“I have come Master,” Courtney Boyd said as she kneeled at the feet of her mentor and master. “I am ready now. I have brought the human Hunters. They are ready for the ritual, for you my Master.” Above her, the Master smiled cruelly. Goddess above bless halflings who hungered for nothing but power that they didn’t have on their own. This useful little slave had done all the work and now all the Master had to do was reap the rewards. With a glint in its eye that Courtney could not see, and even if she could she would have never been able to conceive of its meaning, the Master reached down and gently, almost reverently, laid a frigid hand on the halfling’s forehead. Courtney drew in a breath. This was what she had been waiting for her entire life. Ever since her crazy mother had drunkenly informed her the reasons why her father disappeared every month for a few days, Courtney had hungered for the change to occur to her. But halflings need a Master to initiate them into the rite, and they needed human – pure human – blood to purify them for the change. It had taken years, she had been a mere thirteen when she had learned the truth, for her to find both, but now she had. And now, now that she would no longer be Courtney Boyd the normal outsider, maybe she would also have that other object that she had desired since she was a little girl – Michael Guerin. Maria Deluca wouldn’t be able to compete with her now, not now that she was finally coming into her own, and if the little useless witch thought that she could, well she could be Courtney’s first meal on her first full moon. With a cold and vicious smile of complete hatred for her lifelong nemesis, Courtney raised her eyes to her Master’s; ready for anything…anything except exactly what she received. With a resounding pop that was sickening to the ears, the Master broke its now useless slave’s neck. The halfling, the Master mused, had served her purpose. She had brought the Master the bait that was needed to lure the Royals out of hiding. The Master smiled frigidly as it turned to leave the meeting place, leaving Courtney’s body where it lay. What did the Master care for useless halflings? As the Master turned to leave, something glittering in the silvery light of the moon caught its eye. The Master reached down and pulled a locket off of Courtney’s neck. “Interesting,” the Master mused aloud. “How did the halfling come by you old friend?” The Master looked at the locket as if it were a long lost friend and slipped it over its head. “Welcome home,” the Master told the locket as it shifted the necklace into place, “it has been awhile.” Without another glance at the body at its feet, the Master turned and left the Woods, Courtney’s locket lying firmly against its chest. ********************** Back in the Deluca shop the ten teenagers where staring in amazed horror at the mirror, they had seen and heard everything. When the creature, none of them had been able to tell who or what it was, had broken Courtney’s neck shocked cries had filled the room. An eerie silence had filled the room since then, only broken once by the shocked gasp of realization once they all realized that they hadn’t lost the connection with the locket and now the mysterious Master. “Finite,” Maria whispered in Italian as she waved her hand over her mother’s mirror, which immediate returned to its everyday reflective surface. “All the times that I’ve wished for her death,” Tess said faintly, her face deathly pale, “I never once dreamed that it would be exactly like that.” “Poor Courtney,” Isabel said faintly, just as pale as her friend. “Even she didn’t deserve that.” “Poor Courtney?” Kyle’s voice was filled with horror as he looked at his girlfriend and Isabel in shock. “Poor Courtney!” He repeated, just as pale as everyone else but apparently for an entirely different reason. “Are you crazy,” he finally managed to get out in a strangled tone. “Am I the only one who caught onto her thoughts there at the end? If she had come to power, if that thing hadn’t of reneged on her at the end and killed her, she would be running straight for us. What the hell do you think she would have done?” He asked his girlfriend in disgust. “Do you think she would have asked Maria nicely to move out of her way so that she could have Michael to herself? Courtney wasn’t nice when she was just a normal human girl, what kind of evil bitch do you think she would have been with power…real power behind her? She’d be evil, pure selfish evil.” “Shh…” Maria said soothingly as she moved to embrace her brother. “I’m fine Kyle. See, I’m right here in front of you. And Izzy and Tess don’t mean to sound like that, like they don’t care. But evil bitch or not, Courtney is someone that we’ve all known and semi-hung out with since kindergarten. It isn’t that easy to shrug off her death and act like it didn’t really bother us.” “I…” Kyle’s voice broke as he hugged his newfound sister close. “I…” he tried again but failed. “Shh…” Maria said again as she rubbed his back, returning the embrace. “It’s alright Kyle. I know, I understand. It’s ok now.” She moved enough to kiss his forehead gently. “Just breathe deep,” she told him as she hugged him again, whispering gently in his ear. “Let it go brother. You have to let the anger and the hatred go or it will eat you up inside.” “I need some air,” he finally said as he stepped firmly away from his sister and her warm and caring embrace. Without so much a glance at anyone else, not even his soulmate, he halfway ran from the room. “Go after him,” Alex said firmly to Tess in a tone that said not to argue with him. “He needs you now Tessie…go to him.” “Evidently he doesn’t,” Tess said as she looked at where Kyle had just disappeared. She was still stung by the look of anger that he had sent her way moments before. “Don’t be a moron Tess,” Michael snapped. “We all heard Courtney’s last thoughts. If she had come to power she would have tried to kill Maria – we all know that without a doubt. Do you honestly expect him to be all sad and sorry that a threat to the sister – the soultwin – that he just found is dead? And Goddess above, she captured two Hunters and has them Goddess knows where waiting for that thing to do who knows what to them. All his life, up until this point, all he’s had is his father – a Hunter.” Michael paused as he said that. Kyle had just informed them earlier that day that his dad was a Hunter, and it was something that they were all getting used to. “Think about it Tess…how would you feel if you were him? He needs you, not Maria or anyone else but you, so go to him before you loose him.” “Oh God,” Tess whispered, her baby blue eyes filled with horror. “I didn’t think about it that way. I just…Oh Goddess what did I do?” With that, the petite blonde was a blur as she ran out of the shop after Kyle. “Excuse us,” Maria said to the rest as she grabbed Michael and pulled him back towards the supply closet. “We need a moment alone to discuss some things, you guys amuse yourselves…this may take awhile.” With that she yanked her boyfriend into the closet and shut the door behind her and turned on the overhead light. She looked at Michael as she picked up the regulation wooden baseball bat in the corner and handed it over to him without a word. “Your turn Spaceboy…let it out now before it consumes you.” She looked pointedly at the wall on the opposite side of the closet. Michael didn’t even question how she had known that he needed to vent some pretty strong emotions, he just grabbed the baseball bat and let loose with a swing powered by using all of his pent up anger and hatred. With a resounding crack, the bat went completely through the plaster wall with one motion. “OK,” Maria mumbled as she concentrated on something for a moment before reaching over and taking the bat carefully out of his hands. “Enough of that idea. Mom sure is going to be pissed when she sees that.” She paused to look at Michael. He didn’t say anything to her, but his hands repetitively kept clenching and unclenching at his sides like he wanted nothing more than to physically rip something apart. “On to plan B as the bat idea was clearly a mistake,” she mumbled as she took a step towards him. To her surprise he took a step back. “You really don’t want to touch me right now Maria,” he told her through clenched teeth. “We both know that we have gotten so close in the past week or so that the connection forms if we so much as brush hands. I don’t really think that you want to feel exactly what I’m feeling at this moment in time, so you might want to step back away from me.” “Do you think I’m scared of what you feel Michael Guerin?” Maria asked him, her own emotions rising like always to answer his. “Do you really think that I am not already feeling the exact damn thing that you are?” She snapped at him, letting her angrier feelings show for the first time. “How the hell do you think it makes me feel to know that I can’t bring myself to feel sorry in the least to know that she’s dead? In fact I feel kind of relieved about it. Pity, yeah I feel that, no one deserves to die like that, but sorrow…nope not a bit. What kind of person does that make me? And angry…Goddess knows that I’m so pissed off at everything right now that I could go break her neck like that myself. Don’t think that you are the only one who…” Her tirade ended abruptly as Michael silenced her the only way that knew to be effective, with his lips firmly on hers. They both groaned loudly as the connection immediately and fully formed between them. All the emotions that each had been trying to hid from everyone, that they had been trying to keep in check for the past few hours, came pouring out in the kiss. And as a consequence of that kiss, the ever-growing passion that consumed the more and more every second began to grow and pour out as well. “Michael,” Maria moaned into his mouth. “You’re better at telekinesis. Lock the damn door before I forget to care.” “OK,” Michael groaned out as he somehow managed to summon enough control to perform the fairly simple task. With an audible click the door to the supply closet locked. “You’re better at the telepathy, tell the others to get the hell out of here and to leave us alone.” “Already done Spaceboy,” Maria said as she pulled his lips back to hers and began ripping at his shirt to get it unbuttoned and off of him with desperate fingers. “I told Izzy to get everyone out of the shop when…Oh God do that again,” she told him breathlessly as she shivered and lost her train of thought when he found a particularly sensitive spot on her neck and bit down lightly. “I…I told her after the bat plan didn’t work.” Michael nodded and then cursed as his fingers fumbled on the clasp to her bra. Maria didn’t know whether to giggle or curse, finally deciding on the latter as she realized that now really wasn’t the time for fumbling. Finally Michael just growled and ripped the damn thing in two and pulled it off of her before tossing it behind him. Maria didn’t care, and then she really didn’t care as his mouth and lips devoured the newly exposed flesh. When her knees gave out and she crumpled to the floor, she brought Michael down with her, him landing on top. Neither cared at the moment that the floor was cold cement beneath them, especially as Maria’s on hands fumbled as she hurriedly began to work at the fastenings on his pants. For the moment everything else going on around them was forgotten in the overwhelming force of what the two of them created between them. TBC

Part 28