Havermouth, Present Time It was an ordinary house, much like those around it. The gardens were a little overgrown due to recent events, and everything still held a layer of dust from Connery and Harry’s exploding devices that had rendered the school to rubble, but other than that, had the little filing of bark not led them to the house, Meguitte would have walked past it unsuspectingly. The gate squealed as Connery opened it and he grimaced. “Well, if our presence wasn’t known, it is now,” he commented. Mercy and her mother disappeared, their movements as fast as vampires, the layer of dust that was still settling on the grass showing the path they took around the side of the house to the back. Meguitte led the way to the front door and rang the bell. She could hear movement within. After a moment, a woman answered. She was pale, gaunt, and a little disheveled, but she smiled as if undaunted by their presence. “Hello?” She asked with a lift of curiosity but no apparent fear. “Can
In the Ocean, Present Time It was a long swim. They were deep underwater, beyond the reach of the sun or moon, and so Lyric could not tell how long it had been that they were swimming for, just how tired she was getting despite taking frequent breaks. She was not bored, however, as the ocean around them was constantly changing and Niarthen spent the time catching food for her, pointing out dangers, or explaining signs to look for on the ocean floor or in the currents. He was a good teacher, and his love for his home was evident, as well as how thrilled and excited he was to be able to share it with her. He did not rush the journey, taking time with her to marvel at all the beauties and wonders, enjoying seeing her reactions to them. There were ruins from humans that Lyric found fascinating to explore – both shipwrecks and ancient civilizations that had long ago sunk. There were also abandoned Mer cities, distinguishable from the human ones in that the Mer cities were designed to wit
Rideten, Present TimeDaylight was not the right time to go sneaking into the Van Helsings' stronghold. The sleepy night shift was replaced by alert and attentive guards, and the footpath and street were busy with pedestrians and soldiers. Talen led his mates on a slow loop around the premises anyway, mentally marking where they would make their approach from, when it was dark again, before turning towards Stella’s house.He was relieved that Morgana was more open-minded about Stella. He wished that Sigrid was there. Sigrid knew the witch priestess better than he did. Whatever the witch was up to, he was certain that her agenda was entirely her own, and that Morgana was a tool that she was using rather than altruistically helping.Stella had been playing puppeteer in Morgana’s life for five years. He wondered just how far her plans went, and what the witch sought as an outcome. Was she like August, using the war to position herself into power and influence?Heath had relayed the conve
Rideten, Present TimePhilip stood in a doorway that Aislen guessed led to the bedrooms and bathroom. He was, disconcertingly in “Philip casual” – a pair of blue jeans and a collared shirt. His hair hadn’t been so vigorously styled back against his skull as was customary and hung in silky strands over his forehead.She couldn’t help but glance at Rhett, mentally comparing the two men. Rhett’s face had immediately curled into a sneer, his eyes hardening and his posture becoming defensive. The change made the similarities between the men even more striking as Philip mirrored the expression.“Fuck, Rhett, it’s called a hairbrush,” Philip crossed to the little kitchen and opened the fridge looking inside.“Have you ever thought about greeting him nicely?” Aislen snapped out irritably. “You know, hi son, nice to see you, how are you doing?”Philip paused, his shoulders tightening, and he straightened slowly, turning his head her way, every move designed to be subtly intimidating. “Are you
Rideten, Present Time“I can’t tell you how much I detest you using your ability on me,” Philip told Aislen stiffly as he finished buttoning his shirt ignoring Toby’s departure.Aislen heard the of thud of the bedroom door closing. She knew from Toby’s thoughts that he planned to pack his bag and leave. Ironically, like when she had left Rideten five years before, he had automatically picked the furthest city he could think of: Kabramatta. She wondered if she should offer him her apartment to stay in and ask him to water her house plants… Probably not the best idea.“Did it hurt to take your shirt off?” Aislen replied absently. “No. And it solved the problem, didn’t it?”“Hmph,” Philip sneered. “Whatever.” He took out his phone, and Rhett’s beeped a moment later. “That is the location where we are to meet Victor’s people. We should get going.”Aislen shook her head. “You go ahead and tell them we’ll be a little late. There’s some stuff we need to take care of here first.”Philip arche
Rideten, Present TimeSamuel pulled himself off the wall. He had been standing closer to Ember before her last attempt to shift had produced an explosion of flame and smoke, pushing him back into to the building. The wings her shift had produced were amazing, but they were not dragon wings, and not the wings that she had possessed before the Van Helsings had cut them from her."Are you alright?" He asked her in consternation. He could feel the sweat beading on his forehead as he drew close, the sting of the saltwater in his eyes as the droplets caught in his eyelashes on their passage down to his cheeks.“There is no pain,” she was as shocked by the development as he was. “The flames do not burn me.”He reached out carefully but could not touch the flames. They burnt as hot as dragon flame. “They do not burn me, but I can feel their heat,” he told her. “Flaming wings… That was… not what I expected.”“Me either,” she looked at him wild-eyed. “Do you suppose that I could…”“Yes,” he fol
Havermouth, Present Time“I don’t understand,” Meguitte said quietly to the spider-web bound Bianca as she watched Connery, Verina, and Mercy finish off with clearing out the house. Verina and Mercy both had contented expressions and so she suspected that a couple of the occupants of the house had disappeared, devoured, and then disintegrated by the powder that Leighton’s family used to clean up their messes. “Aislen is your friend. Why would you work against her like this?”“We’re not working against her,” June Barnham protested. Connery had tied her to the fence by her wrists and she was twisted at an awkward angle to talk to Meguitte. “We are working ultimately for her. We all want to win this war.”“You don’t believe that.” Meguitte said to Bianca. “Do you?”Bianca had not stopped weeping, the seep of tears seemingly without end. “You don’t understand. You don’t understand at all.”“Have you conspired against her all along?” Meguitte wondered. There was something about the level o
Rideten, Present TimeIt did not take long before the werewolves sent someone to investigate why Aislen and her mates had invaded one of the houses that were used as secret entrances to the bunker below. The pair of casually dressed soldiers nonchalantly entered the front living room and looked around at them. “Can we help you?”Aislen glanced over her shoulder at them. They were clever these two, she thought, and if she wasn’t able to read their thoughts, she might have thought that she’d interrupted the human owners of the house working on their renovations. But she could read thoughts and knew that they’d been sent from below in response to their appearance on the monitoring equipment situated around the house.“We’re just going to hang here for a couple of hours until it gets dark,” she told them. “We have an errand, and then we’ll be off to meet Victor’s people. So just ignore us, and we’ll all be fine.”As the soldiers withdrew, Cameron pulled a face. “I guess that means we can’