Twilight Fall

The daydreams annoyed her twin, and then the bad trouble happened.

The doctors had grown upset with them, but instead of punishing them more often, they gave in to her twin's demand to go above and play in an empty meadow. The twins knew how to play soccer and baseball, but they had never been above for longer than it took to move them.

Liling loved being aboveground. Everything was so green it almost hurt her eyes to look at it. Wildflowers dotted the meadow where they brought them, and she went from blossom to blossom, drinking in the colors and gently touching the soft petals.

Her twin didn't care about flowers, and brought to her the dented aluminum baseball bat and scuffed ball the doctors had found for them.

Come on, her twin called out, swinging the bat and tossing the ball at her before running backward. Pitch one to me, and don't throw like a girl!

Liling pitched the ball, which fell short of the mark. That was when her twin swung the bat into the head of the monitor watching them, and then the other one who came running.

We have to run away, Lili. Her twin grabbed her hand. Hurry.

They ran together. They ran across the meadow and through the woods. They ran through a small town and down a long road, until Liling's breath burned in her lungs and her legs felt like lead.

I can't run anymore.

You can't stop. They'll catch us.

I'm too tired. She looked down as a bug bit her arm, and she saw a dart in it. Her mind filled with bees and she fell down. Run. Run.

Her twin fell beside her. You run… like… a girl.

When Liling woke, she was back in one of the animal cages they used for punishments. Her twin was gone. Seven years would pass before they came together again. Being separated made Liling retreat into her daydreams. The doctors could do terrible things to her, and often did, but she stayed safely in her fantasy world.

Liling's breathing slowed as she fell deeper into the dream. She could stay here, in this place, and no one would find her.

Not even him.

The girl's water came to Kyan that morning from an old spring-fed lake. There were other traces accompanying it: cheap soap, a man's semen, and the tiniest tang of copper. When he had tried to send his power through the channel to read her, it had recoiled on him. She had cut the connection, but she could not destroy the trail.

He had her now.

It took him the entire day to follow her water inland, through a series of rivers sometimes only just deep enough for the boat. He knew the water, and it guided him along a safe route. He stopped one last time to refuel and, using a map and some sign language, confirmed the location of the lake.

"They don't mark the names on the map anymore, not for the ones out in the reserve, but that there's Ghost Lake," the dock attendant told him. "Lotta open land, but some good deer hunting out that way."

"Yes." Kyan folded the map. "Good hunting."

He purchased some bottled water and returned to the boat. When he was downriver far enough not to be heard, he went down into the cabin. Melanie lay on the bed, her wrists and ankles bound, a strip he had torn from the sheets gagging her. Her eyes widened when she saw him, and she began to struggle against her bonds.

"I am not untying you," he said, removing the gag from her mouth and holding a bottle of water to it. "Drink."

She took in a mouthful and spit it in his face.

"You are going to jail," she told him, her voice rasping out the words. "I swear to God, the minute I get away from you I'm going to bring every cop in Florida after your sorry ass and have them lock you up until doomsday."

"They will not find me." He offered her the bottle again, but she turned her head. "You are thirsty. Drink."

"You are an asshole. Fuck off."

Her anger made him feel slightly ashamed. She might be a poor, ignorant soul who became easily intoxicated, but she had been helpful to him. He had been intimate with her. "If you are hungry, I will make you food."

"If you touch me again," she replied. "I will puke in your face."

He would give her time to calm down, he decided, and retied the gag. "I am sorry I had to do this, Melanie. It is almost over, and then I will release you. I would let you go now, but I don't know if she speaks Chinese."

Melanie glared at him and rolled away onto her side.

Kyan touched her rigid shoulder before retreating to the helm.

He made his way into the Ocala National Forest, watching the homes and businesses disappear and the land turn wild and untouched. Black bears watched him from the safety of the trees, and deer ran from the sound of the engine. Alligators floated in the shallows, their indifferent eyes blinking as he turned on the deck lights. Moths and mosquitoes came to fly at the bulbs, their shadows making them look as big as birds.

He turned off the lights and the motor before he entered the lake, and used the water itself to guide the boat to a small launching pier. Once he had secured the lines, he went below to get the American girl.

He used his pocketknife to cut the ropes on her ankles, but left her wrists bound and her mouth gagged. "We are here. You will do as I say and you will not get hurt." He took her arm and led her onto the deck.

She looked around, flinching as she saw the ghostly outlines of the submerged plane. She did not resist or try to run as he lifted her onto the pier and walked her down to the tree line. She was clumsy, though, and fell on the wood, and slogged through the brush with heavy feet, disturbing the branches and snapping twigs. The noise she made increased as they approached the cabin, until he stopped and tied her hands to the lower branch of a black olive.

The tightness in his chest and throat made it difficult to speak.

"I will come back for you." He could make himself understood without her. "Whatever happens, do not be afraid."

She shook her head, trying to say something as she strained against the limb he had tied her to. Kyan ran his hand over her bright hair before he turned and walked toward the cabin.

Clouds covered the moon, and lightning began to leapfrog from one black cloud to the next. The only sound Kyan heard was that of the generator behind the cabin. The ground seemed to quiver under his deck shoes, making him stop outside one of the windows. Through the glass he saw into a bedroom. A naked man lay next to a small body wrapped in a quilt.

Kyan put his hand to the window, and the glass cracked under his palm. He didn't have to see her face to know it was her. He could smell her water on the air. He could feel her dreaming, as he had dreamed of this moment.

She does not want to see you.

She says you frighten her.

She refuses.

She laughed when I asked her.

You disgust her.

She wants nothing to do with you, Kyan.

The air hummed in his ears as he reached for the bottom of the window. The crack in the glass began to snake out in three different directions, releasing a small trickle of air from inside the cabin.

Air tainted with the blood of a maledicti.

So this was the final betrayal. She had turned her back on their teachings and given herself to the demons. It made sense that she would sell her worthless soul for the pathetic wealth and power the Darkyn wielded. It also explained why her trace had been contaminated with the blood of the evil ones, and why she had survived the crash of the plane.

This was God's work, as the priests always said. The Divine One saved her so that she could be delivered into his hands and receive the justice that she so richly deserved.

He would tell them that she had gone over to the demons. He would bring them her head. That would please his masters.

Kyan backed away. He did not want the window to shatter and give away his intentions. Nor could he allow the man inside to be forewarned and use his power to protect the girl. Instead, he went to the back of the cabin. The door there was not locked, but in a moment of inspiration he reached up and knocked against the wood.

As footsteps approached, he reached down and drew the copper dagger out of his ankle sheath.

* * *

Chapter 17

The knock on the cabin door roused Valentin, who slid out of bed and pulled on his trousers. When he smelled the human, he felt a surge of tremendous relief. Someone had seen the plane go down; someone had come looking for them.

As he opened the back door to greet their savior, an Asian man lunged at him, knocking him back inside.

Long black hair flew around the human's snarling face as he thrust a copper-bladed dagger into Jaus's shoulder.

Valentin held him off by wrapping his hands around the man's throat and cutting off his air, but the intruder jerked the dagger out of his flesh and lifted it to stab him a second time.

All around the cabin, glass shattered as the windows exploded outward. Wind came streaming through the broken panes, blasting at the two men so violently that it pushed them apart and knocked the dagger out of the intruder's hand.

"Who are you?" Jaus demanded, circling around as he clutched his wounded shoulder.

Lightning flashed, striking so close to the cabin that the subsequent boom shook the walls and window frames. Pieces of glass left in the panes fell out and smashed to the floor.

The intruder scanned the room and snatched a butcher knife from the block on the counter.

"You will have to do better than that, priest." Jaus said softly as he moved, putting the table between them. "They're made of steel."

"So you, maledicti." The intruder threw the blade on the top of the table. "No need weapon."

"Indeed." Jaus bared his fangs. "Neither do I."

The intruder whipped his head to one side, and a blast of lake water came through the window, a solid stream that knocked Jaus into the wall.

The intruder straddled him, clamping a hand around his throat and pinning him to the wall. His other hand flattened against Jaus's chest, where it became an icy, immovable weight.

"You." Hatred flared in the intruder's narrow black eyes. "You turn her."

A sensation as if another Kyn were feeding on him made Jaus, look down. Beads of blood popped out all over his chest.

"See, demon." The man smirked. "Your water mine."