The air felt heavy and hot bound in muggy darkness bereft of moon and stars . There was the feeling of something hard beneath, grainy like sand but solid and dry against her skin. Consciousness came slowly, her body no longer ached although it still felt stiff and sore and she lay in the all consuming darkness still drowsy, waiting for her senses to return to her.

Vespera knew it was night time without questioning why. She knew time had passed but remembered little of what had happened in that time. There had been periods of brief conciousness filled by the sound of quiet voices chanting, the feel of cool earth and the taste of blood.

Next to her Fiske stirred. Their hands were entwined together and she could feel his fingers twitch as he began to wake. She could feel in his mind how much his body had healed in his people's care. His wounds had closed, his flesh had filled out, his strength was returning slowly. He would have scars and his pulped eye was beyond repair but he was on the way to becoming whole again.

In the back of her mind she felt the others begin to wake. There was no Tyron, no Tryst and she mourned both of them but she knew how lucky it was they had not lost more of her small unconventional family in their escape. She felt Angel's mind surface briefly a mass of rage and fear awaking from nightmares old and new. Vespera reached out with her heart and calmed the tangle of emotions letting the red head drift back into sleep. Above she could hear children playing, the steady rumble of voices in the house above and around them.

"I don't think I have ever felt so many Carpathians so close." Fiske said startling her. "Not since I was a small child. It is good to feel such a thing again. I count this and watching you sleep as two of my most favourite things."

"You were watching me." replied Vespera. "For how long." Fiske smiled.

"I lost track of the time my heart. The others are stirring, tonight I will have to begin teaching you how to survive in your new bodies."

"Angel worries me." said Vespera. "Her mind is so full of rage now."

"I know." said Fiske sadly. "I do not believe she has had a good life and the vampire's attack has made her worse. She will need time and our help to start getting over what has happened to her."

"I keep thinking if we had stayed together, if we hadn't..." Vespera blushed to herself and Fiske squeezed her hand gently.

"Albursel would have found us walking towards him. He would have seen the three of us as too great a threat and he would have killed us all instead of trying to keep you and Angel for himself. If I had been still unmated I believe the bloodlust on seeing him would have been my final undoing, I would have turned while trying to kill him and then turned on you." Fiske said sadly. "Do not distress yourself my heart and stop trying to remind me of what happened on the tunnel floor we are meant to be lying here healing." Vespera smiled as she caught the playful edge to his voice. She felt the heat begin to rise under her skin.

"We would still be lying here healing my love." She said letting go of his hand and trailing her fingers up the soft skin of his hip. "Just in a slightly different position."

Nearby in the soil the tattooed giant grimaced in dreams of blood and pain. On her body the tattoos marking her life were marred by the thin white lines the healing chants had been unable to fully banish. On her arm the ink lady forever wept in fear as below her etched in black on Angel's knuckles the contorted face of the rage stared out at the world through bulging eyes. On her heart the paper bird sailed against the sun to heaven where the ink wings had never taken her.

The wings bit into the dirt as Angel turned over. Below them a standing bear looked out sizing up the world outside. On her forearm a bear's head showed it's fangs in anger at something unseen. Her shoulder held a second bear's head and on her thigh another bear roared. The same green eyes stared out of each tattoo, the same bear drawn over and over onto Angel's body. In her dream the red eyes of the vampire burned once again in the dark place before fading into nothing. Here something moved as Angel's mind found itself a quiet sanctuary amoungst the whirl of her pain. The bear turned to meet her. Green eyes the colour of fresh cut emeralds stared at her out of the darkness until they seemed to glow with a force beyond the power of mere dreams.

"Hold on." he said "I'm so close now. Hold on."

The adventure continues in Dark Redemption.