Jesse ran blindly, not caring what direction, certain only that anywhere was better than where Shaine and Kevin were. Not completely carelessly, though. It would be very easy for Kevin to get one of the other wolves here to follow his trail, and Shaine knew him much too well. He'd survived by being able to vanish effectively; having to break a scent trail was new, but he was sure he could do it. The scents of the city had been overwhelming to him when he'd come back fully wolf, and they were nonetheless familiar to him; to the Haven wolves, who were unfamiliar with them, that background would make it much harder to follow a single trail. He zigzagged across busy streets, cut through a gas station and scrambled over a fence at the back, went straight to the doors of a busy nightclub that never checked ID and then backed along the same path until he could use the hood of a car that was just pulling out as an alternate route.

He slowed down as he came to a busier street, and let himself blend in with the others in the area, mostly pleasure-seekers. When a park offered itself, he cut through that. He knew this park, this was the strange one, all hills and trees and rocks with a sundial and fountain in the middle, like no other park he knew of. Except the one in Haven, on the lake.

That didn't bear thinking about.

He found a spot by the fountain, hidden by the curve of the hill, and settled there, hugging himself.

His thoughts were crystal-clear, now. The LSD he'd taken had worn off completely. It had been about six times the most he'd ever ventured, deliberately, and he didn't think much time had passed between losing the real world and coming back to find both Shaine and Kevin there. Pure proof of wolf resilience; it hadn't even been much of a trip.

He couldn't, though, quite shake what he had seen, a thunderstorm, a black wolf howling in grief, but most vividly a silver dagger that had danced just out of his reach.

His mind flitted away, to a memory of another dream of a dagger, one that had left him restless and unable to get back to sleep. Prowling the silent house, he found Bane coiled into a corner of the couch reading; the alpha wolf looked up immediately.

“Can't sleep?”

“Bad dreams.”

“Will telling someone help?” He turned over the book, and patted the couch. Jess sat beside him, described the dream. Bane, listening attentively, began to stroke one hand over Jesse's hair; Jess winced reflexively from the touch, but Bane didn't stop, and despite his resistance he found much of the tension easing away.

He woke the next morning curled up against Bane, and the alpha wolf was dozing leaning against the arm of the couch. It was the first time he'd truly recognized how much power Bane had to influence his emotional state; it had taken some time for him to come to accept that Bane was far more likely to use it to comfort and protect than to abuse and hurt.

It led irresistibly to another memory, coming across Kevin and Bane in the living room, Bane furform, Kevin brushing him. They'd coaxed Jess over and into furform—he'd been so shy about changing in front of anyone for a long time. Between the two, once Bane got the other brush from the kitchen, they'd put Jess in utter bliss for an hour or more.

The memories hurt; he pushed them away. He had to think about right now, instead of wandering around in the past.

What was he going to do now? He could probably avoid Kevin now, despite the soul-link and the nearness, and he had no idea what Shaine had been doing there. He could keep his eyes open and survive.

Was it really worth it?

He was too much of a coward to just kill himself. He'd have to just stumble through this however he could. Somehow he'd survive, just like he'd always survived.

* * *

Patrick, as soon as he was alone in his hotel room, spat, “Sikial, come!”

His primary demon materialized in its usual form, and cringed into a corner as the mage whirled to face it.

“You said he'd be alone and unprotected! I would hardly call that alone and unprotected!”

“Sorry, master, so sorry... others were not supposed to care now...”

“Obviously they do, if they were willing to stand up to me to protect him! If it hadn't been for the storm-clouds and the static, I could have killed the mage and taken the other two. And they still stayed!” Dark visions formed behind his eyes, of sending one of the demons to take out all three of them... no. There'd be little satisfaction in that, compared to something more personal, and the power of their pain and deaths would be lost to him. Chance had played a part in this one, but still he'd lost, had been thwarted a second time. “That human is infuriating enough, but that Lioren mage... how dare he interfere with me again!”

“Yes, master. What gives him the right to tell you who you may or may not have?” Sikial raised its head, but kept its eyes low.

“Everyone is equal in the villages, they say, over and over,” Patrick snarled. “If everyone is equal, why are strong mages catered to and indulged, until they come to believe they can do anything they want, regardless of who they walk all over? He'll have it easy his whole life, with everyone bowing down to him, like strength makes him superior to everyone else.”

“They care more for that than for anything else,” Sikial whispered. “Intelligence means nothing to them. Original thinking means nothing to them.”

“Oh, original thinking means something to them! It's the ultimate crime! Right up there with daring to not kiss the ass of a strong mage!”

“This one expected you to, master. He expected you to obey him, and surrender immediately. He would not have come here, at night with so little light, if he'd expected any challenge to his authority.”

“He hasn't seen a fraction yet of how I intend to challenge his authority!”

“Yes, master, show him. Show him that being born strong doesn't make him special, that being clever and inventive matter much more! We will help, master. We won't be so careless again. No more mistakes.”

Patrick glowered at the demon coldly. “You're right. There will be no more mistakes.”

He hadn't escaped the battle unscathed; he'd been carelessly lightly shielded at the moment that storm of chaos was unleashed, and to gate himself out of there he'd had to open himself to it yet further. It would take time to heal, and time to plan something suitable. Especially for that interfering Lioren, the obvious product of a value system that gave special status to a strong mage.

The first time he'd seen the young wolf, he'd been intrigued by the psychic damage, the nature and extent of it; when Sikial had told him the wolf was back in the city—alone and undefended, ha!—his curiosity had won out. At least he could learn how well the damage had healed, and with a little effort, he was sure there was more research he could do. Wolf resistance didn't apply to demon power.

Now? Fury overwhelmed anything else. All three were going to pay for this. They were going to die, and they were going to feed his power as they did.

The only remaining question was, what would be the most satisfying way to do it?

* * *

For the first time in an uncommonly long while, the entire group of three covens and their solitary friends gathered, in the living room of Sundark's huge house.

“Well?” Bane prompted, gazing expectantly at his brother.

“That's twice now that the same mage has shown an interest in Jess,” Bryan said. “At least, Kevin says it's the same mage...”

“It is,” Kevin said firmly. “Change in power level aside, the signature was definitely the same.”

Bryan nodded. “And he's threatened Kev. I think we need to figure out how much of a danger this guy is.”

“He has to have come from somewhere,” Deanna said. “He can't have just appeared from nowhere.”

“What do we know about him?” Evaline asked. “Kev?”

“According to his response to my initial challenge,” Kevin said, “his name is Patrick Lucian.”

Sonja's forehead furrowed. “That sounds familiar. Keep talking.”

Kevin shrugged. “He's obviously an elvenmage, I'd guess he's in his thirties, give or take. The first time I ran into him, I got the distinct impression that he wasn't very strong—I was terrified I'd burned him out completely instead of just backlashing him when I lost my temper. The second time, he tore my shields into shreds in a matter of minutes, in a city alley with hardly any light, and he was throwing stuff at me that I suspect would've tired me out even in full daylight if I could figure out how to do it in the first place—serious combat-magic stuff I've never seen before. I still don't know how I got out of that in one piece, there was some sort of bizarre reaction with a storm that was building, or something.” He kept his suspicions about what Shaine had been doing to himself—it wasn't relevant, and he had no proof. “How Shaine would know, I have no idea, but he said it was demon-magic. That's as good an explanation as any, I guess, there were some severely strange colours in his shields. He seems to get in a snit as soon as someone interferes with what he wants to do.”

“Or when you interfere with what he wants to do,” Sonja said thoughtfully. “There was a Lucian mage in Falias, I can't recall his first name, who left the village ten or twelve years ago with no explanation. I wasn't all that old at the time, and I was rather distracted ‘cause my gifts were starting to wake up and drive me nuts...”

Nick closed a hand around hers. “Anything you can remember is more than we have.”

“He was a mage, but not a very strong one. We're talking, say, with the average elf a one, and an Adept a ten, and Kev and Lori around eight or nine, he was about a four or five.”

“Unlikely to ever become Adept, but still, respectably strong,” Lori observed.

“He never thought so. He was convinced that everyone looked down on him for it, and that stronger mages had special status that he'd been cheated of. The Lucians in Falias are a lot like the Haven branch—they turn up reasonably strong mages fairly consistently, but not very many Adepts.” She frowned. “I can remember, vaguely, bits of major scenes he started, claiming that the villages have a hierarchy based on family and power. Some junk about wolves believing they're the master race, too. Really warped stuff, my parents kept me out of hearing as much as they could. Mostly it was the strong emotions catching my attention, before I had much control.”

“Which would certainly account for the reaction to phoenix telling him what to do,” Bane reflected. “It's not like you're subtle, magically speaking, Kev.”

“Yeah, and thrashing him so easily the first time probably didn't help,” Kevin sighed. “How was I supposed to know?” Oh yes, being strong has made my life oh-so-much easier. My own mother's terrified of me!

“You couldn't have known, and I'd've done the same,” Lori said firmly. “So. It does sound like the same person. Which means we have an extremely unstable elvenmage running around, possibly making pacts with demons to give him the power he feels he should have had by birth, and he has a grudge against Kev for being strong and daring to tell him not to do something. We have no idea at all what his interest in Jess is.”

“Demon pacts always have prices,” Samantha said quietly. “Given that it sounds quite likely that he is making bargains with demons and appears to be asking for power, the price is highly likely to involve blood and pain and possibly death, depending on how deeply into it he's gone. Be very, very glad you kept him away from Jess, Kev.”

A kind of unanimous shudder ran through the room, as the thought occurred to each of what that could have meant to Jess, had this other mage gotten ahold of him.

“As for the change in power level, I would hazard a guess that you caught him by surprise the first time, before he had a chance to draw on power through his allies. Without them, he has only what nature gave him, and it's a shame you didn't burn him out completely at the time, while he was vulnerable—although, again, there's no way you could have known. With them, well, the lowest prices are on enhancing what's already there. Did he do anything that you would consider outside your element?”

Kevin shook his head. “I've never met a mage who bothered with combat stuff that heavily, but it was all fire and light.” Now where on earth did Sam learn all this stuff about demons? Not that I'm ever going to find out, I bet.

Sam nodded. “Then he probably hasn't gone so deep that he's killing frequently, but that power has to come from somewhere. And the most readily available source, if you're into quick gratification and a lot of power, is the gifts and emotions and energy of others.”

Bane growled, and the other wolves all tensed. “He's turned himself into a predator.”

“Essentially, yes, except that instead of feeding to stay alive, he's feeding for the sake of power.”

Evaline made a disgusted noise, deep in her throat. “That's worse than predators.”

“I would say so.”

“And he's a little too interested in Jess,” Naomi said slowly.

“But we don't even know where Jess is to warn him, let alone to help him stay safe,” Gisela said miserably, all the colour gone from beneath her honey-tan skin.

“There's another thing to consider,” Sam said, though she sounded as though she were weighing every word. “I've been reluctant to bring this up because I can't explain how I know, but I... have reason to believe that there's one coven in Haven summoning demons. I think it's still only experimentation, but it could get very bad, very quickly, if they call the wrong demon or make even a small mistake.”

“Who?” Bryan demanded. “Who's that insane?”

Sam sighed. “Whitethorn. Which is another reason I don't expect to be believed outside this room.”

Kevin didn't think he'd ever heard a room go so quiet.

Oh, Becky, what the hell are you doing? Nothing's worth that...

“Other than the coincidence of both summoning demons and both having gone after Jess,” Lori said, “is there reason to believe that there's a direct connection?”

Sam bit her lower lip. “It... I... It might be just this Lucian after Jess for his own reasons and Whitethorn for, well, whatever actually goes through the minds of Whitethorn. But it... it isn't impossible that there's some degree of demon interest in Jess underlying both. What I do know for sure is that I would feel much safer having Jess right here, because no hostile demon is going to get through the protections Starluck built into the outer walls, ever. I'm not sure it matters, because there's nothing we can do about it that we weren't doing anyway.” Black and white Hob climbed onto her lap; automatically, she began to rub his ears.

“And you're right, there's no chance Katherine and Tomas would believe an accusation about Whitethorn from this direction,” Lori said unhappily. “We'd have to tackle them ourselves.”

“I'd really rather you didn't. I prefer you alive. I'll let you know if I have any reason to believe they're placing anyone else at risk, and we can re-think what to do.”

“And you seriously can't tell us how you know this?”

“I really can't. I'm sorry.”

Though Sam's reticence about her past was something they'd all accepted long ago as her own choice, Kevin wondered whether he were the only one finding it considerably harder to take at the moment; he doubted it. Still, it would take extremely persuasive evidence to convince the Adepts, or most of the rest of Haven, that it wasn't an attempt at retaliation.

He couldn't find it in him to doubt her, though; for her to bring it up, she'd have to be very sure.

“Great,” Kevin muttered. “Bane and I screw up, now Jess is out there in very bad danger he doesn't even know about, and alone unless Shaine finds him. I didn't think I could feel worse.”

“Not useful,” Lori told him firmly. “We've been over that. Back on track. Knowing this, now what?”

“I think,” Flynn sighed, “we're going to have to just hope like hell that he comes home on his own or that we find him again and can convince him to, and meanwhile trust to whatever luck has kept Jess alive this long to keep him that way a bit longer.”