Humanity 02 - Raven Flames (3 page)

“
Beg for your life, Dark
Child scum.” The sound of a whip cracking against something soft –
of flesh giving way to leather. Though the humans wouldn’t be able
to hear it, she could hear the intake of breath from her father as
he fought not to betray his pride. She stood from her hiding spot,
the hollow where her father had thrown shadows across her and her
mother’s forms. She
would
stop them.

“
No, Mirage.” Her father’s
voice, seemingly so close, echoed in her ears across their
weakening Family Cord. It was wavering, but she could still feel
his love.

Mirage stopped, her
charcoal runes ceasing their soft red glow.

“
I will take my fate
gladly. You are needed more than I.”

“
Beg!”

The voice that spoke and
interrupted her father’s thoughts, God, she’d never heard such a
hate-imbued word.

“
The blood that drips may
not be the same color as yours, human, but the pain is the same.”
Her father’s voice was amazingly sharp—devoid of the agony Mirage
could feel in the coiled mess of her aching heart. “One day my
people will see freedom. It’s been promised.”

Gasoline hit him in
dousing streams as it was thrown, stinging in open wounds. Mirage
couldn’t help the involuntary whimper, but it was lost in the
humans’ cries of anticipation. Her father jerked against the rope
that bound him between the two trees, a hiss of incantations
spewing from his mouth.

The human struck him, and
Mirage fell backward into the hollow, clutching her
cheek.

“
Hush your mouth, Dark
Child.”

Her father looked up, and
for a moment Mirage saw a flash of the cruel sky eyes that stared
back into his before their minds disconnected. There’d been a flash
of gold around the eyes—the Nordic golden mask of a stern king.
“I’ve been peaceful. I could have killed your son. I spared him,
though he would not have shown the same compassion. I’ve seen what
is to come; my ancestor wills this. I would have killed you and
your monstrous child if I hadn’t been promised that your fates are
sealed. I’ve seen what is to come. HUMANITY falls within
Darkcaster’s line.”

“
We’ll see. Once I kill
your bitch and spawn that you’re hiding from us, you are the last
of her line.”

The smell of gasoline grew
stronger and the flickers from the torches seemed to leap toward
her father. She stood again, but her mother’s hand on her wrist
stopped her from stepping out of the shadowed crevice. Her mother’s
hand, surprisingly strong, pulled her back down into an embrace
that pressed her face against her breasts.

“
The pain will be over
soon, Mirage,” her father whispered in her mind. She was going to
feel her father die. She and her mother would be bound to him until
his death…burning, but alive.

“
Daddy…”

“
I love you and your
mother so much. Take care of her for me, Mirage. Promise me that
you’ll protect her and yourself.”

Mirage nodded. She was the
only one strong enough now.

The roar seemed something
alive as the flames followed the path that had been preordained. It
took an instant for them to reach her father.

Mirage screamed, and her
mother muffled the sound against her chest, shuddering in her own
effort to keep from calling out. Her mother rocked, hugging Mirage
as tightly as she could against the silver silk that clothed her
pale, soft skin. It stopped Mirage from seeing, but there was
nothing that stopped the stench of burning flesh, the odor of her
father burning for another species’ sins…

All the while, the cruel
sky gaze regarded the flickering death. Mirage saw them through her
father’s unmoving eyes. They never wavered as he died slowly. Then
the pain, the scouring agony that had chased her sanity away,
disappeared.

“
Mirage,” her mother
whispered breathlessly. “Hide us, or he will have died for
nothing.”

The shadows that crawled
from her softly glowing runes were angry tendrils. They cloaked her
and her mother tightly, constricting around them in a pulsating
blanket. Where the comforting presence of her father had been,
there was nothing but a hollow, raw hole.

Gauthier, her father and
the Tribal Chief of the Children of the Dusk, was dead.

Mirage woke sobbing, a hand clutched
over her heart. Her nails dug into her skin as her chest heaved. It
was the position she always woke in when she had the
nightmare.

Well, almost.

She was sitting up. The thing her back
leaned against was rough and hard. A wind, full of the salt of the
sea, blew her hair out of her face and tangled it in her horns.
Thunder rolled, horribly loud in her ears, reverberating through
her spine as the lights flickered ahead of her.

She was in a tree. She was
outside.

What the hell?
Mirage thought, standing on the branch that she’d
woken on. She’d fallen asleep in her room…

Damn, she had to start thinking
clearly. She shook her head, clearing away the grogginess from just
waking up. Ahead of her the lights flickered in gaining
urgency.

Lights?

“
Oh God,” she whispered.
Her hand, which had just relaxed against her, clutched at her chest
again as she realized the blinking lights ahead of her weren’t
artificial, but natural and ethereal against the
darkness.

Fire tinged in black.

“
Mom!” Mirage dropped from
the top of the tree, landing on her feet easily and sprinting the
instant she touched ground. In less than ten seconds, she reached
the inferno that had been her home for less than two
days.

“
MOM!”
Her scream was a screech that shook the ground. The word had
been a mere thought, the sound that escaped her lips hadn’t been
any language—just a howl of despair. Her power was there for her
when she embraced them, the ebony marks on her skin glowing
scarlet.

“
Mirage
…” She could feel her mother in the remnants of the bond that
had been created by her father when he’d married her mother.
Tranquility had been a Child of the Dawn, and the Family Cords that
had bound them so tightly had been nearly impossible for her to
keep intact without the power that her father had lent. Mirage
couldn’t until the Transition. Still, it was enough to know she was
alive. Hurt…but alive.

The shadows seemed to rise from her
own darkness, and she knew that the people that had set fire to her
home had hidden, waiting for her to come. They’d drawn her in, like
a moth to their fire. She wasn’t able to react while one grappled
her from behind. Another, hidden behind a burnished black metal
mask, struck her in the stomach. It doubled her over and only the
woman that held her from behind kept her from falling.

“
You should have known not
to try to live with the humans, Dark Child,” he said. Her heart
plummeted as she recognized Derrick’s voice.

“
Derrick…” she had to
speak past gasps as she tried not to throw up. He’d hit her hard
enough that she saw spots of black against the dancing lights. “I’m
going to…kill…you.”

The woman shoved her forward, and
Mirage stumbled against the flat, sandy ground. Thunder cracked
above them again, and Mirage felt the first drop of the gods’ heavy
burden finally begin to fall. She prayed that the rain would fall
quick and hard to help her with the fire her mother was trapped in.
A boot, tipped with a heel, pressed between her shoulder blades,
putting a stop to her muttered prayers.

“
Your mother’s burning.”
It was Mrs. Wanderson. “Just like we watched your father
burn.”

The anger that rang through Mirage
spread, boiling beneath her skin, and when she opened her eyes all
she could see was red.

Wanderson screamed as she was lifted
into the air. Mirage stood slowly, the shadows that enveloped her
body elevating her in an embrace of helping hands. Wanderson’s
screams cut short as Mirage flicked a hand and her body flew
backward, hitting the trunk of a palm tree. She fell, limp, as
Mirage’s wall of shadows shoved Derrick backward and into a
boulder. Mirage ignored the others that had stood, her powers
singing urgency into the back of her mind. She entered the burning
home, the fire pushed back by her own raven flames.

* * * *

Michael watched the display of dark
power, barely suppressing the rising fear in his heart. Why had she
not been in the house? Fire, one of the few things that could
honestly kill a Dark Child, would have killed her without this
confrontation if she’d been in her home.

“
Michael, it’s your turn,”
his father whispered. The mask he wore was gold, reflecting the
fire and Mirage’s dark aura. Carved with Norse designs across the
cheeks and into the beard of the face, the mask rose up behind him
in the imitation of a crown. His own mask was silver with similar
Nordic designs, but his was more slender and tight fitting, small
points like thorns rising from the edges to imitate his
cornet.

“
Wanderson…”

“
Is dead,” his father
snapped. “She knew the dangers. Your cousin is hurt, but he’ll
live. I’ll take care of him. Go.”

Michael fought the rising fear in the
back of his throat. Face a pissed off Dark Child in a fire? He
personally would retreat and hope to catch her again, but his
father would see that as cowardice. Better his son die in
HUMANITY’s honor than be seen as a coward.

Michael didn’t say anything as he
stood and drew his gun. Mirage’s power left a wake of quailing
flames behind her. He entered quickly before the fire reclosed
their devouring path. He watched her, floating a foot from the
inferno, her hair whipping around her in snakes, a circle of a dark
halo. There was something ethereally…beautiful…about it. He shook
his head and raised his gun. He aimed for her head.

Michael’s hand shook as he told
himself to stop being stupid, to just pull the damn trigger. What
was wrong with him?

Mirage’s power wavered around her and
she dropped to the ground a foot from a figure swathed in blackened
white. It was a mound of snow in the fire.

The mound moved, groaned.

“
Mommy…” Mirage’s pained
voice was infinitely gentle as she helped her sit up. Michael could
now see the silver hair draped around the body, the pale skin that
was brighter than the flames. Blue designs wound across her wrists,
trailing up her arm to her elbow in delicate swirls. A Child of the
Dawn.

Fire leaped behind him, causing him to
stumble. Smoke filled his lungs and he coughed. Mirage’s head
jerked backward, her scarlet glowing eyes settling on him. They
narrowed. Fire roared around them, Michael’s gun aimed at Mirage’s
head. They were still for a moment.

“
Leave, Humanitarian,” she
growled. Her voice echoed around her and him, resonating like a
bell against the roar. “I’ve killed one, and I’ll kill
more.”

Michael swallowed, fighting his urge
to stagger backward. “You shouldn’t have come here,
Mirage.”

Mirage’s eyes widened, a hand coming
up to clutch at her chest. The power left her, leaving the black
pools she had as eyes sparkling with tears. She leaned forward, her
hair falling in front of her. “I recognize your voice.”

Michael could barely stand the pain in
her voice. “You die tonight.”

Mirage looked up, black
tears trickling down her face. They reflected the glow of her eyes
like oil. “Michael…how
could
you?” Her expression contorted from pain to rage
in an instant. Behind him there was a flurry of voices, glass
breaking. The next moment, five other Humanitarians masked in their
own designed masks flanked him, their guns trained on Mirage as she
stood.

“
Give it up, Dark Child,”
said a man behind him, Taylur.

A disgusted snarl rose through her
throat and her eyes flickered black and red. There was something
different in the power that leapt from her now. It was dark, less
coy than what he’d felt from her when she attacked Derrick. There
was a cruelty in the ancient force. Mirage stood, her mother’s now
unconscious body in her arms.

“
You sought death
tonight,” Mirage whispered. Despite the crackle around them, they
could easily hear her words. Mirage’s voice echoed, imbedded deeply
with power. There was something else though; the accent she spoke
in was different, the words seemingly out of place in her
mouth.

“
Death reigns here, but it
is not called upon me.”

Mirage’s eyes widened, brightening to
an impossible red, a hue that Michael had never seen. He only saw
them for an instant before she threw her head back and began to
mutter unintelligible, guttural words. The words sent shivers down
his spine. They were incantations, the ancient words that called on
the Shadowstarts’ ancestors. Her father had tried to call them
before he’d died, but he’d failed. Michael had never had to face
the Shades. There wasn’t a Humanitarian that had faced the Shades
and survived.

The runes that etched along Mirage’s
skin began to glow that iridescent red he’d seen from her
eyes.