Remember Remember - Rikku's NaNo

[Rikku]

SPOILER: Click to show

It was a diner. It was a perfectly ordinary diner, if you ignored the fact that very few Kiwis had ever heard the word ‘diner’. But diner it was, and it was majestic in its dinertude.

“A café would have worked just as well.” Saffron looked a little miffed, not to mention out of place. Her hair was attracting both admiring glances and incredibly confused glances. The mausoleum, she decided, had much better decorating.

“No,” Cameron said, “it wouldn’t. It really, really wouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Coffee smells disgusting.” He took a delighted sip of his coffee, ignoring Saffron’s venomous look. “… Mostly,” he added, defensively. “This one has delightfully whipped cream. And the cinnamon enhances—”

“You really are a cook!”

“Well, yeah.” Cameron looked pleased.

“That wasn’t a compliment, pyromancer.” Saffron sunk further down into her chair. They were sitting in a booth, Saffron on the side closest to the wall. It was very boothful.

“Here they come,” Cameron said, stirring more sugar into his cinnamon enhanced coffee.

Scott and Donovan entered, looking gangly and hulking, respectably. A few moments after, so did Bentasmal, looking out of place.

“Who’s he?” said Cameron, warily. Something about the stranger’s face, the glint in his brown eyes …

“That’s EyesInTheDark. I thought I’d invite him along. He’s quite intelligent for an almost fifteen year old.”

“Almost fifteen?” asked Cameron suddenly, as though realizing something. Saffron blinked at him.

Meanwhile Bentasmal was a little lost. He was so used to blending in with a crowd that it was slightly unsettling just being part of one. He caught up to Scott, who gave him a delighted grin.

“Sinth-Benny boy! Didn’t expect to see you here.”

“I didn’t expect to see me here either. A worm invited me. It was strange but I’ve experienced stranger.” Bentasmal surveyed the diner. “There are a lot of—”

He was going to say ‘people’, but Scott interrupted him. “Booths,” he said, nodding. “There are a lot of Booths. Are there any Brennans?”

Bentasmal struggled to stifle a laugh, but it was difficult. Scott smiled, seemingly grateful.

“You know, I think you’re one of the few people I’ve met who would actually get that joke.” Scott poked him. “You should try making an inside-joke joke. Go on. It’d be good for you.”

During this time they’d reached the booth. Scott stood back elegantly and motioned for Bentasmal to go before him. He entered on the other side from the dour-looking raincoated fellow and Saffron, not really liking the look of either of them. He knew Saffron, but that just made him trust her less.

Scott entered after Bentasmal and Donovan filed in after him. The vampire threw an arm over each of their shoulders happily. Donovan looked bored. Bentasmal blushed and looked away.

“Go on,” Scott told him. “Try it. Or I won’t ever be your vague Internet acquaintance again.”

Bentasmal grinned. There were people here, too many people, and he didn’t know Scott’s burly friend or the one they all called ‘pyromancer’ or even the necromancer all that well, but he didn’t feel nervous, or at least not very. Scott seemed to have that effect on him.

“Okay. So a flea walks into the Waystone Inn, right. And he asks Bast, ‘Is the bar tender here?’”

“That’s just an existing joke with the names changed. Doesn’t count,” Scott said, but he was smiling.

“For the record, I didn’t understand any of that,” said Cameron blithely.

“Who are you?” asked Bentasmal, though he was beginning to have suspicions. He remembered very little of his past life, but he remembered fire.

“Cameron,” Cameron said, at the same time as Saffron chimed, “Cameron Julian Harcort.” They glared at each other.

Harcort, Bentasmal thought. Interesting. “And you’re Saffron, I know you. Your worm has rather bad manners.”

“Doesn’t she just?” said Saffron, blissfully.

“And you … wait, are you Scott’s friend? The werewolf. Donovan.”

“That’s me,” Donovan said. He sounded bored as well. The diner’s menu didn’t involve steaks or chicken or anything else interesting.

“And you’re the … eyes in the dark?”

“EyesInTheDark,” Bentasmal corrected. “I go by Bentasmal. Easier on the tongue.”

“Not by much,” Cameron muttered.

Scott had produced a takeaway soft drink cup from somewhere and was sipping from it. The straw was transparent, and through it the liquid was red. He wouldn’t. Surely he wouldn’t. Not in the middle of the diner. Bentasmal blinked at him, then remembered he was embarrassed and looked away again.

“So why are we here?” he asked, striving not to make his voice too quiet.

“There’s something I think we’re all concerned with,” Cameron said. “Someone, rather.”

“Shouldn’t Zephyr be here?” asked Saffron.

Cameron shook his head. “I wouldn’t put it past him to end up slitting all our throats. And he wouldn’t pay his part of the tab, either. No. And besides … this concerns him more than any of the rest of us.”

“That wouldn’t be hard in my case,” Donovan said, looking, if possible, even boreder. There was an elusive scent just on the edge of his nose and he couldn’t quite place it. It was irksome.

“I don’t know about that,” Cameron said quietly. “There are those of your kin that have died. Brutally. Thanks to this man.”

Donovan looked shocked. Some of the brightness slipped out of Scott’s face, replaced by worry.

“Though ‘man’ isn’t quite the right word,” Cameron amended. “I think we’re dealing with one of the fae.”

Blank looks. Cameron sighed.

“A faerie.”

“Oh,” Scott said, in sudden realization. “That’s bad.”

“Really, really bad,” said Donovan, looking pale beneath his stubble.

“Don’t get much badder,” said Saffron, and even though Cameron had told her this earlier, her voice did not sound very chipper.

“Er … is it?” said Bentasmal, feeling left out. “What, like … dancing through the forest, glittery wings kind of faerie?”

Even as he said it he knew it wasn’t true, and he recalled something … dark-obsidian eyes. They would have haunted his sleep last night, had he slept.

“Yes,” Cameron said, very definitively. “Very very bad. And no, not that kind of faerie. At all. And though I know this isn’t the time, Scott, I still feel compelled to ask … what is the significance of your hat, exactly? Other than that you’re gay?”

The hat was pink, and it had feathers on it. Scott tilted it at a rakish angle and winked.

“Actually I’m bi,” he said. “Or straight. Depending on which situation I’m in and how I feel at the time. And whether or not I’m bored. Let’s go with ‘undecided’.”

Donovan coughed. “It means that he was out clubbing,” he said. “And the usual clubs he goes to generally have boas, not hats …”

“How on earth do you know that?” asked Bentasmal, astonished. Scott was sipping from his drink and the red liquid looked very suspicious.

“So I surmise that he was trying to find out information regarding Foist Industries, something which has been looming a lot of late.” As he said the words, the scent finally clicked into place in Donovan’s mind. Oh. That was odd.

“Clever!” said Scott. “I knew that I hung around with you for a reason. I haven’t found out much, though … vague hints, haunted looks. The president of Foist Industries is beyond suspicion, and so far beyond suspicion and towards definite guilt that it isn’t funny.”

“It wouldn’t be funny anyway,” Bentasmal said tiredly. He said everything tiredly, though.

Donovan craned his head around Scott’s neck to look at him, and then glanced back at Cameron.

“This may not be the time. In fact, it quite certainly isn’t. But you two … I take it you don’t realize you’re brothers?”

Outside the booth, chaos reigned, as per usual, with a special on three dollar soup today. Inside the booth … silence. Utter silence.

Cameron stared at Bentasmal, his eyes hooded, his face pale beneath its permanent chafed redness.

Brother. Brother. I have a brother after all.

He remembered it oh so well, though he had only been five. It was the fifth of November, and he had been happy, so happy, all the fireworks laid out on the counter. And then …

Fire, and burning, and flashing, charring heat. His father, features obscured by the shadow of memory … and his mother, with long dark hair and swollen belly.

It was written on her tombstone. Julia Harcort, beloved wife and mother – and beneath it, With unborn child. It had been another thing to add to Cameron’s guilt, the burden he carried with him everywhere. His little brother or sister had never even got to see the world before they died.

He remembered, too, craning over the tabletop as his mother swirled words idly, laughing with his father.

“I think,” Cameron said, almost too quietly to be heard, “that your name would have been Benjamin Miles Harcort.”

Bentasmal stared at him. The sound of his world crashing around his ears sounded strangely like a mix between hissing coffee and breaking windows.

“Brother,” he tried to say, but he choked on the word. Scott gave him a look full of concern and leaned the side of his face against Bentasmal’s head. The contact was oddly comforting.

Bentasmal pulled himself away, pressing against the wall. His teeth were grinding together. This was fantastic news, his brain recognized that, but he couldn’t feel anything other than shock.

“You killed them!” It was a few seconds before he realized that it was him who had spoken. “You killed my father and my mother and you killed ME and then I suppose you thought about it SO MUCH and REGRETTED it … sleepless nights, maybe? Ha!”

Cameron flinched slightly, as though he’d been slapped, but he didn’t make any move to argue.

“Thought about it so much that the Rift made me, but you couldn’t have thought just a LITTLE bit harder and made me an actual functioning human being?! I haven’t slept once in fifteen years and I never even knew my name and I grew up alone and it’s all because of YOU!”

Cameron bit on his lip so hard that it bled. The drop of blood was red against his red skin.

“Stop it,” Scott said, reaching out his hand. Bentasmal shoved it away, suddenly furious with him as well – such an idiot, did he always have to be flirting, would it kill him to be serious just once? And Scott must have seen the sudden revulsion on his face because his own face fell. He pushed his drink around worriedly, and Bentasmal took it and sipped from the straw, wanting to taste blood and feel like a monster.

It was Fanta. Bentasmal glared at it.

“I … think I need a little air,” he said, in a voice even quieter from his usual one, and he stood and almost ran out the door.

“That went well.” Scott dragged a hand across his face, looking every day of his thirty-five years.

“Sorry,” Donovan said, to no one in particular. He shrugged helplessly.

“Not your fault,” Cameron said. He sighed. “He’ll get over it. Maybe. I … sure hope so. I haven’t had a brother before. Well, obviously. How am I supposed to know what to do?”

“Cameron,” Saffron said gently, “you’re gibbering.”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“As to what to do … well, just let him think. EyesInTheDark is very intelligent. Maybe he’ll think of a way to tackle our mysterious faerie foe while he’s at it.”

Cameron grimaced bleakly.

Scott attempted a smile. “Hey, turn that frown upside down.” He pulled off his hat and settled it on Cameron’s head. “You need to be more laidback, pyrom … Cameron. You and Ben both.”

A feather tickled Cameron’s nose. He sneezed.

Outside the weather was calm. This was strange; it had been windy when he entered, wuthering almost. But Bentasmal didn’t spare the weather much thought.

He paced away from the odd little diner, away into the streets, away from the dark feelings and blameful regret that always welled up inside when he let himself think.

darn. I’m pretty much a cliché teenager in that respect.

Oddly enough, the thought did not help his mood.

He ended up by a pier, the waves gnawing endlessly at the shore. It was a bleak day, as grey and dismal as Bentasmal’s heart.

Yup. Definitely cliché.

He sighed and gnawed on his lip, beginning to feel cold. Maybe he should head back.

And then there was a shimmering, a play of light on the water, and the faerie was standing before him. ‘Standing’ being perhaps not the most accurate word. His wings were spread out, shining and graceful, but he didn’t appear to be actively using them, just hovering above the water.

“You’re that faerie. Faust,” Bentasmal said, and then, because the fae seemed to show no signs of wanting to talk, he added, “aren’t you.”

Faust laughed, a rippling sound like the cawing of a seagull but infinitely more majestic and tragic and bright. Bentasmal frowned. He was finding it difficult to think.

The faerie held out a hand. His arm was long, slender, graceful and pale. He didn’t speak, just smiled enigmatically, but Bentasmal could tell what he meant. He was offering peace and oblivion and sweet, sweet rest, a lightening from the day-to-day comedies and tragedies of the mundane, the mundane that had grown so tedious and repetitive and so, so painful. He was offering a sweet sleep, a sleep without dreams. His dark-obsidian eyes shone.

Bentasmal thought of an orphanage, narrow iron cots and peeling wallpaper speckled with mould. He thought of his apartment, small and narrow without a bed, posters blu-tacked to the walls and equipment and rubbish scattered across the floor. He thought of sleepless nights when the dark pressed in, like he was drowning.

He thought of tapping at his keyboard and laughing at Venge’s jokes. He thought of Simon and River Tam, always family.

“No,” he said tartly, stepping back. “I think not.”

Faust’s dark-obsidian eyes gleamed and he was gone, his hand barely brushing against Bentasmal’s for the briefest instant. Even that short moment was enough to send him teetering off balance, and for a second he pitched over and glimpsed the water below – dark and green and ominous. It was the kind of water that made you think it was only water because fangs were taken.

Bentasmal shuddered and threw himself backwards, sprawling over the pavement. His hand was tingling and his head was throbbing but he was alive, and just then that seemed to be enough.

It took him a while to stagger back to the diner, whereupon he slid back to his seat and tried his utmost to pretend nothing had happened.

Alas, this was not to be.

The werewolf sitting on Scott’s other side stiffened as he passed, and a low growl escaped from his throat. Despite himself, Bentasmal shrunk back. That growl sounded not very nice at all.

“Donovan. What are you doing?” Scott took his hat back from Cameron and flopped it onto his head, tilting it forward so he could look out from under it inquisitively.
For answer, the growl increased in intensity. Then Donovan got to his feet … more or less. He seemed to be having some joint difficulties – namely, his elbows and knees couldn’t decide whether to face forwards or backwards, and his fingers kept on wanting to turn into claws.

He ripped Bentasmal from his seat and pounded him to the floor. Bentasmal choked, the werewolf’s hold on his shirt making breathing difficult, even as all the wind was driven from him.

“Stop it.” Scott’s expression was incredibly conflicted.

“Where were you just now?” asked Donovan.

“I – I don’t …” Bentasmal squirmed, trying to get away, but Donovan pushed him harder against the floor.

“Don! Stop it!” Scott’s voice was angry now.

Donovan spared him a glance. “He stinks of fae,” he said, sounding tired.

“Let me up,” Bentasmal said, and when Donovan made no sign of moving he added, “now.” Scott was looking downcast but he didn’t look like he was going to interfere now.

“Now why would I do that?” Donovan pushed a little harder. Bentasmal just barely managed to choke out a response.

“Because my brother is standing behind you with … a loaded wooden spoon, for whatever reason.”

Donovan turned around, and Cameron smiled at him from approximately three inches away.

“Remember this, werewolf?” he said, and catapulted nutmeg at his face.

The sheer unexpectedness of the move made Donovan breathe in on reflex. The smell of the herb made him sneeze, but it briefly overrode the potent smell of fae and enabled him to think with something other than first instinct.

“Sorry,” Donovan said, standing and offering Bentasmal his hand. Bentasmal glowered at him and squirmed back half a metre before getting to his feet.

“There was a faerie. I think he was trying to drown me, or something. He offered me his hand, and I knew … knew that it would be a very bad idea, but I still wanted …”

“What did you want?” asked Scott, in what could conceivably have been an Ironside quote.

Bentasmal glanced at him. “To drown,” he said simply. “To sleep. But I can’t die. I haven’t read The Wise Man’s Fear yet.”
Scott laughed and hugged him. Bentasmal smiled.

Cameron cleared his throat. “This is all very sweet,” he said, “and I’m incredibly glad my newly rediscovered brother is alive, but we really need to—”

“Have a section of plot that isn’t entirely focused on him?”

“Well, I was going to say ‘get back to work’, but yours works too.” Cameron smiled at Saffron and gave her a gallant little bow. She gave him a venomous look and got back into the booth. Bentasmal hadn’t even noticed her getting up.

He slid back into his own place, and when they were all seated Cameron cleared his throat.

“I have something to ask, and though it may seem completely irrelevant I would ask that you all answer honestly.” He leaned forwards slightly, trying not to brush against Scott’s feathered hat. “How old are you?”

“Eighteen next birthday,” Saffron said.

“Almost fifteen.” Bentasmal shrugged in an angsty kind of way.

“Thirty-four, for all intents and purposes.” Donovan snatched Cameron’s coffee and breathed it in, relishing the harsh, overriding scent.

“Thirty-five,” Scott said. Everyone stared at him. He shrugged slightly. “You said to answer honestly. I was nineteen when the Rift opened and I haven’t even had to shave since.”

Bentasmal gave him a startled look. Cameron took his coffee back and sipped it.

“Not quite nineteen.”

“Eh?” Scott shook himself out of his own private angst.

“I think you’ll find you weren’t quite nineteen. Or, rather, it was your birthday.”

Scott blinked at him.

“But it’s my birthday tomorrow,” Donovan blurted out. Everyone stared at him and he shrank back. “Um, I think,” he ended lamely.

“Mine too. Maybe.” Saffron gave a slight shrug. “I have difficulty recalling these things.”

“How on earth am I supposed to know?” said Bentasmal, in a rather sardonic voice.

“I echo the question. My memories from that time period are sketchy at best.” Scott frowned.

“I can say with utmost certainty that my birthday is tomorrow,” Cameron said. “The fifth of November. I’ve had … good cause to remember it.”

“Remember remember the fifth of November,” Scott murmured.

“Eh?” Cameron gave him a startled look. “That … isn’t the first time I’ve heard that rhyme recently.”

“It’s just a rhyme. Not as nonsensical as some,” said Scott, persevering in completely missing the point. “Like, say, ‘One fine day in the middle of the night, two dead boys got up to fight. Back to back they faced each other, drew their swords and shot one another. A deaf policeman heard the noise and came and shot the two dead boys.’”

“Middle of the night? Maybe it was an eclipse,” Donovan said.

“Pretty useless sounding policeman,” Cameron said sourly, annoyed that the subject had been changed. They didn’t have time for this.

“Two dead boys? That sounds like my kind of thing.” Saffron leaned forwards.

“Maybe their swords were gunblades,” Bentasmal suggested.

“What – oh, for goodness’ sake! It’s a nonsense rhyme. You’re all missing the point.” Scott rolled his eyes.

“Precisely what I was going to say,” Cameron said, loudly. “Look, I’m not worried about rhyming. That was very bad timing.”

“You just rhymed,” Bentasmal pointed out.

“Shut up, Benjamin.”

“My name is Bentasmal!”

“Whatever.” Cameron shrugged, completely unconcerned. “Look, the point is,” and he stirred his coffee vigorously. “We were all born on the fifth of November. Doesn’t that suggest anything to you?”

“Dear lord!” said Saffron. “We’re all related!”

“What? No! No, no, no!”

“Someone is manipulating us, or trying to. Someone who is amused by such things.” Bentasmal snatched Scott’s drink and sipped at it. Mm. Sugary Fanta goodness.

“Someone,” Scott said, “who is whimsy, capricious … and fey.”

There was another brief silence.

“Oh, we so definitely have to take this guy down,” Saffron muttered.

“I’ll do it. It’s my job.”

“I thought you were a cook?” Scott tilted the hat back and blinked at Cameron.

“Cook, pyromancer, hero, it’s all the same really.” He sighed. “Foist Industries is at the heart of this all. But … all those Rifters. Not really safe.”

“The faerie is manipulative,” Donovan said. “He made me change. I think he might have done something to strengthen Scott’s hunger, too. He might be controlling the Rifters, and we can be pretty nasty when we’re angry.”

“I can take care of them,” Saffron said. “This Faust guy’s taken control of heaps of my friends, and my other friends won’t really stand for that. You can just take care of Faust.”

“Do you have enough … friends?” asked Cameron.

Saffron grinned like a child. “If I don’t, I can always make some more.”

Cameron shuddered. Bentasmal looked amused.

The meeting broke up a little after that. Cameron stood for a few minutes in the doorway, wishing his raincoat had better warming properties, until he heard someone come up behind him.

“Your parents died, yeah?”

Cameron turned and blinked. It was Scott, and his voice was colder and more ruthless than it had been. His face, too, looked different, as though all the cheer had been stripped away.

“… Yeah,” Cameron said quietly. The memories hurt.

“In an accident. You killed your parents inadvertently but it was an accident.” Scott took a step forward, and Cameron couldn’t stop himself taking a step back. The vampire smiled mirthlessly. “You know, my memory is a little shaky … I remember it being my birthday. Fireworks day. All the shiny things, though of course I was only Ben’s age then and filled with teenage moping. But after that … it was the next night, and I was filled with a hunger like nothing I had ever felt, and my shirt and hands and face were stained and soaked in blood.”

Cameron shivered slightly, and it wasn’t with cold. Scott took a step back, then another, until he was standing once more in the warmth and light and noise of the diner.

“Your parents died in an accident,” he said quietly. “You have no idea how much I would give to be able to say the same.”

Cameron stared at him for a few seconds, and then turned on his heel and walked away. All the layers of jackets in the world would not be able to protect him from the cold he suddenly felt.

***

“Where are you headed?”

It was evening now, and chillier than ever. Bentasmal was hopping from foot to foot when Scott spoke, and, caught off balance, he teetered for a moment before balancing out.

“Um. Home, I guess.” He shrugged.

“You can come home with me.” Scott approached him, smiling.

Bentasmal stared at him, unable to think anything other than, Creepy. Very very creepy.

Scott rolled his eyes. “Your brother is not the only one who needs to loosen up a little.” He flicked the hat off his head and onto Bentasmal’s in one deft movement. Bentasmal pushed the brim up and glared at him, but Scott put his hand on his back and pushed him forward regardless. “Relax. I’m your friend.”

“I … suppose,” Bentasmal said grudgingly. ‘Friend’ was a bit of an exaggeration to apply to someone he’d only met a few days ago … but that wasn’t true, was it? He’d known Venge since he was thirteen.

He tagged behind Scott as the vampire strode off into the darkness, humming ‘What’s This?’ from The Nightmare Before Christmas under his breath.

“Aren’t … you … cold?” panted Bentasmal.

Scott glanced at him and slowed his pace. “I have a jacket.”

“Yes. I’d been meaning to ask about that.” Bentasmal took off the hat and threw it at his face. “Do you have no fashion sense whatsoever? Your jacket looks older than I am.”

Scott chortled. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” He caught the hat before it hit his face and spun it on one finger. “I ooze magnetism. What clothes I wear, or indeed whether I wear clothes at all, is immaterial.”

“‘Ooze’ is perhaps not the most complimentary word.” Bentasmal skipped slightly to keep up with him, all the same. Scott was tall, and Bentasmal was short. It was irritating.

“Haven’t you ever seen Torchwood? Captain Jack oozes charisma like a slug oozes slime, but in a good way.”

Bentasmal wished fervently that he had a coat. Scott glanced at him again, smiled, and shrugged off his denim-or-maybe-leather jacket. He tossed it at him. “Catch.”

Ben tried to catch, but it caught him off guard and he struggled to keep his balance. Eventually he managed to pull it on, and immediately felt warmer.

“I would tease you about your lack of coordination,” Scott said, “but I’m not much better. Besides which, that’s the kind of thing your father and such is supposed to teach you ...” He shrugged slightly, immediately wishing he hadn’t spoken. Bentasmal’s family were dead, and he didn’t want to seem callous.

Bentasmal looked away. It was dark now, and there were only a few people on the streets. He hoped that wherever Scott lived wasn’t far.

He thought about Cameron. Ben had only met him that day, but there was something about him that seemed familiar, like an old shoe, a comfortable piece of his past.

“Alex. How many people would you say that you love?”

Scott raised his eyebrows slightly, caught by surprise. He considered it, then gave Bentasmal a sidelong glance, smiling a little.

“Less than three!”

Bentasmal laughed.

“And you?”

“The same, I think. I’m not a very loving person. All prickly inside. Like a hedgehog.”

“Hedgehogs are adorable. Here we are.”

“What … here?” Bentasmal gawped.

The building was big, almost as big as Foist Industries, but quite a bit shinier.

“I’m rich, Ben,” Scott said patiently, and he walked in through the door. There was a foyer. It had gilt along the walls and carpet as soft as moss but quite a bit thicker. There was a receptionist and everything.

“Don’t think this is all mine. I have the top apartment.”

“Penthouse? Yep, you’re rich.” Bentasmal realized he was gaping and hurriedly adjusted his expression to something more composed.

“C’mon,” was all Scott said.

His penthouse was even more impressive – the curtains were a rich, deep velvet, the carpet at least half a metre thick (well maybe not quite that much), and there was a huge plasma-screen TV and a gleaming chrome kitchen and a metres-long sofa.

Bentasmal gave up on not gaping and wandered over to poke the TV. It was shiny.

Scott bustled around the chromey kitchen. Then he slowed and glanced over at Bentasmal.

“Poking plasma generally isn’t a good idea, you know.”

Bentasmal laughed and flopped onto the couch. He immediately sunk a few inches.

Scott came over and studied him, hands on hips, brows drawn. “So …” He indicated the dark half-circles beneath Bentasmal’s eyes. “You can’t sleep?”

Bentasmal sighed. “No. Not ever. I’ve never slept, never had nightmares even. I used to dream that I would … well, dream isn’t the right word, obviously, but … no.”

Scott leaned forward until his face was right next to Ben’s. He grinned.

“Then don’t.”

Bentasmal squeaked in surprise and tried to squirm out of the way. Scott sighed, looking torn between exasperation and amusement.

“Relax. I didn’t mean it like that. Honestly!”

Bentasmal did not look anything approaching convinced.

Scott rolled his eyes and wandered into the bedroom. (‘Wander’ was the best word for anything describing his apartment. It was really, really big, apart from being impressive looking.) He emerged almost submerged in swaddles of duvets. He dumped them onto the couch. Bentasmal struggled out for air, then gave him a quizzical look.

Scott wandered over to the kitchen, poured a cup of hot chocolate and a cup of coffee and topped each one off liberally with cream, shaved chocolate and marshmallows. He paced back to the sofa and put them on the table, along with a bag of said marshmallows and a few other sugary things.

“Sugar. Best thing in the world if you want to stay up late.” Scott dove into the other corner of the sofa, wriggling until he was the right way round again.

“Um. I don’t know how to tell you this, but I don’t have any problem with staying up late as it is.”

Scott passed him his hot chocolate and sipped his own coffee, gaining a cream moustache. “Yeah, but I might.” He flashed a dazzling grin. “I’m going to stay up with you. Like a sleepover. That’s what friends are for.”

Bentasmal blinked at him, uncertain. That … actually wasn’t very creepy at all.

Scott helped himself to marshmallows. “Let’s get something straight, okay? I am not coming onto you. I do not want to sleep with you … well, not particularly, though you’re pretty enough.”

Bentasmal blushed and took a sip of hot chocolate to hide it.

“I act like this to you because you’re my friend. One of perhaps two people who I would call friend and who call me friend in return. And this, this is just who I am.” Scott made a broad gesture that seemed to encompass everything from the apartment to his hat. “You okay with that?”

Bentasmal tried to talk in the middle of a mouthful of hot chocolate and spluttered a little. “Yeah. I’m okay with that.”

“Well, good. And for future reference, if you want to be my friend you’re going to have to read more webcomics.”

“Eh?”

“This whole sleeplessness thing, it’s not exactly an uncommon theme. In No Rest For The Wicked the main character can’t sleep.” Scott took a pensive sip. “Her name is November, oddly enough.”

“What does she have to do to sleep again?” asked Bentasmal eagerly.

“Erm, well, the moon has to rise from her grave. Beyond that I’m not sure.”

Bentasmal gave him an annoyed look. “Not. Helping.”

Scott shrugged slightly and stood. “You know this sleepover needs? Firefly.” He retrieved a boxed set and waggled it.

Bentasmal grinned broadly. “Yes.”



***


It was the fifth of November. Pyromaniacs everywhere were getting up with a secret thrill in their hearts as they looked forwards to that evening, to flares and flames and secrets spotted in swirling sparks.

This was both Cameron’s favourite time of the year and his least favourite. Favourite because it was his birthday, and the day when his business thrived. Least favourite because … well, it was the day his parents died. Though now he learned that his brother was alive, some of the grief and guilt was lifted.

“Hey! Stop daydreaming, pyromancer. We have work to do.” Saffron hmphed.

“And I’m doing it,” he growled. He was loading his backpack with cans and tins and powders – the pick of his stock that hadn’t yet been sold. Just in case the fire didn’t dance to his command, for whatever reason. He wasn’t taking any chances with this.

Saffron looked around his flat, at the CDs and games sprawled across the floor and the wallpaper peeling back to reveal the original brick. She wrinkled her nose.

“Okay, so it’s not Paradise, but it’s a darned site better than some dirty old mausoleum.” He huffed and threw in one last can of burn-bright. It was in a Trade Aid hot chocolate container. Tasty. Then he swung his satchel over his back. It was just a pity his pockets couldn’t fit everything he might need.

“I keep my mausoleum very clean, thank you,” Saffron said stiffly.

“Corpses aren’t really the definition of ‘clean’. That’s why necromancers never get in the home and garden magazines, by the way.”

“Perhaps it’s because our idea of a nice garden is one filled with spike pits and carnivorous plants that imprison howling souls,” she suggested.

“Well, yes. That’s probably it.” Cameron had his hand on the door and was about to go out to his possible death when Saffron spoke up unexpectedly.

“I used to play saxophone, you know.”

He paused with his palm resting on the handle. “Am I right in assuming that this somehow relates to yet another thing I can be blamed for? Because I’m getting tired of those.”

“I was three when you opened that stupid thing and I can’t remember anything but I know that I used to play saxophone so that must mean I was pretty smart, yeah?”

“Mm,” Cameron said, feeling like he was required to say something.

“And then I was seeing things out of the corner of my eye, playing hop scotch with goblins, talking to the nightwalkers and dancing in the kitsunes’ flame.”

“Kitsunes? Like the sound of them.”

“So no, it’s not another thing you cam be blamed for.” She smiled at him, and it made her chill grey eyes shine. “It’s something you can be thanked for.”

He stared at her wordlessly, slowly opened the door and then leaped down the stairs, whooping and feeling quite a bit less guilty. Saffron rolled her eyes and followed.

They walked towards Foist Industries. Cameron wanted to take a bus, but he kept on seeing things … out of the corner of his eye, yes, movements in the shadows, and he was fairly certain they wouldn’t follow if he took the bus there.

Which made him want to take the bus more, of course.

“Don’t look at them too closely,” Saffron said in an undertone.

“Why? Will they disappear? Does the gaze of a … whatever turn me into stone?”

“No, but if you stare into space all the time people think you’re crazy.” Saffron grinned, as though saying she should know. “Though they probably wouldn’t be wrong, as such. Who’s Jonathan Coulton?”

“Google him,” Cameron said absently. His wooden spoon was reassuringly rough to his hand.

“There’s a distinct lack of a phone line in most graveyards,” Saffron said. “Funnily enough.”

Cameron snorted and shifted his raincoat so the label didn’t rub against his neck. He was nervous. Funnily enough.

“Here,” Saffron said, and came to a stop. “And here’s where I leave you. My friends will deal with any Rifters who decide to interfere.”

Cameron nodded towards where Donovan, Scott and Bentasmal were standing. “And them?”

“Well, they’re my friends too, I suppose,” Saffron said, a little grudgingly. Cameron rolled his eyes and considered saying ‘that’s not exactly what I meant’, but decided against it.

He shrugged and walked closer to the building. It loomed in a most impressive fashion. He gnawed on the middle of his lip.

“Hey,” he called. “Ben.”

“Bentasmal,” the youth corrected.

“Okay. Fine. Want to come?”

Bentasmal stared at him for a moment, thinking of shimmering beauty and dark-obsidian eyes … and cold water, green and clutching, clutching at his throat.

“There’s no way you’re going inside that building without me,” he said grimly, sounding a whole lot more vengeful than Scott did.

Scott hopped from one foot to the other and then rushed after them. “There ain’t no way you’re goin’ in without me neither, Mal,” he said, in an outrageously fake accent. Bentasmal grinned.

Donovan sighed and trudged after them. “Count me in,” he muttered, as they reached a lift. It dinged, an inappropriately cheerful noise. The lobby was filled with forms, endless forms, stacks and mountains of them, and they swirled around like a miniature snowstorm as the four entered the lift.

Elevator music began. Scott whistled along.

“So,” Cameron said, who had had time to think about this. “I think he’ll be at the top of the building, most likely.”

“Really? Gosh,” Bentasmal said, sarcastically. “I wouldn’t have guessed that. Seeing you just pressed the button for the top of the building, and all.”

He was wearing different clothes – tight-fitting shirt and jeans, a billowing brown coat and nifty leather gloves. The epitome of teenage cool.

“Nice threads,” Cameron said, trying not to sound envious.

“Thanks! Same to you!” Bentasmal nodded his head towards the fraying threads at the edge of Cameron’s raincoat.

Donovan raised his eyes skywards in slight exasperation.

Scott grinned at Cameron. “You like his clothes? I picked them myself. Even the gloves, though I had no idea what his size was … I had to go with a rough estimitt.”

“Dear lord I hate you,” Cameron said resignedly. Scott grinned all the broader.

The elevator ‘ding’ed again, and the music, a kind of cheery mix between an old soap commercial and the song that never ends, ended. Cameron gave a silent prayer of thanksgiving and stepped out.

There was a balding man there, looking completely in of the ordinary in his slightly shabby suit and matching briefcase.

“I … thought Saffron evicted all the staff,” Cameron muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

“She did,” Scott said in an undertone.

Cameron blinked at the man, who gave him a significant look.

“Heya Tom, it’s Bob.”

His eyes were slightly bloodshot. Ah.

“From the office down the hall?” hedged Cameron. The man smiled, a smile that did not fit his completely ordinary face at all.

“Good to see you, buddy,” said Not-Bob-At-All.

“How’ve you been?” Cameron smiled blandly. The last time he’d talked with Sephri the demon had seemed more than a tad unhinged.

“Things have been okay for me, except that I’m (metaphorically) a zombie now.” Sephri shrugged. His guise was strange, for him, not slim or sharp or elegant at all, but it amused him and that was enough reason to wear it.

“I really wish you’d let us into this conversation,” Scott said loudly. He had made enough in-jokes to be able to recognize them when he heard them, and he was annoyed.

Cameron gave a snorted laugh and covered it by coughing hastily. Sephri eyed him, then switched back into his normal guise, with sharp black horns and blood-red eyes.

“Take me to your leader,” Cameron said, perhaps a tad more dramatically than was really necessary. Sephri paused, looking a little off guard.

“That really isn’t a good idea, you know,” he said conversationally, and started pacing down the hall in long, measured steps. He was still carrying his briefcase, for reasons unknown.

Cameron raised his eyebrows at Bentasmal, commenting on the strangeness of the situation and asking whether or not they should follow. Bentasmal frowned at him quizzically.

“Is there a bug on your face or what?”

Cameron grunted. “Never mind.” He rushed after Sephri before he got out of sight, and the demon obediently slowed, which was odd because he was never obedient unless it suited him. “So, hey. His name is Faust, yes?”

“His name? No. What he calls himself? Yes.”

“Hmm.”

Donovan, Scott and Bentasmal followed. Donovan was frowning. He was used to being on the edge of conversations, the ignored one in the group, but this pyromancer seemed a good sort, if a tad impulsive, and he was chatting with a demon as though they were friends. And that wasn’t a good thing. Demons couldn’t be trusted.

… Though, then again, neither could vampires. Or werewolves, really.

And there – a door, perfectly plain, perfectly bland. Cameron halted at it, then glanced at Sephri. The demon examined his claws.

“You … called me a friend, the other day.”

“Yes indeed! Though obviously I’m not your friend, or I wouldn’t let you walk through that door.”

The others stopped and watched them warily.

“He looks like a cat,” Bentasmal said, eyeing Sephri.

“Rather. He tried to get me framed for murder and arson the other day, though, so don’t get too attracted to him. He’ll bite.”

“What? I wasn’t … I mean, I wouldn’t …” Bentasmal floundered in embarrassment, though also in annoyance.

Scott nudged him with his elbow. “You wouldn’t be so embarrassed if you didn’t know it was true!”

Bentasmal gave Scott an acidic glare, which made him grin all the more.

Meanwhile, Sephri and Cameron were paying them no attention whatsoever.

“You said demons can’t lie!” said Cameron, outraged.

“Yes, yes I did.”

“… Oh. Right.”

Sephri’s smile was as thin and sharp as a needle, or maybe a rapier. “Do go in, then. I would hate to keep my master waiting.”

Cameron nodded, opened his mouth to say something, closed it, nodded again and walked through the door, the others following.

It was normal looking, but at the same time it wasn’t. Somehow it was beautiful, a level above – but no, that wasn’t right. It was world. The carpet looked carpetier, the windows gleamed with windowful pride and looked out over a city that seemed, by contrast, swathed and shrouded in grime.

Faust was standing, looking out the window. It covered one whole wall. The others were made of polished wood. There was a desk with a little duck paperweight in one corner.

He turned as they entered, and gave a smile that seemed to light the world. “At last!”

Cameron would have found it difficult to describe him. He … shimmered, phased even. He was tall, yes, and as slender as the stalk of a dandelion. He was clothed in … robes? They were made of cloud, or cotton, or rainbows, surely. Cameron couldn’t tell. It was impossible to look away from his face. His features were fine … weren’t they? Maybe narrow, maybe full. His hair fell around his head and cascaded down his shoulders, shimmering now silver, now green. His eyes were the only things that stayed the same, the colour of polished obsidian, bright and shiny as beads. Beautiful.

“First,” Faust said, “to dispose of your entourage.”

Cameron blinked as those eyes looked away from him, and he yearned more than anything else to lose himself in that gaze once more. Then he fingered the wooden spoon in his pocket, shook himself, and turned to watch what was going on. Sephri, like him, was an impartial observer, but, unlike him, he didn’t seem to care one way or another whether or not the faerie conquered.

Faust reached out a hand to Scott. “Dear boy. Dear child. Frozen in time,” he said, and his voice was soft, caressing, like the touch of the spring wind. Scott blinked, his eyes smouldering. It wasn’t a smoulder of hate, either. “I could give you your life back. I could make it all better. Poor, broken man.” His voice was thick with sorrow. Scott leaned forwards, ever so slightly. Faust stroked the air in front of his face, the tips of his long, probably pale fingers just barely touching Scott’s skin. Scott sighed.

Faust moved on to Bentasmal and held out his hand, offering peace, oblivion, a sleep without dreams. Bentasmal stared back at him, his haunted eyes hooded, too filled with yearning to move or think. Faust laughed a little and spread out his wings, light and delicate, the membrane almost transparent. Bentasmal reached out to take his hand … and fell to the floor as their fingers brushed. His breathing was slow and even, his brow smoothed in sleep. His skin looked very pale.

Faust’s feet barely touched the ground, barely pressed down the carpet as he paced towards Donovan. “Wolf,” he murmured. “So wild, so free … yet you are caged. I can give—”

“Get stuffed,” Donovan said, and punched him.

Cameron laughed out loud, then quickly turned it into an innocent whistle. He didn’t want to ruin the atmosphere. That moment was just classic.

Faust began to fall towards the ground, but spread his wings, flared them and regained his footing. He stared at Donovan, slightly amazed, and then motioned to Scott. The vampire was completely enthralled; he moved forwards as if in a dream and wrapped his arms around the werewolf, preventing him from moving. Donovan didn’t try to struggle, just glared at the faerie. He wasn’t about to take the risk of harming his friend and Faust knew it.

The faerie strode back to the window and glanced through it at the city.

“And now at last I come to you.” He turned to Cameron and their gazes locked and Cameron could not bring himself to look away. “Are you going to ask me what my motivations are? Why I play with people’s lives? Are you going to call me evil, little pyromancer?”

“You’re a faerie. You don’t need a reason,” Cameron said. “As for evil, I honestly don’t know. The people I would call friends are either helpless on the floor back there or standing right beside you, but they’re a pretty mixed lot. I can’t really make judgements …”

Faust smiled at him, patiently, and Cameron lost his train of thought.

“… but you’re a jerk,” he ended, somewhat lamely.

Faust laughed, and somehow it contained no amusement whatsoever. “Indeed. Well then, Cameron Julian Harcort … I know your name and I know your blood, the taste and the smell of it. Two ways, at least, I own you …”

Blood? Cameron scowled at Sephri, who tapped his long finger against the wood of the desk and shrugged ruefully.

“… And, perhaps, a third. That one lying on the carpet there, barely more than a child … he is of your blood, yes? And yet also of your mind. How very intriguing. I rather suspect that I could injure you greatly, if I injured him.”

“Well, yes.” Cameron shifted uncomfortably. He knew he should have been angry at that, but he couldn’t summon the emotion, somehow. So very beautiful. “What’s kind if more important is that you would injure him if you injured him. And you don’t like hurting random innocents. Do you?”

Dark-obsidian eyes gleamed. “That one is not innocent,” he said, “but you have a point, I think. Nevertheless I think that you should not presume to impose your morals upon me.”

“You might have a point,” Cameron said.

“I’m not always so cruel, you know.” Faust’s voice was soft, regretful. “I can be kind.”

Cameron spared Sephri a glance. “Is he telling the truth?”

“Er … mostly. Depends on your definition of ‘kind’.”

Cameron shrugged and turned back to Faust, dreamily.

Sephri sighed, inspected his nails and wandered over to Cameron. He slashed out, drawing a line of red across Cameron’s back.

“Ow! Hey!” Cameron swivelled around and ogled Sephri indignantly. “What did you do that for? Do you just really like hurting me?”

“Of course,” Sephri concluded. “But there are other reasons.”

Cameron’s blood welled, though the scratch wasn’t deep or serious. It dripped down his coat and onto the floor, ruining the nice carpet … and Scott stiffened as the smell reached him, his eyes glazing and then snapping back into focus.

He stepped back from Donovan, frowning at Faust in an uncertain kind of way.

“Sorry,” he said, to Donovan. “I’m a slave to my instincts sometimes.”

Donovan grinned. “Except when they clash?” The vampire playboy. Who would have thought?

“Fortunately enough, yes.” Scott turned his frown to Cameron. “Hey. Shouldn’t you be trying to, you know, kill that psycho?”

“Oh! Right! I forgot!”

“He has that effect on people,” Sephri said dryly. Faust gave him a curious stare.

“Have you betrayed me, Sethri? Curious.”

“Betrayed you? Heavens no! I just harmed one of your enemies! Nothing wrong with that, yes? At least nothing that breaks the terms of the summoning.” Sephri smiled, razor-sharp. “Those who give me orders learn too late that it is not wise.”

Cameron fingered the wooden spoon in his pocket. He wasn’t quite sure what to do here. He pulled flame from the air and sparked it in front of Faust, experimentally, wondering how the faerie would react. The faerie gave him a sidelong look and reached out –

And then they were in the air and flying. Cameron knew they must have moved, knew that Faust must have grabbed him and opened the window and took flight, but he couldn’t remember for the life of him.

Remember. Heh.

“So now you are helpless,” Faust said. He spoke softly, but somehow Cameron heard his every word, craning his ears to catch his every word, hating himself for it. “You cannot try your fiery tricks, not now you are out of your domain … the air moves too quickly up here, far too quickly for any flames to linger. And you cannot burn me without casting yourself to the ground.”

“True,” Cameron said. “That’s … really problematic, actually.”

Faust smiled indulgently. Around them, fireworks were going off, sparking and popping and screaming in multicoloured light. It was evening on the fifth of November.

“You’re the one who opened the Rift … aren’t you. Tore open the fault line in this poor broken country and gave it access to the raw forces of the Universe.”

“Er, yep, that’s me,” Cameron said, almost cheerily. The evening air was cool as it fanned his face. They were very high up, only reached by the highest of buildings.

“Then I really must thank you. I love this world of yours. It’s … just so much fun.”

Cameron looked into dark-obsidian eyes and saw into a soul that was far too different, far too alien, for him to possibly understand. Not evil, not good. Just … different.

And beautiful.

“I’m sorry. I am really, really sorry. But I can’t let you mess around with the Rift. Then other people will catch wind of it and soon everyone will want legions of enthralled minions, and we can’t have that, now can we.”

Cameron reached out and grasped Faust’s wings. They were soft, papery, warm to the touch, lightly silky … he pulled down and ripped with all the strength in his admittedly weakened shoulders, and the wings tore with a sound like a breaking heart. Cameron had a second to catch a glimpse of Faust’s shocked face as they began to fall, faster and faster, out of control, before the faerie released his grip and he lost sight of him.

All around, fireworks were going off. Fifth of November. Remember remember the fifth of November …

“Happy birthday to me,” Cameron said softly, almost tiredly, and he fell.

[Rikku]

From here onwards it can also be called Camaraderie, which was my original title, after all.

SPOILER: Click to show

Bentasmal was lying on the ground, crumpled. Scott stared out the window for a few moments, to where the pyromancer and the faerie had gone; then he shook himself and turned away. The demon was gone, disappearing discreetly at the first opportunity. Demons. Absolutely no sense of accountability.

“Help me with him,” he said to Donovan, who raised his eyebrows a fraction.

“Are you sure? It doesn’t look like he gets much sleep.”

“He doesn’t get any, but that sure as hell doesn’t mean I’m going to leave him lying on the ground in this wretched place,” Scott snarled before he took control of himself. “I’m sorry. It just … scared me. That I could be controlled like that.”

“To be fair,” Donovan said, “the majority of people who might want to control you would not be anywhere near as beautiful as that one. He could control anyone, I think.”

“You noticed too? I thought …” He struggled with himself. Thought it was just me, thought I was twisted, perverted maybe. Poor broken man.

Control anyone … except you? I don’t think you know how envious I am right now. You’re incredible. Even if you’re a werewolf.

“Help me with him,” was all he said.

Donovan shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Bentasmal, as it happened, was not sleeping. He could not, was physically unable to. And now he couldn’t move, could barely think, but was hyper conscious of the carpet. It was thick and soft, yes, but it felt rough against his skin. Then he heard the low murmur of voices, and the roughness went away, replaced by the warmth of hands as he was lifted.

Asleep. They think I’m asleep.

Ha. I wish.

But he was tired, even if he wasn’t sleepy, and he let his mind subside back into its usual circular thoughts as the world around him changed. There was chill night air around him, and then the soft, comforting warmth of a blanket and a hand on his shoulder. Comforting and solid and warm.

Bentasmal smiled faintly, and burrowed further into the covers. This wasn’t sleep, but it was probably as close as he was going to get.

It was a few hours later when he found he could move again, and he opened his eyes. He was in Scott’s apartment, of course. The curtains were drawn back, revealing wall-to-wall windows. Bentasmal tried and failed not to be impressed.

He was lying on the couch, and Scott was sprawled on the ground next to him, his eyes closed in sleep. Bentasmal smiled.

“Hey.”

Scott yawned and sat up a little straighter. “Hey.” He gave Bentasmal a sidelong look. “You weren’t actually asleep, were you.”

“Conscious but unable to move. Very irritating.” Bentasmal sat up too, his duvet sliding off. He was still wearing the brown coat, though it seemed like years since he had chosen it out of the flabbergasting number of clothes in Scott’s run-in wardrobe. Browncoat. Hah.

“Sounds it.” Scott stood, his lanky frame unfolding.

Bentasmal suddenly remembered … a smiling demon, and dark-obsidian eyes. “Where’s Cameron?”

Scott avoided his eyes. “I’m not sure. The faerie flew off with him, but he was fighting. And from what little time I’ve known that man, I think it’s safe to say that he is incredibly, ridiculously stubborn.” Scott grinned. “He’ll be fine.”

Bentasmal frowned, but got up as well. “I suppose,” he said, reluctantly. “Any chance of a coffee or …” He trailed off as he was conscious of something in his pocket pressing against his skin. “Oh, hey. I almost forgot.” He fished out his cell phone with some difficulty and flipped it open. The video automatically began to play, and he zoomed in on the PIN being keyed in.

Scott craned over to look. “So … you’re … a thief?” He realized that his voice was incredulous, and cringed inwardly.

Bentasmal abruptly flipped the phone shut and walked a few metres away, leaning against the wall. “Yup,” he said, struggling to keep his voice even.

Scott glanced at his expression, knowing better than to criticize. “A petty thief at that!” he said jubilantly. “How very … Malcolm Reynolds.” He whistled. “Impressive.”

“It’s a living,” said Bentasmal, sounding pleased.

“And you don’t go to school, either?” Scott wandered over to the kitchen and switched on the kettle, which immediately began to screech.

“They can’t teach me anything I don’t already know.” He shrugged, supremely unconcerned.

“E-go-tistical!” sung out Scott, switching off the kettle and pouring a couple of cups of boiling water.

“What? No I’m not! I’m just … realistic!”

“Suure. One sugar or two?”

“Two,” Bentasmal said, slipping his phone into his coat pocket. “Hah.” He pulled it out again and waggled it. “I’m just fortunate I knew enough to try a little jiggery pokery.”

Scott gave him a politely enquiring look.

“You … you haven’t watched Doctor Who?” He gaped. “Seriously? darn. I’ll have to show it to you.”

“It’s not really safe here, you know,” Scott said conversationally, sipping on coffee.

Bentasmal blinked at the sudden subject change and reached out for his hot chocolate. Scott waved it just out of reach. He scowled. “Why not? I know you’re not going to hurt me.”

“Ah,” Scott said. “But I don’t know that. And if I hurt you I’d never forgive myself.” He shrugged, lifting the hot chocolate above his head while Bentasmal grabbed at it. “Which wouldn’t be healthy for me in the long run.” He grinned.

Bentasmal stopped trying to reach the mug and stood still, frowning. “Never forgive … well, that’s not right. That’s not right at all.” He was not about to let one of his few friends wallow in angst if he ever lost his temper. That was just silly. Bentasmal pushed his sleeve up to his elbow. Then he took a step forward, aggressively, and thrust his arm at Scott’s mouth. Scott blinked and opened his mouth to say something. Bentasmal jerked his arm further forwards, cutting it against Scott’s fangs.

“There. You’ve hurt me,” he said, sounding almost angry. “Oops! Now live with it. I’m fine! I’m not about to let you worry just because … because …” He trailed off.

Scott was looking at him, his expression uncharacteristically blank. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he said quietly. The taste of blood sung in his mouth, rich and sweet.

He dropped both mugs, and they shattered on the floor, their contents soaking into the carpet.

Bentasmal returned his blank look, backing away a little and hating himself for it.

Scott followed after him, his mouth twisted into a snarl. He seized his arm, lifted it to his mouth and licked off the blood.

Bentasmal stood still, shivering. Scott hadn’t done anything like this before.

The vampire bit down, and Bentasmal stifled a cry as the cut was deepened and lengthened. The blood flowed, rich and sweet, into Scott’s waiting mouth.

He lifted his head, blood staining his lips red, smearing his cheeks with colour. His blue eyes were very distant. He took a step forward, then another, then another, and Bentasmal backed away, making no effort to hide the terror on his face.

Scott pinned him against the wall, then took hold of his wrist again and idly traced the lines of veins with one finger. Up Bentasmal’s arm, and then across his shoulder to his throat. Scott stopped there and stooped his head, until he was close enough for his breath to make Bentasmal’s hair stand on end.

His eyes followed the flow of blood, pumping, pumping, singing with life and vitality. He smiled, a smile without humour.

“Are you afraid?” he murmured softly, sharp teeth millimetres away from Bentasmal’s throat.

Bentasmal swallowed and nodded, just a fraction.

Scott took a step back and threw him to the ground. His sheer strength was staggering. Bentasmal fell to the carpet and pulled himself away, his eyes wide with fear.

“Good. You should be.”

Scott turned on his heel and walked to the other side of the room. He leaned against the wall, eyes closed.

Shouldn’t have done that. Definitely shouldn’t have done that.

But I had to. He had to know what I’m like.

But what if he leaves? And never comes back …

Well, good. I’m not safe.

Yep. He’s terrified now, all right!

… I am such an IDIOT.

Scott slammed his head against the wall.

Bentasmal inched past him into the bathroom, where he retrieved a bandage and wrapped it around his arm. That done, he sat on the floor, suddenly exhausted. He hadn’t lost that much blood, but he was still trembling with fear. Sternly he told himself to relax. He told himself that sitting trembling on the floor wasn’t going to achieve anything.

It didn’t help much.

In the living room Scott was contemplating collapsing. It seemed the appropriate thing to do. He stiffened suddenly, eyes widening as he heard something … the quiet hum of the elevator, the soft thud of footsteps in the corridor outside. Oh hell. This wasn’t good.

He whirled around, running after Bentasmal and hauling at his arm. The boy flinched at the contact, and inwardly Scott winced at that, but he didn’t have time to worry.

“Get up, get up get up get up!” he whispered frantically, glancing towards the door. “You can’t run out that way … can you jump out the window?”

Bentasmal staggered to his feet, shoving Scott away. “Idiot! We’re on the top floor!” he yelled, face contorted in fury. Something had the vampire really, really worried. Bentasmal told himself he didn’t care.

“Climb out the window, then.”

Bentasmal glared at him.

“Oh. Sorry. I keep on forgetting you’re a human …” Scott winced. The door began to open. “Get behind me,” he hissed, and turned towards the door.

Bentasmal stayed where he was.

“Trust me,” Scott said, anguished. “These people are dangerous to you.”

“You should know.” Bentasmal looked at him levelly.

“Please—”

The door swung fully open. Evidently the people on the other side of it loved dramatic entrances.

There were three of them, one dressed in thick black robes, one dressed in thick white robes and one dressed, for some odd reason, in really tight white pants and a paisley-printed shirt. He was the most frightening, huge and bulky. When he opened his mouth he revealed a jawful of fangs, but no tongue.

Bentasmal got behind Scott.

The black-robed one smiled. He had a tongue, at least, but that wasn’t much consolation – his teeth were long, sharp, and white as milk. “Alex Scott. How delightful to see you again.”

“I’d like to say the same, but I’d be lying through my teeth, you filthy, lying monster … and that just wouldn’t be polite, would it, Vatisin?”

Vatisin, Bentasmal thought. What is it with vampires and puns?

“And who is this?” Vatisin gestured towards Bentasmal. “A light snack?” His hair was black and cropped short. And despite his appearance, which was one of early middle age, he seemed old. Really, really old.

“Never,” Scott said sharply, tensing slightly. Then he immediately regretted it. Vampire etiquette dictated that no one could drink from a human that another vampire had chosen to feed from, but it didn’t say anything about not feeding on another’s friends.

“Indeed? What is he for, then?”

Scott grinned, threw his arm around Bentasmal’s shoulder and drew him closer, desperately hoping that the human wouldn’t wince. He didn’t, too occupied with staring blankly at the three vampires of Vatisin’s coven. “What do you think?”

“Ah,” Vatisin said, with some distaste. “You have always been a strange one, Scott.”

“So I’ve been told.” He smiled. “What brings you here, then?” he said, trying to keep his tone courteous, wishing he hadn’t insulted Vatisin before. He didn’t want to make the leader of most of the vampires in the city angry. That would be an incredibly bad idea.

Vatisin gestured to his white-robed companion, who stepped forward and spoke in an unexpectedly female voice. “You have consorted with the enemy. This latest offence is too much to bear, Alex Scott, when we have warned you in the past.”

“Miranda? Wow. You’ve moved up in the coven, haven’t you?” Momentarily forgetting his panic, Scott smiled at the girl. He liked being sociable. “I’m glad for you.”

Vatisin coughed. “Anyway,” he said. “We need all of our fighters for the conflict ahead, Scott.” He paused and looked directly into Scott’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Alex, but you have to be punished. We need to uphold discipline, now of all times. Bruiser, get to it.”

“Bruiser?” asked Bentasmal in a whisper.

“Does what it says on the packet,” Scott murmured back. “Now’s your chance to get out of here.” He pushed him towards the door. “I mean it. Run.”

Bentasmal ran, not looking back, even as he heard solid impacts and a pained exhalation of breath behind him as Bruiser began to swing his solid, LOVE-HATE’d fists into Scott’s face and stomach. He just ran, trying not to wince, until he reached the elevator. Then when it reached the bottom floor, he started running again. And he didn’t stop.

Cameron’s apartment was halfway across the city, and he wouldn’t have entirely minded running the entire way there, terrified as he was. He wasn’t even sure who he was more afraid of – Vatisin and his cronies, or Scott. By the resigned look on Scott’s face, they might even fall into the same category.


***

Cameron woke up woozily. He yawned.

“Hello.”

Cameron yelped and jumped back. “Seph – oh. Saffron.” He considered this. “I’m not actually sure that’s an improvement.”

“Ha! I just saved your life, pyromancer. The least you could do is be grateful.”

“You saved my life? Then thank you. I suppose.” He looked around. As he wasn’t crushed into an oozing mess on the pavement, he supposed she must have rescued him before he hit the ground.

“Technically Nomad did.” She scratched the head of a large raven-like creature that was standing, out of place, in the middle of his apartment. “Hear that, Gnome? Who’s a good genderless entity, then?” She paused as Nomad cooed. “Who’s a good one, then?” she corrected, and Nomad squawked happily. “You’re just lucky it was flying patrol. Otherwise you’d be just so much pyro-mush by now.”

“What a delightful picture. Is Ben all right?”

“Yeah. Probably. How should I know?” Saffron rolled her eyes, got on Nomad and flew off into the sunrise.

Sunrise. It was the sixth of November. He was twenty now. And, somehow, still alive. That was slightly surprising.

He got up and started making breakfast, suddenly acutely aware that he hadn’t eaten anything in ages. He was just finishing off his meal – nothing complicated, just an omelette with pepper, sage, parsley and various other seasonings and a rich sauce made of almonds, along with fresh bread from the bakery downstairs chopped and boiled in milk – when Sephri entered.

“Oh. Hey. So you’re free now?”

Sephri frowned. “… In a manner of speaking. But certain people are rather annoyed with me.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Cameron said, mopping up the last bit of milk with the last bit of omelette.

“I didn’t betray my master. Not technically.”

“You stabbed him in the back!”

“Technically I stabbed you in the back.”

“Grr.”

“I don’t know why you’re so annoyed.” Sephri smiled jauntily. “A little pain never hurt anyone!”

“That makes no sense!” protested Cameron.

“But anyway … I’m in a spot of trouble.”

“Oh yes?”

“Yes,” Sephri said firmly. “The rules are there for a reason, and it’s in the best interests of every angel, Fallen and demon in the city to enforce them. Else wise the world could easily descend into entropy.”

“… Which isn’t a good thing, I take it?”

“Which is a very bad thing. So I want you to help me out. As a favour.”

“What – I just took our your master ‘as a favour’ and it very nearly killed me! And you’re a demon! Why would I even want to help you?”

Sephri raised his eyebrows. “Do you seriously have so many friends that you can be picky about the moral standards of each of them?”

Cameron thought about it. “No. But … ugh. Just give me a while to pull myself together, all right? And I’ll figure something out.”

“Oh, good.” Sephri jaunted towards the balcony door. “Incidentally, your brother is coming up the stairs. And he does not look happy.”

Sephri went cat and leaped off the balcony in a fluid movement. Cameron stared at him sulkily, muttered, “Show-off,” and went to open the door.

He opened the door just before Bentasmal fell through it, his cheeks wet with tears, his hair in disarray and his arm bandaged beneath its brown coat.

“… darn,” he exclaimed. “What on earth …? No, tell me later. Sit down. Get your breath back. Have you eaten? I could fix something up.”

“You are such a cook,” Bentasmal muttered, falling exhausted onto a rather battered armchair.

“In my nature,” Cameron said cheerily, and then looked at him more closely. “Did Scott do something? Hurt you?”

Bentasmal glanced at his arm. “… No. Not really. I don’t … I don’t know. I’m not sure I trust him any more.”

“Hanging around with vampires isn’t generally a good idea,” Cameron warned quietly. “However nice or friendly they seem, even if they’re good people, in the end they only care about what they can put inside their belly.”

“You don’t seem to mind Scott’s company. Or Donovan’s. And I’m fairly certain I just saw a guised demon wander out of here! You can’t talk!”

“I know how to look after myself. You don’t, however clever you are.”

Bentasmal bristled, but then subsided. His feet were beginning to ache belatedly – he had been running since before dawn and was completely exhausted.

“So … not meaning to pry, but what happened?” Cameron set a plate loaded with omelette in front of Bentasmal, and leaned against the wall as he dug in.

“There were these three vampires … they were mad at Scott, for some reason. But he wasn’t mad at them. They … oh, I hope he’s not hurt. But maybe I hope he is hurt.” Bentasmal looked tired again. “This is confusing.”

“And your arm?”

Bentasmal stared at the bandages. “My fault. I was being stupid.” He sighed. “But I don’t think I can spend time with Scott any more. He really is a monster.”

The door slammed open and Scott walked in … well, ‘staggered’ might be a better word. His clothes were in disarray, and he had a black eye. There was blood at the corner of his mouth, and it was his own blood, too. He walked gingerly, taking care of his ribs.

“Hey,” he said, and waved slightly.

Bentasmal stared at him.

“I just wanted to apologize,” Scott said, speaking quickly as though he wanted to get this over with. “And to say that if you don’t want to see my any more, I’m okay with that.” He attempted a smile. “I understand. Real—”

Bentasmal rushed at him and wrapped his arms around him. “You’re alright!”

Scott looked surprised, before his expression turned to ‘pleased’ and he returned the hug. “‘Alright’ is stretching it. Watch the ribs! But I’ll be fine. Us monsters heal fast.”

Bentasmal snorted. “Don’t be an idiot,” he murmured. “You’re not a monster.”

Scott closed his eyes and rested his chin on the top of Bentasmal’s head.

Cameron, standing a little awkwardly in the corner, coughed. “Um. Don’t get me wrong, this is incredibly touching, but we have work to do.”

Scott opened his eyes and loosened his hold a little, but he didn’t go. “Work?”

“War. Between vampires and werewolves. There’s conflict already but if it escalates a lot of people will die and I can’t let that happen.”

“I can.”

Bentasmal took a step back and gave him a disbelieving look. “Say what?”

Scott looked uncomfortable. “It can’t really be helped. I can’t go against my coven. They’re not all bad, you know.”

“They beat you up!”

“I probably deserved it!”

“So what you’re saying,” Cameron said, interrupting what would have been a lovely argument, “is that it’s either betray your kind or betray Donovan.”

Scott hesitated. “I don’t want to betray anyone. Of course I don’t!” he added, as Bentasmal looked less than convinced.

“Of course you don’t,” Cameron repeated wearily. This week felt like it had gone on for ever, and it wasn’t even near ending yet.

Scott bit his lip. “And there’s nothing I can do.”

“I know. Hence the ‘we’.” Cameron smirked. “We’ll figure something out, I’m sure.”

Bentasmal shrugged slightly and moved away. “It’s not really any of my business.”

Scott raised his hand like a school child wanting to ask a question, then immediately lowered it to his side. “Ow. Um, technically Ben, it is your business. Vatisin and Miranda and that idiot Bruiser know of you now, and if I get involved in this they’ll probably hurt you just to spite me, or motivate me …”

“But if you fight the war on your own people’s side, the werewolves will have reason to harm me to harm you,” Bentasmal pointed out, suddenly realizing exactly how much trouble he was in.

“Crud. I have to figure out what to do.” Scott paused. “… After I’ve had a bath or something. My stomach is killing me. See you later.” And then he was heading back down the stairs.

Bentasmal looked at the stairs. “Heh … that bakery owner … what’s his name?”

“Dennis. But that’s probably completely insignificant.”

“This has to have been one of his strangest days ever. All the strange people who’ve passed him.”

“You’re probably right.” Cameron paused. “Er, hey … you want to listen to some Jonathan Coulton or something?” His tone was very brotherly.

Bentasmal considered it. “Only if you do something for me in exchange,” he said. “Wait just one minute.”

Cameron waited, making sparks dance around the room in a fairly festive fashion. He was a little bored.

Then Bentasmal came into the room again, something rectangular hidden beneath his coat. “It’s time for you to be educated.”

Cameron’s eyes widened. “You mean …”

“Yes,” Bentasmal said, and whipped out the box. “We’re going to watch Doctor Who.”

“Oh joy.”

Bentasmal grinned. “You’ll love it. That’s a guarantee.”


***

“Alex?”

Bentasmal knocked on the door cautiously. It had felt strange taking the ornate lift by himself, particularly when the receptionist on the bottom floor persisted in giving him dirty looks. But it was the next day, a bright afternoon, and he was bored. He wasn’t even certain that Scott would want to see him, but, he argued, it would be better to know that straight away than angst over it.

He was not very convincing.

The door was flung open. “Ben! Benny-ben-abenthy!” said Scott, clapping him on the arm.

Bentasmal winced. “Ow,” he said. “Man. You really do heal fast, don’t you?” He gave a slightly incredulous laugh. Scott was moving like there was absolutely nothing wrong with his ribs, and his eyes were blue with no sign of bruising on his fair skin. And he was grinning. He was actually, seriously grinning.

Dang. Scott was crazy.

“Natch! They wouldn’t have hurt me if they thought it would be long-lasting.” Scott paused. “Well, Bruiser might have. But Vat’s my friend.”

“Some friend!”

“Yes, well, I’ve never been too picky about my friends. But you know that. Don’t you?” Scott winked.

“Yes. Yes I do.” Bentasmal laughed.

Scott eyed him. “You, however, might want to get that arm seem to. It probably needs stitches or something. Wouldn’t want it to get worse.”

“Well. I always knew you’d have me in stitches, Alex.”

Scott snorted in amusement. “Mm, well. Don’t show that wound of yours to your brother. Just between you and me …” He flung his arm over Bentasmal’s unwounded shoulder and lowered his voice to a confidential whisper. “I don’t think he likes me very much.”

“Really? Gosh. I hadn’t noticed.” Bentasmal rolled his eyes. “Hey, can I come in? I still need to introduce you to Doctor Who.”

Scott gnawed on his lip. Carefully. With fangs like his it was kind of a risky manoeuvre. “I’d love to … maybe another time? Can I get a rain check on that? I was going to have lunch with Donovan. It seems like I haven’t talked to him without us both being in mortal peril of some sort for quite some time.”

“Oh. Right.” Bentasmal fidgeted. Bored bored bored … “Can I come?”

Scott looked delighted. “Of course!” He closed the door behind him, locked it and began to saunter towards the elevator.

Bentasmal hurried after him. “Just … are you sure that’s a good idea?”

Scott gave him a surprised look. “Of course. Donovan … well, he can be a little gruff sometimes, but I’m sure he doesn’t mind you all that—”

“So not what I meant.” Bentasmal grunted. “The vampire-werewolf thing. At war, remember?”

“Oh. Yes. That.” Scott considered it as they stepped into the elevator, and considered it on the way down, as the elevator music jingled falsely. “Well,” he said thoughtfully as they exited the building. For once, it wasn’t particularly windy. “Like I said. I choose my own friends, and I’m not going to let anyone dictate them to me.”

“That’s … actually very noble.”

“I have my moments.” Scott whistled jauntily, his lenim or deather jacket flapping around his lanky flame and making him seem like a giant stalk that had run foul of certain torture methods used by the Spanish Inquisition. And wore stilts.

“Here,” he said, entering a blank, stereotypical looking shopping mall. Bentasmal looked around and sniffed.

“Here? But it’s blank. And stereotypical.”

“Aha! Therein lies my devilish cunning!” Scott grinned. “See, no one would suspect any suspicious happenings to happen in some place so default and neutral!”

“… I’ll take your word for it,” Bentasmal muttered, sinking further into his brown coat. It was really quite comfortable. There were a few teenagers in the shopping mall, and they gave him guarded looks but didn’t bother him. Ha! Time was that they would have mocked him for being different. He must be blending in well enough. Maybe he could get a piercing or –

“Ben! Ben, buddy! Snap out of it!”

“Eh?” Bentasmal blinked.

“You were really cliché for a minute there! I was scared!”

“Oh. Sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“I should hope not. I don’t hang around with cliché people.” Scott got up on his tiptoes. “Oh, hey! Donovan! My dear angsty werewolf buddy with a mysterious past! How’ve you been?”

Bentasmal rolled his eyes and followed behind. He was doing a lot of following behind lately.

Five minutes later they were sitting on a park bench in a square with a fountain. It was a fountain that led to the Rift, by strange circumstance, but that didn’t really matter to anyone present – it was a nice day, there were a pigeons, and it was difficult to believe in the supernatural when the mundane was so fun.

Donovan bit into a burger, then held up his hand. “Mmfgh,” he said, then swallowed. “Hey … Bentasmal?”

“Mm-hmm?” Bentasmal said, poking his fries cautiously. They were so smothered in grease they seemed almost sentient.

“I tried to attack you the first two times we met. Not really the best way to make new friends.” Donovan smiled ruefully. “So I bought you something.” He lifted a brown paper bag. It had the logo of a popular sundae shop on the side. “Scott said you might like it.”

Bentasmal’s eyes widened and he abandoned his fries. “You mean …”

“Do you like frozen yoghurt?” Donovan passed the bag to Bentasmal and, yes, there was a little pot of frozen yoghurt inside … spork and all! Hah!

“I love frozen yoghurt!” he gushed, digging his spork in and gulping down sweet sugaryness. He’d never actually had frozen yoghurt before, but it didn’t taste all too Horrible.

“What a crazy random happenstance!” quoted Scott, stealing his chips.

Donovan smiled. “You two are both such geeks.”

“And proud of it!” Scott stretched out luxuriously, opening his mouth in an exaggerated yawn. A mother passing by with her children gave him an edgy look and hurried past.

Donovan finished off his burger. It seemed he was always hungry, particularly now he was unemployed again. He hated to admit it, but that was where having Scott for a friend came in handy. He threw around money like it was … well, like it was a thing that was worthless in itself and only was of use for trade and barter. Which was true, but he was the only one that seemed to realize it.

“We need to talk business,” he said, in his usual gravely voice.

Scott’s expression immediately turned serious and he sat up. “Yeah,” he admitted, in a low voice.

Bentasmal fidgeted uncomfortably and licked yoghurt off his spork.

“Hey! You guys!”

All three heads turned in almost comical surprise. Cameron sat down on the parallel park bench and gave them a bright smile.

“Didn’t expect to see you here, but I’m glad I did,” he confessed. “I wanted to talk to you. All of you.”

“Really? What a crazy random happenst—” began Scott.

“About the war. As it happens. Feel free to make a joke if you can actually summon enough good humour when faced with that.”

It was Scott’s turn to fidget.

“I want you both to tell me as much as you know about your systems of government.” Cameron took a burger and bit into it, then swallowed. “So we can figure out what’s likely to happen.”

“The only thing that can happen in a situation like this,” Donovan said. “Complete, bloody chaos.”

“I was afraid of that. Just tell me.”

Donovan shrugged. “Not much to tell. There are a few small packs scattered throughout the city and the surrounding area, but there’s one main pack and the others are likely to band under us. When that happens … we’ll probably fall upon the vampire covens, if they don’t attack us first. The other wolves, they don’t think of vampires as people. They’ll just think of this war as … pest extermination, nothing more, nothing less.”

“My people think of it as more like squishing a bug under their shoe,” Scott said grimly. “Vatisin is a good man … well, occasionally good. Goodish. But he can be incredibly ruthless. And he will be.”

There was a silence punctuated only by the cooing of a demented pigeon.

“This sucks,” Scott said grouchily.

“Yeah. Story of my life.” Cameron waved sparks in front of the pigeon, which immediately tried to attack them.

“Just a word to the wise … sometimes vampires can get humans in their thrall, use them as their minions. We can be very persuasive.” Scott glanced at Bentasmal. “And most vampires are very very rich. Comes of living a long time without aging … you learn to be adaptable. Heh. We … I mean, they … they used to even have a breeding grounds for that purpose. Passed it off as a school. Humans with the sweetest blood were bred for food.” His expression turned thoughtful. “All gone now, of course. Someone burned it all down. I think there’s a greenhouse there now. Grows tomatoes.”

“I like tomatoes,” Cameron said. “Tomatoes are good.”

Bentasmal gave him an amused look.

In the end that was about as far as they got before descending into squabbling and irritation on all parts. It was so hard to decide what to do, to stop a war, to stop the bloodshed. And none of them could think of anything.

They went their separate ways – Donovan to his pack for some much needed catch-up time, Scott and Bentasmal to their respective apartments. Scott looked like he kind of needed more sleep. And Bentasmal looked like he really needed sleep, but there wasn’t much he could do about that. Fast food or sugar would do in a pinch.

Cameron began to walk back to his apartment. There were electric buses, of course, but he didn’t feel like standing still in one place long enough to catch one. He wanted to keep walking, keep moving, in the hopes that some brilliant stroke of genius would occur to him that would save all their lives.

Any moment now.

… Squid.

He sighed deeply as he turned up Tile Street. Weaver Street was the other way, complete with the cemetery. He wondered how Saffron was doing. Probably a lot of her friends would be involved in this. She might have difficulty dealing with it.

He realized that he had slightly more worrying things to concentrate on about two seconds after a Fallen grabbed him by the shoulder and forced him into an alley.

(It was always easy to tell Fallen. There were three classes of angelic being in Wellington – angels, demons, and Fallen. None of them were really that, of course, merely people’s ideas of what they should be … but nonetheless. They were fairly distinctive. All were beautiful, as a general rule. Angels were kind, almost to a fault. Demons were ruthless, capricious and manipulative. Fallen were just what they sounded like – angels that had given into temptation or been tainted by the blight of darkness. Demons had the horns, batlike wings, tails; angels had long hair and white wings, if ever they showed them. And Fallen had wings as broad and beautiful as those of angels, but as black as night.)

So, yes, definitely a Fallen, to judge by the darkness of his wings … though as they were more of an autumn brown-ish shade, he’d been a pretty bad lot to begin with. That’s what happens when humans mess with ideals. They try to make humans out of creatures that were never meant to be and nothing but badness comes out of it.

“Sorry,” he said. “But you broke the laws.”

“What? I didn’t do anything! Ow …”

“You consort with demons.”

“You are a demon!” Cameron howled.

“Only technically,” the Fallen said. “Shut up. I’m trying to redeem myself here.”

Cameron shut up. The Fallen’s hair was a rich auburn, straight and long, falling halfway to his waist. He looked like someone who could be trusted. Though he probably wasn’t.

“You’re in trouble. The rules have been broken, for whatever reason. And that means chaos will be unleashed. The demons will thrive, the Fallen will kill without mercy and without kindness if that is what the situation demands, and even the angels … well, even the most righteous can be made to perceive badly. It will be bad.”

Cameron nodded dumbly.

“And the Hosts have been watching you, pyromancer. So don’t even try to make this situation worse than it already is.”

“I wouldn’t—” Cameron began to say, but then stopped, choking. Feathers were rising in his throat, constricting his breathing, and panic overtook him as he dropped to his knees, clawing at his throat, coughing and choking and struggling for breath.

“We’ll be in touch,” said the Fallen, and, spreading his wings, he launched into the air. The Hosts know how to make an exit.

Cameron coughed out feathers. They were inky black, the colour of night. “Stupid Fallen,” he muttered. “Stupid spells. Stupid, stupid Cameron. You shouldn’t get involved.”

He stared at the feathers on the ground.

“Not that I have a choice,” he muttered, and stood painfully to go back to his apartment. He had thinking to do.

***

Scott wandered the paths of Wellington. He could have taken a bus, of course. Or a train. The public transport system was functional, in an irritating, obnoxious kind of way.

But he had thinking to do. Not that walking would help it, mind – the deepest things he could think of while walking amongst people was how pretty that girl over there looked, and did that pigeon have four legs? Oh, and that man there was rather handsome too …

This may have been the point, of course. He had thinking to do. That didn’t necessarily mean he wanted to think.

A club would have helped. A bar. Even the Inn, dull and dismal as it was, would have been a slight improvement. But he actually did have to go somewhere. He owed his loyalties first and foremost to the coven. All vampires did.

This wasn’t as bad as it sounded. The covens watched out for their members. They made sure they didn’t give themselves away, acquired food if they couldn’t find it themselves, provided a group of people who wouldn’t view them as monsters simply because they were monsters themselves.

(There are varying types of vampires in the city, of course, moulded by people’s perceptions. Ones that can turn into a bat, ones that drink the souls of children, ones from the Black Court and the White and the Red, and even a few Cullens. People like Scott are the most common, but there are all shades of nastiness. When vampires met, they try not to go to any restaurants where there is garlic, or steaks. Wordplays do not amuse them. Well, not most of them.)

Scott ducked under a bridge, wandered through the underground, caught a train to nowhere and ended up in his coven’s HQ. Which was a big, empty warehouse. There were a lot of them scattered around the place, for some unknown reason.

He wandered past the guards, flashing them a dazzling smile and somehow managing to avoid being shot through the head.

“Alex Scott. There you are.”

“Ah … here I am,” he said helpfully, glancing around for the speaker. Her voice was familiar … “Miranda? You know I would go anywhere to see your darling face.” He gave a gallant little half-bow.

Her tone was wry. “Always the flatterer. Have you seen me lately?”

There were a decent amount of vamps around. They were in a ballroom, scattered with mirrors which reflected the tables and food and chandeliers but no people. Scott looked at Miranda. She was still robed in white, though now she was at least wearing a more elegant, refined kind of robes rather than the marked-down evil scientist’s assistant ones she’d been wearing earlier.

“Er … yes? The other day. Don’t you remember? Bruiser was there. He bruised. Me.”

“That is not what I meant.” She lifted her veil, just for an instant, and Scott caught a glimpse of pale, staring eyes, puckered flesh and sewn-together lips. He yelped and leaped back half a step, then stood awkwardly, trying to seem like he hadn’t just done that. The sewn-together lips twisted upwards in a mocking smile for just an instant before the veil fell back into place.

“Wow. Um … wow. How do you talk?”

“I find it better not to ask.”

Scott looked amused at that. “I should count yourself lucky. There have been worse punishments. At least you can ask, however that’s possible.”

“Punishment? No.” Miranda took a glass of wine and sipped it delicately, lifting the veil for the barest instant. “This was a promotion.”

Scott stared into space, clearly startled, then shook himself and took a cheese and prawn thing from a passing servant boy. The boy was human, and alive, though he probably wouldn’t be for long. “Remind me to keep my work mediocre, will you?”

She laughed, a sound without mirth. “That should not be a problem.”

“Ouch,” said Scott, wounded. “That was uncalled for.”

“You were asking for it.”

He frowned, but left it. “Seen Vat?”

She glanced at the mirrors. “Not as such. I believe he’s over there.” She inclined her head and the veil fluttered. Scot nodded his thanks in return, took a wine glass and swanned over to where Vatisin was standing, surrounded by his inner league.

“Hey.” Scott half-waved his hand in greeting.

Vatisin gave him a delighted smile, turning away from a sour-faced counsellor. “Alex, Alex, Alex! How are you?”

“Bruised, bruised, bruised,” Scott said dryly.

Vatisin waved the comment aside. “Nonsense. You recover fast. I know that.” He smiled broadly. “Which is why I have a special job for you.”

Scott thought of the stitches on Miranda’s lips. “What kind of special job?”

“A special special job, Scott,” Vatisin chided.

“Naturally.” Scott sighed and gave in. “What do you want me to do?”

“Want?” Vatisin’s smile turned secretive. “I want you to do lots of things.”

Scott blinked, trying not to show how surprised he was. Flirting? That was a little unusual. Vatisin generally kept things serious, and Scott had been certain that the older vampire was straight. Maybe he was just trying to manipulate him.

Not that he was about to complain. Vat was kind of handsome, in a dangerous, genial kind of way.

“But right now, I need you to spy on the werewolves for me.”

Scott’s jaw dropped.

“What?”

“And no, before you start losing your temper, I am not suggesting that you try to squeeze information out of that wolf acquaintance of yours … though certainly you’ll have to, at some point. We need to know what side you’re on.”

Scott nodded dumbly. “What did you mean, then?”

“Here.” He flicked a card at Scott, who caught it with honed reflexes. “The address on this card is where my reports say that the chief pack of those bunch of savages was meeting. They’ll be gone now, of course, but I want you to examine anything they might have left behind … see if you can figure out their plan of war.”

Plan of war? As far as Scott knew, even the vampires didn’t have a plan of war, other than the general ripping-out-throats thing.

Scott nodded. “Sounds simple enough.”

Vatisin grinned. “And I want you to take Bruiser with you.”

Bruiser smiled tonguelessly. He was wearing a tight-fitting leather jacket trimmed with a pink fur boa, and somehow managed to look menacing in it.

“Peachy,” Scott muttered.

***


Bentasmal walked home in no real hurry. He stopped to look at everything as he went. There was a shop that sold wool, one that sold coats – that was interesting – and a few others. Nothing of any particular importance.

Lately he hadn’t had any time to think. So many things had happened … he’d met Venge, for real, and he’d met his brother. Brother! A real live brother! And then there was Donovan and Saffron, if not that dodgy demon friend of Cameron’s … he had acquaintances, people he knew and could talk to without feeling insane or judged or biased. So many things! His whole world had been turned upside down and he wasn’t sure he could cope with it.

Of course, a good night’s sleep would probably help him sort things out, let his mind fall into some kind of order. No doubt it would.

Dangit.

Bentasmal snorted. It wasn’t a good idea to think about that, he knew, if he didn’t want to wallow in self-pity. But these recent events had shaken his self-control, too. Such was evident by the fact that he was just drifting along, mostly lost, letting other people control his destiny. And even if they were people, like Alex, who he trusted … well, it wasn’t his way of going about things. At all. And he wasn’t happy with it, not at all.

Someone glowered out at him from an alley as he passed, and fell in behind him. Bentasmal, oblivious, continued on obliviously, and the stranger kept about ten metres behind him, watching closely as Bentasmal walked into his apartment.

It was small, tatty. Posters lined the walls in a failed attempt to make the room seem more like something that belonged to him. He had a computer, keyboard, and various other bits of equipment, but no bed, and only an aging sofa. The detritus of various fast food outlets scattered the floor.

Bentasmal sighed and leaned back into his computer chair. Maybe he could just stare at the ceiling for a few hours. Or play a video game.

Video game sounded good.

***

Donovan took the bus home, in a completely non-eventful way. Then he just … paced. And cooked some food. And paced some more.

His house was small, but at least it was a house, not an apartment. Apartments were something of a trend these days, but he, at least, had a house. Even if it wasn’t a nice one. Even if it had horrible wallpaper, and slightly ratty carpet. It was his house, and he was proud of it. Ish.

Hey. He couldn’t do much better when he couldn’t hold down a steady job. Wasn’t his fault.

He prowled around a little more, and then headed to his pack. It was much more home than this lousy place. And he had instincts, instincts to hang around with others of his own kind. Scott was nice and all, a great friend, but he smelled worse than a rotting carcass to Donovan and the company he kept was less than stellar.

As evidenced by Donovan, he chided himself. He couldn’t really talk.

But anyway. Pack. Home. Back to the pack.

Back pack. Scott would probably be amused by that.

Donovan snorted and ambled away. The kennel, it was called by some of his more patronizing or self-loathing packmates. It was a nice place, built underground. It looked vaguely like it had once been an aeroplane place of some kind, with runways and great echoing spaces. They’d redecorated, of course. Now it had a homely feel, and smelled of wet dog.

“Donovan.”

“Sheppard,” Donovan acknowledged, bowing his head in obeisance. Sheppard was the leader of the pack, and he fully deserved it, whether for good or for bad. He was lithe, sinewy, and his wolf form was jet black.

Right now he was in human form, though there were half a dozen full-changed wolves play-fighting and sniffing around the edges of the runway. His dark hair hung around his face, ragged and uncut, and he had an untidy beard. Most wolves did. “I was beginning to worry you’d turned to the other side,” Sheppard said, in a gravely voice.

“Never,” Donovan said, and right then he meant it. Scott was nice enough. Other vampires … weren’t. He knew that, Scott knew that. Their loyalties were in different places and until then they’d managed to deal with it.

“You’ve been hanging around with vampires, I see.” Sheppard sniffed, but not in derision – he was gathering information. “And … a pyromancer? And someone else …” He stiffened. “What strange business is this? A child, barely more than a cub. But his scent is strange.”

“He was torn by the Rift. Just like all of us,” Donovan said, in an undertone. He owed his loyalty to Sheppard, but some of the other packmembers he wasn’t as sure about. Not anywhere near as sure.

One, a rangy female with greyish fur, loped up to Sheppard and fawned around him. Lapdog was what they all called her, and she spent most of her time in her wolf form.

“Stop that,” Donovan said, irritated perhaps more than he should have been. “What kind of behaviour is that for a second in command?”

Donovan would have strongly suspected that Sheppard had been drunk when he’d bestowed that position, if he wasn’t incapable of getting drunk.

Lapdog growled, but changed, remaining hunkered down. “I behave as I see fit,” she growled. Really growled.

“Evidently you don’t see fit very well,” Donovan said mockingly. “If you can see anything past that ego of yours.”

He blinked. Where on earth had that come from?

Definitely been spending too much time with Scott.

“Donovan,” Sheppard said, a rebuke on the edges of his voice. “That was uncalled for.”

Donovan shrugged a little. Lapdog wrinkled her snout at him. She really was unpleasant.

“I have something I need you to do,” Sheppard began, but just then a sudden hush fell over the entire assembled wolves. A few changed to wolf form, in order to have better hearing. Donovan frowned.

“What—”

“Listen,” Sheppard hissed.

Above ground, Scott was sauntering.

It took quite a bit of practice to get a really good saunter, and he was rather proud of this one. Bruiser, of course, was paying no attention. Scott snorted. There was no justice in the world.

“Why on earth would the wolves build a base here? It’s a wasteland.”

Bruiser grinned tonguelessly and then, disconcertingly, spoke. Scott resisted the urge to shiver. How on earth did these people manage it? Telepathy?

“Don’t ask to get wolves’ intentions. Idiots.”

“Your grammar was a bit off there,” Scott hazarded.

“Yes. Meant say ‘idiot’.”

Scott scowled and kicked at the ground. “I don’t think you can really talk.” He paused. “No, seriously.”

Bruiser turned wordlessly away and started investigating some other stuff. Scott paused as he heard something … maybe it was just his imagination. Nevertheless he dropped down on his knees and pressed his ear to the ground.

“Vatisin did say this place was deserted. Right? He said that the wolves had gone.” Scott glanced at his hideously-clothed companion. “Right?”

There was definitely something down there, because when he thumped the earth it echoed hollowly. Scott frowned. “Was the report accurate?”

“I gave report,” Bruiser said.

“That’s nice,” Scott said absently, then gave him a suddenly intent look. “Wait, what?”

“You troublesome.” Bruiser shrugged. “Good way to get gone.”

“Get gone?” edged Scott, having a sinking feeling that he knew what that meant.

Bruiser punched the ground, so solidly that he punched right through it. A network of cracks spread through the turf (don’t ask me how, haven’t the faintest) and Scott heard the ground creak beneath him.

His eyes widened.

Then the ground gave way, and the patch of turf, Scott and all, fell through directly onto the wolves waiting and listening below.

Only a small hole was punched through, and he struggled to climb back through it, until he realized that he was exposing most of his body to whatever was down there. He dropped, like the vengeful angel he called himself, on a shaft of light and onto concrete, landing on his knees, one fist hitting the ground, one flung out to his side.

“Ow,” Scott said. Then he glanced around. Then he got up. Very quickly.

This was bad. Incredibly, incredibly bad. And not the ‘bad’ that really meant ‘good’, either.

“Nice suit,” Donovan said, then looked surprised at himself. That hadn’t really been a good idea. At all.

Scott smiled, showing his teeth. “Thanks,” he said, taking a few steps backwards very quickly. Then he realized that there were werewolves behind him, too. On all sides, in fact. Most of them changed, eyes glowing with rage. Scott tugged at his collar nervously.

“Rip him,” the growl came from all around. “Tear him. Kill him. Make him pay. Kill the monster, kill him, kill him, tear him …”

“I’d really rather you didn’t,” Scott said, but quietly. This was bad. He would have difficulties going up against one angry werewolf, let alone hundreds.

Sheppard stepped forward to do the honours, his step changing to a lope. Donovan stiffened as he realized what was about to happen.

“No!” he shouted before he could stop himself, flinging himself protectively in front of Scott, baring his teeth in a snarl.

Donovan stood still, breathing heavily. He was going up against Sheppard’s authority here, and that wasn’t something he wanted to. But, now that he had time to think about it, he found that he still wanted to protect Scott. Scott was his friend, and Donovan wasn’t about to let his death hang on his conscience. Besides, that kid Bentasmal would probably be really mad.

Sheppard stopped dead. Donovan had always proved trustworthy in the past, solid and reliable, one of his best wolves. “Why?”

The simplicity of the question astounded him. “Um. Because … he’s my friend.” He gathered himself. “I mean, I know him. ‘Monster’ is pushing it. Though he has no fashion sense whatsoever.”

“Thanks,” Scott said dryly, trying not to show how terrified he was.

Donovan gave him a long look that told him he had failed. “No problem.”

Meanwhile the growls had increased in intensity, a monstrous sound. “Friends with a vampire?” Sheppard took a step forward, his eyes narrowing. “I thought better of you. And he was spying on us! You heard him, didn’t you?”

“He didn’t know! He thought we were already gone. The other vampire double-crossed him!”

“Exactly. Vampires are traitors.”

“Yee-ees …” Donovan shifted from foot to foot. He really hoped this didn’t degenerate into an out-and-out fight. “But if you kill Scott you’ll just be doing what he wanted?” he hazarded, not at all sure that that argument would work.

It didn’t. “Maybe you’re in this with him,” a low voice growled. It was Lapdog, partially changed, her hair thick and matted. “Always knew you were a bad lot.”

“What? No! I’m not a traitor! This proves I’m not a traitor! I will not abandon my friend.” Donovan glanced at Scott. “Even if he’s an idiot.”

Sheppard sprang forward, sudden and unexpected. Donovan, taken by surprise, had barely enough time to counter the leap, throwing his body in front of Scott’s. They went down in a slashing, snarling heap.

Scott glanced up at the hole, measuring his chances at getting up in one leap. But the wolves would probably just follow him. And he couldn’t really leave Donovan behind if this was going to turn into an outright fight.

Sheppard rolled away and to his feet. “That counts as a challenge to leadership,” he said, looking pleased. Donovan looked confused. “I hereby banish you.” Sheppard looked at him directly. “Any of my wolves will kill either of you on sight. But I trust you will still fight with us, Donovan. Please believe me. This is the only way to get you out of here alive.”

Donovan stared at him, nodded, and changed. Sheppard took a step back, and the ranks of wolves parted, all of them still glowering, now at Donovan as well as Scott. Donovan paced through them, and Scott walked behind, keeping his head down and avoiding eye contact. He did not want to anger these wolves any more.

“Don’t let me down, Donovan,” Sheppard called after them.

Donovan led Scott through the series of tunnels back to the surface, and he was glad that being in his wolf form meant he didn’t have to talk.

Scott was paler than usual, breathing heavily. Close. Far, far too close.

[Rikku]

SPOILER: Click to show

It was an old-fashioned video game. But a good ‘un. It was called Suicide Squid, which Bentasmal was fairly sure was a typo, but it amused him and so he played it until his eyes stung and his fingers slowed.

Generally at times like this he’d drop Venge a line, but that was kind of pointless seeing he could just talk to Scott. It worked a lot better, too. Venge had been the first person who could make him smile. Scott was the first person who could make him smile pretty much all the time, and laugh quite a bit too. Them being the same person was immaterial.

Bentasmal wondered if this was what being in love felt like, decided it wasn’t, and wandered off to microwave some popcorn.

***
“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.

Cameron sighed and wandered off. Bentasmal had given him his address, and he probably knew Scott’s. What Cameron really needed right then was someone to talk to other than a psychotic demon, someone who might actually be able to help with this whole situation.

***

“Sorry, but I’m not sure I can help.” Bentasmal shrugged. They were walking down an alleyway a short distance from his apartment. Unbeknownst to them, a figure detached itself from the shadows and followed, eyes fixed on Bentasmal. But that was unbeknownst, completely without beknownstitude, so they continued on as usual, wandering through the almost-evening. “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.

This was good, though. Just talking. Like they were really family. Talking, without having to fight faeries or figure out things or run for their lives.

Scott and Donovan rounded the corner, Donovan looking distinctly furry. Scott took them in at a glance, and his eyes widened in despair, but he kept on running.

“Run! Run run run run RUN!” He grabbed hold of Bentasmal’s shirt and half-dragged him along until Bentasmal got the picture and started running. Donovan gave Cameron a shove to help him along, and together they all ran around the corner.

“What’s going on?” panted Bentasmal.

“We’re being chased by a whole lot of homicidal werewolves!” yelled Scott.

The watching figure from the shadows withdrew very hastily.

“Whoa. And I thought my day was bad.” Cameron winced.

“Why? What happened to you?”

“Choked on feathers,” Cameron said.

“Got betrayed by a tongueless vampire with no fashion sense.”

“Turned against the pack I’ve been running with since I was a child.”

“I played video games,” Bentasmal piped up.

“Good for you,” Scott said through gritted teeth. “Now is it just me, or do I recall telling you to run?”

They ran. For their lives. In a very few minutes the two humans present were exhausted, and even Scott and Donovan, who were nigh inexhaustible but had been running for a whole lot longer, were beginning to feel ill effects.

“Place to hide,” Bentasmal managed.

“There’s probably a warehouse or something around here,” Cameron choked out. He glanced over his shoulder, and caught a glimpse of slavening teeth and thick fur and glowing eyes. “Quickly! Quickly!” he yelped.

“This way,” Donovan said hurriedly, and he led them round another corner. It was incredibly fortunate that not many people were around. Otherwise it would be kind of difficult to keep the existence of werewolves a secret.

“There?” Bentasmal waved at what may, conceivably, have been an empty warehouse. Except for the guards in front of it.

Scott didn’t have to look over his shoulder to know how close the wolves were. Normally he wouldn’t do this, never, but … Bentasmal was in danger, and it was his fault, and he couldn’t let him get hurt.

He looked at the guards in a disturbingly calculating way. There were two of them, armed with guns. What on earth? That had to be illegal. Maybe they were really nasty people. Scott hoped so.

He leaped at them, sharp fangs gleaming and snapping closed, splashing red trails of gory –

Tomato juice?

He spluttered and skidded to a halt, struggling to detach the arguably-a-vegetable from his teeth. “What the—?”

Cameron slipped the other tomato into his pocket. Being a cook wasn’t exactly badass, but it came in handy. “No need to kill them. We can just knock them out or—”

“Jump. Very quickly.”

Donovan seized Bentasmal in one hand, Cameron in the other, and leaped over the nonplussed guards. Scott sprang after them, and they rolled into a heap in the warehouse.

“Don’t drop that tomato!” Cameron said.

Scott glared at him. “Why?” he snapped.

“It’s a good source of … ketchup!”

Bentasmal laughed, then coughed, struggling for breath. Scott staggered over to him and helped him up. Then they looked around.

“Wow. Okay, wow. That … that is just strange.”

Outside there was gunshots, then howls of pain and rage. Donovan winced, but the others seemed more or less oblivious.

The warehouse was quite dark, rather dull looking really. But on all sides, the four were surrounded with row upon row of … rubber chickens. They loomed out of the dark, glaring with popeyed rage. ‘Strange’ did not cover it, not anywhere near.

“This is a rubber chicken factory,” Scott said, in the hopes that saying something absurd would make it seem more believable.

“Actually it’s just for storage,” a voice said. All heads swivelled around, except for Cameron’s and Bentasmal’s, who were far too tired to swivel. They kind of glanced slowly in the voice’s general direction, maybe. Ish.

It was one of the guards, nursing a gash in his shoulder. His comrade, a more taciturn fellow, immediately loped off to secure all the exits.

“You are in big trouble,” the guard said.

“So are you,” Scott said cockily. “In fact, if those wolves get in, we are all in big trouble. Huge trouble. Tremendously gigantic, frightening trouble.”

“We get the idea,” Bentasmal said wearily, collapsing back to his knees again. Scott glanced at him in concern. Bentasmal waved him away. “‘sokay. I’m always tired.”

Scott sat back down, crossing his arms loosely across his knees. “So … I have to ask. Rubber chickens?”

“We’ve cornered the market,” the guard said proudly, almost triumphantly.

“I’ll bet you have,” Scott said, and let his head sag back down again. Bentasmal wriggled over to him.

“We’re in trouble, aren’t we.”

“Huge trouble,” Scott said, “yes. Mostly my fault. Sorry.” He gave an apologetic grin.

“Not a problem. Makes life more interesting.” Bentasmal yawned. “What’s going to happen to us?”

“Well. At the rate things are going, either we’re going to get ripped apart by ravening werewolves or we’re going to get shot to pieces by over-zealous guards.”

“Peachy,” Bentasmal murmured. Scott yawned. “You tired?”

“Pretty tired, yeah.”

Bentasmal gestured. “Ground’s pretty hard. You can lean against me if you want.” He grinned. “I’m not about to fall asleep.”

Scott crooked an eyebrow. “You sure? You’re okay with that?”

Bentasmal shrugged.

Scott smiled and leaned against his back. He yawned again, and slipped into sleep.

Bentasmal watched the guard worriedly. Donovan paced. Cameron tossed his wooden spoon from one hand to the other. Outside, the wolves howled.

***

Saffron was doing her gardening.

A lot of visitors to the cemetery left flowers behind, and it was quite possible to grow these back into plants, if you knew how. A venerable ninety-year old deceased gentleman had taught her how to grow plants from cuttings, and now there was a little garden tucked behind the marble mausoleum. There was even a small area for herbs, though as yet no mourner had seen fit to leave some sage or parsley on the grave of their loved one.

“Stop being so silly,” she told Winona. “Worms are good for the soil. That’s what you do.”

The worm wriggled intrepidly out of the way. “I think not! This is all your fault. If you’d just got the stupid spell right I’d be munching on pigeons still! Now it’s the other way round!”

Saffron stopped and considered it. “Y’know, I think the soil is probably better tasting than the pigeons.” She thought about it some more. “And a lot healthier.”

“Not! The! Point!”


***

When Scott woke up he found that he was lying on cold concrete, stretched out. This did not seem quite the right situation to be in, but he was too relieved to care. The wolves had stopped their howling.

He sat up, wincing as his stiff muscles protested. He was still in the warehouse, and Cameron was sitting cross-legged a few metres away, but there was no sign of either of the guards, or Donovan, or Bentasmal.

“Cameron?” Scott yawned. “Where’s Don?”

“The wolves stopped their howling a while ago … he went off to see where they went.” Cameron shrugged.

“And Ben?” Scott frowned, feeling slightly irritated. Bentasmal’s back had been comfy.

“He was gone when I woke up.” Cameron shrugged. “Don’t know why. Maybe he needed some fresh air.”

Scott sat fully up, dragging a hand across his chin. There wasn’t any stubble, of course, but he liked to imagine that some day there would be. “Maybe he’s annoyed with me,” he muttered, mostly to himself. He’d always been very careful about not crossing the line with Bentasmal, but maybe he was showing too much affection, or being too annoying, or something. Bentasmal was really very shy, with lamentable social skills. Walking off in a huff sounded like just the thing he would do.

Scott hoped he hadn’t annoyed him.

“Really? Gosh. I wonder why.” Cameron rolled his eyes. “You keep on giving him dirty looks. It’s disgusting.” His expression turned serious. “Stay away from my brother.”

Scott sighed. “In fairness,” he said, “you give him dirty looks as well. Just … a different kind of dirty look.” He ran a hand through his tousled blond hair. “I take it you don’t approve of me, then?”

“You’re not good for him.” Cameron glowered.

“Nonsense! A thrice-daily helping of Alex is essential for a balanced, nutritional diet!”

Cameron blinked, trying to figure out whether or not that phrase was innuendo. It seemed a little obscure to be. “… Whatever. Just be careful, why don’t you.”

“Relax. I’m not going to hurt him.”

Cameron got to his feet. “Not going to hurt him any more, you mean, presuming it was you that did that to his arm.”

Scott hesitated. “Not going to hurt him much,” he amended, smiling a little weakly. Cameron snorted. Scott got to his feet. “So,” he said, struggling for a new conversation topic. “Rubber chickens, huh? Who’d have thought?” He made a broad gesture that seemed to encompass the factory, city, and world at large.

“Don’t be silly. They’ve cornered the market.” Cameron grinned. “It’s a very lucrative business, rubber chicken making.”

“Oh, natch.” Scott leaped to his feet, showing a truly obscene amount of energy. “Then … what now, do you think?”

“I’m going to talk to Saffron,” Cameron said. “I had an idea.” He began to walk towards the door, then hesitated. “Donovan should have been back by now. Maybe … maybe the war is about to start. You should go back to your kind. The storm is moving in.” And then he was gone.

“The storm is moving in,” Scott muttered in disgust. “Pah! What kind of pathetically cliché line is that?”

He sighed, and looked around one last time for Bentasmal. There was no sign of him. With a slightly heavier tread than was his usual, Scott paced out the door and headed back to his HQ. He had a war to win.

***

Bentasmal woke groggily, in a lot of pain and a lot of dark. He hadn’t fallen asleep, of course, and even unconscious he’d had awareness of his surroundings. darn it. Stupid Cameron. He could at least have made him right.

But now he could open his eyes. He did so, experienced massive amounts of pain, and very quickly shut them again. Then he peeped out from under one eyelid.

He wasn’t sure where he was. Probably some old, abandoned warehouse. They were at a premium these days.

A girl was sitting on a nearby crate, watching him with slitted gold eyes. Her skin seemed almost like … like scales. She gave him the creeps.

Bentasmal cleared his throat. “Um … hi.”

“Shut up,” the girl said instantly.

Bentasmal almost said, “Okay,” but instead nodded and huddled back into his brown coat. Shut up. Right.

He wished Scott was here. Or Cameron. Or, heck, even one of the security guards. Anyone. Anyone at all.

***


“Donovan.”

“Lapdog,” Donovan acknowledged, and moved to the side a little. Lapdog sat next to him, her tail swishing. She seemed to insist on remaining partly changed all the time, and it was incredibly annoying. Donovan, without looking at her, shifted to the side a little more. She shifted to the side as well. He gave her a sidelong look and moved a little further away without seeming rude.

About that point he ran out of bench, and fell to the floor in a somewhat bemused heap. Lapdog laughed spitefully. He got to his feet, brushing dirt off his pants, and wandered away. He liked his pack, of course he did, loved them like family, but some of them were really annoying some of the time.

Donovan chatted with a few old friends for a few minutes. They were good company, really. They talked about war and economics and inflation and government, and who they were going to vote for, and whether or not it would be a good idea to reveal their existence (as always, this last one was an emphatic ‘no’ on all counts, but it somehow always managed to come up in conversation anyway). Then he wandered back into the corner. He wanted to find Sheppard, figure out what their plan of attack would be, but he didn’t want to intrude into the counsel of war that he was suddenly and definitively excluded from. People were giving him sidelong, edgy looks, and mutters followed him. They weren’t very complimentary mutters. Mutters seldom are.

He took a hamburger and chewed on it, then happened to glance into a dark, secluded corner some distance away corner and instantly froze. One of the wolves was … what on earth was she doing? It looked like she’d found a human, too small to be an adult, but … the kid was lying awfully still. And the wolf …

Even from this distance he could see that she had blood on her teeth.

Donovan set off at a lope, changing as he went, and reached the corner in a remarkably short amount of time. It was Lapdog, of course. She must have … what, abducted a human kid? For food? That wasn’t allowed. That very definitely wasn’t allowed.

The kid moved a little and moaned. Her face was sticky with dried blood, but it didn’t look like she was too badly injured, and she was conscious, at least. Donovan barrelled past Lapdog and nudged the child to her feet, guiding her back into the tunnels. The kid ran.

That done, Donovan turned on Lapdog, just in time to get pounced at.

He wasn’t entirely unprepared, and he had the advantage. As she leaped at him he dived under her, then snapped at the thick ruff of fur around her throat. He managed to catch hold of her, and worried her like a chew toy, flinging her from side to side.

And then another wolf was in the fray, diving between them, pushing them apart, baring his fangs and growling.

Sheppard turned back into full human form, panting and glowering. Donovan did the same, complete with glower aimed at Lapdog. Lapdog stayed a wolf.

“She—” began Donovan.

“Enough. I don’t want to hear it.” Sheppard got to his feet. “But you had better not let me down again, friend Donovan. I need everyone.” He directed a glare at Lapdog. “Everyone.”

Lapdog whined and cowered.

“What’s our plan?” asked Donovan guardedly.

“Plan?” Sheppard laughed. “We’ve arranged a meeting place. It’s fairly free of humans. On that, at least, the bloodsuckers agree with us. No unnecessary bloodshed.”

No, just lots and lots of completely necessary bloodshed. Donovan resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“Soon,” Sheppard said. “Very soon, we will go to war, and then there is not a force on this earth that can stop us.”

Donovan had been afraid he’d say that.


***

It was the ballroom again. What was it with the ballroom? Stupid, overdramatic vampires.

Not that Scott could talk, really. But he felt like complaining. It was drizzling slightly, and even though the bright light of chandeliers chased away the shadows in the corners and the ice in the air the moisture seeped through to his bones, somehow. Or maybe he was just annoyed because he was missing Ben.

Stupid. Ben wasn’t anything special, really, just another kid.

Yeah. Right.

Scott took a fruit and bit into it before he registered that it was a tomato. Ha. Ha. Ha.

“Scott?”

Scott glanced up and nodded in respect. “Vatisin. How goes the plans?”

“Not that well. This will just be an out-and-out fight, I think. We will beat them easily.”

“Er … we will?”

“Yes,” Vatisin said firmly. “We will. Do you doubt it?”

“Frankly? Yes. I’d rate our chances at fifty/fifty. Which is great and all, but I’d rather have a hundred percent chance of, you know, staying alive.”

“Wouldn’t we all?” said Vatisin, meaning it rhetorically.

Scott glanced around. A number of the vampires present had given into their darker side, but to those who hadn’t, existence was a misery. “Probably not, no.”

Vatisin snorted. “Always the optimist.”

“Always the … sarcastic? That’s a new thing for you.” Scott squinted, as though examining his leader. “I like it. Goes with your hair.”

Vatisin laughed. “I really ought to apologize, you know.”

“Should you?” Scott took another bite of tomato, just to have something to do.

“Mm. Yes. That whole messy affair with Bruiser. I didn’t mean that to happen. But I can’t punish him. He’s too valuable.”

“Even if his fashion sense sucks,” Scott said sourly.

“So I really ought to apologize.” Vatisin gave a charming smile. “But I won’t. Not really the done thing. If I start apologizing to you then people will stop thinking I’m a tyrant, get ideas about freedom, blah blah blah, all very tiresome.”

Scott grinned. “So. When are we fighting?” He was almost looking forward to it, though he didn’t like to admit it. Fighting was fun. Or at least funnish.

“Soon. Very soon. In an open space.”

Scott sighed. “Naturally,” he said, and drifted off to get another tomato.

Vatisin crooked an eyebrow at him. “We will win, Alex,” he called.

Scott didn’t shake his head, but he frowned. Fifty-fifty. He didn’t fancy their chances.


***


“So … you really think this is going to work?” Saffron looked sceptical. They were in the Weaver Street Cemetery, which was a place filled with all manner of bad memories for Cameron. He strove to ignore the feeling like ice in his spine and carry out a normal conversation.

Of course, with Saffron, ‘normal’ was a relative term.

“Yes. I hope so. So long as I don’t mess up.” He sighed and dragged a hand roughly through his air, casting it into its usual disarray.

“We are all doomed,” Saffron said, with the amount of gravity that the comment fully deserved. Cameron wasn’t sure whether to laugh or scowl.

“On the bright side, if anyone dies, you can just resurrect them.” Cameron shrugged.

“Only if they can afford it.” Saffron grinned and chewed on her pipe. She didn’t smoke; she just thought having a pipe was cool, for the sheer awesomeness of it. Cameron tried not to be jealous.

“You mean you actually charge dead people to bring them back to life?” said Cameron, dumbfounded.

“Well, only after they’re alive again,” Saffron concluded. “Obviously. Otherwise there wouldn’t be much point.” She shrugged. “It’s a new thing I’m trying. Girl’s got to make a living somehow.”

“Living. Ha.”

***

It was dramatic. There was no denying that.

In fact, that was probably the problem.

There were two lines of them, stretched out across the empty park. The members of each respective line didn’t actually look that dissimilar, until you looked closer … saw the pale skin, the tangled hair, the fangs, the slitted eyes. But by then you were too close, and that wasn’t safe at all. On neither side.

Both of the leaders had black hair, but other than that they had very little in common – thin and pale and ageless, as compared to lithe and tanned and untidy. Both were graceful, though, in an incredibly frightening way.

There weren’t any bystanders. Not any innocent ones, at least. And there was a thick silence that covered everything, as pressing and cloying as the taste of blood.

Up high above, the hosts were waiting. Angels and demons and Fallen. You couldn’t see them, not unless they wanted you to, and their battleground would be the clouds and the power lines and the skyscrapers, but people would die all the same.

Scott twitched. He could see Donovan, on the other side from him. It felt wrong. And the silence was getting to him.

“Patience, Alex,” Vatisin murmured. “It will be soon when I give the command. Very soon. I have to remind my people that I’m in charge.”

“Oh, quit your Stalin,” Scott said out of the corner of his mouth. Vatisin grinned. It wasn’t a nice grin.

Bruiser looked like he would probably have been more in place in a sixties dance club. With knives.

On the other side, there was no conversation. There was a growling, but muted, in control. Hands were flexing, fists were clenching, teeth were bared. It would be soon. Very soon.

Donovan sighed.

“Now,” Vatisin said. And both sides leapt.

And then Cameron was there, frowning at Scott. “Aren’t you going to do anything?”

Scott gave him an incredulous look. Already the two sides had clashed, and come apart again, with a great rending sound as clothes were ripped and fur grew and fangs slashed. “There’s nothing I can do,” he said softly.

“Alright, then,” Cameron said, and held up something that looked vaguely like a lightning rod.

And then there was a clashing, and the assembled hosts, all of them, jerked back in sheer shock. There was a metallic sound, a crunching, and then out of nowhere they came.

“On every corner there’s a giant metal Santa Claus,” Cameron quoted. “Who watches over us with glowing red eyes …”

Saffron poked him. “Giant metal patron spirits? Is that seriously the best thing you could come up with?”

Cameron shrugged. “I had a lot to think about, and that song came to mind. And it works, doesn’t it? I needed something I could really think about, so the Rift would make it. Besides which, this is awesome.” He grinned. “They carry weapons and they know if we’ve been bad or good,” he said, loud enough so everyone could hear. “Not everybody’s good but everyone tries.”

There were a few bodies on the ground. Cameron tried to avoid looking at them. There were a few injured people, too, and quite a few people who looked like they would be more than happy to continue the fight.

“Hint hint,” Cameron said, in case they didn’t get it.

“How do you control them?” asked Scott, sincerely hoping that Cameron wouldn’t say anything stupid like ‘I don’t’, as that would probably lead to war continuing regardless after everyone had had a good laugh at him.

“With this,” Cameron said, holding it above his head. It was metal, and shiny, and really quite nifty.

“A sonic spoon. You made your wooden spoon into a sonic spoon. How is that even possible?” asked Saffron, who was there to provide moral support and wasn’t doing a very good job of it. “I mean, seriously, who looks at a spoon and thinks, ‘Ooh, that could be more sonic!’”

“I do! Haven’t you ever been bored? With a lot of baking to do?”

Saffron rolled her eyes, then stopped. The silence had gone, and now it seemed, in hindsight, a very nice silence indeed. The growls and snarls that replaced it were quite a bit worse.

“The not-fighting thing goes for you to,” Cameron shouted at the sky. He waved the spoon, and a few lazer beams were shot off into the sky. Some scorched feathers fell down, and a little of the tension eased.

A little, but not enough. Vatisin was opening his mouth to give the order again regardless, and Sheppard was tensing, his muscles standing out like cords.

Cameron scowled. “The current leaders don’t seem to be getting the point,” he yelled, his voice feeling a bit tired. He made fire dance, just for the fun of it, letting it spin into the sky. There was a startled yelp and a few more scorched feathers fell. Cameron grinned, then turned back to the assembled Rifters. “Can you do anything about that?”

Scott shrugged. “I’m afraid not,” he said, then grinned. From out of his suit pocket he produced something entirely unexpected – a revolver. He cocked it and pointed it at Bruiser’s head without looking. His hand didn’t waver. “I do believe, however, that the position of second in command is open.”

He fired.

Donovan flinched from the smell of gunpowder, but he knew he had to do something. What, though, he wasn’t entirely sure. He glanced at Lapdog, giving her a venomous look. She whimpered and cowered away, bowing her head in submission.

“Same here,” Donovan said almost cheerfully.

“Good! Well, now that’s all settled …” Cameron clicked the spoon, and the giant metal Father Christmases began to roll away. “I have some mecha to destroy.” He paused. “And a brother to find. Just, hey, you guys – remember, the other side is people too! Got it? Right then!” And then he was gone, jogging off into the distance. Saffron followed.

And then there was silence again. Both sides gave the other edgy looks, but that was only to be expected. They didn’t seem to be in the mood for warring again. A lot of the hostility had eased. The sullen-looking pyromancer had a point, after all. They were all people.

Scott glanced at Donovan. “I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I could really use a drink.”


***

Scott had his drink. And then he remembered a certain comment Cameron made … ‘And a brother to find’. And then he very hastily made his excuses and rushed out, finally letting himself surrender to the dread that had been lying in the bottom of his stomach. Bentasmal was in trouble.

Cameron and Saffron were talking, both walking urgently, both conversing in purposeful, muted tones. Scott caught up to them and poked Cameron in the shoulder. Cameron winced.

“I assume you’ve finally realized my brother is missing?” he said, in sour tones. Scott sighed.

“Don’t be like that. I want to help.”

“And right now I’m desperate enough that I’ll accept your help. Even though I don’t like you.”

“Gee. Thanks. I feel so loved right now.”

“So anyway, as I was just saying, it should be fine,” Saffron said. She shrugged. “I put Winona on the case. She’s fairly competent.”

“She’s a worm!” Cameron rolled his eyes.

“Yes, but she’s a fairly competent worm.” Saffron grinned.

“I want to help him.” Scott shifted from foot to foot. “But I don’t know how. If I just had a location, a scent to track, anything—”

“Why do you care so much?” interrupted Cameron.

“Because he’s my lo – friend. Isn’t that enough?”

Cameron gave him an annoyed look.

“Friend!” yelped Scott. “Friend! I said friend!”

Cameron sighed. “Whatever.”

There was a screeching, and a raven-like creature swooped down and perched on Saffron’s shoulders. Saffron staggered, but somehow managed to keep her balance, a remarkable achievement.

A worm wriggled out of Nomad’s claws, and began to hurriedly converse with Saffron. Saffron nodded.

“Okay. He’s in an abandoned warehouse.” She told them where.

“Gosh,” Cameron said. “A warehouse. What a surprise. Hey, hang on. I just realized something.”

“Yes?” Saffron looked blank.

“Nomad is a bird. Winona is a worm.”

Saffron continued to look blank.

“They eat each other, Saffron,” Cameron said wearily.

“Oh! Right. Please don’t tell them that,” Saffron said.

“Scott, back me up—” Cameron turned, only to find that Scott was already halfway down the street, sprinting like his life depended on it. “Here,” he ended lamely, and frowned. “Do you think I can catch up with him?”

“Probably not,” Saffron said. “I could get Nomad to carry you.”

Cameron looked at the bird’s sharp claws and shining, very sharp beak. “I think I’ll pass.”

Scott was running.

At about that point he remembered that being a vampire comes with a whole lot of perks, and he took to the rooftops, scaring the brains out of a nearby pigeon. That helped him go faster, and faster was good. It was only a few minutes until he reached the abandoned warehouse, but even a few minutes felt like far, far too long.

If he gets hurt … gah! It’s all my fault! I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s almost certainly my fault!

darn. I really hate my life sometimes. Or death. As the case may be.

He dropped through the roof of the warehouse, quite a bit more showily than was really necessary. A shroud of dust followed him, mortar powdering his hair and giving him an eerie look.

Bentasmal was sitting on a crate. He glanced up when he saw Scott, trying not to seem to pathetically relieved. He waved. “Hi.”

“Er, hey,” Scott said, a tad uncertainly. He turned his head towards the shadows, and blinked as a snake-girl came out of them. She looked … partially demonic. And very pretty.

“You … kidnapped my friend?” he said, just to confirm things. He didn’t want to go around killing random people.

“Well, yes. But I wanted you.” She slinked closer to him, somehow managing to look incredibly alluring despite the fact that she looked like one of those sidewinder cobras. Sidewinder. That sounded pretty.

Normally Scott would be happier about hearing something like that, but this really wasn’t the time.

“I—” he began, but didn’t get any further before the girl kissed him.

His eyes widened and he tried to pull away, but his movements were unnaturally weak and feeble. Bentasmal flinched, then looked closer … wait. What was going on, exactly?

Scott looked like he was getting … older. And a lot tireder. His skin was aging before Bentasmal’s eyes, becoming more gaunt … his years catching up with him? And meanwhile the girl was looking healthier by the moment. Stealing. She was stealing all his years.

Bentasmal gritted his teeth, and did the only thing he could do in the situation.

Well, he could’ve got the heck out of there, but that didn’t seem very fair to Scott, who had come to save him, after all. So he did the other only thing he could do in the situation, which was throw a tomato at the demon-girl’s head.

The complete unexpectedness of the move made the girl flinch enough to break her concentration, and that was enough for Scott to be able to pull away. He looked weary, gaunt, but still recognizable, not even very much older.

He sliced at her skin, in a calm, clinical sort of way. She whimpered in pain, but he ignored her, calmly cutting his skin as well. Then he held his wound to hers.

She died. Bentasmal was confused.

“Vampire blood can be very dangerous to some people,” he explained. “This girl’s mother was a Fallen. Probably her father was a demon … nasty mix, really.” He exhaled, stepping back from the corpse. It looked like a dried snakeskin. “She tried to hurt you so I had to hurt her. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry she hurt me, or sorry you hurt her?” Bentasmal took his friend’s arm, pulling him away from the girl’s body, and then pulled him into a hug. He looked like he needed it.

“A bit of both, I think.” Scott sighed.

Bentasmal propped his chin on his friend’s shoulder. “So what happened while I was out of it?”

“We stopped a war. It was fun.” Scott considered. “Oh, and I’m kind of second-in-command of the vampires now. Heh. It was necessary, I suppose.”

“Necessary?” Bentasmal looked a little dubious.

“Well, yes. That and I love having power.” He grinned, being his normal self again, happy and jubilant and carefree.

“No, you don’t. You really don’t.” Bentasmal glanced up at his friend for confirmation. “You hate having power.”

Scott looked at him for a long moment, taken by surprise. This child was getting to know him far too well.

“Yes,” he acknowledged, in soft tones. “I hate it.”

Bentasmal hugged him harder, burying his face in the so-familiar jacket.

And then Scott pulled back. “We’d better get you back to my apartment.”

Bentasmal smiled muzzily. The day’s events were catching up to him, and they seemed just a tad too unreal. “Cameron won’t like that. You should take me to his apartment first.”

Scott considered it. “Your apartment, then. Compromise.”

Bentasmal shrugged, too tired to care.


***


The mausoleum had been split open to reveal the twirling, twisting mass of raw reality that it had been built upon.

Raw reality, Cameron decided, looks something like spaghetti.

Saffron was looking at her home sadly.

“It was too big anyway,” she said. “And I know I got everyone out beforehand …”

Everyone? Cameron had a mental image of the numerous corpses staggering out, possibly in a congo line. He shuddered.

“… but I still can’t help missing it. Couldn’t you have stopped the war without breaking my house down?”

“Cheer up,” he said, guiltily. “On the bright side, we did, indeed, stop the war. And the Santa Clauses are gone now. Besides which, your friends can help you build a new one. A nice, neat little one, of greystone – I mean, grey stone, maybe. Or marble.”

“Nice? Neat? I need lots of room …”

Why did she need lots of room? What for, exactly? She was a necromancer. It was probably better not to ask. “It can be bigger on the inside,” Cameron said, giving her an innocent smile. She scowled.

It was a complete coincidence, of course, but that was when the earth began to rumble, then to shake, then to … break. That was the only word for it. The earth was bleeding and breaking and in pain, and the rumbling it made shook Cameron from his toes to his head. He stumbled, almost fell … and then staggered back as quickly as he could, almost falling over, trying to get out of range as a great chasm was rent in the ground.

The city was built on a fault line. He knew that. Of course he knew that. He knew it in an abstract kind of way, the same way he knew that there once were pygmy elephants on certain islands. It was far away, and long ago, and not particularly significant.

But now he knew it. Really knew it. It was kind of hard not to.

Saffron fell. Was pulled, really. He saw a glimpse of her cold grey eyes, open wide in something approaching panic, before she was lost to view. Grabbing hands reached up and pulled her down into the gaping canyon, into the abyss, the inferno, the Rift – and then there was another great rumbling, and a sound like the clapping of thunder from far away, and it closed.

Cameron, belatedly, fell over. He considered fainting, but there wasn’t much point, really. He just wished he could have one day, just one, when he could relax, talk with friends … just one day when no one’s life at stake. He’d probably get ulcers. And his hair would go grey early, which was just what he needed. Sigh.

But he had to do something. Of course he did. That was a matter of course.

No, really, a matter of course was exactly what it was. What was he meant to do about this, exactly?

He scooted forwards on his hands and knees to where the crack had been. No sign of it. Even the grass looked healthy – oddly healthy, considering it was a cemetery and all. Plants must like dead bodies.

Great. That was just the thought he needed to cheer him up.

He sighed and poked the ground. This didn’t achieve much, so he poked it again. Cameron sighed, and held a spark between his two fingers. He plunged it into the ground, sinking it deep, but no – earth all the way through. This wasn’t just a shell.

But he’d expected that. It meant that that rift had been infernal. Which meant that Saffron had done something to seriously annoy some people who were better left alone. Or maybe they were just bored.

Cameron got to his feet, heavily. Okay … so. He’d have to go and get her back. And he knew how to, as well, or at least he had a vague idea. To open the Rift that first time, the time that started all this time, he’d started a fire, burned his house down, at a weak point in reality. If he wanted to open it again … get access … well, if in a pinch, he could always just start a bigger fire. He had a hunch that there were a lot of empty warehouses around that would burn quite well.

But first … he wanted a word with someone.

The last few times he’d bumped into Sepri by complete coincidence. He had no idea what the demon did with his spare time, and he was fairly certain he didn’t want to know. He could guess. But he didn’t want to.

So Cameron walked back to his apartment, noting as he did so that the opened chasm hadn’t disturbed any graves and that all of Saffron’s so-called friends had scattered. Some friends. Of course, it was equally possible that they were trying to find a way to help her, too. Maybe not equally possible. In fact, quite unlikely. But there was always a chance. Occasionally.

Cameron went into his apartment, and then realized quite suddenly that he hadn’t cleaned up for a few days. There were clothes scattered on the ground, CDs wastefully strewn everywhere, and he’d only eaten microwave food or takeaways for the last few days. Which was a huge pity, but he didn’t really have time to cook a meal right now. Not if Saffron was in trouble.

Besides, the thought of all those corpses, and those grasping hands, made him incredibly queasy.

Instead he poured milk into a dish, walked onto his battered, tatty balcony and laid out the milk. Then he stepped back and leaned against the door with his arms crossed. Waiting.

A slim white cat with a narrow face and gleaming red eyes sprung on to the balcony, and turned into Sephri.

“Condescending,” he said, frowning a little. “Doesn’t suit you.”

“Like you’d know, mister ‘I am a demon and therefore better than everyone else and I can wear a turtleneck and get away with it’.” Cameron rolled his eyes.

Sephri smiled, razor-blade sharp. “I like my turtleneck.”

“See, that’s why it’s worrying. If you’re not careful you’ll end up wearing paisley, and those odd sunglasses with the white frames.”

“I like the sunglasses with the white frames,” Sephri said, looking amused. “And did you just call me to chat about fashion? Because I could share a few choice words about that raincoat of yours ...”

“No. No, that’s not why I wanted to talk to you.” Cameron sighed. “I think Saffron’s in trouble.”

“Oh? Isn’t she always?”

“Real trouble. The nasty, infernal kind. I don’t even know why.”

Sephri shrugged, managing to look unconcerned. His eyes gleamed briefly, though. Maybe with worry. “Demons don’t need a reason. They act as they see fit.”

“You act as you see fit,” Cameron corrected. Sephri gave him a flat stare.

“Now, now. Insults aren’t going to get you anywhere. Not if you want my help, which I presume you do.”

“Yeah. I need—”

“No.”

“But I haven’t even asked—”

“No,” Sephri said again, cutting off an increasingly frustrated Cameron. “I don’t know what you’re asking for, but no. I’m not your pet demon, you know. I kind of like you, but your novelty is wearing off. And I have better things to do.”

“Better things?” Cameron walked to the side of the balcony and gripped the railing with his hands, staring out over the city. “Like hurting innocent people, spreading chaos and destruction and pain …”

Sephri glared at him. “It’s no concern of yours.”

“Ah. But this is a concern of yours.” Cameron turned and tapped his nose craftily. “Didn’t Saffron summon you? You’re under an obligation—”

“She did, originally. And dismissed me straight away. She was just trying to help me.” His voice remained cool and disinterested … but perhaps just a shade uncertain at that last sentence. She’d helped him, and had precious little reason to, too.

“She helped you,” Cameron said, voicing his thoughts. “And had precious little—”

“I don’t particularly care.”

Cameron sighed. “Fine, then. Be that way. But I need your help.”

“Oh, you poor thing. However will you survive?”

Cameron grunted, turned around, walked inside. Sephri looked after him for a moment, then turned cat and sprung lithely to the ground. He had things to do, innocent people to hurt, chaos and destruction and pain to spread.

Once inside, Cameron began to root around in his room. Yes, he definitely needed a bookcase. Eventually he found the book, and turned to the right page. Summoning circle. That would do ideally.




***

“Come on! It’ll be fun!”

Scott seemed to be in the height of good spirits. Bentasmal tagged along after him, trying his very best to keep on being dour and melancholy. It was hard in the face of all that cheer.

“Alex. You’re talking about a mall. Malls are not ‘fun’. Malls are, by very definition, unfun.” He sighed and perched on one of the sofa’s arm rests. With some reluctance he had shed the brown coat – it was a little too warm for this weather. He was wearing, instead, a black shirt monogrammed in silver and red that clung to his skin, tight jeans with a skull-shaped belt buckle, and an ankh on a chain around his neck.

Scott surveyed him and sighed. “Look, Ben. Except for the hair you look just like a typical teenager. Which isn’t necessarily a good thing, but you won’t stand out at all, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

“That isn’t … that isn’t the problem.” Bentasmal gave him a deeply suspicious look. “What’s wrong with my hair?”

Scott grinned. “Nothing! That’s the point!” He sat on the arm rest next to Ben, and ruffled his hair. “No goop, no gel, no dye … your hair is nice as it is. I like it.”

“Cut that out.” Bentasmal ducked away, irritable. Scott dropped his head, and looked away innocently.

“This is about your apartment, isn’t it.”

“What? No! No, that’s not …” Bentasmal trailed off, and fingered his ankh. Because that was the problem.

Scott had taken him back to his apartment. Scott had looked weary, and Bentasmal had felt tired. There wasn’t anything he could do about it, but even so. He would have quite liked to just sit on his computer chair and vegetate for a few hours. It wasn’t resting, not as such, but it was probably about as close as he could get.

But Scott had followed him in, and … well, just been Scott. And that was bad enough. He’d looked at the computers and the posters and the rubbish-strewn floor, and all he’d said was, “You don’t have a bed? Darn. And here was me hoping.” And he’d grinned.

It was just an innocent comment, really, the kind Scott made all the time. But it had annoyed Bentasmal. Really annoyed him. At the time, he hadn’t known why. But now he had realized.

“I’m pathetic,” he said, almost too quietly to be heard. They were back in Scott’s apartment, which was comfortable and spacy and expensive and stylish, and basically everything Ben’s apartment was.

Scott’s first thought was, Great. Teenage angst. That’s the last thing I need to deal with. This didn’t matter, though, as his first action was to sling his arm around Bentasmal’s shoulders and hug him reassuringly. Scott’s body knew his heart a lot better than his mind did.

“No. You’re not. You’re really, really not.” He sighed. “I love you. You know that.” He rested his chin on the top of Ben’s head. “And I don’t love pathetic people.”

Bentasmal managed a smirk. “Heh. Cameron would be so annoyed with you if he was here.”

“Because I love you, or because he’s one of the pathetic ones?” Scott grinned and pulled back, though he left his hand on Bentasmal’s shoulder, still reassuring. “Sheesh. Some people just don’t know when to leave a topic alone.”

“Really? Gosh.” Bentasmal gave him an innocent look. “I don’t know what I’d do if I met someone like that. Particularly if they were, oh, about this tall, blond hair, blue eyes …”

“I’m not that annoying,” Scott said, looking a bit indignant. He gave his fangiest grin. “But I’ll tell you what I am! I’m dangerous, you know. A monster. Roarr.”

“Oh please. I’ve met Furbies that are scarier than you.”

Scott shuddered and mimed holding up a crucifix. “Please don’t mention the F-word. I still have nightmares about those things. Their staring, staring eyes …”

“Wimp.” Bentasmal punched him playfully.

Scott sniffed. “Pathetic-person,” he said, by way of retaliation. Bentasmal’s face fell. “Hey! Yikes! You said it yourself, didn’t you?”

“Well, yeah, but…” Bentasmal floundered. “It’s … different when I say it.”

“Why? Because you weren’t joking? Only I was kind of hoping you were joking. That’d make this whole situation a lot easier to deal with.”

“Not joking. Sorry.” Bentasmal sighed. “It’s just … guh. I haven’t achieved anything with my life. You know? I’m a thief. A petty thief, at that. I don’t have any friends …” Scott coughed pointedly, and Bentasmal glanced at him. “Well … not many. And I live alone in a tiny apartment and I haven’t gone to school in years and I fit in exactly nowhere.”

“Story of my life,” Scott said, getting to his feet. Bentasmal made a puppy-dog face, having enjoyed his extra warmth, and Scott laughed and wandered over to the kitchen. “Ben. Dude. I have to drink blood to survive. You have it easy.” He fished something out of the cupboard, and tossed it his friend. “Here. These make everything better.”

Bentasmal caught the packet and eyed it critically. “Alex, I hate to break this to you, but marshmallows, wonderful as they are, do not possess super-awesome powers to save every situation. I don’t think marshmallows will make this better.”

Scott took the marshmallows back and shoved a handful into his mouth. “Well,” he said, a tad indistinctly. “Maybe the mall will?”

Bentasmal gave him an acidic glare. Scott grinned, and helped himself to more marshmallows.

So yes, they ended up going to the mall. It was broad daylight, bright and sunny, and Bentasmal found himself regretting wearing black clothes, even though it was, of course, windy. Scott wore cargo pants and a baggy white shirt and his usual jacket, and whistled tunelessly through his teeth.

It wasn’t much of a mall, though. Not really. A shopping centre would probably describe it better. A square. A complex.

Scott fished out his wallet, and bought thickshakes. Then he dragged Bentasmal through the shops, cooing over shiny objects. They looked through the games shop, then the music one. Scott dragged Bentasmal into the movie theatre and led the way out of it once the movie had shown, with him chattering all the while and occasionally flicking popcorn at the people in front.

By the time a few hours had passed, Bentasmal didn’t feel pathetic at all. He felt … happy. Normal. No, not normal, but not-normal in a good way. He was … happy? Was this happiness?

Happiness was nice.

He half-skipped forwards a little and poked Scott in the back. “Okay. I’m happy now. Thanks.”

Scott gave him a dazzling grin. “Good! So am I!”

“You’re always happy, Alex.”

“I’m only occasionally always happy,” Scott corrected. “There’s a difference.”

Bentasmal grinned.

***


One thing Cameron had never thought of carrying in his pockets was chalk. This seemed odd, in retrospect. You never knew when you might need chalk. For example, you might be walking along, innocently minding your own business, and suddenly be kidnapped by hostile aliens and forced to write quadratic equations on a blackboard for their amusement if you wanted to live …

Alright, so that was a tad unlikely, but you never know.

So he had to go and buy some. The person at the counter gave him an incredulous look, as though to say, ‘Surely you’re too old for these?’

Cameron gave him a venomous look, as though to say, ‘Venom.’ Or, ‘Well … well, your face is too old for these! Ha! Yeah, fool! Yeah …’

They weren’t quite what he had in mind, true – big, primary-coloured things. But did it really matter? It would probably work anyway. Probably. And if it didn’t, well, being eaten alive by a demon because you’d drawn with the wrong kind of chalk wasn’t the worst way to die … well, actually, it might be. Depending. Sephri sharpened his teeth, after all. That would just be painful.

He wandered up to the first empty, abandoned warehouse he saw. After giving it a quick once-over and finding, to his relief, a complete lack of rubber chickens, he walked into the middle of the deserted floor and drew a circle in chalk. Making sure that there weren’t any holes as he did so. If there were any holes in this circle there would be hell to pay, literally.

Then he drew another circle around himself, trying not to snap the chalk because it had been expensive and he couldn’t really afford to waste money. It was about then that Cameron remembered he’d been fired from his job at the restaurant, and hadn’t sold any fireworks for awhile. He was low on cash.

But thinking about high-stress things like that wasn’t really a good idea. He pulled out the book – Summoning Demonic Entities for Fun and Profit!! – and read out the appropriate rite.

One time he had asked Saffron why she called Sephri Zephyr. She gave him a surprised look.

“Because he told me to,” she had said. “He has kind of a complicated name …”

Cameron finished off the chant by reading out the name written there in slightly wobbly letters of blood. (You try concentrating on penmanship when you’re bleeding all over the place. It’s hard.)

“Sethros Sephrael Seffarel.”

There was a puff of appropriately dramatic smoke, and Sephri appeared in the circle opposite Cameron. He glanced up, and his red eyes narrowed.

“So. You … know my name, then.”

“Yeah. Sorry. But you’re the one who keeps on ‘Cameorn Julian Harcort’ing me all the time. Very irritating.”

“Let me get this straight. You’re forcibly summoning me … to help you?”

“That’s the essence of it, yes.”

“No enforced slavery, no wishes of gold and gemstones, no prolonged missions of revenge … you’re just trying to help me be a better person.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Sephri surveyed him for a few moments. “I think I hate you.”

“I know.” Cameron grinned hugely. “Come on!” He jumped out of the circle and began to walk around the warehouse. It would burn well, he decided. “We have a necromancer to save!”

[Rikku]

SPOILER: Click to show

And now they were walking home. It had become something of a habit. A fun one, though. Scott and Bentasmal chatted about everything under the sun, and, in the former’s case, quite a few things the sun had never dreamed of. Anyone eavesdropping on their conversation edged away, looking scared for quite good reason.

And then a police car pulled up to the curb, flashing its lights emphatically. Scott stopped and blinked at it.

“I haven’t had a very good history with these gentleman,” he said, a little edgily. Bentasmal glanced at the police car.

“No, see, they’re just giving that fellow a ticket.”

Scott scratched the side of his nose. “I don’t care. I’m bored. Let’s run for our lives anyway.”

“But—” Bentasmal started to say, but he very soon didn’t have breath to say anything as Scott began to sprint, one hand firmly gripping Bentasmal’s shirt, dragging him along.

“Stop it!” yelped Bentasmal when Scott began to show signs of increased rationality and might actually be marginally more likely to listen to reason. Scott ceased running. They were far enough from the police car now, anyway, quite close to the sea. “Alex! What’s gotten into you?”

“Um,” Scott said, in a distracted kind of way. “The last time I was in a car with those two policemen I came quite close to feeding from them, and it suddenly occurs to me that I haven’t fed in a while.”

Bentasmal couldn’t stop a nervous expression from spreading across his face. Scott looked distracted.

“Hold that thought. There’s a bar up here …” He took a half-step forwards, then tripped over a loose cobblestone and flopped to the ground.

“Alex! Are you all right?” Bentasmal tried to haul his friend to his feet, but he’d never been gifted with any particular strength, and it was hard. Doubly hard as soon as he noticed the blood pouring down Scott’s face, caking his blond hair. “So, ah … not all right, then,” he said, a trifle lamely.

“I think I … fell over,” Scott mumbled, thus demonstrating his renowned quickness of perception.

“You hit the nail on the head!” said Bentasmal brightly. “Or, ah, possibly the other way round?”

Scott gave him an annoyed look, but gingerly felt his head. There was, indeed, a rusty nail sticking out of it. If he had been human, it might even have been fatal. As it was, it hurt like hell.

“Guh,” he said muzzily. “‘m going back to my house.”

“Yes. That’s where we were going anyway.” Bentasmal offered his shoulder, and Scott leaned against it. They made their somewhat slower progress back to Scott’s apartment, where he immediately pulled the nail out of his head and guzzled down a few litres of blood.

Bentasmal stood on the spot, twitching slightly. “You keep blood in your bathroom cabinet?” he queried.

Scott glanced at him. Remorse passed across his face – he hated it when Ben saw him as a monster, but this was better than feeding from him, at least. And he hadn’t gotten too much blood on his shirt this time. “More convenient. Not as tasty as the fresh kind, though.” He waved the mostly-empty but still pinkish milk bottle. “Tastes of mothballs.”

Bentasmal smirked. “Well aren’t you the picky eater.”

“Drinker,” Scott said. “Technically.” He poked his head, and winced. “Ow. This really hurts.”

“Funny. Considering you fell on a nail, and everything.”

“Like a hangover,” Scott continued regardless. “From what I can remember when I could still actually get hangovers.”

“Well, just get it checked out at a hospital.” Bentasmal helped himself to marshmallows. “I’m sure you can always bribe a few people to keep mum about the whole ‘immortal’ thing. You have, what, several hundred thousand dollars?”

“A few million.” Scott squinted in an abstract kind of way. “Possibly billion. I lose count sometimes.”

Bentasmal bounded over and hugged him. “Have I ever told you that I love you?” he said, his voice somewhat muffled by Scott’s shirt. Yep, definitely good it wasn’t bloodstained.

“Not anywhere near often enough.” Scott smiled in a smug kind of way. He was quite tempted to just remain like that, but Bentasmal would probably get annoyed with him. “Can’t go to hospital, anyway. Never really needed to though. Vampire.” He made a hapless motion. “Blood cures all ills.”

Bentasmal shrugged, disentangling himself. “Then go grab a snack,” he said, managing not to express how supremely disgusting the idea was to him. His best and possibly only friend was a blood-drinking vampire, but hey, no one’s perfect.

“Not that simple. I think this actually pierced my brain.” Scott scooted over to the mirror and examined himself critically, lifting up a strand of bloodstained blond hair.

“Eww. Stop poking it. That can’t be healthy.” Bentasmal, lacking anything better to do, took some more marshmallows. “So what are you going to do?”

“Pay a visit to the necromancer. She could probably patch me up.”

“Saffron? But she deals with things that have … died. Oh.” Bentasmal blanched.

“Undead. Remember?” Scott rolled his eyes. “Want to tag along?”

“I don’t have anything better to do.” Bentasmal shifted from foot-to-foot. “And I want to make sure you’re alright.”

“Aww. You’re sweet.”

“Please don’t ever test that.” Bentasmal gave his still-bandaged arm a pointed look. Scott winced.


***

Ah. Here, yes … here was the perfect place. He just needed to draw some attention.

Cameron paced a little. Sephri tagged along beside him, looking more and more worried.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“No.” Cameron sent a spark up to the ceiling, illuminating the cobwebs of years gone by. “But I have to try.”

Sephri leaned against the wall, which was also covered in cobwebs. It didn’t seem to bother him. “Why?”

Cameron thought of eyes the colour of river-smooth stones, and hair like sunlight through clouds. He thought of Saffron’s wry laugh and her boots and her sense of humour …

“No particular reason,” he said hurriedly, not wanting this story to degenerate any further into romance than it already had.

“I’m not sure I believe you.”

“Well you’re the pathological liar, Sethros. You disbelieving me is probably a good thing. In fact, quite certainly a good thing. That’s what I’m sure of. You might want to get out of the way, though.” He strode to the centre of the abandoned warehouse. This might get messy.

“Oh, please. I can handle fire. Remember remember, remember?” He stopped and thought back through that last sentence. “That sounded silly, didn’t it.”

“Yes. Yes it did.”

Cameron made the fire dance around his arms, just barely touching his skin. Sephri’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly. He’d seen Cameron do some of the showy stuff, the sparklers and skyrockets, but this … this was something else, this was the core of his power.

Cameron was a pyromancer, and right then, he burned.

Flames flicked and scorched as high as the ceiling, then higher, climbing up the walls with an agility that almost showed sentience, melting glass and scorching stone. The flames were strange, almost white with heat, and gave off very little smoke.

“Hmm. No,” Cameron said. “That won’t do.”

- and then everything was black and red and burning. Smoke rose up to the sky, it billowed and curved like a living thing. Cameron grinned through the murk and howled at the sky. Sephri coughed in a genteel kind of way.

And then the flame reached the foundations, and sunk into the earth.

Cameron’s dark brown eyes widened and his whole body stiffened. The flames sunk almost instantly, curling back into a white-hot nimbus that surrounded his body and left a glowing after-image on Sephri’s eyes when he blinked. And then the flames sunk into Cameron’s body.

His eyes closed. He fell to the floor.

“Sorry,” Sephri said, to the ravaged hall at large. “I really ought to have mentioned that that would happen.”


***


“Here we … ohh.”

“The term is ‘are’,” Bentasmal said, too surprised himself to think of anything wittier to say.

Weaver Street Cemetery looked … odd.

My parents were buried here. I never even met them.

But that’s good. This way I won’t ever have to miss them.

And that’s a good thing.

Right?

Bentasmal sighed. He didn’t miss his parents, not in any particular way – it just felt as though there was a hole in his life, something scorched and sad and broken, and there was no way he could fill it save with tears or blood. As long as he didn’t think about it, he was fine. But now … his parents’ graves. Defiled. And he shouldn’t have cared, but he did.

The cemetery was sort of eaten, kind of engulfed, by a great mass of something that looked oddly like spaghetti. At the same time, it was the same as it always had been. It was kind of … no, scratch that, it was really really hard to describe.

But the mausoleum was cracked. Straight down the middle.

“That … can only be a bad thing, right?”

Scott didn’t answer. He had bit his lip, and with his fangs that was a bad idea. A little blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, but he didn’t seem to notice.

Bentasmal couldn’t help himself. He took one step, then another, and scribbly black darkness engulfed him. He had been trying to find his parents’ graves, find where they were buried … but now he couldn’t think, couldn’t feel, and he was drowning, drowning in shadows and darkness and ink …

Scott’s head snapped around. “NO!” he shouted, before regaining coherency. “Ben-buddy-boy! Bad business!” He paused, trying to think of a way to continue the alliteration, but that was unimportant. “Get out of there!” Panic rose in his voice.

Bentasmal was aware of someone talking, but the voice was distant, far away and unimportant. He felt so … tired. So alone, but so, so very tired. Couldn’t he just sleep? Embrace the oblivion of a sleep without dreams …

He swayed on the spot, and Scott glimpsed him through a haze of black mist. He gritted his teeth and dived forwards, into the Rift, crying out in pain as the sheer forces of reality tore and burned and bit at him … but then Bentasmal was there, looking wearier than he ever had, and Scott grabbed him and turned and ran and limped and staggered away, out of the blackness and into the light.

He collapsed on the ground, shuddering, out of breath and all but out of sanity. Bentasmal was crying, crying almost soundlessly, great gulping sobs that wracked his whole body. Scott closed his eyes and tried to calm his breathing.

On the bright side, his head felt fine.

After a while Bentasmal’s crying ceased, and Scott sat up cautiously. He felt his head, then looked around. He could still see the Rift, out of the corner of his eye, but they were far enough away from it to be safe enough for now.

Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed a movement, as something multi-tentacled slid into the drain … but no, that was just his imagination.

And he had more important things to worry about.

Bentasmal had sat up, too, despite the pain that was written all over his face. So brave! Scott opened his mouth to tell him so, but couldn’t find the words as he took in the youth’s appearance.

“Your brother is going to kill me,” he said heavily.

“What?” Bentasmal’s head shot around, and he stared at Scott with an intensity of gaze that was almost unnerving. “What’s wrong?”

Scott sighed. “Look at yourself, Ben. You’re a werewolf.”

Bentasmal froze, then slowly, cautiously, examined himself.

He didn’t look all that different, not really. He didn’t have claws or anything. His shoes still fitted, too, which was a mercy because shoes were expensive. But his hair felt quite a bit floofier than usual. He ran his hand through it, then stopped as he encountered something unfamiliar … two unfamiliar things actually, poking through his thatch of hair. Ears. He had vaguely lupine ears. And now that he noticed, the world seemed a lot more … real than it usually did. Everything had another dimension. Smell?

“Also you have a tail,” Scott said.

Bentasmal stared at him.

“On the bright side,” the vampire said, looking uncomfortable, “my head feels fine.”

Bentasmal breathed in deeply, and almost fainted with the shock. “The world smells like – oh, the night! The stars! I didn’t know stars smelled like any … the sea! So sweet, so silver, it sings to me, and oh, the moon!” He leaped to his feet, bushy brown tail swishing in his excitement. He flung back his head and howled.

Scott got to his feet, more slowly and with numerous winces. He limped over to Bentasmal and gripped his shoulders. “Ben. Get a hold of yourself, here.”

Bentasmal focused on him. “You smell of … darkness, and death, and dangerous dreams.” He sniffed again. “And mothballs.”

“Told you,” Scott said. “Look, let’s get you home, okay? And then we can figure out what happened and how to turn it back.”

“Turn it back? Why on earth would I want to turn it back?” Bentasmal grinned hugely, a worryingly toothy grin, and flung back his head to howl again.

Scott firmly covered his mouth. “So your clothes will fit properly, for one. And so you stop smelling of dog. And also for a number of other reasons, which I expect you shall see and complain about as soon as your rational mind is working again.

Bentasmal stood still, shoulders heaving. His eyes gleamed.

Then he broke away and pelted off down the street. Heading in the general direction of Scott’s apartment, at least, but that wasn’t very much consolation.

“This is what I get for giving you sugar,” Scott said, to no one in particular. He sighed, and followed. Quite a bit more slowly.


***

Cameron fell into nightmare.

He had difficulty, afterwards, explaining exactly what it was like. The normal laws of reality did not apply here, or if they did, they were treated about as seriously as that one that says you have to wear a helmet whenever you cycle. But it was … terrifying. That was the one thing that didn’t change. Always, it was terrifying and frightening and twisted and cruel.

I thought I was travelling into Hell …

Yes? And? Exactly what could be worse than this?

It was his mind as he had never seen it, the images painted red against his eyelids when he slept. He’d always felt tortured, guilty, but had never let himself think about it … and here was his mind after all those years, scarred and burned and broken.

Cameron tried to close his eyes, then realized he didn’t have any. This, understandably, caused him a moment of concern. He didn’t have any body at all, and wasn’t even sure which part of him was thinking these thoughts … dang. This was confusing.

Barely had he thought it when his body appeared, and with some relief his thoughts shrunk back into his head where they belonged. He was naked, but it could have been worse. Though the ground, quite apart from constantly changing angle, was painfully hot. And spiky.

Like this, it was much easier to see that his skin wasn’t sunburned or reddened by the wind after all. Burn scars traced their way down his forehead, neck and shoulder, splaying out in a mass of pale tissue down his back and partway down his side. It was one reason to live in Wellington, at least. The wind was an ever-present excuse to stay covered up.

He coughed. “Clothes, please,” he said, and was suddenly wearing a pink feather boa. He looked at it and blinked.

“Well, this is Hell. What do you expect?”

Cameron looked up and blushed, hastily rearranging the feather boa to cover the important bits. “Sephri! You came? I didn’t expect you to.”

“You bound me to, pyromancer. Or did you think that all those mystic-sounding rites you were chanting just then were made up for the fun of it?” Sephri snorted in disgust. Cameron would have thought that he’d look more in place in what was, after all, his home dimension, but he looked … out of place. Too clean, too immaculate.

Sephri caught his look, and smiled his razor-sharp smile. “Is this better?” he said, and changed into –

Something. It had … tentacles, lots of tentacles. And more fangs than were entirely proportionate.

“NO!” yelped Cameron, trying not to sound too terrified. “No, it is not!” His automatic curiousity took over his revulsion as Sephri, with an accompanying eye-roll, turned back into his preferred form. “So you can just … change? Into whatever you like?”

“Within reason,” Sephri said. “Actually, without it as well. The laws of physics tend to skirt demons. With and without good reason.”

“So you could turn into, like … I don’t know, a lumpy and immobile footstool?”

Sephri gave him a deeply suspicious look. “Conceivably, though I can’t see why I’d want to. Is that a quote?”

“Who, me? Quote one of my favourite book series? Never!”

Sephri sat cross-legged on the ground, and clicked his fingers, methodically, one by one. Cameron shuddered.

“Incidentally,” Sephri said conversationally, “I’m assuming you’re carrying on like this because you haven’t looked around yet?”

“What do you—?”

Cameron looked around, and immediately wished he hadn’t.

The horizons were wrong. Ultimately, ineffably wrong. They pressed down on him, around him, and he was drowning in shadows … but no, not drowning, because there were flames that burned so bright, biting and scorching and slashing at his skin, reaching through and gouging out his heart, gouging out his eyes, leaving him a bleeding mass of ashes that slowly crumbled … and then! Then! Then the flames returned but they were demons and shadows, and each one wore his face, and they surrounded him with pain of his own making and ensnared him in nightmare.

Alone, betrayed by his own mind, Cameron Julian Harcort burned and despaired. Despaired, because he knew there was no chance, knew it even as his thought processes slowed and stopped in an automatic defence against the unbearable torment.

He burned.

And then he woke.

After a few moments he realized that the loud, keening noise, the completely inhuman noise, was him, screaming. He shut up quick fast. Screaming was bad form, and the noise only served to terrify him more.

Cameron realized that he was trembling, too, but there was less he could do about it. He could start a flame, but somehow he didn’t think that was a good idea. In his current state he’d probably end up burning half the block down.

He was lying on his battered, springs-showing couch. When he lifted his hand to his eyes he saw the skin was pale under its permanent slightly chafed redness. Hmm. Yup, definitely terrified.

Hell. Hell hell hell hell hell. That had been … well, terrifying.

Sephri was watching him with his usual calm, clinical gaze. It took a lot to surprise Sephri. Sometimes Cameron got the feeling that all the feelings he showed were shallow masks he wore, just like his many guises – ever-changing, subject to his own whim and nothing else.

The thought was almost as terrifying as the nightmare had been, but not quite. Cameron coughed meaningfully.

Sephri rested his chin on his outstretched hand and continued to survey him. Cameron decided to take things into his own hands.

“You said I’d go to hell.”

“I never said that, you just assumed it.”

“Because that’s where Saffron went! And I was following her!”

“Believe me, Cameron, your subconscious is every bit as horrifying as the Darker Realms. Possibly more so, in fact. You’re lucky that I followed you.”

Cameron thought about it some more.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I am. What did you do?”

“Well, according to the rites in that (dubious) book of yours, you were offering up yourself in exchange for the necromancer. The infernal hosts agreed to the trade, mostly because tortured types like you are very fun to torment more.”

“That’s … not what I meant to happen.” Cameron floundered. “At all.”

“Quite. Saffron got captured on a whim, you traded yourself for her, and that worked fine. The girl is probably sitting happily in what’s left of her house right now.”

“So I’m alive … why?”

“Because I took you back,” Sephri said simply.

“You exchanged yourself for—”

“No. Don’t be absurd.” Sephri shrugged slightly. “I took you back. It’s against the rules, but I’m a demon. Going against the rules is kind of encouraged.”

“Weren’t the … the infernal hosts annoyed with you?”

“Actually, they seemed quite amused. Some of the lads invited me to a poker game next Thursday.”

Cameron struggled to digest this information, failed, and ended up saying, “Gah.”

“That about sums it up.” Sephri got gracefully to his feet.

“But …” Cameron gave him a pleading look.

Sephri sighed, and leaned against the wall. “Yes?”

“Um, well, thank you. Though you really ought to have warned me what would happen.”

“Pah.” Sephri made a dismissive gesture. “More fun this way.”

“But … um … hell. I kind of expected, I don’t know. More fire?”

“It was your imagination, and believe me there was more than enough fire.” Sephri actually grinned. “I believe that if you had looked closer you might have seen soft pillows … and possibly something as dastardly as a comfy chair!”

Cameron let his jaw gape. “What! Surely not! You mean—”

“Yes!”

“But—”

And together they chorused, “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!”

Sephri smiled and sauntered away, turning smoothly into a cat and slinking down from the balcony. Cameron watched after him, and when he judged that the demon was a fair distance away he let himself collapse back onto the couch.

Terrifying. A world out of nightmare.

darn. He’d had no idea that he was that messed up.

Cameron sighed, and slowly let his head sag back onto the armrest. The springs squeaked a mournful lament.


***

It was hard steering a werewolf through the streets of a crowded city, but if Scott had managed it with a fully-turned wolf driven half out of his mind by a manipulative faerie, he sure as squid could keep a mere mostly-human pup out of sight, however much sugar that pup had had.

Though, then again … Bentasmal wasn’t being as bad as he could have been. He was barely even snapping at pigeons, and at least he didn’t stop to sniff every fire hydrant. It was a close thing, though. And if his new instincts weren’t dog-like, that could just mean that they were more wolf-like, more wild. Which would be quite a bad thing.

Bentasmal’s abrupt progress suddenly slowed. He glanced back over his shoulder, and glimpsed his thick, bushy tail, ineffectively hidden by his brown coat. His ears drooped.

Scott caught up to him before he began whimpering, laying his hand on the boy’s shoulder. Bentasmal veered away instinctively, his nostrils flaring as he took in the scent of vampire. Scott knew it was just an instinctual thing, and tried very hard not to feel hurt. He nearly succeeded, too.

“Where are we going?” asked Bentasmal, in subdued tones.

“To your brother’s apartment. He’ll know what to do.”

Or, at least, I hope so, Scott added internally, but he didn’t say that aloud. Bentasmal needed him to be confident right now.

“Ah. Here.”

They walked in through the bread shop. Dennis-the-insignificant gaped at them, particularly at Bentasmal’s very visible wolflike features and slitted eyes. Scott waved at him cheerily.

And then they were in Cameron’s apartment, and Cameron was sitting up and giving Scott a quizzical but mostly tired look. Then his eyes took in Bentasmal.

“Oh,” he said, his voice quiet. Bentasmal stared at him, his eyes haunted. He looked like he was about to cry.

“Sit down,” Cameron said, still in that quiet voice, and stood from the couch, waving Bentasmal towards it. Bentasmal lay on the couch, staring into space.

Cameron and Scott had a hurried discussion. Cameron looked like he very much wanted to yell, but was much too tired to and wouldn’t want to offend his brother. He got as close to yelling as a whisper can, all the same.

“What on earth did you do to him? I expected you to feed off him or sleep with him or something, worst case scenario, but how on earth did you manage to turn him into a—”

“Don’t say ‘monster’,” Scott warned him, keeping his voice low. “That would crush him and he doesn’t need that.”

Cameron gave a frustrated sigh.

Bentasmal’s fluffy brown tail swished from side to side in agitation. Scott glanced at his depressed friend, then at Cameron. His irrepressible grin was bubbling to the surface.

“But you have to admit,” he said, “he looks ridiculously adorable. Chicks would flip over the tail.”

Cameron hissed. “That’s not the point! What did you—”

“I took him to the Rift, alright?!”

Scott yelled this. It was something of a deviation from even the heated whispers of earlier. Cameron blinked. Bentasmal burrowed his head further into the couch, trying to get away from the world.

“I took him to the Rift and it changed him and this is all my fault but just please turn him back! PLEASE!”

Scott’s eyes were over-bright with unshed tears. Cameron stared at him.

“Whoa. You actually care. And here was me thinking someone who cared about my brother wouldn’t let him get turned into a freaking werewolf!”

Bentasmal sat up. This was an unexpected development that looked to ruin a perfectly good argument.

“Don’t yell at Alex,” he said, his voice a little raspy.

Scott exhaled.

“But … wow, Cam. You must have had one heck of a bad day.” Bentasmal smiled, a little weakly.

Cameron noted the use of the nickname and felt quite pleased. He’d never had a nickname before. “You have no idea,” he said, and flopped onto the couch next to his brother.

Bentasmal gave him a cautious look, scarcely daring to hope. “You can turn it back?”

“Some people used to say you could turn a werewolf back into a human by cutting off their tail. Obviously I’m not in a huge hurry to try that, but don’t worry. I’ll think of something.”

Bentasmal got to his feet, despite the fact that the aforementioned feet had only just now realized how much they’d been walking. He’d noticed that Scott was unusually quiet, uncharacteristically so even. He walked over to his friend and leaned against him, smiling into his face.

“Hear that? I’ll be fine. All we have to do is cut off one of my limbs, and that doesn’t sound too bad, yeah?” He grinned.

The attempt at a joke did not go down well. Scott looked away and swallowed. He shut his eyes, but his guilt was still written across his face.

“Hush.” Bentasmal rested his chin on Scott’s shoulder. “This is getting annoying. I’m meant to be the angsty one! I feel upstaged!”

Scott laughed, then looked a bit surprised at himself.

“Anyway,” Cameron said, not looking very pleased, “you ought to get going, Scott. I can look after my little brother perfectly well, I think.”

Guilt took over Scott’s face again as he left. Bentasmal rolled his eyes and glanced at his brother.

“Hang on. I’ll just be a minute,” and he rushed down the stairs. Cameron rolled his eyes in turn, and flopped back onto the couch, accompanied by a regular cacophony of squealing springs and gently wheezing fabrics.

Scott paused only to buy a Chelsea bun from the perpetually confused Dennis, but it was enough time for Bentasmal to intercept him. The boy growled under his breath, and Scott turned to look at him, eyes wide.

Having thus got his attention, Bentasmal punched Scott on the arm. “Idiot. Stop moping.” He then hugged him. Bentasmal was the master or giving mixed signals. “You’re making me sad, too. And I’m permanently sad enough already without you adding to it.” He paused, then ran a hand through Scott’s still blood-caked blond hair, trying to tease some of the knots out of it. “Glad you’re alright, though,” he added, in a voice almost too quiet to be heard.

Scott shrugged and walked away, but as soon as his back was turned to Bentasmal he let himself grin broadly. Then he took a bite of the Chelsea bun. It was delicious, of course. Chelsea buns always are.




***


Cameron walked down the road. He had planned to buy some KFC, wondering exactly how Bentasmal’s now hyper-sensitive nose would react to the deliciously greasy smell of fast food, but now it occurred to him that he hadn’t checked in on Saffron yet. And he had nothing but Sephri’s word that she was even back. But that was alright. Sephri’s word was worth a lot, surely.

Um.

Cameron started running, and didn’t stop until he had careened down Weaver Street and entered the modest little cemetery. At that point he checked his headlong rush and turned it into a saunter. Like he’d just decided to mosey along and see how ol’ Saffron was getting on.

Some kind of fhiend was building her a new mausoleum out of white marble. Rock by painstaking rock. Building it quite well, too. It looked like a homely little cottage would, if homely little cottages were meant for storing corpses.

Saffron was sitting on a headstone, legs crossed, bobbing her head in time to whichever music was being pumped out by the mp3 player headphones that trailed from her ears. Cameron took a moment to soak in the scene, the absurd combined with the surreal. Saffron was often like that. She seemed to delight in.

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.

So he made pancakes. And they were good pancakes, too. And they chatted (Cameron and Saffron, not the pancakes … though that would be awesome) about small matters for some time, slathering on maple syrup while around them shadows hissed and seethed and danced, and strange creatures let loose their battle cries, and ate milk and bread and honey from chipped silver plates. They ate pancakes while around them all the dark creatures from the minds of people lived their lives.

It was kind of nice, in a strange sort of way.

***

Scott felt guilty about leaving Bentasmal. But the kid could look after himself, couldn’t he? It was a nice evening, windy but pleasant, and Scott got the feeling that his company might get a little oppressive to the angsty current-werewolf if he hung around too long. Besides, he wanted to ask Donovan for advice about the current problem.

… Okay, yes, he just wanted to goof off the unfamiliar responsibility of caring for someone else by drinking with his best friend, but he might get something productive done as well, and that was better than nothing.

Donovan was most likely to be at the Waterfront Inn, so Scott took the train there. He amused himself along the way by making faces at the other occupants of his carriage, who all suddenly realized that they had pressing business elsewhere, where ‘elsewhere’ means ‘anywhere that isn’t in the same room as the guy with the teeth’, until the train rounded a bend sharply and he fell over, somewhat ruining the effect. After that he just sulked in the corner until he reached his destination at which point he hopped off the train, skipping over the ever-present broken umbrellas and fist-sized chunks of glass that were strewn decoratively over all railway lines.

The waves slapped ineffectually at the storm wall. Scott whistled jauntily as he walked along, enjoying himself immensely, as per usual. Then he spotted Donovan leaning against the wall of the Inn, looking out to sea, his brow furrowed.

“Don!” said Scott, by way of greeting. “Hang on a sec, buddy. I think this place has started selling those little drinks with the umbrellas in them.”

Donovan hesitated, looking troubled. “Scott—”

“Just be a moment, dear fellow!” Scott hopped into the bar, grinning hugely.

In fact he took rather longer than a moment, since he had neglected to bring any more money than he needed for the train fare and thus had to acquire his drink by a combination of charm and cunning manipulation. He managed it, though, and swaggered triumphantly out to Donovan, who still looked troubled.

Scott stirred the drink with its accompanying little paper umbrella (which was yellow, and striped) and finally noticed his friend’s unease. “What’s wrong?”

“Ehh.” Donovan made a dismissive gesture and began to walk. Scott, after looking after him blankly, followed. “It’s full moon. You know how it is.” Donovan leaned against the storm wall, staring broodingly out to sea.

“Er … I do?” Scott blinked and carefully placed his drink on the wall.

“Oh. Well, no, of course you don’t. It’s sort of an itch. In your shadow.”

“In your shadow,” Scott repeated. “I … see.”

“No. You don’t. It’s a werewolf thing.”

Scott sipped from his drink, seeming to relish it more than was entirely sane or decent. Donovan gave him A Look.

“Sorry. It’s a vampire thing.”

At that point, this perfectly cordial discussion was interrupted by the giant slavering sea monster that loomed in front of them, tentacles waving, beak gnashing, eyes glowing.

“Sometimes I really hate the Rift,” Scott said conversationally, salvaging his drink and diving nimbly out of the way as a tentacle came down and smashed the section of wall he had been leaning against. He rolled and was up again as quick as thought, standing automatically in a ready-for-battle position.

Donovan reacted almost as quickly, flinging himself away from a flailing tentacle that tried to wrap itself around his waist.

“Let’s get Kraken,” Scott said. He from the wall of a building somehow, launched off the top of the slightly above waist height storm wall and brought his fist down hard on the top of the possibly-a-squid’s head. The squid squawked in pain. It was really, really big. Leviathanic, though that probably isn’t a word.

Scott didn’t let a single drop fall from his drink the whole time. Now there’s composure for you. Alar like a bar of Ramston steel.

“Change, darn it!” he shouted in Donovan’s general direction. “Why don’t you change?”

Donovan was struggling gamely against the tentacles that were wrapped around his body, but that body was most definitely human. His hair was ragged and his eyes had a rather wild look, but that was it. “Can’t risk it,” he panted, between swipes at the tentacles. “Full moon. Don’t want to lose it.” With a supreme effort, he struggled free of the tentacles and managed a coherent sentence. “Don’t want to lose my head.”

The beak gnashed, inches from Scott’s ear. He dodged just in time, and sprawled on the ground. “Neither do I!”

Donovan growled. Literally growled. Scott flinched. The growl of an angry werewolf is terrifying at the best of times, let alone when you happen to be a vampire that’s being attacked by a giant sea monster.

On the bright side, the growl was directed at said giant sea monster, but it was hard to think rationally in a situation like that.

Scott got to his feet, skipping neatly over a flailing tentacle, and went to stand beside Donovan, more as an ‘I’m not scared of you at all, nope!’ kind of action than any kind of moral support.

“Do you have any idea how filthy that water is?” said Donovan.

His voice was level, quite reasonable really. The leviathan turned a questioning, glowing eye the size of a really, really big soup plate in his direction. Scott gave him a similar look.

“Day after day, humans throw their garbage in it. Refuse of all kinds. Septic, takeaways … you’re swimming in a giant rubbish heap. I’m surprised you can move for plastic milk bottles.”

The kraken gave this some thought.

Then it exploded.

It was quite a big explosion, quite a nice one. Bits of sea monster splattered the wall and ground and just about everything in the vicinity.

Donovan reached past Scott, took up the tiny paper umbrella and opened it over his head. His expression remained completely serious.

Scott looked at him. A chunk of leviathan slowly slid down his face. He bit into it.

“Tastes like sushi,” he said. “Have I ever said that you’re awesome?”

“Occasionally.” Donovan handed him the umbrella back, running a hand through fish-caked hair.

“Well … you’re awesome. Just so you know.”

“Thank you.”

They went back inside. They had a drink. They talked about small things. They argued. They laughed.

A vampire and a werewolf, the best of friends. Forget those stupid chaotic butterflies. This is the kind of thing that changes the world.

***

Sephri wandered into Scott’s apartment, and glanced around. It was lavish. Definitely lavish. You didn’t get much lavisher than that.

There was a boy curled up on the couch, his cheeks streaked with tears. His eyes were open, but blank, unseeing. It was full moon, and he was afraid.

He could feel it … the moon, pulling at him, tugging at him, burning at him with silver fire and honeyed words. He wasn’t sure he could control himself.

Bentasmal thought desperately of Scott, but that made things worse, not better. His lips curled back from his fangs in an instinctual reaction. Vampire vampire bad bad bad. Kill and rip and tear and rend. Bring the monsters to an end. Chase away the dark …

He squeezed his eyes shut, but the images marched on in his head regardless. He was gradually losing control … he imagined turning into a full wolf, letting the moon sing its song. Imagined pacing through the streets of Wellington. Imagined hunting … protecting, guarding, killing. Imagined Scott … but this time he was too far gone to flinch from the image. In his mind Bentasmal mauled his friend, cracking his bones in powerful jaws, slashing open huge, gaping wounds, spilling the stolen blood out onto the pavement. He imagined mauling, maiming, killing.

And though everything that made him him cringed in horror, he was too far gone to turn away.

It would happen. He knew it would. Scott would come back, and he would kill him. And even if Scott still lived with those horrific wounds it wouldn’t be the same. Things would never be the same.

Sephri leaned over the back of the couch, and Bentasmal, taken by surprise, yelped and flinched away, curling into a protective ball as far away from the frightening-looking demon as possible. His tail swished agitatedly from side to side.

“Don’t let your brother say I never do anything for him,” Sephri said.

“I … won’t?” Bentasmal blinked at him through his haze of tears.

Sephri grinned. “Good,” he said, and brought his claws down in a vicious swipe. Bentasmal’s tail thudded to the ground, blood already pooling in the nice carpet. Bentasmal howled.

“You … are … psychotic!” he ground out, and then stopped, looking surprised. “Wait.” He felt the top of his head. Only normal ears. Normal ears! He was normal!

Well, not normal, but it’d do for now.

“Thank you!”

Sephri shrugged, looking bored.

“Wait! Can you …help me? Maybe? I can’t sleep. Maybe you could …”

Bentasmal blinked.

“… Walk out the door without even listening to me,” he muttered. “Okay. Whatever. Fine.”

He settled back on the couch and hugged his knees. Waiting for Scott. He really needed to watch some Firefly right now.

***

It had been a good day. Cameron meandered back to his apartment. He didn’t whistle, but he came dang close.

There was no way that Rift was going to close any time soon. His life would always be like this, he realized, a tad belatedly. Always. Dodging danger, dodging death, saving friends and foes alike. Not even knowing who was friend and who was foe. Sometimes ‘friend’ and ‘foe’ was even the same person.

Confusing and dangerous and deadly.

Cameron let himself grin. He lifted up his hands, feeling the reassuring roughness of his faded yellow coat against his skin, feeling the reassuring weight of his wooden spoon and his matches and his cigarette lighter in his pocket.

Cameron Julian Harcort lifted up his hands and made fire dance.

Yes. Yes, that was definitely fun. =D

[Kathleen]

*settles down and pointedly ignores To-Do List*
EDIT:

SPOILER: Click to show

Donovan yawned. “And it’s your fault I was fired, yours and Saffron’s. You made me miss my shift.”
Is that supposed to be Cameron yawning? xD I get my characters names mixed up much more often than I really think I ought to. It always confounds me. Dang.

[Rikku]

Nov 21, 2008 17:15:06 GMT -5 Kathleen said:

*settles down and pointedly ignores To-Do List*
EDIT:

SPOILER: Click to show

Donovan yawned. “And it’s your fault I was fired, yours and Saffron’s. You made me miss my shift.”
Is that supposed to be Cameron yawning? xD I get my characters names mixed up much more often than I really think I ought to. It always confounds me. Dang.

... You saw nothing. >.>;

[Shadaras]

^_^ ..that was awesome. And it took a while to read, but whatever. I really liked this line, by the way: Cameron was a pyromancer, and right then, he burned.

And Sephros Sephrael Saffros ((Edit: Sefferal. Whatever.)) is an awesome name. And I can actually remember it, so I don't get why Saffron said it was too long and complicated. Or how she got Zephyr from it. Maybe she was jealous that he was stealing her name. xD

Alex and Ben were awesome, of course, and my second and third favorite characters (don't ask which is better. I don't know who would win). Faust and Sephri sort of win. Except Faust doesn't really count because he isn't part of it enough. So yeah.

That was fun to read. Thanks for posting it, Rikkukuku. ^_^

[Rikku]

Nov 21, 2008 22:56:36 GMT -5 Shadaras said:

^_^ ..that was awesome. And it took a while to read, but whatever. I really liked this line, by the way: Cameron was a pyromancer, and right then, he burned.

And Sephros Sephrael Saffros ((Edit: Sefferal. Whatever.)) is an awesome name. And I can actually remember it, so I don't get why Saffron said it was too long and complicated. Or how she got Zephyr from it. Maybe she was jealous that he was stealing her name. xD

Alex and Ben were awesome, of course, and my second and third favorite characters (don't ask which is better. I don't know who would win). Faust and Sephri sort of win. Except Faust doesn't really count because he isn't part of it enough. So yeah.

That was fun to read. Thanks for posting it, Rikkukuku. ^_^

^_^ Yay! *basks in Shadeapproval*

Oh? Er. *scurries off to check that particular quote* Ah, that's easy. Sephri gets uncomfortable when people use his full name, considering its the handle that can bind him to servility and suchlike. 'Zephyr' was from 'Seffarel', I suppose. They sound at least vaguely similar. Maybe. >.>;

[Trilly (18426 words)]

I read the entire thing, while I should have been writing. T__T It was worth it though, and I was roaring with laughter at all the Bones, Doctor Who, Firefly, and Name of the Wind references. I was only going to read a little bit at a time, but I got right into it...

Win!

I also liked Sephri's good deeds. He can do such nice things while managing to still come off as nasty. He kind of redeems himself through them, though, and I liked that a lot. ^__^

T'was great-tastic!

[Rikku]

Nov 22, 2008 0:51:17 GMT -5 Trilly (18426 words) said:

I read the entire thing, while I should have been writing. T__T It was worth it though, and I was roaring with laughter at all the Bones, Doctor Who, Firefly, and Name of the Wind references. I was only going to read a little bit at a time, but I got right into it...

Win!

I also liked Sephri's good deeds. He can do such nice things while managing to still come off as nasty. He kind of redeems himself through them, though, and I liked that a lot. ^__^

T'was great-tastic!

^__^ Well. You should have been writing, though. So to make up for it post lots more excerpts. Preferably the whole thing. As soon as possible. Please? =D

It was so much fun to work all of those into there. xD

Yeah. Three cheers for capricious folk. =D

[Trilly (18426 words)]

Nov 22, 2008 1:16:29 GMT -5 Rikku said:

Nov 22, 2008 0:51:17 GMT -5 Trilly (18426 words) said:

I read the entire thing, while I should have been writing. T__T It was worth it though, and I was roaring with laughter at all the Bones, Doctor Who, Firefly, and Name of the Wind references. I was only going to read a little bit at a time, but I got right into it...

Win!

I also liked Sephri's good deeds. He can do such nice things while managing to still come off as nasty. He kind of redeems himself through them, though, and I liked that a lot. ^__^

T'was great-tastic!

^__^ Well. You should have been writing, though. So to make up for it post lots more excerpts. Preferably the whole thing. As soon as possible. Please? =D

It was so much fun to work all of those into there. xD

Yeah. Three cheers for capricious folk. =D

Well, I'll post chapter... four...? I think it's chapter four, anyways.

My story is ridiculously short on in-jokes. The dangers of having a setting that is a sort of pre-Firefly era. Ah, well. Your story more than makes up for the lack of funny bits in mine. XD

[Rikku]

Nov 22, 2008 1:48:15 GMT -5 Trilly (18426 words) said:

Nov 22, 2008 1:16:29 GMT -5 Rikku said:

^__^ Well. You should have been writing, though. So to make up for it post lots more excerpts. Preferably the whole thing. As soon as possible. Please? =D

It was so much fun to work all of those into there. xD

Yeah. Three cheers for capricious folk. =D

Well, I'll post chapter... four...? I think it's chapter four, anyways.

My story is ridiculously short on in-jokes. The dangers of having a setting that is a sort of pre-Firefly era. Ah, well. Your story more than makes up for the lack of funny bits in mine. XD

... You have a nun with a flamethrower. xD I think you're set.

[Trilly (18426 words)]

Nov 22, 2008 1:52:26 GMT -5 Rikku said:

Nov 22, 2008 1:48:15 GMT -5 Trilly (18426 words) said:

Well, I'll post chapter... four...? I think it's chapter four, anyways.

My story is ridiculously short on in-jokes. The dangers of having a setting that is a sort of pre-Firefly era. Ah, well. Your story more than makes up for the lack of funny bits in mine. XD

... You have a nun with a flamethrower. xD I think you're set.

Maybe. XD

It seems neither you nor I can write a decent-length story that doesn't have fire involved in some way. How odd.

Odd, but good. I like fire.