetness and light after this, dream on.

 After all, I dreamed and look where it took me.

 And so you see, it's all come full cycle now. Atalssa and Ralf Dufrane have triplets. Yes. Triplets. Don't think I was happy about that. I nearly killed him when he said multiple births were common in his family.

Kelnra Dufrane isn't happy that we are. She swears revenge frequently and my, how that girl can swear! She complains about everything, and makes a habit of sending assassins at least once a month. The last lot turned out to be old friends of mine so we sent them back with a bomb or two. Make no mistake; that girl is evil as hell on a hot day and even Ralf can't forgive her trying to harm the kids, though he lets her get away with murder.

We're having our happily-ever-after quite nicely, thanks for asking, and if you ever want to drop in, call first and we'll make sure we're not in. We live a mostly quiet and occasionally happy life, despite the fact we fight so often Zoë once offered to throw him down the stairs again. Ralf declined, you might be surprised to hear. So, we're not quite in paradise. But California's close enough.

Respected, loved in those moments when I'm not trying to break his bones, finally with a family...oh, and the most successful pair of assassins this side of Pluto. If you need anyone killing, drop us a line. If, that is, you happen to have a few million just lying around, down the back of your sofa.

  And speaking of Zoë Chandra...she disappeared some three weeks ago. We have heard nothing from her, but her apartment lies ransacked and broken, blood staining her floor and broken wreckage all around. I know nothing of Zoë's past for we have an unspoken agreement that past is history and if it's something they force teenagers to study, it's not worth our while.

 But Zoë's past has caught up with her in a way that I never imagined. She spoke of old shadows once to me recently and I passed it off as one of her strange black moods. Perhaps I was wrong to do so, for now she is gone and only ruins are left.

I fear for her, beloved friend... I fear.

 But enough of us - how have you been?

And I can feel the clock unwind, the parts of me I tied are running.
   And all the birds are in my head...the laughter that was dead is coming.

Warning: include() [function.include]: URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration in /home/firesong/public_html/Fanfiction/Nightworld/Searching/ER/ER2.php on line 590

Warning: include(http://www.firesong.org/Fanfiction/Nightworld/Searching/ER/chapters.php) [function.include]: failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found in /home/firesong/public_html/Fanfiction/Nightworld/Searching/ER/ER2.php on line 590

Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening 'http://www.firesong.org/Fanfiction/Nightworld/Searching/ER/chapters.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/firesong/public_html/Fanfiction/Nightworld/Searching/ER/ER2.php on line 590