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A Breath of Demons

far far away
beyond the mist of Jupiter
was the longest look
we took at love

Out there, on the hills, the nights are wild. Ariel is wild with them, blood echoing like the thunder n his veins, like the unending, unyielding sea. He throws back his head and breathes in the cold air, exhilarating in it.

The wolves snarl and slink at his feet. They answer to no one but him, and know him as their master. As it should be. He scrunches his fingers into their thick fur, and smiles at the fear of the Herders. They think they're wolves, in their grey robes, but he can feel their fear trailing like fingers over his skin in a lingering caress.

Up above, the moon is serene and shimmering, blindfolded by clouds. He knows her power, the heedless moon, conferring light or lunacy in equal measure. She's an old ally of his – she lit the way when he staggered free of Druid's camp, slid free to reveal old prey (even now, he still feel a frisson of pleasure when he thinks of Selmar), concealed him on the dreaming roads.

Ariel read once that the moon was a goddess. If so, she's as capricious and cruel as luck, and he's careful to keep her favour.

And on the altar of these old, old hills, he's laid out her sacrifice.

Rushton Seraphim is a small, still point amidst the havoc of sky and sea. The world turns around him: he faces down Ariel with the pride of a king.

It's amusing, and it's pointless, but Ariel is careful to show nothing on his face. Rushton has to break in the right way, the slow way. No need to destroy his hope too soon: the descent must be complete and irreversible.

Under his hands, the wolf quivers, slave to fear and obedience. One day, Rushton will do the same, and the pleasure will be twice as intense.

"You'll run," Ariel says softly. "And they'll chase you. Maybe if you're lucky, I'll call them off before they catch you."

The thought of blood sends a wave of delight through him. He steps closer to Rushton, the space between them intimate and hostile.

"Or maybe I'll let them have a taste," he whispers.

Rushton's eyes are angry. There's something of the wolf in him too – dark hair tumbling like a pelt over his face, the eerie green echo of his eyes under moonlight – but it's so controlled. He doesn't even give Ariel the satisfaction of a reply.

With the greatest disdain, Rushton turns his back, and he walks – walks! – down the slope as if there's all of time before him, as if the wolves aren't snuffling after him already.

Ariel signals: two Herders flank Rushton, grab him, turn him, and trap him as Ariel daintily takes out the drug.

There it is – a flash of fear in his face, quickly hidden behind bared teeth.

"What's wrong?" Rushton says through gritted teeth. "Afraid to give me a fair fight?"

Ariel knows his beauty as the shark knows the waters of its territory. He knows the sea-foam gleam of his hair, the white of his smile curling and uncurling, breaking like the waves below. He uses it effortlessly, another weapon in his arsenal.

He leans in. The distance between them is thin as a petal. He can feel Rushton's breath trembling on his face, and Ariel thinks fleetingly that it would be an even sweeter revenge to rob Elspeth of him, to make him not only fearful and obedient, but loving too, crawling behind Ariel on his belly for all his days and thinking it bliss.

But he thinks that Elspeth is cold enough to survive the loss. It isn't final enough: he needs her ruined.

So he tangles his fingers in Rushton's hair as if he were another wolf, and is gentle as an angel, and sees the confusion flickering in his eyes.

"Oh, it isn't fear," Ariel breathes, voice silky-soft. His fingers slide to the back of Rushton's neck.

"No?" Rushton snaps. "What is it then?"

Ariel raises his eyebrows. "Good sense," he says, and claps the cloth over Rushton's face.

He has nowhere to go: he is caged in Ariel's grip. Still he fights not to breathe, as he did before – will the man never learn? – but at last his lungs give out, and Rushton inhales the drug, spluttering and twitching as it seeps into his blood.

Under the blind moon, he staggers over the hills, small, fading point amidst the havoc of sky and sea. Ariel watches him fade like a morning star, and then he unleashes the wolves.

Their howls mingle with the wind: they're nothing but shadows streaking through shadows, and he should feel victory, he should be pleased, but something is puzzling him. And when he pinpoints the feeling, it disturbs him enormously.

Even though Rushton is out of sight, the world still turns around him.

X – X – X – X – X

Rushton runs. He has no other choice.

The night flashes by in ragged pieces. A shaft of moonlight catching silver on a puddle. Shingle that shifts under his feet and cuts his hands. The wolves behind him, always behind him, hot breath and growls that seem to come from everywhere. Only the cold is constant, seeping through every tear in his clothes.

Under the drugs, everything is terrible. He sees faces leering from the interplay of branch and shadow, hears voices weeping on the wind. He stumbles back from a plague-riddled child only to blink and see rocks.

And he cannot stop.

They torment him, his ghosts, leaping out from crevices, riding on the wind. He gasps for breath, unable to spare the time to fight them. The wolves are closing him down.

He slips. His chin cracks on something hard and he tastes blood, the only warmth in this icy night.

Teeth close on his leg. He turns, and for a maddened moment, it is Elspeth there, green eyes glaring out from a wolf's face. He cannot bring himself to hit her-

Weight hits him, hot, hectic. When he blinks, he sees only wolves around him, and he fights in earnest. Pain jabs him in a dozen places – he's bleeding, pinned by their teeth, and Rushton knows the end is surely near. Above them, faint and untouched by the wind, he sees the ghosts crowd in.

Selmar, Pavo, Alexi, Madame Vega, enemies and allies neutral in death. Dream-like, he reaches for them with a bloodied hand-

An angel of death outshines them all. They are torn to pieces by its arrival: this thing in gold and white whose smile is like a sword.

And Rushton cannot comprehend it, but the wolves are gone leaving only pain and blood oozing sluggishly from him. He lies on the ground, gasping, eyes fixed upon the angel and its ever-nearer smile.

"Your life is mine," it says in a voice rough with glee. It touches a hand to one of his wounds; his blood stains its fingers, and with great slowness, the angel licks it clean. "You are mine."

"No," he says. There's someone else he belongs to: dark hair and dark secrets, strong as stone. "Hers."

"She doesn't love you."

He turns his head away from the angel. He sees the hills dropping away, and at their feet, the sea. It reminds him of days upon a boat, of a journey he took with her when she said ravek, and smiled, and love was more than a word.

When he looks back, he sees Ariel.

"Wrong," Rushton whispers, even though he is afraid.

The blow sends him tumbling into the fathoms of his own mind: into a battlefield of another sort.

X – X – X – X – X

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