Now the Powers were at their zenith, subtle forces affecting all within the path. Passions charged, the air became heavy with the shouts of war and voice pitted against voice. The wounded cried and no one answered. Emotions flared like a fire that spread from soul to soul, lighting a blaze that might never stop burning, only fade to a flicker.
The world was afire, and there was no way to beat out the flames.
In another realm, dragons stirred before slumping into endless coma and dreams of an ancient world. And on the earth, the hunt began.
* * * *
Trapped. Hunted down like a rat in a corner. Hot rush of fear, the cooler energy of adrenaline and the jar of her feet pounding through the rooms as constant and wild as her heartbeat. The trickle of sweat down her back, across her chest and the smell of fear that only tempted the chaser more. Her breath came in short gasps, not enough air to give her legs the speed she needed to outrun him. This was the feeling of the hunted. The ever-present knowledge that some being more powerful than yourself was close, that death was but a mistake away.
It was a game of nerves. He wanted to frighten, to overpower with an illusion of what would happen, teasing already struggling strength with sleek swiftness and hunting ease. She couldn’t give in or he would tire of this. And then she was finished. When a cat preys upon a mouse, it does not release the toy when it is bored. It merely deceives the mouse with pretences of disinterest and gives it that one sniff of freedom before its jaws snap down.
Sica had never thought to be the mouse. Her thrill had always been that of the hunter, the lurker in the shadows that strikes with a feather light touch and a lightning swift death. When the hunter was unseen, the contract was sealed. That was what she knew and that was all that gave her hope. She knew where he was.
It was her only advantage.
The wolf was playing with her, she was sure. Every so often, he would put on a burst of speed until she could smell the musky animal scent of his fur, hear the rattle of each breath through the saliva drooling from his jaws. He could pounce whenever he wanted, but the wolf was enjoying this. He would wait until there was no resistance left in her…then strike.
He was the worst of creatures, a calculating killer who slew not to survive, but to enhance his own pleasure. He was a sadist who thrived the power given to him by his victims’ fear. There was no instinct there, each move was planned with the cunning mind that sat in the body of a beast. The only facet of his character that matched his form was the savage desire to hunt, to harm.
The lowest kind of killer, he, the man with no mercy. His prey were nothing more than living targets. Something to be brought down, who had no relation to the real world outside of the pursuit.
One bite was all it would take and then the dagger was in her throat. The assassin had become the mark and it was an experience she hoped would be short…with she still alive to remember every terrifying instant.
And now her legs were into a leaden running rhythm that passed her by walls in a blur of stone, no care for where she ran. Where was not important. What from was. Her heart leapt against her ribcage with each step, like a mad thing trying to escape, beating in time with the fear coiled in her belly.
There was no real thought, only the wish to survive and the will carrying out that desire. Fear was consuming, danger snapping at her heels with his jagged teeth. Panic was a flood that threatened to pour down upon her, but the hunted knew if she let that happen, she was lost. There was no sound but her own breath rasping loud in her ears as the sound of a saw in wood and his panting behind her and the curious animal whines and grunts uttered by the wolf.
She sprinted up stairs, stumbling once and feeling a sting in her leg, felt the warmth of blood congealing onto her skin as the wolf bayed in triumph. Shivers streaked down her back in tremors that threatened not to stop, but concentration forced steel into her mind and movement into long legs that were aching in an otherworld beat.
There was a door at the end of the flights, half open and Sica gave no thought to anything but that goal. If she could just get in, bar the door. A moment’s respite and she could find her way out of this mess. Challenging a werewolf to a duel had been rash. Stupid. Thoughtless. *Deadly*.
A step with each word, a little nearer to saving herself, another second in time to inhale air that stung her throat. Further from the black bringer of death who needed no scythe for that strong muzzle. She cursed herself a thousand times, but it did nothing to help her from this mess. She was wasting energy that could be better used against him.
She saw in a rare moment of clarity that she would not reach the door in time. Not without help and that was the last thing she would get.
Surprise was all she had.
It was a risk, but one worth taking for the prize of this hunt was life. Life and blood, those factors that bound nations and caused war. That was what filled her head and raged in her own blood as she prepared herself, wanting to live more than anything. Her movements were smooth from long hours of training, her body functioning on automatic as Sica spun and kicked blindly, putting all her considerable force into that motion that was a hope.
There was a yelp, then the pound of bone on rock interspersed with a slithering serpentine hiss. And a satisfying glimpse of the black beast tumbling haphazardly down the stairs. As she turned away, Sica thought she heard a crunching sound, but maybe that was just her heart on her ribcage.
She dared not stay and gloat, but in legs made light by euphoria, sped up the stairs and through the doorway. To what was nothing more than a room, but a place that was her haven for now.
Sica threw the door shut and turned the iron key that was cold to the touch and above all, secure. And relaxed, taking long breaths that filled her lungs with air. Her legs were trembling, her whole body was shaking from the strain and without a second thought, she slumped down against a wall with a relieved groan. Her eyelids fell shut against a background of pulsing colours that danced over her vision with the staccato movements of marionettes. .
“Revolting.” A cultured voice said in tones sweet as arsenic. “How simply revolting.”
Her eyes flew open.
She was not alone. The red haired witch woman was looking her up and down with a stare that held contempt for Sica’s ragged appearance and quivering body. She was grimy, bleeding from where his teeth had scraped her leg, her tan skin glistening with sweat.
Compared to Dalia, she was an alley-cat, the witch a Persian. Or a human fighting for her life versus a tailored, fashionable and high born lady to whom work was merely a four letter word that happened to other people.
Dalia flicked her hair so it trailed over her shoulders in a copper cloak, every immaculate hair shimmering with a glow that was perfectly natural. Her skin was the palest shade of pink, almost white and served to highlight eyes that were violet, a colour Sica had never seen before, despite all her travelling. All in all, the woman was stunningly beautiful, inhumanly so and her face held that subtle arrogance that said she knew it.
It was hardly surprising she looked so shocked to see Sica turn up in what was obviously her bedroom, from the large bed and expensive furniture.
“Vermin,” the witch declared in tones bordering on loathing, “get everywhere. And you are obviously no exception.” She paused and pursed her lips, mock thoughtfulness glowing on her face. Her dress swished in the rustle of silk on silk as she waved a hand in Sica’s direction. She hadn’t thought it was possible for anyone to make such a simple gesture insulting, but like a true noblewoman, Dalia managed. “And you know what we do to vermin? We get rid of them.”
Sica eyed her evilly. She would have hit the witch had she the strength. But outrunning and outsmarting werewolves really took it out of her.
“Nobles,” Sica drawled in almost the same tones, except for the tremor of fatigue she couldn’t suppress, “get everywhere. So do rich bitches. Fact of life.” She paused and saw twin purple fire eyes trained on her with distant interest. “And you know what we do to nobles? We don’t kill them. We torture them. Until they scream and beg us for mercy. I would call them animals, but animals cannot help what they are, and nobles do not even deserve the hero’s death that a fox gets. They die without honour…and also,” she added with a touch of her usual wickedness, “without most of their major organs.”
Dalia’s disgusted expression was almost more than Sica could bear and she felt her lips twitching desperately in an effort not to laugh. Somehow she kept a straight face.
There came a thump at the door. The sound of someone – or something – hitting the wood at high velocity. Sica’s eyes snapped to it at once. It was *him*…and now she was trapped here. But the key was on her side of the door; she was pretty sure even Rocyon couldn’t propel himself through three solid inches of wood.
Then there was a brief silence that worried her. He shouldn’t give up that easily. Not when he had pursued her so diligently. She wearily got to her feet, ignoring the witch. Her first mistake. But Sica was tired, she was aching and she couldn’t concentrate on Rocyon and Dalia.
She slid into a fighting stance unconsciously, ready to move if necessary and just as prepared to launch a fast attack at him if necessary. That was one dog who had lost his leverage.
His voice floated through the wood, a slightly muffled quality to it that triggered an inner warning. Three inches of wood didn't make people sound as if they were underwater.
“I know you’re in there, girl…just let me in and I’ll make it painless.” A sort of growling, snuffling sound followed. He was trying to scent her.
She laughed at him, feeling the motion to her feet. Part of her was concentrating on the outside world, but the rest of her mind was relaxing, opening into a trance-like state that made her thoughts fly light, built her into the earth. *Zanshin*, her teacher had called it. An art not of this land, or this time that focused the mind and intensified emotion into power. It gave endurance, a state of mind that she could sink into effortlessly after years of practice. “I can see *that* happening. What’s wrong, Rocyon? Don’t you like it when your prey can run faster than a couple of kids?”
She drove the rage of that memory into her body, turned grief that helped no one into skill that could save her. This is for you, she thought, seeing the kids again. I’m living for you because you no longer can. And I’ll get him, one way or another. She wasn’t an assassin for nothing.
An arrow would finish him, silver tipped. He would never prove it was her and if she hit him in the right place, his death would be slow and painful. If she got out of here.
He’ll pay.
From outside the door she heard a frustrated snarl. She was getting to him. Good. And he couldn’t get in…but she couldn’t get out. No way she could climb from here, it had to be a hundred feet up. Stalemate.
Or it should have been anyway. But Sica didn’t realise the witch’s intention as Dalia walked to the door and pulled it open in her silky way and by the time she did, her overused reflexes gave up the ghost. Triumph gleamed maliciously in the face that was reflected back at Sica from the mirror on the door.
“No!” The words had barely left her lips before Rocyon strode in.
“She’s all yours, darling,” the witch said and swaggered off.
She stared at him in fear and two snake-eyes glowered back. He was mad. More than that, *furious*. His speed astonished her as he moved faster than an eagle and she felt only a breath of air before he was beside her. She closed her eyes in resignation, understanding that this was it. She had lost and now…she was going to die.
Her life didn’t flash before her eyes and there was no strange leaving of her corporeal form, just the one thought that ran round. I don't want to die.
“I’d have some fun first, girl,” he drawled, “but I’m hungry…and you smell so tasty.”
She eyed him with distaste. Fear was rampant, true…but what did it matter what she said or did now? It was all the same in the end. “I can’t say the same about you. I’ve smelled better latrines.”
But he didn’t care for her insults, no, his eyes were fixed in fascination on her throat, his crooked smile curving into a wolf’s grin as his body seemed to fold in on itself. She held herself rigid, eyes closing tight as he slunk nearer, slowly. Savouring every moment, while she shook inwardly, feeling the chills that ran like cold water down her body, that began to ease slowly. Pulling control out of somewhere deep within that she hadn’t even known existed.
Her right hand flew out in a tight fist and slammed square into his jaw, her left shooting forward in a half claw, nails turned to rip his arm and then with pure strength, she pushed him back, so he stumbled for an instant. She took advantage of it and kicked his legs out from under him, Rocyon’s snarl rapidly turned into a howl of anger as he hit the floor.
Sica didn’t bother with technique but jumped on him, all nine stone of her cracking ribs, as she lifted her foot and slammed it onto his throat. Rocyon gurgled in pure incoherent fury, and she thought for a moment it was enough.
But of course, there was no silver in her hands or boots. Dalia wouldn’t have had this problem. With the amount of silver *she* wore, Rocyon would have been hammered flat.
She started as his hands wrapped around her ankles, strong as roots, and he *pushed* her up into the air. Sica was surprised, but somehow she coiled her body and turned a full somersault before landing hard on her ankles. One popped, dislocated and she wrenched it back into the socket with a half-scream, ignoring the snapping pain with the thought of just what Rocyon was going to do *now*.
By then, he was up, and already moving at her as she brought her arms up to block him, and felt lances in her arm. He had *bitten* her. And at the sight of her blood, his eyes went huge and hungry. He sprang, faster than a jungle cat and hit her backwards, so she was lying flat on the ground, kicking and squirming, clawing at his eyes and face. It was no use. He wouldn’t be taken unaware again. Her eyes fell shut in resignation.
She thought he would rip her throat out then, but instead she felt the touch of hot lips on hers briefly. Sica opened her eyes in faint horror.
Rocyon smiled. “The kiss of death,” he said so softly she had to strain her ears to hear him, his voice almost a wolf’s howl. “The last you will ever receive.” He paused and his eyes began to circle her with an appraising glance. Deciding where to start.
His voice startled her in the silence filled only by the rush of her breathing. “They say revenge is a dish served cold,” the wolf murmured, his eyes meeting hers so she could see the monster there, that made her kick and hit again, teeth gritting, every bit of energy going into escape. It was like hitting rock..
“But I’ve always liked my dishes hot. Hot as the fire that runs through your veins, my dear.”
And then…a rush of air, and knives tearing at her skin, ripping until she couldn’t hold in the fear, the pain any more, throwing back her head in a scream that was barely a conscious reflex. The animal within knew the end to this tale. The only end.
Her head fell back in red mist, sensation shivering throughout, only the fear…always the fear. And the pain began to fade into numbness that was somehow *worse* because she knew how wrong it was, that this shouldn’t…she had to…there was something…there was nothing that mattered.
Was this what death was? Not the swiftness of a hunter’s death, or the pain of a gallows-man but slow, almost sleepy oblivion that didn’t really mean or matter much at all. How odd. The world was echoing far away, a mere shadow in a swirl of ghosts and memories. Faces without feature that spun around her, voices, words that had once meant something and now, were another language. The language of the living.
That classed her as one of the other ones. The dead. And maybe, maybe she smiled or maybe it was just her face fixing far away in a reflex that wasn’t hers, not really. Because there would be no her soon. No personality.
The memories became mist and that, in turn, became an ocean of darkness, a fearless place that was silence and peace that was something she had never experienced in the waking world. It was death.
* * * *
He strode in with the authority that was his birthright, barely glancing her way with hair wind-blown from riding and boots smattered with mud and grass. The forest, his second home, and hunting ground. The grey eyes fixed her with a suspicious stare that held steel and no fear at all, the family trademark and one that had proved foolish in years past.
“Darling,” she chirped in a sing-song tone that had all the cheer she felt in it. Knowing that human trouble was dead gladdened her heart beyond words.
Intuition honed by years of mistrust and quick wits that had kept Larch Blackthorn alive flared into life, savage as a volcano and almost as deadly. “What have you done?” he demanded abruptly, something beginning to burn slow, lethal in his eyes.
Dalia smiled her sweet smile and laughed at him with the ease of one who had triumphed over an enemy. She mustered her most flirtatious tone and forgave him all the cruel things he had said for that delicious wild look that suited all the Blackthorns so well.
“Done? *I* haven’t done anything, but I can’t speak for dear Rocyon, of course.”
Eyes narrowed in an instant reaction. “Explain yourself fast, or you may not get the chance to explain at all.” He was short of patience today. How unlike him, dear *sweet* and charming Larch who was never usually angry or even impolite. Edgy as a cat, with a furtive look to him that was verging on paranoia. Something was going on in that dark head and she wanted to know what. But now was not the time.
“Oh, he caught himself a hunter. Some girl in for a vengeance trip, I believe. That vermin you found poaching.”
“*What*?” His intake of breath was harsh, the features changing to horror for one split second. So…there was more to this than met the eye. Why would he, of all people, be so…so *concerned* for a village peasant?
Dalia sat up straighter and paid careful attention to every movement of his tense frame. “He’s ripping her throat out *right now*…” A twitch of his body as if he wanted to move but was held only by sheer self-control.
She could see the will power there, the carefully level voice designed not to induce questions. How he underestimates me, she thought silently. “How?” he asked. There was a hidden undercurrent. He really meant ‘is she likely to live?’.
She swept her gaze up and down him, eyes absently noting details. A cobweb caught on the cloak. A cut on his hand that had soaked blood into the dark gloves, causing a darker stain. The expensive clothes unmarred by hunt or kill. “What do you mean how, sir,” she replied coquettishly. “One would have thought you were entirely familiar with…that more cannibalistic part of one’s meal.”
She thought what he said next were words no gentleman and certainly no noble should know. Gutter language that might have shocked her had she not been born in a city. And he grabbed her arm in a grip that was painful, his face a couple of inches from her and very, very angry.
“Now listen to me,” he ground out. “I don’t want any, ‘I don’t knows’ or ‘la, sirs’ because if I hear you adenoidal annoying voice once more, I swear I’ll throttle you. Where is Rocyon?”
She tried to lean back and found to her intense horror that Larch outmatched her in strength easily. Dalia wasn’t afraid, because fear required sense and that was something she avoided at all costs. But in so far as her breeding would allow, the noblewoman felt a dart of apprehension that shuddered through her face slightly.
His grip was hurting her, his anger even more so. “He’s in the tower room,” she whispered in a voice choked by pain. The grip eased but for an instant only. He was dragging her along with him and the witch was *forced* to run, or catch her feet on hard flagstones. “Why are you taking me?” she squeaked slightly, the crocodile tears evaporating like smoke in the air.
“You’re a healer, aren’t you?” he snapped without breaking stride, the swift steps carrying them up flights of stairs.
“Who are you planning on healing?” she said suspiciously. There was something going on if Larch, of all the cold-hearted vampires she knew, was healing a human.
“Since when has your mind starting taking an active participation in anything important?” he hurled back with a taut tone that was suppressed emotion hiding under there. It seemed that he was full of surprises. “Let’s put it this way, witch. You heal who I tell you to, and Rocyon will be up there with missing teeth and claws by the time I’ve finished explained the concept of *manners* to him.”
She stayed silent, unusually wise for her. This was no laughing matter and would be so even less when he had seen what had happened to the girl. Rocyon was never gentle…especially when pride was being healed.
But Larch might be in for a shock if he was planning…no, he *wouldn’t*…on healing that human girl. Though that was so laughable, Dalia ignored the thought completely like a dozen others she had every second. This would certainly be interesting.
Let the show begin.
* * *
