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Firefly Part One

"She is a monster." Flat, uncompromising words. Janine Tarrant strode back and forth across the room with jerky movements, spinning sharply at each end with anger compressing her mouth tight.

 "Correction." The girl on the other side of the room was still brushing off snow from the flurry outside, slapping gloves against the wall to shake away the flakes. "She's our monster. We made her that way."

 Janine's face white and enraged. "We agreed never to speak of that!"

 "No," Karen corrected coolly, "You decided we wouldn't speak of it. You were the one who said she would die."

 "And she isn't dead, is she?" Liam said quietly, watching his sister sparring with Janine.

 It shouldn't have been this way; the three of them split by arguments over an act of kindness. Or cunning. Liam had never been able to guess Janine's mind, no more so now than fifteen years ago.

 "I would have thought you, of all us, would understand this!" Janine snarled. She was caged between brother and sister and Liam could see she hated it.

 "No," he flung back, angry at Janine's stubborn hate of Suzanne, sweet Suzanne whom he had adored, if from a safe distance. "I have never understood, Jan. Why do you hate Suzanne so much?"

 "She is unnatural," the woman hissed, her short golden hair framing her face with fire. Pace after restless pace as Janine's long legs marched to her anger.

 "So am I!"

 A grim feline grin flicked up Janine's mouth as though she knew she was about to win this argument. "She made you that way, against your will. She thought to drive us apart, Liam, but I will not be fooled by her. Neither should you. Don't you remember what you were like after she first changed you?"

 Liam cast a despairing glance at Karen. His sister shrugged.

 "She's right, Liam." Her eyes, a warm grey, were sympathetic. "You hated her for it. You don't remember it but you went...beyond anger. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it."

  This was always an argument he would lose. But how could he explain to them what it was to be a vampire? These days, he drowned in a world of sensation, waiting to feel the sweetly sharp pleasure of the kill.

 You, he thought coldly. You sit there and you judge her without ever knowing who she was. You never saw her cry, you never saw her laugh and you never saw her broken into pieces of what she once was.

 I did. God, I did. I watched her pay for every crime of her people because of chance. All you saw was the monster.

 Because oh, there had been so much more to Suzanne. To the witless vampire girl they had found on the city streets. The girl they should have killed, as they killed every other Nightperson they came across.

~*~

Back again, back in that cold, damp doorway of nineteen years ago, looking down at her uncertainly. Nothing really. Just a crumpled little creature with grimy skin and her face half hidden by straggly red hair.

 She had looked up and the sun had risen in her eyes. It was that simple.

 And in the harshness of that cool September morning, Liam had stopped shivering and felt the frisson of something, perhaps the remnants of his witchblood. He blinked to try and clear the sensation.

 Imprinted on his eyelids, a blaze of colour; a thousand fireflies leaping and dancing on red, shattered gold on scarlet. And a voice calling to him, words that trembled with fear and horror and above all, love.

 Itsyouitsyouohgoditsyou...

 "Well, what are you waiting for?" Janine had said then. Baring her teeth in a gesture oddly reminiscent of those she hunted, her green eyes so cold and confident, as though someone had taken armfuls of freshly-cut grass and surrounded it with glass.

He, the naïve twelve year-old on his first hunt with them, had shaken his head and put down the stake.

He had touched her, hadn't he? Just a light, feather-light touch on her thin wrist, but those eyes had gone from gold to frightened hazel in the small face. He had known then that killing her would be impossible.

 For the first time he could remember, his older sister had taken his side.

 "We don't kill children, Jan. Not like this." Karen, putting her hand on Liam's shoulder.

 "We kill them all!" Jan glaring at his sister until she stepped back and then wrenching Liam out of the way. "Age means nothing, you know that. Child's face, monster's heart."

 She had reached for the girl, huddled in that pathetic little pile as far out of the wind as she could get. Her stake gleaming in the winter morning's sun. That was what had done it.

 Even their weapons shone with health. But this girl, she had nothing.

 And they were going to take even that away.

Jan's arm, sleek with tan and muscle, had slammed down viciously and the sun in the girl's eyes had flared and vanished into darkness. So much darkness, so much pain. But behind it, a pitiful spark of hope that it would all be ended soon. No fear. She was past that.

 Until Liam stepped in the path of the stake.

 The pain had been quite incredible.

 And the tiny girl had screamed and flung her arms around Liam and then, half-starving, she had tried to tear his throat out. Then there had been a lot of noise and some more pain and smooth, astringent hospital waiting rooms and still always the girl holding on to him - by the leg, if he remembered correctly.

 Karen had handled the explanations, beautiful grey-eyed Karen who could charm as easily as she breathed. His sister, with her face becomingly flushed from the cold and the purple flecks in her eyes standing out like little drops of night sky.

 Jan and Karen had argued.

 I was listening, he recalled, the memory springing freshly into his mind. I heard Jan snarling and spitting like a cornered cat and Karen, still calm. But fighting, in her own way. And she was fighting for me.

 He sat in that impersonal cubicle, the nurse tutting every time he flinched and the urchin still clinging to his foot and looking at him with adoring eyes, he had realised for the first time that his sister did love him.

  Jan wanted to kill the street-girl. And the kid heard, didn't she?

 That tiny face, quivering with fear and her arms tightening around his leg while the nurse smiled sweetly and wondered at the strange children.

 Karen, dear Karen who he would never dismiss as cold again, had reminded Jan that compassion was a virtue. Slamming stakes into twelve-year old boys was not considered so, except by a very specialised sector of the population.

 It would not bode well for Jan's leadership plans.

 Jan had given in.

 The tiny vampire girl had lived and Karen had refused to let Jan throw her onto the streets. She had no recollection of even a name. Maybe she had starved so long that the lack of oxygen had destroyed parts of her mind.  So they had called her Suzanne, for no reason other than the fact Jan hated the name.

 It had been three hours until they could prise her away from Liam long enough to wash off the dirt and even then he had to wait outside and wave a hand inside the room every few minutes in a sort of archaic Punch and Judy parody.

 Years had passed, when slender, elfin Suzanne became predatory, darkly humorous Suzanne with long legs and a short temper. Her slavish adoration of Liam dissipated with her aging, though their friendship remained. She had changed from a cowering urchin to a stunning teenager in what seemed like a breath.

 And him? Well, he had gotten a little taller, a little wiser, a little less compassionate.

 Both Suzanne and Liam were part of Jan's hunting group. Suzanne seemed to have no qualms about killing her own, though she refused to let Jan torture them. And no vampire ever recognised her, though she had to be lamia. No one ever claimed friendship or kin.

 And then one day, it was all transformed.

 One day, Suzanne was lost.

 One day, Liam was changed.
 
 One day, when he made her a promise.

 One day was all it took.

 ~*~

 "What is it you want me to do?" he demanded of Jan now, shaking himself away from the memory of those dark times.

 "Find her."

 He laughed, he couldn't help it. "Find her? Didn't you hear what I said?"

 "She told you to keep away." Jan shrugged, green eyes hard. "Since when do we obey leeches?"

 His fist had hit the table hard before he realised it, denting the dark surface. "Don't you dare talk about her that way!"

 She was a friend, he added silently. Whether you realise it or not, Suzanne was a friend and she became...what she is because of you. You and your petty hates and pretty eyes.

I don't think I like you very much.

I think telling you that would result in some sort of unfortunate accident involving me and a toothpick.

"Enough," Karen, her long brown hair falling over her face in wisps. "Liam is right. There's no way he can find Suzanne in a city this big."

 "Follow the bodies," Jan said coldly. "They'll lead straight to her."

 "You don't know that," he began, although that morning's scene was still imprinted on his memory. That lovely face with its shield of burning hair turned to that young man and so, so hungry.

 "I know." Harsh laugh. "How strange that these murders begin...and then we learn Suzanne is back. And that you ran from her, Liam. Would you have run if there hadn't been danger?"

 "That's no evidence," he reminded her, trying to keep the tension from his voice. "Just because she's frightening, it doesn't make her a killer."

 "Hah!"

 "You're missing the point," Karen murmured, inserting her stocky, athlete's body between her closest friend and her younger brother.

"The only point I want to hear about should be shoved between her ribs," retorted Janine.

 "Asking Liam to find her again is near impossible," his sister continued in her soft voice. At thirty, there were few lines on her face, but their dangerous way of life had brought premature grey to her temples. "This is a city, Jan. And Suzanne is no fool."

 "There are ways," the human answered. "Ways your compassionate little brother would never dream of."

 "What do you mean?" He was instantly suspicious. There was something malicious glittering in her eyes and a set to her lips that was cruel. Jan might look like an angel, but even angels fell.

 He had the feeling that since his change, he too had become a monster to her.

 "I have a favour I intend to call on. Tomorrow we find her."

If Liam had known what the morrow would bring, he would have run far and run fast. If he had known the demons it would wake, the lives it would destroy, he would have taken his own life there and then rather than see anyone else suffering.

 Liam had a lot of compassion, but he was no clairvoyant.

 Pity.

 "Just relax, William," the woman instructed. Liam didn't like the way her hands crawled across his temples with their pointed, thin fingers that had the texture of leather. He didn't like the way her eyes had that coldly analytical glitter, as if he was under a microscope. He didn't like the way she said his name.

 He didn't like her.

 "I'm trying," Liam murmured through gritted teeth. "You're crowding me."

 "I heard you liked being crowded," the woman said flirtatiously, her artful, lovely face inches away. If he wasn't already lying down on the couch (and feeling strangely vulnerable), Liam would have moved away.

 "I'm claustrophobic." Those horrible parchment fingers were inching from his temples to his hair. "Don't touch my hair." He was struck by a streak of mad inspiration. "I don't want it to fall out."

 A-ha, he thought as her pensively blue eyes widened. "What?"

 "It's a wig," Liam lied. "And please don't touch my ears. The reconstructive surgery isn't quite finished."

 She stopped and even backed away a little from this vampiric madman, her mouth in a thin O. "Anyway..." She swallowed once but he noticed her eyes still lingered on his face. Liam was just wondering if he should drop hints about high heels and mascara when the door cracked open.  

 "Are you done yet?"

 "Not even started," Liam muttered, the purple flecks in his eyes standing out like shreds of violets.

 Janine Tarrant's angular face came into his view, standing over him. Her golden hair shone in the light, turned almost pure white. "What's the delay? Hayley, I thought I told you to be quick. Early morning is the most likely time to catch her."

 "I was just..." Hayley's skin was becoming flushed against the wisps of light brown hair falling on her face. "I just need to get a book from my car."

 She hurried out, heels clicking on the floor.

 Liam sat up. Look at her, standing there so cool and disdainful. And those cold eyes like armfuls of fresh grass that should have been beautiful were mean and small, how he had always imagined the eyes of trolls in fairy tales to be.

 "Why did you bring her?" he said with a sigh. "She's a little...tactile."

 "She owes me."

 "For what?" He glanced out of the window to see the witch rifling through the boot of her car. For a second he could have sworn her hair was grey, not brown, but he must have been imagining things.

 Leather creaked as Jan's hands tightened on the arm of the couch. "Let's just say I know things about her. She knows what she's doing, Liam."

 He smiled. Jan didn't return it, simply stared at him in the contemptuous way she had since Suzanne had made him a vampire. "Last guy who knew what he was doing managed to turn Tim into a rat. Have you seen the bills for cheese lately? How do I know I won't wake up feeling like vermin?" Oops. Bad choice of words.

 "I'll poke you with a stake." That heartless smile flashed. "You die, we'll know." And a light laugh, suggesting it had all been fun. But Liam knew otherwise from the glacial glint in her eyes.

 You're wasting your charm, dear, he decided. I know what lies beneath that pretty face and it isn't at all pretty. "Well, thanks ever so. Just hurry up and let's get this done, okay?"

 "You say it like this is a chore." Jan pulled up a chair and crossed her legs, arms folded. "I think you've forgotten what we are, Liam. We are vampire killers. We keep our home safe from a plague of rats."

 "Couldn't we just play a flute concerto?" Liam drawled. He hadn't been built for fighting; he had the same small-boned frame as his sister and stood at a little under five and a half feet. So he had developed sarcasm as a substitute. "Jan, I've heard it all before. I am a vampire. I'm not likely to forget."

 Those milk-smooth tones sent the faint tingle of unease through him they always did. "I wonder."

 "I'm no traitor. Come on, Jan. Fifteen years I've been a vampire - have I ever betrayed you? Remember who saved your ass when that Redfern kid had his hands around your throat?"

 A flick of her fingers. "I remember...though you let him live."

Yes, but you didn't, did you? Liam thought, remembering how Jan had stood up with her eyes flashing and slammed a stake into the kid - a kid who wasn't more than maybe thirteen and scared witless - before Liam was halfway to stopping her.

 Jan's eyes still cold on him. "But Suzanne is different. You and she were always...close."

 That, at least, was true. Liam felt the pang of regret he associated with Suzanne; heard again her silky-soft laugh and recalled the brief pressure of that rose on his cheek before she walked into the winter's arms.

 "We were close." His eyes fell shut, hiding the velvet softness of those lilac eyes. "But that girl I saw today...she wasn't our Suzanne. She was something else."

 "We'll see." Jan got up as Hayley came back in. Her eyes were relentless. "We shall see."
                                                        
 "Drink this."

 Hayley was all business now as she handed him a glass. Liam eyed it mistrustfully. "What is it?"

 "Water."

 "Water  - and what?"

 Hayley frowned, her cunning face creasing. There was something about the flat, angular planes of her face that was strangely...old. "That's witch business."

 "Leave it, Liam." Jan's eyebrows arched as she saw his expression. No, she never had had much patience. Liam had never forgotten the way she used to hit him when Karen wasn't around. But still...neither could he forget the way she had always dealt with trouble he got into. Up until Suzanne. "We don't have all day."

 He sat up a little on the couch, drawing one knee up and linking his free hand around it. "I'd just like to know what it is I'm getting into. There'd be a lot more people in the world if some of them had wondered just why you're supposed to boil water before you drink it."

 "I can boil this," Hayley said coolly. Her impersonal stare met Liam's. "If, that is, you really want to be at the centre of a two-mile crater. There's enough raw magick in this to blow us all to Kingdom Come, Kingdom Go and back to Kingdom somewhere in between."

 "So you've got some Milk of Magnesia nearby then?" Liam said brightly.

 "Liam?" Jan had taken a knife out and was honing it. The scrape of metal grated on his nerves. "Shut up."

 She hadn't changed at all. In fifteen years, she had gone from a hard, cold girl to a diamond-tough, glacial woman. Even her beauty seemed to have an edge, like a poison flower. Once...that beauty had been crumpled underfoot. But it had sprung back, stronger and more vibrant.

 He drained the glass. "Look, if this is supposed to knock me out, it's pretty ineffective."

 "Nothing I do is ineffective," Hayley said proudly. Her glossy hair was swept back from her forehead in a widow's peak and the more Liam looked at her, the more than sensation of...age...bore down on him. And if he tilted his head and squinted like that, she suddenly looked ancient, decaying.

 Like on of those drawings, he thought. Where if you look at it one way, it's a child. And if you look at it another, there's an old woman clinging onto life. Clinging...Liam shook himself.

 "I don't think it's-" he began and blinked as his vision blurred and focused rapidly, "working..."

 Then there was silence as his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed.

 Jan smiled coldly. "It's working. He'd better find her."

 The witch shrugged, lifting Liam's eyelids to look at those dilated, shadowed pupils. "If she's walking the dream world, he'll find her. He can't help but."

 "If he can find her," Jan said softly, "I can kill her."

~*~

 The city of dreams.

 Liam knew at once he was asleep, although everything seemed so real he could almost reach out to touch it. The people who walked past, uninterested, were simply other dreamers, other fish swimming in the pool of unconsciousness.

 Grey everywhere, rain falling in veiled curtains around him, people ducking by like silent shadows with coats clutched tight and umbrellas held defensively above them. Liam blinked, trying to rid himself of the water streaming past his vision and searched for that cloak of blood red hair.

 Only rain and muffled city sounds. And the cold, of course.

 The clouds parted and a sharp ray of light slipped through and then he stopped still as ahead of him, gold and red blazed as if someone had set a light to them.

It was her.

Liam quickly changed his casual saunter into a brisk walk, ducking in and out of gaps in the crowd to follow the frozen flames that gave away Suzanne. Closing on her.

Close enough to see the logo on her jacket, the sun fading away into dim obscurity again.

Close enough to see the individual strands of her hair.

Close enough to touch.

Oh god, he wanted to. But it would be like sacrilege, daring to touch this stunning, striding creature who seemed apart from the world she smothered herself in.

 He shook himself. This was Suzanne. The girl he had laughed with, the girl he had teased and even once, on a daring whim, hugged.

He had to.

He reached out and grasped her elbow.

 A hiss of indrawn breath, reptilian and brief before she stopped in the crowd and wrenched around to stare at him. Sensations filled his head. Red hair rushing like a firestorm, deep against her rose-petal smooth skin and blazing amber eyes like a hawk searing towards him. The scent of rosemary...for remembrance. That scornful mouth was parted to show gleaming fangs that curved slightly, that came to a wicked point.

 She jerked back, shock gracing her face. "I...Liam?" she whispered incredulously.

 He could only stare. God, but darkness had done to her what happiness never had. It had made her human.

 So much suffering carved on her face in that one instant when she was utterly unguarded. Sheer torment on every line, she was no longer immortal or scornful but a lost thing that yearned for something he couldn't grasp. Then it was gone like a bird on the wing.

 "It is you," she said wonderingly, uncertainty quivering on her lips. "Why are you here?"

 "Because you are." He smiled, realised just how much he had missed her. "Suzanne...we have to talk."

 The surprise dropped from that fiery gaze. "No, we don't. I said everything I had to say fifteen years ago."

 Yes, she had. He remembered her then, with tears trailing down her face, looking vulnerable and achingly lovely, with a rose clasped tightly in her hand. Her hair ruffling in the wind, scarlet and shocking against the sombre black of her clothes. Staring at them, at all of them, with her wounded eyes, breathing fast and quickly like a hunted creature.

 You did this, she had told them. You made me and you broke me. I hope you are happy now. I hope you have what you want.

 And he had called after her, he remembered, alone of all of them, Liam had chased her and caught her arms and looked into the depths of those eyes that were liquid as honey and seemed to be flowing away.

 Suzanne had pushed him away, ducking her head. When she spoke again, her voice was cruel and cold.

 And that rose had brushed his cheek, velvet and dark as spun blood and with a careless, almost unintentional gesture, she had flung the flower onto the gaping grave.

 As she walked away then, Liam had seen the red that dripped from her pale palm. The rose had bitten her, but Suzanne was the winter now and the winter had teeth of its own.

 "I said everything then," she said steadily now. "Leave me alone, Liam. Before it gets any colder."

Her passionless voice terrified him. It had no hope, no light. It was not his Suzanne, who bared her teeth at tigers and walked along the moon's paths. Not this ruined, pathetic thing whose hair hung loose and whose breath did not fog in the glacial air.

 "No." She was shaking her head at him. "I can't, Suzanne. We were friends once and even if I didn't still care, I'd stay for the sake of that."

 "Friends?" A tiny spark in her as that fine-drawn face lifted to him, the arch of her neck proud. "We were never friends, Liam. You were a human. I'm a vampire. You were a concession. Nothing more."

 She was trying to rebuff him. He took her hand, half-expecting her to pull away, but she submitted, perhaps uncaring, her skin frighteningly cold. Turned it over and tapped the tiny triangular scars, three patches of shiny pink that marred her flesh.

 "You aren't being fair to him, Suzanne."

 "What?" The lips drew back and she thrust her face close to his so he could feel her breath. There was no warmth on it, only the cool kiss of mist like a butterfly's feet treading his skin. "How dare you talk to me about fair? Was it fair that you and your clan murdered him before my eyes? Was it fair that the people I trusted betrayed me without a thought?"

 Her raised voice was like an eagle's cry in the silence and so anguished...he wanted to hug her or take away her memories, just to stop the torment on her small, angry face. "Not I, Suzanne. None of us knew."

 "None of you?" She laughed in his face, the sound a curt mockery. "Oh, one of you knew, Liam. One of you carved away everything he was. One of you hurt him and the rest of you turned a blind eye."

 "Don't blame me for the wrongs of another," he said fiercely, his hold on her hand tightening. God, but her skin was so cold, as if she had been drowning in chill waters. "I was with you, Suzanne. I was with you, don't you remember?"

 "Yes," she said dully, her misted lips trembling. "Yes. We were laughing while he burned. Playing stupid games and smelling the smoke, and having fun while he died."

 "Suzanne..." There were no traces of the killing monster left in her now. Just this empty stranger who said so little with her voice and sang symphonies with her eyes.

 "What do you want, Liam?" So weary.

 "To talk. That's all. Please..."

 Long moments while she stared into a past he no longer lived. "You can talk. I can't promise to listen."

It was all the indulgence he would receive from her, Liam understood that and let go of her, wishing that something might take away her sadness. "Not here. Tomorrow." He named a time and a place. She nodded and turned away, melting into the crowds as easily as a raindrop falling into the ocean.

 Suzanne. Who Janine loathed, who his sister pitied, who perhaps even the ordinary humans feared as the killer that walked hidden among them. Suzanne. Not a monster but a dying angel.

 Suzanne.

 Liam sat in La Rendezvous and shivered. Cold, cold, cold everywhere. Tiny glints of ice on the pavements, slush on the roads and the air heavy with arctic promise. Promise...would Suzanne keep hers?

 You can talk, she had said. I can't promise to listen. But it had meant she would be here and she wasn't. She wasn't, she wasn't and the lump of ice in Liam's stomach grew with each passing second.

 "Can I take your order?" A human waitress with her nose red, her eyes filled with cornflower brightness.

 He hesitated. One little decision: to order or not to order and suddenly he was thrown. It had been fifteen years since they had talked, really talked, and Liam wanted to at least get off to a good start.

 After all, he had to lead up to 'are you the vicious murderer walking our streets?' and maybe 'what would you like to drink?' would be a good start.

 She does this every time, doesn't she? Turns me into this. Because there's something about Suzanne...she's unpredictable. No one will ever know the twists of her heart. We are all outside...and she must be so alone.

 But still, Liam - it's just a cup of coffee.

 "I...have no idea," he said absently and didn't notice the waitress blink and stare closely at the inhumanly good-looking boy who had his chin propped on his hands, staring at the wall with fixed intensity.

 "One espresso and an iced tea," a smooth voice said. "You're still a caffeine addict, right, Liam?"

 Suzanne stepped into his line of sight and sat down, dropping a little bag at her feet and smiling vibrantly at the waitress. The human woman blinked, looking from this creature, who was like a blaze of colour in a monotone painting, to himself; Liam became aware he was doing an excellent impression of a goldfish.

 "Right," he managed.

 God. She looked stunning. Every time he saw Suzanne it was a new shock. Everything else seemed to pale around her; she was so real, even in her drab black and grey clothes, even with that crowning glory of crimson hair tucked under a hat. Even sat demurely, with her hands folded neatly on the table.

 She chatted brightly, apologising for being late; only the traffic was so dreadful and she was afraid of slipping on the ice in these terribly high shoes...watching Suzanne being girlish was a revelation.

 But Liam noticed she wouldn't meet his eyes.

 The waitress went away. Suzanne's smile slipped into that detached expression. Silence. Two still people in that busy little human world. The only two people who didn't have to hurry because they had all of time.

"Suzanne?" he ventured finally.

 She looked up.

 Her eyes were still the same. And that shocked him. Still the eyes of that child huddled in a doorway. Every time like another sunrise, that soft, liquid gold mixed with threads of black and tiny little darts of orange, fireflies dancing in her gaze. Still caught between achingly exquisite, despairing and powerful.

 Looking at Suzanne was like watching birds take flight in morning sun.

 "What do you want, Liam?" She sounded bored. He had seen her that way so many times before, and never known if it was an act. "You went to all the trouble of finding me in my sleep...it must be important."

 "It is...and it isn't."

 That small face showing nothing. "I didn't come to listen to riddles."

 The waitress interrupted with their drinks, steam rising from his coffee as she set it down and briefly blurring Suzanne's face so all he could see was those firefly circles glowing in cloud-white skin.

 "The killings." He said it so quietly he wasn't sure she had heard.

 I don't want to be making this accusation, he thought desperately. God, why did I let Jan talk me into this?

 Because I knew she was innocent. And I still do...but I don't think Jan will.

 "Which ones?" He looked up, startled, and saw her claret mouth curl. "Still gullible, Liam. I thought you would have grown out of that."

 He shrugged, unsure of how to tread with this curious creature. "What can't grow can't change, Suzanne."

 He winced as her expression became even harder, withdrawing into herself. He hadn't meant to mention that. It had been an idle comment...but it had been thoughtlessly cruel.

 "I never meant to change you, Liam," she said in that cold voice. But in her eyes, something delicate and transparent, maybe the shreds of her old self, fractured, though she avoided his gaze. "It was an accident."

 "I know. I shouldn't have said that. It's been good for me, even if it was horrible at first."

 A long, long pause while he watched her shadowed face and sipped the hot drink. It tasted pallid, bland. Nothing compared to the thick richness of blood. Then she hesitantly reached over and touched his hand. He blinked. It was the third time Suzanne had ever touched him.

 "I'm..." She stared at the tabletop. "I'm sorry."

 That pale hand on his own, her nails uneven, jagged in places, as though she had bitten them.

 "Don't be," he said gently. "I forgave you a long time ago."

 "It isn't me, Liam," she blurted out. So unlike her; always aloof. He had the feeling she was unguarded, the way her face had been when she saw him in the dreamcity. "Those bodies...those humans...it wasn't me."

 "Pity," he murmured and it was her turn to be startled. Then impassivity settled onto her face.

 "You wish it had been me? You truly think I'm like that?"

She made as if to leave, but Liam clamped his hands over her small one, holding her there and promptly sending hot coffee everywhere. She could have torn herself away easily, but he looked at her, silently imploring her to stay and she sat again, the set of her body proud.

 Both of them lingered like that as the waitress cleared the mess, muttering under her breath. Waiting until the glances of onlookers slipped back to their own company, waiting until they were alone again.

 And all the while, Liam kept his stare firmly fixed on Suzanne. He had always thought of her as strong and fragile at the same time, like a glass pebble. But now, more of the delicateness seemed to show itself in her gaunt face and subtle shivers every time the door opened to let in a flurry of wind.

 "That wasn't what I meant," he told her quietly. "The humans who were killed were all...unsavoury types. Though whoever killed them seems to have taken quite a taste for them. Drained, but not killed that way. Gutted, decapitated, stabbed, choked."

 "What do you mean 'unsavoury'?" Suzanne said, a little chime of interest in her voice.

 He sighed, feeling how cold her hand was. Like there was an ice within her that nothing could remove. "One was a rapist. Another a suspected murderer; not enough evidence to convict him. A third...well, it's not the kind of thing you want to hear, Suzanne. But take it from me, they deserved their deaths."

 Always Suzanne. Never Sue, never Susie.

 A sorrow entered her face, gentle as a summer breeze. "Who are we to decide who deserves death?"

 "I..." Stupid, she didn't need to remember that. And now that awful grief is in her eyes again and I can't bear that. When Suzanne hurt, even Jan softened a little. She was the only one who could make Karen cry. My collected sister - crying over a vampire, one of the enemy. "I'm sorry, Suzanne. That was stupid."

She brushed it away, taking a slow breath. "But you're probably right. And you thought I..."

 "You had a good sense of justice." He smiled, lifted one hand from hers to rub the bridge of his nose. "Even on my part. Especially on my part."

 She shook her head fiercely and tiny snakes of scarlet hair fell against her dying, pale skin. "I shouldn't have changed you, Liam. You weren't meant to be one of us. You're too...compassionate." She had been about to say 'weak', the sounds forming on her lips before she changed them.

 "I was never as compassionate - or as weak - as you thought." He raised an eyebrow, trying to lift away the severity on a face that should have been bright and exultant. "After all, I let Jan make me into a pin cushion, didn't I? Though I can't remember why...wasn't there some skinny redheaded kid?"

 She smiled sadly, ducked her head as if ashamed. "No. You're not a hunter, Liam. You're not a killer."

 "Let's not argue this," he murmured. He had heard this argument hurled by Karen and Jan dozens of times; his sister blatantly defending her little brother from Jan's uncontrollable and accusatory rages. "So it isn't you killing. Any ideas who it is?"

 He watched her face closely. If she knew... But not a flicker, just a tiny shake of her head and a little roll of too-slender shoulders. She was turning into a skeleton before his eyes and it scared him. Last time he had seen her, fifteen years ago, she had been a luscious, burning creature. Now? A pale wraith, something alive only quietly.

 "You haven't changed," she said mildly, sipping her drink and grimacing. "I thought you would have."

 "Why would I change?"

 "I don't know..." A thoughtful tilt of her neck. He could see a flash of gold in the soft hollow of her throat and was startled to see the pendant he and Karen had given her on the anniversary of the day they found her. "I just...oh, you've always been so innocent, Liam. I thought...I thought I might have taken that away."

 "Innocent?" he echoed. Innocent? He had been brought up killing vampires. He could tie clove hitches in a werewolf's entrails. Innocent wasn't a word he would ever have used of himself.

 "See?" For the first time, he saw her old superior smile. The one that said, there's a hierarchy here. And I'm on the top half - and if I fall, it's you I'm going to crush on my way down. "You don't even realise."

 "Suzanne, the last thing I am is innocent. You haven't been here for the last fifteen years...you've always known me as I was then. And things were different."

 "Liam, do you remember that car that ran Ren over?"

 Oh god. He had almost - almost - forgotten that. When Karen had been on her way back from a successful hunt, in that hectic month before she was elected leader for that year, taking over from Jan, a car had smashed into her while she crossed a back road.

 The first a fifteen year old Liam had known of it was when the phone rang and he picked it up to hear his sister's voice above the crackling static, very faint and with a funny gasp caught in it, asking who it was. And when he had told her, she had calmly informed him that she had been hit by a car, and she thought her leg was broken and could he please call an ambulance and then get over to her because it hurt?

 "I remember."

 Suzanne sighed sweetly and he was surprised to feel her hand tighten on his a little. She had never been one for tactile contact yet here she was, had been for some minutes now, sitting quiescent as a tame fawn.

 "Do you know who sent that car?"

 No. Months of searching, of listing every Nightworlder they could think of and then wondering how they knew Karen would be wandering a deserted, almost unknown street late at night, while his sister sat about their home and makeshift base with her leg in a cast.

 "They got the better of us that time."

 "Do you know why Karen got elected that year, Liam?"

 He blinked at the change of subject, but she was serious, the pressure of her hand tighter, warmer. "That's just the way it goes. I mean, we all vote for who we think will be best."

 "That wasn't it." Her voice was amused and that look was back on her face. "It was atonement."

 "Atonement," he echoed, his drink slowly going cold as he stared at her. Anyone watching would have been startled at the apparent intensity of this conversation between the two who looked like teenagers, sitting in La Rendezvous in the early afternoon. No one would have guessed both of them had over thirty years to their names. "What do you mean?"

 "Who did you think would be elected that year? Honestly."

 He wanted to lie and say Karen as his old sense of family loyalty flared up. But this was Suzanne and he  never lied to her. She had always returned the favour. If the question was asked, the answer was truthful.

So he sighed and he recalled Janine Tarrant of that year, throwing herself fearlessly into any encounter, successful and passionate, fighting any vampire with or without weapons. Her fiery speeches about 'rats', 'leeches', 'the disease that was the Nightworld'.

 He remembered sitting by Suzanne and leaning over to whisper that the disease had to be chronic speeches and Jan had caught it. And her elbowing him, silencing him to listen to the words of the human girl who hated Suzanne because she was a vampire, a tiger among wolves but who Suzanne still respected, admired.

 "Jan." His purple eyes widened slightly as he said it. "I thought it would be her. Why?"

 Suzanne sighed; her fingers intertwined with his in a lazy motion. He didn't realise it was her way of comfort. "Jan sent that car, Liam, and everyone knew it. But they couldn't prove anything, so they gave their verdict another way."

 "No," he breathed. His face was a study in horror and Suzanne just kept a tight hold on his hand, not minding the pressure that squeezed her bones. She didn't like doing this, taking away that piece of Liam that believed in happy endings and fairy tales, but it was time he knew. "She wouldn't!"

 And he understood her point, because some part of him understood that it was true. It was true and he was still that stupid innocent. God, oh God.

 More pressure and Suzanne could see he was taking deep breaths. The one thing he had always relied on was his clan. His human 'family' of vampire killers. Your murderous, lying family, she told him silently, a nest of vipers all of them, except for you and Ren.

 She had never known why the Ramirez children had that odd honour, but she had been grateful for it, and their friendship. Even if she hadn't been able to show them in the human way, with affection. She had given them her loyalty, and her trust, even if they hadn't realised. And more.

I'm sorry I have to make you see them for what they are, she thought. But they're dangerous to you, Liam. Jan doesn't like anything she can't be sure about. And now I made you a vampire - stupid, cruel act, why did I, stupid in my grief - she can't be sure about you. And Karen...well, Karen sees her for what she is.

 "Liam..."

 Then he looked at her, something helpless and oddly naïve in his eyes. Something that made Suzanne want to be able to lie, not to hurt him. Liam had always meant more to her than he had known, would ever know.

 "No," he said softly, more to himself. Then his face hardened. "Suzanne, is it true? Did she send that car?"

 And she remembered how they had always done each other the courtesy of complete honesty in answer to a direct question. "Yes. Yes she did."

 An intake of breath, pressure on her hand increasing, and the pupils of his eyes becoming black and bottomless, darkening to fathomless skies. "God."

 She could only watch, paste that impassive smokescreen expression on her face.

 "Oh god."

 And a cool, confident voice. "You called?"

 Liam's head snapped up and he was staring wide-eyed at someone behind her. Suzanne swivelled slowly, feeling her entire body go cold. And she knew what she would see.

Long, muscular body. Tightly fashionable clothes and practical running shoes. The subtle outline of a palm dagger that only preternatural vision would detect. Up to the arrogant face, the vicious, lovely eyes and that tight, angry smile.

 Jan Tarrant.

 "Hello Suzanne," she said under her breath, her eyes pinning Suzanne. "Better start praying."

 "Well, isn't this cosy?" Jan said in her light, acidic voice. For a moment, Liam was intensely aware of her height, until she pulled over a chair and sat down, not bothering to wait for an invitation. Not that there would have been one.

 Suzanne snatched her hand away from Liam's at once. Her firefly eyes had gone wide and almost scared for a second before she ducked her head and stared at her hands. Liam could see her quick breathing, the sudden dearth of colour in her face, as though her cheekbones and lips had been dusted with chalk.

 "What are you doing here?" Liam snapped out. His fingers drummed a fierce tattoo on the varnished table.

 He couldn't look at her. He couldn't meet Jan's eyes, no longer the fresh green of grass but the poisonous sheen of a viper's skin.

 You tried to hurt my sister, he thought. And for what? Nothing but power.

 Jan laughed but underneath the merry sound, knives scraped. "I didn't want to miss the reunion. You seemed to be having quite a heart-to-heart."

 He saw Suzanne's eyelashes flutter at that, but she didn't lift her face to either of them. If he hadn't known better, he would have said she was afraid. But this was Suzanne.

 "We were talking," he said carefully, raking his hands through his chestnut hair. "That was all."

 "About what? Kills and thrills?" That careless little laugh again. "After all, it's in your blood, isn't it, Liam?"

 "It wasn't me," Suzanne said suddenly. Her voice was back to its glacially empty tones. "I'm not your killer. Go away."

 "How convincing!" Jan spat scornfully. "Who else is it? These killings began when you arrived. And when Liam saw you...well, you weren't exactly reformed, were you, dear?"

 Those softly snaking red locks leaping like hungry flames as Suzanne's head snapped up to meet his eyes. Betrayal in every line of her face...he had told Jan about her. She didn't utter a word, but her face said it all. Then she pushed back her chair and stood up, clasping her little bag,

 "Reformed?" she hissed, throwing a handful of change onto the table. "And take care to remember just how I was formed, Janine Tarrant. By you. By you vermin." She ignored Liam; he might not have been there. "Believe what you like. Why should I care?"

 One, two, three strides and she was at the door.

 One, two, three heartbeats and Liam was chasing after her, into the mists and the ice, leaving Janine Tarrant sitting open-mouthed at the table, but her face glittering with a kind of cold triumph.

~*~

 "Suzanne!" He pushed through the dark-clad people who clutched their coats close and watched their footing on the slippery sidewalks. Plunged into the vagueness of mist and city pollution, petrol a noxious scent beneath the cleanness of ice. Chasing after that slight form that walked away from him with light, quick steps. It was as futile as hunting a rainbow. "Suzanne, please!"

 She slithered through the crowd, as insubstantial as a shadow and fading as quickly. He stopped, realising that he would never catch her, not unless she wished him to.

Suzanne, please, listen to me! he called frantically. Was that his imagination, or did a flash of red halt in the crowd, did a pair of glowing eyes turn in his direction? Please! Talk to me!

 I'll talk to your ghost, Liam Ramirez, she hurled back, her voice catching. Never come near me!

Like a ghost herself, she melted into the winter mists.

~*~

Night fell softly on the city; it slid by unnoticed, drowned by human lights and human fights.

 Jan Tarrant was peaceful in sleep. Her short hair framed her face like a golden halo, softening the hard lines; without the brilliance of those green eyes, she seemed powerless. She lay on her side with one hand tucked under the pillow, soft against pale sheets except for that dark, puckered ring in her neck like a collar.

 Liam barely had time to notice this as he crept by. Jan had tuned her floorboards so they squeaked hideously whenever anyone entered. He had to be careful.

 For this reason, Liam was concentrating fiercely as he levitated past her.

 It had taken Liam the best part of ten years to master vampire powers, especially as he didn't dare use them in the presence of any of his hunting circle, who had barley coped with his change. They were scrupulously paranoid about preternatural abilities: and with good reason. At least six deaths he could think of had been caused by hypnosis, telekinesis and good old-fashioned telepathy.

But despite this, Liam had learned the arts of his new species and now he exercised them in a way that would have sent Jan Tarrant reaching for the stake he could see poking out from under her pillow.

 He knew where she kept her appointment book; years of sneaking around as a child when she had trusted him had granted him that opportunity. And carefully, using the lightest touch of power, the lock clicked open, the drawer slid forward and the thick grey book snapped into his hand.

 Liam opened the address section and searched through the pages until he found a number scribbled in Jan's slanting, slashing hand beside a single name. No surname, no address. Just:

Hayley - 555 748

 He memorised it quickly. The book drifted from his hand back into the drawer, which shut itself with a subtle snick. A furious headache beginning to pound at his temples from the effort, Liam left the room, dropping to his feet as he reached the landing and carefully leaned over to shut the door.

 In her room, Jan Tarrant's eyes opened and glittered once in the dark. She smiled.

~*~

A bare room, far away from glittering smiles and stealthy vampires. A bare room in a dilapidated building filled with boarded up windows, rooms scattered with litter and filth; drunks, addicts, the homeless and the helpless slept there sometimes.

If they dared to risk the place which had become strangely eerie, strangely desperate.

 Rumours spoke of a ghost with white skin and red hair. A girl who had died, or been murdered. No one knew. Almost no one cared. If you were desperate enough to be in this area of the city, it didn't matter much where you stayed.

 Tonight, it was empty.

 Except for this little bare room, perched at the top of the building. Swept clean, though nothing could quite erase the grime of years, with a single broken window letting in light that caught and bounced from its jagged, gaping panes.

 A boy stumbling out of the room, dazed and even more beautiful with his green eyes bewildered and his dreamy smile gone. How long had he been there? A matter of days only; he knew that he was hungry and that there had been a disturbingly lovely girl who spoke to him while he sat in the café, waiting for a date who never came.

The same girl swayed in his dreams, with her kiss sharp on his neck. her body undulating like an endless ocean, white and bright and shining.

 Leaving the girl behind, he staggered into the night to take his chances like everyone else the girl touched. Like everyone who felt her chill, passionless embrace, the arms of the winter.

 Suzanne looked out of her broken window to watch his faltering process without interest, her lips stained vividly with red, looking onto the brazen city. Everywhere her glance swept, neon danced like frenzied fireflies, bringing illumination into the shadows.

 ...walk. Walk into the shadows, little one, young one. You will never know what lies beyond the pretty colours of your lights until you step away from them. And you will see us...

 She ran a fingertip along the jagged glass and stared in fascination as her blood ran down the lines of the break, sparkling over the uneven surface.

 ...shadows hidden among shadows. With our bright eyes and our burning touch. And you will feel the danger running hot through your blood, you will know you should obey it, but...

 A tendril of that cloudy hair falling forward, fanning across the glass as she leant out of the gaping hole to watch another boy go by. His hair was the soft chestnut of conkers and she thought she saw a slice of purple sweetness in his eyes. For a moment, her heart leapt. But he was too tall.

...we are so beautiful. You can see the softness in the hollow of our throats, the curve of our mouth and the way our hands reach slowly out to you. Before you know it, you will be moving into our embrace...

 She turned away from the window and shivered before she closed her eyes and spun, arms outstretched, like a child until her thoughts spun as her vision did, trying to shut out that dark, invasive voice.

...and then you will feel how cold we are, how the softness is only the softness of entrapping mists and the winter's greeting. For we who walk the dark walk the winter road...

 She spun until she fell into a little defenceless pool on the floor, her head cupped in her hands.

...and we cannot stray from that icy pathway. We can only make you the winter...

 Perhaps her shoulders shook with terror, with fear, with a shredded heart.

 ...we can only make you the winter and oh, oh, there are some who should never be held in the winter's arms...

Below, the boy stumbling down that dark, deserted street and clutching at walls, at posts, at anything that would halt his lurching mind, his shattered soul.

...for the winter can never let go.

And as the room spun above her still form, her thoughts whirled, dropping down through that same painful spiral.

He was not the one with the purple sweetness in his eyes. Not the one with the chestnut hair that I long to touch, to run my hands through, to hold my soul's joy close and tell him that I did not mean it...I did not want to change him...that I had to change him because I was too afraid of losing him.

Her soul's joy, who had chased her into the winter's arms, who had been beside her as her soulmate died, who had sought her across the years to keep a single, slender vow.

My soul's joy is returned to me, but I walk with the winter now...and I cannot let go.

 And curled on the floor, with her red, red hair and her face sheltered in her hands, Suzanne wept.

How resplendent you are, landscape drenched with rain,
Aflame with rays that fall from a cloudy sky!

 Look down on the city, the hungry city, with its tempting lights to draw the unwary and its hidden blades to cut them down. The deadly city, with its shadows that are harmless and brightness that is fatal, where often, the unwary watch the wrong one. The sunlit city that walks in darkness.

 But oh, dear god, a beautiful city.

 If you watch the boy go by, something in him calls to you and you find yourself drawn to him, compelled to see if the glimpse of tender, stunning purple in his eyes is real. To see if his skin is as chill and smooth as it looks, if his mouth is as silky as you imagine.

 Imagining is dangerous. It clouds the mind, deceives the senses. That boy has not imagined for a long time.

 He has remembered. He has remembered the words of a promise that were spoken in the glittering mist of your tears, made in your repentance and unable to be unmade in your fear.

 His eyes stroke across your face and halt, briefly puzzled, briefly unsure. Then they seem to light, to fill as he turns to walk towards you.

 Your heart is almost breaking with your love for him, but you are so broken, so useless...you cannot be near him, you cannot wish anything but that the promise will be fulfilled, and that it will not.

 Better that your life should end so you should not feel this stinging, painful love, better that it could continue so you can continue to revel in this glorious, heartbreaking love.

 You run.

~*~

 He was shaken by his encounter with Suzanne, though Liam was not even sure it had been her thin face pounding at his soul. Her hair had been hidden by a cloak, and the eyes seemed dark and dim and wretched.

 He arrived at Hayley's flat after a little enquiry to the telephone service, that fragile face imprinted on his mind. Knocked once, waited impatiently. If that had been her, it was even more vital he find her.

 "Hi," Liam purred and before the witch could shut the door, he inserted his foot.

 He caught a brief glimpse of her oval face, her mouth a coral ring of surprise and her cheeks flushing to match that soft pink shade. Then the door connected with his foot and there was a nasty crunch.

Liam let off a list of words of the sort kids tended to look up, then slammed the door with his shoulder. It flung open and the witch stumbled back, one slender hand grasping for balance like a frail wing.

 "That was not polite," he said through gritted teeth and limped in. He glanced at the door. Obediently, it slammed shut and he turned his attention back to the witch.

 For a second, he had that odd sensation of staring at picture that seemed, from one angle, to be this lovely, radiant sylph and from another, a raddled old woman. Then the witch twisted her wrists in a complex pattern and fire sprang between her hands like water, pooling and dripping onto the floor, sparking the same pale, brush-stroked sky colour as her eyes.

 "Leave."

 "No."

 She blinked. "I've got some nasty spells tucked away, boy."

 "Agreed, but I promise you, I have an incredibly low pain threshold, and if you so much as sting me, I'll scream so loud, everyone within a mile will think you've murdered someone."

 Her long eyelashes lowered, swooping over that intense gaze. Too long, he thought, somehow unnerved. No one's eyelashes were so long they lay along her cheekbones like sprawled spider legs. They were somehow fake. Just like her skin. It was completely unblemished and...Liam frowned. One colour. No colour in her cheeks, across her nose, below her chin. All the same pallid flesh colour.

 "All I want is a little favour," he hinted.

 "Favour?" She laughed. "I don't think so, boy. Now get out."

 And when she laughed...no laughter lines. No signs of age on her face at all, except for the parchment sensation of her fingertips. But when Liam looked at them, tapping on her folded arms, they were smooth.

 Unless...it's an illusion.

 He found his mind drawn back to that picture he had been shown as a child. One minute it was a young girl...the next a crone. And it always made his eyes ache, switching from that beautiful thing to such a huddled mass. Changing back and forth until it was simply the cold, stark truth of lines. And then he couldn't see the picture, only the truth.

 A crone would have the power to cast that spell. That extremely dangerous, illegal spell.

 "Sure," Liam said cheerfully. "I'm on my way to the council. Anything you'd like me to tell them? That you're pretending to be a teenager, for example?"

 By the time the witchfire came streaking at him, Liam had hit the floor, rolled and stood up beside Hayley to force her palms to her face, though he kept his grip gentle enough not to hurt.

 "You little parasite!" she spat.

 Liam kept his face calm, but panic was fluttering in his stomach. "Right on every count, you vicious old hag."

 The witch stopped struggling, still not an ounce of colour in her face, bar the vibrant, raging blue of her irises. The longer he looked at her, the more oddities he could see. Her light brown hair was perfectly styled. As she moved, the artfully arranged wisps and occasional curl never lost their shape.

 "Oh, all right," she said sulkily. Very much like the age she was pretending to be, Liam thought with a grin. "What do you want, brat?"

 "I'm thirty," he informed her, never relaxing. He knew how tricky witches could be. "I'm hardly a brat."

 "You're a child to me," she said sharply. "I've seen more years than you've bitten necks."

 "Possibly." It was, he had to admit, a good deception. Without his preternatural vision and predatory intuition, he wouldn't have noticed a thing. "I want you to make me that potion that let me find Suzanne."

 "Janine didn't call me. Going freelance, boy?" A glint of cunning. "So you are a true vampire, then. But what do you want with that red-haired creature? She's dangerous. I've heard all about her."

 He had to wonder how much Jan had told her about him and Suzanne. It worried him. "From Jan, I'll bet. What I want is my business...but you...what do you want? Why the hell are you helping Jan?"

 The witch sighed heavily. "She knows about me."

 She didn't need to say anything else. Liam could fill in the blanks; never one to miss an opportunity, Jan had engaged herself in a spot of blackmail. And now he knew why she had so many Nightworld contacts.

 "I can stop that," he told her, trying not to let a wicked smile show on his face. "In exchange for the spell."

 "What?" The youthful face startled, then those sapphire eyes narrowing like a cat's. "How?"

 "I'm a vampire. I can wipe minds."

 The girl cackled. Actually cackled, the sound grating on his ears and making him think of oven doors slamming and withered apples. "Of course you can! I can be free of that little bitch."

 "I don't know why you didn't blast her long ago and do us all a favour," Liam remarked and let go of Hayley's hands. She grinned at him delightedly, transformed by the thought of freedom.

 "Oh, she's a clever little fiend, I'll give her that. I was in a bit of a predicament when she rescued me - she thought I was human - and I made the mistake of telling her otherwise. From the way that one fights and moves I assumed she was a vampire. And she asked that I make her immune to magick in return."

 "Ah." Something else he hadn't known. How many secrets had she hidden from them? In their trade, honesty was a necessity. Jan had been brutally honest, if not pleasant. Even when he knew she didn't like him, Liam had been able to put up with it, albeit uncomfortably, because she was open about it.

 But now...

 "Quite. All right, lad. You mindwipe her and I'll give you your spell." That perfect mouth smiled at him. Those eyes stayed detached.

 "Spell now, mindwipe later." Liam watched her reaction. This was one matter he wouldn't give in on; he trusted Hayley about as far as he could throw up.

 A flick of that glossy hair. "You must be joking!"

"We both know I'm honest," Liam said coolly. "Give me the spell. I have to find Suzanne."

 The witch snorted. "I should have known it was a girl. What is she? Your soulmate?"

 Liam closed his eyes and for one instant, one brief instant, there was Suzanne, with her red hair spilling across her shoulder and her face astonished, soft with innocence and one hand half-outstretched to him. "No," he said softly, and when he blinked again, the image remained as he fell into the endless gold spirals of her eyes. "Not a soulmate. Maybe not even a friend now."

 "Love doesn't hold with friendship or soulmates," the witch said and her glance was wry. "You're a sad case, boy."

 "No..." He shook his head, blinking away those soft gold eyes. "It's not like that."

A cryptic smile, no longer dangerously alluring, but hard as iron. "Come back at nightfall, lad. And take your heart from your sleeve; it's in danger there."

~*~

 She walks. She walks because she has nothing else to do.

 She walks in an endless circle, step after step, with her gold eyes dimmed and her red, red hair held back, though nothing can stop that sinful mane curling and drawing in eyes that flit to her face and lose their hearts there.

 Her mind is far away, walking memories like hot coals that will burn her feet because she has no faith. Any faith she had was lost in those few precious moments of hesitation before she stepped onto the fires. That hesitation cost her everything.

 "I waited too long, didn't I?" she says bleakly, aloud.

She has had this conversation so often. Arguing only with herself, though sometimes she thinks she hears his voice echoing across the divide between this world and the next.

 "I waited too long. I should have told you, or said something, or done something. I should never have waited. It killed us all."

 She had thought they were dead, all of them. Because every link that had bound her to this fragile human world had snapped and thrown her out into the darkness. She had told herself it was her choice, because somehow that made it a little more bearable. It numbed the pain a little. But it was not her choice.

 There had been years of that numbness. Everything had seemed so pointless. Why bother? Why care? It led nowhere. It was impossible for her to explain to anyone how nothing mattered anymore when there was this bleeding hole inside her that she could neither see nor feel. She had never lived, only existed, preying not from the weak, because that was easy, but from the strong.  She had bewitched, enchanted, charmed and for a while, that had been enough, until she saw what sat in their human eyes.

 Fear, yes, always plenty of that. And sometimes anger too, at themselves and at her. But underneath, underneath all that human maelstrom of feelings, there had been something else.

 They had pitied her.

 They had pitied her. And that made her so angry, that they dared to feel sorry for her when they could never understand what it was like to have felt something in yourself die, that she showed them. She destroyed them, as surely as she had destroyed herself, and then their pity was gone.

 She had lived that way for years, a silent, frozen creature who felt nothing but a little stab of pain now and then. Who tried never to think of the boy with the purple sweetness in his eyes.

 She had never known that Liam Ramirez was strong.

 She thought she had destroyed him; and that was what had turned her into this. This dying, hurting mess. And now he was alive, he was unchanged and the love, the joy in her heart was so fierce it was like a knife stabbing at her, because she knew that she could never tell him, she could never tie him to herself. She was ruined, evil, broken. What would he want with her?

 Nothing.

 That was all she was now. Nothing.

~*~

 "Sit still, lad," the witch said calmly. She was radiant with power and Liam watched as she touched a hand to what was nothing more than a glass of tap water he had poured himself, and concentrated.

 "What, no magic muttering this time?" he said mildly.

 She cast him a dire look, her blue eyes seeming to sway like oceans were trapped within. "People expect a show. I give them one. Now, shut up unless you want to find out just how immortal you are."

 The water began to fizz, very gently like someone had thrown a chunk of sodium into it. The sound was a pleasant tingle on his senses. Her eyes were wide open but fixed, and as he stared at her face in unashamed curiosity, Liam swore he saw sky and sea separating in her eyes.

 Sweat broke out on her forehead. The water began to bubble, little sparks leaping out to hit the glass with tiny hisses. Steam rose from the beaker and slowly, it turned the same summer ocean colour as her eyes.

 She breathed in sharply and relaxed. "It's done."

Liam realised his face was registering awe and quickly controlled it. "It take you long to learn that?"

 "About three thousand years."

 "No." He couldn't even imagine it. "Are you serious?"

 "Completely." That lovely, youthful face gave nothing away, except for those ageless, singing eyes. "You wouldn't want to see me as I am. Trust me, the illusion's far better."

 "But why?" he said. "If you have to fool everyone, why bother?"

 She laughed, but it was quiet and bitter. "Vampires. You have immortality and wonder why others desire it. No one wants to die, boy. It's terrifying."

 "You've...tried it?" He felt a ripple of fear. He remembered that dark terrible moment when he had felt something inside him - some part that was bright, short-lived - die.

 "Not for long. I...sold my soul to the devil, if you will. Only he was no devil. He was...something else. A sorcerer. A monster." She shook herself suddenly, the age fading back into the calmly detached witch she seemed to enjoy pretending to be. "Drink that, lad. We aren't here to hear my life story."

 No. He was here to find Suzanne. Liam smiled grimly and obeyed.

 Again, he felt nothing. But this time, he knew better than to doubt the witch's power as she sat, watching him closely with her keen stare.

 It hit suddenly. A silent, unseen blow, like a hurricane barrelling through his head. Liam dreamed...

 And he opened his eyes on a dreamworld. A dreamworld cast in blood and fire. Asleep, yet awake, caught in the fragile strands of the web that joined reality to imagination.

 Sounds drew in on him, a confused babble, metal on wood, voice layering voice, and above it all, a horrible, heartbreaking sound.

 Suzanne was screaming.