Remember

I had a dream last night. You were there.

She was running through a maze, the branches parting before her like green mists. The cloying fragrance of pine hung around, overwhelming her senses.

Someone was chasing her.

Anyone could see what her flushed face and over-bright green eyes meant. As she glanced behind, her dark hair, tumbling loose from its pins, caught copper in the light.

"Catch me if you can," she called back, running on and on through endless green tunnels, her laughter rippling through the labyrinth.

It was an art, that was obvious. Run fast enough to make him chase, but slow enough to keep his interest.

Through path after path, past slender statues of roaring lions and spread-winged dragons. Hearing his footsteps, his teasing voice calling her name with a richness of promise that made something hot turn low in her stomach.

She burst into the centre of the maze, flinging back her head into the harsh sunlight that broke into this world of green-tinted softness, sweeping her skirts about her. She had dressed as a maid, because no one looking for the Lady Anastacia would glance twice at someone in a maid's garb.

A mosaic lay at the centre, the remnants of an old Roman villa that had once stood here. It had fantastical beasts on it, unicorns and dragons and phoenix. Oh, she thought...if only she could be like them, and fly free from the cage of her duty.

Duty, duty, duty. Her duty to marry well, to give her family power...

She didn't want to marry for duty. She wanted to marry for love.

Her duty was a man of power, a comte who held many lands. He was well-liked by the Church, and he was handsome beyond her dreams. But he was cold. There was an ice in him she could not reach past, and it frightened her. When he issued punishment, there was no compassion to temper him.

And her love...was her love. A lesser noble, but noble all the same, who pretended to play visitor to her duty's court for her sake, who sent not a glance her way while she played courtesan, who whispered love to her when ever they stood near, alone. "M'amour, we will not let him stand in our way," he had said firmly.

But Ana saw no way out. If her duty caught her, it would be the guillotine for her love, and perhaps for her too.

But she would risk it.

She waited, her eyes two sparkling stars that grew soft and heavy with anticipation.

Come on, she urged, spinning around idly, her outstretched fingers tips brushing the tickling needles. But she saw only one empty pathway after another. Silence, the only presence that of the aromatic pine.

Someone grabbed her.

She shrieked with shock and delight, and turned to the man holding. "Oh, you sc-"

And stopped.

It wasn't her love.

It was her hate.

"What...I..." Panic snatched the words from her mouth, leaving only dryness. "Mon comte, please...don't."

His cold eyes swept her. "I warned you, Ana."

All the sun seemed to have drained away. "I don't want you!" she screamed frantically. From the corner of her eye, she saw guards step, the light catching dully from their bronze breastplates, but their faces only shadowy silhouettes.

And two of them...they held her Other.

"I want him," she gasped fiercely, half a statement, half a plea.

She stared at her betrothed's face. Too young to rule so much, they all said. Not young enough, she knew. "You said I had to choose," she whispered, trying to reach past the stone in him. Emotion lay under there, but buried deep. "Choose and pay the price. Would you take that away?"

That reached him; a corner of his mouth twitched. "Choose then," he said flatly. "Choose damn you, and take the consequences. Him or me. Death or life."

"Ana..." Her Other, and she turned to look at him. His eyes were a pure clear sapphire, as open as her comte's lay closed. He seemed to search for words, even as he hung in the grip of the guards he had once been part of. "Be careful," he said finally. "Choose carefully."

"Choose quickly," her comte said. There was nothing pure in his face, however royal the blood in his veins. "Time is running out."

How dare he threaten her? How could he? He was supposed to love her. Ana wrenched free of her betrothed's grip and stepped back, drawing herself up. "To hell with the consequences," she spat. "It will always be him. He is the one I love."

"So be it," her comte said softly. He looked beyond her to the guards, and turning, dread a molten lead in her stomach, Ana turned and saw the blue sheen on the blade of an axe.

She stared at her Other and saw the growing horror in his eyes, black as his hair. "No..." she breathed.

Her duty waved a languid hand and smiled coldly. "Death, I think, will become you."

X - X - X - X - X

"Tam!" Someone nudged her.

She blinked. She had been daydreaming again.

"What?" she mumbled. Her head was resting uncomfortably on her arm, she realised, and she sat up a little. From her wry glance, the teacher had noticed, but Ms. Binns had a soft heart. And Tam was acing history.

Rob Slivan looked faintly puzzled. "Principal wants to see you. What've you been doing now, Tam?"

"Nothing," she said, frowning. Her eyes, brown and soft as velvet, moved to the rest of the class who were watching her, trying to see her reaction.

Rob Slivan was the ideal boy-next-door. In fact...he was the boy-next-door. He was Tam's neighbour, and she had known him since she was born. And she knew him rather too well for her liking. "Pigs might fly."

She gave him a cool look. "How do you think Danish bacon gets here? For once, Rob, I am totally innocent."

"I know you," he said as she got up, sweeping her books into her bag. "You were never innocent."

"Excuse me, you certainly have no proof of that."

Rob grinned, and it lit him up. He was handsome, Tam supposed, with his dark blond hair cut short to show off a face that was bright and more often smiling than not. They had dated once...only once, because they had both ended up in fits of laughter every time they even thought about kissing. After that, they had given up, decided it obviously wasn't meant to be, and had a lot of fun setting each other up.

"Have fun," he said cheerfully.

She flashed him a bright smile. Maybe some people wouldn't have carried out a conversation where the entire class could hear and wonder, but Rob and Tam were different.

They were part of the popular crowd.

And they both hated it, because in this town, popular meant something else entirely.

It meant cruelty covered in chic clothes. It meant ugliness hidden under money, beauty, or connections. It meant playing with the people who weren't worth caring about. It meant laughing at anyone different in day, and hurting them under the shield of darkness.

It meant vampire hunter.

X - X- X - X - X

It looked like cranberry juice. It wasn't.

The boy and the girl sat in a quiet corner of the campus, avoiding the classes that could teach them nothing because they had both learned what the real lesson of life was. Put up, shut up and take what you're given.

Both had seen the flaw in this immediately. There had, after all, to be someone who was doing the giving.

They had made sure it was them.

"He's late again," the boy said levelly, turning the glass. The liquid was thickening already, clinging to the crystal. This was a celebration, but there was little festivity to it. "What is it this time?"

The boy alone would have made people stop and stare. Simply for his hair, which was a spiky stark blue, and his snow-white skin, as if sunlight didn't touch him. That wasn't so far from the truth.

"You know Aspen."

But the girl...she would have made people stop and run.

"I take it that means he's done something foolish again." His face was still as an ice-sculpture. All hard lines, from his narrow eyes to the angled cheekbones, softened only by the sensuous curve of his mouth.

"The principal wants to see him. Who knows what for. You know Martin - he doesn't give a damn about anything. He's careless. Risky." The girl's voice had a slight accent, one that matched the Romany promise in her shiny black eyes.

The boy shrugged. "That's what makes him the best. He has innovation, you have integrity and I..."

"You are death."

Silence quivered, matching the wind over the grass. The boy raised his hooded eyes to the girl. "That's quite a compliment. And if I didn't know better, I'd say you feared me."

His voice was mild. But his eyes were two endless blue wells, filled with remote interest and cruelty..

The girl didn't blink, or swallow, or do anything but take a sip from her glass. There was a dusky golden tinge to her skin, and her eyes dominated her face. But they were not what an onlooker would notice first.

She was completely bald. Both ears were pierced, and a chain ran from each into her nose, as well as a pair of flashing orange stones that dangled from her lobes.

"Not at all." The lie was barely detectable. But the boy saw it all the same, and stored it in his heart. It would be useful one day. "When all's said and done, you can die. We all can."

"Alone...possibly, yes. Though it's unlikely." The boy smashed her glass with one hand, holding his hand up for her to observe, not seeming to care about the scarlet rivulets crawling over his hand before his skin healed. "But when we combined our powers..."

He picked up his glass and hurled it into the air.

It spun, flashing crazily in the sunlight. He uncoiled his hand and it exploded from the inside out into a shimmering powder that fluttered down, catching on the girl's eyelashes.

"Together," he said softly, "we are everything."

The girl took a deep breath. "Aspen will be here soon," she said, averting her eyes from the boy's striking face. All pretence of humanity had drained from it, leaving it serene and unearthly.

Yes. She did fear him. But she was almost sure he would not kill her. Almost.

Once, there had been more like their trio. All young. None of them with more than a score years behind them. All old. The darkness that lived in them was beyond the touch of time.

Creatures craving power, fighting one another and dying for their lusts. One by one, they had died until only three were left. The best. Three of them had survived to walk out into the world.

And now each headed an organisation that even the Nightworld whispered about.

They had done deeds to chill the blood and soul. The threads of thousand of lives were entangled with their every word or action. But there was one more fundamental way the three of them were alike.

Not one of them cared.

You held my hand so tight...I thought I'd just
Die.

X - X- X - X - X

Comments and criticism adored.