It had been late in the evening when they had first
confronted Renfield. By three o'clock in the morning
they had recovered sufficently to allow safe travel.
Jaera refused Bregan's offer of a ride, saying
something about the stagnation of reality and left.
That left only Katrina.
"I'm hungry again, I would be a danger to you."
"I have an idea about that," Bregan said. "Come on.
It's just me in the apartment right now, and I think I
can handle you. Tomorrow night, there's someone I'd
like you to meet."
Katrina's tired face crinkled with concern, her last
nightmare was still fresh in her mind.
"I still owe you that violin, you know. How can I
get it to you if I don't know where you are?"
Katrina shook her head in disbelief, but he was
right. She severly doubted that she'd be able to beat
him, even in frenzy. She smiled as she raised her
face to meet his.
"If you insist."
Marie pulled up to Micheal and Bregan's apartment
building sometime around noon. She had to find out
what he had been doing all this time. His car wasn't
parked in the lot, so he wasn't there, but he had to
return sooner or later. Then it would be time to get
some answers.
She walked straight to the room and used her key to
get inside and lock the door behind her.
Marie strode back to the room that was Bregan's
thinking she could find some clues there. The shades
were drawn in, but she saw a lump in the bed, like a
body, and moved forward to investigate.
She found, curled up in Bregan's blankets, the cold
body of a teenage girl.
At first Marie thought the girl was dead, but as she
watched the girl's face scrunched into an expression
of fear and despair. She was apparently deep in the
throws of some nightmare.
"What is she doing sleeping this time of day anyway?"
she asked no one in particular. She reached up to
pull open the shades for a better look when somebody
grabbed her hand. Marie jumped away and twirled to
find Bregan standing behind her.
"She's ill," Bregan said as he pulled the blankets
back over the girl. "I'm taking her to someone that
can help her tonight." He set down the violin case he
had carried in down on his desk, which was loaded to
brimming with items related to the Predator movies.
"How's Mike?"
"The doctors believe he's going to recover." Marie
scanned the young man before her, looking for some
clue to something.
"Good news," he said as he slumped into a chair.
"Somebody tried to kill him yesterday," Marie said.
"Were you there when it happened?" Bregan tensed.
"The oddest thing happened," she contined. "A piece
of glass killed the girl who was trying to kill him.
It was like it was intelligent or something." Marie
watched Bregan for some reaction.
"That is strange, what did the cops say?"
"I didn't know how to explain it, neither did they.
I think they passed it off as a case of self-defense."
Bregan smiled.
"How lucky for you, such things don't happen
everyday."
"Not without help anyway," she leveled an accusing
stare at Bregan but couldn't find anything to answer
her questions. She heard sobbing sounds and looked
back to see red tears run from the girl's eyes.
"Please leave," Bregan requested quietly. Marie left
wondering, but not daring to ask, what illness makes
one cry tears of blood.
Jaera finished her meditation early that day, she was
unsatisfied with her performance against the vampire,
Renfield. She had not taken her revenge on her own as
she had wished, but that was a minor consideration.
She was disappointed that she had failed to recognize
the need for allies.
Next time would be different, she knew some new
tricks now. Most important among them that of seeking
help.
Unlike most of the Sky-Chasers pack, Two-Feet was
neither homid, nor Fianna. She was lupus and belonged
to the Children of Gaia tribe. She was the pack's
only philodox. The pack came to her when their was
discord, they came to her to settle their problems.
She was the judge, the mediator, the deliverer of
punishment and reward. She was also one of the pack's
leaders, despite the predominately Fianna background.
It was possible that she was the leader, but no
official choice had ever been made among them. She
was seen as superior in times of peace, Ian Caghen, an
ahroun, led the physical battles, and Wanders-Alone, a
theurge, led the spiritual battles. All three were of
the second rank in garous society, and none claimed
leadership over the others, that was just the way
things were.
She had received her name from the other lupus she
knew. They had meant it as an insult, but she took it
as an honor. Simply put, Two-Feet was one of the few
lupus to actually be comfortable in homid form. The
tribal elders said that made her the perfect mediator
for the two breeds, while others said it merely made
her a freak. If she had been a part of another tribe,
the Red Talons for example, she would probably have
been shunned or worse.
She held her court in the house the pack had bought
on the edge of town, near the caern they belonged to.
Her chair sat at the head of a large conference table
situated underneath a hanging crucifix. The crucifix
was a source of ridicule among the other packs. Some
felt that displaying the trappings of a human religon
was betrayal of the garou people, others were just
jerks. The Children of Gaia, however, had long
respected the ideals of christianity. The peaceful
tribe felt a spiritual kinship with hese fellow
speakers of mercy, healing and forgiveness. The
history of the garou told that the Children had helped
guide the church to power along with a group of mages
known as the Celestial Chorus. That time was long
gone, however, and with it any official communication
between the cousins of garou and human.
Despite the formal appearance of this court, she
really had no care for the trappings of power, or of
power itself. She merely wished to prevent
unnecessary conflict. This trait of the Children
often led some to believe them to be cowards or
weaklings. That was a mistake that the Get of Fenris,
a tribe who respected only strength, made more often
than they would admit.
Before her now stood Bregan Rohan, the pack's younger
theurge. He had come in the night, alone and asked to
meet in private. He was not one of the pack's best
warriors, she had beaten him many times in ritual
competition. Nor did she sucspect him of being able
to turn against them, so she was not worried about
herself. The situation did arouse her curiousity,
however.
"Theurge Bregan Rohan, you come to me with a request
for aid." She told him.
"I do."
"You requested that I meet you in privacy and I have
agreed, but I ask why." She waited for him to
respond.
"I am afraid that the other members of the pack would
not understand my position." Two-Feet cocked an
eyebrow.
"What is your position?" her voice mocked his
expression exactly. Most lupus weren't capable of
such mockery in homid form. Most weren't even
comfortable with speech.
"You know the rite of cleansing."
"You have seen me use it."
"Can you cleanse a person?" she thought she knew his
problem now. He had been on a personal quest to
avenge his brother, it was possible that he had become
contaminated with a bane in that time.
"Who is this person?" she asked as a formality.
Bregan held up his hand to indicate that she wait for
a moment. He turned around and opened the door,
gesturing for someone to enter.
What looked like a fifteen year old girl wearing
black jeans and a blood stained t-shirt that had once
been white. The girl appeared nervous and frightened
and shuffled in slowly. She had dark hair, and oh so
pale skin.
Two-Feet could smell what she was then.
"You bring the Kindred here?" she accused Bregan.
"I ask that you cure her of her affliction. She and
two-others aided me in the destruction of a vampire
who dates to the time of the civil war."
"She is a vampire, a leech, a minion of the Wyrm.
She should be destroyed."
"And if she were a Garou wishing to be freed of a
bane?" Two-Feet had to concede to the point. Other
Garou wouldn't have, but the Children of Gaia were
well known for their tolerance, and Two-Feet could see
that the Wyrm had not gained a solid hold upon her
yet.
"If the ritual fails, we will kill you," she told
Katrina.
"I don't want to live...forever." Two-Feet nodded in
acceptance.
"Wait here, I will summon the pack," she said.
Bregan nodded acceptance. Within an hour all ten
members of the pack had arrived.
"You have summoned us her for a cadaver?" Ian yelled
disbelievingly.
"Be quiet, we have neighbors," Wanders-Alone
answered. He was the most powerful theurge, there was
only one other, of the pack and he was also a metis,
which made his position odd. Metis were the result of
two Garou mating, they were generally deformed in some
way and always sterile. Garou were meant to breed
with wolves and humans, not each other. Such was the
equivilent of incest to the garou, as such metis were
generally despised.
"I have told her my judgement and she has accepted."
"What is your judgement?" Nobody had expected that
voice, fewer had seen him enter. Dreamwalker, the
Silent Strider lupus had arrived. He had perhaps
twice the experience of any other individual in the
room, but outranked none of them. Nobody really knew
what he had done. He was respected among the younger
Garou.
"If we fail, she dies. To do otherwise is to let a
threat walk free."
"Agreed," the last speaker was a ragabash member of
the tribe, Steals-Laughter. He wasn't quite as
cheerful as most of his auspice. He wasn't into
pranks or jokes, he used the trickster nature he had
been born with for more practical means. All the
jokes had been burned out of him long before he even
discovered his wolf heritage.
"Then we must find a place to perform the ritual."
The pack put their heads together and soon thought of
a suitable place just outside the city, complete with
pure water and birch trees.
Within an hour they had arrived at the appointed
place.
"You must truly want to be cleansed for this work,
otherwise all my knowledge would be useless," Two-Feet
told Katrina. "We will perform the ritual at dawn,
for it is then that its power is strongest. When
light overcomes darkness, as it did nearly two
thousand years ago, and will again when Gaia is healed
of the Wyrm's cancer." She told Katrina this as the
circle was being drawn with the branch of a birch tree
dipped in pure water. Katrina sucspected that the
dawn was meant to kill her if the ritual failed, but
she set aside such doubts. "You must not leave the
circle for any reason, understand?" Katrina nodded.
They waited patiently for dawn, Dreamwalker looking
on curiously. Watching Bregan give words of
encourgement to the girl in the circle awaiting Gaia's
judgement. As the moment began to grow closer Katrina
noticed less and less the people around her. Breaking
the blood bond was child's play compared to the
willpower it took to remain in that circle. She
centered her focus on the eyes of the man who had
brought this chance to her.
Then the moment finally happened, light began to
break on the horizen. Something seemed to twist in
her soul as the sunlight began to burn her vampiric
flesh. Something screamed at her to run from the sun,
to preserve her current existence. She recognised the
thing, it was the same thing that drove her to kill
twice, the same thing that gave her the dreams that
haunted her sleep. It was a self-serving thing, and
it wanted to make her an extension of itself.
In the real world the branch of birch was set on fire
and Two-Feet began circling along the line drawn in
the earth. All the Garou were in crinos form as they
watched waiting for the moment that required their
participation. Katrina, in the circle, felt the fear
intensify as things such as eager werewolves, the
rising sun and a burning stake combatted with her
will. The struggle in her mind eclipsed the burning
of the sun as her desire for freedom warred with the
vile, shapeless thing that reached from darkness.
She looked to Bregan, and could barely distinguish
him out of all the other wolf-men. As she extended
her willpower to fight the unnatural instinct to flee,
the philodox's ritual progressed. Her power reached
into the umbra to repair and cleanse the girl's body
and soul.
As soon as Two-Feet made a complete circle the
werewolves surrounding the circle howled in eerie,
terrifying manner. The sound of their voices nearly
sent Katrina running in terror. She held her ground,
however, even as the pain began. Pain that she could
feel even through her battle. Mixed in were her pain
and hope and the gripping thing's pain and fear.
She didn't feel like she was burning, so she knew it
wasn't the sun. It felt more like something was being
pulled from her, ripped out of her soul. Then it
ended, and Katrina collapsed exhausted and
exhilirated.
She could feel the sunlight stream down and touch her
face as it finally peeked over the horizen. She could
feel her heart pumping hot blood again, and she felt
her lungs pull in air of necessity rather than
pleasure. It had worked, she was human again.
She examined her teeth and found no fangs. She
looked at her skin and saw that it was flushed with
her own blood. She was still physically fifteen, but
in a few short years that would change. She was
alive, and that was what mattered.
She rushed out of the circle then to where she had
identified Bregan and hugged his hairy form as he
shifted back into homid form. He held her close to
him as she cried tears, real tears not blood, of
happiness on his shoulder.
Dreamwalker approached the two, Two-Feet behind with
the other two leaders in two.
"Very impressive," he said simply. This was Bregan's
vision of the ideal Garou. Dreamwalker was wise,
kind, strong, and brave.
"You sound like you're giving me the credit." Bregan
accused.
"He is, to both of you," Two-Feet agreed. When
Bregan and Katrina stared at them in confusion the
lupus in homid forms explained themselves.
"Dreamwalker has just informed me that he has seen
this tried before."
"Not a single of the Kindred who attempted it
succeeded in passing the tests of ritual. Every one
of them eventually tried to run and as a result was
burned or killed by one of the garou."
"But it worked..." Katrina whispered as if expecting
to become a vampire right then under the sun.
"Yes, but the ritual is just that...ritual. The real
power is here," Two-Feet pointed to Katrina. "In you,
we are just limited in unlocking it."
"I still don't see what part I played," Bregan said.
Two-Feet smiled at him knowingly.
"Boy, your eyes never left each other through the
entire thing."
"I'll be by later for the full story, but for now
know that you have performed nothing less than a
miracle this morning." The mystic touched an amulet
he wore about his neck and began to walk away. They
quickly lost sight of him as his amulet began to
function.
The remainder of the pack passed by to give grudging
congradulations on their way out of the clearing.
Soon only Two-Feet, Bregan and Katrina remained.
"I will want to hear the story as well, Bregan. This
must be reported to the elders of the Spring Oasis
Caern."
Back at the mansion, former lair of the vampire known
both as Jared Mason and Renfield, Jenny felt another
connection to the world resolve itself. She had led
Katrina to means for her salvation, all by telling her
to run.
Now she was tired, she had to get some sleep, she had
no choice. She had been active too long.
Later that day copies of her songs appeared in the
office of a record company manager with a written
permission to use them as they wanted. She wanted a
legacy, not fame. After the manager read them, and
liked them, she felt all her connections to the
physical world cut.
She heard a deep part of herself cry out in rage, but
only faintly, as she took the first of many steps out
of this Underworld to transcendence. Only then did
she sleep, leaving her thwarted shadow in control for
eight hours. It appeared as a twisted version of her
other half, and laughed. There were still many
chances for it to win out in the end, and end both
their existences.
Five years later, Katrina thought back to the events
that had occured following her cure. She still
possessed some of her vampric powers, but rarely used
them. Mostly when she wanted to talk to the
occaisonal animal. The nightmares had remained as
well, but they had diminished over the past few years.
First came Micheal's recovery, he apparently
remembered nothing of his conversation with Bregan or
the spirit world in general, but nothing else was
blurred. Soon afterwards he and Marie were married on
a bright summer's day under the blue sky.
Then came Katrina's reunion with her family, this was
a media event of some size, because it revealed the
innocence of certain individuals. The authorities
were given a description of the true criminal, this
matched exactly with reports of the drug-lord Varney's
description. The few Kindred who knew the
implications behind that chose not to persue matters,
certain prominent members of the San Franciscan garou
displayed themselves quite prominently on the screen.
The Kindred would not survive an open war with the
Garou.
Of course Katrina went back to school, she completed
it within two years by taking extra courses to make up
for lost time.
Enrollment in college came next, and she was now in
her junior year of that, majoring in music. She was
already making a name for herself as a skilled
violinist and composer, of course some of her music
was a little too morbid for most tastes, but that was
too be expected considering her history.
Last year she had married Bregan, the event being a
small affair with only her immeadiate family, Micheal
and Marie, and Two-Feet and Dreamwalker. The latter
using the names Tina Feason and Derrick Konn. The
mage, Jaera Citereh had also made a brief, surprise
visit, not staying long for fear of the coming
consequences of acquiring to much paradox.
Today, she had learned that she was pregnant. Soon
Bregan would be home from his shift, he had finally
become a cop, and she would tell him then.
Katrina thought on how none of this would have been
possible except for the gift she had received five
years ago.
A gift of sunlight.
Note: moderately trite for WoD I know...but shrug
=====
"Caffeinated Kender? What's that, a berserk spell?" -
Tribble, Kender Warrior of the Celestial Kingdom
Signed
He of Too Many Names (Thrythlind/Thryth/Luke/Hyperbole/Pika/Pooka)
http://members.aol.com/thrythlind/snake.html
__________________________________________________
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