Shimmer Epilogue

Two days later:

The rain had stopped, finally, after torrents of water cascaded through the valley town, flooding some of the low-lying houses. The glaziers had never had so much business; hailstones the size of a man's fist had shattered windows throughout town - though surprisingly, there had been only one death.

No one could explain the freak storm that had hit the valley; such tempests were rare in the early spring, though autumn and winter often brought downpours and minor floods. A witch gardener was destroyed by the loss of his blood-roses, but equally startled when dozens of seedlings were left on his lawn the next morning, under the shadow of a rainbow that shimmered with the fading clouds.

Gradually, peace was restored, the peculiar occurrence passing into gossip with the unfortunate death of one of the odd, detached young people who lived nearby. The girl, it was said, had been standing beneath a fallen tree in the woods behind their garden and had been killed instantly. A tragedy, everyone agreed, and amidst those horrified whispers, the disappearance of the startling boy with the blue hair and smouldering azure eyes who had made such an impact among the high school students went unnoticed.

Calm settled back across the valley; on the ghost roads, the Pack let forth their baneful cries and the lone wolf answered them with an eerie wail of his own. In the high school of Ryars Valley, a girl called Ellie came back with her nose unattractively swathed in bandages; in Las Vegas, an organisation called Nightfire congratulated the blue-haired boy and turned their minds to the unfortunate matter of the dragon walking their world.

In a nearby state, a young man with curiously tousled hair that hid tiny horns, and black, black eyes smiled at a girl and killed her. He knew where he was going. Who he was hunting; he knew the rich pleasures that awaited him in a valley that almost no one knew of, that no one could leave.

And in Ryars Valley, the rain had stopped, finally.

~*~

"So mote it be," Chatoya finished in a voice that was husky and drained. She blinked hard, and looked up to meet two emerald green eyes that were solemn as her own as their fingers entwined. She knew her grip was hard enough to hurt, but Jepar didn't say a word.

The sun was shining across a clear sky that seemed unnaturally bright after the greyness of the past two days. It slanted across the garden, across the patch of disturbed earth. There was no headstone, no tribute but the five people gathered around.

They all stared at the ground as if would grant them answers. Then Rob Slivan bit his lip, turning away abruptly. She had seen at once that he didn't believe the story they had concocted to hide Sonj's death.

"Wait," Chatoya said. She could see the pain shining brightly through his dove-grey eyes. And she understood that this was the only explanation she could give him. "Please - just a minute." One last minute; one last gift.

She stepped forward and knelt down to the earth. Something fell from her hands and she cupped her hands over it. Green light glowed around her like a halo; Rob stopped and stared, his skin paling to chalk-white.

A plant exploded from the ground, shoot and leaves springing swiftly and then red, red roses bursting from the tips, scarlet splashes. She let the spell go and plucked a rose, ignoring the gentle bite of the thorns.

Rob's chest was heaving, his mouth trembling. There was sheer terror in his eyes as she walked past the others and held out the flower.

"She kept the rose you gave her," she said simply. "She didn't forget."

The boy seemed frozen. Then he took the flower, those grey eyes closing in brief pain. "I didn't tell her," he said hopelessly. "She meant a lot to me. And I always meant to say...but it was never the right time."

"Say it anyway," she told him, remembering all the words she had never said to the people in her heart until it was too late. Her smile was strange to Rob, sparkling and fey. "You never know."

After all, in a world where magick existed…what else might?

He stroked the crimson flower that spilled over his hand. "I don't know what you are," he said with gentle awe, "but people were wrong about you." He lifted his head and looked at them; Cougar, cold and carven in black, Lisa with tears and her arms wrapped around herself, Jepar with his laughter gone. "All of you."

"They weren't," Chatoya said, looking up at him. "They were right about all of us. But soon...soon they'll be wrong."

He looked at her and perhaps a glimmer of understanding shone in his face. "Make sure of that," he answered in that quiet, human voice. "Make them wrong."

So much that he didn't say, so many questions he didn't ask - almost as if somehow, he knew the answers already. Or perhaps he just didn't want to know. It was safer that way, safer for them all.

He walked away with his head bowed.

~*~

Three days later; evening

"It's getting better, isn't it?" Jepar asked gently, curling a strand of Chatoya's black, black hair around his fingers. She was getting used to the fresh pain that was always in his eyes, that the laughter could never quite hide. The same look that she saw in her own face as she looked in the mirror every morning.

"It's getting better," she said. She didn't tell him about the nightmares that made her wake gasping, the visions of death and a boy with cruel eyes. She had the feeling he knew somehow. "It hasn't stopped hurting. But I think I can deal with it."

"I know you can." The coolly confident voice belonged to Cougar Redfern. He had taken to wearing sunglasses lately, but even under the smoky glass, Chatoya could see the gold flame of his eyes that burned like a funeral pyre. "I didn't think you would...but if you survived my brother, you can survive anything."

"Compassion central," Lisa drawled. "Want to drag up any other traumatic experiences, Cou?"

"Don't be bitter," he said and lit up a cigarette. No one yelled at him. "Leave that one to me."

Lisa gave him a glare. The ache inside was easier for her, she suspected. So many had died in her life that while she could never get used to it, she could accept that death was merely a passing. You said goodbye, you wept your tears and then you carried on. For she would carry on; her gift and her curse.

"When you make such a mess of everything?" she said. "Do you know what those will do to your lungs?"

"They'll match my clothes," came back the curt answer. "Leave me alone."

He stormed out and got halfway to the door before hissing in disgust and turning back to collapse on a chair. "Well, if it isn't Ghost Boy. Now my day's complete."

"Why don't you take a long walk off a short plank?" the calm voice so akin to her own said eloquently. Chatoya looked up and blinked.

Josh was there. Grinning his old, slightly arrogant smile and waiting for her reaction. She was flooded with brief guilt, grief and then ecstatic happiness.

Her twin brother, the walls glimmering through him only faintly, waved a hand in welcome. "Hiya sis. You're looking slightly less weird and creepy. Did you really cause that storm? I've been hearing some really strange things lately..." he said. "Sonj told me to say hi," he added as an afterthought.

"You spoke to her?" Lisa said in astonishment. Cougar sat bolt upright, the cigarette falling to the floor.

Josh rolled his impossible eyes. The silver dots where his pupil should have been seemed darker, almost human. "We got killed by the same guy. We were comparing notes. Of course I talked to her."

"What did she say?" Cougar said eagerly, eyes flaming so bright the sunglasses might not have been there.

Josh tilted his dark head on one side. "Well...basically...what the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Quilting rugs?" Cougar offered and bared his teeth. The hurt in his voice was obvious. "Missing her. What does she think we're doing?"

Her twin appeared to be listening. "She says she you're really ruining her afterlife and would you please get over it? Oh and put that poison-stick out...she can see you, you know," he added helpfully. "And she says to tell you to get out of the black, she feels like she's watching a mime class." His eyes focused again. "And did you know the floor is on fire?"

"Oh shit!" Cougar shouted and stamped on the flames. "You couldn't have said before I had to singe half my feet off?"

Josh wrinkled his nose. "Sonj said this way would be more fun. Smart girl."

"That is definitely her," Lisa said and even smiled. "Can you talk to her whenever you want?"

"Yup." Josh raised his eyebrows. "And you may be pleased to hear that the fact I've been spending so much time on this plane means I'm getting more human. I'll never be one of the living, but I'm getting more powerful. Maybe I'll be able to last out the sunlight soon."

"And is power in your hands really a good idea?" Cougar said icily. "It seems to lead to burns on my feet."

Josh shot him a cool look. "I can't do much more than your average poltergeist, okay? I appear from the moment I died until sunlight and get on with my unfinished business. But the longer I hang around the more...attuned I get to this side. And maybe I'll be attuned enough to outlast the sunlight soon."

"That reminds me," Jepar said, his emerald eyes glowing softly. Hearing about Sonj had put a smile back on his face. "What is your unfinished business? I thought it was Toya, but..."

"Oh." Josh looked embarrassed. "I...um...sort of promised Mum and Dad on a blood-oath I'd look after Toya until she got hand-fasted."

"What?" she shrieked. The old twin-link snapped into effect. How dare you, Joshua Irkil!

And she could hear Sonj's raucous laughter in his head and heard a called 'hello' before Josh kicked her out of his mind. "Ask next time!" he snapped. "They were just...worried you'd be alone...they were good with precognition, you know that."

How could her parents be so hideously old-fashioned? "You're kidding!"

"Yeah and-" Josh paused. "And Sonj says there's a candidate in the form of a certain hunky blond shapeshifter with...I am not repeating that!" he protested to the air. "If you wanted to be a ghost, you should have had some unfinished business." He paused. "Yes, well, you should have made a blood-oath to Rob Slivan...no, I'll call you tomorrow probably doesn't count! Don't you talk to me like..."

He looked at them with embarrassment. "Look, I just have to go back to the other side and talk to that bloody redhead," he muttered and vanished.

Jepar broke the silence, raking a hand through gold hair. "Even our ghosts argue," he said with a sigh. "I should have known nothing would stop Sonj."

Cougar Redfern slowly took off his sunglasses, revealing startled eyes that had dimmed to hazel. The first, faint curl of a smile touched his mouth. "I think she's just found someone else to wind up," he said with a certain amount of satisfaction.

~*~

"You want what?" There was a cool laugh, like drops of water hitting glass. "Do you really think that's an option?"

The blue-haired boy arched his eyebrows. "I think my options are whatever I want them to be."

"You ask too much!" The vampire laughed again. "Head? Of Nightfire? You have too high an opinion of yourself...boy. Get out now. Before I stop being amused."

The boy tilted his head and when he stepped forward, it was as if a snake had sprouted legs; beautiful, slinking, but unnervingly fast. "Do you even know what happened to me?"

"I know that you sent your team back without you." The vampire's voice had grown hard suddenly; his grey eyes were no longer like drifting mists, but hard as arctic rock. "I know you left alive people who know who you are." One corner of his mouth lifting. "Fortunately for you, I am the only one who knows. So far."

The boy's eyes flared with rage. "Don't you dare blackmail me," he said in a voice as controlled as his still body. "You have no idea..."

"You?" The elder laughed again, but the humour was gone. "You are a child! A parasite! You have not even a tenth of my power and you-"

The knife flew so fast the elder had no chance. It struck him in the chest and he was dead in a breath.

The boy with the blue eyes smiled. "I," he said softly, "am right. You are merely dead."

In his eyes, dragon magick leapt and he shrugged, pushing back the magick. "And I thought having a soulmate was a bad idea," he whispered thoughtfully. A flare of magick from his hand and the body was charred into ash.

Blue Malefici had dragon magick, time and patience.

He would wait. He would learn. And they would die.

After all, he did so loathe untidy endings.

~*~

Two weeks later:

"...and I don't know what kind of present she wants," a frustrated Jepar was saying, green eyes sparkling gently. "I mean, what kind of help is 'whatever you think I'll like'?"

Chatoya laughed at the vexed tone. "I think she's trying to say that whatever you buy, she'll like it because it's from you. It's the thought, not the gift."

"That's crap," Cougar put as he fell into step. His eyes still had that slightly rueful cast to them, but he flashed his old, wicked grin. "Of course it's the gift that counts. What Lisa really means is that it had better be expensive, it had better be nice and she had better like it or there'll be hell to pay."

"You're such a cynic!" she protested.

Jepar and Cougar traded one of those know-it-all looks that only men could manage. "Yup," they said in unison.

Sharla Ferrars was leaning on the wall. She heard Cougar sigh softly and say, "Defences up, Jep...the airhead of the clique's out to net you again."

As Sharla stepped out and immediately engaged Jepar in a conversation that Chatoya couldn't quite follow due to the girl's breathy, fast voice, she and Cougar waited unobtrusively off to one side.

"How is he managing to stay awake?" Cougar murmured in a low voice. "That girl's less interesting than my toenail clippings."

"Thanks for that picture." He grinned at her and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. "You're smoking again?"

He shrugged. "Who's going to stop me?" Faint sadness there. Sonj had always been the one to shout and harass the vampire about his bad habits.

She was haranguing Josh now; when he invariably appeared at around ten every evening, the familiar exasperation was in his eyes and he had been muttering something about spirits. Drinking or throttling, Chatoya couldn't tell. But apart from the odd sarcastic comment from afar, Sonj left Cougar alone.

He flicked the lighter.

Chatoya concentrated and the light on it died. Cougar frowned and flicked the lighter again. No flame. He shook it and tried again. The flame flared and he lit the cigarette...then watched in surprised disgust as it disintegrated into powder.

"Is that you?" he asked, glaring.

She gave him an angelic smile.

"Hey!" he protested. "That isn't fair. If I want to destroy my lungs, you should let me!"

She shook her head and walked up to collect Jepar, who gave her a grateful look as they left Sharla gabbling in mid-sentence. The vampire caught up, still griping and the three of them made their way through the corridor. As they passed the clique, someone muttered 'freaks'.

They stopped and Chatoya saw what she was thinking reflected in Cougar's sinful smile and the devilment in Jepar's eyes. All three of them turned round and stared at the clique with perfectly blank expressions.

Rob Slivan's face, sweetly sorrowed, met hers and he shook his head, walking away. Making it clear where he stood. A voluptuous Asian girl followed him, muttering disgustedly. But the rest remained. She saw people glare at them, the same fear and anger in their eyes.

"What did you say?" Jepar drawled, his voice perfectly civil, except for that tiny hint of wild menace.

"I didn't quite hear," Cougar put in, his smile curling up like the flick of a tiger's tail and giving the clique the full benefit of his inhumanly gold eyes.

Chatoya didn't say anything but raised her eyebrows in polite query, tilting her head so the silver pentagrams on her necklace and in her ears shone in the light.

"Didn't you?" the brunette with the disdainful smile said. An Eleanor clone. Designer clothes, designer bag, designer life. "I called you freaks." Around her people smirked. She saw tense stances, people ready for a fight. Some obviously not agreeing with the assessment; others afraid.

Fight or flight? she heard Cougar purr telepathically. His tones declared which one he'd prefer. The green-silver of Jepar's thought hummed in agreement.

Neither. Bemusement from both, then glee as they understood. Let's prove them right.

One of the boys sneered. She recognised him as the one she had seen comforting a girl in the corridors yesterday. Where was his affection now? Lost under hate. "What, have you forgotten how to speak?"

"Did you miss the circus?" the clone spat. "I hear they have an opening in their freakshow."

"Did you?" Chatoya said sweetly.

"What are you, stupid?" The girl looked around to see the approval on her friends' faces. "Freak," she said viciously. "Witch."

She saw Cougar grin and bare his fangs for a split second; Jepar shifting just enough to show that odd, inhuman splendour it brought. Chatoya smiled at them and snapped her fingers, letting witchfire shimmer into her eyes and on her jewellery as the clique paled and recoiled from these unearthly, powerful teenagers who blazed before them with an eerie inner light.

The clique jumped as along the hall, their lockers flew open, metal clashing on metal and books fell out. She was happy to see the clone's books falling right onto her head.

"Got it in one," Chatoya said and walked away.

The three of them cut a path down the corridor, people parting with grins on their faces, laughing softly at the shocked clique. Looking at the lamia and shapeshifter, she could tell they were trying not to laugh.

"Now that's a habit I want to have," Cougar drawled and as they passed a bin, he unobtrusively threw the packet of cigarettes and the lighter in. When they got outside, all three collapsed in laughter.

"What's going on?" Lisa looked confused as she walked up to them a moment or two later. "Why was everyone giving me such strange looks in there? What did you do?"

Chatoya met gold and green eyes. "Oh..."

"Nothing much," Jepar said and smiled beatifically before he swung Chatoya round with a laugh and kissed her. "I've been wanting to do that for ages!"

"Snub the clique or kiss Chatoya?" Cougar said with a wry smile.

"Both!" The shapeshifter's old sunny smile flashed. "But I don't think I need to tell you which I'd rather do." The warmth in his eyes glowed at her. Chatoya linked her hand with his, their eyes meeting. She was the same height - just right for conversation, as Jepar teasingly put it.

"Tomorrow, do you think we can sacrifice them to a dark god?" Cougar said angelically as Eleanor's doppelganger strode past, hair swinging.

The made vampire looked from one to the other and narrowed her eyes. Her hair clicked softly as she shook her head. "You're terrible," she sighed. "No wonder we have such a bad reputation."

Cougar's golden eyes widened. "Moi? Bad? Surely not! But," he added, "I hear that new café up the road has a very good reputation for coffee and I'm due a new addiction."

The four of them walked off campus, laughing and jostling. Occasionally, there was silence and a faint sadness; the events of the past were never far away.

The sky was that deep, lovely shade of blue that seemed almost heavenly. It made her think of a promise, a threat, that would be carried out all too soon.

But for now, she pushed it to the back of her mind and tuned in to the conversation.

"...did the vampire say to the chicken shifter?" Cougar was saying gleefully.

Lisa sighed. "I don't know...what did the vampire say to the chicken shifter?"

"Get stuffed."

There was a pause and they all groaned.

She looked from one face to the other, all so different. The people who weren't popular, who didn't care for the opinions of anyone, who were fierce and loyal and family now. Family, she thought with a secret smile. You're my family and I love all of you for it.

When they reached the café, she saw Cougar stop. Lisa drew in her breath sharply and she heard Jepar's laugh rippling into the air.

"Rob's parents own this place, don't they?" Lisa said, her wide mouth curving in delight. And smiling, she stepped inside The Blood-Rose Café.

Chatoya paused briefly to look at the plaque nailed beside the door.

'For Sonj…a rose without thorns.'

A rose that changed, she thought, sitting around the table with the others. We all have to change, whatever befalls us. I think I'm stronger now. I have a family, people who have no blood between us, but we have grown together. We have changed.

Our thorns can destroy. But there's so much beauty in us.

Maybe we're all just roses, shimmering in the sun.

- Fin -