Remember Remember - Rikku's NaNo

[Trilly (18426 words)]

*loves the excerpt with Faust being all sneaky and manipulative, then getting slugged for his troubles.*

I have a new appreciation for Donovan. He rules.

I have to read this all when it's done. The excerpts so far aren't enough. ^^

[Rikku]

I just thought it was a cool rhyme. xD

That's one of my favourite parts, yesindeed. =D When Donovan came into his own. Scott overshadows him way too much.

This quote isn't particularly funny -

SPOILER: Click to show

“I’m about as helpless as you are on this one.”

Cameron sighed. “I know. But I kind of need advice right now. Or at least company.” He ran a hand through his oil slick of dark hair. “Gah. What I wouldn’t give for a normal life.”

Bentasmal snorted. “Oh please. You couldn’t deal with a normal life.”

His tone was bitter. Cameron looked at him inquiringly. Bentasmal looked away.

“I’ve had kind of a rough time is all. It’s hard, trying to fit in. At school and stuff. Doesn’t really work. Better to make your own destiny and all that other crap.”

“You don’t sound like you believe that.” Cameron smiled.

“I don’t believe anything.” Bentasmal made a magnanimous gesture. “I am an atheist.” He paused. “Well, not even that. If I was an atheist I would have to believe in not believing in anything … darn, that’s confusing.”

Cameron laughed. “Time paradox.” He pulled his wooden spoon out of his pocket and waggled it for emphasis. “Y’see, people assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey... stuff.”

Bentasmal laughed. “I should never have introduced you to Doctor Who. You watched all the modern seasons in … what, two days straight?”

“But it’s so goood!” whined Cameron, giving a winning smile. Bentasmal rolled his eyes.

- but it should give you an idea of exactly how obsessed I am. ^_^ I quote the timey-wimey stuff line all the time. Whenever I get an excuse. Honestly.

[Trilly (18426 words)]

Oh, yes. I love the timey-wimey stuff. ^__^ Tis great. Doctor Who is the most quotable show ever.

I just kind of liked that bit with Donovan because, despite his impressive size, he strikes me as a quieter, more fade-into-the-background type than Scott, who likes attention. Because Donovan isn't very vocally prominent in a lot of what I've read so far, when he actually does something to make himself stand out, it gives a lot of impact (no pun intended, Faust. ^^; Don't eat me).

[Kathleen]

I am going to be sadly left-out, never having seen any of Doctor Who. xD

Scott does seem the overbearing type, though. Donovan's rather.. Nevermind, I'll just, like, point emphatically to Trilly's post and shut up now. =D

[Rikku]

Quite right, both of you. =D I love it when my characters are understood!

SPOILER: Click to show

“Sephri! You jerk!”

Sephri glanced over his shoulder and sped up. They were on an inexplicably empty road, but that didn’t stop him looking from side to side, as though hoping there was an onlooker somewhere nearby who he could maul to slow Cameron down.

There wasn’t. Cameron barged into him and forced him into the wall, clutching Sephri’s throat in one hand and waving something in front of his face in the other, in a menacing kind of way.

Sephri was not menaced. “What is it, pyromancer?”

“You have not been entirely honest with me, demon,” Cameron growled.

“You misunderstand me. I meant, what is it?” He nodded at the object. “Is that menacing? It looks like a spoon.”

“Look, that’s not the point! You—”

“A wooden spoon.”

“Would you listen? You said—”

“With ‘This is sonic. Really!’ written on it in black felt tip. That is so incredibly pathetic. If you’re going to have a sonic spoon, at least have a real one.”

“Shut! Up!” Cameron shook him, and Sephri went still.

“You are so incredibly lucky that I’m not about to slit your throat.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure.” Cameron took a step back and released his hold. Sephri rubbed his throat and gave him an injured look. “And don’t look at me like that. You know perfectly well that this is justified.”

“What happened?”

“A Fallen jumped me.”

Sephri winced in sympathy. “Ouch.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. I was coughing up feathers for hours. But that’s not the point.” Cameron pocketed his wooden spoon. “You broke the rules. How?”

Sephri waved him away. “Not important.”

“Chaos is going to descend upon the city!”’

“Oh, please. Chaos is always going to descend upon the city. It’s, like, the essence of chaos. You don’t get much chaoticer.”

“Seriously. Angels and demons and Fallen are going to war it out—”

“There you go, then. They were looking for an excuse.” Sephri sidled away. He was wearing the turtle neck jumper again. On anyone else, it would have looked ridiculous. “You, or I, or Saffron or your pathetic brother or the bloodsucker and puppy dog gave them it.” His tone was completely indifferent.

“There’s going to be war!”

“There’s going to be war anyway. Or hadn’t you noticed?”

Cameron floundered. “… Well, yeah, but—”

“You deal with Rift matters, don’t you? You figure it out.” Sephri shrugged and walked away. Cameron glared after him, wondering whether or not to swear loudly at him. Probably wasn’t a good idea. As soon as he did, a number of little old ladies would seemingly appear out of nowhere and glare at him pointedly.

[Rikku]

I love Saffron and Cameron. =D They interact in interesting ways.

SPOILER: Click to show

Saffron chanced to glance up, and she immediately hit the ground yellow-and-black boots first as she ran at him.

Cameron flinched, preparing to yell something about how it hadn’t been his fault, whatever it was, and was thus taken by surprise when she gripped his hand and shook it firmly. So firmly, in fact, that it almost dislocated his already-wounded shoulder, but he wasn’t about to complain. A necromancer could so much worse things that there wasn’t really much point.

“Thank you. I think. That was you, wasn’t it? You helped me? Didn’t you?” Saffron gave him a sidelong look out of her grey eyes. She was wearing her hair differently, tied back in a braid that swung when she moved. He’d never noticed how long her hair was before. It looked interesting braided, too, but then again, it always did. Necromancer hair. Go figure.

“Yes. And Sephri, in part, but mostly me. Saved your life, I did.” He hesitated, and then gave a startlingly arrogant grin. “And if you have any flour, I’ll make you pancakes.”

She took a half-step backwards, hands flying to her mouth. “Oh my, good sir! I don’t know what to say!”

He offered her his arm. “You could start with ‘I have a well-stocked cupboard that will satisfy all your culinary desires, Cameron!’”

“Hmm.” She took his arm and almost dragged him towards the mausoleum, which was completed by that point. Cameron wondered if any of the actual normal people that came to mourn at Weaver Street Cemetery were shaken by all the unusual activity. Perhaps they chalked it down to activity on the spiritual plane, which wasn’t too far from the truth, after all. “How about ‘I have a vast network of contacts who see to my every need and I thus have a larder which would put most kings’ to shame and a wine cellar the approximate size of the werewolf pack’s hanger’?” She said it almost too quickly to hear. Cameron squinted, as though that would help his hearing.

Then he looked around the mausoleum. This one was smaller. Yet at the same time … she led him through a door, into the backyard, and then he blinked, ran back outside and looked around again.

Yup. Definitely a perfectly normal cemetery, if you ignored the bath towel and rubber duck sitting on the ground next to the ornamental pond. There was the mausoleum, barely the size of a single spacious room … and behind it, nothing. Just a couple of graves.

Cameron walked back through the mausoleum, out the other side, and into Saffron’s house. It was … big.

“Bigger on the inside?” he said resignedly, and Saffron nodded, looking delighted.

[Kathleen]

I.. think I get the bigger on the inside thing. =D *is sure she only thinks she understands it and will now be given strange looks for laughing*

Saffron is cool. ^_^ I've always liked characters called Saffron. For some reason. Ahem. And.. it sounds very much a lot like almost the end. Is this so?

[Trilly (18426 words)]

Hah, Saffron has Timelord technology!

Cameron-Saffron shipping! *brick'd*

Saffron can be so sweet when she's not being vengeful. It's just so cute to see her being nice to Cameron, and not threatening him with mutilation for killing her pet.

[Rikku]

Nov 20, 2008 0:07:56 GMT -5 Kathleen said:

I.. think I get the bigger on the inside thing. =D *is sure she only thinks she understands it and will now be given strange looks for laughing*

Saffron is cool. ^_^ I've always liked characters called Saffron. For some reason. Ahem. And.. it sounds very much a lot like almost the end. Is this so?

Yay! =D

I stole her name from a Firefly character, but don't tell anyone that. >.>; And yes, yes it is. Though I have a bit more to do that I really ought to get finished by tonight.

...

*sighs and wanders off to listen to some Jonathan Coulton*

Nov 20, 2008 16:13:07 GMT -5 Trilly (18426 words) said:

Hah, Saffron has Timelord technology!

Cameron-Saffron shipping! *brick'd*

Saffron can be so sweet when she's not being vengeful. It's just so cute to see her being nice to Cameron, and not threatening him with mutilation for killing her pet.

Necromancers are cool like that.

She is rather sweet, isn't she? And most of the time she isn't killing him. She actually helps, now and then. Her and her neat boots.

[Rikku]

Done.



... Dang, that was fun.

[Trilly (18426 words)]

Whoot! Congrats!

Now post the story. I have to read it. ^___^

[Tam]

...

*explodes*

How many words? =D

I want to read it!

I haven't finished the excerpts yet!

But I want to read it!

...Congrats! ^_____^ *fishglomps*

[Kathleen]

Yes, congrats, but post the whole danged thing now! =D *gangs up to demand to read it*

[Rikku]

*glomps everyone* Thank you! 50897 words, just! I shall!

... In a minute. >.>; *is lazy*

SPOILER: Click to show

It was a cool evening. Not many people were out and about, even though the weather was relatively calm (windy, bordering on gale). Perhaps it was some special occasion, or the day before a special occasion. Or perhaps people are just really strange.

Not even evening yet, really. More like afternoon bordering on evening. Afternoon with a hint of evening just to make things more interesting and make it just dark enough for people to trip over their own feet and fall down stairs and the like.

The not-evening-yet, really, light glinted in the windows of a bakery. It was a perfectly normal bakery, and completely insignificant, by and large, in the overall scheme of things. (If scheme is the right word. That sounds more like plotting, something no sane person would do. Cough cough.)

Above the bakery, on the brick of the apartment above it, a word was spray painted with white … spray paint. It wasn’t particularly significant either, despite the fact that spray painting on brick is darn hard. The word was ‘PYRATECHNIX’, a word that means very little. It had been spray painted (in white spray paint) one night when the denizen (occupant was far too tame a word for this one) of the above-bakery apartment was very very drunk. And it, along with a few noticeable and slightly embarrassing burnt marks on the pavement, were the reasons why the denizen never drunk again. Ever.

A few other people were marginally drunk, or thought they were at least. Because no one sober could ever see that … thing.

The building’s occupant’s name was Cameron Julian Harcort, known as Cameron to his friends, who were very few. Not much was known about him. He’d turned up one night a number of years ago and forked over the cash to rent the apartment, and kept on turning it out vaguely regularly every month, so the bakery dwellers learned not to ask questions. Even when he burst into the shop at a time no decent person would be about (though the amount of people still about showed the general indecency of Wellington’s human population) and demanded a croissant.

“A croissant?”

“Yes. A croissant. Sort of a moon-shaped thing made out of pastry, lots of butter. Happiness made into pastry.”

“Yes, I know what a croissant is, thank you.”

“I’m the one meant to be thanking you. You’re the one who’s giving me the croissant.”

“Giving? I think not!”

“Look, I really need bait!”

Cameron Harcort was tall, even for his age, which was not-quite-twenty, but he walked with a slight stoop in order to get through doors and not be a target for any of the city’s malevolent pigeons. He had an oil slick of dark hair, and his skin was reddened and chaffed – burnt by the sun, or the wind, or by … something else. Or a combination of all three. He was wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and a yellow rain jacket with the sleeves hacked off just above the elbows. The plastic of the jacket was torn and burned in places. Various items jingled in his pockets, including, rather oddly, a protruding wooden spoon. All of which was rather unusual, but not unusual enough to merit the look that the shopkeeper gave him.

“Bait? You’re going fishing?”

“… Something like that, yeah.” Cameron coughed. He was lucky that the bakery owner (whose name was Dennis, though that is also mostly insignificant) was so very unobservant. (Ruder people than Cameron might have used rather stronger words than ‘unobservant’.) Anyone more perceptive might have actually noticed the fire stains on his rain jacket and wondered whether it had been raining meteors lately.

“You’ll have to pay for it.”

“I pay rent!”

“Not enough rent.” Dennis coughed.

Cameron fiddled with the wooden spoon in his pocket. The same pocket also contained a book of matches (actually a box, but ‘book of matches’ sounded a lot more scholarly) and a cigarette lighter, though they weren’t really needed. They made him feel better. He would have liked to include a blowtorch as well, but people seemed reluctant to sell him one, for some reason. He considered showing this ignorant plebeian what he could do, but the ignorant plebeian already knew perfectly well as much as he would understand. Cameron’s unique skills were very popular at parties.

He glanced outside. A large (scratch that, huge), hulking black creature with a serpentine body and a mouth full of fangs was slinking down the road, keeping as close to the ground as possible, evidently in the hope that it wouldn’t be noticed. Fortunately the people that did notice it were either drunk or delusional, or convinced themselves that they were at any rate. That wouldn’t last for long.

Cameron considered pointing and yelling “THAT IS A FRIGGING WYVERN YOU UNOBSERVANT IDIOT!” but that would probably make his landlord-come-shopkeeper annoyed at him and he didn’t want to be evicted.

“Put it on my tab,” he said hurriedly, snatched a bag from the day-old-buns section and darted out the door (which was made of strings of beads, but ‘door’ sounds better than ‘odd curtainy thing, what the heck is that meant to be anyway?’).

He ran after the wyvern, ignoring Dennis’s yells. Had he been someone else he might have fallen into an old, familiar lope that ate up ground without tiring him. As it was he just tried to keep up. Without overtaking. He didn’t want those teeth behind his back when it was only protected by a layer of thin yellow plasticy material.

Maybe it would be alright. Maybe it was a herbivore.

The wyvern grinned gormlessly, though there wasn’t much room for any other expression on its face, and snapped at a pigeon. It managed to catch it, though it spat it out again a few moments later due to general hygiene and in principle. The pigeon was a bloodied mess of slivers and feathers.

Ah. Not a herbivore, then.

Cameron cursed under his breath (which was short enough that the undertaking was kind of difficult) and careered wildly after the wyvern. He couldn’t let people get hurt, not when this monster and all the other strange things that plagued the city were his fault.

The wyvern emerged into a crowded square that immediately became quite a bit less crowded. Cameron stopped and wheezed for a few moments while he figured out a plan.

A slim white cat was watching from across the square. One of its black ears moved a fraction. It blinked its red eyes at him in that nonchalant way that cats have.

Cameron straightened and concentrated, though it barely took any concentration for this. This was second instinct. First instinct, even.

A small purple spark appeared in the air in front of the wyvern’s nose. It glowed and spun decoratively. The wyvern eyed it acquisitively. Cameron gnawed on his lip, hoping that the creature was as childish as it seemed.

The wyvern yapped happily and dived at the spark, which immediately darted out of the way. Leading the wyvern away from people. Cameron glanced around the square. Tile Avenue ought to do well, or Straight Street. Anything but Weaver Street.

The spark hovered alluringly in front of Tile Avenue. The wyvern stared at it and took a few hopping steps forward. Its huge clawed feet shook and scarred the pavement.

The cat stood, elegant and graceful as only cats can be. It meandered towards Tile Avenue. The wyvern glanced at it and backed away hurriedly, ignoring the spark.

Cameron made the hovering flame do the Caramelldansen, but it didn’t help. The wyvern looked around, sniffed, and lumbered towards where Weaver Street opened out into the square.

Weaver Street was quiet and residential. At the end of it lay Weaver Street cemetery. Filled with nice, ripe, rotting bodies. Human bodies that would give the wyvern a taste for them, no doubt.

Cameron cursed and ran to head the wyvern off. He couldn’t let that happen. Particularly not when his parents …

He cut short the thought as he skidded in front of the wyvern. It blinked at him enquiringly. Its eyes were bloodshot and evil-looking, in a happy kind of way.
“Look, I’m sorry, but I have to do this,” Cameron said. Or gasped, really, but it was the thought that counted. One couldn’t be a dragonslayer if one wasn’t dramatic.

He spread out his arms and made fire dance, flickering between his clenched fists, sparking and shining. This was real fire, too, not some pyrotechnical spark of colour meant as a distraction. The raw forces of the Universe were held between his hands.

The wyvern’s jaw gaped stupidly. It lunged forwards, thick tail beating its sides in happiness. It wanted to play.

Probably had wanted to play with the pigeon, too.

Cameron stood rock-steady while it came at him. Then he remembered the bread. The plastic bag was sort of melted and oozing from the heat of the flame, but he salvaged an old bun and tossed it at the wyvern, which gulped it down delightedly.

Cameron could see its brain whirring into gear like a really old rusty bicycle. Nice food. Man gave me nice food. Therefore … maybe not ‘therefore’, but whichever equivalent wyvern used … therefore man is nice food. And shiny! Yay!

The wyvern lunged and scooped him into its mouth. Its teeth bit into his shoulder and he yelped in pain and surprise. The wyvern yelped as well, thinking this all a wonderful game, which meant it loosened its bite a little. Cameron formed flame in front of his hands and forced it down the wyvern’s throat, into its stomach. He flinched, feeling guilty, but gritted his teeth and made the fire expand and spread, withering everything it touched to ash. He rolled out of the way, adding a bruised shoulder to match his bleeding one, as the wyvern collapsed, belched a little flame and died.

Cameron sat on the spot for a few minutes and then sat up cautiously. Nothing appeared to be broken, which was good. His shoulder twinged painfully, but he’d dealt with worse. All in all that had been quite successful. He’d managed to stop the Rift creature before any people were harmed. Except for him, of course. And the pigeon. Poor thing.

“Idiot. Would it have killed you to go down Tile Street?” Well, it might have, but it wouldn’t have been as messy. Tile Street led to a shabby little fountain with a grate next to it, and the grate led down into darkness quite a bit deeper than could really be expected. It was the gateway to the Rift, which Cameron had sometimes heard called the Darker Realms by the things that came out of it. Though he wasn’t sure how something as big as a wyvern had managed to crawl out of a hole he would have difficulty fitting through. Maybe it just grew really really fast.

Enough thinking. He had an appointment to keep.

Cameron stood and swayed on the spot a bit. Maybe he should get cleaned up first.

He tottered back to the bakery. When he reached it, he tossed the bread bag onto the counter. Dennis stared at the twisted, melted plastic, then at Cameron’s bloodied shoulder and seriously annoyed face, and decided not to ask.

There was a little set of stairs leading up to Cameron’s apartment. He took them two at a time, then one at a time when he almost fell over. His apartment had a back door with a little balcony, but getting up there would involve climbing up a fire escape, and he didn’t particularly fancy his chances at that.

It wasn’t a bad apartment, as pretty darned bad apartments go. The wallpaper was tattered and peeling here and there, with noticeable burnt patches. There was an old-fashioned telephone sitting on its own little desk, worn carpet, a small, grubby TV with assorted consoles and games scattered in front of it and a couch that was in serious danger of losing its insides. A fridge, bench and slightly superfluous oven sat in one linoed corner, which were helpful in his cooking experiments. What might have been a bathroom and laundry sat behind a door on one side of the room. A door on the other side led through to his bedroom, which was slightly larger than some broom closets. Another door led through to his workroom, where the original brick was still intact. Once it had been a kiln, and now it was used for a similar purpose.

A couple of cupboards and cabinets and benches were scattered around his workroom. They were wooden, which was a bit of an oversight, but none of them had collapsed into ashes yet, so maybe not. On every surface were rows of tins and packets and powders in all the colours of a rainbow and a few colours no self-respecting rainbow would ever show.

Cameron Harcort was a pyromancer, and had been since he was five and his parents died. Though since his parents had died in a fire that also burned his house, he might have been a pyromancer a little while before then. Just maybe.

He earned his bread, stale though it was, in pyrotechnics – making fireworks and shiny flames, powders that made fire burn brightly or burn green or burn horizontally. People sort of assumed that he made them with magnesium and phosphorus and other such things, and he let them think that. ‘I play with fire, let it dance between my hands, and turn and dry it into something that resembles sand, fire made solid’ was a little hard to swallow and he had few enough friends as it was.

Cameron also worked as a waiter in a little restaurant. His suit was hanging up in his wardrobe in his really cramped bedroom. But it was only a part-time job, Saturdays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Today was a Friday, and he had an appointment to keep.

After extracting some bandages from a cramped little closet in the cramped little bathroom and spinning them around his shoulder in a careless kind of way, he leaned against the wall and looked out the small, poky window at his slowly corroding balcony. If he thought about his parents he would be overcome in a wave of melancholy and guilt. Instead he thought about the innocent animal he had slaughtered. Oddly enough, it didn’t help much.

Then he remembered something else about the day, and frowned. He poured milk into a saucer, went out on his balcony and carefully laid it down. Then he took a few steps backwards and waited.

He didn’t have to wait long. In a matter of moments a white cat with black ears and red eyes leaped sinuously onto the railing, and lithely onto the balcony. It looked at the milk, and then up at Cameron. There was something like contempt in its eyes.

“Then show me what you really are,” he said, more than a little annoyed.

The cat hissed and walked past him, back into the apartment. Cameron rolled his eyes and followed, carefully closing the door behind him. It was a windy day, as per usual.

Cameron leaned against one of the walls and crossed his arms. The cat turned into a man, or something like a man.

He was quite tall, with white hair, pale skin and eyes like a blood dawn. Small, neat black horns poked out of his hair. They were very sharp. In fact, all of him seemed sharp. He looked handsome, even beautiful in the way that a knife blade is beautiful – slim, and sharp, and deadly.

“Don’t be condescending, please. It’s not beneficial to your health.”

“You’re a demon,” Cameron said, utterly terrified.

“Aha! I see nothing can be hidden from you, Cameron Julian Harcort.” The demon inspected his fingernails and gave a smile, sharp as a razor blade.

“And what can I call you?” Cameron didn’t bother asking for his real name. Demons weren’t stupid.

“Sephri. I’m here because you rather annoyed a friend of mine, and I can’t allow that.”

Demons didn’t come through the Rift very often – it seemed to produce things out of people’s imaginations, so vampires, werewolves and Pokemon were more common – but from the ones Cameron had met he could judge them as a race fairly well. “And because you’re bored.”

“And that,” Sephri agreed amicably.

“So … um. You know all about me, then?” Cameron clicked his fingers, a somewhat ostentatious and unnecessary action. Flame puffed above them, curling with smoke and singeing the roof.

“Yes indeed. All your sordid circumstances. I must say I’m impressed. You’ve caused a lot of chaos and pain.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“That really was a compliment.” Sephri looked taken aback.

“That’s kind of what’s worrying me!” the pyromancer snarled, immediately regretting it. You don’t lose your temper with demons, not if you particularly want to keep all your limbs.

Sephri laughed. “I like you, Cameron Julian Harcort. It almost makes me regret what I have to do.”

Cameron considered asking what the demon had to do, but decided against it. It was hard to serve food with no arms and no eyes in a city that had been razed to the ground because one of its occupants had got cheeky to a demon. “Please, call me Cameron.”

“Alright then, Cameron. I want you to come with me.”

“Where are we going?” Cameron said guardedly.

Sephri brushed his hand against his shirt to buff his nails. He was wearing a suit that must have been expensive, but looked like the height of taste and fitted him perfectly. His nails were sharp, like claws. Exactly like claws. “To a place of pain, of torment, of horrors unimagin – oh, hey! I love Jonathan Coulton!”

Cameron stood slack-jawed and gaping as Sephri dived at the pile of games and CDs on the floor, humming under his breath.

“All we want to do is eat your brains … we’re not unreasonable, I mean no one’s going to eat your eyes …”

The problem was that Cameron found himself warming up to a guy who wouldn’t be terribly troubled if he was ordered to carry out the actions he was singing about, and probably would act so out of his own volition if he was bored. That was the annoying thing about this fellow. All demons and Rift creatures were capricious to an extent, but Sephri gave the impression that he could be slapping someone’s back one moment and stabbing it the next.

“Want to brawl?”

“Please don’t kill me!” screamed Cameron, until he realized that Sephri was offering him a controller, not trying to stab him. “Oh,” he said, somewhat lamely. Sephri laughed.

Half an hour later the demon threw the controller to the ground. “Well, that was fun.”

“I still don’t believe you beat me playing Jigglypuff,” Cameron muttered, his pride wounded. Sephri rolled his eyes.

“You kind of suck at Brawl, Cameron.” He stood and yawned elegantly. His teeth were very white and very sharp. “Alrighty then.”

He swung his fist at Cameron’s head, and Cameron slumped to the ground.

“You have an appointment to keep,” Sephri said.


***

(SUDDEN SCENE CHANGE OF DOOOM!)

A few weeks ago, it was full moon.

Of course, the clouds completely obscured the moon, so that it resembled a slightly glowy patch of slime in a pool of scum. But it was a full moon nonetheless. Witchery abounded, ideally.

In a little place called Plimmerton the waves were going back and forth restlessly, in a not-very-interesting kind of way. There was a little pub near the waterfront, creatively called the Waterfront Inn. It wasn’t really an inn, of course, but inns were in this year.

It was a rather archaic place that was very comfortable to outcasts and incasts alike. Alex Scott sipped his drink pensively. Of course, he couldn’t get drunk, but he enjoyed the atmosphere in places like this.

This place was smaller than most he visited, but he had woken up that morning and felt like wandering, and he had enough money to indulge that.

Scott was tall and slim enough to be described as ‘gangly’. He had fair skin and fair hair, and bright blue eyes. He smiled a lot and was a very happy person generally, and already was the best friend of most of the inn-goers.

“So your name’s Dennis?”

“Yup,” Dennis said drowsily. “Bread. I mean, I make bread. And sell it. Sell bread.” He burped, drunkenly.

“Really? Man! I’ve always wanted to be a bakery … baker. And bake bread.” Alex Scott was a good conversationalist, but even he was taxed by this one. “One time I bought bread from this shop and there were, like, these weevils in it. Crawling. And I’d already eaten half of it. When I told my doctor he said they were a good source of protein.” Alex grinned.

Dennis blinked. “Your teeth are … your teeth are ... what’s wrong with your teeth?”

Scott ran his tongue along the inside of his fangs. “Novelty. It’s almost Halloween, you know.”

“Oh. Yes. Hey! Pink elephants!” Dennis turned away.

Scott sighed. That hadn’t been too close – barely close at all, in fact, the baker was clearly an idiot – but he still wished he could find someone to talk to, someone who could understand who he was and not judge him for it.

The door swung open.

Scott swivelled on his seat and directed his usual bright smile at the man who entered, though for some reason it froze on his lips. Perhaps it was the gust of wind that followed him.

This wasn’t a man, though. Not really. He was tall, sturdily built, with untidy dark brown hair and a five o’clock shadow. His clothes were clean, certainly, but a little shabby. He had difficulty holding down a job, for a whole variety of reasons.

“I’m Matthew. Matthew Donovan,” he said to the barmaid, who smiled voluptuously and went to fetch him a beer.

Matthew Donovan indicated the seat next to Scott. “Is this seat taken?”

“No. No, it’s not.” Scott’s smile faltered, and he frowned. There was something about this man … something strange, something that made his skin crawl.

Donovan sat down and tapped his fingers against the counter. Scott froze as he realized something. There was something wrong with this man’s shadow, as silly as that sounded.

At the same instant Donovan glanced into the mirror. He saw the counter reflected there, and his own worried brown eyes looking back at him.

He didn’t see the blond-haired man sitting beside him.

Donovan breathed in deeply. The action had very little to do with calming himself. The smell confirmed it. Bloodsucker. Vampire.

Both men leaped to their feet in the same instant, stools clattering to the ground. Scott bared his fangs and hissed, his leather jacket sliding back as his arms reached out to clutch at the other man’s throat. Donovan threw him off, seeming to grow larger and stronger. The action was so forceful that Scott stumbled back a few paces, though he kept on his feet. He crouched down, ready to lunge again, to rip and tear –

And paused as he realized that the room had fallen silent. Everyone present was staring wide-eyed at the vampire and the werewolf.

Scott licked his dry lips and glanced around. The vampire command would have his head if he gave away his presence here. And from what he knew of the pack of werewolves that roamed the city, they would take similar action. None of them could stand the chance of being discovered.

“Um,” Donovan said. “How … dare you say that about my mother! You … mother-insulting … bad person!”

Scott stared at him. Their desperate eyes met. Truce. Very definitely truce.

“You are right, I acted unwisely and I absolutely regret it! Let me buy you a drink!” he said desperately, and gave a short, nervous laugh. This seemed to reassure the tavern-goers, for they all turned back to their respective drinks and worries. Scott sat down with a sigh. Now that had been too close.

The werewolf sat beside him, cautiously, nose wrinkled in distaste. His ears looked a little odd in the mirror, too high up and too pointed. He concentrated on breathing deeply to calm himself down, then switched to holding his breath when he realized that made things worse.

Half an hour passed, and the Waterfront Inn began to close down. Patrons staggered drunkenly away. Donovan practically leaped from his seat and out the door. Scott swigged down the last of his drink and followed, eyes narrowed.

It was quite dark. The buildings were great looming shapes, unidentifiable as the pharmacies and houses and warehouses that light would show them as. Donovan walked quickly, his bare feet barely hitting the ground. He wanted to get home before –

Scott barrelled into him and slammed him against a wall, one arm pushing against his throat. Donovan was lifted a little off the ground. Scott hissed, looking very little like his usual happy-go-lucky self.

“Dear lord I hate werewolves.”

Donovan struggled for breath, but his throat was slowly being crushed. That could probably be counted a blessing. At least the vampire wasn’t trying to drain his blood.

“All of your kind. And I know this seems racist, but it’s true. I haven’t met one of you that’s anything approaching an actual sentient being. You have no decency, you have no taste, you have nothing even approaching a sense of humour …” Scott laughed, a little unsteadily. Violence wasn’t his normal way of going about things and it unsettled him. “And don’t get me started on hygiene! Or honour! Or kindness or compassion or—”

Donovan used both hands to try and push Scott’s arm away from his throat. It didn’t work enough to get him free.

“Knock knock,” he choked.

Scott stared at him. In the dim lighting his expression was difficult to read. He eased his arm back a little.

“Who’s there?” he asked guardedly.

Donovan greedily gulped down air. It scared him that the vampire had managed to render him so helpless. “Doctor.”

Scott stared at him some more. His fangs glinted in the clouded moonlight.

He threw back his head and laughed, taking a step back. Donovan, released, rubbed his throat guardedly.

“Okay, so, I was wrong.” Scott rubbed his eyes, weariness replacing some of his amusement. “My name’s Alex. Alex Scott.” He extended his hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

Donovan stared at the proffered hand as though he expected it to turn into a chainsaw. This had to be a trick. Vampires were cruel and bloodthirsty and … and had no decency, or taste, or sense of humour.

“Matthew Donovan. Likewise.” He shook it.

Scott grinned hugely. Donovan eyed him, a little warily, and began to walk away.

Scott ran after him. “Hey, I’ve always wondered. What is it with the whole ‘full moon’ thing?”

Donovan paused. The inner showman in him cried for attention.

He swept out his arm as they emerged into the friendly golden glow of a streetlight. “See.”

The ocean chewed at concrete. Broken rocks and chunks of building material littered the shore. Donovan and Scott leaned over the fence-type thing, watching the waves. A whole bit of railway line complete with broken lantern led into the waves, a road to nowhere.

“The ocean contains all this water, and humans are made of water as well. People like me have more water than most, or a different kind, or it’s salt … I don’t really understand. It’s all to do with shadows, the shape and the sight of them. I’m not sure. We’re only what people think we are.” Donovan snorted bitterly. “People are idiots.”

“Amen to that.” Scott nodded in agreement. “How old do I look to you?”

Donovan took a step back and surveyed him. “I don’t know. Twenty-two?”

“Nineteen,” Scott corrected gently. “That was how old I was when that thrice-cursed Rift opened, and I don’t look like I’ve aged a day since. I’m thirty-four and people ask me for my ID in bars to make sure I’m not under age! It’s bloody annoying!”

“You’re a year older than me,” Donovan said, looking a little annoyed. “darn. I wanted to feel superior.”

Scott laughed. “Well you still can. I’ve killed, before. And hurt a lot of people. And I could argue that it’s not my fault, not my responsibility, but that doesn’t help me sleep at night.” His lip twisted in self-contempt.

“I hunt pigeons,” Donovan volunteered, wanting to brighten the mood.

“No way. Seriously? That is frigging awesome. Like, if you’re walking along the road and there’s this pigeon you just eat—?”

“Well, not if people are around. Kind of attracts attention. That’s how I’ve lost three of my jobs. And it’s more about hunting than eating, anyway. Pigeons taste horrible. All that grime.”

“You have difficulty holding down jobs? What, big responsible looking guy like you?”

Donovan shrugged ruefully. “People don’t trust werewolves.”

“They don’t trust my kind either, which is probably wise. And I’m glad that’s not a problem I’ve come across. It’s pretty easy to get funds if you’re merciless. I made my fortune a few years ago with some … rather unethical jobs. Stopped now, of course. Still.”

“What, you mean …” Donovan stopped, unsure of how to end the sentence.

“Literally blood money. I was paid to scare people, kill them sometimes.”

“Oh.”

“But that’s all behind me now.” Scott grinned. “Come on, let’s go into the main city. There are some gorgeous bars I’d like to show you.”

“Werewolves can’t get drunk,” Donovan said, soberly.

“Neither can vampires. This is for the look of the thing.”


***

Some distance away, a youth stared at the ceiling. It was going to be a long night. Always the same. Always. Every single night.

***


Cameron woke up with a blinding headache. Then he realized he was just blindfolded.

“Sephri,” he remembered. Wretched demon. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. “Curses!”

“Did you …? Yes, I think you did. You just actually said the word ‘curses’. You’re very strange.”

He was sitting somewhere dry and cool. Neither his hands nor his feet were tied, which would have added to the dramatic atmosphere, but the atmosphere was clogged with plenty drama as it was. He sparked a fire on the corner of the blindfold, moments before realizing how utterly stupid that was.

“You actually want to be blinded? Definitely strange.”

The voice was haughty, feminine, and not on the top of his priority list. He clawed at the blindfold desperately until he’d pulled it off and thrown it, smouldering, to the ground.

“I can deal with it. Fire doesn’t hurt me.”

“Lies!” she said gleefully. “You have burn scars on your forehead. Your hair covers them.”

Cameron blinked, out of surprise and to clear sparks from his eyelashes. “Very observant, miss …?”

“Saffron. My name is Saffron.”

Saffron was short, but most people were short compared to Cameron. She had grey eyes, the colour of stones smoothed by a stream. And her hair was odd. Really, really odd. It alternated bright gold and shimmering grey, each strand one or the other. The end effect was something like sunlight shining through a storm. Doubly odd considering the darkness of her skin – she had some Maori ancestry somewhere, or Tongan, or Samoan, or something. It was hard to tell.

Her boots were brightly striped, yellow and black. They seemed a little out of place.

“And I’m a necromancer.”

Oh. Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

“I had an appointment to keep today,” Cameron said cautiously, trying to figure out how to get out of there.

“And you’ve kept it. Don’t you recognize this place?”

Cameron looked around with a sinking feeling that had nothing to do with any mysterious trapdoors. He recognized this place all right. It looked different from the inside, but he’d seen it enough times before, every week, to know it. It was a mausoleum, a solid thing of sombre stone, and it was in Weaver Street Cemetery. He knew because he went there every week, to lay flowers of fire on his parents’ graves. And he knew this girl, too, now he thought about it. She always seemed to be there, and he had wondered many times what her purpose was, who she might be mourning with such dedication. The girl in the graveyard. She was as much a part of the loneliness and melancholy that filled his heart as this mausoleum was, built upon the ashes of the house. It had taken many years for the bitterness and paint to fade enough for him to look at it with anything except hate.

“You live in a mausoleum? Cheery,” Cameron commented, noticing the overstuffed pillows and cheerful patchwork blankets strewn across a marble slab. This girl went way beyond the realms of ‘creepy’ and into ‘downright frightening’.

There was a fluttering from near the ceiling. It was a big mausoleum.

“Vatisin, stop it,” the girl chided, skipping forwards and tossing a stone. A large winged shape detached from the vaulted roof and flew off. It was dark in this place, and gloomy. Rows of stone coffins and little alcoves with urns lined the walls. Saffron had put a bunch of flowers in one.

Now that he concentrated, Cameron could see other things moving, deep in the shadows. Glowing eyes and bared fangs, along with the odd wriggling tentacle. He didn’t look closer.

She pushed her boot onto his chest and pushed him over. “You jerk!”

“Guh?” he managed to say, staring up at the ceiling and struggling to get up. She pressed her boot harder into his chest, making the ribs crackle, and he subsided.

“You killed one of my friends. I don’t approve of that.”

“One of your friends …? Um, sorry. I’m sure it was an accident.”

“It wasn’t. It was practically murder.” Saffron took a few steps back and crouched down so her eyes were level with his. She was glowering. “Zephyr told me.”

“Zephyr? Who in the blazes is Zephyr?”

A white cat slinked out of the shadows and regarded him coolly.

“Oh. That Zephyr.” Cameron returned the demon’s flat gaze. “Sephri, get rid of that stupid guise. I want to talk to you.”

The cat rolled its eyes, as much as that was possible, and stood, unfolding as it did so into Sephri’s slim form. “Yes?”

“Your horns look really stupid, you know that?” Cameron also stood, a tad less elegantly, to stop Sephri having the element of superiority that being the only one standing would give him.

Sephri recoiled. “What?”

“Dinky. Like the smallest Billy Goat Gruff. You look like a kid’s first Halloween costume, but without the sheet.”

Sephri continued to stare at him, as though wondering how anyone could possibly be that suicidal. Cameron wondered as well.

He spread out his arms in a dramatic gesture. Flame soared. Sephri glanced at Saffron.

“Can I kill him?” He clicked his nails together.

“Only if you’re the one who cleans up the blood.”

Sephri sighed. “Fine, fine.” He punched Cameron again, making him keel over, again. The flames sunk back down. Saffron stood, stomping her boots up and down.

“You shouldn’t’ve done that. I hadn’t even properly accused him yet.”

“Wait for him to wake up, then,” Sephri snapped.

“I will.” Saffron walked over to the marble slab and hauled herself up onto it. She crossed her legs and surveyed the unconscious man sprawled on the floor.

A creature that vaguely resembled a raven with too many wings swooped over to her and rested its head on her shoulder. She stroked it absently. Sephri slid back into his cat guise and leaped outside to prowl around the cemetery. It was Halloween, after all, and this particular white cat was quite a bit unluckier to see than any black ones.

The night grew colder. Saffron sighed, hopped off her carving slab and draped a patchwork over Cameron before wandering to a corner of the mausoleum. There she stood, gazing through a skylight into Weaver Street Cemetery. Her eyes were cool and hard, like flint.

The first light of morning leached into the mausoleum, chasing away the shadows. The creatures that lurked and scurried and crept slinked and scurried and crept back to their various hiding places. A sentient umbrella flapped lazily across the sky, fortunately remaining unseen by the Rift-unaware majority of people. It was the first day of November.

Cameron groaned.

Saffron scooted over to him, whipped off the blanket and returned as he was opening his eyes. She whistled innocently.

Cameron groaned again, louder. “Okay. Alright. Sorry. For whatever I did, I’m sorry.” He half-sat up, one hand to his head. There really were burn scars, invisible behind his fringe. They traced across his shoulders and down his back, a macabre memento of what happened when he was five. “I’m Cameron—”

“Cameron Julian Harcort, yes. I know. Zephyr told me that, too.”

“Is there anything about my whole life that he didn’t tell you?”

“Well, no. He even told me about your brother.”

Cameron stared at her. His face looked gaunt, and quite a bit worse than the occupants of the coffins.

Brother. Brother. So it was a boy, after all. And I … I killed them all. Killed them all. Killed them all …

“What does ‘pyratechnix’ mean?” Saffron asked.

“Eh?” Cameron dragged himself with an effort out of the dark, angsty depths of his soul. “I don’t know. ‘Pyrotechnics’ in a bad British accent?”

“Interesting. You killed Winona.”

He blinked at the sudden subject chance. “I did?”

“Winona. The wyvern. You slaughtered her in cold blood. She wasn’t going to hurt anyone. Zephyr was even so kind as to head her off back here.” Saffron slid off the slab and started to pace restlessly. Cameron stood, a mite unsteadily, and watched her silently. “It would’ve been fine … you are such an idiot! There’s this great, magical thing in this city, with all these incredible creatures, and your first thought is ooh, let’s kill them all! Whereas I make them my friends and help as best I can only to have them murdered in front of me!”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“And I know some of them aren’t trustworthy – heck, look at Zephyr! He’s going to stab me in the back one of these days, but he’s still my friend and I at least try to keep him out of trouble, whoever his master is. And you go and … kill them all …”

With an effort, Cameron made himself callous. “You’re the necromancer. Bring them back.”

She glared at him. “I’m going to try to. But this is all your fault, Cameron Julian Harcort.”

“Call me Cameron,” Cameron said, hating how flippant he sounded.

She snorted, but didn’t respond, instead bustling around with various things. Cameron craned to see them, but couldn’t quite.

“Idiotic pyromancer,” Saffron muttered.

“I’m not just a pyromancer, you know. I can cook.”

She glanced at him, disbelief plain on her face.

“I’m a good cook!” Cameron said defensively. “Really!”

She sighed. “Whatever. I’m going to have to find a body vaguely like a wyrm’s to put Winona’s consciousness into … I’m suspicious, though, about Zephyr’s master. Maybe I should kill two birds with one stone. See what EyesInTheDark can figure out.”

“Whatever. Can I go now?”

“Eh?” she said distractedly.

“I get it. No more killing first and not asking questions later. But now I have to get home.”

“I think not. You haven’t learned your lesson quite yet.”

Saffron clicked her fingers, and a creature like but not very much like a raven swooped down and knocked Cameron unconscious. Again.

***

Several weeks after their first meeting, Alex Scott and Matthew Donovan were engaged in their usual activity, which was drinking.

(Not that there was any reason to, but then again, there wasn’t any reason not to.)

They were in the Waterfront Inn, a place so realistically archaic that at any moment you expected someone to be tossed out the swinging doors at the front. It hadn’t happened yet, but Scott kept n craning back on his seat to check, ever hopeful. He would have preferred one of the livelier nightclubs in Wellington, but Donovan stuck out like … well, like a not-quite-middle-aged werewolf who didn’t like nightclubs. It was irritating, but it was life.

The main thing that annoyed Scott was that there weren’t many pretty people to flirt with here. There was that Dennis fellow drowning his sorrows in the corner, but he was completely insignificant. In fact, none of the inn-goers seemed very outgoing. So when the swing doors swung open, he swivelled in his seat and gave the newcomer an approving look.

He was slender, pale-skinned and white-haired, with red eyes. Scott opened his mouth to try a pickup line, then closed it when he noticed the horns. Bad idea. Very bad idea.

Sephri meandered over to them. “I have a proposition for you, gentlemen.”

Donovan barely glanced at him. “I’m straight.”

Scott looked Sephri up and down. “I’m sober.” He shrugged and turned away.

Sephri cleared his throat slightly. “You seem to be fairly unique, both of you. Your kinds do not generally mingle.”

“Understatement,” Donovan and Scott said, in unison.

“And if either of you ever happen to be down on your luck, I am certain my employer will be able to help you.” He pulled a card out of the inside of his suit and flicked it onto the table.

Donovan grunted. Scott said, “Thanks,” because you have to be polite to demons. Sephri smiled blandly and wandered away.

***


It was midmorning. This was kind of difficult to tell, as the buildings blocked anything that could come even close to being described as ‘sky’, but all the same, somewhere, a morning was midded and it was proud of it.

Bentasmal pulled out his phone. It was sleek, silver, shiny, and roughly the size of one and 0.35ths postage stamps. He poked at the number pad cautiously with his thumb. His thumb was considerably larger than the number pad.

Bentasmal sighed. He was quite young, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt that looked like they had been slept in. (They hadn’t.) His hair was darkish-lightish brown, his eyes more of the same, and he blended in with the crowd like … like a somewhat scruffy teenager blending in with a crowd, really. He manipulated the number pad of the phone, barely glancing at it. His eyes were riveted on the ATM across the street. Someone was keying in their PIN.

Before he drowned on acronyms, Bentasmal activated the camera and flicked up the top of the phone. He slouched against a half-wall, managing to be noticed as being completely unnoticeable. In his mind he composed an email to an online acquaintance, VengefulAngel.

Potatoes? If you say so, Venge. They seem more like fuel for the fast-food industry than a creative medium to me.

You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had. No, really, you wouldn’t. So I won’t tell you. Hah.

He sighed. It was true, too. Online friends were nice, particularly this one, but it was kind of difficult to slip the words ‘Incidentally, I make enough money to live by stealing things on commission’ into a conversation about haberdashery or Firefly or line-dancing or whatever.

He flipped the top of the phone back down again as the unknown person finished their transaction. This wasn’t even a commission job, just something to occupy his time.

“darn, I hate my life,” Bentasmal muttered.

“Tell me about it.”

Bentasmal screamed, and then instantly slouched into a position that made it look like he totally hadn’t just freaked out at a talking worm, nope, he wasn’t a sissy at all.

Wait, what?

The worm was quite an average looking one. It narrowed its bristles at Bentasmal. “Are you the one known as EyesInTheDark?”

He’d chosen the name quite some time ago. It just seemed to fit, as easily as his first one did, though it certainly didn’t sound usual. He didn’t know his real name or past, and he didn’t care to know. “That’s me,” he said, in a manly, non-screamy voice.

“I’m Winona,” the worm said. “My master sent me to talk to you.”

“Your master …?”

“Yes. She can’t spell.” Winona rolled her eyes. Somehow. She didn’t even have eyes, but she wasn’t about to let that stop her. “I was a wyrm. It’s not that hard to spell! I should be a komodo dragon or something right now!”

“No, I think not. Komodo dragons are really slow and sluggish and they take hours to digest their food.”

“Really? Gross.”

“Yeah. They’re also known as ‘average Kiwi males’.” Bentasmal snorted. “Who’s your master?”

“Saffron. She says she commissioned something from you a while ago. It was—”

And yes, he remembered now, of course he did. How could he forget? It was certainly a unique commission (‘theft’ didn’t sound very upmarket), and the client had been memorable in herself.

“Boots,” Bentasmal said.

“Yeah. She wants you to find out something about some suspicious company, or something. Foist Industries? It’s to do with a demon, and the turf war.”

“Well you’re sure helpful.” Bentasmal snorted.

“What do you expect? I’m a worm.”

Despite his casual words, Bentasmal was cringing internally. Everyone in Wellington who was wise to the hulking great hole in Space/Time that squatted over the fault line knew about the turf war. Vampires and werewolves were always a little twitchy around each other, but lately it had gotten a whole lot worse. People had died.

“I’m on it,” Bentasmal said, folding his phone into his pocket. His pocket was way too small and tight to the skin to be of any use for holding anything more than a few microns in size. The phone fitted perfectly.

What the heck. He was bored anyway.

Hey, Venge. Today a reincarnation of a dragon in the form of a talking worm contacted me on behalf of a necromancer who loves small fluffy animals. She wants me to investigate the war between vampires and werewolves and thinks it has something to do with a demon and that company that makes forms.

Hah. It was a pity that Venge would never believe him, whoever he (or she, though Bentasmal had never thought of that) was.

***

Alex Scott snapped his fangs in a menacing kind of way. Not that he was annoyed, not really. It was simply a matter of principle.

Donovan rolled his eyes. “Calm down.”

“I’m not about to let a friend stroll right into the heart of the werewolves’ lair!”

“When that friend is a werewolf, you should feel at least a little less concerned, shouldn’t you?” Donovan stared at the tides. The two acted as though they’d been friends for years, but disagreements still arose now and then. “I resent the word ‘lair’, by the way.”

“The war is flaring. It’s not safe.”

“You dragged me right into the city the other day! To get drinks! When we can’t even get drunk!”

“Well, yes.” Scott considered this, then rallied. “But that was before you were unemployed.”

“I’m always unemployed. With brief showers of working hours and a chance of guard work, but still. What’s that got to do with—”

“Do you know how many door to door salesmen and other unscrupulous individuals target people without much money, trying to trick them out of what little they have?” Scott gestured extravagantly. He was wearing a jacket that might have been leather or might have been denim and that hid stains very well. Not that there were any suspicious stains on his jacket at all. Nope.

“I need a job.”

“I have plenty of money. Oodles of it. You can borrow off me.”

“Nuh-uh. That’s when the whole ‘lair of werewolves’ thing would come in. If my pack thought I’d betrayed them they’d rip me apart.”

“That’s a little harsh. Do you at least have dental?”

“Could you at least try to be serious?”

“Nope!”

“Look, just relax. Foist Industries make forms. How dangerous could it be?”

***

Sometimes people describe the wind was roaring, or wuthering, or even whistling. None of these are technically true. The wind ripples.

The wind rippled around the buildings, guided the wings of pigeons, snatched papers from frantic hands and broke umbrellas into mere husks. It spun and danced and, to those that could listen, it sung.

The wing rustled in the long hair of the man that stood there. ‘Man’ wasn’t the right word. Not at all. He was … unidentifiable. But beautiful. So, so beautiful.

He stretched out his wings, and basked in the wind’s song.

... I just realized that Scott's line about how werewolves have no taste could definitely be taken the wrong way. xD Heh. But then again, maybe he meant it that way.

[Rikku]

I have nothing against policemen. Really. But odd things happen when I word war.

SPOILER: Click to show

“Guh?”

Cameron stirred drowsily. The light had passed midmorning and was something closer to mid-afternoon. The wind tapped coyly at his window. He sat bolt upright, and then clumped back to the ground. Why had he thought he was in a mausoleum? It must have just been a dream. A horrible, oddly inventive dream.

“Hello.”

“GUH!”

Cameron scooted backwards. Sephri smiled brightly. Cameron whimpered.

“Relax! I’m not going to hurt you, Cameron Julian Harcort.”

“Why do I not believe you?” said Cameron resignedly. His eyes widened in sudden realization. “Oh, hell.”

“We prefer the phrase ‘Darker Realms’ generally, but on the whole, not entirely inaccurate. Well done. Have a cookie.”

“What time is it?” said Cameron frantically, ignoring him. Sephri was wearing jeans and a turtleneck, and somehow managed to make the look seem incredibly stylish. darn it.

“… I think it’s the twenty-first century. Beyond that I get confused. Humans have irritating systems of measurement. Imperial. I ask you. More like Impale.”

If Cameron’s skin hadn’t been permanently ruddy, he would’ve gone pale, and it didn’t have anything to do with the demon’s chatty demeanour or sharp claws.

The phone rang.

Cameron scrambled for it. He put the receiver to his ear. He listened.

“I understand,” he managed to croak, and then stared at the phone as though it had suddenly sprouted polka-dotted tentacles and started tap-dancing.

“Bad news?” Sephri said, in a voice that wasn’t very sympathetic at all.

“I’m a waiter. Or I used to be. Because I missed my last shift, I … I’ve been fired.” Cameron stared into the distance, his eyes hollow.

Sephri chortled. “Fired, pyromancer? Hah! I wonder why. Maybe you took things too literally when your boss told you to serve things with a flare!”

Cameron said nothing.

“When people say they want ‘the works’, they don’t generally mean the fiery kind.”

Cameron, shockingly, said nothing. It was slowly beginning to sink in. His future. No way to be a great cook now. No way to be anything but a desperate pyrotechnician, scrabbling for coins by performing at childrens’ birthday parties, forever using the flame that had robbed him of his parents. Useless. Always.

“I bet when you served things flambé, things got a little heated …”

Still no response. Sephri sighed, feeling slightly exasperated, and examined one long, manicured claw. It was sharp enough. He slashed out at Cameron’s shoulder, drawing a long, thin red line even through the yellowy plastic of the raincoat. Blood welled and trickled and ran down the hacked-off sleeves. (Fire and long sleeves do not go together very well.)

Cameron blinked and shook his head slightly, as though trying to wake. Belatedly, he winced and put a hand to his shoulder. It came back red. “You are psychotic!”

“Glad to serve,” said Sephri, sarcastically.

Cameron sighed. “darn. Fired. I don’t believe it.” He pushed his dark hair back from his forehead. The skin was scorched reddish and slightly shiny. Blood dripped from his shoulder to the floor.

Sephri eyed it. “Well, believe it. Incidentally, you’re kind of dripping—”

“Fired! I’m fired!”

“Uh-huh. Look, do you want a band-aid or something?”

“Fired …” Cameron moaned, disconsolate.

“Yes. We get the idea.” Sephri rolled his eyes.

“Why are you here?” Cameron snapped, suddenly and disturbingly lucid.

“What, so I’m not allowed to visit a friend now?”

“No.”

“Maybe I’m here to gloat.”

“No doubt. But there’s more than that.”

“You are no fun at all.” Sephri flicked a business card at him. “Here. My employer’s.”

Cameron looked at it. Foist Industries was written in nice, goldish letters. There was even a border. “Your master, you mean.”

“Well, yes, if you want to be crude. He might be able to offer you a job. Pyromancers are not very common, even in this city.”

“I don’t need another job. I’m a pyrotechnician, and enough people ordered various fireworks for the fifth for me to be fed through to Christmas at least.” Cameron yawned. “And it’s your fault I was fired, yours and Saffron’s. You made me miss my shift.”

Sephri stood and brushed off his turtleneck. He meandered towards the balcony door and hesitated, seeming uncharacteristically unsure.

“You might want to look into it. Trust me. Demons can’t lie.” And then he was gone.

Cameron stared after the demon and then burst into uncontrollable laughter. Trust me indeed.

But really … he might have a point.

Cameron sighed, hating himself. This was a bad idea. A very bad idea. But he had to find out what was going on. There was this vampire werewolf thing, and all the usual nasties that wandered through the Rift. He needed the money. And besides, Sephri’s master … this might be interesting. He had to admit he was curious.

Cameron glanced at the card, noting the address, and then wandered off to find a band-aid.

***


“Foist Industries, Foist Industries, Foist Industries … ah, here we are.”

Donovan didn’t stop straight away; instead, his meander slowly petered out until he was standing a few metres from the entrance into the building. It was big, big and impressive looking, and he had to admit to being daunted. The last in his successive line of jobs had been at a take-out joint. This was more up-market than he was used to.

There were a few other people around. Quite a few. More than would be expected. Maybe they, too, had heard that Foist Industries was hiring. Or maybe they just liked looking at the shiny façade of the building. (It was big and bland, but all those windows stacked together were bound to have an effect. It looked as though there should be an invisible lift on the pavement in front of it. Of course, if there had been, it wouldn’t have been seen, but still.)

Donovan sighed and took a step forward, then a slightly smaller step back. He was procrastinating.

***

Cameron Harcort shrugged on his yellow plastic rain jacket. The pockets were well stocked with anything he might conceivably need – a wooden spoon, a cigarette lighter, various condiments, matches, and a butter knife. Okay, so maybe not everything, but pretty darn near everything. He took the stairs two at a time down, stumbled, didn’t quite lose his balance, and staggered out the door. Dennis, standing behind the counter, watched him disconsolately, in an incredibly insignificant kind of way.

Cameron took an electric bus. Electric buses were neat and nifty. They had these cool cable things that connected them to wires, and the cables were plastic coated. They resembled nothing so much as some rather overweight and oddly pastel-coloured wetas. This comparison did not do much to ease Cameron’s nerves. Rather overweight, oddly-coloured pseudo-prehistoric insects aren’t really the best thing to thing about if you’re trying to calm down. Whale songs are helpful, or waterfalls, but both of these were rather too aquatic for his tastes.

He glimpsed something out of the corner of his eye. A newspaper stand. The headline was Brutal Killin’s, complete with apostrophe. Someone had read far too much Harry Potter.

But here, here was the bus stop closest to the address on the card Sephri had given him. He slinked out the door amidst a tide of suited people, feeling out of place with his wounded shoulder and scruffy hair and clothes. But there were people even scruffier than him amidst the crowd. They went in the same direction as he did, towards the tall office block. It really was tall, in a country that thought of ‘skyscrapers’ as something that happened to other people.

Cameron dithered. While he did so, he noticed something. A lot of the people in the crowd were … odd. A woman had hair the colour of burnt honey that cascaded down her back, and for a moment it looked as though her back was hollow, a shell. Cameron stared after her, shaken, and was bumped into by a small, squat man with skin the colour of avocado peel. The man muttered an apology and headed towards Foist Industries in what was almost a run.

Cameron stifled a cry. Rifters, all of them, or at least most of them. Even the pigeons looked a little odd, as though they had been crossed with rats. But who on earth would want to gather or control the various people that spawned from the gaping hole in space and time? Wellington sat on a fault line in more ways than one. Cameron had long suspected that the numerous odd things the rift spawned were caused by human imagination, peoples’ perceptions of the world, and that meant that it could be manipulated. Playing with fire was dangerous, as he knew full well. He couldn’t let that happen, not when it was all his fault.

Wait. That man, there.

He was sturdily built, tallish, with untidy dark brown hair that went every which way. There was a creasing of stubble across his cheeks. His clothes were patched and unstylish, but clean enough. And he was a werewolf.

After all these years of keeping monsters at bay and fighting for his live against them, Cameron could recognize one of the moon-shadow folk at a glance. The glint in his eyes, the way he stood, all these things gave Cameron worlds of knowledge. A werewolf. And a strong one at that. Maybe not reckless, but … he probably had a high position in his pack. High enough to know what was going on, maybe, or to be able to do something towards stopping the hostilities between vampires and werewolves.

Before he knew what he was doing Cameron was summoning flame. He specialized in borderline illusions, what seemed to be tricks of the light, dancing flames just beyond the edge of vision. Bulk flame wasn’t really his forte. He made a spark dance into life in front of the werewolf’s nose, and watched that nose flare as the smell of flame of gunpowder reached it. Automatically the stubble-faced man braced himself, drawing back his lips in a snarl as his face grew slightly longer, his eyes more slitted. That was enough to confirm what Cameron already knew.

He made fire burn on one side of the werewolf, then to his front, then to his back, hemming in. It wasn’t real fire, of course, just a shell of sparks, but the wolf didn’t need to know that, and the heat made his hair stand up on end.

The wolf looked around in sudden confusion, then dashed in the only direction not hemmed in by flame. Cameron meandered after him, whistling slightly.

It was a simple matter to make the flames chase the wolf without doing any damage, and Cameron herded the werewolf into what looked like an abandoned warehouse. It’d do.

Cameron clicked his fingers ostentatiously, and the flames flickered and died. He smiled, his best imitation of Sephri’s razor-blade smile, and coughed pointedly.

Donovan spun around, a growl ripping its way out of his throat. Cameron wandered forwards, fished some rope out of his pockets (yep, just about everything) and tied the wolf’s hands behinds his back. Or paws, really. It was difficult – the joints were a little out of shape as the wolf struggled to decide whether or not to fully change.

“I shouldn’t bother,” Cameron said smoothly, hooking his foot around the leg of a chair that was, inexplicably, sitting in the middle of the dust-covered room and nudging it towards the werewolf. “Please sit. My name is Cameron, by the way. And you?”

“What do you want?” Donovan growled, eyeing the chair as though he expected it to sprout fangs or start quoting Shakespeare.

“I want lots of things,” Cameron said, stepping back into the shadows. “Mostly answers to questions. Don’t worry, though, I’m not going to hurt you.”

“The way things are going,” Donovan said, in a very menacing voice, “I should be more worried about me hurting you.”

“If you were hurting me, why would you be worried?” Cameron gave him a quizzical look. “You’re not making very much sense.”

“No, because in the scenario I’m you, and then I’d get hurt,” Donovan said, fully aware that explaining the threat took quite a bit of the oomph from it.

“No, but you said you’d be hurting me, which in the scenario means you’d be hurting yourself. Which doesn’t make very much sense. What’s your name, by the way? And that’s one of those questions that I think you’d better answer.”

Donovan stared at him as though he would quite like to rip his throat out and feed it to a rabid chihuahua, but sat, grudgingly. He knew perfectly well that he didn’t want to go up against someone who could control fire like that. Cameron darted forwards and tied his hands to the back of the chair, humming slightly. Donovan growled under his breath. “Matthew Donovan.”

“There, see? Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Donovan’s growling increased its intensity. Cameron skipped neatly out of range.

“Now tell me what you know about Foist Industries.”

“Easy,” Donovan said. “Nothing. A demon gave me a card and I was curious.”

“A demon? Oh dear. That isn’t good.” Sephri was spreading the word, then. And that really wasn’t good. At all. It was far past time to investigate this master of his. Cameron recalled Saffron mentioning an investigator or thief or something, EyesInTheDark. Maybe he could handle it all and Cameron wouldn’t have to do a darn thing.

Yeah, right.

The werewolf had said something. With an effort, Cameron dragged himself back into the present. “Sorry, what was that?”

“I said, why do you want to know?”

Cameron stared at him, a little distantly. Maybe there was one big boss in control of Foist Industries. Foist? That was an unusual name. Didn’t it mean pickpocket, or something?

“Hmm? Oh. I just want to help people. The Rift is my fault.”

“Oh …” Donovan stared at him. “You’re him! You’re that pyromancer!” His voice was surprised, disbelieving even. “I’m … so sorry.”

“You know of me?” said Cameron blankly.

“Most Rifters do. You’re … notorious.”

“Wonderful.”

“And the Rift opened right where your house used to be … I’m sorry about your parents, and your little—”

“Right, well, yes,” Cameron said a little too loudly, thinking Where my house used to be? That’d be the mausoleum … explains a lot, thinking anything that kept him from thinking about what the end of Donovan’s sentence would have been, “since you’re so good at gathering information it’s a wonder you don’t know more.”

There was the noise of crashing glass somewhere high above. Cameron barely flinched, staring at Donovan with a distant expression on his face.

“Yeah, it is,” Donovan said. He would have to talk to some other members of the pack, figure out what was going on. Something fishy was afoot. And he’d seen headlines of brutal murders, ones he was sure no werewolf had done, but Scott was sure it was none of his coven either. “And like I said, I’m so, so sorry … so sorry that my friend is about to land on top of you.”

Scott landed elegantly enough, but despite his gangliness he was an almost full-grown man and his weight sent Cameron sprawling to the ground. The vampire paused, blinked, and hopped off, looking a little apologetic. He was holding a martini, for some reason. There was a little olive in it.

“Ouch,” Donovan said to no one in particular. “That looked like it hurt.”

“Sorry it took me so long. I was … busy.” Scott brandished the drink in a distracted kind of way. His shirt was incorrectly buttoned, as though he’d done it up in a hurry. Donovan decided not to ask.

“I’m surprised you came at all. Thanks. Guess I owe you one.” Donovan shunted the chair around a little. Scott struggled to untie the knots.

“Of course I came. You’re my friend.”

Donovan smiled, a little uncertainly. He hadn’t had many non-wolf friends before. “Oh, and, um, by the way, that fellow is a pyromancer. Better be careful.”

“Pyromancer?” the vampire said, turning a little. Donovan craned to see behind him.

“Look out! He has a wooden spoon!” he yelled, and then blinked. “Wait, what?”

Cameron glanced down at his hand and snorted. He’d grabbed the closest thing to his hand, and while wooden spoons were wonderfully handy in the kitchen they weren’t really what you wanted when you were facing two irked Rifters.

A vampire and a werewolf. Working together. When did that happen?

Scott took a step forwards. “Okay, you’re a fast recover-er … er, I’ll give you that. But you tied up one of my friends.”

“Jealous?” said Cameron, having gotten a fairly good idea of the kind of person Scott was.

He shook his head. “No, I’m Alex,” he said brightly. “Alex Scott. And I am seriously annoyed.”

Cameron had had time to rummage in his pockets again, and he flung something at Alex. “I banish thee!”

Scott flinched away from the herb, twisting so as little as possible of his skin came in contact, letting out an anguish cry as he was burned by the –

“Nutmeg?” He stopped in confusion, staring at Cameron.

“Well, yeah. I didn’t know I’d need garlic.” Cameron coughed. This was awkward.

Now they were both staring at him. “Why were you carrying around nutmeg?” asked Donovan, forgetting about his bonds for a moment.

“It, er … is handy in cooking,” Cameron said, a mite defensively.

This did not stop them from staring.

“I’m a good cook! Really!”

Scott sighed. “So do not have time for this,” he said, and knocked Cameron unconscious. It seemed to be becoming a habit.

Donovan wriggled his hands in Scott’s direction. “That wasn’t really necessary. He seemed nice enough.”

“Wasn’t really unnecessary either,” Scott muttered, untying his hands. Donovan stood, cracking his knuckles enthusiastically. Scott winced.

“What, the bloodsucker queasy? Now that is amusing.” Donovan chortled.

“It’s not that. This fellow—”

“Cameron.”

Scott surveyed him dourly. “Cameron, then. Cameron is bleeding. Which makes me suddenly realize that I haven’t fed in … quite a long time.”

“Grab a burger or something,” Donovan suggested, barely suppressing a grin.

“You know full well that is not what I meant.” Scott sighed. “I should be fine. Should. But he’s distracting.” He sipped from his martini and shuddered. “It’s gone all warm.”

“Oh, yes, well, I suppose that’s what you should expect after you jump through the roof and land on a pyromancer. Your drink is bound to get a little warm.” Donovan snorted in an admiring kind of way.

Scott flushed with pleasure at the compliment. Vampires are naturally rather more agile than humans, but he was something else even by their standards. His skin did look rather pale, though. He needed blood. Blooooood.

Scott shook himself slightly, running a hand through his tousled blond hair. He glanced up at Donovan, who had a strange expression on his face.

“What?”

“Someone … triggering … change,” he grunted. Scott took a half-step backwards, scrutinizing his friend. It was difficult to be sure in the dim light of the conveniently abandoned warehouse, but the werewolf was turning into his wolven form and he did not look happy about it.

“Make sure I don’t do anything oddrgrahghghh …”

The last word turned into a guttural growl halfway through. A wolf was crouching there, with greyish-brown fur and sharp teeth which were currently bared. Scott frowned. Werewolves are naturally disinclined to like vampires, and from what Donovan had said he was fairly certain this was out of the ordinary. The vampire’s friend might not be fully in control of himself.

Scott pulled out the olive on its little toothpick and tossed it in Donovan’s direction. The wolf gulped it down and smiled happily. Or it might have been grimacing in rage. Wolves have rather limited facial mobility.

“Nice doggie?” said Scott cautiously.

The wolf howled.

***

A wolf howled.

Bentasmal couldn’t suppress a shudder. Moments after, he scolded himself. Now was not the time to lose his nerve. It was probably just an … overgrown dog. Of some sort. Yeah.

Foist Industries. They made forms. That was just too ridiculously mundane to be true, surely. The world didn’t work like that.

A wolf howled again. It was a whole lot closer.

Bentasmal backed away. It was only early evening, not dark enough to get really worried, but all the same he found himself being … really worried. It was funny. Only moments before he’d thought he hated his life. Now he found that he’d really rather hang on to it.

There was a noise, as of fluttering wings, as of a dream of butterflies. Bentasmal looked up, his movements seeming slow and torpid. There was a man standing in front of him, seeming almost to glow. His hair was long, shimmering … was it silver, was it gold? It seemed to encase a rainbow, and his dark-obsidian eyes could have held the world. His wings were graceful, elegant, and he was far too beautiful to be human.

He reached out a hand to Bentasmal, and –

Another howl. The creature spread his wings and sprang into flight and out of sight. Bentasmal blinked its shimmering afterimage away with a pang of loss. Beautiful.

“Whoa there, boy!”

A dog careened around the corner. It was definitely a dog. Yep.

… Maybe.

A collar was attached to its neck. A leash was attached to the collar. A man was attached to the leash, more or less. He was running after the dog, trying to rein it in. He wasn’t doing a very good job.

“Hey! Slow down, Don!” The man yanked back on the leash, somehow managing not to fall over as the dog hauled back. “No eating the nice …” The man stopped and blinked. “Wait, you’re not a Rifter. Are you? What are you doing here?”

He was tall, gangly, blond-haired and blue-eyed. He was dressed in a white shirt, black jeans and a jacket, though his clothes were in a state of mild disarray. He blinked inquiringly at Bentasmal.

Bentasmal scared at him. Scott, meanwhile, was reconsidering his first estimate. The boy was small, brown-haired, kind of pretty in a nervous kind of way (Scott had a tendency of judging people based on appearance that was really quite lamentable but nonetheless amusing) and had dark, crumpled shadows under his eyes. He looked like he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in years. Certainly stressed enough to be a Rifter.

“I’m the EyesInTheDark,” Bentasmal said, rallying magnificently. His tone had just enough haughty. “And who are—”

He couldn’t quite finish his sentence because Scott hugged him. Bentasmal froze in surprise, slightly too confused to retaliate. Scott kissed his cheek and then took a step backwards, hands firmly on the youth’s shoulders. Then he took another few steps backwards very quickly. Wolf-Donovan, who had been ready to pounce, growled in a disappointed kind of way as it was forcibly pushed against the wall.

“Sorry about that. My compatriot here has suffered from a rather sudden turn.” Scott gave a flustered but nonetheless charming grin. “I fear he is not fully himself.”

“Werewolf,” Bentasmal nodded. That made sense. “I don’t mean to pry, but why were you just … conveniently carrying a collar and leash?” He peered. “A fluffy collar and leash?”

Scott had the decency to look embarrassed. “You don’t want to know. Really.” The wolf started growling low in its throat, and Scott shoved his elbow into it. The wolf shut up.

The way he was talking combined with his earlier actions seemed … familiar somehow. Bentasmal felt as though he should remember him.

The man smiled, and early moonlight glinted off fangs. Bentasmal stiffened in surprise. The vampire snapped his mouth shut and looked away, his usual grin absent.

“Are you really Sinth? Because I’d hate to think I’d just hugged a complete stranger and then proceeded to save him from a werewolf. That would just be embarrassing.” His laugh was a little strained.

Bentasmal’s eyes widened. He was remembering a conversation he’d had quite recently with his favourite online acquaintance.

You want to know what’s troubling me, Venge? I can’t sleep. Pretty close to Halloween now, so I suppose that is not too unusual. Ghosts and goblins, wolves and wights, all are on the prowl tonight. I fear that I cannot get in the festive mood by carving some pumpkins, more’s the pity. Not in season and they turn to mush fairly quickly.

insomniac? my sympathies, sinth. i have difficulties with guilt, myself. for reasons that i doubt you’d understand. a good cure is finding something fun to do, and i don’t necessarily mean that in a dirty way, that will mean you don’t want to sleep. and potatoes are good for carving.

“I go by Bentasmal IRL, but yeah. That’s me.” Bentasmal stared at the vampire in front of him.

“I’m Alex, Alex Scott. I would shake your hand, but … yeah.” The wolf tried to writhe out of Scott’s grip and he gripped its throat in his hands. “You’re younger than I thought you’d be, to tell the truth.” He gave a toothy grin.

Bentasmal laughed. He’d met VengefulAngel on a Firefly fan forum almost … yes, almost two years ago now. And Venge had made him laugh, almost instantly. He didn’t laugh very often. “Really?” He eyed him. “You’re older than I thought you’d be.”

“You have no idea,” Scott said dryly. “And, um … it’s okay that you don’t want me to know your real name. Really. Probably wise. I wouldn’t tell my name to creepy vampires I’d met online either.”

Bentasmal blinked at him. “Bentasmal is my real name. I have no idea what my given name would have been.”

Scott made a sympathetic noise. “Your parents …?”

“My parents died,” Bentasmal said, “in a fire, before I was born.”

There was a thoughtful pause.

“Er, if they died before you were born, how—”

“I got lucky. Or unlucky. Depending on how you look at it.”

“Oh,” Scott said carefully. “That’s nice.”

“Or not nice. Depending—”

“On how you look at it. Yes.” He sighed. “Look, I would love to stay and talk some more, honestly I would, but Donovan seems to be a little more reasonable now and I need to get him home before he goes back to hurting-random-people mode. He was howling like crazy in your direction … odd. I don’t understand werewolves.” Scott shook himself. “We need to get a coffee or something. Okay?” He took a half-step forward and laid a hand on Bentasmal’s shoulder, smiling broadly.

“…Okay,” Bentasmal said, and managed the smallest of smiles in return.

“Okay!” Scott grinned, saluted and was nearly pulled off his feet as the wolf yanked free and dragged him around a corner and out of sight.

Bentasmal stared after him. He lifted a hand to his cheek, lightly, and then began to wander home, Foist Industries forgotten. His mind was haunted by dark-obsidian eyes.

Scott whooped with glee as he struggled to follow Donovan. Today had been interesting. There were all the Rifters gathered in one place – that was unusual, and intriguing. He had found one of his best friends and liked him. Even if his blood smelled just a little too tempting right now. If they did ever get that coffee, it would have to be a time when Scott wasn’t thirsty. He would never forgive himself if he hurt Sinth.

There had been an odd feel to the air, almost alluring, like a shimmering mist that shrouded Bentasmal. (Odd name that.) It had hung around for several minutes. Donovan had not liked it. At all.

But there was enough time to worry about that later. Right now he had to face a more complicated problem – namely, how on earth was he supposed to take an angry wolf onto a train?

***

Cameron woke in a haze of pain. Apparently the vampire wasn’t anywhere so neat about knocking people unconscious as Sephri was. Cameron would give him about a four and a half on a scale of ten for general professionalism. The fact that he was beginning to rate the way people knocked him unconscious was slightly depressing.

Somehow he managed to stumble back to his apartment. Dennis-the-completely-unobservant watched him staggering past and shouted something about the rent being late to his retreating back. Wonderful.

What time was it, anyway? What day? What month? Sephri’s callousness of time measurement was beginning to rub off on him and that, too, was worrying. Cameron switched the kettle on for a coffee – he hated coffee, but just for once he could make an exception. Caffeine might be just the thing to purge his thoughts.

He glanced at the calendar. November, that was it. First, second, third or what? Nearly the fifth, at any rate. Nearly his birthday. Hip hip hooray.

Cameron leaned against the bench. What he really needed was a bookcase, he decided. And then he could get some books to go with it.

What on earth was he supposed to do? This was a mess, a hideous mess, and his head was throbbing too much for him to do anything about it. All his fault, as per usual, but there was nothing he could do. Useless, always useless.

Maybe a little fresh air would help. Cameron hopped out onto the balcony, wincing as the wind slammed the door shut behind him. The sky was greyish, from what he could see of it – larger buildings on all other sides dwarfed the bakery.

But wait. What was that?

It was a shimmering, a dance of light, just outside the edges of his perception. He craned his head, trying to see. It was beautiful.

Cameron glanced around. There – a jutting brick. He put his foot on it, then began to haul himself up. His earlier tiredness was forgotten, and he paid little attention to his soon-scraped hands and complaining shoulder. They didn’t matter. This thing was beautiful, and it felt as though if he could just see it properly, all those worries and cares and guilts of his wouldn’t matter either.

There. It was a graceful figure, tall and elegant. His hair was … well, it was difficult to tell. Was it silver, the shimmering silver of the dust on a moth’s wing? Or, no, the soft, grainy gold of the sun shining on a beach that stretched to the horizon … but now it was blue, deep ocean blue, and green as the moss on a tree that lived a thousand years. It was so hard to tell. But he was beautiful, no doubt of that, even if his face was hard to make out. Beautiful.

The faerie spread out his wings. They were long, elegant, flared at the tips. He stepped out into space and stayed there, hovering seemingly without conscious effort. He held out a hand to Cameron. Offering him memories and peace and a lifting of guilt.

“Hello? Cameron Julian Harcort? Wakey wakey!”

The faerie was gone as though he had never been. Cameron stared at the space where he had been, just now becoming conscious of a throbbing ache in his hands and his shoulder and his head. This was perhaps the most worrying of all. No fae had come through the Rift before, and he had been very close to becoming lost in the glint of those dark-obsidian eyes. Cameron shuddered.

“Er, yes?” he said, turning to the worm who had spoken to him. He blinked, but that was all his reaction. He’d seen stranger things.

Winona glared at him, as much as that was possible. “You killed me, you know.”

“Yes, I know. Awfully sorry. It was an … accident.”

“You shoved fire down my throat!”

“Happens in Indian restaurants all the time!”

“Hmph,” Winona said, in a disapproving kind of way. “Well, Saffron wants to talk to you. At some point. About someone named … Faust? Foist? Something like that.”

“I’ll pay her a visit,” Cameron said, and then amended, “at some point. When my head no longer feels like it is being attacked by rabid dead hedgehogs.”

“Wonderful,” Winona muttered. “Well, cheerio.”

She dived back into the drainpipe and burrowed away. Cameron stared after her.

I am in a world, he thought, where that honestly just happened. Anything can happen. Anything. I can do anything.

He clambered back down smiling, and went to switch off his howling kettle.

***

It was, in fact, the third of November. There came a brief scream, only for a few moments before it was cut off with an unpleasantly fleshy thump. It was replaced with a faint, unsettling gurgle until at last the day was quiet again.

A slim shape wandered out of an uninhabited house (it was uninhabited now, at any rate) and wiped blood off his long, sharp nail. He was humming ‘I Crush Everything’, in a way that wasn’t anywhere near as self-loathing as you might expect.

Then he sprang onto the nearest rooftop. It was at least twenty metres tall, but he leapt with feline grace and surpassing-feline agility, from it to the next one, crisscrossing the skyline in a way that amused him greatly. Sephri had a dramatic soul.

But this was irksome, irksome indeed. He would have loved to cause chaos in his own way, mind games and manipulation; instead, he was limited to murder most foul. Murder most foul was fun, of course, but it might as well have been murder most fowl and executing chickens for all the entertainment value it contained. At least fire was allowed.

Encouraged, in fact.

Sephri smiled his razor-blade smile, and leaped once more into the night.



***


“Cameron Harcort?”

Cameron considered thanking the police officer for leaving his middle name out, but decided against it. The last thing he needed was a confused police officers. Police officers didn’t have guns, but tasers can still pack a pretty darned nasty punch.

“That’s me,” he said, almost flippantly. He had finally discovered painkiller medicine and his shoulder felt as though it was submerged in icy water, mainly due to the fact that it was wrapped in ice cubes, but still.

“You’re wanted somewhere or other. One of my superiors got word that you dealt with …” The somewhat useless police officer flailed a newspaper around in a superior sort of way. “Things like this,” he ended, somewhat lamely.

Cameron snatched the paper, shedding ice cubes all over the floor, and scanned the front page. The words Fire, fire jumped out at him like a giant cheaply printed jack in the box. He scanned the appropriate article quickly (very quickly) and threw the newspaper back at the police officer, who fell over.

“Tell him I’m on it,” he yelled, skidding down the steps and rushing out the beaded curtain. His wooden spoon jangled encouragingly against his matches and fire-lighter, though he hoped he’d need none of them. This smacked of arson, but judging by the picture and admittedly frantic article a whole building had been burned down to the ground in a matter of minutes. And that smacked of Rift. It smacked very much indeed, despite all laws to the contrary.

He caught an electric bus, because electric buses are nifty.

It was, indeed, burned down to the ground. Burned down slightly past the ground in fact, so it was a crater of ash and dust and debris and sheer, fuming destruction. Cameron gulped silently. The only person he knew of who could burn something so very thoroughly was … well, him. And unless he’d suddenly become schizophrenic, that meant that whoever had done this was at least as strong as him.

Mind you, there were quite a few people that met that description.

Cameron walked forwards cautiously. Not cowardly at all. Nope. Just cautious. Which was probably wise.

A figure stood bowed over in the middle of the debris, standing in a circle of complete ash. He looked up to grin at Cameron, a smile that was all teeth. His skin and hair seemed very pale against the burnt destruction he had wreaked, and his red eyes glowed.

“Sephri?” said Cameron, but the affirmation wasn’t really unnecessary. This was undoubtedly Sephri, and not the tame, sociable demon that had beat him at Brawl. This was people’s perception of the word ‘demon’, alright. He looked like he would fit in in the darkest pits of hell – sorry, the Darker Realms. Right.

Sephri howled at the sky, a cry filled with exultation and wicked delight. He bared his teeth in another feral grin.

“Yes. Yes indeed!”

“Sephri? Are you alright?” Cameron picked his way cautiously through the wreckage to where the demon stood. He was worried. But mostly nervous.

“Me? Better than alright! Ha! Cameron Julian Harcort, you have no idea what things would be like if you just let go, just let yourself watch the world burn …” He was pronouncing his words oddly, with an odd emphasis, almost triumphant.

“Actually I do. Remember how my parents and brother died?” Cameron tried to keep the hostility out of his voice. It wasn’t Sephri’s fault.

“Do I ever!” sang out Sephri. “Remember remember the fifth of November, the gunpowder treason and plot; I know of no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot!”

At the last word he tilted his head up to the sky, and wings burst from his turtlenecked back. It was incredibly dramatic. And he still looked beautiful, just less refined – more primal, somehow, darker. His wings would have been batlike, but it would have been an oversized giant bat on drugs with spikes and actual flyability, so they weren’t.

“Sephri,” Cameron said.

“Yes, Cameron Julian Harcort?” Sephri tilted his head in Cameron’s direction. It was incredibly disconcerting. His wings were black as pitch, and they fell about his slender shoulders in a pillow of night.

“Just call me Cameron,” Cameron muttered. “But you have to tell me. Was it your master who ordered you to do this?”

And he hoped it was. He really, really did. He sort of liked this demon fellow, psychotic as he was, and he really didn’t want to fight him. And he wouldn’t fancy his chances if he did.

“Naturally,” Sephri said. His eyes glinted. He looked wild. “Had I been acting of my own volition I would have done much more. This city would be razed to the ground, these people moaning and mourning dead loved ones, children howling out of scorched mouths. Oh, it would be wonderful!”

“Right. Right,” said Cameron, who didn’t really have enough friends to be picky about them. “But … your master ordered you? So this is all his fault, really.”

Sephri stared at him slowly, his smile fading. “Of course. All of this his fault, the things that aren’t yours. He antagonized the wolves and baited the bats and taunted those with the terrible tantrums, all the wyverns and monsters and men with sharp teeth and teeth shaped like men and hunger made solid, he made them want to fight each other and fight you. There’s a rhyme, if you’d like to hear it.”

The conversation seemed nonsensical. “Shoot.”

Sephri folded his wings back into his back, at the same time getting some degree of normality and control over himself. “The fae will play in many ways to find a mortal’s name; while others play with guns and knives, fae treat lives as a game.”

“Fae,” Cameron said softly. Beautiful. So beautiful.

“His name is Faust,” Sephri said. “And he is a businessman. He wanted to be a lawyer, but they’re too cruel for him to be properly capricious.”

Cameron laughed. “All those brutal killin’s, then … his fault? And yours?”

“Naturally,” Sephri said again.

“Oh. Well, then.” Cameron swayed slightly. “I would recommend hiding at Saffron’s for the meanwhile – the police caught sight of you and I don’t really need their lives on my conscience. I’ll arrange to meet you at some point, and maybe some others … we’ll think of something. Take him down.”

“While I’m sure that would please your conscience, it wouldn’t please me.”

“With this … Faust fellow out of the way, you would be free again.”

Sephri grinned, and his teeth seemed very clean and white against the ashes that smeared his face. “I’m already free. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

Cameron smiled weakly, suppressing the urge to run away and hide screaming somewhere very high up for a while. Heights wouldn’t really help. “… Wonderful.”

***

It was the third of November, evening. The Waterfront Inn was as boringly archaic as ever. Scott sipped his beer and wished it was a martini. Donovan sipped his beer and wished it was two beers.

Until the police wandered in through the doors. They looked around suspiciously, and everyone looked suspiciously at them – or, contrariwise, looked suspicious to them. It varies. With policemen, it’s hard to tell.

One of them, a useless-looking fellow, went to tap Dennis on the shoulder. “Hey, do you know anything about—”

“Don’t bother with him,” said his smarter colleague. “He’s completely insignificant.”

“You’re probably right,” the useless looking fellow concluded, and turned to stare at Scott and Donovan. “Hey. There.”

“I think you’re right, even though you’re useless.”

“Hey! Don’t be mean.” Scott swivelled on his chair to face them, and smiled broadly. “Hi. Can I help you?” He made it sound as though helping them would be the highpoint of his day, which it probably would be. Scott liked people in uniform.

“Mm. We’re looking for someone,” said Slightly Less Useless. “He was described to us as being quite tall, slender, pale-haired and pale-skinned …”

“Oh!” Scott clicked his fingers. “Someone like that was in here the other day!” He got to his feet in order to be more helpful and so he could talk to them better. “He had bright eyes, quite handsome features, very sharp teeth …”

“How tall?”

“Oh, about this …” He placed his hand in midair, squinted at it and moved it up slightly. It was, he suddenly realized, about his own height. “Oh dear.”

Donovan had turned around at that point, and his eyes widened a fraction. But he couldn’t exactly attack two policemen in the middle of a public place, even if it was a boring one. There was nothing he could do.

“He had red eyes,” Scott was telling the policemen, “and horns … you’re never going to believe me, are you.”

“Nope,” said Useless cheerfully.

“So you’d better come with us,” said Slightly Less Useless. They spoke together so well it was as though they’d rehearsed it, probably in front of a mirror when they were bored and quite drunk.

“Until this gets cleared up, I suppose,” said Scott, a little helplessly. He was trying not to breathe in too deeply, trying not to notice the red roses of exertion on Useless’s cheeks, trying not to notice the veins that traced across Slightly’s wrists … nope. Too late. “You don’t understand,” he said quickly.

“We get that a lot,” Useless said.

“You get that a lot.”

“Shut up, Tom.”

“Shut up yourself, Bob.”

“Shut up shut up yourself, Tom!” said Useless, who always liked to get the last word in a debate. He smiled in a triumphant kind of way.

“… Right,” said Tom resignedly. “Now, hey, are you going to come quietly?”

Scott hadn’t moved, though perhaps he should have. He could have escaped with very little inconvenience … but then he would be wanted for evading police capture, and a situation that might otherwise be cleared up pretty quickly would be quantimly over-complicated very very quickly. “Of course.” He held out his wrists and grinned. “Are you going to cuff me?”

Bob and Tom both looked vaguely creeped out. That was how most people reacted to Scott, though. So that was all right.

“Just … get in the car,” Tom said.

“Okey-doke,” Scott said brightly, and followed them outside. Donovan watched with slitted eyes. He hoped Scott knew what he was playing at. The vampire seemed awful hungry, and while the werewolf could appreciate him wanting to get this all cleared up, he wasn’t certain even his will power could withstand being locked up in a car with two nice ripe humans.

Scott shuffled into the car. It was nice, spaceable, blandly black and white. Bob and Tom got into the front (Tom driving, obviously) and the car moved away. Its sirens didn’t go, nor its lights flash. Scott was rather disappointed.

He leaned forward to talk to the two policemen, his head between their seats. “You probably won’t believe me, but I’m actually a really nice guy.”

“You’re right!” said Bob incredulously. “We don’t believe you!”

Scott sighed. “And you would probably quite like me,” he said, “if you met me in Society.”

“Is Society in France?” asked Bob. Scott smiled indulgently, then stiffened. He’d chanced to take a breath in, and he could smell their blood, rich and sweet and singing through their veins.

Instincts took over, and he snapped at Tom’s neck, barely missing. Tom swore as the car swerved. Scott’s mouth opened inhumanly wide, his teeth inhumanly long, white and sharp. His face, at that moment, did not look human at all. He reached forwards to snap again, and he wouldn’t miss this time.

But then he got control of himself, and forced himself back. He fell back onto the seat with a thump. Then he thrust his wrists through the partition. Both Bob and Tom recoiled. They looked fairly terrified.

“Since I seriously doubt you’ll believe me now,” Scott said, “cuff me. Please. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Bob handcuffed him to the chair, hopefully out of reach of any tempting necks, with a harshness that wasn’t entirely necessary and seemed to indicate that he did not feel the same.

Scott sat back, handcuffed to his chair. He saw little point in further conversation. Even if they did believe that he hadn’t done whatever they were searching for that demon fellow for, they could easily put him in jail just for being a danger. And they were probably right.

Bob pulled out some forms to help fill in the time. (As well as the date, case, and suspect’s name.) He also pulled out a pen, and somehow managed to cut himself with it. Blood welled from his thumb.

“Ow,” he said indignantly, somehow not noticing Tom’s sudden look of terror. “Hey, what’s your na—”

He got no further than that.

Scott wanted to feed, he needed to, but if he started drinking while he was in this state he wasn’t at all sure that one or both of the policemen would die. And they seemed nice enough.

“Got to go. Sorry.”

He tore his handcuff from the chair, and stood with rigid muscles and warring instincts. Forward, to the nice tasty meals in front of him, or out and away.

Escape instinct won over, and he dived out the door. The door was locked, and the car was still moving, but vampires are really, really fast and he didn’t let it bother him. He hit the ground running and disappeared into the city.

Bob and Tom stared blankly after him. Bob sighed.

“We never get to keep the suspects,” he mourned.

Tom whimpered.

Scott was not acting himself. Or he was acting himself, and his usual cheerfulness was simply a façade. It was so hard to tell. Maybe he was both, a brutal predator hiding behind a mask of niceness. Maybe he was neither. He wasn’t sure what he was. Or, right now, what he was doing. He was trying to get away, find some place to hide, but every time he came even close to some deserted spot food – no, a human, a human being, always seemed to be near, and that desperate hunger warred with his self-control until he moved on again. At last he found what looked like an empty building, somewhere near the ocean – a shipping crate maybe? He was too far gone to tell – and hid in it, hiding in a corner until at last he lost consciousness.

When he woke, he realized it wasn’t a shipping crate. More like a deserted warehouse. It reminded him of somewhere, though he couldn’t quite remember where.

The desperate gnawing hunger was gone – or sated, at least, which would have to do. He laid his head back again and sighed, before confusion replaced repletion.

He seemed to be missing his shirt, though his jacket was zipped up and he was warm enough. He half sat up, and a hand eased him back down.

“Easy there,” an amused voice said.

The voice belonged to Donovan, sitting watching him. His hand and wrist was wrapped in a bandage that Scott recognized as being his shirt, stained with blood.

Scott ran his tongue along the back of his fangs. Werewolf blood tasted sour, almost tangy. Like citrus.

“I suppose,” he said, “that I owe you a drink.”

Donovan smiled. “Least I could do. You saved my life … ish … and now I’ve returned the favour.” He shrugged. “But yeah, a drink would be nice.” He flailed the bandaged arm. “I’m just glad wolves heal quick.”

Scott sat up and rubbed the back of his head. “How did you know—”

“To follow you? Sheesh, give me some credit. We’ve been fighting your kind for years, we know how you act.” Ruthless. Without honour or justice or compassion. But Donovan wasn’t going to say that, not when it had already been proved wrong.

“Guh.” Scott got to his feet. “Okay, so … it must be the fourth now.”

“Yep!” said Donovan brightly. “Oh, by the way, that Cameron fellow—”

“Tall, stooped, oil slick of dark hair, kidnapped you,” Scott recalled.

“That’s the one,” said Donovan, amused. “He called a meeting or something. I’m going to go. It might be interesting. Something to do with Foist Industries.”

“Sounds fun. I’ll go.” Scott glanced down. “Once I’ve found a new shirt, anyway.”

... I know we're supposed to dislike most of the words we churn out during NaNo, but I find myself loving this. xD I feel like such a traitor.