For Chloe.
By Finta.
When Quinn and Rashel had fled the burning enclave on Hunter Redfern's yacht, Quinn had felt as if spring were coming for him at last. But two weeks later, Quinn felt considerably less warm and spring-like while talking to Ash.
"I promise you, I really want to become a Daybreaker. It's not a trick."
"Why should I believe you?" Ash sounded unconvinced.
"Why would I be here, if I didn't mean it?"
Ash smiled, not in a very nice way. His eyes gleamed grey, a darker color than usual. "Maybe because you're trying to spy on us? Figure out who to kill and how? You want to report all of us to the Night World Council, and you're trying to get all our names, addresses, and social security numbers? How should I know? But I can think of a lot of possibilities."
Beside Quinn, Rashel stirred restlessly.
"Fayth can vouch for us."
"She can vouch for you. She says that you organized and arranged for the escape of all the kidnapped girls in the enclave, and that you stayed behind when the rest of them left on the boats. She didn't see Quinn help you when you were organizing the escape. In fact, she saw Quinn attack you afterwards, and you knocked him unconscious."
"We didn't know we were soulmates then," Rashel muttered, sounding mildly embarrassed.
"If you're soulmates now." Ash didn't sound convinced. "If you're not just saying that, in order to gain access to Circle Daybreak."
"Why would I lie to you?" Rashel sounded as if she were losing her patience.
"He could have you under his control," Ash replied promptly. "He could have both you and Fayth under his control, and you're not the Cat at all. Or you are the Cat, and you and he could have agreed to work together temporarily, him to learn about Circle Daybreak so that he could carry news of the traitors to the Night World Council, and you to slaughter as many vampires in Circle Daybreak as you could before you were overwhelmed and were killed yourself. If you're suicidal enough to go to an enclave to kill vampires, you're suicidal enough to try to join Circle Daybreak to kill vampires." He smiled, his teeth suddenly seeming whiter and very slightly sharper. "As one of the Daybreak vampires, I really don't like such an idea."
Rashel exchanged a glance with Quinn. "Is he always so paranoid?"
Ash answered, almost sweetly, before Quinn could open his mouth. "I'm not the one going around in a black ninja outfit with a scarf wrapped around my face, moving from city to city every few years."
Quinn glared at Ash. "Yes," he told Rashel. He didn't sound happy. "Vampires are that paranoid. The Night World is, in general. But vampires, on the whole, are more paranoid than, say, witches."
"Witches are trusting," Ash said. "Fayth trusted you. Witches believe in harmony and trust and goodness, and they trust harmony and goodness to be everywhere." The dark light glinted in his eyes again. "Vampires see blood. Even in Circle Daybreak, we see blood."
"Well, it's good that someone sees blood on occasion," Rashel answered sharply. "Circle Daybreak needs a fighting arm. That's what we're saying. That's why we're here."
"That's the only really plausible thing you've said yet," Ash commented. "The Cat wants to go on killing vampires. Quinn wants to go on killing humans. I can believe that."
"We want to kill bad guys, in general," Rashel said, between her clenched teeth. "We want to protect the Daybreakers. Someone needs to be the one who fights to protect the Daybreakers, and we're volunteering."
"Can you just try us for a while?" Quinn intervened. "You don't have to tell us the names of any of the other Daybreakers. Although I can already guess about a few. Rumor says that James Rasmussen and a girl named Poppy are involved, and everyone knows that Thea Harman and a human boy named Eric were the founding members."
"And we know about Fayth, of course," Rashel put in. "And she gave us your name. But that's it."
Ash looked at her thoughtfully. The color of his eyes seemed to have lightened, and he looked less like an angry cat ready to pounce.
"Are you willing to be tested?" he asked. "To determine the truth of your story?"
"Yes," Rashel said. She stared into his eyes, willing him to believe her.
"Tested in what way?" Quinn asked.
He's paranoid, too, Rashel thought.
Ash tilted his head back thoughtfully. "Well, we could have a witch try to read Rashel's mind."
"Why not Quinn's mind as well?" Rashel asked.
Ash smiled. "He's good at blocking. I already know that. He's had centuries of practice."
Quinn looked at her half-apologetically. "Well, it is a helpful skill, in the Night World."
Rashel sighed and waved her hands. "Whatever. Will it hurt me?"
"It had better not," Quinn said pleasantly, looking at Ash.
Ash glared at him. "Thea can do it. Since you know about her already, and she's one of our best witches."
Quinn considered, and then shrugged. "All right."
"Don't I get a say in it?"
"You already agreed, remember?" Ash sounded entirely too pleased with himself. "And, just to be sure, we'll have Poppy check on her, too."
"Poppy's a vampire," Quinn said. There was a sudden tension in his voice.
Ash looked innocent. "Yes, that's true. Although she's a witch as well. Just the right person to investigate Rashel's mind. She's young, though, and maybe not quite . . . paranoid enough yet. But Thea and Poppy together should be able to get at quite a lot in Rashel's mind."
Quinn looked angry. Rashel didn't quite understand why. "And how are you planning for Poppy to get this information?"
Ash crooked his fingers into quotation marks and moved them downward, once.
"No."
Rashel's mind tried to make sense out of the gesture. Then she realized that, if Quinn was reacting this way, Ash hadn't been mimicking quotation marks, but vampire teeth descending. Into her throat.
"Hey, wait a minute. . . ."
"You already agreed. Are you saying that you don't want to be questioned? Do you have something to hide?"
Rashel glared at him. "I don't have anything to hide! But that doesn't mean that I want to be dinner, either!"
Quinn put an arm around her. "She's my soulmate," he said softly. His dark eyes, which had suddenly gone empty and cold, stared directly into Ash's. "I drink from her. Poppy does not."
"And I protect Circle Daybreak," Ash said. He didn't sound lazy or pleased with himself any more. "You say you think that Circle Daybreak should have a fighting arm. It already has me."
The two stared at one another. Rashel thought frantically. Perhaps it wasn't so bad to feed a vampire after all? At least, she guessed, it wasn't worse than watching her soulmate get into a deadly fight with a member of the group they were trying to join.
"I don't mind, Quinn," she said, turning inside his arm to face him. "It's not like they're going to torture me, or anything. And it's just once." She turned toward Ash. "Right? Just once?"
"Just once," Ash agreed. He smiled suddenly. "You're very opposed to feeding vampires, aren't you? What an odd attitude for a potential Daybreaker."
"I'm just not used to this." Rashel wanted to strangle him again.
She hadn't expected any of this. She'd always heard that Circle Daybreak was filled with modern-day flower children who sat around and preached universal love. She'd thought that she and Quinn would arrive at their headquarters--if they had a headquarters at all--and explain why they were there, and the Daybreakers would immediately welcome them, place garlands of flowers around their necks, invite them to drink from the communal cup, and sing hosannas that they had managed to convert a notorious Night Worlder and the Cat.
She hadn't expected to be met by a paranoid gatekeeping vampire who announced that it was already his job to protect the Daybreakers.
"And we still haven't thought of anything to test your good faith, Quinn," Ash mused. "Even if Thea and Poppy do find that Rashel is sincere in wanting to join us and in believing that you two are soulmates, that still doesn't mean that you haven't changed Rashel's mind as part of your cover to get in here."
"I have a partial immunity to vampire mind tricks," Rashel pointed out, annoyed. "That's how I was the Cat so long. You do believe that I was the Cat, don't you?" She heard the sarcasm in her voice, but she didn't care.
Ash looked at her thoughtfully. "Well, that's easily tested."
She had only a few seconds to absorb this before he attacked her.
Quinn stepped back hastily, and Rashel felt betrayed for only a moment before she realized that this was a test, that Ash wasn't actually trying to kill her but only trying to see if she could defend herself, as the Cat would be able to.
She was already annoyed with him, which helped her overcome her scruples about fighting someone in Circle Daybreak, but she didn't have her bokken with her. She aimed a kick that could have broken his kneecap, but he moved lithely out of her way.
It was a very brief sparring session before Ash jumped back out of reach. The expression on his face was thoughtful.
"Well, you do know how to fight, at least."
"I told you so," Rashel said, keeping her breath and tone normal with an effort. It was automatic for her to try not to look tired or weak around an opponent, and she was too focused on Ash at that moment to wonder whether he fell in that category.
But you should come here to me. His whisper in her mind was persuasive. But not persuasive enough.
"No, I shouldn't." She glared at him.
"And you are resistant to mind tricks. At least somewhat." He looked even more thoughtful.
"Are you starting to believe us?"
Ash looked soberly at Quinn. "I don't know what to believe. But I won't let you any further into Circle Daybreak until I'm sure that you both can be trusted."
*********
If Ash hadn't exactly welcomed them, it was even worse when Rashel approached the Lancers.
She'd decided that it would be safer if she visited them alone, rather than in company with Quinn. Circle Daybreak promised peace to all vampires and humans, and even if they had some doubts about Rashel and Quinn, they probably wouldn't go so far as to try to kill one or the other of them on sight.
The Lancers, however, were an organization specifically designed to hunt and kill Night Worlders. Rashel didn't know what they'd do if she and Quinn showed up together one evening to knock on their door. Rashel had no intention of allowing her soulmate to be killed or tortured, but she also didn't want to hurt any of her former allies if they became overenthusiastic and attacked Quinn before she could explain.
Her conversation with Elliot, however, had been brief. Extremely brief.
"It didn't go well," Quinn guessed, seeing Rashel storm back into their hotel room.
"Got it in one."
"They want to kill me."
"Yup. In fact," Rashel lifted the curtain and glanced out the window, "I think I lost the two who were following me, but just in case, we might want to move to another hotel."
"The suitcases are already packed," Quinn told her.
"You knew?"
"I guessed." He looked soberly into her angry face. "I've done bad things, Rashel. They know that. I can't blame them for wanting to protect humans from someone like me. Although, of course, I'd prefer that they not kill me." He smiled slightly, trying to elicit a smile in turn from Rashel.
It didn't work. "They didn't even listen to me," she half-snarled. Dropping the curtain, she started to pace angrily. "They said that I was probably under your mind control, or that I'd sold out. I tried to tell them about the soulmate principle, but Elliot just shook his head, said he didn't care how I felt, the important thing was to protect humans."
"Isn't it important to protect humans?" Quinn asked reasonably.
"Yes! But not by killing you! You're not going to kill humans in the future, at least not unless it's self-defense, or the humans are bad in some way and need to be killed."
"We'll keep trying with Circle Daybreak and Ash." Quinn lifted a suitcase. "After we find a different hotel."
"Why won't anyone just give us a chance?" Rashel fumed under her breath as she grabbed the other suitcase and followed Quinn.
**********
Rashel, listen to this, Quinn said silently into her mind, a few days later.
Rashel, who had been almost asleep in their new hotel bed, woke up. Quinn?
I decided to sneak around Ash's apartment and see what I could pick up. She caught a feeling of amusement.
You shouldn't. If they catch you, they'll really think we're spies for the Night World Council and the vampire hunters.
Listen, Quinn told her, ignoring her protest. Or perhaps he just hadn't heard her. She wasn't sure whether her mental voice carried to him as well as his carried to her.
She concentrated on him. Through his mind, she could hear the conversation that his vampire hearing was picking up inside the apartment as he leaned against the brick wall outside. It was dizzying, feeling the rough brick against his cheek and the soft pillow against her own cheek, but she blocked out both sensations as far as possible and focused on the conversation.
"We can't do that, Ash," a girl's voice was saying. "We can't read her mind without her freely-given consent. That wouldn't be right."
"It would be a lot less right if we don't test them and find out too late that they're here to slaughter us all." Ash sounded as if he were about to lose his patience.
"Why do you suspect them so much? We've had other people come to us before and ask to join Circle Daybreak. You haven't insisted on testing them by having anyone read their minds."
"And I've never actually fed on anyone as an . . . interrogation," a second female voice added. "It seems sort of nasty. Something the Night World Council would do. Something that we don't want to do."
Rashel guessed that it must be Poppy who didn't have experience in interrogating suspects by feeding on them. The other girl, then, had to be Thea. Thea was a witch. Rashel didn't know much about witches, as she'd focused before on killing vampires, and the occasional shapeshifter. Quinn had told her that the witches in the Night World had some powerful spells that could injure or destroy humans, but that they were also seers and healers. Thea, he'd told her, was reputed to be a very strong healer.
"This is Quinn we're talking about! Quinn and the Cat! How can anyone seriously believe that they want to become Daybreakers? I mean--Quinn?"
"We can all become Daybreakers," Thea insisted. "That's part of our philosophy. We embrace everyone."
"We shouldn't embrace Quinn." Ash sounded as if he were strangling. "Not without testing him first. Not without testing him backwards and forwards and inside out and upside down. And even then I wouldn't trust him!"
"Why?" It was Poppy. "Has he ever betrayed anyone in the past?"
"No." Ash sounded as if he didn't want to admit it. "Not that I know of. Not in the Night World, anyway. He's certainly betrayed enough human girls."
"Well, that's something. Maybe he can be trusted," Thea said. She sounded hopeful.
"You're missing something. If he's here, and if he's sincere, then he's betraying Hunter Redfern and the whole Night World Council. That's a big betrayal."
"But if he's sincere, then we don't care if he's betraying the Night World Council," Poppy pointed out. "After all, so are the rest of us. And . . . we're not really betraying anyone. We're just trying to create a new world for all of us. Where we're all equal, and we can all live together in peace."
"That's what the Night World Council thinks of as betrayal," Ash said. He sounded moody. There was a pause.
Ash doesn't trust you very much, does he? Rashel asked Quinn silently.
No.
Why not? She was almost afraid to ask.
The answer was slow, and she felt shame thread through his mental voice. It's a long story. But he knows me. And . . . he knows my reputation. Which is somewhat exaggerated. But not entirely.
Rashel didn't ask any more. She'd been wondering herself, ever since she left the enclave with Quinn, whether she'd ever killed any good vampires, people who hadn't deserved to die. And whether they'd had human soulmates, people who would live their whole lives bereft of their other halves, unhappy, because of what she'd done.
Even if the vampires she'd killed had deserved to die, perhaps they could have changed and grown, too. Like Quinn. Like Ash. Had she done the wrong thing by killing them and not letting them have their chance at changing?
She didn't know, and she felt bad about it. If she hadn't been deliriously happy at being with Quinn, she'd have felt even worse.
The voices Quinn was listening to were starting again.
"So what do you suggest? We have to test them somehow."
"Maybe we really should test everyone, in future," Poppy suggested. "After all, even if Quinn and Rashel aren't Night World spies, the Council could be sending other spies."
"I thought this would be easier, somehow," Thea said sadly.
"Changing the world is never easy." Ash sounded tired and determined at the same time.
"I have an idea," Poppy said.
"What?"
"They say they're soulmates, right?"
"Right. . . ."
"All we have to do is separate them, and then one of us tells one of them, say Quinn, a number, and we'll see if Rashel knows the number. If they're soulmates, they can do that."
"Quinn's a strong telepath," Ash pointed out. "Even if they're not soulmates, he might be able to mentally send the number to her."
"What if they were far away from one another? Soulmates should be able to communicate from greater distances than non-soulmates."
Rashel couldn't see Ash shrug, but she could imagine him doing so. "I don't know Quinn's range. Probably no one knows, except Quinn. And we can't take his word for it."
They're mostly right, Quinn said in Rashel's mind. I do have a greater range than most vampires. I hadn't expected that ever to be a problem.
It's not a problem, Rashel assured him. We just need to think of a way to prove that we're not spies.
Ash is right, though. We could be spies. They should worry about the possibility.
Whose side are you on?
Yours. There was a sudden warmth in his mind, and Rashel found herself blushing. She pushed the feeling of embarrassment away fiercely, even though there was no one in the darkened room to see her reddened cheeks. She was Rashel Jordan, formerly the Cat. She didn't blush. Least of all at her boyfriend's compliments.
She still couldn't quite wrap her mind around the idea that she had a boyfriend at all.
"Maybe we're making too much out of this." It was Thea talking. She seemed gentler than Poppy, Rashel thought. "Fayth said that Rashel helped the girls escape, and Nyala said that Quinn had saved her from the fire that she'd set to kill the vampires. Timmy says more or less the same thing. All their stories match. Why not believe them?"
"Nyala's clearly mentally disturbed, and Timmy's not quite sane either. They were the only eyewitnesses to the fire. Fayth means well, but I don't think we can trust her about this." Ash was sounding stubborn. "I don't think you two understand that Quinn is a really powerful telepath."
"Why don't you trust him, Ash?" Poppy asked.
Rashel strained her mental "ears" to hear, curious. But Quinn felt her curiosity, and the sound of the voices suddenly vanished.
Quinn!
You don't need to hear this, Rashel. He sounded desperate. You don't need to hear all about me from them.
Well, I need to hear it sometime, don't I? she asked. Besides . . . we're soulmates. I know you. I've touched your mind. I know you've done bad things in the past. I've done bad things, too.
Not as bad as I've done. Not as many as I've done. Quinn was adamant. Rashel, I've had a lot more years than you to do bad things.
She had to admit that was true. Even though she didn't believe that Quinn had actually done anything that was worse than what she'd done, she could believe that he'd done things that were equally bad more often. She didn't like it, but she had to admit that made sense.
I wish you'd tell me, she said to him. So that I would know, and I wouldn't have to be afraid of what I might hear from someone else.
She felt resistance in Quinn's mind, and a queer kind of despair. Rashel, I don't even remember it all myself.
You . . . don't?
It's been too many years. It's been centuries. I can't remember every bad thing I've done, in centuries.
She was taken aback for a minute, but then she regained her confidence. It doesn't matter, she told him. Even if you don't remember it all, I love you anyway.
It does matter. It will always matter. There was something hard in his mental voice now. I'm going to block you out now, Rashel. I want to listen to what Ash is saying about me. But I don't want you to listen, too.
No, Quinn--
But she could feel the absence of Quinn's presence in her mind. He'd shut her out, and she couldn't force her way back in. The soulmate principle gave her some telepathic powers with Quinn, but she didn't have as much power as he did. He could keep her out, unless they were in actual physical contact with one another.
She got up and got dressed. She was Rashel Jordan, formerly the Cat, and she wasn't going to lie in bed and go to sleep, or wait for Quinn to come back to her and tell her a suitably edited version of what Ash and Poppy and Thea had said. She was going to go find out for herself what was happening. And to rescue Quinn, if he got caught spying and needed her help. After all, that was how she'd first met Quinn, wasn't it? When he'd got caught by Vicky, who'd planned to torture and kill him, and he'd needed her help. It could happen again.
*************
Quinn paused for a moment to absorb the unexpected information he'd just overheard. Then he rapped--three short, precise knocks--at Ash's door.
The voices inside suddenly fell silent, and Quinn could feel Thea's alarm, Poppy's readiness to fight, Ash's readiness to fight and die.
I'm not here to hurt anyone, he thought at them, broadcasting the thought so that they could all hear.
He could feel Rashel at the back of his mind, indignant at being shut out, but he shielded harder and felt her presence disappear. There were a few times--not many, but a few--when it was a problem having a soulmate. One such time was when you decided to do something that you knew they would disapprove of.
For example, when you decided to do something that would hurt you.
He felt rather than heard Ash sigh. A second later, the door opened. Ash looked at him, resigned.
"What do you want?"
Quinn strolled in. "Hello, Poppy. Hello, Thea." His smile at them carried more than a little of the old disturbing Quinn. Perhaps he didn't look entirely like a future Daybreaker, but then, after the stories Ash had been telling them about him, he doubted that anything he could do would make him look like a future Daybreaker.
The worst part was that he'd told Ash most of the stories himself, half as a boast, half as a warning to Ash never to pick a fight with him.
Thea looked frightened but determined. Poppy looked determined and a little angry. Quinn felt sorry for both of them; they might be brave, but a witch and a newly made vampire were no match for him.
Of course, they had Ash with them as well. But Quinn had no intention of fighting.
"I've come to talk," he said, turning to face Ash, who was closing the door and relocking it.
"How long were you out there, listening to us?"
"Long enough." Quinn tilted his head back. "You've been keeping secrets better than I knew. I didn't know Thierry was offering shelter to the Daybreakers. Or that the Crone was a sympathizer."
Ash winced. "You were listening long enough, yeah."
"And you're not going to tell anyone," Poppy intervened, threateningly. Quinn noticed with mild amusement that her hands were crooked into claws, as if she meant to rip at him with nothing more than her bare nails. He appreciated her spirit, if not her good sense.
"Right," he told her. "I'm not going to tell anyone." He waited while the confusion sunk in.
"But. . . ."
"I want to join Circle Daybreak. Rashel wants to join Circle Daybreak," he told them with exaggerated patience. "We don't want to betray you to the Night World Council."
"Oh!" Thea's eyes shone. "Then you are sincere, after all!"
Poppy looked doubtful.
"It could still be a trap," Ash pointed out. "He's found out something about us already. Why shouldn't he stay a few days, find out even more?" He glared at Quinn. "Before he reports back to the Night World Council."
"You're right to be afraid of spies," Quinn told him soberly. "I spied on you easily, and if I did, someone else could have."
"Then you understand why we can't accept you."
"No." Quinn looked straight into Ash's eyes. "Have Thierry interrogate me. Thierry's stronger than I am." It hurt to admit that anyone was stronger, but everyone knew that no one had more power than Thierry, even though Thierry almost never displayed his abilities. Thierry, after all, was rumored to be the first made vampire, and he was literally thousands of years older than Quinn. Age might not be the only factor in a vampire's power, but it was certainly one of them.
Ash blinked, a sign Quinn knew meant that he'd been taken aback. "You'd let Thierry interrogate you?"
"Yes." He stared directly into Ash's changeable eyes.
"But," Poppy pointed out the obvious, "he'd interrogate you by drinking from you, touching your mind. That's--"
"--Not impossible," Quinn finished, when she didn't go on. "Unusual, but not impossible. I'm willing." He was still staring at Ash. "In fact, I think it would be a very good idea if all the Daybreakers were questioned in a similar manner. You may already have spies reporting to the Council. If you don't have them yet, you can expect them soon." His smile was a little grim. "That's the way these things work."
Ash looked suspicious and uncertain, but at last he nodded.
"All right. Thierry will come to a location that you won't know in advance, and he can test you there. And Rashel."
"Not Rashel."
"Oh?" Ash looked freshly suspicious. "Why not Rashel?"
"I told you. No one drinks from Rashel but me."
Poppy and Thea exchanged glances. Poppy rolled her eyes. Thea looked amused. Neither Ash nor Quinn paid attention.
"Well, that's a problem, then--"
"No, it isn't," Thea interjected. "Grandma Harman could test Rashel."
Ash looked doubtful.
"She can do that with spells and maybe a potion." Thea sounded certain. "No biting."
Ash hesitated.
"Don't you think you should let the witches do something in Circle Daybreak, too?" Poppy asked Ash, when the silence had started to stretch uncomfortably. "The idea is that we'll all live and work together in harmony. That means that the vampires don't have to do it all."
Ash shut his eyes, then nodded abruptly. "Fine." He still didn't look happy.
"Vampires living as equals with non-vampires takes a bit of getting used to," Quinn said to him, softly. "Even if it's the right thing to do, it feels strange, at first."
"Yeah." Ash didn't look at him.
At least they agreed on something, Quinn thought. It was a beginning.
"We should tell Rashel what we're thinking of as soon as possible and find out if she agrees," Thea said. "I'm looking forward to meeting her."
Yes, Quinn thought, looking at Thea's golden hair and her open, friendly expression. This was a good person to found Circle Daybreak--or, as she claimed, to restart it after it had died out centuries before. Perhaps she wasn't the right person to lead Circle Daybreak, to protect it, or to do the bloody work of fighting the Night World. But she had the ideals and dreams that a founder needed.
He had to admit that he didn't have many ideals or dreams himself. It had been too long for him in this world. He'd seen too much, done too much. If he hoped for anything for himself, it was for peace and to avoid doing again the worse things he'd done in the past. He hoped that Rashel could find her own peace and happiness, and he hoped he'd be able to avoid causing her misery.
But he knew that, if everyone's contribution to the world could be measured with a number, his contribution so far was in the negatives. He hoped to reach zero someday, to be someone who was not bad, even if not good, and if he could do that, he'd feel he'd achieved something. After so many years of doing evil, just being not-bad would be a miracle.
He wondered if Ash felt the same way or if the younger vampire had hopes that he could truly make the world a better place.
"Quinn? Do you want to call her?" Thea had gone to the telephone and was holding the receiver out to him.
Quinn opened his mind and, after a moment of surprise, smiled faintly. "No need. She'll be here in a minute. Ash, do you want to go ahead and open the door?"
Ash opened the door and waited. A few seconds later, Quinn felt Rashel's presence in the shadows just outside the pool of light from the doorway. It's all right, he told her silently. You can come in.
What are you doing? Rashel sounded angry and relieved at once.
Talking. Negotiating. It's all right, come on in.
You're not hurt?
No. He sent her a burst of reassurance and felt some of her fear fade.
After a second, Rashel stepped into Ash's apartment. She was wearing her black vampire-hunting outfit, and she was carrying her wooden bokken. Her green eyes glared at them all impartially. This was the old Rashel, Quinn thought, fierce and strong and very dangerous.
"Ooh," Poppy muttered, sounding impressed.
"What's going on here?" Rashel demanded.
*********
"You're willing for me to do this?" Thierry asked, a few days later.
"Yes."
Thierry's blue eyes, deceptively mild, looked troubled. "You understand that if we find out that you're not sincere, that you really are planning to harm Circle Daybreak in some way, we won't be able to allow you to leave."
"You'll kill me." Quinn nodded. He felt oddly serene about it. "Yes, I know."
He wondered, looking at Thierry's quiet face, which held no more sign of his vampirism and his millennia of existence than an occasionally haunted look in his eyes, whether he'd been right in thinking that age necessarily brought disillusionment, an awareness of one's evil piled upon evil until there was no hope left. He had felt that it was unavoidable for a vampire to commit cruel and senseless acts, that it was the inevitable result of living in a difficult world of hatred and suspicion for centuries. He'd thought that his hypothetical soul had grown dark mostly because, after nearly four centuries, he'd simply accumulated too many wrong acts, too many unexpiated sins. But if Thierry, who was even older than he, did not seem to have amassed an equal or greater amount of evil deeds, could Quinn really say that his evil nature was the inevitable result of being a vampire for centuries?
Maybe he'd had a chance to be a good person all along, and he simply hadn't taken it. He'd been bad for no other reason than that he'd decided he had to be. It was a bleak thought.
"We wouldn't necessarily kill you," Thierry was saying. Quinn dragged his mind away from his speculations. "We could keep you imprisoned, instead."
Quinn snorted. "Keep a vampire imprisoned? How?"
"Working together, vampires, witches, and shapeshifters can do many things that they couldn't do separately."
"I don't think you have any idea how to keep a vampire imprisoned against his will. You're bluffing."
Thierry smiled faintly. "Well, we'd try to keep you imprisoned, as a first option."
"Realism is refreshing." Quinn stretched restlessly. "Shall we get on with this?"
He'd asked that Rashel be tested in a different place, somewhere far away. Ash and the other Daybreakers had agreed because they wanted to prevent any telepathic connection between the two of them. Quinn just hadn't wanted Rashel to feel what he was going to feel when Thierry bit him.
"You know I'm going to see into you more closely than you'd probably like," Thierry said, taking a gentle grip on Quinn's chin.
"I know." He looked away from Thierry, at the white wall opposite them. When had humans decided to start painting all their walls white, instead of brilliant colors? In some ways, he'd preferred the last century. "That's why we don't do it to one another."
"One reason, yes. Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure," Quinn said, between clenched teeth. "Will you just do it and get it over with, please?"
Thierry, as usual, was kind. He struck so swiftly that Quinn barely saw the gleaming fangs coming.
Almost before he felt the pain in his throat, the sensation of hard foreignness inside him where no touch was ever supposed to come any more, he felt Thierry's mind, gentle but relentless and very, very powerful.
Open to me.
Quinn hesitated. Nausea twisted his stomach. If this was not exactly a rape, neither was it an act of love. He was not sure what his relation to Thierry was. They had met a few times over the centuries, but they had never become friends.
Open. Thierry was implacable, and Quinn sensed that, if he did not open voluntarily in a second, Theorn would pry open his remaining shields and enter, will-he, nill-he.
Theorn. Where had that name come from?
A series of pictures flickered through his mind, almost too rapidly to grasp. He saw fields of tall grass, a river, angry human faces, a girl with large gray eyes who lay pale and almost lifeless in his arms, staring sadly up at him. He touched her face and left a smear of blood on her cheek.
Then, abruptly, Quinn realized that he'd been drifting, pulled into lassitude by the loss of blood and the indefinable loss of spirit that went with it. With an effort, he pulled himself back from the vision and forced himself to pull back his shields and open his mind to Thierry.
He felt the other man's mind plunge deep, deep inside his own, and he struggled not to pull away. Reflexively, he quivered in repulsion anyway, but Thierry's hands held him firm, Thierry's teeth were immovable in his throat. Thierry drank from him, and mastered Quinn's mind as he mastered his body, and Quinn could not pull away.
Why do you want to join us? Thierry asked, and the voice was inescapable.
His mind flashed helplessly on a memory. Rashel, in his arms, his teeth piercing her throat. His intent to change her, to make her a vampire, to save her from being killed by the Night World Council. Surely they'd allow him to change her and keep her with him, despite all the rules, after all he'd done for them. Hadn't Hunter been willing to allow Dove to have him, despite all the rules? Rashel's soul touching his, his realization that he could not make her what he was, his helpless love for her that ran contrary to his long-held belief that all humans were vermin.
Is that all? Thierry sounded unimpressed.
His view of Hunter Redfern, his realization that the man had killed Rashel's mother, that he'd tried to kill Rashel when she was only five. A five-year-old child! This was what the Night World elders did? With all their powers, they preyed on kindergarteners?
Is that all?
He loved her, he had to be with her. She believed in him, despite the dark places in his soul. She'd seen those, and she loved him anyway. She believed he could be better, that he could grow and change. He hadn't even thought about growth and change for himself, not for so long. Change was for humans, not vampires. But she believed it was possible, that he could escape his past, become a better person. . . .
He wanted that. He didn't know if it was possible, but he wanted that.
Ah.
He wanted to change, because he knew what he'd been. He'd been evil. No matter how many of the old Puritan rules he'd tried to keep, he'd been evil. He'd held other girls in his arms the way he had held Rashel. He'd struck his teeth deep into their throats, feeling their hearts pound and flood him with life while he wondered lazily if he should kill them or let them live.
He remembered a girl he'd hunted down, long ago. He couldn't remember exactly when. She'd been wearing some kind of long dress, so it was probably the last century, at least. He'd chased her through the woods, barely exerting himself while she stumbled in blind panic ahead of him. And when she'd seen the path open up before her into the village meadow, he'd caught her at the verge of safety and drawn her backward, backward, into the shadows of the trees, and he'd forced her to the ground and pushed her chin back, and he'd lain on her jerking body to hold her still while he feasted and her struggles became weaker and weaker and finally stopped altogether.
"The woods are silent, dark, and deep," a line of poetry came to him. At least they'd certainly been silent, dark, and deep for her, he thought. There was nothing he could do, a century later, to change what he had done then.
He remembered a woman who'd gotten lost in the Boston streets. She'd hesitantly asked directions from him, and he'd offered to show her the way to safety and her husband. She'd thought him kind, at first. He remembered the look of disbelief, of betrayal, in her face as he'd pushed her to the ground in the alley. She'd held her skirts down tightly with both hands, certain that he meant to rape her; he'd laughed and let her clutch the cloth uselessly as he forced her chin up and to the side, exposing the pale column of her throat. That had been another good feast.
Not that he'd only feasted on women, but both women and men expected women to be attacked and killed every so often, and so it didn't cause as much community outrage to kill a woman as to kill a man. He'd known this fact and used it for his own advantage. But he'd drunk from men too, when it seemed safe. Drunkards whom everyone expected to walk off a cliff someday and break their necks. Sailors who might fall overboard. Drug dealers whom the police, if not their families, were glad to see die.
Men's bodies were harder than women's, more muscular, but still no match for his own. And their throats were just as tender. You bit under the beard, if they hadn't shaved.
A bloodfeast was a wondrous thing. It had always seemed too much like gluttony to him, though, so he hadn't done it often. Sometimes, but not often. Even the strict Pilgrims had feasted on Thanksgiving, he'd reasoned. Eventually, bloodfeasts had been outlawed, but in the first century that he'd been a vampire, they had been permitted. It had been such a pleasure to lie between two victims, the one trussed and gagged and watching in horror, the other thrashing frantically as he pulled her to him and sipped from her throat, slowly, leisurely, savoring the long moments of her death. He'd left the third temporarily leaning against the wall to watch and wait her turn at death.
There was a sudden pain at his own throat. He jerked himself away from the memory of a dark-haired girl whose dead brown eyes were glazing over. Thierry had pulled away from him.
He couldn't look at Thierry. He heard Thierry's breath catch and slowly steady. When he steeled himself and looked, he saw that Thierry, too, had been looking away.
"Welcome to Circle Daybreak," Thierry said, after a minute's pause. He added, after a minute, "You have a lot to atone for." His voice wasn't quite even.
"I know." Quinn shut his eyes.
**************
"So," Ash said, leaning against the doorframe, "Thierry says you should be allowed to join Circle Daybreak."
"Yes." Quinn was lying on the bed that he'd been provided, staring at the ceiling.
"I suppose I ought to apologize. To say I was wrong, you're really a good guy after all."
"Don't."
"I wasn't going to."
There was a pause.
"There will be an induction ceremony next week for you and Rashel," Ash finally said. "Next week, to give everyone time to plan the party."
"Don't bother."
"Why not?"
"I'm not going to join."
"What?" Ash sounded incredulous.
"I'm not going to join Circle Daybreak." Quinn was still staring at the ceiling. White, so white. Why were ceilings always white? Blank and pure.
"Why not? What was all this about, if you didn't want to join?" Ash still sounded as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"I did want to join. But not any more."
"Why not?"
Ash thought Quinn wouldn't answer. But he waited stubbornly, and finally a slow answer came.
"I don't belong here."
"None of us do."
"You're not yet twenty years old. I'm almost four hundred. How can you know what I've done? How can you know where I belong?" Quinn demanded, suddenly furious.
"Quinn, look, we've all done things we regret--"
"Not like I've done!"
"How do you know that?" He waited a beat. "Besides, Thierry thinks you should join. And Thierry's older than you are, so you can't pull that 'I'm four hundred, you can't imagine what I've done' crap with him."
Quinn sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He wasn't looking at Ash.
"Maybe not. But I still don't think I belong here. With Thea, and Poppy, and you. You can imprison me wherever you like, I won't try to get away. I'd . . . appreciate it if I could see Rashel every now and then. She belongs with you. But I . . . just don't."
"Soulmates belong together, you idiot. We wouldn't separate you."
"You have to separate us! You shouldn't allow us to be together!" He added, softly, "We don't belong together. This was a mistake."
"Quinn. Listen." Ash waited until Quinn lifted dark eyes to him. "You don't understand. It isn't important." He lifted a hand when Quinn opened his mouth to speak. "I know you have done things you have to make up for. And I know that you'll always feel bloodlust, because you're always going to be a vampire. I'm the same way, you know. I've done a lot of things that I'm not proud of."
"'Not proud of,'" Quinn echoed, half-mockingly. "What a delicate way to put it."
"Most of the people in Circle Daybreak are humans or witches," Ash was going on. "We don't have too many vampires or shapeshifters yet."
"In other words, you don't have too many powerful people yet."
"Witches and humans have their own power. Don't underestimate them."
Quinn shrugged.
"The point I was going to make," Ash continued, after a brief pause, "is that humans and witches don't understand bloodlust. You can try to explain it to them, but it just slides off, because it's too far outside their own experiences. So yeah, the Daybreakers may be horrified at what you've done. They've certainly been horrified at what I've done," he added, a little sadly.
"A full eighteen years of evil."
"Well, I don't suppose that I was too evil when I was still a baby. But--essentially, yes," Ash had missed Quinn's point, but Quinn didn't bother to try to correct him.
"But I do what I can to protect Circle Daybreak, even though the witches and humans in it don't understand me all the time. And that's why you need to join Circle Daybreak, too. Rashel is right: Circle Daybreak does need a fighting arm. It needs a lot more than me and Thierry. It needs you and Rashel, and probably a whole bunch of other people who can fight, too."
Quinn looked away.
"We need what you can do to help us, Quinn. Even if you don't feel like you belong, and the humans and witches never really understand you. In fact, as long as you save the people here from Night World attacks, they'll probably forget about your past and start thinking you're a hero."
"I'm not a hero. I'll never be a hero."
"I agree." Ash was merciless. "I remember the stories you told me about your past. I'm sure at least some of them are probably true."
Quinn shut his eyes. "Yes. They're true." It hadn't grown any easier to say it. He'd thought confession was supposed to bring relief. He felt no relief.
"You're the most evil person I've ever personally known," Ash said judiciously, after a minute. "Hunter Redfern may be worse, but I've hardly ever actually spoken to him. Too high up in the Night World to spend much of his time with teenagers, even his own descendants. So that just leaves you as my most evil acquaintance."
"You're probably right about me."
"But I still think you should join Circle Daybreak. I think I'm right about that, too."
"And be the wolf among the sheep?" Quinn demanded. "The evil person among the good? The monster who sits with . . . with people whose idea of evil is leaving the dinner table without asking permission?"
"Don't sell them so short. And you won't be at the heart of Circle Daybreak." Ash wasn't nearly as kind as Thierry. "You wanted to be the fighting arm, right? You'll always be at the edges of the group. Sort of the way that the arm is always at the edges of the body." He paused. "Okay, that sounds weird, forget it. But the fact is that Thea's at the heart of Daybreak, and Thierry, but not you or me."
"So you want me to stay and help because you need me. That's all. You think I'm the most evil person you've ever personally known, but you need me, so you want me to stay?"
Ash considered, cocking his head to one side. "Yes. That's about it."
Quinn's lips twisted. "And Rashel told me that Daybreakers sat around all day, singing folk songs and preaching love and eternal brotherhood."
"We're trying to get Night Worlders and humans to understand and tolerate one another," Ash said. For once, he sounded absolutely serious. "We're trying to avoid being massacred by the Night World Council on the one side and the humans on the other side. Both outnumber us--the humans practically by millions to one--and both hate us. At least, the Night World does, and the humans probably would, if they knew of our existence. We're trying to keep the Night World and humans from killing one another, too. Basically, we're trying to stop mass murder and genocide, Quinn, and we're way, way outnumbered. We could lose, and die. We could all lose and die. No, this certainly isn't singing folk songs around the campfire."
"I see."
"And we need you." Ash paused for a second. "I can't offer you forgiveness for the past. I can't make your past go away, or make it not matter any more. I don't know who can. But I can use you to save Thea and Eric and James and Poppy and my sisters and Mary-Lynnette. My soulmate. And that's what I'll do, if I can." The ruthless note was back in his voice.
"I see."
"So join us. We need you."
"All right."
*********
"So he said what to you? And you said what to him?" Rashel was sitting cross-legged on the bed. "I can't believe this."
"I'm not a good person, Rashel. You know that."
"No, I don't know that. I know you've done some bad things in the past. That's not the same thing as being a bad person now."
He hugged her, burying his face in her dark hair. Her darkness was always beautiful, he thought, so much unlike his own.
"Thea's been very kind," she added. "And so has Poppy. And have you met Gillian yet?"
"Not yet." His voice was muffled.
She pulled away from him. "You're not going to be all oh-I've-sinned-for-four-hundred-years on me now, are you?"
He smiled faintly. "Not if you don't want me to."
"I don't." Rashel was firm. "We've got a new life here, Quinn. We're going to have a great induction ceremony, meet everyone, make friends. Do you know I've hardly ever had friends? I'm going to finish high school in Las Vegas; Thierry's already arranged for us to move out there, to be part of his inner circle."
Where he can keep an eye on me, Quinn thought.
"It will be great," Rashel concluded.
"And then we'll start fighting for Circle Daybreak."
She pulled one of her barbaric faces at him. "Yes!"
The difference between Rashel and himself, Quinn thought, was that she'd always believed she was fighting for the right side. She might have been wrong, but she'd always believed herself to be in the right. He had been fighting for the wrong side, and he'd never deluded himself as to that.
He would have to try to believe that he could fight for the right side.
"Yes," he agreed gently.
*********
The induction ceremony the next week was a whole-day affair. Although the ceremony itself was short--Quinn and Rashel promised Thea, Eric, and Thierry, as the representatives of the Daybreakers, that they would work for Circle Daybreak and be loyal to it in future--there was a very large and elaborate party afterward. Someone confided in Rashel that it was regarded as quite a coup for Circle Daybreak to have gained her and Quinn. When prominent Night Worlders became Daybreakers, wasn't Circle Daybreak's future victory close?
Rashel wasn't sure whether that was overly optimistic, but she smiled and laughed and tried to enjoy the party. It was the first real party anyone had ever thrown for her, and she was finding it surprisingly easy to relax and enjoy herself. She didn't feel much like the Cat that day.
She saw Quinn on the other side of the room talking to Thea, of all people. She hadn't thought they'd have much in common, but perhaps it was just party small-talk, or Daybreak business. She couldn't hear what they were saying, but she couldn't feel any distress from Quinn, so she didn't try to interfere. When someone asked her to dance, she laughed and let herself be drawn onto the dance floor.
"I'm glad you agreed to join us," Thea told Quinn.
Quinn shrugged. "You're the right side to fight for."
"But it must be hard on you, personally." Thea's quiet eyes, Quinn realized with a jolt, saw more than he'd given her credit for. "Hunter Redfern was like a father to you, and now you're working against him. And you're giving up everything you believed in, and adopting new ideals."
"I have to."
Thea nodded. "But it still hurts."
Quinn shrugged again.
She looked at him steadily, and he wondered what her witch eyes saw in him. He braced himself for a question about his past, or a reminder of how much he'd done to atone for.
She only said, "You need to forgive yourself."
"Why?"
Thea looked taken aback. "'Why?'"
"Yes. Why should I forgive myself?"
"Because that's what you need to do to start healing."
"I wasn't aware that I'd been hurt," Quinn said caustically, before he could stop himself.
"No," she said, a little sadly. "You weren't aware."
As he stared at her, caught more off balance than he'd been since he met Rashel and learned of his soulmate connection with her, Thea leaned forward and kissed him, very gently, on the cheek. Her lips were warm, and her aura was that of things growing in the desert, fragile and resilient at the same time.
"Try," she told him.
He stared at her across the distance between them.
"Just try."
No one had spoken to him about healing before, he realized. Thierry had talked about atonement. Ash had talked about Daybreak's need of his abilities. Rashel--as always, he felt himself soften and warm when he thought of her--Rashel had simply insisted that he wasn't a bad person.
He took a deep breath, and nodded.
"Good," Thea said.
The party spun riotously on.
Back to the main page.
Disclaimer: the characters, fictional settings, and universes created by L. J. Smith are copyright © Lisa J. Smith, Daniel Weiss Associates, Inc. and their affiliates. This fan-created site, along with the stories it houses, means no infringement upon any trademark, copyright, or other legal binding. This archive claims no rights to any of the stories collected here.