Rare Kinds

Mohan was running through the swamp, something he read of once, déjà vu, going through his mind. He had been here before but nothing looked familiar as such…. But the thing following him. Mohan had definitely felt that power before.

He was making too much noise in the squishy landscape but saw no way around it. Whoever was chasing him had only started when he had gotten close to the river mouth. Arrow's Bend wasn't far but he wasn't going into town. If he could help it he would stay hidden from whatever, whoever was chasing him. He didn't dare look back to see that wisp of smoke snaking behind him again, the dark growl wound around the tree roots and his own answered back.

Gritting his teeth, he pushed aside reeds and trudged through shallow, muddy water. His skin burned with cold. He was glad Laët was hidden away, heading somewhere safe, because Mohan really was crap at this. Maybe if he hoofed it a bit faster he could survive by the skin of his teeth, but with that thing following him he didn't know what chance he had.

The closer it got the more awakened his other sense had become and he spent most of his energy fighting it, trying to remain himself. A low growl slowly grew around him and Mohan ducked into the reeds, attempting to obscure his upper body within them.

"Where's your pet vampire? Afraid? Or does he even remember?" The voice echoed in the moist air around him.

"He can't remember a lot of things," Mohan said, whipping around to search for the source of the voice.

"Does he remember my face?" The man materialized in front of him, the smoke gathering to form a shadowy figure in the dark.

"He's not here to ask, is he?" Mohan recalled that night almost fifty years ago. This figure he had seen looking down at them as they lay broken in the cave below. This creature who had sent its arms out into the swamp like tendrils of smoke, chasing them relentlessly. It had been sheer luck they had fallen into that hole. "I remember you."

"We always recognize our own—even if they are so low, so depraved to find themselves attached to Olecksi Andreschi."

"Hmm."

"You don't agree? Perhaps you are too new."

"I've—" he started, but then realized he was alone now, he had all but completely broken his vow to Olecksi. "I had—" over a hundred years he had given to his Master.

"You have or you had? You're not here in his name or you'd have String Bean with you."

"String bean?" Was he talking about Roger? Mohan narrowed his eyes at what he thought was the man's face.

"Forty-eight years ago I first saw your face. Are you lost?"

Wisps of smoke coiled under his feet and from under his hood. It was his words, his breath. It was him. Mohan gasped as he felt him inside his mind; he tried to calm the dark one within that wanted to tear this thing in front of him limb from limb, grinding his teeth in the strain. He shuddered, feeling the man's power like claws raking through his brain.

"Get out," he cried, clutching at the sides of his head. He didn't know which one to fight, himself or the man in front of him. The water splashed at his knees as they slid into the mud below.

"Stop!" the man shouted and all Mohan's control slipped away. His body slumped back against a gnarled bunch of soggy tree roots. The back of his head rested on the trunk of the tree, his eyes silently screaming up at the smoky figure.

The man removed his hood and it fell to the side on the lapels of his jacket. The man's face came closer, so close he could see the white stubble on his chin. He had the kind of face that anyone could have, other than the deep old scar that ran down the length of the left side of his face, from brow to chin. His left eye was clouded white, the right was dark brown. His hair was gray and damp from the moist, swamp air, its tangling curls reaching and clinging to his chin.

"Are you lost?" the man repeated impatiently, cocking his head to the side. He looked feral, like a wild animal assessing his prey.

"Y-yes." Mohan could not help but answer. The truth was being forced out of him. "Yes."

"Where are you going?" he demanded.

"The cave," Mohan said and coughed. He felt like his throat was burning, like the monster within him was going to claw its way out of his mouth.

"Fight it! Break away!" the man snarled at him and slapped him in the chest with his open hand.

Mohan was dazed, having the breath knocked out of him. When he regained some of his faculties he gasped out, "I can't—"

"Stand up!"

Through no will of his own his body jerked upright and he stood as if he were a puppet on strings. The flesh on his arms felt like it was boiling; it burned and cracked, releasing an acrid smoke in the air. His clothes burned with him, igniting in random places.

The man howled in pain and jerked his power away. Mohan fell, convulsing on the ground.

"Didn't he bother to teach you how to fight it?" The man shouted at him, pacing around Mohan's writhing body. "Maybe he didn't want you. Maybe he wanted the beast."

Mohan stilled, frozen in the act of arching off the ground. His eyes were wide and glassy, staring into the cloudy sky above the swamp. The growl that fell from Mohan's open mouth was chased by rolling tendrils of black smoke. It spilled all around him as his body hauled itself to his feet. His head cocked to the side, seeming to look right through the man in front of him. He might as well have been a thousand miles away.

"Shame he had to wait so long for it to happen and not even be here to see it." The man spat the words like they were a curse and threw open his jacket, his hands flying to silver knives at his hips. But he didn't draw them just yet.

Mohan ignored him and ripped at his arms, his fingers like talons, stripping his skin away. His breath was ragged and desperate, the monster within pushed itself to the surface as his blood poured out onto the muddy ground.

"Are you trying to kill yourself?"

The man was disgusted but didn't back away. Was he unable to? Fear was such a delicious smell. Mohan's lips curled as examined one of his arms curiously, turning it over in front of his face, and then he buried his face in it, lathing at the blood with his tongue.

"You're only fueling your lust!" With a whirl of black cloth the man rushed to him and clamped his hand onto Mohan's wrist, jerking it away from his mouth. "Stop it!" he shouted, baring his teeth. The man was losing his patience.

Mohan didn't want to stop. He wanted to rend, dig his fingers deep into live flesh. He wanted to bathe in this man's blood and feel his bones crunch at the edge of his sharp teeth. He lunged out, snarling, grabbing at his throat, eager to feel him at his mercy. Just as he gripped him the man disappeared, turning to smoke. Its black tendrils dissipated in the night air.

Mohan threw his head back and howled at the sky.

-----

It was nearly dawn when Mohan woke. His hands reached up to adjust his glasses before he realized he didn't have them anymore. Blinking to adjust his eyes, he got up, bracing himself against the trunk of a tree he had been leaning against.

He looked down at himself, noting the dark smears of mud on his clothes, and something darker, splotches of blood. Scorch marks were here and there on his shirt and jeans but his shoes seems to be okay. Mohan wished he hadn't given Lent his survival kit; there was a travel size bottle of Jack in there and he could really use a drink because his arms hadn't healed all the way. Mohan vaguely remembered shredding them the night before.

Stretching carefully, he didn't bother to take a look around him, too focused on his aching back from sleeping against the tree. He didn't notice anything at all until a tiny pin prick of pain in his neck told him he wasn't alone.

"How long had you been waiting?" he asked him; he knew the man was there now.

"I could have done this at any point in the last hour. I just wanted you to see my face and know it was me." Mohan turned around slowly and as he did he plucked at the thing stuck in his neck. "It will paralyze you in the next few seconds. You won't die."

Mohan looked down at what he held in his fingers. He turned the tiny wooden dark around in his hands before flicking it to the ground. "Why wouldn't you just kill me?"

He looked up at the man's weathered face and thought he saw amusement in that one clear eye of his. The man shrugged and pulled a coil of rope out of nowhere.

"Charity case." He wrapped the rope tightly around Mohan's torso, trapping his arms against his sides. Mohan could hardly feel them anyway and was already starting to sway on his feet.

"What are you doing?"

"My name is Mortimer, Half-born, and I'm dragging you to my house."

----

"What was that?" Laët jumped as the coach went into a dip in the road and the woman next to him grabbed onto his arm.

"My, you are jumpy. I have a mind to ask you what Mohan had been up to."

"You don't want to know. I don't want to know," he rushed out and then regretted his words immediately.

Laët watched her out of the corner of his eye. My gods she was lovely and he could never have a chance with her in a million years. Her chestnut brown hair was pulled into a low ponytail at her slender neck and the gear she wore made her look rather worldly in a dangerous sort of way, molding her slight curves in all the right places.

Laët took a deep breath. "Can you tell the driver to hurry it up?"

"We'll reach it in enough time! Are you in that much of a hurry to confess? Or is it something else?"

Lent shook his head, still shaking visibly. His hands clenched and unclenched in his lap. The horses couldn't possibly be running as fast as they could go. He had a mind to lean his head out of the window and yell at the driver himself. His fear rose significantly in this young lady's presence. Everything about her made him extremely nervous, and it didn't help that he was on the run from some dangerous and seemingly unstoppable people.

"Don't tell me you're giving yourself to the clergy!" She said, laughing, making certain parts of him melt at the sound. "Oh, you poor man."

"I'm trying to hide! They're after me and your friend was one of them!"

"Mohan?" She said, bringing a hand to her heart. She shook her head. "He's not my friend. He paid me to get you to the monastery."

"I don't believe you." He couldn't believe anything anyone said anymore, not after what he'd seen. "He knew to find you. He sought you out."

"Believe whatever you want," she muttered, and turned her head to peer out of the window at the dark scenery they passed. "I get the money either way."

It was then that the coach jolted again and tossed them both out of their seats. They tumbled within as it was thrown on his side. Wood snapped loudly underneath them and someone shouted in terror and pain. The driver!

Laët scrambled, tangled with the woman within the coach, his heart hammering in his throat. It was the moment he had been dreading since Mohan dumped him with this woman. He heard the horses yelp in pain and surprise. Shouts followed as hooves stamped away from them into the night.

Laët had his arms around the poor girl and wondered if she was still breathing, but then her disturbingly orange eyes snapped open and she pushed him off soundly. He landed hard on his back as she climbed out of the coach door and pulled out a loaded pistol.

"What is your name?" Laët whispered in awe, staring up through the door at her fearless expression.

"Stay inside," she said and kicked the door closed on him.

Someone screamed very nearly after, a man from what it sounded like. The next thing Laët heard was what sounded like bones being broken. He winced in sympathy, ready to scramble for the door again, but then he heard a single gunshot and waited fearfully as the silence afterward stretched.

There was movement on the carriage, rustling and a feminine grunt of effort as something was rolled off the coach. Then there was the sound of steady footsteps and Laët held his breath as the door he couldn't take his eyes from was slung open. The woman peered in, out of breath. Her hand was still clutching the handle of her pistol, strands of loose hair hung in her face.

"Who is it that's after you again?" she called hoarsely down to him.

"I don't know!"

She stretched a hand down to help him out and he felt so hopeless, having to have been saved again.

When he had climbed out saw the two bodies immediately. One she had obviously rolled off the coach to get back at the door. He was face down on the ground, his body facing up. Laët sidestepped around him once he got to the ground and nearly stepped on the second man, bloodied in the chest from where the bullet had hit him. That one's face was frozen in shock. Laët looked back at the woman, who was replacing the gunpowder in her pistol from a small pouch she had hanging around her neck.

"Who are you?" She asked, her fine features becoming sharp as she glanced up at him before holstering her pistol.

"I'm nobody. No one."

Laët didn't know what to say. His life until being picked up in Grey was nothing but a drunken blur. All of that had changed. For whatever reason he had been chosen in regards to his newfound power, that was what the priest had said. He said that Laët had been gifted with something extraordinary and that 'Our Father doesn't give power to just anyone'.

But for what reason Laët couldn't guess. And he didn't know if he believed the words of the religious old nutter. The old man was lonely and he saw that in Laët. He didn't have to tell him about the family he had lost, that old man had lost everything as well. The poor man would see signs in anything to relieve that loss.

Laët looked down at the bodies on the ground and swallowed dryly. He wished he could have something strong to drink but couldn't drink anymore, not that he assumed any drink was around. What he had become now wouldn't let him indulge and so there was nothing to numb the pain.

What would that crazy old man have suggested? Tea. Some of that gagging weak stuff that tasted like earth and piss.

"Let's get going then. We're losing time just standing here."

"What's your name?"

"Trace Viatees," she nodded with a thin smile. "You're Laët. I know."

"Good."

"Good," she repeated awkwardly, feeling around in a dead man's jacket. She grabbed onto something and ripped it away. Laët watched her eyes widen as she looked down at the patch of fabric she had in her hand. Her orange eyes locked onto his fearfully. "Let's get you to the monastery."

"What happened to the driver?"

"Crushed," she said, looking back at the wreckage. "He didn't survive."

"I'm amazed that we did."

"I'm amazed that someone's going to so much trouble over you. You look like a vagrant." Her blunt observation didn't damage his feelings at all. He knew very well what he looked like.

"I am a vagrant," Laët answered honestly and gestured at himself. "Just look at me."

He watched her take in his state, and it should have been obvious to her what he was. His clothes were ragged and frayed, forever dyed a dingy gray thanks to the strange water in Grey. His skin was pale, hair on his head and his face white too soon. Not too long before the light came and buried itself into his chest, his hair had been black—so dark it had been almost blue. His face, before years of drinking the pain away had been youthful, happy and maybe a little too carefree. None of that had ever returned, except in small doses when the light pulled life right out of bodies he touched. It was then that he felt better than he had ever felt in his life, but now… Now he felt old and used and lost and definitely every bit of a vagrant.

She snorted and showed him the patch of fabric she had ripped from the dead man's jacket. "Recognize this?"

Laët studied the emblem, the eagle with its wings spread, its lion paws clawing at the sky. In his mind lightning flashed and a flag waved over a dark castle that sat on a rock in a tumultuous sea. He swallowed hard.

"It's them," a chill went up his spine as he said those words. "They're after me."

Trace jerked her head toward the road and they began to walk, Laët looking over his shoulder. The fact that he was safe now wasn't registering.

"You want to tell me why Andreschi House would have any interest in a vagrant?" She kept her voice unusually light. She was trying to calm him, wasn't she?

"It's probably not a good idea for you to know."

"I just killed two of his men. Without me you would be a smear on the road." Trace swept a hand in the air to emphasize this point and Laët winced just imagining being smeared as she put it.

"They wouldn't have killed me. They want me whole."

"What is it that you've done?" She shook the patch in her hand, staring down at it as if it was a death sentence. Laët was pretty sure it was.

"It's not what I've done it's what I've become." She stared at him with a mix of frustration and wonder and shoved the patch in a very small pocket of her sleek pants.

"Your accent," she said and raised a delicate eyebrow, giving him a half-smile that nearly had him forgetting he was almost captured again. Gods she was beautiful.

He had to clear his throat before he could speak. "Northern shore. I was born on the border. Raised in Grey."

"Horrible place." Her nose wrinkled in distaste, but she didn't make fun of him. She shoved her hands in her pockets and Laët tried not to look at her too much.

"Still is," he admitted but had no wish to discuss his lack of a life there. "You?"

"King's. Helluva town," Trace smiled but it was one of those tired pull of lips that one didn't quite feel inside. "I travel a lot though. Never stay in one place for too long."

"Never tell me you went to the University!"

"Of course not; didn't survive a year. I didn't have the discipline to stomach professors barely old enough to shave."

"I thought they all had beards…"

"They do and they look far better than yours—I'm sorry." She stopped and turned to him, her fingers drumming soundlessly on her hip. "I risked my life for you there."

Laët frowned, now all the more uneasy that she wouldn't leave the subject alone. "He gave you gold and told you not to ask questions."

"Don't play that game with me. You're terrified. Who wouldn't be with Andreschi after them?"

"Northmen too," he added, but saying it aloud only made him feel worse.

"And Northmen?" her voice was soft, full of awe. "You aren't just any vagrant."

"I swear that I am," he paused and looked away, back at where the coach lay on its side, the bodies around it. He could barely see them now that they had walked so far, but he knew they were there. They'd be stuck in his mind for as long as he lived. "Or that I was."

He told himself he didn't miss the drink but there were moments like this that he really did. Laët had only had moments like this since the hole in the sky, since that thing had sunk into him—whatever it had been. Every day after that seemed to roll into one blurry series of terrifying events. His life had been changed forever.

"Have anything to drink?"

"Water?" She held a camel pack out to him and he took it begrudgingly.

"It'll have to do," he mumbled and took a swig, closing his eyes so he didn't have to see her smile.

-----

The ancient stone columns were in large chunks by the entrance, long ago blasted to the sides of the gaping darkness. Maria felt like a tensed bow string, hearing Olecksi's words over and over. You have disappointed me. She lost herself in the dense shadowy hole for moment. The air would taste like smoke, she thought, like a deep secret fire.

Maria pulled a strip of red and gold striped fabric from her bag and wrapped it around her arm, covering the Master's emblem on her jacket. It was a full length duster, which swept the ground as she walked inside the cave, brushing little stones around her feet.

The darkness within was impenetrable and her slender fingers felt along the wall, letting the runes carved there make her path to Hadaikam. She remembered her last trip had been in a desperate rush; this time she was in no hurry.

The cavern's twists and turns fell into steep declines where the runes stopped and the cave opened into a small cavern. She stood in the middle and waited for the words.

"Com es set."

"Maria Viatees," she answered and dropped to her knees, averting her eyes. "Andreschi House."

"The door is open."

She winced as she was swirled around, the walls of the cave swirled with her, all blurred, all moving into one. Nausea rose in her throat. With her eyes closed Maria was able to regain her bearings, feeling the disorientation wear off as soon as it had begun. A flash of white light bathed her before it finally settled into a normal torch light glow. She was in the same cavern but when she opened her eyes the door would be standing open, held by a lesser demon with a familiar face.

"Haven't seen you in a while, beautiful."

Maria's eyes snapped open. Standing next to the usual red door was a short, scaly looking demon, who looked as if his face had been pinched by a large hand; all his features seem to come to a sharp point. The demon smiled up at her, grinning with yellow pointy teeth. His little fingers curled into claws around the door knob as he held the door open for her.

The demon's pink and red burn-scarred skin, she had been told, was charred red from birth. Or at least that was how the stories went. When she was a child her grandmother said that demons were spirits of the underworld, and as they were pulled from the earth they formed bodies from the soil. So evil were their souls she had said, that their skin burned, cracked and boiled before they reached the surface and could answer whoever had called them. Maria, now viewing this story from an adult perspective, had seen some things that she had once thought impossible—that story was something she was sure, though she hadn't seen it herself, couldn't be true. She was convinced it was just a fanciful tale to entertain children and perhaps explain why demons are so angry when they answer one's calls.

She got to her feet to dust herself off, then walked over and pressed a kiss to one of his pointy cheekbones. "How's Kenneth?"

"You embarrass me, witch," he said and rubbed at his cheek, chuckling tendrils of smoke into the air between them. "Kenneth has company as we speak. I don't think there's any way you can get out of it unless you kill them all."

"How many?"

"I was joking. You can't kill Kenneth. He's needed."

Yes, he was needed, she conceded in her mind. Kenneth was one of the very few humans allowed down here in this miserable hell of a city. As if those who were allowed enjoyed the privilege. She certainly didn't. Maria was pretty sure Kenneth enjoyed every moment.

"How do you know I wasn't joking," she said. She hadn't been.

Kenneth had sneered at her when she had practically begged him for the antidote. She had told him months before that she wouldn't even need it. Maria was immune to most poisons, having been around them most of her life. She had never anticipated making a mistake; had never been so stupid. Olecksi had been right; she had nearly killed the only person that was ever truly on her side. Maria was a disappointment.

"Two men," the little one said. "Northmen."

Maria's eyes widened. Kenneth hated Northmen; what was he doing inviting them here? "How did they get here?"

"You're surprised? Hadaikam is outlaw; and our poisons master is very famous within dark circles," his small dark voice hissed up at her.

"I've got to get going," she said absently, walking through the door backward because if she watched where she was going she might actually believe she was falling to her death.

The way to Hadaikam always scared the shit out of her. It was hard to tell what was real and what the cave had presented to be real. Within the door these two things crashed together, both pulling and pushing her down, deeper into the ground, and made her nauseous again. It didn't last long, a few seconds at the most, and fire-lit stone appeared beside her.

Gradually the paths lit with torches wove themselves in between small dwellings carved into the rock. The ceiling formed high above her head, a fifty foot clawed hand carved from solid rock stood just shy of scraping its sharpened nails on it.

The fire light was bright enough to illuminate this part of the city, and the place wove itself into existence, rows of orange flame dotting down the dusty streets. A circle of it formed around large domed building, the red and gold city seat at the base of the giant hand.

It was approaching daylight above, so there would be hardly anyone out of the dwellings on the cave floor, though some small homes that were carved into the walls still had their fires lit, the glow shining out from their glassless windows like bright fiery eyes blinking out at her.

Most of the inhabitants would be toiling down in the mines below the city. Digging up gods knew what in the name of Andreschi. She could hear them digging with steady pounding rhythm that shook her determination. More than anything she didn't want to be here. She hated Kenneth. As she walked silently down the deserted path toward his shop, Maria remembered the first time she had ever been here. She had been young, just sixteen, when she'd tried to apprentice him.

Kenneth was a hard man to deal with. Everything set him off, but there were times when he was marginally cordial… disturbingly so. He had insisted she call him uncle. About a month in she'd found out he had been testing his poisons on her by drugging her morning tea. Oh, he'd give her the antidote by the end of the day, the bastard, but he'd let her suffer first and make her cut and grind ingredients until she thought her fingers might stain permanently or fall off. When that was done he'd have her do embarrassing menial tasks. Sometimes it was labeling ingredients and then relabeling them when he pulled them off right in front of her. Other times he'd make her do his laundry and scrub his floors, treating her more like a maid than an apprentice. All the while she would hang desperately onto her senses as whatever it was he put in her tea set her veins burning.

She hated Uncle Kenneth, but he had given her an excellent recommendation. Olecksi had welcomed her immediately after that horrid summer with Kenneth, and she had been with him ever since. Not that it was a good career choice, but at least she was never bored and never had to scrub floors again.

And she was hardly ever poisoned.

When she got to the door she didn't even bother knocking and it swung easily inward when she pushed, hardly a sound in the suspicious silence. She barely took two steps in when she saw them there in the back, and heard the bow string stretch from a very sleek shadowy figure just beyond Kenneth's dusty, cluttered counter.

The door shut behind her and Maria stood waiting for the arrow to fly, if it ever would. She could see the whites of their eyes glistening in the soft glow from the torches shining through Kenneth's dingy curtained windows. His windows had glass.

"She can see you," she heard Kenneth's voice and the old thing walked into the room, holding a candle in his gnarled fingers. "Move into the light," he said, staring at Maria, letting his eyes glide over her from head to toe.

Maria tore her eyes off that disgusting look Kenneth was giving her and watched the two Northmen come into the light. The tallest was dressed in a blue robe, his snow colored hair long past his shoulders. The second was dressed in all black, skin tight, but his hood hid his face. A sling of arrows hung on his back and in his black gloved hand he held the bow that had been tensed and aimed at her just a moment ago.

"I was wondering, Maria dear, when you would return," Kenneth said, his tone mocking concern that he surely had never felt.

She doubted he cared about anything but his bloody favor, which she was beginning to understand would be quite a big one considering Northmen were here. Her eyes studied his face but she didn't dare move with the man in black holding the bow in his hand, arrow poised to strike though she was so close she could see the poison shining on its tip. A knife would be better. A knife she could understand in such close quarters.

"You've been out a while."

"Who are these men?"

"These are my friends. Very recent friends. Mister Black has heard a lot about you."

Maria cocked her head at the man dressed in black, his white grin shone through his shadowy mask. "Not me," he said in deep voice and jerked his head to the taller man in blue beside him.

"What have you heard?" she asked him, although she knew just talking to them was dangerous. Mister Black, ha! So obviously an alias.

"We have heard you serve Olecksi," Mister Black drawled in his atrocious accent. "Now you will serve us."

Maria almost laughed but reminded herself of the bow in the black gloved hand of his companion. She blanched and shot a look at Kenneth, disbelief clear on her face. "This is ridiculous—" she began but the old man cut her off.

"I've been waiting and the favor is due," he said, his spittle flying into the air with each word. The candle's flame flickered. "You will be cordial to my friends," he reined his emotions in, his face still red as he spoke those last words with a bit less force.

"You are one of his?" Mister Black asked, his snow-white head turned to Kenneth for confirmation.

"Of that, as I told you, there is no doubt. Maria is undeniably his and has been since she left my service."

"Thank you, uncle," she spat under her breath, her hand curling around behind her to grab a knife at her belt. The bow raised, an arrow pointed directly at her face, a silver eye narrowing. Maria dropped her hand.

"You're studying the portals?"

"No," she said. Olecksi had others for that. She was little more than a lackey though she warmed his bed more times than she could count. How many times had she wound her desperate fingers in his white braid, looking into those soulless eyes of his and seeing nothing?

She suddenly felt very cold looking at those silver eyes studying her from under that shadowy black hood. Paired with that slice in his face that was barely passable for a smile, Maria had never felt so alone. She wished Lent was here.

Or if she was wishing for things she wished she wasn't here.

"Why don't we all have a cup of tea," Kenneth said, holding the candle up. He had this sick twisted grin on his face that sent a shudder through Maria's bones. His gray hair was cropped so short she could see the scaly white scalp beneath. The wrinkles in his forehead reached well up into his sparse hairline. "I won't poison you this time, my dear… you are far too valuable now."

"I'm going to need something stronger than tea," she surprised herself by saying and followed Kenneth to the back of his shop, up the four large steps that led to the store room and the adjoining room that served as Kenneth's laboratory. The Northmen were close behind her, so close she could feel their breath at her back.

There was a small table set up in the center of the store room. A tea kettle was out, as well as a tall glass bottle of something that smelled horrid when Kenneth unstoppered it.

"You'll enjoy this," Kenneth croaked with a secret grin, as if he was enjoying some private joke. He gestured for them all to sit and poured them each a drink. The man in black remained standing, on the shadow's edge. Maria didn't think she'd enjoy this one bit.

She sat uneasily on the edge of on of the rickety wooden chairs around the table and watched Mister Black sit beside her, completely at ease. He had a pious, official quality to him. He wasn't just any Northman, she recognized; he was someone important. Who were these people? How had they even got in here? Had they found it as easily as she did? Just walked in without anyone noticing? She cast a look at the man in black, noting how easily he melded himself in the shadow. They must have, but Olecksi had to know; nobody passed through the way to Hadaikam without him knowing.

Kenneth pushed the drink at her and Mister Black took his and raised it in silent toast to her, making her grind her teeth in response.

"It's money," Kenneth said abruptly. "If you're wondering how we came together."

"No doubt," she said, but she knew it was more than coin that would cause this man to fall in with Northmen.

"Drink, Maria."

"Forgive me if I don't trust you."

"Never, and don't be rude," Kenneth croaked lowly and Maria's eyes locked onto the silver ones in the shadow. She had no choice. "You are in the presence of an elder."

Her thin fingers plucked the glass from the table and she took an experimental sip. Maria coughed and set the glass back down but Kenneth made a disapproving noise.

"All of it," he said and no one said a word until she had downed the rest of the foul beverage.

It hissed its way down her throat and stuck in her chest. She could feel it worming its way slowly throughout her body, and she fought the urge to toss it up.

"Two portals opened outside our capital and took the outer wall," Mister Black said conversationally, casually sipping his drink. He had the grace not to make a face at the taste. "Don't tell me you've never heard of them. They are popping up all over, mysterious things, and Olecksi has been hiding their existence and doing what exactly?"

"I wouldn't know," she ground out, and she really didn't. Even if she did she certainly wouldn't tell them about it.

"What about the disappearances?" Maria's eyes were orange slits as she glared at the white-haired man beside her. "The people he has been gathering up?"

"How do you know these things?"

"What's he planning?" he continued as if she had said nothing. "What has he got to do with these portals? What is he doing with those people?"

"How should I know?" she asked miserably as she watched Kenneth pour her another glass. He was scowling at the bottle, clearly disappointed in how the conversation was going. What had he expected? She was nothing to Olecksi; did they think he'd confide in her? "He tells me nothing."

"I find that to be strange, considering the nature of your relationship," Kenneth said, pushing the glass toward her again. "And very difficult to believe."

Maria would have had a knife at the old man's sagging throat at this instant if there hadn't been a bow trained at her every move. And the drink, whatever it was, was pulling things out of her mouth that she didn't want to say. It was forcing her to say what she had never wanted to say aloud; Olecksi did not value her more than what she could do for him. Hadn't she accepted that long ago?

But she thought could control the work the drink was doing on her body; she had to. She could tell the truth but in her own way. She wouldn't rise to his bait, the old bastard, and she would sooner kill herself than betray the man for whom she'd given her life.

"Rumors," she said evenly and snatched up the glass again before they could make her. If she was going to damn herself she'd do it by her choice alone if she could help it. "What makes you think he'd tell me his plans?"

"I think you can find out easily enough with some motivation, of course."

"Is that what you want me to do?" She turned her head to her former mentor. "A bit more than a favor, Kenneth."

Mister Black sipped his drink, or pretended to. Maria glanced at the level of liquid in the glass and didn't blame him if he passed on it.

"It's past favors now. I'm wrapped up in it just as you are. These men have something I desperately want and you can give them what they need."

"You want me to betray him," she stated flatly, shooting back the liquor before the taste could make her gag. "You want me to break my vow." She set the glass down on the table, feeling the edges of her vision blur pleasantly, softening the room. She was losing her control, feeling herself slip under the thrall of the drink.

"That shouldn't be so much trouble for a witch. I'm sure you haven't bound yourself irreparably. You're a smart girl sometimes, Maria. Why do you think you stayed my apprentice for so long?"

"Because you poisoned me into submission?"

The sarcasm wasn't lost on Kenneth. His lips formed a thin, tight line. "This isn't a negotiation. You will do it, whatever they ask, or suffer the consequences."

"And what would those be?"

"How is Lent?"

Maria's gaze shot up in surprise at Kenneth's face. One of his meticulously thin gray eyebrows rose and she fought the urge to cut it off. She tried to put an angry fire to her words but the liquor and the pure fear building within her made her voice fragile and it cracked pathetically when she spoke.

"You wouldn't." Maria hated the desperation that was so evident in her voice.

"I would do any number of things. And I'm one of the only ones around that knows your sister still lives and that she escaped his service."

Maria's head bowed, her eyes squeezed shut as she clutched the edge of the table. Kenneth had bollocks to threaten Lent and even more gall to threaten her only tie to humanity: Trace. She hadn't seen her since that night with Roger in the caves. He had taken her away, turned her against her own sister. She hated Roger for that. Never forgiven him. But he had promised to keep his knowledge of Trace secret and he had kept that promise. Olecksi had not pursued her. Roger and Maria had made sure that Olecksi had no idea Trace even existed. The Master liked to collect full sets of precious things, and Trace and Maria were that set.

Trace lived on the upside these days, and Maria rarely heard word of her. The last she had heard was that she had turned mercenary, which was fitting for someone like Trace. But if the spell Maria had worked that night long ago, Trace wouldn't even remember she had a sister, but there were certain things that one couldn't erase from memory… Trace could not ignore her heritage, her natural gifts, even if her knowledge of those too Maria had buried deep within her. Some things caught up whether one wanted them to or not.

Maria kept herself from finishing the rest of that thought as she looked from Kenneth to Mister Black, letting the reality of their threats sink into her. They could do it, she knew, they would go after them. Lent and Trace were exceptional, but one could only take so much until one fell. They could be found, perhaps Lent more easily as he was so trusting. She felt her throat constrict and blinked rapidly at the tears stinging her orange eyes.

"What would you have me do?"

----

Mohan was stretched out on Mortimer's narrow uncomfortable bed. The man sat beside him, staring at him without expression. His house hadn't been far but Mohan had felt it like it had been hours with that rope tied so tightly around him his skin was raw. He had passed out as soon as the rope was untied, but now, safe within this warm and humble shack of a house, he was awake, alert. And undeniably suspicious.

He fidgeted when the man reached for his bandaged arms. Mortimer had dressed his wounds earlier tenderly and carefully, as if he were his child. He had done all of this silently and Mohan feared to speak until the man had said something first, for fear of breaking this unspoken yet feeble truce they had somehow enacted. He was so close Mohan could smell the swamp on him, and undertones of something darker. Smoke and ash that was his scent naturally.

"Sentinels, they called them, hounds of the Underworld. You are one of those," Mortimer stated evenly, breaking the silence finally. "Although you're not very good. As the other one you might be passable if you could be controlled, which is exactly what he wanted you for. You must control yourself."

"I can't," Mohan said and tried to snatch his arm away from the man's clutching fingers.

"Try," Mortimer snapped, ripping at the dressings on his left arm. Mohan jerked in pain. "Or never receive my help."

"I don't need your help," he said as the man stood from the bed and walked away. Mohan pulled the rest of the dressings off himself. His arms had healed so he must have been out for a few hours. That had been one powerfully poisoned dart. "I need to get to the cave."

"The cave won't save you. You can hide yourself away if you wish and give into the monster you will eventually become," the man said casually as he poured out a stiff drink into a large clay mug.

Mohan said nothing. The man had dressed his wounds; he must have seen Mohan's scars on his arms. Old bites, and they were numerous. The bite of a demon never healed fully; it always left a scar. Mohan's arms were covered with the traces of his own teeth; his naïve attempt to keep the monster at bay.

Once the man had a generous gulp, his eyes caught Mohan's and he handed the drink to him. "Or you can break bread with it and become whole."

"Why would you help me?"

Mohan found it hard to look at anything but the glistening liquid in the mug. The prospect seemed so out of reach. He had done so much damage already and the thing within him couldn't possibly be controlled. The only option he knew of was to run.

"Why?" the man echoed. It seemed that he too was mystified by this. "After you've thrown your lot in with him?"

Mohan nodded and eased himself into a sitting position on the narrow bed. His body still ached from the night before and not to mention his body dragged through the swamp by a rope. He took a drink from the mug and felt warmth blossom within him, making him feel somewhat himself again.

Mohan looked up to find the man staring at him, seeing something within in his eyes that he never thought he would ever see. This man understood him completely.

"Because we are the same, Half-born, and you should have never belonged to him."


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A/n: I hope you enjoyed seeing what everyone else was up to. We'll come back to them later to see how they've progressed. Nick, Roger and Lent will be the focus of the next chapter.