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Firefly Part Six

 Suzanne was screaming and her tiny, slender hands were caught in her hair, twisting as she shook her head. "No, god no! Please no, not this, not now, not ever!"

 Liam understood.

~*~

 Early spring of fifteen years ago, on a dawn where the night drew back with soft, silent steps and the morning stumbled in haphazardly. A time of lazy days, of hunting in the witching hours and sleeping in the waking hours. When education was muddled and occasional, though Karen often forced him and Suzanne to get to school, driving them herself, with a strapped ankles or battered face because no one else cared.

 "I don't see the point," Suzanne was saying coolly to Karen as she got in the car after the school day had ended and the hunt day was about to begin. "I have no need of numbers to kill vampires. Why should I listen to human history? It's no concern of mine."

 "You should try to interact with people," Karen said wearily. Bruises flared red and purple along her face. "You kids shouldn't live your life in killing. It's not right."

 "I don't like the people here," Suzanne replied mildly. "They…look at me."

 Karen arched an eyebrow and promptly winced as it tugged a bruise on her cheek. "That's because you're beautiful, chica."

 "Don't call me by that human label." The response was instant and curt. The proud, emotionless teenage girl she had become tolerated no nicknames and offered only impeccable logic.

 Her icy detachment had bothered Liam for years, though he never said anything to her as she grew further away from him like a comet streaking into deep space.   

 "You do take offence at the oddest things." Karen turned to Liam. "How about you, Liam? Good day?"

 "Okay. Had a bit of trouble with one of the vamps. I let slip I knew what he was." He grinned lopsidedly. "I think it was right along the lines of telling Vidal Sassoon he needs a haircut. If Sassoon had his scissors attached to his teeth, that is."

 "I had to rescue him," Suzanne said with deep contempt. "And the vampire was being disgustingly suggestive to me."

 "You did not rescue me! You interfered!" Teenage pride railed valiantly. She shouldn't have interfered with his business. He didn't need a girl - even Suzanne - protecting him from the creatures he would spend his life killing and destroying. "I can cope with anything that comes along!"

 "Please. Anyone could see he would have beaten you to a pulp."

 "Children." Karen, amused, her eyes glancing at them in the rearview mirror. "Please, enough. It's been a long day for all of us."

 "We're not children," Liam and Suzanne said in unison. Startled, he let his eyes slip sideways and met that gold gaze. He was confused to see a faint blush rising on her cheeks as she looked away.

 "So you can agree on something!" Karen said with mock relief. "Let's keep that mood in mind tonight, okay? I don't want either of you getting hurt."

 "Why are you letting us go, then?" Suzanne demanded. She liked posing difficult questions just to make people squirm. She wasn't asking because she hoped Karen would stop them; Liam knew she loved the evening hunts as much as he, even if she never showed it anymore. She was just...being Suzanne. Careless, lovely and cruel.

 "It's not my choice, chica."

 A quick glance at Suzanne's face showed her eyes narrowing fractionally at the nickname. "Don't-"

 "Call you those human labels," Karen said, shaking her head to get her hair out of her face. Liam grimaced as he saw the ugly, jagged cut that scorched into her hair. They had got her good this time. "I know. But you listen to me, Suzanne, and listen well."

 "Don't-" Anger in that musical voice now, as if a gale had struck silver windchimes.

 Karen cut her off and Liam was startled. His sister was never discourteous. But he could see the steel settling into her eyes. "I am human. I'm human and so is Liam, and us humans like to be affectionate with our family. That means nicknames, and looking after your needs. And your need - and it's different from what you want - is a little education to get you away from the killing and the evil that's lurking in that damn hunting circle."

 It might have been better if she had shouted, or even looked angry. But instead, her voice was calm and her mouth was relaxed and only her hands were white and tight on the wheel.

 "Evil?" Suzanne's voice becoming rich and honey-slow, as it always did when she was thoughtful. "But I thought you liked hunting."

 "I detest it."

 "Ren?" Liam said quietly. He understood that his sister was showing them something they had never seen before. And that maybe it hurt her a little to do it, because Karen wasn't one for emotional displays.

 She sighed, her shoulders sagging. "Oh, Liam, you wouldn't understand. You're too young, both of you."

 "I thought you were only three years older." Suzanne and Liam shared a baffled stare. That untameable cascade of fiery hair belied the soft, almost vulnerable bewilderment on her face before the vampire girl turned her attention back to Karen. "Was I wrong?"

 "I didn't mean in age," Karen said tiredly. "I joined that hunting circle for the same reasons I stay there. There is nowhere else. There is no one else."

 "There's Dad..." Liam murmured, thinking of the man he had last seen, what, five years ago? Longer? He could hardly remember the face, only a vague scent of whisky and a comforting presence. And later, the same whisky, and a man who wouldn't meet his eyes.

 "Dad's..." He could see her blink hard in the rearview mirror. "Dear God, Liam, Dad's dead. He died years ago."

 "What?" Liquid cold flooding into his chest, making his heart contract, everything inside lurch. "No, he's not. He was fine, we, I, you..."

 He couldn't find the words, but he wanted to say that it wasn't true, it wasn't right, that yes, they had left when the money ran out and the drink ran thick, but they hadn't run far, only to the friend of a friend of a friend, who had turned out to be Janine Tarrant, only for a while, until Dad had sorted everything out.

 Only...it had never really got sorted, had it? And Dad's visits had gotten less and less frequent, his dreamy face more and more detached, until the visits stopped and his father retreated into a world where he could live in his memories and pretend their mother was still alive.

 "Dad had cirrhosis of the liver, Li." Karen was so gentle, but Liam could barely make his lips move, his face feeling fixed and numb. "He fell into the bottle, and he didn't get out again."

 "I didn't know," he mumbled, and had to concentrate on breathing to try and stop the horrible, gripping hurt. "But Mom..."

 "The drink came before Mom," Karen said gently. "That's how they met, you knew. The AA and her cancer group, they used to meet in the same building."

 "Ren..." he said in a strange voice that sounded choked. He could sense Suzanne now, looking at him with something unreadable, almost a kind of pain of her own, simmering in her eyes.

 "Alcohol won, Liam. For a while, he had Mom to hold it back, but after she died, we weren't enough." Bitterness laced her words.

 "You..." He could barely vocalise, feeling the horror fill his face and his eyes, and that cold liquid squeezing his heart so hard he could scarce think. "You didn't tell me?"

 "I didn't know how to."

 That cold was spreading across his body until it reached his head and all the painful, haphazard confusion seemed to crystallise into icy paths. He knew what he wanted to do, through the veil of that awful, glazed grief. "Stop the car," he heard himself say, and it was his voice again.

 Karen cleared her throat. He thought maybe her eyes were shining, but it couldn't be so, not if she had kept this, dear God, this hidden from him for years. "Liam, don't be stupid-"

 "Stop the car!" he shouted.

 He had never shouted at her, it wasn't him, but he was so angry, and somehow heartbroken at the same time. He needed to be outside, where there was air to breathe and space to run through. "Stop the fucking car!"

 Shocked silence, then Karen pulled off the street, her face very still. She switched off the ignition. There was no screeching of brakes, no dramatic gestures. "Liam, I'm sorry...I should have told you..."

 He couldn't say anything to her. He didn't have anything to say. All the words in his heart had been frozen into that cold, simple silence. Instead, he hurled the door open and got out, slamming it so hard that the paint flaked.

 He walked away and didn't look back.

 ~*~

It was a scant four, maybe five hours on from when he had leapt from that car. Still walking through Suzanne's dreaming memories. He hadn't known these scenes haunted her as much as they did him and felt an unexpected sorrow for her, for the girl that she had been and the creature she had become.

 The vulnerability was soft in her face, side by side with fear. Suzanne was shaking like she might fall to pieces, backing away from the boy in the corner who was no longer unconscious, but up and standing, baring his teeth in a primal display. Wary eyes flicked to Janine Tarrant, who had a gun levelled at him evenly.

 "I'd recommend you don't move," Karen was saying in a voice that was even and gentle, though her eyes kept flicking to Suzanne. It was unusual to see her without the grey in her hair, to see her as the woman who had nearly two-score years etched on her soul, but as a clear-eyed nineteen year-old who was far more mature than her years.

 And with cold shock, Liam saw the boy who was knelling down beside the vampire girl, talking softly and quickly, with his eyes like two glimmering pools of molten amethyst and his hair like dew-kissed conkers. A boy with a face that was startlingly naïve and innocent and glowing.

 Dear God, he thought, absolutely transfixed, that's me. I thought I was so tough, so competent...and I was a kid. A child. What the hell did I know?

 "Suzanne?" he could hear himself of then saying, sounding so horrified, with his eyes wide, while Liam of now, Liam who floated in this curious memory, moved unobtrusively to stand nearby. "Suzanne, what's wrong?"

 "He's, he's..." That thin, tormented face turned to him - and for the first time, Liam realised that Suzanne of then wasn't hard or cold, but had an unearthly fragility surrounding her, as though a breath might break her. "He's...Liam, he's my soulmate."

 The boy's mouth dropped open, something like cold shock flooding his face. I was stunned, Liam remembered, it felt like someone had stabbed me, but I thought I managed to hide it. Now he saw that had not - had never - been so.

 "No," Liam of then whispered, his face pale and shocked. "That can't be right!"

 The alien boy, a werewolf from the haphazard pelt of dark hair that hung in his eyes, laughed. Blue eyes glittered like sapphire shavings hurled onto ink. "Right?" That hard, humourless chuckle. "You don't know much about the Nightworld if you think 'right' has anything to do with this."

 "Leave him alone!" Suzanne said fiercely, her fear suddenly vanishing as she moved to defend Liam. She had been young too, he was starting to realise, far smaller than he remembered, with her firefly eyes still huge and soft and filled with strange lights. "This is between you and me."

 "No, it isn't," the boy said scornfully. What had been his name? It had been odd...not at all a werewolf name. Nordic. Thor, that was it. The old Norse lightning god. "I've seen your soul." A spreading, sly smile. "I know all your secrets."

 "This...this is your soulmate?" Jan Tarrant lowered the gun fractionally, her sharp-cut face bemused.

 The werewolf sprang.

 It was beautifully timed, the legs coiled and pushing off with perfect balance of power and agility, arms already rippling into claws that were drawn back to slice...

 A gunshot.

 The boy fell to the floor, snarling words that turned the air cobalt.

 "I guess it is," Jan murmured coolly and turned an icy gaze on Suzanne, who was pale and huddling closer to Liam, the way she had when she had been a child. "He's got your sweet temperament."

 "He has nothing of mine!" the vampire girl gasped. "He isn't anything to me!"

 "Then you won't mind if I..." Jan raised the gun again, and the werewolf froze, staring up at her with nothing but ferocity. There was no fear, only anger.

 "No!" Suzanne had moved fast, but Karen caught the girl before she reached Jan. Fifteen years ago, Liam had not heard her words; now, in Suzanne's living memory, they rolled around the room like an echo in a cavern of water.

 "She's only looking for an excuse to hurt you both."

 Jan glared at Karen briefly, her mouth thin. Then she holstered the gun and drew out another. "Best drug him then," she said indifferently. "After all, a prisoner like him could be very useful. And now...we have a lever."

 A lever for who? Liam had to wonder.

 And as if in answer, the scene shifted. But not to the scene he had expected; not to that place of devastation and sorrow. But to another time, to that moment when the dead of night had been made living.

 Perhaps it was his turn to scream.

 Liam shivered as he found himself standing in his own room, fifteen years in the past, in the memory of a girl he was no longer sure he understood or even knew at all.

 It was eerie, to see himself lying asleep on the bed, looking even younger and more innocent, with one hand curled tightly under the pillow and the blankets thrown half-off. He could see the beginnings of lines in his sixteen year old face, the strain that had been there since the events of the past month.

 There were no lines on his face now; ageing meant nothing to a vampire, even a vampire unwilling. He drew back into the shadows, waiting for what he knew would happen to that slumbering human boy.

 It happened quite suddenly, with no warning, nothing but the white lines that appeared like a fragile lace in the glass of his window before the panes simply fell away into dust. Drifting down, touching the carpet. And then two white hands on the sill as he slept on.

 Liam wanted to do something or say something to wake his younger self up, but there was no point.

 Suzanne vaulted into the room, no longer soft or vulnerable but with her firefly eyes ablaze and her lips stained faintly with blood. Mud smeared her face and skin while the mourning black clothes she wore were merely a loose collection of threads held together by luck more than anything. That mass of hair was streaked with dirt, though the fiery colour still shone, even in semi-darkness.

 Liam wanted to close his eyes or look away from what he knew would happen then, but curiosity held him.

 Suzanne slunk forward, to where that boy was sleeping and perched on the bed, running a careless hand across his forehead, through the roughly tousled hair.

 I woke up, Liam thought and I knew it was her at once. But I waited. Thirteen heartbeats, I remember, thirteen unlucky heartbeats. I should have known to be afraid. That girl who walked away from me in the cemetery...she wasn't human. But I was so naïve, so stupid, all I felt was happiness.

 "Suzanne?" The voice was slurred and sleepy. "What are you doing here?"

 And then she said the words that had held him all these years. "I want a promise from you."

 "Sure." It had all been like a dream to that human innocent; as if Suzanne had never left, had never become so wild and untouchable and it was just another of those startling moments of intimacy that had been so rare that Liam treasured them when they came. "Anything."

 From where he stood now, Liam couldn't see her shadowed face, but knew that her eyes would be gleaming with tears. "Promise me...if I ever lose myself...you'll be the one who ends it. Only you."

 "Always me," that sleepy voice said.

 And then she did look up, turning briefly to the night. A light breeze lifted her hair and she was unearthly and fragile in that moment. "I hoped you'd say that," she said quietly and looked back down at the boy who was beginning to stir lazily, to wake from the dreamy confusion. "It has to be always, Liam. It has to be."

 "Suzanne..." A smothered yawn. "You aren't making sense." A pause. "You're here! You're really here. It's not a dream, is it?"

 "Do you often dream about me?" she asked, something very intense in her then.

 "Sometimes." He had stretched, and pushed himself up on one elbow, to find her luminous golden eyes fixed on his face. That had waken Liam up like a bucket of glacial spring water hurled into his face. There had been something rapacious in that stare, something very hungry - and heartbroken at the same time. "And you? Do you dream, Suzanne?" A thoughtless question.

 And that had made her face harden indefinably. "I dream of my soulmate dying. I dream of a silent grave. I dream of the winter. Yes, I dream, Liam." She had tilted his head up, her grip hard and unbreakable. Watching the memory, Liam wondered why on earth he hadn't realised something was wrong, that this was not sweet Suzanne, or even sassy Suzanne, but some dangerous, uncontrolled creature.

 "Let go of me," he said, eyes wide with shock.

 "I can't let go, Liam," she said sadly, only darkness in her voice. "I can never let go."

 And then she bit him.

~*~

 Liam shut his eyes then, unable to watch the memory and to feel the same sweet, stinging pain. He didn't realise he was shaking until someone put a gentle, timid hand on his arm.

 "What are you doing here?" The anguish in that voice was so well-known. A voice he had heard drifting through his dreams time after time, lovely, shattered, but still strong.

 He opened his eyes and it was Suzanne. Not the Suzanne who had leapt through the window, smeared with dirt and pain, but the Suzanne of this morning, who had run away from him in La Rendezvous.

 "I wanted to find you," he said. His mind was spinning from the vividness of that memory. Of her dream.

 "Why are you here?" She gestured to the tableau of his room fifteen years ago. The memory was playing on, he noticed dimly.

 "I didn't know how else to talk to you."

 "Why would you want to find me?" A little shudder through her body and he realised that something was different. This was Suzanne's mind. This was a place where she couldn't hide her feelings or pretend to be anything she was not. "So you can tell Jan and her little army of slayers?"

She pulled her arm away as if he was contaminated.

"No! God, Suzanne, do you really think I'd do that?"

 She gazed at him, her golden eyes still soft, still cryptic. Long, long heartbeats passed while he stared at the pale face and tried to read, as he had so often, the thoughts gliding beneath the surface of it. That tumble of fiery hair was so wrong for her. This heart-rending creature should have black hair, black for her mourning and her stillness.

 "No," she whispered finally. "You wouldn't, would you? You would never deliberately hurt me."

 "I would never hurt you," he said simply.

 A little twist of her mouth, something that was begging to be a smile, he thought, but was overridden by that ice and sadness. "Such an innocent," was all she said.

~*~

 "Where is the little bastard?" Jan Tarrant howled and kicked Hayley's door. "I know he's in there!"

 She thumped it again angrily as Karen Ramirez's lips tightened a little more and she winced at each impact. Witch, Jan thought viciously. Not sure if she aiming it at Hayley of Karen. Sneaky, lying witches with their tricks and their spells. Oh, if she could get her hands on Hayley, she'd start reminding her just why that  woman was indebted to her.

 "Hang on," a voice called tiredly and then Hayley was opening the door. Jan kicked it hard and found the witch had put it on the latch, The chain clattered as Jan kicked it repeatedly. "Hey! Pack it in! That's my door. I'm not paying to have it repainted because some loopy woman charges up here. Gods, Jan, it's past midnight. What the hell do you want?"

 "I know he's in there!" Jan said furiously.

 "I am not..." Hayley smothered a yawn, "sleeping with your boyfriend. Please take your Freudian complex to someone who is paid to listen to your gibbering."

 "Don't you-"

 Jan felt a hand push her side gently and then Karen was smiling peaceably at Hayley and brushing back the silver hairs from her temples. It was a nervous habit, Jan knew, and one she despised. You should never show your weaknesses.

 "We're looking for my little brother," Karen said in her calm voice. She sounded infuriatingly calm. As if it didn't matter that the little  witch was deliberately being obtuse. Jan gritted her teeth and patted the reassuring weight of the gun inside her coat. She had carried it ever since

[weaknesspaindarknessfearloveneedscreams]

an unfortunate incident that had left her a legacy of scars around her neck and...she felt her temper flare, as it always did, beholden to the Ramirez pair and that murdering vampire-thing.

 "The cute one?" Hayley winked knowingly. "Shame he isn't here. I wouldn't be complaining."

 Liar! A voice in Jan's mind shrieked. Liar, liar, liar!

 Karen laughed and looked a little flustered. "I'm sure Liam would be happy to hear that. I can't say I ever notice myself. He's just a pain in the ass to me."

 "Alas," Hayley said and gave a coy smile, "he's not to me. And he isn't here. Sorry you came all this way...and woke me from a deep sleep for nothing."

 Trap her, Jan thought quickly. You know she's lying, trap her. "Well, as you're awake, and we're awake..." She faked a yawn, stretching. "You might as well be kind enough to whip us up some coffee."

 A brief glimmer in the witch's face. I knew it, Jan thought, he's there. And he's collaborating with that vampire-thing, I know he is, him and that monster, two monsters together.

 "Jan, we have to be back. I have work tomorrow," Karen said mildly. The purple drops in her eyes were a blatant reminder of her unnatural ancestry.

Work. Yes. Of course, Karen had to work. Always the responsible one, making excuses for avoiding hunts and being humane. She had never understood that to be humane with creatures who were not human was a wasted gesture. And how convenient she wanted to leave when Jan *knew* the witch was lying. And she always looked after Liam, Liam before everything else.

 "One cup won't kill you," she said with her brightest smile. She noted the way Karen's mouth tightened before the woman sighed.

 "Well, what about Hayley?"

 "True," Hayley put in hastily. Her mud-soft brown hair was puffed around her face as if she had been asleep. But Jan knew the woman had a thousand thousand spells that could produce that simple effect. "I just want to go back to sleep."

 "I'll bet," Jan said. "Having pleasant dreams?"

 No reaction. The witch was good. "Not particularly. But even so, Karen - that's right, isn't it?" Karen nodded. "-isn't the only one who has to work tomorrow."

 Jan smiled and her teeth gleamed, iridescent in the thin grey light. "Then I'm sure you won't begrudge any of us a warm drink to send us all to sleep."

 Hayley gave her a frankly astonished look. "It's coffee. It has caffeine in it. That won't send me to sleep. I'll be jittering like someone's plugged me into the mains."

 Fiend, Jan thought, wondering how she could get past her and find Liam Ramirez. Then she gave up on subtlety and with one smooth movement, pulled out the gun and pointed it at Hayley's head. "Let me in."

 "What the hell are you doing?" Hayley said and slammed the door.

 Jan shot the lock off. The reports banged in the building, but no one peered out to see who was causing the ruckus. Of course they didn't. Human nature wasn't inclined to stick its head out into a firing zone, though she would bet around a dozen pairs of hands would be tremulously dialling the police right now.

 "Open the goddamn door!" Jan shouted. "I know he's in there! I know it!"

 Then someone had hit her arms with what felt like a crowbar, sending pain slicing up her arms until the gun clattered to the ground. It was Karen, using the karate move Jan had shown her once, Karen who picked up the gun delicately, as if it was something distasteful.

 "What are you doing?" Karen hissed, her cheeks stained coral. "Good lord, Jan, he's not there! Why on earth would Hayley lie? You're blackmailing her...she knows what will happen if she does. What is wrong with you? Ever since...Liam changed, you've been different."

 "He's different."

 "No, he's not!" So Karen Ramirez did have a touch of her brother's naivety. Past naivety, Jan corrected herself. He was a monster now, an unclean thing. "He's still Liam, he's still that sweet, dumb kid. He's just going to always be that way now."

 "Oh, wake up and smell the blood!" Jan said furiously. "He's a parasite. He feeds from other people! I should have staked the little leech the moment she changed him. And I should never have let you look after her."

 And if that blasted boy hadn't got in the way of her stake, she would have killed Suzanne. She should never have let Karen straight-as-a-die Ramirez blackmail her into letting the girl live. And was it coincidence Karen always seemed to be hovering around Suzanne whenever Jan approached her? No. And look where it had led. Oh, it all went back to Karen and her high and mighty morals.

 "And if you hadn't burned her soulmate to death," Karen was shouting, actually shouting, "That poor kid would never have gone wild, she would never have hurt my brother and we wouldn't be in this situation! You have no one to blame but yourself, Jan."

 "That's not true!" Jan screamed, her hands flying to the thick scar around her neck in a reflex she wasn't aware of. It was an old habit as the pain, the fear, the sheer longing of that night flooded her. "They all deserve to die! They have to!"

 "That's shit!" Karen yelled back, Karen who rarely swore and never, ever lost her unflappable tranquillity. Well, now those grey eyes were blazing and her face was creased with fury. "So you met one who tried to throttle you. Well, I'm sorry, but that's how it goes! If you spend your life playing with fire, sooner or later, you will get burnt."

 "Don't you talk to me like that!" Jan howled furiously.

 Behind her she saw the door opened and Hayley's sapphire eyes glanced out, shocked and curious. Jan froze still as a brief moment of memory rocked her, then she saw the blue fire pooled around the floor, around the witch's body.

"No," she hissed. "No, you won't, I won't let you, I won't go back there! I won't remember!"

 Then the fire hit her and she was hurled into the past.

~*~

 "Suzanne?" Liam said gently. He couldn't pretend to understand her anymore than he had fifteen years ago, but now he saw how truly fragile she was. "Please, won't you tell me where you are? I just want to make sure you're okay."

 "Why?" she said, seeming truly puzzled. The anguish in her golden eyes stung. "Why would you care?"

 "Because you matter," he told her earnestly. "You matter to me. You always have."

 "No," she said, bowing her head. "You looked after me, Liam. It's just a habit. It's one you should break."

 "Why are you so convinced I don't care?" he said, baffled. "Suzanne..."

 He put a hand under her chin and lifted her head to look hard at that small, tender face. She was crying. He had never seen Suzanne cry.

"Oh, Suzanne," he said helplessly, not knowing what he should say or do. "Please don't cry...I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you." He hugged her, and held her very tightly, and to his surprise, she didn't object or demand that he release her, that she didn't need him, but instead leant her head on his shoulder and shook silently.

 "I'm sorry," he whispered, and stroked the tumble of red hair. "I'm so sorry...tell me what I did...I didn't mean to hurt you."

 She lifted her head. The tears still spilled over her cheeks, making her vulnerable again, the gold eyes rimmed with red and already puffy. Not at all lovely, but still captivating in her pain.

 All she did was shake her head mutely.

 And he was reminded of another time, when he had held this bright, burning creature and seen her face crumbled in despair, with tears barely held back. And then, he had realised just how enchanting she was, how every move seemed to draw him in deeper until however proud, however alien, however cruel, she was still something that needed to be treated with care.

 And he had done then as he did now, and kissed her without barely being aware of it. It lasted a fleeting second, and then she was staring at him with shocked eyes and swift breath.

 "Sorry," he said.

 "Are you?" she said faintly. She was trembling, her hands chill on his neck. That odd pain was in her eyes but suddenly Liam understood what it was. The pain of wanting what you could never have.

 "Suzanne..." he said, beginning to understand something he had only glimpsed in a brief moment fifteen years ago, "Why did you leave? Was it really him?"

 She looked at him and something in that delicate face fell away. Always honest, always. That was the pact they had kept through almost two decades.

 "It was you," she whispered and held his gaze, though her voice wavered. "It was you, oh god, it was you."

 He felt his heart freeze. He had suspected, he had suspected perhaps since he had met her and seen the odd quirks in her mannerisms, and maybe years before, he had been vaguely puzzled by her behaviour, but he had never truly thought...never.

 "Suzanne..." he said again, looking into that fearful gaze, and gave up on words.

>I love you for all the women I haven't known
I love you for all the times in which I haven't lived

 Past, present, future.

 Time. Bound together by what we know; our past affects our present. Our present throws us into our future. But always, always, there are ties that hold those times together. Maybe it's something a simple as a rhythm; night and day, winter and summer. Maybe it's something more intangible, like the playing of a song from our childhood that grips hold of our heart and drags us back into the undertow of times we thought were long gone.

 Kissing Suzanne was like hearing that song, and it was more beautiful, more haunting, more utterly soul-shaking than Liam remembered.

 He had kissed her, just once before, once, on a dark day that had seemed to hold no light except the glitter of gold that glowed in her eyes. And it had astonished him, that this proud, rare creature who permitted no human gestures, had allowed him to. He had thought it was an act of kindness. For Suzanne could be kind, she could be sweet and subtle.

 But she was more subtle than he had ever known, so subtle that those soft eyes and that tempestuous face with its bare hint of vulnerability had slid into his heart without him even knowing.

 Liam could see now why he had sought her for so long, why his dreams were haunted by her; by her tears, her laughter, her icy aloofness, her burning anger. Why one glimpse of her on a cold winter's street had caused his heart to leap, had caused him to chase her even when he felt the brief blade of her loathing.

 He loved her, of course. He had loved her for years, loved her even when she made him into something he had never wanted to be. And the oddest thing was, he didn't have the words to tell her. He didn't want to say to her, 'I love you', because the words might sound cheap or clichéd and wrong for something so infinitely precious.

 So instead, he held her and looked into the stunned warmth of her golden eyes and let his silence say what his voice would not.

 And quite simply, she smiled.

 Liam's world lit up in that moment. Fifteen years of darkness, after she walked away, fifteen long, still years, when he fought against the horror of what he was, when he could see nothing ahead but empty eternity.

 He had been waiting for something.

 He had been waiting for Suzanne.

~*~

 "What have you done to her?" Karen Ramirez demanded, her pale face flushed as she stared at Jan.

 The witch sighed and rubbed at her temples. "Just a spell."

 "Just..." Karen echoed in mild horror. She could barely believe the events of the last few minutes had occurred; had Jan really said those terrible things? She knew the human woman had never liked Liam, but wanting to kill him? To kill Suzanne? "But look at her!"

 Janine Tarrant no longer looked young or vivacious, but haggard. Her face seemed vapid, all the life that kept it fresh slackened and faded, but if Karen looked at those green eyes too closely, she could see a dreadful pain in them. The woman's mouth hung loose, saliva trailing from it. And the worst thing of all was the way she was crouched against a wall, shivering faintly. Just shivering, as if the bitter cold of winter had closed around her.

 "She seems obsessed with the past," Hayley said with a depth of coldness Karen couldn't understand. "I'm indulging her. And I don't know why on earth you're so outraged. You don't seem to like her much either."

 "I..." Karen shook herself. This was no time to start being indecisive and one of those ghastly fluttering women she detested so. "I don't. She's...tried to hurt me before. She's tried to hurt everyone. But I can't help but pity her." She sighed, tugging absently at one of the grey strands that swiped across her temples. "She's not a nice person. And the sad thing is...I think she knows it and she doesn't want to be that way. But we are what we are."

 The witch blinked, her dark downy blue eyes as immeasurable as the oceans. "Are you telling me that's an excuse for trying to shoot me?"

 "No." Karen was beginning to feel every ache and twinge, from her back to her calves. Running around in the middle of the night was no longer something she could shake off, not when she had to be up at eight tomorrow and spend the day sitting in a cubicle. "It's no excuse. It's just...a very tragic end to what she could have been."

 "End?" The witch shuffled out of her apartment, in, Karen was amused to see, a fluffy dressing gown. "You think it's an end? Give me a hand, would you?" she added and began to haul Jan into her apartment. "Can't leave her out here. Police'll turn up soon and it's easier to hex them if there's nothing...distracting around."

 Jan was heavy. Her feet scraped on the cheap lino as they dragged her inside and left her on a couch. Hayley glanced at her shattered lock and frowned, before laying a hand over the damage and concentrating. Fire spread from between her fingers, a sparkling navy like melted sapphires, and the damage vanished.

 "I think it's an end," Karen said sadly as she sat on the worn couch. "She's not really been the same - not really been right - since the Nightworld took her."

 Hayley whistled. "They caught her? No wonder she's got such a hatred for them."

 "You have it wrong," the woman told her. The plum flecks in her eyes reminded Hayley of Liam, but the most striking similarity between brother and sister was that soft sadness that was tinged with a kind of artless naivety. That was what made the Ramirez children unique; that they could have walked through the worst of the shadows, seen what lurked in the darkest depths of night, and yet still remained innocent.

 "Wrong?" Hayley echoed. Karen Ramirez had a pleasant voice; every word was clear and gentle and she spoke slowly, as if she thought carefully about every syllable. Maybe she did; it was hard to tell what lay under that expression of serenity.

 "It wasn't her hatred that destroyed her." Karen paused and shook her head. "It was her love."

 "Her what?"

 A little smile, and looking at those solemn eyes that were human touched with witchblood, Hayley understood that despite her thousands of years of life, she might never gain the simple wisdom of this mortal woman.

 "There's a part of Janine Tarrant that fell in love with the dark. I don't know...I've never really been in love, but they say loving means giving a part of yourself, don't they?"

 "True," Hayley said solemnly.

 "She gave a part of herself away, and when she killed what she loved, she killed herself too." Karen shrugged. "And later, when she saw Suzanne walking down the same path, Jan destroyed that too. She did it to hurt Suzanne, and succeeded. She destroyed that poor child, and Suzanne nearly took Liam with her."

 "I don't think I understand." Hayley looked baffled. "What exactly happened? I don't know anything about your past. First time I met any of you was a year ago, when Janine rescued me. And decided to blackmail me, gods take her soul."

 "It's a secret we've kept for a long time," Karen said softly. "I don't know if anyone really knows what happened outside of the four of us. I don't know if I know all of it. But what I do know...I can tell you."

Hayley nodded. "Keep it brief. We haven't long before that spell wears off. The other one drained most of my energy."

 The other one? Karen wanted to ask, but decided to save it for later. Hayley was a witch. It figured she'd practise her magick.

"It was my fault, I suppose," she said, the warmth and cosiness of the room forgotten as she stepped back into an autumn day sixteen years ago. "I should have know better than to let Jan go hunting on her own..."

~*~

 Bright streets. That was what Janine Tarrant would always remember about that day. And how bright and full of promise it had been. She was far away from the motherly concern of Karen Ramirez, who was, in Jan's opinion, simply not cut out for the hunting life. Too thoughtful, too worried, too nice.

 It had been seven years since Karen Ramirez, aged twelve in age and about thirty in experience, had turned up on Jan's doorstep, the friend of a friend of a friend, with her eight year old kid brother, who had the most intelligent stare Jan had ever seen on a child, and said mildly that she had been told Jan was looking for people to help her with a project.

 When Jan had explained just what that project was, Karen had been sceptical, in that elegant, calm way of hers. Her first hunt - which had resulted in the girl displaying a surprising amount of level-headedness in the face of a pouncing werewolf via a crowbar and a good aim - had soon removed that disbelief. Not to mention the werewolf's head. Her kid brother, Liam, had proved to be unusually adept, and Jan was surprised to find herself getting fond of the kid. The other dozen or so members of the hunting circle looked on him as a mascot.

 And now, the Ramirez's were part of the hunting circle, a circle that grew stronger with every death they caused, every almost-life they took.

 Bright streets. Crowded streets. It was a place that said safe, that said secure and busy.

 It wasn't a place she was expecting to be grabbed, to have hands close with undeniable strength around her and pull her, swiftly, into a doorway. She was taken by surprise, off-balance. She had been hunting in daylight because they would not be expecting her. It had never occurred to Jan that they might hunt her for that exact same reason.

 "Sir?" Someone punched her hard, in the mouth. Jan staggered sideways and they let her fall. "We've got it."

 "I can see that." The voice was extraordinary. There was a soft, purring quality to it, shadowed menace that was offset by the sheer laziness of it. It reminded her of someone half-awake. Jan sought for a word to describe it, and the only thing she could come up with was: seductive. "You could have been a little more subtle."

 "Sir." The man nearby bowed. Actually bowed. Jan blinked. This was the modern world. Whoever her assailant was, they had to be important. Highly placed in the Nightworld. And killing them...what a prize that would be.

 She reached slowly for the wooden knife she kept inside her jacket. It was a useful habit; since that first day, when she had seen her close friend shredded by a vampire, Jan had kept a weapon with her at all times.

 Most people, she acknowledged somewhere deep inside, would have questioned what their eyes saw. For vampires were myths, nightmares, Stephen King stories. But part of her, she felt, had always known this was what she was meant to do. She loved to kill; it was a relief from her anger, and oh, she was angry so often at the unfairness of the world in general.

 The man was nearby. In one swift movement, she pulled his feet from under him and slammed the blade down and up again sharply. A thud, a gasp and it was done. Straight through his throat. Messy, but efficient.

 Then she felt a hand crush around her neck, the coarseness of leather against her skin and she couldn't even gasp or choke as her air supply was cut off in one motion.

 "That was not polite," that softly hypnotic voice told her. "In fact, even for vermin, it was positively vulgar. Do they not teach you children manners?"

 It threw her and she saw the wall as a brief blur of darkness before the impact battered her body. She heard sounds, popping, grinding noises and felt pain like a flurry of arrows through her entire body. My bones breaking, she thought hazily, and it's going to kill me.

 She blinked and saw a blurred shadow above her that seemed to have wings. Vast, menacing, it was more like a vision than anything real.

 "I do not enjoy hurting people," the voice said mildly, "but there are some things words will not convey. Remember this: I do not like you killing my employees. It is messy and inefficient. Now get up."

 I can't, she wanted to say, through the grating pain, but she didn't even have the voice to utter that. Every breath was a fresh wound, and to even move a finger sent a spasming ache to her limbs.

 "I ought to kill you," continued that untamed darkness, "but the death of the human who has caused so much trouble to us must be made public. That is the only way to stop the fear." Fear? Jan thought. But you're vampires. Leeches. You don't feel fear. "Did you not hear me? Get up."

 "I..." She swallowed hard and found her voice, a rough gasp. "Can't."

 "Oh." A thoughtful silence. "Of course. I forgot you break so easily."

It sounded almost perplexed. And far, far too human for her liking. What kind of night creature was this, that had so little arrogance and so much humanity swelling its voice like the ripple of tides?

 "Hold still," it commanded calmly. "Your ribs appear to have snapped and something is bleeding inside you." There was a dreamy, detached quality to the voice. "I am going to have to fix it. The Council insisted you be available for torture."

 Available? It sounded like a hair appointment.

 She could hear her own rasping breath in the charged pause that followed, feel the beat of her frantic heart that shook her mutely.

 Teeth sank into her head harshly; Jan felt her back arch in shock, her body shrieking at the agony that caused and then...the wave hit her.

 It was like being thrown into the ocean, full of softly sparkling aquamarine lights that rippled and coursed in strange and wondrous patterns. For a moment, she felt as though she was drowning, and then she stopped fighting the sensation and let the tides take her where they would, closing her eyes in this new world that seemed more real than the old one had ever been.

This cannot be... Not her voice, but that darkly beautiful one, full of horror and astonishment. Not for me.

 If she concentrated, the odd, drugged feeling faded a little. Who are you?

I am no longer sure, the voice murmured, and it was a whirlpool of power in her soft, gentle world. It hauled her in, down into the darkness of a wondrous, swirling mind that held images of blood and rage and death. And oh, dear God, it was so beautiful in its gloom, haunting and passionate and utterly corrupt.

I don't understand, she said back. What is happening?

Do you not know? Brief words, long dragged-out breaths and she was floating closer and closer to the mind that spawned these lovely, deadly images. Can you not feel it?

 She opened her eyes.

 And there he was. No longer dim or shadowy, but clear-cut in the gold light that blazed onto him. Light, she was astonished to realise, that fell from her. She burned like a fire, and as she looked at her hands and arms in astonishment, a thin veil of light shimmered over her skin.

 "What...?" she said in confusion, her voice no longer hard or brittle, but soft with wonder.

 "My words exactly," that voice drawled. And she was staring at a face that was startling in its intensity, in the huge amber eyes that were deep-set in his face like two setting suns, contrasted with the wavy dark hair that tumbled down to his shoulders. He looked like he had stepped from the Renaissance, romantic, fearless - and lethal.

 The soft curve of his mouth was tempting; Jan was aware she had never seen anything so beautiful in her life and might never again. And she could feel his mind wrapped around hers like crushed velvet, curious, filled with more inquisitiveness than she had ever experienced. He was a traveller, a drifting soul that had seen the fear this killing human inspired in his people and wanted to protect them.

 He was...Jan searched for a word that had never truly featured in her life. Gentle.

 And he smiled and looked hard at her, and she could feel the delight in his mind at these new sensations, this answer to a question he had long puzzled. "I rather think we're soulmates," he said.

 "Soulmates...I never believed it, but it seems foolish to deny it now."

 He had said that to her, this bemused traveller of a vampire who had stepped into her mind with frightening ease, and even more oddly, Janine Tarrant, fearless vampire slayer, didn't seem to mind at all.

 "Soulmates?" she said, wondering at the term. And as if in answer, his mind threw up an explanation. She could see his thoughts, sparkling and lovely in places, in others tinged with darkness. But wherever lay the shadows, regret sat also, regret and sadness. As if she looked onto space, filled with stars and black holes, unknown and infinite, but full of phenomenal beauty.

 Two people, she understood, bound together by their very essence. A strong bond that usually only occurred between those of the Nightworld, but lately, had been affecting Dayworld people also. It was...old, beyond defining, and it was true. There was no breaking the bond, except by the death of one of them, and even then, nothing was certain.

 "Soulmates," he confirmed simply. "When I bit you, the contact was enough. Blood-sharing makes strong mental bonds anyway. We seem to have received the enhanced version." A delighted smile curving up his mouth as he looked around.

 For the first time, Jan glanced around briefly. She knew where they were; she had grown up in a desert town not far away, a concealed valley that almost no one knew of, it was so desolate, but that was a veritable paradise among the shifting dunes. And this was a place she had loved as a child, the blue depths of the lake ringed by mountains and pine trees.

 "Your memory?" he asked in that voice that was drowsy and dark and purring at the same time. She nodded, looking longingly at the ripples the wind made on the surface. "It is beautiful."

 A sadness in his voice then that intrigued her. "Haven't you seen much beauty?"

 "I have. But I destroyed most of it in my madness." She looked at him, startled, to see the hazel of his eyes haunted. "It was a long time ago."

 "Tell me," she said calmly. Something was beginning to tick in her mind as she watched the water. Beautiful, sparkling sapphire waters...but she remembered how if you swam there after October, you would surely freeze to death.

 She was talking to a vampire [leech]

 "I would rather not."

 If she stared at him too hard, too long, his features seemed to blur, his beguiling beauty to fade until all she saw was the unnaturalness of it, of him. She shook her head, turned to the trees. No. This was something precious, unique.

 But she could feel the original hazy confusion (the confusion, she supposed, that came from having the lifeblood drained from you, though she had never experienced that before.) dissipating. And replacing it came the diamond hardness she had cultivated over the years; the pitilessness that had kept her alive through countless encounters with creatures who tried to consume her mind and spirit

 "Tell me," she said again. His lips parting slightly, taking a breath [not-breath, dead-thing] and mild shock flaring in his face at her harsh tone. "Tell me now."

 "I barely know you-"

 "You've seen my soul. How much better do you want to know me?" The words came out hard and clipped and she hated herself for it. She swallowed hard. She was a slayer, yes, she killed p[parasites]eople like this, but this was different. This man had no evil intents in his mind, nothing but tenderness in the starry drifts of his thoughts. "I'm sorry. This is...difficult for me."

 "You have to know. I understand. It is a part of your character, as much as secrecy is a part of mine." That angelic, bashful smile and she was utterly enchanted. He sighed, raked his hands through that wavy black hair that Jan was itching to touch.

 "It was...a long time ago, you have to understand," he said mildly. "Things were very different then. How we lived. How we died."

 She didn't say anything; simply watched as that gentle [inhuman] face grew gradually more distant, as the world around them flickered and changed and she found herself looking at reams and reams of endless white.

 Snow. Snow stained with dark red. And horses, galloping across the snow, cut down by arrows that flew swift and sharp, falling into the sprays of dust their hooves kicked up. She couldn't feel the bitter ice in the air, but she could see it in the icicles glittering from the heavy conifers and the clouds of grey that the breaths of those frightened people scattered among the dead and the blood formed.

 "War...is not fair," he said calmly, but if she looked too closely, she could see his mouth trembling. "I will never know why they slaughtered our village. They killed the men, took the prettiest women and children. They lived in the mountain caves. Like animals, filthy, dreadful things with no order and no law. Werewolves, I believe, though...it is so hard to remember."

 A shift of scene; the grubby dark innards of that cave spilling out onto the mountain, creatures howling in chill, grating voices who were barely clothed and barely human with scratches raking them, carrying dead-eyed humans with them.

 "The vampires came soon after. It was their land, you see. They were the overlords and they could not let a threat like this exist. It mattered nothing to them about our families, or about those bodies that were still frozen onto the plains. Just their infernal pride. They slew the pack, and any of the humans that were too weak to survive the journey back to their mansions. They lived in mansions and we lived in filth."

 Another shift, the grey of the caves flattening into the lines of stone walls, a fire crackling in an immense hall. Rows of half-frozen refugees whose eyes held disturbed, empty reaches and who lay where they fell or were dropped. Elegant, groomed creatures surveying them, with such hard faces and nothing but contempt curling their mouths.

 "We were the leavings of another pack. For all their mighty morals and powers, vampires are not much more than werewolves. They live in packs too, and some are lone wolves. We were tainted to them. They refused to touch what a shapeshifter had touched unless we were cleansed. That was the choice they gave us. Death or cleansing."

 Far away, as if they echoed below the ground, Jan could hear the ghosts of screams, tearing at the air. Shouts and thuds and the ghastly sound of metal on flesh. And worse, far worse, empty silence.

 "I cannot count how many died that night. All I know is that ten years later, their blood still stained the flagstones, the blood of innocents. Most of them only wanted to die that night, for having lost so much, there was nothing left to lose." He swallowed hard. "But even then...even in that night, when I was starving and half-mad already, I could not bear to die. And I chose to live." He shuddered and Jan found herself running over to hold him tight, even while parts of her leapt away in revulsion.

 The scene changing, the stone walls turning into fine white dust that was blown away like sand until she could see only a dark tunnel that seemed to lead nowhere at all. And them, in the middle of it with his heartbeat [dead-beat] against hers and that soft [sly], heartbroken voice echoing in the air.

 "They changed me. But it was done in violence and it was done without care and it drove my mind to edge, and though I clung on for so long, against the pain and against the evil, eventually, I fell." Gasping breaths while she stroked his hair and face helplessly and wondered at the darkness that lay in the Nightworld. "I fell for so long..."

 Images flaring in her mind; figures shrieking, flames and death. Torture, anguish, blood and fear, and beneath it all, an awful kind of love that stopped him from changing even the sweetest, the gentlest, the most tender of them into a monster such as he.

 "It stopped eventually," he said, his voice calming a little, though that sorrow still chimed on every word. "It stopped when I met a human who changed me." He smiled a little, and those bewitching [lying] hazel eyes were clear [empty] as he looked at her. She felt her breath catch, sensing that what he was going to tell her might change her life, their lives in ways she could never imagine.

 "She was a strange little thing. She seemed to me so soft, so fragile, but she was undeniably hard. Cruel at times. She hunted my kind, fought us with a passion and a fire that even in my dreary madness I envied. I longed to kill her, just so I could sip that sizzling blood and find out what lay inside her mind that made her so unafraid of us."

 Something looming at the end of that tunnel, and suddenly, they were flying towards it without moving at all. Jan felt the ice in that unnatural wind seize her bones and close around her heart like an iron fist as she clung tighter to this m[monster]an who she loved and loathed at the same time without understanding how or why.

 "And so I followed her, I walked in her shadow and felt the grace of her steps. She killed with a light heart, lived with an intensity I had long forgotten. She never seemed happy, but who was I to judge when I had so long forgotten what happiness was? I watched as she killed my people, as she grew in strength and grew in patience. One day...I tired of watching her. I killed her." His voice was curiously flat, as if he was trying not to remember the emotion of that moment. "I put my hands around her lovely neck, like this..."

 His touch was gentle, his long hands encircling her neck like a hangman's noose. Jan gasped and tried to step away. He wouldn't let her.

 "And I looked into the beauty of her eyes, like this." Those flickering hazel eyes met hers, and she could see in them what had been concealed from her before; she understood now what the odd darkness in his mind had been, what had drawn her to him so.

 He was insane.

 He did not seem it, but oh, one who had lived so long could learn to be anything he wanted. And with his mind wrapped around her, velvet and thorns, she could hear the words that dreamy, tender voice did not say.

 "And I told her..." And under that mild whisper, she could hear his other voice, his silent true voice. And it said:

 I told her that my madness had kept me from understanding what I had done. I knew now that if I let her walk away, if I let her exist, my madness would be gone and I would have to remember the horrors of a snow-covered plain slick with blood, a cave in the mountains where the silent screamed, a mansion in a night when the dead found no rest.

 "That I knew she would understand..."

 Because I am what I am; I have walked in darkness for so long that it is too late for me to leave. There is nothing that can hide me from what I have done, from the lives I have taken and broken. I do not want to leave the safety of the shadows, the safety of forgetting. They are my heart now.

 "That I loved her, with all that was pure of my heart." Jan felt her tears cool and sleek on her cheeks then, crying for the precious moment that had been lost, for the part of her that he had taken and walked upon with such ease, for all that had been poisoned and left to die in him. "And that in a way, I loved her not at all."

 His touch was beginning to burn, the force almost unbearable now. She could hear her bones grind, her lungs begin to feel searing pain. Thoughts dropped into place in her mind, one by one, like the final pieces of the jigsaw.

 She had been fooled.

 She loved this man.

 He had been destroyed.

 He knew only how to destroy.

 He loved her.

 Sometimes...we have to kill what we love so it may be free.
        
 "And then...I killed her."

 "No!" she shouted, and all the force of her pain, her hatred, her anguish and love was in that one word.  

The world around them fractured, shook. They were thrown apart, the link snapped by her torment, and she found herself kneeling on the floor of an empty room, empty bar her and her tainted love. She reached to her side and drew the knife that lay there in one smooth movement. She could feel the tears still on her face, heavier than they had any right to be.

 She turned slowly, feeling pain tingling in her body, her broken ribs a constant agony that was all but drowned out by the horror of what she was about to do. She touched a shaking hand to her neck and found a painful line there, bleeding and battered; she knew the scars would live with her always.

 He was lying nearby, his black eyelashes beginning to lift in slow, sleepy motion, one hand stretching out, though to who...she dared not think. If she thought, she was dead. He looked so beautiful, so sad, barely stirring from that merging of souls.

[I loved her, with all that was pure of my heart]

 It was so hard to move over there, to look at him and know she had hurt him so. She had hurt him with her betrayal, and with her hate, and most terrible of all, with her love. It was her love that had threatened to drag him from the darkness where he felt so safe.

[And in a way, I loved her not at all]

She knew that if she did this, if she took this semblance of a life, she would kill a part of herself too. But she was a vampire hunter; she had faced the shadows for day after endless day and she would not shy away from her duty and from what she knew to be right.

[Sometimes...we have to kill what we love so it may be free.]

 She had thought of them for so long as a parasites, as leeches, as things that had no past and no future. She had never understood that perhaps their pain could eclipse her own. And that, saddest of all, it made them no less evil and no less terrible.

 Loving evil is a trial of fire.

 And she closed her eyes, and she killed what she loved.

[Sometimes...we have to kill what we love so it may be free]

"And so, you see, when we found her...it was late," Karen Ramirez said, her face soft and filled with sadness. "Too late for either of them, I think. I took Liam and Suzanne with me - I'd just picked them up from school when Tim rang me and told me Jan wasn't answering her phone or pager."

 Sitting in her tasteful, if Spartan apartment, Hayley Thornight thought how odd that one so young should have such wells of sorrow in her eyes, stretching down to brush depths of darkness few had ever explored. She wasn't sure that you could walk through that darkness and come out unchanged or whole.

 "We spent hours searching...if it hadn't been for Liam, I don't think we'd have found her."

 "Liam?" the witch woman asked, puzzlement bright in her eyes.

 She was lovely, untouchably lovely with her young face that was open as a flower in summer and her eyes that held mysteries, promises that she would never keep. Hayley had spent millennia toying with the souls of mortals, and she had discovered one thing. Human souls were as delicate as glass; and like glass, they could be broken, reshaped, made into things of great beauty or great evil. Sometimes they were transparent; sometimes opaque. And with some souls, if you dropped them into darkness, you could no longer see them.

 But of all the people who had touched her life, these four mortals, so full of heartbreak and hope, were the most unfathomable, seeming to be both broken and beautiful, at the same time completely translucent yet drowning in concealment.

 Karen shrugged. "You must know there's witchblood in our family. Generations back - my great-grandmother, I think. All I have is the eyes, but Liam's always been...intuitive. It's made him sensitive, maybe it's why he took being changed so hard. And that day, we drove along the streets where Tim said she might be and he just told me to stop. That she was here."

 "And then...?" Hayley prompted, seeing the haunted look in Karen Ramirez's serene face. How the past followed these children, stalking their steps like a shadow made from tears and blood.

 Karen sighed. "And then..."

~*~

 "In there," Liam had said quietly, confidently. She had glanced at her younger brother and seen in him the unhesitating faith that would, in years to come, make him both formidable and vulnerable. "That door. I can feel it."

 "It's ugly," Suzanne had chimed in. She had still been that sweet pretty thing then that clung to a thirteen year-old Liam, that watched him with adoring firefly eyes. "It's feels like..." Her face darkened. "Like something I knew once. I don't remember."

 She didn't look at Liam for comfort, but Karen knew she expected it. The level those two communicated on sometimes went beyond the friendship of children, even children standing on the brink of adulthood. They seemed to speak volumes without words, lean on each other without ever touching.

 That utterly fragile vampire girl they had rescued from a filthy street hadn't changed much. She still seemed to be made of glass bones, to flinch at every casual gesture.

 But this time, Liam had just shaken his head, pale and determined. On those rare occasions when the magick took hold of him (Karen could count them on the fingers of one hand), it changed him. He had once told her it blinkered him to everything except what the magick wanted him to see, that suddenly nothing else mattered.

 "Waiting won't change anything," he said firmly. "It's still there. I can still feel it."

 "What's it like?" Karen said, concerned at the dreamy, detached expression he wore. As if only one foot was still planted on this side of the misty veil.

 "Black," he said abstractedly, staring not at the door, but right through it. "Black and twisted in on itself. Horrible, like a dead spider. But not harmless. No, not at all. It's...treacherous. Sly."

 She saw Suzanne's mouth tremble as the girl looked at Karen and nodded a confirmation. As a vampire, Suzanne had the same abilities, but was able to keep herself grounded firmly on the mortal plane. And although the night was warm and mild, although the light still shone clear on them, the vampire shivered and drew closer to Liam. She always did that when she was afraid.

 "You stay here," Karen told them, though she doubted half of that pair was hearing anything except voices from another world. "Suzanne, are you armed?" Part of her; the ordinary, maternal part that had spent five years taking care of Liam, wanted the girl to say no. The practical, fighting part knew she would say-

 "Yes." She raked those tiny hands through her mass of flowing, flaming hair and when she brought them in front of her, metal gleamed. Karen would bet the girl had knives strapped to her boots as well. "But Ren, it might be dangerous..."

 "That's why you're staying out here," Karen said. "If Liam decides to come in, hit him." Suzanne winced. "I mean it, Suzanne. He can be very naïve sometimes, you know that."

 "He's not naïve," the girl said defensively. "Just...hopeful."

 Full of hope that everyone else had lost. Looking back now, Karen felt the sting of pity for the creature Suzanne had become, for the desperation that had replaced the adoration in her eyes. How broken the girl had been when she finally walked away from them, as Karen had known she would, for no vampire could survive among these hard, hating humans. And how even then, Liam had been the only one who could keep something of her heart.

 "Of course," she answered soothingly. "Just look after him."

 And she had pushed the door; it opened easily, no signs of a struggle, and stepped in.

 It had taken a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dimmer light, but the first thing she felt was the silence. A complete hush that sent chills walking up her body, making her heartbeat speed. Her foot bumped something; she looked down and saw a man, young and obviously dead. Karen swallowed and stepped over him.

 And then she saw it.

 The body, limp and bloody. Already shrivelled as walnut husks, already hard and cold, nothing but an empty shell. But listen to this one, and the sea's heartbeat would not seize you. And its head, that skull with skin stretched so tightly over it, rested in the lap of a girl with wide, blank green eyes.

 It was Jan, but not the hard girl she knew. She was kneeling, her short blond hair in cropped disarray around her head, her hands stroking that mummified creature's face as it was something precious, delicate. Simply staring at it, breathing quickly and painfully. It was heartbreaking and horrible at the same time.

 "Jan?" she said into the silence. Her voice was hushed; it seemed wrong to her, somehow, to break the reverent silence.

 No answer for a moment, while Karen swallowed hard at the devastation that had been wrought.

 "I didn't want to..." Shaken, broken. It was the cry of a lost soul. "For the first time, I didn't want to." Those forlorn, puzzled eyes swung up to. Her cheeks were grimy, bar two silvery tracks from her eyes. "He was mine. He saw the stars and the moon and the most wonderful things you can imagine, and he wanted me."

 Karen didn't know what to say, so she stayed silent.

 "But he hated me too," she whispered. "He hated me so much, it hurt. They broke him a long time ago, they broke him so he could never stop killing. He could have been so much...and he wanted to be, but they threw him into darkness."

 She didn't know quite what Jan was saying, but all of it seemed so horribly reflective of the girl's own life. Karen had often wondered what had made Jan the way she was; how she could be so cruel and old and perhaps she had an answer now. Because the alternative...the alternative was this. And Jan couldn't bear to be weak.

 "He wanted to kill me. And he was a monster, a wretched broken monster. So I killed him." She closed her eyes, for one thankful moment blocking out Karen's view of that shattered green hell. "I set him free. And I killed us both."

~*~

 "Dear Goddess," Hayley murmured. Her eyes were wide, for once looking far younger than she was. "I had no idea."

 Karen shrugged. "No one does. No one except me and the kids."

 Kids, Hayley thought. She still thinks of her brother and his love as children. Maybe that's why she's so protective of them. "No one?"

 "No. I knew that when she was...better, she wouldn't want them to know. We took away the bodies, me and the kids." Hayley saw the trouble in Karen Ramirez then. Perhaps she wasn't cruel, like Janine, or torn, like Liam, but she was by no means free of the small sins and painful problems that filled every human heart. "I shouldn't have let them help, but...I needed them too."

 For you could only be a tower of strength for so long; and even towers have their foundations, their roots will hold them tight to the ground and keep them from falling and breaking all in their path.

 Karen sighed and looked at Janine Tarrant. She seemed almost catatonic, her eyes filled with that same blank shock as they had been when Karen had found her so many years ago, cradling the rotted body of the only man she had loved more than herself and seeing for the first time that what was deemed right could break you in two.

 "How long before that spell wears off?" she said quietly. "Will she remember? If she does, she'll want to hurt you when she wakes up so I think it would be a good idea if we were far away from here."

 Hayley hesitated. Karen Ramirez had come here looking for her brother; and the witch had lied to both and woken demons of memory that had been long buried, but only in a shallow grave. Demons that had clawed their way to the surface. To be honest might rouse yet more, and who knew what terrors would kindle this time? But...

 "I have something else of yours too."

 Karen blinked, bewilderment in that open face. "What?"

 "Come with me." Hayley opened the door to her room. She stepped aside so Karen could see what was there; her younger brother, with his face startlingly pure and human in slumber, breathing peacefully. She wondered how long it had been since any of these mortals had felt true harmony with themselves and their past.

 "He was here?" Karen said in disbelief, pale with shock. "You lied?"

 "Look," Hayley said patiently. She had the feeling though Karen Ramirez knew about lying, she didn't quite connect it to ordinary people, people whose souls didn't hold the barren wasteland of Janine Tarrant. "I was protecting myself. Janine had a gun. My ability to stop bullets in flight is surprisingly underdeveloped."

 The human seemed to shake herself. "Yes...I'm sorry, you're right. I just...wasn't expecting him to be here. Why on earth would Liam come here?"

 "The same reason I was called last time. He wanted to find this Suzanne creature of yours."

 "Why?" the girl said. She seemed a little dazed, completely baffled by her brother's...well, it wasn't deceit; she suspected Liam Ramirez wouldn't be able to lie without looking horrifyingly guilty, but by the fact he hadn't confided in her. "Liam doesn't believe she killed those people. She wouldn't do that. She's...broken. She's not a monster."

 "She's not a killer, I think is what you're saying," Hayley said calmly. "From what I've heard of this girl, she's certainly a monster."

 "What you've heard?"

 Hayley wasn't looking forward to telling Karen this part. It wasn't, strictly speaking, scrupulous and Karen seemed to be bang on the side of scruples.

 "Well...in order for Liam to find Suzanne, as you don't seem to know where she is physically, he has to be able to find her mind. And the one place she can't run away is on the dream plane. As long as you have something of the person's, some connection, I can cast a spell to find them. The...other side of it is, because I have to pour so much magick into the spell - finding one person among millions is like looking for a needle in a pine forest - I know everything that occurs."

 Karen drew in a sharp breath. "Oh!" Hayley could tell, from the uneasiness in the misty grey eyes that the human didn't approve entirely, but to her credit, she wasn't going to say anything. "Everything?"

 Hayley decided now might not be a particularly good moment to tell her just what was happening with Liam and Suzanne. She could feel their souls, twined around each other in a blaze of gold and purple. Oh, they might not be soulmates, but love could surpass mere sorcery.

 "But we don't have anything of Suzanne's," Karen said in confusion. Her face hardened a little, but she kept her voice carefully neutral. "Jan burned everything long ago. How could you do the spell?"

 "You might not have anything of Suzanne's," the woman said, ducking her head briefly so Karen would see the amusement on her face, letting the tangles of brown hair hide her, "but your brother certainly does."

 "Liam?" Revelation beginning to dawn gradually, the purple flecks in Karen's eyes swelling with shock. The woman perched on the bed, glancing down at her brother with a mixture of disbelief and weary comprehension. "Did he keep something of hers? It wouldn't surprise me...he's very whimsical at times."

 "Oh yes," Hayley said softly, looking at the boy's arresting face. So still compared to the tumult that was raging on the dream plane. "When your Suzanne took flight, she left something rather important in your brother's keeping."

 A line of concentration furrowed Karen's forehead. So many lines on that face; grey speckled her hair at thirty while Hayley, with thousands of years lying behind her, had none. "I wouldn't have said Suzanne had anything important to her. Except..." She stopped, her soft mouth falling open in shock. "Except Liam."

 "Yes," Hayley said mildly. "She left her soul."