A short, festive something; the second (and final) part will be out shortly before New Years'. This story is set some four years after Chimera, and before Ripples. I'm about halfway through the next part of Ripples, and Yesteryear. Happy Christmas :) I hope you all had a fabulous time.
Disclaimer: Any characters / clan-names you recognise from the books belong to LJ Smith. All else is created by the strange beastie that is my imagination.
Spoilers: Chimera, previous Fires of Fate stories, the Nightworld books.
Lyrics: The sweet, melancholy "My December" by Linkin Park.
I hope you enjoy reading :) Your opinions would be much loved.
My December
This is my December; these are my snow covered dreams,
This is me pretending this is all I need.
Snowflakes had iced over on his eyelashes, and when he blinked, crystals glittered and were snatched away by the jangling wind.
He walked in the cold because it didn't really touch him. He was old enough to shut it off, to let the ice and the snow blast right through him as if he was mist, letting the brittle biting wind slip through him unnoticed. He'd never been able until now; the brutal implacability of winter had always infuriated him before, made his temper roll and boil.
But his temper was quelled, reduced to ashes that stirred and wafted occasionally, as if to remind him that his passion had once been all of him.
Cougar Redfern walked through the snow with his head up, and his eyes wide, a flash of fire in a white world. Snow and sky seemed one mad whirl, and even his own body seemed to have numbed and melded into the chaotic, pure landscape.
Thoughts tumbled over in his mind like the snowflakes whipping around him. The call. The phone call from Blue. And the little ball that seemed to have lodged in his chest ever since, wrapping icy tendrils around his heart until he was frozen, transparent, invisible.
The phone startled Cougar Redfern from sleep, shrilling out into the darkness of his room.
He groped for the receiver, rolling over in a tangle of sheets to try and stop the godawful noise. Squinting through heavy eyelids, he groaned at the alarm clock, numerals flashing neon-green as if to offend him further; three a.m., too damn early. The December ice had pervaded even the warmth of his house, and he huddled in the covers, trying to keep as much of himself warm as possible.
Cursed thing...his hand closed on the phone, and he wrenched it to his ear.
"What?"
Buttermilk smooth, the voice oozed into his ears. "And good morning to you, dear brother."
The snarl had escaped Cougar Redfern before he could stop himself. "It may be morning, but it isn't even close to good. What the hell do you want?"
Alert now, he wriggled into a sitting position, gold eyes checking the room really was empty, and took the opportunity to dig out the crossbow he kept down the side of the bed. One too many midnight visitors – well, hostile ones, he was all for the friendly kind – had made him paranoid.
Blue Malefici's lazy laughter fizzled down the line, with that cruel edge to it that said his amusement was entirely down to someone else's discomfort. "A word."
"You've had at least ten, get to the point," he snapped back. His relationship with his half-brother was one of deep and mutual hatred, kept simmering by Blue's endless fascination with trying to ruin any happiness Cougar had ever glimpsed.
"I want to talk to you."
"You are."
A wave of irritation, sparkling electric blue, arced through Cougar's mind; if he could feel Blue's emotions, his half-brother was either very close, or very emotional.
Well, Blue had the emotional range of an amoeba, so close it was. Close, damn it, and that meant danger. Cougar pointed the crossbow at the window, his night vision showing him nothing but the thin pre-dawn light trickling through the panes, reflecting from the expanse of snow outside.
"Talk to you in person. I take it one of your friends has the group braincell at the moment." Blue's withering tone was nothing new; even when they had been growing up, he'd been a cynical, smug fiend. Time had iced him, and power had given him a level of arrogance rivalled only by cats and celebrities. "I need...advice."
"From me," Cougar said flatly. It was some kind of trap, some kind of bizarre Christmas present. One year, Blue had sent him a poisoned turkey. Another, a holly wreath with spring-loaded blades. "You. Want. Advice. From me."
"Correct, for once." Another surge of emotion; frosty resentment, tracing delicate patterns over the annoyance, and Cougar caught almost a whisper of his little brother's thoughts, like the threads of a prayer far away. Nothing holy about this though, only themost profane."Don't think I'm happy about this. I'd sooner take up a career as a cheerleader."
The terrifying image of Blue waving pom-poms slid through Cougar's head before he could stop himself. "I think ra-ra skirts are just your style."
"Therese said that," Blue said dryly. Had that been a joke? My god, had his horror of a brother actually acquired a sense of humour? "A warning. Watch out for mistletoe."
Cougar blinked. This conversation was getting more surreal by the second. "Okay, enough of the cryptic crap. Who are you, and what have you done with the real Blue? Explain why you're ringing me at stupid hours in the morning when even I, without the group braincell, am asleep."
"Spending yuletide on your lonesome? How dreadfully dull." Lisa had once said, in a gross misnomer, that Blue had a saucy streak. Privately, Cougar thought if his brother couldn't kill it, he'd try to seduce it, then kill it. "After all, 'tis the season to be jolly."
"And I have no intention of discussion my damn jollies with you. Explain the mistletoe comment."The lamiasmothered a yawn on the arm holding the crossbow, and decided to put it down after nearly losing an eye. Blue wasn't in one of his homicidal moods.
"Let's just say rumour has it that someone in K'Shaia has sent you a very special present. Packaged exactly as you like them, I believe, and their contract was sealed with a not-so-loving kiss."
"What?" Cougar had a weird mental picture of a contract with a bright red lipstick mark on it.
"A steel kiss, brother."
Like a string of lights clicking on, Cougar understood. "Someone's sent me an assassin for Christmas?"
"Yes, Paraphrase Boy."
"Was it you?" was all he could think to say. There wasn't anyone else with a fervent desire to see him dead. Well, fervent enough to actually try.
Blue sounded slightly surprised at himself. "Actually...no. If I wanted you dead, I'd do it myself. Good craftmanship is so hard to find."
"That's so...reassuring," he said, not bothering to keep the bite from his voice. It was a comfort in a way, that Blue wouldn't trust anyone else to do the job, and a compliment of the highest, oddest order; he was actually considered dangerous enough to merit the Demon Fury himselfto kill him. "Any idea who?"
"None whatsoever. I don't keep track of everyone you've offended - it's a full time job, and it just doesn't pay. And frankly, who cares?"
Me, Cougar thought. I care a lot about people trying to send me to the great beyond. "Well, thank you for your helpful and not-at-all vague or cryptic warning. And I'll look forward to this year's present – what is it this year, a tinsel garrotte?"
"At least mine are creative," retorted Blue. The only person on the planet who would describe an exploding Christmas pudding as creative; that was a little more flambé than Cougar liked. "Your gift last year was atrocious. Honestly, a kitten? A fluffy ginger kitten called Schnookums?"
Actually, he'd thought that was a minor stroke of genius at the time. What better way to undermine Blue's standing in the assassin community than by sending a bundle of adorable cuteness to his office in Memphis? And of course, he could put a jewelled collar on it, and stroke it should he ever install that fabled shark tank. Not that anything out there had a nastier bite than Blue walkinga killing ground.
As it turned out, Cougar had missed one small fact about assassins.
"Don't sound so derisive," he said coolly, flashing a fangy grin at the phone. "Toya told me Schnookums sleeps in your desk drawer and all your minions coo over him."
Yes, even the Nightworld's most vicious murderers had a soft spot for gooey-eyed, purring kittens.
"Did she tell you I've trained him to rip out the windpipe of anyone I find sufficiently vexing?"
Oh. That might explain it.
"No. She didn't mention that bit." Well, it was too late to stop the pet shop delivering the six chinchillas. He'd just have to hope they couldn't be turned into furry killing machines. "Are you seeing any of the family this year?"
A polite way of asking if Blue planned to kill off any more of the Satiari enclave, the dank, medieval hellhole they'd grown up in.
"No, but I'll be dropping in on your soiree on News Years' Eve," he was informed. There was a definite hint of smugness in Blue's voice.
"Who the hell invited you?" he snapped back. The New Years party at Cougar's nightclub, The Chill, was a strictly private affair for friends, family and assorted associates. He'd reluctantly agreed to Chatoya inviting some of the more normal assassins, on the proviso they left their profession at the door, and the Pack had wrangled their way in, but that aside...
"Tamara Slone. She seemed to feel she owed me something." There was no inflection in his voice then; Blue had a what Cougar could only describe as a friendship with Tamara Slone, one that had sprung up unexpectedly when Tam found out her medical school was in the same city as Blue's headquarters.
All she would say was that there had been trouble, and Blue had ended it. Shadows slid across her eyes whenever it was mentioned, filling them with a dark intensity.
"Fair enough," he said grumpily. Christmas was the one time of year when he and Blue called a jittery truce, and had done ever since the events of three years ago. "The rules are the same for you as everyone else – leave your business and your problems at the door. Be festive."
"I shall be positively merry. But I won't be staying long; places to go, more interesting people to see," his brother said, and hung up, as he always did, without saying goodbye.
Cougar stared into the gloom.
Blue was coming to Ryars Valley. Wonderful.
The Redfern boys. Everyone knew them, and everyone respected them, reluctantly or otherwise. Some liked them; many loathed them.
But Chatoya Irkil thought she was the only one who loved them both.
There was a sameness to their faces, both had that devastating bone structure with clean lines, high cheekbones and a full, scornful mouth that could break into startling smiles. The same build, long and lean with an easy, predatory strength. But there the resemblance ended, and the differences that had always divided them began.
Blue Malefici was her soulmate, and he walked with the winter. He had always fascinated her, because there was almost no expression to him; pale and blank as marble, his eyes a boundless blue vortex to match that shocking cobalt hair. Ever mocking, dark humour lay beneath his every word, meaning twisted and snarled until she was unsure and afraid. And he was dangerous.
Sweet goddess, he was so dangerous.
Her love for him was a tempestuous thing, savage and wonderful, destructive and delightful. He was rarely tender, almost never compassionate, but perceptive beyond belief. He understood her like no one else, and he used that knowledge to wound her again and again, yet...sometimes to comfort her, to cherish her - only to betray her again.
Lovers on opposing sides of a war, they played the same games to different resolutions, and as the years danced past, she found herself changing, adapting, losing pieces of herself she'd barely discovered.
And Cougar.
Cougar.
"Cougar?" Jepar Jubatus grinned, glancing up quickly from where he was wrapping presents extremely badly. "I got him the complete Lord of the Rings set. He keeps saying how cool it would be if the characters popped into our world. I think he just wants to take on Aragorn."
"I'd take him on anytime," she quipped, and waggled her eyebrows suggestively.
The shapeshifter groaned. "Puh-lease! As it is, Alisha practically soaks the floor in drool when it's on." There was affectionate exasperation in his voice, a softness to his smile. "What did you get him?"
"Nothing yet," she said mildly. She wanted to give Cougar something that would make his face light up, make those hazel eyes turn to that wonderful, flaming gold, bring out the sweetness in his nature that he tried so hard to hide.
There was a vulnerability to Cougar that he couldn't quite conceal, even by throwing up a prickly, angry front that she'd bypassed long ago. However fierce his temper, it was rarely aimed at her, and even then there was too much hurt behind it for her to be truly upset. It had taken her a long time to realise just how good a friend he was, how often he had put himself on the line for her and never mentioned it.
And how much she valued him.
He'd told her once that he loved her, and she had walked away to a life as sharp and hard as a sword, walking into the winter's arms, because though she loved him dearly, she wasn't in love with him.
But time had wrought many changes, and now she wondered...
She wondered what might have been.
"You'd better hurry," Jepar commented, winding yards of silver string around a misshapen lump. "Shops close soon."
"I know, I know," she said tiredly. "And I have still have to get a dress for the party."
"You'll look fantastic in anything," he reassured, his voice warm. "Why don't you wear that disturbingly slinky thing Cougar got you for your birthday? You haven't worn it yet, and we're all dying to see you in it. He spent ages trying to find it."
He had? "I didn't know that." When she'd asked, the lamia had just shrugged and mumbled about a last-minute bargain.
"Wear it," Jepar ordered. "After all, you want to impress your flunkies."
After five years, her friends had come to terms with her position as the head of Pursang, one of the Nightworld's three elitist organisations known best for their excellent, expensive assassins. But not one of them liked it, and she knew they kept a informal eye on her through their various associates and families.
"Fine, fine," she conceded. "But only if you promise not to wear those flashing reindeer antlers."
He pouted. "But...c'mon, they're great!"
They were horrific. "No."
"You're no fun," he grumbled, and held up a football with a faintly desperate look. "How the hell do I wrap this?"
"Imbecile," she sighed, and went to rescue him from his plight.
One week later, Blue stole in with the last snowfall of the year, a thief in the soft, thick flakes that filled the streets and greyed the sky into one endless, formless wash. A thief dressed in the winter, moving lightly as a breath of icy air, pausing, in arrested motion a sharply-cut pattern of blue and white.
The lazy rumble of the crowds inside the nightclub drifted to him, and he picked out a few voices he knew from the babble.
There was almost nothing gentle about Blue Malefici, from the clear, cutting gaze to the flaring white of his skin, sunless and serene. Except perhaps for the lush curve of his mouth, tilted now in a sardonic smile, lending a little life to those angular features.
He knew his beauty in the same way a shark knows the ripples of the waters it swims in, knew it as camouflage and weapon and diversion; and he wielded it carefully, with thought rather than delight, knowing where a swift glance might spark desire and a light touch make the poisonous promises he would only break.
There was a golden haze behind the drawn shades, and footprints leading to and from the door, transient imprints that were beginning to fill in as the last drifts fell. As he walked to the door, his feet left no mark on the clean snow, but he traced a word in the frost on the door before lifting a hand to knock.
The place was thrumming and convivial. Christmas music was playing loudly on the stereo, and people were already up and dancing in Santa hats and tinsel. Mulled wine was being dished out freely, and drunk with abandon, the musky scent of cinnamon wafting through the room; Aspen Martin was already giggly, and entertaining people with stories about Circle Strange's wicked and wild days. Lisa Ochai was cuddling up to Vaje Chusson on one of the low-slung sofas, while Jepar – wearing a truly horrendous pair of fairy wings – was tangoing clumsily with one of the Pack.
Cougar cast a quick, expert eye over the gathering. Yep, everyone had a drink and a friend, the buffet was stocked with junk food galore and even the bouncers were looking relaxed.
"Is it wise to have Pursang here?" The throaty Cajun accent belonged to Alex Morelli, the leader of the Pack.
"About as wise as it is having you here," he replied, turning to face the slight wolf. Alex was a bundle of highly intelligent trouble, and not shy about making his presence felt. "Don't start anything, especially not with them."
"Would I, cher?" the werewolf said innocently, widening his eyes. "Do tell me, is that delicious mermaid of yours going to be here tonight?"
Alex's fascination with Ryar ap Sangager was topped only by her raging embarrassment that he knew who she was – a dragon princess from the Nightworld's dark and decadent past. "Not tonight. Christmas and New Year don't really mean anything to her, you know that."
The werewolf shrugged one shoulder. "I can hope. By the by, I'd watch out for Elayne tonight. She's determined to sink her claws into you."
Literally? Cougar thought, edgy at once. Elayne St. John was a curvy beauty of a wolf, and as he glanced over to where she stood sipping at a drink, her hair a mass of unruly brown curls, their eyes met, and she winked.
She was new to Alex's pack, still half an outsider here, if a showy and confident one in that floaty, jade-green dress that showed off her body to maximum effect. Cougar had noticed her in The Chill before, and felt the unwelcome heat of her eyes when she looked at him, as if he was a particularly scrumptious appetizer she was eager to sample.
"She's not my type," he said politely.
Alex laughed, though it was half a growl. "Doesn't matter, Redfern. She wants you, and if I were you, I'd give in now because Elayne doesn't like being denied."
"What's the worst she can do?" She was still staring, running her finger round the rim of her wineglass in a thoughtful way. Yes, she was pretty, delicate as spiralling stems of the wineglasses, but he'd given his heart away a long time ago on a hopeless love, on a yearning that would ache through all the years of loneliness and forlorn wishing.
The werewolf's face was disbelieving. "Don't tell me you haven't heard."
"Heard what?"
"Elayne St John used to be known as the Baptist," a new voice said, one he knew all too well.
Blue's hair was dusted with snow that was already melting, though Cougar half-expected it to refreeze on the waves of ice emanating from his half-brother. His stare flicked up and down Alex, that considerate look that meant he was calculating the weight of his bones and the worth of his blood.
Alex raised his eyebrows, seemingly unfazed. "Ran across her in her previous incarnation, did you?"
Blue's slanting smile was bright and warm, his public persona. "Something of that ilk." He nodded to the werewolf. "Bane Malefici."
"Alex Morelli. Are you two related – you 're disturbingly alike, but the name...?"
Cougar gritted his teeth. Much as he loathed being compared to Blue in any way, he had to admit the similarity between them had increased with the years. "Half-brothers. Same mother. But you were saying about Elayne?"
"She used to work for one of the Furies," Alex said in a low voice, teeth bared, more wolfish than ever with his uncontrollable pelt of hair falling into his eyes, dark with strands of gold brightening it. "She won't say which one, but she put one ofmy Pack in the hospital for a month after she broke all the fingers in his hands with a silver hammer."
Shit. That didn't sound like the kind of woman who'd shy away from a steel kiss. "What did he do to deserve that?"
The werewolf's expression was neutral, but the tautness of his stance said something about it made him uneasy. "She won't tell. He won't tell."
"Convenient," remarked Blue.
"Thought I'd warn you." Alex's Artful Dodger grin lit his thin face. "I wouldn't resist too much if I were you." With a cheeky wave, he wandered off towards some other pack members.
Are you kidding? thought Cougar. She's not getting anywhere near me. Over my dead-no, over my kicking, screaming body.
"The Baptist?" he hissed at Blue. "That's a dreadful joke."
"We're assassins, not comedians," his brother drawled, snaffling a glass of mulled wine from a passing barman, and taking a sip. "She's one of K'Shaia's, certainly still works for them, and she likes to drown her victims, though unless she's going to dunk you in a vat of this revoltingly cheap wine, I suspect she'll just slip a knife between your ribs."
"You think it's her?"
Blue was scanning the crowds languidly, and several people were staring at him. Even in a chocolate-brown T-shirt and the most faded, ripped jeans in the place, Blue was devastating, and he knew it. There was a faint, curling smile turning up his mouth, and a false warmth in his eyes that Cougar knew he could turn on and off almost at will.
"It could be one of twenty people in this room," Blue said. "But the Baptist is the only one lying about belonging to the Furies."
"Lovely." He was a little tired of spending Christmas prodding all his presents to see if any of them was likely to take off his arm or give him some rather permanent breathing difficulties. He didn't want to spend New Year's Eve hiding from bounty hunters too. "What did you want advice about, anyway?"
That smile widened, the slow simmering grin of a panther. "A potential employee."
Huh? Nightfire's system for testing its potential butchers was rigorous, violent and vile, devised by Blue, for all those wannabe miniature Blues. "Why are you asking me? Toya or Aspen would be better."
Blue ignored him. "The man in question is a vampire. A relatively unknown vampire, but with powerful family connections, should he choose to use them. He's easily powerful enough for the Furies' needs, and the job we require him to do is morally – sound." He spat that last as if it tasted rancid. "In fact, it's a job our people aren't really qualified for. The problem is his honour. He's – not our greatest fan."
"What?" he said mockingly. "You mean he's not a fully subscribed member of the My Little Fury fan club?"
Roses would have withered under the coldness of Blue's eyes. "We need him to befriend a lady in France that we believe to be one of Sangager's daughters. He's well aware of the Burning Times, and has dealt with dragons before, which makes him ideally suited to the task."
"Why not send Ryar?" The instant he'd said it, Cougar knew it was a terrible idea. Ryar ap Sangager was a shy, gentle creature who was simply not built to deal with the subtleties and slyness of the modern Nightworld. Nor would she ever associate with the merciless Furies. "Scratch that, she'd never agree."
"Not to mention the fact she betrayed her entire family in the Burning Times." Blue arched one eyebrow. "I doubt they'll welcome her with open arms. Open fire, more likely."
"What do you want with Sangager's daughter?"
Blue smiled faintly. "That's none of your business, brother. Unless, of course, you take the job."
And I...
Just wish that I didn't feel that there was something I'd missed.
Thanks for reading! Your thoughts would be adored.