Huntress, Black Dawn, Witchlight

by L. J. Smith

  And another part of her was scared that she was even verging on losing control. That was what even a day with Morgead did to her. It cut through all her careful discipline and changed her back into a raving barbarian.

  Morgead…she couldn’t think about him now.

  “Okay, Uncle Jim,” she said out loud. “I understand. You do what you have to.”

  “If you can just show us that you’re learning to be responsible, then you can have the bike back. You have to learn to take life more seriously, Jez.”

  That forced a tired snort out of her. She was laughing before she knew it, and her aunt and uncle were looking shocked and displeased.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll try harder.”

  And I’ll just have to take public transportation tomorrow, she thought when the lecture was over and she was free to go to her room. Even though that’s a lot more dangerous. I could get hunted down so easily….

  “You messed with the wrong person, you know?” Claire said as Jez reached her door. “You shouldn’t have dumped me like that. You shouldn’t make me mad.”

  “Yeah, Claire; well, now I know better. I’m terrified.”

  “You’re still not taking things seriously, are you?”

  “Claire—” Jez rounded on the smaller girl. Then she stopped dead. “I don’t have time for this,” she muttered. “I have to make a call. You just run along and harass somebody else.”

  She shut the bedroom door in Claire’s face.

  Which, she realized later, was a mistake. At the time, though, she was too tired to think about it.

  She was too tired to think properly at all. Tired and distraught, with the feeling that everything was closing in and happening too fast.

  And so when she picked up the phone to dial Hugh she hardly noticed the little click on the line, and she didn’t stop for even a second to consider what it meant.

  CHAPTER 14

  “Did you have trouble getting away?” Hugh said.

  It was the next morning, a very different sort of day from yesterday. The sky was overcast and the air was heavy. Everyone Jez had passed at the Concord BART station looked a little depressed.

  “Eh, a little,” she said, and sat down by Hugh on the platform. They were at the far end of the station, beyond the covered area with benches, beside a little concrete security house. It was a safe and private meeting place since the station was almost deserted after the morning commute. “They chained up my bike with this huge chain. Claire drove me to school—she’s been watching me like a werewolf guarding dinner. And Aunt Nan called the office to make sure I didn’t cut.”

  Hugh shifted in concern. There was a tiny breath of warm wind, and it stirred his fair hair. “So what did you do?”

  Jez grinned. “I cut.” She shrugged and added, “I got a guy from my auto shop class to drive me here. It wasn’t hard.”

  He smiled at her sadly, his gray eyes distant. “But they’re going to find out. Jez, I’m really sorry for completely messing up your life.”

  She shrugged again. “Yeah, but if I don’t do it, everybody’s life is going to be even more completely messed up. Every human’s.”

  “I know.” He shivered slightly. Then he drew up his legs, clasping his arms around them. He looked at her with his chin on his knees. “So what did you find out?”

  “That the girl Morgead thought was the Wild Power isn’t.” He looks so cute that way, Jez thought helplessly. So—compact. Morgead would never sit like that.

  Hugh winced. “Great. You’re sure?”

  “Yeah. It was a little kid, eight years old, and she was something special—but not that. She was…” Jez tried to think of a way to describe it. Hugh watched her with eyes that were clear and fathomless, sad and wry and gentle all at once. And suddenly Jez got it. She gasped.

  “Goddess—I know! She was like you. That kid was an Old Soul.”

  Hugh’s eyebrows went up. “You think?”

  “I’m sure of it. She had that same way of looking at you as if she’s seen all of history and she knows that you’re just a little part. That…‘big picture’ look. As if she were beyond stupid human things.”

  “But not a Wild Power,” Hugh said softly. He looked half discouraged and half relieved. “So then the Morgead connection is useless.”

  “Actually, no. Because he’s got evidence for the Wild Power on videotape.” Jez explained about the movie and the fire and the blue flash. “So somebody around that kid is probably it. I know that area and so does Morgead. We may be able to find out who.”

  Hugh chewed his lip. Then he looked directly at her. “It sounds dangerous. Just how is Morgead taking this—you coming back and all?”

  Jez stared out across the BART tracks. They looked like regular train tracks, except for the big one labeled DANGER ELECTRIC THIRD RAIL. There was a sound like faraway thunder, and then a train came whizzing up like a sleek futuristic white dragon. It stopped and a few people got on and off in the distance. She waited until it left again to answer.

  “He…wasn’t very happy at first. But then he kind of got used to it. I don’t think he’s going to make any trouble—unless he finds out, you know.”

  She wasn’t sure what else to say. She didn’t want to talk to Hugh about Morgead—and she certainly didn’t want to explain what had happened. Especially not when she was so confused about it all herself.

  “You still think he’d hate you if he found out you were half human?” Hugh’s voice was quiet.

  Jez laughed shortly. “Believe it. He would.”

  There was a silence, while Hugh looked at her. Suddenly Jez found her mind posing an odd question. If it were Hugh or Morgead, which would she take?

  Of course, it was a completely ridiculous question. She couldn’t have either of them. Hugh was an Old Soul, and beyond her reach. Not to mention that he only thought of her as a friend. And Morgead might be her soulmate, but he would murder her if he ever discovered the truth.

  But still, if she did have a choice…Hugh or Morgead?

  A day ago she’d have said Hugh without question. How strange that now it came up the other way.

  Because, impossible as it was, deadly as she knew it to be, it was Morgead she was in love with. And she had only just understood that this moment.

  What a pity that there was no hope in the world for them.

  Jez found herself giving another short laugh—and then she realized that Hugh was still looking at her. She could feel color rise to her cheeks.

  “You were miles away again.”

  “I’m just foggy. Not enough sleep, I guess.” Plus all that fun yesterday. She was still sore from the stick fight and the fall with Iona. But that wasn’t Hugh’s problem.

  She took a breath, groping for another subject. “You know, there was something I wanted to ask you. Morgead said the Council had dug up another prophecy—about where each of the Wild Powers is from. Have you heard it?” When he shook his head, she quoted:

  “One from the land of kings long forgotten;

  One from the hearth which still holds the spark;

  One from the Day World where two eyes are watching;

  One from the twilight to be one with the dark.”

  “Interesting.” Hugh’s gray eyes had lit up. “‘One from the hearth’…that’s got to be the Harman witches. Their last name was originally ‘Hearth-Woman.’”

  “Yeah. But the line about the one from the Day World—that one’s a human, right?”

  “It sounds like it.”

  “That’s what Morgead thought—that’s why he thought the little girl might be a Wild Power even though she was human. But what I can’t figure out is what it means by ‘where two eyes are watching.’”

  “Mmm…” Hugh gazed into the distance, as if he liked the challenge. “The only thing I can think of that combines the idea of ‘Day’ and ‘eyes’ is a poem. It goes something like ‘The Night has a thousand eyes, and the Day only one.’ The one eye being the sun, you know
, and the thousand eyes the stars at night.”

  “Hmpf. What about the moon?”

  Hugh grinned. “I don’t know. Maybe the author wasn’t good at astronomy.”

  “Well—that doesn’t help much. I thought it might be a clue. But the truth is that we don’t even know if it’s the human Wild Power we’re after.”

  Hugh put his chin on his knees again. “True. But I’ll let Circle Daybreak know about that prophecy. It might help eventually.” He was silent a moment, then added, “You know, they dug up something interesting, too. Apparently the Hopi Tribe predicted the end of the world pretty accurately.”

  “The Hopi?”

  “I should say, the ends of the worlds. They knew that it had happened before their time, and that it would happen again. Their legend says that the first world was destroyed by fire. The second world was destroyed by ice. The third world ended in water—a universal flood. And the fourth world—well, that’s ours. It’s supposed to end in blood and darkness—and end soon.”

  Jez murmured, “The first world—?”

  “Don’t remember your Night World history?” He tched at her, with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “The first civilization was the shapeshifters’. Back when humans were scared to go out of their caves, the shapeshifters ruled and the humans thought of them as gods. Animal spirits, totems. It was Shapeshifter World. That lasted for about ten thousand years, until a bunch of volcanoes suddenly became active—”

  “Fire.”

  “Yeah. The weather changed, people migrated, and the shapeshifters lost control. After that it was really Witch World. The witches did better than everybody else for ten thousand years, but then there was an Ice Age—”

  “And the Night Wars,” Jez said, remembering. “When the vampires fought the witches.”

  “Right. And after all that, the vampires were in control; it was Vampire World. Which lasted about another ten thousand years, until the flood. And after the flood, human civilization really started. It was Human World, and it has been for a long time. The Night People have just been hanging on around the edges, hiding. But…” He paused and straightened. “That started about eight thousand B.C.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. The millennium marks the end of our ten thousand years.” He gave his gentle, half-mocking smile. “We humans are about to lose our lease. Something’s going to happen to bring blood and darkness and then there’ll be a whole new world.”

  “Only if we don’t stop it,” Jez said. “And we will—because we have to.”

  Hugh’s smiled changed, softening. “I think we’re lucky to have people like you trying.” Then he lost the smile completely. He looked uncertain. “Jez—you know, Old Souls aren’t really beyond ‘stupid human things.’ We’re as human as anybody. And we…I mean, and I…”

  Jez’s heart was beating uncomfortably fast. The way he was looking at her—she’d never seen Hugh look like that at anything or anyone.

  Another rumble in the distance, and then a train came rushing in.

  Hugh blinked, glanced up at the digital clock display above the platform, then checked his watch. He cursed.

  “I’m supposed to be somewhere. I’m late.”

  Jez’s heart gave a strange thump. But not of disappointment. Weirdly, it was more like relief.

  “Me, too,” she said. “I’m supposed to meet Morgead before everybody else gets out of school. I ought to take the next train to San Francisco.”

  He still hesitated. “Jez—”

  “Go on,” she said, standing up. “I’ll call you if I turn up anything. Wish me luck.”

  “Be careful,” he said instead, and then he was hurrying away.

  Jez watched him go. She couldn’t help wondering what he had been about to say.

  Then she turned to walk back to the central part of the station. She was partway around the concrete guardhouse when she heard a noise on the other side.

  A stealthy, sneaking noise. Not the kind a security guard would make.

  Jez didn’t hesitate. Smoothly, completely soundless herself, she changed course, turning back and going around the structure the other way to get behind the sneaker. The instant she had a clear view of the intruder’s back, she jumped.

  She landed on top of her quarry, with a control hold on the person’s wrist. But she already knew that this wasn’t going to be a fight to the death.

  “Jez—ow—it’s me!” Claire spluttered.

  “I know it’s you, Claire.”

  “Let go of my arm!”

  “I don’t think so, Claire. You having an interesting morning? Hear any good jokes?”

  “Jez!” Claire struggled, hurting herself, then got mad and hurt herself more trying to hit Jez. Jez allowed her to sit up, still keeping hold of her.

  Claire’s face was flushed and wrathful, her dark hair sticking in strands to her cheeks. Her eyes were shooting sparks.

  “Okay, so I’m sorry for eavesdropping. I followed you when Greg Ludlum drove you here. I wanted to know what you were doing. I didn’t know that you were completely freaking insane!”

  “Well, it’s too bad you didn’t figure it out earlier. Because unfortunately I have to kill you now to keep you from talking.”

  Claire’s eyes widened and she choked. Jez suddenly realized that underneath all the sparks and the yelling her cousin was terrified.

  She let go of Claire’s arm and Claire slumped away from her, rubbing it.

  “You—you are insane, aren’t you?” Claire looked at her sideways, through clinging strands of hair. “I mean, all that stuff about the world ending—it’s some kind of bizarre game you’re playing with your weird friends, isn’t it? Some kind of Dungeons and Dragons stuff…”

  “What do you think, Claire?” Jez stood up and offered Claire a hand, worried that someone might notice them. She kept that hand on Claire as she herded Claire back behind the guard house.

  The truth was that this situation wasn’t funny. Claire really was in trouble—because Jez was in trouble.

  Her entire cover was blown. Everything she’d worked for in the past year—Claire could destroy it all. Claire knew way too much, and Claire hated her enough to use it.

  “I think…I don’t know what to think.” Claire swallowed. “Who was that guy?”

  “One of my weird friends. Right?”

  “He didn’t seem so weird. When he said things—I don’t know. They sounded…” Claire’s voice trailed off. Finally it came back, almost inaudibly. “Real.”

  “Great.” I am going to have to kill her. What else can I do?

  “It’s not a game, is it?” Claire said, looking at her. All the anger was gone from the dark eyes now. They were simply bewildered and frightened.

  Then Claire shook her head. “But, I mean, it’s impossible. Vampires and shapeshifters and witches—it’s all just…” Her voice trailed off again.

  Jez was simply looking at her, with eyes that might be less silvery than a year ago, but that she knew were still pretty strange. And after a few moments Claire’s gaze lost its focus and her whole body seemed to fall in on itself, as if it had lost something vital. Innocence maybe, Jez thought grimly.

  “Oh, God, it is true,” Claire whispered. “I mean, it’s really true. That’s why you’re gone all the time, isn’t it? You’re off—doing something.”

  Jez said, “Yeah.”

  Claire sagged against the guardhouse. “Oh, God. I…God. I feel so strange. It’s like—nothing is what I thought.”

  Yeah, I know the feeling, Jez thought. When the whole world turns around and you have to adjust in two seconds flat. It happened to me, too, a year ago.

  But none of that was going to help Claire. All she could say was “I’m sorry.”

  Claire didn’t seem to hear her. She was speaking in a voice that was just a breath. “That’s why…that’s why all that weird stuff with your father. Nobody knowing anything about his family and all. I knew from the beginning that there was something about you;
I just couldn’t tell what it was.”

  Oh, great, Jez thought. Here it comes. She tried to keep her face impassive as Claire faced her squarely, raising her eyes with a look somewhere between wonder and dread.

  “That guy—he said you were only half human. Which means you’re half…something else?”

  “I’m half human and half vampire,” Jez said quietly. The interesting thing was that it was so easy to get out. She’d only ever spoken the words aloud to one person before: Hugh.

  Now she looked to see if Claire would actually faint or just fall down.

  Claire did neither. She just shut her eyes. “You know the really insane thing? I believe that.” She opened her eyes again. “But—I didn’t know you could be. Half and half.”

  “Neither did anybody else, till I was born. I’m the only one.” Jez examined her cousin, realized that she really wasn’t going to faint. When she spoke again, her voice came out more challenging than she meant it to. “So now that you know, Claire, what are you going to do about it?”

  “What do you mean, what am I going to do?” Claire glanced around, then her voice dropped as her eyes glinted with interest. “Look—do you, like, have to drink blood and everything?”

  “Not anymore,” Jez said shortly. What was this? Who would have thought that studious, straitlaced Claire would have such an interest in vampires?

  “But you mean you used to?”

  “Before I came to live with you guys. I thought I was a full vampire then. But I found out that I could live without it, as long as I didn’t use my powers.”

  “You’ve got powers? Really? What kind?”

  “No kind. Look, enough with the questions. I told you, I’m not a vampire anymore.”

  “And you’re not evil.” Claire said it flatly.

  Jez looked at her, startled. “What makes you say that?”

  “I heard what you were talking about, saving the world and all. I didn’t understand it, but it sounded like you were on the right side. And—” Claire hesitated, then shrugged. “And I know you, okay? I mean, you’re arrogant and stubborn and you never explain anything, but you’re not evil. You just aren’t—inside. I can tell.”