The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Warning long story! this is writen by my wife, hope you enjoy!



It finally happened. Armageddon. What seers, religious nuts, and conspiracy theorists had all been telling us. One day, the sky just opened up and rained fire. Great fireballs that struck all over the earth, and when the smoke cleared, they revealed black meteors that hissed and cracked. Six hundred and sixty six meteors in all.

Scientist were baffled. There had been no indication of a coming meteor storm, and little damage had been done. A few people had been killed when the meteors landed in living rooms or city squares, but most were fine. It was not a normal meteor shower. No great pits were made by their landing, no fires spread from their intense heat.

The unnaturalness of it became more apparent when the meteors themselves burst open, large, oddly colored beings emerging like a monstrous chick from an egg. Some people screamed aliens and scattered, having flashbacks from sci-fi movies. But I knew what they were.

This wasn't an alien invasion, but the real end of the world as we knew it. These were demons, sent from Hell or the Abyss or wherever demons reside. Sent to feed upon the souls of the living. And feed they did, tearing through the populace like rapid hyenas on crack. Those they didn't completely annihilate they infected, turning them into ghouls who hungered for the flesh of their kin.

All over the world, people got on their knees and prayed, crowded into cathedrals and prayed, swarmed around holy relics and prayed. But the power of God had left humanity to its fate. Instead of the shelter they so desperately needed, these gathering places were little more than self-serve buffets for the demons.

But the human spirit is harder to kill than our weak bodies would suggest. We're adaptable, and we learn quick, and we are determined to survive. Ghouls were fairly easy to destroy. Anything that damaged the brain would kill them. Head shots, severing the spinal cord, even jolts of electricity. A child could do it.

The demons were a little harder. Destroying the brain was also very effective, but getting to that brain wasn't so easy. They were an average of nine feet tall, with long, muscular arms, three inch fangs set in thick skulls, and thick leathery skin that your average handgun couldn't break. They had some psychic ability, as well, letting them sense you coming before you even knew they were there. The fact that they could pick up and throw your SUV at you wasn't very comforting, either. The best way to fight off a demon was to not let them get anywhere near you.

With the arrival of the demons, others came out into the open, emerging from the proverbial closet. Witches, warlocks, werekin, anyone with a measure of magical ability. They helped to protect the humans, hiding them from the creatures they could feel in the back of their heads, using their special abilities to injure them. Old fears of witchcraft were forgotten in the desire to live. At last, when all else had failed, humanity embraced magic.

After people figured out what was really going on, and most people did once they heard about the pope being used as a chew toy, they figured out ways to keep the baddies at bay. Some hid in bunkers underground, living off of canned foods and recycled water, refusing to stick out so much as a finger. Others built huge, iron walls around their towns, so thick a demon couldn't bust through, and hunted in large groups for whatever was edible. A very few became nomads, traveling the country in ever moving caravans, keeping an eye out for demons with radar and other still working techno gadgets. And lastly, there were those brave or stupid few who were not content to merely survive, but wanted a return to once was, and revenge against the enemy that had stolen our lives from us.

They traveled the world in small groups or solo, taking out as many of the demons as they could, searching for a way to destroy them all. They were weekend hunters, former military or police, or those who just had the sheer balls for battle. The most effective of these hunters were those who came from mystical backgrounds. Being something unnatural themselves, they had better instincts when it came to demons. I am one of these hunters.

The Armageddon didn't change my life that much. In fact, I think it's better now. Not so many people around to bug me. Otherwise, I'm doing the same damn thing now I did four years ago. I kill bad things.

I am Sonia Raizel Culann, of Clan Caeswyll, former Seeker for the Black Dawn.





The Arizona sun beat down hot and relentless, the sand and scrub seeming to stretch on forever. No animals stirred in the wasteland, having long since been picked off by scavenging birds, humans and demons. All was still and silent, even the wind, except for the rumble of a motorcycle and the purr of a classic car.

The 1987 Harley sped down the road at 110, the 1972 black Charger close behind. Raiz took a long pull of her cigarette as Steppenwolf blared from the radio, the wind from the open window whipping her blonde hair around her face. Despite the heat, she was dressed in a black motorcycle jacket, brown thermal, brown and green tie-dye tee shirt, and low slung black leather jeans. She was so used to the outfit, she didn't sweat anymore. It had become a comfortable part of her, like the glocks on either side of her thighs, the daggers on either wrist or the bowie knife at her back. On the passenger seat beside her was a sawed off shotgun, the floor littered with extra ammo. In the back seat was a four foot rapier in a black leather scabbard. The floorboards were overflowing with foodstuffs, a blanket and her winter gear.

There was no need for her to keep her eyes on the road, no fear of on-coming traffic. But old habits died hard and Raizel found herself spending most of her time staring at the back of her companion.

Nephele Lewyn was a young, quiet Weather Witch who had seen a lot of horror in her life. The Armageddon had changed her life for the better. She had gone from an abused sex slave to free and alone in a single night. When Raiz found her in the basement of a ghoul infected building in New York, the nineteen year old girl had gratefully attached herself to the more experienced Seeker. In the three and a half years since, Raiz had turned her from an unsure, frightened witch with untrained abilities into a highly tuned weapon.

The mystic powers in the witch clans were like playing Russian roulette; you never knew what you were going to get. Most are born being able to do a little bit of everything; levitate small objects, find creatures of a certain nature, start small fires with their mind, heal minor wounds, or perform minor illusions. Just enough to mark them different from normal people. Those with powers deemed beneficial or benign were said to have Divine powers. Those whose skills were better suited to destruction were said to be Nefarious.

Some are born with more specialized skills, with great power over one element and only very minor abilities in others. Nephele was one of these, and her domain was weather. She could call up a storm and make a monsoon in the middle of a drought, or channel lightening through her body, but she could barely pick a lock with the hardest concentration.

The rarest of all were those born with two or more specialized abilities and the telekinetic. These were called Wild Powers and usually meant the bloodline was strongly connected to mystic beings such as faeries and demons. Raiz was one of these Wild Powers, her abilities far outranking any the world had known. She had been the best Seeker the clans ever knew simply because she was the strongest witch they had seen in centuries. She possessed abilities both Divine and Nefarious, the rarest of these being Shadow Walking, where she could physically travel through the world of Limbo, the realm of spirits and lost souls.

The demons now controlled Limbo, feeding on the souls they found there. Raizel's other powers were greatly diminished in the land of Shadow, so she had not stepped into that other world since the demons had come, afraid they would devour her. It had forced her to change her whole method of fighting, which had once depended on her ability to wink in and out of reality.

Nephele's ability to channel lightening was very useful in fighting ghouls and demons. A short zap to a ghoul's head and they were down. The bigger jolts required to kill a demon were harder for her to do, and required rest afterwards, but were good for not getting too close and personal. For Raizel, up close and personal was just great.

Unexpectedly, a little tingle shot through the back of Raiz's skull. She slammed on her brakes, the car squealing to a halt, the back end fishtailing slightly. Alerted by the noise, Nephele slowed the bike and brought it around, rumbling to a stop beside Raiz, who was standing between the open door and the interior. Her eyes searched the distance to their right, body tense.

“What's up?” Nephele asked, pulling her riding goggles off.

She pushed the hood of her dark blue cardigan off her head, running her gloved hands through the chin-length black curls to allow air to her scalp. Beneath the cardigan, she wore a white tank over a purple tank; khaki cargo shorts; red leggings; and well worn motorcycle boots. A long brown trench coat lay over it all. Two holsters crossed over her hips gunslinger style, holding .35 magnums. The hilt of a dagger peeked out the top of each boot. A shotgun holster was strapped across her back, and another pair of magnums was attached to the sides of the bike.

“Don't you feel that?” Raiz returned, sounding distant. Coming back to herself, Raiz turned her unnaturally bright eyes to Nephele. “There's a group of dems that way,” Raiz stated, pointing east. “They feel excited.”

“Dems usually don't travel in groups,” Nephele said, wiping sweat from her brow. “They must have sniffed out a caravan. Can we make it in time?”

Raiz closed her eyes, reaching out with her senses to judge distance. They were close enough to the demons for her to feel their psychic tags, but no vehicle on earth could move fast enough to head them off before they tore through whatever it was they found to munch on. Demons had to be within a mile of humans before they could sense them. Raiz could sense the demons ten miles off, and these were on the edge of her range.

“We'd have to Shadow jump,” Raiz answered, opening her eyes. “How bad you want to close down the buffet?”

“They're people, Raiz,” Nephele reminded her with a hardened tone. Sometimes, Raiz wasn't so much a selfless hero as sociopath, leaving Nephele to remind her of her job. “It's my duty to help them whenever I can, regardless of personal danger. That's what being a Seeker is, remember? You told me that.”

Raiz scoffed and rolled her eyes. “You're a fucking bleeding heart, you know that?”

“Just make the jump,” Nephele returned, even as Raiz slid back into her car.

“Unless it gets real dark real soon,” Raiz pointed out from her seat, “we won't be going anywhere.”

Nephele looked up at the cloudless sky, across the flat plain, and cursed. Shadow Walking required darkness, an actual shadow to move through. The only shadows here were the ones cast by their own bodies, and that just wasn't big enough. Nephele sighed, knowing what she had to do.

“How much time do we have?” she asked, face set.

Raiz shrugged. “Assuming the dems are a full mile from them, and none of the winged variety, less than fifteen minutes.”

Nephele lowered her goggles. “Close your windows, Raiz,” she warned. “This is not going to be pleasant.”

Nephele moved the bike over to the edge of the road, facing east. Planting her feet on the ground on either side, she took a deep breath and extended her arms out to either side. Closing her eyes, she focused her concentration inward, drawing on that part of herself that was pure power itself. With a slow release of breath, Nephele summoned the forces of air and water, drawing them close and forming them to suit her will. With a warning rumble, the sky darkened at an alarming speed, clouds forming from nothing. The sun disappeared beneath a roiling cloud, dusk falling over the desert, but not quite dark enough.

Nephele forced the clouds to spread, to grow and consume the entire sky. Lightening flickered and the air temperature dropped. Raiz reached over and rolled up her windows as a loud burst of thunder sounded, a torrent of large raindrops following in its wake. Steam rolled up from the hot earth.

“Almost there, girl,” Raiz whispered, turning the engine over and giving it a little gas.

The rain fell harder, the clouds darkened until only the occasional flash of lightening provided illumination. Raiz tapped the gas pedal again, letting Nephele know it was enough. Nephele lowered her arms and kicked the bike to life. Raiz threw the charger into gear and punched it, peeling off the road, Nephele at her side. Now, if only they could make it through the Shadow without getting nabbed.





The caravan had been camped for two days. It was a survivor no-no to stay still for so long, but there was little choice. The mini bus had busted a tire, forcing them to find a new one before continuing on. Cade wasn't about to leave the children behind, and there wasn't room in the other vehicles. So he had Rhys set up a perimeter and he had set out to search the area for an old junkyard or auto shop.

Luck had been against them. Cade hadn't been willing to search too far from the caravan, afraid to leave their defenses weak, and what little remnants of civilization he had found had already been picked through. He couldn't risk staying much longer, but there was no way he could leave.

Just when Cade was about to give up and make do with what he had, he had stumbled upon an old church building with a decrepit school bus rusting in the driveway. He radioed Bryce to meet him with the gear to remove one of the tires.

“Don't look too serviceable,” the former truck driver said with his thick Texas drawl when he got a look at the bus. “Don't suppose you missed the claw marks?”

“Didn't miss the bones in the pews, either, but what choice have we got?” Cade demanded, gesturing at the barren land.

Like many abandoned buildings and towns, the church was strewn with the remains of once living beings, their bones marred by clear gnaw marks. Something had pulled a section of the bus apart like a can opener, bits of cloth and skeleton hanging on the edges. Claw marks gouged the door and around the windows of the church. The smell of death permeated the air.

“Whatever attacked this place is long gone,” Cade continued, helping Bryce unload the big jack from the back of the truck. “But I'd still like to get this over with before they decide to come back.”

As Bryce slowly unscrewed a rear tire, Cade glanced around for anything else useful. Being a church ground, there were no tools lying about and the kitchen appeared to be empty of food stuffs. There weren't even any weapons, the poor fools having trusted in their faith to save them.

Cade strode out of the building just as Bryce was pulling the tire free. “Nothing,” Cade announced. “Not even a shell casing.”

Bryce opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by a high pitched chittering. Cade spun around, searching for the sound. Perched on top of the church, one arm and the end of a forked tail around the cross, was a red winged imp. It chittered at them again and made a rebellious swipe at them with its free claw. Cade cursed. Very little threat on their own, the two feet tall imps served the larger demons as scouts for a piece of the meal. Its presence here meant there were demons nearby, demons who would soon descend on them in hungry fury.

Cade drew his military issue handgun and fired, hitting the imp square in the eyes. It fell to the ground with a thump.

“There's one bastard that ain't squealing to its master,” Bryce commented as Cade turned his attention back to him.

There was a flurry of movement from under the jack and a tan streak shot out from the rear in a spray of sand. The bus creaked and tilted, then crashed down as the jack folded. Bryce cursed and jumped, rolling the tire awkwardly with him. Cade aimed his gun, but the second imp was already out of sight.

“The damn thing busted my jack,” Bryce yelled, looking at the twisted metal peeking out from under the wheel well in dismay.

“Forget it,” Cade ordered, pushing Bryce towards the truck. “We've got to get that tire back now, before it brings the big boss man back.”

“We're not gonna make it,” Bryce argued as they lifted the tire into the truck. “Imps never scout far from their den.”

“We have to,” Cade replied, turning for his jeep. “We've got over twenty souls depending on us.”



With the jack broken, Cade and several others of the nomads crawled under the bus and lifted it as best they could as Radison the mechanic replaced the wheel. It had been over an hour since they had seen the imp. By all rights, they should have been long gone by now, but the loss of the jack made the task even longer. They had to keep taking breaks from the lifting, and several times Radison had been forced to reset the tire after a lift.

The children, ranging in age from five to fifteen, huddled near the other vehicles fearfully, ready to pile in where they could if the demons found them before the tire was secure. The rest of the adults, heavily armed, kept a watchful eye out, ready to shoot at the slightest movement.

Most of Cade's people were ex-military, but a few, like Bryce and Radison, were civilians with useful skills. After the arrival of the demons had decimated most of his unit, Cade had decided they needed a new mission. Destroying the enemy seemed impossible. Instead, he used his force where it could actually do some good; protecting those who couldn't protect themselves. Over the last four years, Cade and his crew had traveled from one end of the country to the other, gathering orphans where they found them and escorting families to nearby outposts.

One outpost still had working computers and Sara downloaded a copy of all the orphanages in the U.S. from the internet. They had been hitting everyone, searching for young survivors. They had met with limited success. Those too young to run, or run fast enough, had long since been devoured. Most had already been evacuated at the beginning of the trouble. Those that hadn't were suffering from malnutrition and fear. Cade was both surprised and grateful to have found any still there around at all. But like Sara said, children cling to what they know and most simply had no where else to go.

They had rescued over one hundred orphans since the beginning. Demon attacks, injury and illness had taken many of them, along with ten members of Cade's crew. They were now down to eight adults and twenty-two children. Still, Cade refused to give up until he had helped all he could.

“How we doing, Rad?” Cade asked with a grunt, shaking his head as sweat threatened to roll into his eye.

“A couple of more bolts and we're good to go,” Rad answered as he kept his eye on the task.

Sara turned from her stance on the roof of the hummer, AK-47 resting on one hip. “Bogey at ten o'clock!” she yelled, pointing to the southwest.

Cade angled his head around the side of the bus, peering into the distance. On the edge of the horizon, a speck of black was growing larger and larger. The others saw it too, the children screaming and panicking. It was a demon, this one gifted with large, pterodactyl wings. Time had run out for them.

“Drop the bus!” Cade ordered, letting his side down. The others did so as well, reaching for the weapons at their sides. “Get the kids loaded up! Defensive formation! Go! Go! Go!”

Sara hopped down from the hummer and herded the children back to the bus. Cade and the others made a line along the bus, preparing to defend it with their lives. Radison dropped the tire iron and grabbed at Cade's shirt sleeve.

“Tire's not secure,” he argued frantically. “We're not going to make it. Just one more bolt and we can leave!”

“We don't have time for one more bolt,” Cade returned, shaking the lanky man off. He gave him a hard stare. “Get on that bus and don't let anything inside.”

Moments later, Cade saw something that chilled his blood. On the ground, just visible above the haze of heat, six other figures were approaching at an unnaturally fast speed. Each was taller than a man, bulky, and of a dark, uniform color. Cade raised his rifle and mentally said farewell to his companions. One demon, they had a chance against. Seven was certain death.

“Fuck, Cade! I'm gonna die,” Rhys complained from his right. Just past his twenty-fourth birthday, Rhys looked like an ROTC in his borrowed fatigues and rifle. But the curly headed blonde had fended off his share of monsters in his time.

“Shut up and protect those kids, Rhys,” Cade answered, not even bothering to glance at him.

Then the pterodactyl thing was on them. It screeched and dove, snapping at them with fanged jaws no real dinosaur would ever have possessed. Its face was that of an elongated, deformed gorilla. Monstrous, but intelligent.

They opened fire, riddling the creature’s body with holes. But demon skin was thick and few places were mortal. It screeched in pain and reared back into the sky, out of the stream of fire. Its long, scaled tail whipped around, smashing into a window of the bus. Children screamed as Cade ducked under the rain of glass.

Sara readjusted her aim, ripping a line through one of its wings. The demon screamed and flailed to the side, crashing in a heap to the ground. Unable to fly with its injured wing, it ran at them like a nine foot vulture, clawed hands extended. Cade directed his crew to aim for the head and the force of seven rifles each firing into its skull was too much for it to withstand. With a splatter of brain matter, the monster stumbled and dropped to the ground, twitching as the nerves caught up with its death.

There was no time for celebration, though. The winged demon had distracted them long enough for the others to catch up, and there were too many for the men to concentrate on just one. With such scattered gunfire, they were doing very little damage and the demons just kept coming, three tiny imps among them. They sky began to darken with their arrival, like an omen of doom.

One, a six foot purple brute with oversized arms, slammed into the line, crushing Mike against the bus. Mike yelled out in pain and slid down the bus, the rifle dropping from his hands in his daze. Cade pulled back a fist and slammed it into the creature's neck as hard as he could, undoubtedly doing more damage to his fist than to it. But it had the desired effect of drawing its attention away from Mike to Cade. Cade drew his hunting knife from his belt and slashed at the thing left handed, keeping the rifle in his other hand.

The demon roared in anger as Cade's blade drew a thin line across its ribs. It raised a giant fist, then jerked and stumbled forward as Sara's rifle butt slammed into the back of its head. She reached up to hit it again, but tumbled over its back as a yellow spindly thing behind her shoved her hard. She crashed into Cade, making him stumble and lose his grip on the knife. By the time he had regained his footing, both the purple and the yellow were coming at them. He raised his rifle one handed and pulled the trigger, blowing a hole in the purple's shoulder. Its arm jerked back hard enough to smack the yellow to the ground, and the smaller one squealed and tossed around like it was having trouble regaining its feet.

The purple one roared again and reached its good hand up and grabbed Cade by the throat, lifting him off the ground like he weighed five pounds. Sara had regained her balance and raised her rifle to her shoulder and let out a stream of rapid fire into the demon's head. It convulsed and dropped, dragging Cade with it. Cade let go of his rifle long enough to pry the stiff fingers from his neck, ears still ringing, and jumped to his feet.

The yellow, seeing an easy meal, slithered over to the purple's corpse and began tearing into it voraciously, ignoring the ongoing battle. With a grimace of disgust, Cade shot its head into a gooey pulp.

One of the imps had taken advantage of the distraction to fly in through the broken window of the bus. It squealed and slashed at the children, hoping to get a good bite. The children slapped at it frantically while Radison sat in indecision in the driver's seat. He didn't know how to fight it without his rifle, but he dare not risk shooting one of the children. The boy Devon smacked at the imp and there was a blinding orange flash, forcing everyone to close their eyes and duck. When they opened their eyes again, the imp had fallen to the aisle a blackened crisp. The children cheered as Radison stared in astonishment.

Cade turned around to the rest of the battle, realizing for the first time that he was having trouble seeing. The clouds that had appeared with the demons had grown thicker, shutting out almost all light. The remaining demons, being kept only slightly at bay by gunfire, were hard to distinguish in the growing gloom.

“Sara, are they doing this?” he screamed over the noise, barely making out her anxious face beside him.

Sara shook her head in ignorance. Cade started to turn back to the fray, but a sound stopped him. It wasn't the screams of the children, the gunfire, or the roar of the enemy. In fact, it sounded to Cade like an engine.

He turned towards the sound just in time to see a pair of headlights appear out of the darkness, catching a glimpse of a dark colored charger sailing through the air in the flash of gunpowder. As it passed, the clouds began to disperse, the sky lightening enough for him to see clearly the motorcycle that had appeared along with the car. It parked to the side, the rider standing beside it.

The charger bounced to earth, rolling over three of the remaining demons like bowling pins. A woman with long blonde hair and a deathly serious face rushed from the charger, a pair of glocks aimed at the demons still on the ground. She stepped up to one and delivered six to the back of its head, and it ceased its struggles to stand.

She turned towards Cade, guns raised at the ready, and his eyes widened. He raised a hand to wave her off, and the woman adjusted her stance slightly and fired. An imp dropped to the ground to Cade's left, close enough that a second later the thing would have been on his face. Imp dead, she turned away from him and Cade breathed a sigh of relief.

The second one was on its knees, and it glanced up and hissed as she approached. She shot it twice, once in the neck, once in the cheek, then tossed the empty gun to the side. It braced one knee to stand and she spun into a roundhouse kick, knocking it back to the ground. She braced one leg on its chest and emptied her remaining gun into the center of its face.

The third was now completely recovered. It drew itself up to its full seven and a half feet and roared challengingly at her, dropping into an offensive stance in preparation of her attack. The woman dropped the gun and flicked her wrists, a pair of gleaming blades dropping into her hands. Faster than Cade could follow, she cut a thin line from the demon's abdomen to collarbone, then slashed its throat with the same knife. As the demon's body jerked to its left, she brought the right knife up and buried it deep into the creature's temple. The shock of it forced it to lean the other way and it stumbled to the ground. She rolled it over with a booted toe, dropped to one knee, and dove her other knife through its eye socket and into its brain. The demon screamed, then fell silent.

Finding itself the last, the remaining demon turned from the armed men to the obviously greater threat of the woman. It was a large, molten brown, mole-ish looking thing with a turtle-like shell protecting its torso and the back of its head. Her guns empty and her knives buried four inches in demon flesh, the woman realized she was little match for the naturally armored demon. She backed up two steps from the creature.

“Nephele,” the woman called, glaring at the demon mole calmly as it lumbered towards her.

The motorcycle rider moved, drawing Cade's attention. As he watched, she clapped her hands before her like a monk praying, then tossed her palms outward. A bolt of lightening shot out from between the rider's hands, arcing across the land and striking the demon square in the chest. The demon grunted and seemed to fold in on itself, hugging its middle tight as ripples of electricity traveled up and down its frame. The demon began convulsing and leaned forward until it toppled to the ground, twitching and jerking as its skinned turned black. Finally, it stilled, smoke rising up from the blackened flesh and the electricity dissipated.

Cade looked at the rider with new respect, having met a few of her kind in the last four years. A witch always came in handy these days, for exactly the reason she had just so elegantly illustrated. They could kill demons. He lowered his weapon and took a few steps toward the rider. Pulling her goggles and hood off, she moved to meet him.

Behind him, Sara and Bryce knelt to see what they could do for Mike. The blonde woman was retrieving her daggers from the demon's skull, trying to flick as much of the ick off as she could without smearing the foul smelling blood on her clothes. The children pressed their faces against the windows, watching the newcomers.

“Thank you for your help,” Cade said, nodding in greeting at the dark haired woman who appeared no older than Rhys. “You're a witch, aren't you?”

“Yes, and I'm sorry we couldn't get here in time to save all of you.” She gestured behind Cade and he turned. Clint lay in a bloody, unmoving heap near the rear of the bus. Thea was crying into Rhys' shoulder, taking peeks at Clint's body, then sobbing even harder. Sara helped Bryce get Mike to his feet, then moved to begin stripping Clint's gear.

Damn. They had lost another one. Cade grimaced, then turned back to the witch. “One funeral is a lot better than twenty,” he replied, hiding his grief behind a mask of stoicism. “I have you to thank for that.”

The woman shook her head and smiled. “I only killed one,” she pointed out. She gestured to the blonde woman, who was kneeling beside her car, checking the front end for damage incurred while mowing down the demons. “Raiz did most of it.”

“Yes, very impressive,” Cade drawled, not sure what to make of the other one, Raiz. He'd never seen someone kill so many demons so quickly. Not without explosives, anyway. But she had killed three in less time than it took eight men with rifles to kill one. “I've never seen anyone do that before.”

The woman's smile widened. “Raiz is very good at her job,” she replied in satisfaction. She moved past Cade, heading for Raiz.

Cade trotted after her, extending a free hand to her and saying, “I'm Cade, by the way. And that's Sara, Thea, Rhys, Bryce, and Mike.”

She glanced at the proffered hand, but didn't take it. “I'm Nephele,” she answered. “And this is Raizel. Hey, Raiz, how's your car?” she asked, leaning down to peer at the damage.

“Bumper's dented, left front headlight's busted, and I think I bent my axle,” Raiz asked, rolling out from under the car. She rose to her feet, brushing sand and dust from her clothes. “Other than that, copacetic. Didn't even scratch the paint.”

“We have a mechanic. I could have him take a look,” Cade offered. At the woman's hard stare, he shrugged. “It's the least we can do to thank you.”

Raiz lifted her brows, giving him a dubious stare. “Thanks, but I'll manage. What are you doing out here? Camping? You were almost an afternoon snack.”

“We were having some mechanical problems,” Cade explained. “We were almost ready to move on.”

“Mechanical problems?” Raiz raised her brows at him again. “And you want your mechanic to look at my car? Definite pass.”

Cade huffed, becoming irritated. “We blew a tire. He's a good mechanic.”

“He's not the dead one, is he?”

“Raiz!” Nephele admonished before Cade could make his scathing reply. “Make sure everyone else is alright.”

“Doubtful with this hot dog in charge,” Raiz mumbled, but went off to do as Nephele asked.

Nephele turned back to Cade. “You'll have to excuse Raiz. She's not very good with people.”

“No. Her skills seem to be more geared towards killing,” Cade agreed.

“She does what she can. Where are you headed?”

“Phoenix. There's an orphanage there,” Cade replied, turning to walk with Nephele over to the bus. “That’s what we’ve been doing the last few years, searching all the orphanages for survivors. Not many to be found, but we do what we can.”

“It’s noble. Children are our future, right?”

“You make it sound so self-serving,” Cade replied, looking askance at the woman. But she wasn’t looking at him anymore. She was staring at Clint’s body, eyes devoid of grief or recognition. She didn’t see a former friend or fellow human. Only another corpse.

“You realize his body will have to be burned, before he awakens as a ghoul?”

“Yeah,” Cade said with a sigh, running a hand over his short-cropped black hair. “We’ve been through this before.”

Their conversation was cut short by a commotion. Cade turned to see the woman Raiz tussling with Rhys, who was apparently blocking her way into the bus. She grabbed him firmly by his shoulder s and threw him to the ground, ignoring Thea’s alarmed shout.

Raiz took the bus’ three steps in a single jump, coming face to face with a shaggy haired man in his mid thirties. The man hesitantly raised his rifle, trying to point it at her in the limited space. She grabbed the muzzle and jerked it sharply to the left, and his finger involuntarily squeezed the trigger. A shot rang through the bus, deafening in the enclosed space. Children screamed and ducked as a corner of the windshield cracked and spider webbed across the surface.

Jerking the man closer to her with a sharp tug on the rifle, Raiz rabbit punched him in the face and he fell back into his chair. He stared at her with wide eyes and flinched when she twitched. Threat removed, Raiz moved passed him into the aisle. She scanned the bus, noticing the crispy imp and the frightened way the children peered at her over the tops of the seats. She picked out Devon with no problem.

“You,” she demanded, pointing at the tow headed boy. “What clan are you from?”

Cade jumped up behind her, grabbing her by her shoulders and pulling her around. No matter what help she had been in battle, no one threatened his kids. Raiz struggled against him, proving herself stronger than she looked, but Cade held firm. He took a couple of steps back, dragging her with him.

“Get out,” he gritted between clenched teeth. Wheeling her around to face the stairs, he flung her from him.

Raiz sailed through the air and landed with a hard thump on the ground, arms up to protect her face and dust flying up around her. She ignored the jarring pain and was on her feet before Cade had descended the stairs. She started to draw her gun, then remembered she hadn’t reloaded yet. Flicking a wrist, she smiled expectantly at him, raising the dagger before her. An ominous click made her turn and she saw the attractive blonde had regained his feet and had his rifle trained on her. She smiled broader.

“Try it,” she challenged. “I can guarantee you’ll die first.”

A moment later, four more rifles were aimed at her head.

“Are you so sure about that?” Cade asked from his crouch inside the bus.

“Raiz,” Nephele said softly from behind her. “These are people. They need our protection. They’re tired, scared, and your anger isn’t helping.”

Raiz lowered her dagger, but the rifles remained high. Taking a deep, calming breath, she sheathed the dagger, and Cade finally gave the nod to lower their weapons.

“But he’s got one of us in there,” Raiz argued, turning to face Nephele.

“This bus is off limits,” Cade announced, descending the stairs. “Especially to someone I don’t trust.”

Raiz rounded on him, and he noticed her eye color for the first time. They were silver, like a mirror. “You know how long it’s been since I’ve seen a Witch child? The demons pick them off when they find them, before they can grow into their powers and harm them. He doesn’t belong with you. He belongs where his own kind can train him.”

“Witch or no, he’s a child to me,” Cade returned, staring down hard at the slightly shorter woman. “And I’ll protect him with my life.”

Raiz stared at him for a long time; so long he thought he was going to have to intimidate her again. Finally, she nodded and backed away, his crew releasing an audible sigh of relief. They had had enough tension for one day without having to fight another human.

After a hushed conversation, in which she assured Cade Raiz would be no problem, Nephele agreed to travel with Cade’s caravan for a while. With the loss of Clint, they were sorely in need of extra guns, and Nephele and Raiz had no where in particular they were headed.

The newcomers helped them move the bodies away from the path of the vehicles and build a cairn for Clint. Cade doused his friend’s body with gasoline and dropped a match, watching the flames eat hungrily at the cloth and flesh. It seemed wrong to burn his body without so much as a eulogy, but dusk would be on them soon. If the body wasn’t burned by sunset, Clint would rise a ghoul and they would have to kill him all over again.

Mike was in bad shape. His left arm had been badly maimed, flesh ripped off in strips to reveal the muscle beneath. Thea made a sling out of a ripped tee shirt, but could do little against infection. He also had three cracked ribs and his back and abdomen were greatly bruised from being tackled. He could barely walk and would be useless in a fight. Cade decided to camp where they were for the night to give them time to finish fixing the bus and rig up a hammock in the van for Mike. If they tried to move as is, every bouncy mile would be excruciating pain for him.

“We should keep moving,” Sara suggested as the sky began to darken. “The smell of Clint’s remains will bring more of them.”

Cade was about to tell her they had to risk it when Raiz, cleaning her weapons on the hood of her car, cut him off.

“Unlikely. There’s not another one for more than ten miles.” She paused to take a deep drag off a stale cigarette. “A posse that big, they probably laid claim to the territory, chasing any stragglers off. Demons ain’t social by nature, probably were only together to make bigger catches. It’ll take days for another to realize this area’s open for hunting.”

“You seem sure of this,” Cade stated, giving her a doubtful look. “You a demonologist in another life?”

“No. I’m a demon hunter in another life,” she returned just as steadily. “What were you, a boy scout?”

“Homeland security,” Cade answered curtly. “And as far as I’m concerned, I still am.”

“It’s doing no good listening to you two bicker all day,” Thea said from her place at Mike’s side. “We’re all on the same side. You two need to start acting like it.”

“I’m not on your side,” Raiz corrected, shaking hair from her face. “I’m on my side. I only helped you because I once swore an oath to protect humanity from the unholy darkness. But my superiors aren’t here anymore, so I chose when and if I follow that oath.”

“Behave yourself, Raiz,” Nephele said, moving to stand near her tempestuous partner. “Thea’s right. All you’re doing is making things worse.”

Raiz glared at Nephele a moment, but the younger woman refused to back down. Raiz set her gun and oil rag down and slid off the hood.

“You want my help, fine,” she said, marching a few steps towards Cade. “But you’ve got to learn to trust me, unquestioningly. If I tell you to do something in the heat of battle, you fucking do it. And you ever piss me off again, I’ll use you for bait.”

“Get us to Albuquerque,” Cade replied, rising to his feet. “There’s a stronghold there. Get the children safe behind those gates, and we’ll be very grateful.”

Raiz slid her eyes thoughtfully to Devon, watching the kid as he sat quietly with the other children around a bonfire Bryce was building.

“We’ll see,” was all she said. Cade didn’t like the sound of it.





Cade moved them out early next morning. Nephele and Raiz were at the front of the line upon their insistence that Raiz would sense the presence of dems far faster than Rhys’ radar. Sara’s Hummer was next, full of what food they could find and extra blankets for cold nights. Rhys’ van, which carried their medical supplies, radar, and radio, was between Sara and the bus. Bryce’s equipment truck was next, with Cade in his Jeep bringing up the rear.

It was a lonely drive for Cade, now. Yesterday, Clint had been in the seat beside him. Today, there was only his old friend’s weapon. The weapons of many friends were stored in the back of the Jeep, a sad reminder of all they had lost over the last few years.

Everyone in Cade’s unit had a walkie talkie, to keep in contact while on the road or out of line of sight. As Nephele and Raiz were now part of his crew, Cade insisted they each have one, as well. They saw anything suspicious on the road, he wanted to be the first to know.

One of the gadgets in Rhys’ van was a GPS tracking system. The arrival of the demons hadn’t interfered with any satellites or power lines, but Cade sometimes wondered how long their technology would last without people to constantly upgrade or maintain it. The internet was also useable, though no new blogs had appeared since the dems. The problem there was that many computers had been destroyed, either in peoples’ made flight from their homes, or the mindless rampaging of the demons.

The flow of electricity to residential areas had also been obstructed, the demons very quickly learning that the best way to catch the humans was to drive them from their cozy homes. Many had systematically destroyed or shut down the power plants and electrical grids in the major cities, and downed power lines in rural areas. Humans had basically become creatures of comfort, and devoid of their air conditioners and TV’s, they abandoned the minor safety of their homes.

In his travels, Cade had noticed that all the outposts where people gathered to survive still had functional electricity. Lights, running water, movies. A few had operable computers, and one guy swore he had chatted with a man in Europe recently. With these conveniences, the survivors could feel, not like they were merely surviving, but living.

Cade didn’t agree with the outposts. To him, they were just massacres waiting to happen. Too complacent, too comfortable in their own safety. The demons may seem like just huge animals, but Cade had been fighting them too long to think of them on the same level as a monstrous wolf or bear. These creatures learned. They could plan, strategize, make coordinated attacks. It was only a matter of time before they figured out a way inside those armored walls and kill every last person. That’s why he never left the children at the outposts.

“Anybody need gas?” Raiz’s voice crackled over the radio. “Coming up on a town.”

Cade thought her calling it a town was a little generous. It was a smattering of old wooden structures with peeling paint and junk littering the yards and road. The gas station was one of those old highway places that was a combination gas stop, auto shop, and grocery store. The windows of the store had been broken, and the door to the auto shop was ripped off the hinges; signs that the demons had gotten to whoever had once lived here.

The town must not have had much traffic since, because one of the pumps still had fuel. As Cade and the others took turns filling up, Raiz and Sara went to investigate the store. There were a couple of bodies in the aisles and the shelves had been knocked over. Sara scavenged what canned goods she could find, and Raiz grabbed what was left of the cigarette selection.

Cade unloaded the bus, letting the kids have a few minutes to stretch their legs. He checked on Mike. He was breathing better, but his arm was getting worse. Infection was starting to set in and if they didn’t find some antibiotics soon, Cade was afraid they’d have to remove the arm or lose him altogether.

When he stepped down from the van, he saw Raiz leaning against the side of her car, lighting a cigarette with a shiny zippo. She glanced at him briefly, then turned her gaze to the distance.

“You should fill up,” he suggested, nodding at the pumps. “It’s still a long way to Phoenix.”

Raiz looked over her shoulder at the gas gage of her car, then turned back to Cade with a self-assured smile. “I’m good.”

“Don’t you ever run out of gas?” Cade asked, finding the difficult woman irritating.

“Nope.”

Radison came over then, cigarette dangling from his mouth and his dirty newsboy cap resting on his shggy head at a jaunty angle. He always reminded Cade of a cross between the bus driver from the Simpson and Mick Jagger.

“Might as well do some maintenance while we’re here,” Rad said, reaching under the charger to pop the hood. “The van needs a tune up before too long, and the truck’s in bad need of oil. Figure we aren’t going to come across a shop that hasn’t been looted again for a while.”

Rad propped the hood up and leaned on his hands to take a leisurely look. The engine looked like it hadn’t been serviced since it was made almost forty years ago. The windshield wiper fluid box was gone. The battery had leaked acid some time ago, leaving it badly corroded and only one connector still on. The radiator pipe was cracked through, and the air filter was nothing but a hollow ring with no filter. The oil cap was gone and the rest of the engine was so badly rusted, Rad was surprised it hadn’t fallen out by now.

“Jesus Christ! How are you driving this thing?” he demanded, turning his shocked face to Raiz.

She raised eyebrows at him. “You hit the gas pedal and turn the wheel.”

“No, I mean, it’s physically impossible for this car to even turn over,” Rad replied in exasperation.

One of the children started screaming on the other side of the lot. Cade turned to see a dark red imp clinging to the face of Heather, one of the older girls. She screamed and batted at it ineffectually as it growled and hissed and clawed at her eyes and cheeks, its hind legs dug into her collarbone. The other children stood in a semi circle around her, staring and crying in fear and uncertainty. None seemed to be willing to get close enough to help Heather.

Raiz drew one of her glocks and aimed it two handed at the back of the imp. Cade pushed her arms down before she had a chance to fire.

“No!” he yelled frantically. “You’ll hit Heather.”

They ran for Heather, Cade standing just to the side of the girl while Raiz waited behind the imp. Cade grabbed one little flailing arm, trying not to get distracted by the bloody mess it had made of Heather’s face. It turned its angry little face to Cade, hissing and barring its three inch fangs. It swiped with its free arm, catching Cade in the hand. He cried out and jerked back as blood began streaming from the wound.

In the moment when both its arms were directed away from the girl’s face, Raiz snatched it by the back of the neck and yanked. Its rear claws tore from the girl’s collarbone, making her scream again and she collapsed into Cade’s arms. The imp twisted and growled in Raiz’s grip, slicing at her with all four limbs. A few met their mark, making little slices in her jacket, but none reached her skin. She bent her wrist to bring it face to face with her.

It struggled and tried to turn its head away, but her grip was too strong. It met her eyes and was frozen. The sounds of the outside world faded as she forced her senses to that other place, a place where no children laughed and no sun shone. She held it captured with her eyes and let that darkness come.

Cade watched in astonished horror as Raiz’s eyes darkened. The silver sheen dimmed, and a roiling black inkiness rolled over her eyes until they seemed to be made of black velvet. The little imp stilled its struggles and stared at those eyes, its face going slack. Its eyes seemed to widen and sparkle, its limbs and tail curling up towards its middle. Then it went completely limp, the color draining from its skin as all life seemed to leave its body.

Raiz dropped the imp’s body abruptly and backed away from the corpse. She looked up at Cade, met his expression of horror. Her eyes were back to normal and blood trickled from her nostrils. She glanced around at the faces of the children, her movements erratic and her expression frantic. They looked back at her with a mingling of fear and gratefulness. Not being able to face those mixed expressions, she spun away from them, stumbling as her knees weakened beneath her.

“Get those vehicles fixed, Rad,” she ordered hoarsely as she stumbled to her car. “And let’s get out of here.”

Rad gave her a wide berth, afraid of what would happen if she touched him, and looked askance at Cade. He adjusted Heather in his arms and gave him a nod of reassurance. Rad gestured to Bryce and the two disappeared into the auto shop.

Raiz slouched down in her seat, her body trembling as a cold sweat broke out all over. She reached over to grab a cigarette, her hands shaking so badly she could barely light it. The cigarette fell from nerveless fingers and she cursed, stamping at the lit cigarette until it was ground into the floorboard. She hugged her arms tight around her middle against the intermittent waves of hot and cold that coursed through her.

In the back of the van, Thea grimly checked Heather’s injuries as Cade anxiously looked on. The imp had clawed deep gashes in the girl’s face, almost separating the cheeks from the jaw. Her eyes were an irreparable mess, the claws having sliced through both lid and cornea alike. She flailed around blindly, disoriented from pain and blindlessness.

Thea shot her with a tranquilizer, then went about the task of cleaning the injuries as best she could. Heather whimpered weakly, and drifted into unconsciousness. When the blood was cleared, Thea looked over her shoulder at cade and shook her head.

“There’s nothing you can do?” Cade asked in defeat, looking back at Heather in sympathy.

“I can stitch her face, but her eyes won’t heal,” Thea answered, her tone one of hopelessness. “She’ll never see again, Cade, and she probably won’t live once infection sets in.”

Cade sighed and nodded his head. “Do what you can,” he replied. “The least we can do is make her comfortable.”

He turned away from the van, almost smacking into Nephele.

“How is she?” the Witch asked worriedly.

Cade shook his head and ran his hand over his hair. “Not good. That bastard must have been under the bus the whole time. In the excitement of yesterday, I guess I forgot there had been three of them with those dems.”

“I’m sorry. Imps are so minor, they’re hard to detect,” Nephele explained quietly. “We should have done a sweep of the area before assuming it was safe.”

“It doesn’t matter now. It happened.” Cade sighed and stared off into the distance. A sudden thought occurred to him and he turned back to Nephele.

“You’re a Witch. Isn’t there anything you can do?”

“What do you mean?” Nephele asked with a puzzled frown.

“Well, I thought Witches had healing hands, or something.” He shrugged, a gesture of hopelessness. “Her eyes are completely ripped apart. I just thought, maybe you could do something for the pain. Or stop infection. Something.”

“I can’t. I’m just a Weather Witch,” Nephele replied with a helpless shrug. She stopped, thinking, then added, “But Raiz can.”



Raiz stared out across the barren land, letting the wind whip about her hair. Nephele stood quiet several feet away, watching her partner stare into nothingness. Raiz was quieter than usual, but it was to be expected. She always shut out the world around her when she experienced an influx of power. Nephele never asked what happened to her at these times, knew she would never get an answer. She had seen Raiz pull that soul eating trick only two other times since she had known her. Both times, Raiz had been distant for days afterward.

“You wanna tell me why we’re out here?” Raiz asked without turning. “Or are you enjoying staring at the back of my head?”

“Cade wants you to heal Heather,” Nephele answered, preparing herself for Raiz’s anger.

“I can’t.”

Nephele grabbed her shoulder, forcing her to face her. “I’ve seen you do it before! Raiz, that girl is going to be blind for the rest of her life if you don’t do something.”

“Assuming she lives through the week,” Raiz replied without sympathy.

“How can you be like this?” Nephele demanded in pained exasperation. “It’s our responsibility to help, whenever possible. I know you can help that girl. Why won’t you do it?”

“Because I don’t trust myself,” Raiz replied in a burst of self-anger. “I wasn’t made to heal. I was made to destroy. And every day, it gets harder to separate the good guys from the bad guys. Every day, I get a little bit closer to slipping over that edge. Holding that little, helpless girl in my hands is too much of a temptation for me to risk.”

“Well, it’s not for me,” Nephele snapped back. Softer, she continued, “I know you, Raiz. You’re not evil. You’re selfless, dedicated to mankind. There’s been hundreds of times where you could just walk away, but you never did. I trust you to heal that girl, like I trust you to give your life to save me.”

“You shouldn’t.” Raiz’s expression changed, and for the first time, Nephele realized her partner was afraid of herself. “I’m becoming addicted to it. That power. Every time I touch that darkness, I want a little more.”

Nephele felt her blood chill as a thought suddenly occurred to her. “That imp, why did you kill it that way? You could have pulled it off and then shot it, or stabbed it, or broke its neck. But, you didn’t. Why that way?”

Raiz turned eyes devoid of emotion to her. “Because I wanted to.”

Nephele sighed and placed her arms on Raiz’s shoulders in a comforting gesture. “You’re still fighting it,” Nephele softly pointed out. “And as long as you do, I’ll trust you with my life, and that of these people.”

“One day, I won’t be able to fight it anymore,” Raiz warned. “And when that day comes, you better kill me in my sleep, ‘cause you’ll never succeed when I’m awake.”

Nephele nodded in understanding, though secretly she doubted she could even stop the unpredictable woman in her sleep.

“Come on,” Nephele said, guiding Raiz back to the gas station with an arm around her shoulder. “Let’s go save that little girl.”





Thea had stitched Heather’s cheeks back together with a sewing kit. The only thread left had been a bright green, but it did the job. She didn’t even attempt to fix her eyes, simply wrapping layers of gauze around the girl’s head to keep out debris. There was enough painkillers left to keep heather in a pained daze, and Thea settled her in the backseat of the Hummer to rest.

When Nephele opened the rear passenger door, Heather had been dozing fitfully. At the sound and shifting of the vehicle, she startled awake and whimpered fearfully. Nephele put a calming hand on the girl’s shoulder.

“It’s alright, Heather. It’s Nephele.” She scooted her leg under the girl, propping her upper body against her. Across from her, Raiz opened the opposite door. The weight of her knee made the seat dip and Heather jumped again.

“Shh,” Nephele cooed. “It’s just Raiz.”

“No,” Heather whimpered, pushing back into Nephele. “Thea said she killed that imp with her eyes. Don’t let her touch me.” Heather’s voice pitched higher with every word until she was on the verge of hysterics.

Nephele tightened her arms around the frightened girl and bent to whisper in her ear. “Raizel would never harm you, Heather. She only wants to help you, I promise.”

Raiz scooted closer to the girl, speaking more softly and carefully than Nephele had ever heard her speak before.

“Listen to me, Heather. You are very hurt. Your eyes are ruined, and unless we do something, you’ll die very painfully very soon. I’m going to try and stop that. I can’t promise it will work, and I can’t promise it won’t hurt. Do you want me to try? I won’t, unless you say yes.”

Heather hicced and swallowed hard as she began to sob. Her tear ducts were too damaged to water, and her head behind her eyes began pounding painfully as her sinuses swelled.

“I don’t want to be blind,” she wailed desperately. “You can’t see them coming when you’re blind. You can’t run. You can’t hide. You just hear them laughing.”

“I’m going to fix that for you,” Raiz assured her, more to let her know she was still there than an actual promise.

Raiz closed her eyes, turning herself inward in a meditative state. She blocked out the world around her; the soft whimpering of Heather; the electric buzz of Nephele; the warm hum of the others who hovered nearby.

Raiz herself possessed no healing abilities, as she had told Nephele. But the soul she shared her body with did. Haeter was from a time when humans were still in the infancy of evolution; a time before cities, laws and a separation of magic and superstition. She was a Mystic, the ancestors of Witches who had passed into legend as pagan gods. Years ago, a series of unfortunate events had left the disembodied soul of Haeter trapped within Raiz’s psyche.

Most of the time, Raiz continued on as if the unwanted guest wasn’t there. But occasionally, like when she was in need of an ability she didn’t possess, Raiz had to coax the disinterested soul to the fore. It was never a pleasant encounter. Haeter was ever reminding Raiz of her shortcomings, like a parent who tsks the child.

“Haeter,” Raiz whispered inside her head. The black plane of her inner self shimmered, and a figure materialized before her.

Haeter had been a diminutive being of the first race, and her soul image reflected that. Barely five feet tall, with a straight frame only slightly curving in femininity, she had a mop of carrot red hair and large silver eyes. Her hands were small and dexterous, the fingers seeming shorter than they should. She was not attractive by today’s standards, but closer resembling something no longer ape, but not quite modern.

“I share your mind, Seeker,” she answered, her voice low and mocking. “I know what you Seek before you ask. Why should I help the human child?”

“Because I ask it,” Raiz replied, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice.

“She is no bloodline of mine,” Haeter replied dismissively. “No leader of men. Of no importance. Her fate is of no relevance to the fate of the world.”

“Her fate is relevant because people here care for her,” Raiz insisted. “Love is the only thing keeping people going in this world. How is the loss of that love irrelevant?”

“You speak of love as if it is something you can feel,” Haeter replied, knowing it would wound Raiz. Her face took on the expression of one falsely sympathetic. “Tell me, Raiz. How long since your heart sang at the touch of a lover? How long since you held a child to your breast?”

“That girl is going to be blind for the rest of her life if you don’t do something,” Raiz ground out harshly, ignoring the hurtful words. “It will kill her.”

“It is only one child,” Haeter reiterated, the passing of millennia having jaded her against the pain of humanity. “My help is not required.”

“You will do this because it is our duty to help where we may. You will do this because I give you a corporeal form where nothing else could. You will do this because without me you would dissipate into nothingness,” Raiz demanded, her own voice deafening in her mind. “You will do this because I tell you to!”

Raiz had her where she wanted her. Ever since she found herself back on the mortal plane, Haeter had only wanted to live. Until she could find a suitable body of her own, in Raiz was the only place she could remain on the earth. If it came between healing a mortal child and death, Raiz knew which one the ancient mage would chose.

Haeter’s eyes flashed pure white in her anger, her face set hard as marble. She disintegrated into a cloud of black smoke that rushed at the image of Raiz. Raiz flinched instinctively, but you couldn’t stop something that was a part of you. A chilling sensation spiked through Raiz and she found herself back in reality. In it, but not a part of it.

The power of Haeter flowed through Raiz, tingling and cool, making Raiz’s body vibrate like she’d just touched a live wire. Her body was temporarily in the control of Haeter, and the Mystic stretched her arms out over the body of Heather. The palms grew an aura of pulsating light and heat radiated from the skin. Slowly, Haeter let her palms travel the length of Heather’s body, then hovered over the girl’s bandaged eyes.

Haeter opened her eyes, looking at the human child with luminous eyes. She tilted her head curiously, trying to see what the Seeker had thought so important. The child was weak, powerless, her soul a fragile flicker compared to the flaring brilliance of her own. She was like so many of her race: something less than what they were meant to be. But Raizel fiercely protected these soft pets, in her own, tempestuous way. She would have to trust her host that what she said about love was true, even for the deficient humans.

As the healing power coursed through her fingertips and over the child, Haeter reached out and ran a hand gently down the girl’s temple. The girl turned slightly into that healing warmth, no longer afraid.