Leigh awoke with a start, and managed to bite back a scream of pain and terror. Horrible images, random freeze-frame impressions of the ambush on the darkened sidewalk outside her apartment still filled her head, and her heart lurched into a triphammer-fast rhythm within her chest. She could still feel the flash of shock that had quickly become sick terror as the night-blurred figures leapt from the shadows without a word and threw her to the ground. She'd fought them as best she could, and had managed to utter at least one shout before a hand clamped across her mouth and nose, but there had never been a chance for her to escape, or to even get a good look at her attackers. Despite her frantic struggles, despite the half-remembered self-defense class that had her driving at her attacker's eyes with stiffened fingers and biting at their hands until she drew blood, once they had gotten her pressed flat against the gritty sidewalk they had kept her there. Her resistance had only angered them; when she'd bitten the one's hand he had cursed and struck her across the face with his fist, over and over, until the world went hazy and strange, and blood streamed freely from her nose and mouth. Her scratching and clawing had led them to pin her hands to the sidewalk, one of them beneath what felt like a work boot. At least two of her fingers had snapped when the man bore down with his full weight on that hand, and she hadn't even been able to scream out her agony.

She hadn't been able, because the hand she had bitten was clamped across her face again; smothering her, muffling her cries but also keeping her from drawing breath. Try as she might, fight as she could with everything she could remember, it just wasn't enough; not with one man on top of her and at least two others helping immobilize her body and restrain her limbs, each of the anonymous shapes larger, heavier, and far stronger than herself. A long, agonizing time of struggle and desperate, choking cries had followed, until the lack of air had finally forced her down into darkness and silence.

Leigh drifted there in the darkness, still feeling nauseas from the beating she'd taken during the struggle.

She had thought that they, whoever 'they' were, had meant to kill her, but now she was awake once more; still alive, and….

Where was she?

That thought led quite naturally to Leigh opening her eyes, though what she saw when she did was nothing like what she had expected.

Trees? She thought muzzily. Despite the adrenaline spike that had accompanied her waking, she still felt only half conscious, and very confused. Unless we're in Central Park they must have driven us outside the city; you don't find this many trees in New York, otherwise.

The other notable feature that presented itself was the fire. Not just a campfire, but a serious bonfire, with flames leaping a good five feet into the air already, and two men (two of her attackers?) still feeding wood into it, piece by piece, in what seemed a slow, almost ritualized fashion.

If she had bothered to think it through she might have hoped that the relative darkness where she lay would conceal her movements from the men, but in truth she didn't stop to think at all. She saw the men, and an instant later she was trying her best to lunge to her feet and run. She had to get away, had to find some help, or else—

Leigh groaned, when despite her best effort she failed to lift her upper body more than a few inches from the ground. She was tightly bound, her legs tied together at ankle and knee, wrists firmly secured and pulled behind her, tied to her belt, maybe. She could barely move, much less run away. Her broken fingers made themselves known once more, their sharp, jagged misery contrasting with the dull throbbing from her jaw and the side of her face. None of it was pleasant, but at least they hadn't raped her… yet. She feared that, feared it a lot, but if it came then she would simply try and endure it.

She tried very hard to make herself believe she could endure it.

What she couldn't understand was why they had brought her here (wherever 'here' was), instead of just doing whatever they intended in the back of some unmarked van, or in one of the darkened alleyways near where they had attacked her. It wasn't like she was worth kidnapping; her family was not especially wealthy. Besides, embarrassed by her time and time again, they would probably be happy to see her vanish. Good, God-fearing Southern Baptists that they were, they'd probably think the devil himself had finally found the time to come drag their strange, newly-pagan daughter off to hell….

Staring at the two men still building the fire not so far away, she felt a new ripple of fear slowly wash through her.

Oh my god… I mean, goddess. As usual she'd made the same slip, the stress making her revert to the old habits, though this time it only added irony to her situation. Is that what this is about? These are ultra-Right-wing christians, and they're going to burn me?! It was the sort of thought that might occur to any modern-day practitioner of the old ways, at least in passing, but despite the general ignorance and intolerance of the world at large things like witch-burnings just didn't happen anymore.

Beads of sweat suddenly covered every inch of Leigh's skin, and it was not the heat of late June, nor the proximity of the fire that had brought it about. She closed her eyes, shutting out the sight of the fire and taking in a slow, shuddering breath.

Yeah, of course things like that don't happen now; and people don't get tied to fence posts and beaten to death in America either… just tell that to Matthew Shepard.

Perhaps it would have been easier to deal with the situation if she'd been a long-time, dedicated witch; maybe then she could have comforted herself with the certainty that if she were to die tonight, the goddess would be there, waiting to receive her with open arms and take her into the Summerland, for a time of rest and healing before her next incarnation on earth… but Leigh wasn't experienced, wasn't confident in her new faith, and so that certainty wasn't in her.

Would they listen to me if I told them that it's just a stage I'm going through? She wondered, opening her eyes once again and staring outwards into the firelit night. I'm really not any better at being a witch than I was at being goth. Her mid-length hair still had a few inches of soot black showing at the ends from that period, where it had not yet grown out in favor of her natural brown-blonde. It looked kind of silly like that, but one of the things about Wicca was the honesty it encouraged, and so she'd decided to let it alone, to remind her of that rather embarrassing time in her life.

But witchcraft isn't any different. No matter how hard I try, I can't make myself buy into the stuff about spells and meditation. I like the philosophy behind all of it, and the respect they have for people, and wildlife, and the planet, but when it comes time to chant at a candle for an hour, trying to achieve my 'starlight vision' of the universe, then my inner skeptic comes out her hiding place in my head and starts laughing at me. I guess all those years of watching the ol' time preacher screaming and ranting to his dumb-ass congregation just trained me to not take any religion seriously, not even the good ones.

And now these brave, peace-loving soldiers of Jesus are going to toss me into that fire, so they can go to heaven for their good deed. Maybe they'll go bomb an abortion clinic later, too, just to make absolutely sure that the kindly, gray-bearded daddy-figure upstairs is happy with 'em.

The two by the fire had finished their task, and one of them bent to pick up a moderately bulky bag from the ground nearby. He walked across the twenty feet or so to where she lay bound, and he was a big enough man to easily manage his burden.

He still needed two buddies with him before he felt brave enough to jump me, She thought, trying to shore up her own confidence, which was pretty non-existent at this point.

Backlit as he was by the fire she couldn't see the man's features, but the flickering light fell full upon her own face. Seeing that her eyes were open, he stopped short.

"She's awake."

Leigh opened her mouth to answer, but someone else beat her to it.

"I know. She's been watching you boys build the fire for a couple of minutes now."

That had come from right behind her, and she twisted her head to look and see who it was.

Medium height, wiry build, short dark hair and just a hint of Hispanic blood in the cast of his features. He was wearing a dark tee shirt and jeans, with the heavy work boots he wore to his construction job. She knew for a fact that he worked construction, because she knew him.

She knew him all too well.

"Evan…."

Her voice was slurred just a little; her mouth was swollen from the blows he had inflicted earlier, but he only grinned down at her even as he moved to take the sack from the other man. Drawing a heavy-bladed knife from a sheath at his side, he made a small cut at one corner of the bag. Putting away the blade, he tipped the sack, carefully spilling a thin stream of white powder into the grass near Leigh's head. As she stared, he moved backwards step by slow step, leaving a trail of white as he went. After a moment he changed directions, making a sharp angle in the line he was drawing, and she realized he was drawing a pentacle around her.

With a moan of despair, she let her aching head fall back into the grass and stared up at the stars.

I don't believe it; things are actually worse than I thought. It isn't christians at all; it's anti-christians.

Take a severe, negative religion founded on the threat of hideous, eternal torture, and then twist that into something even darker, and you had the only thing that had fit her ex-boyfriend.

"So, how's the Satanist thing going for you, Evan?"

Keeping the utter terror that filled her out of her voice proved more difficult than she'd hoped, and the faint quiver made him laugh out loud.

"Fine, thanks." He answered, sounding pleased at the fear he heard. At the edges of the starfield above her, she could just see the top of his head as he continued around her, using the same powder that was used to mark the white lines on playing fields for sporting events to draw the pattern around her. "Better than the witchy stuff is working for you, huh?" He leaned over her for a moment, just so she could see the smirk on his face. "Have you 'found yourself' yet? You were always talking about how great it was, having a goddess to relate to, someone to love you, instead of just a big ol' guy with a white beard layin' down the law and sending you to hell if you didn't toe the line." Evan raised an eyebrow, feigning puzzlement. "But wait; if it's so wonderful, why aren't you at your little witchy get-together right now?"

Leigh had to look away from his mocking eyes. She should have been at the coven meeting, she'd actually driven to Marne's house, where they gathered on the night of each full moon, and on each the eight seasonal celebrations. When she'd arrived tonight, though, she had sat in the car and stared at the house, hesitated for a long moment… and driven on by. Heading home, she had been forced to face the truth.

I just can't do it. I want something spiritual in my life, something deeper than what I can see and touch… but at the same time I'm too rational to believe in fairy tales. As beautiful as the whole Wicca thing is, as wonderful as it all sounds and as kind as the people involved with it are, I just can't let go of reality like they do.

And as a result she was caught in the middle; she felt like an idiot for trying to believe, and like a loser for failing in the attempt. Not that she was going to tell Evan any of that.

Her silence only made his grin widen.

"I'll bet the other lesbos really miss you being there tonight, but they'll go on without you, praying to the moon, or doing poetry readings, or whatever the hell it is you sluts do… when you're not doing each other."

The terror didn't lessen, but it did move over just a bit, making room for anger. If she could have gotten her hands out from behind her at that moment she would have slammed a fist into his groin. As it was, all she could do was glare.

"Actually, most of them aren't lesbians, not that it's any of your damned business." Her lips twisted in bitter remembrance. "And you know for a fact that I'm not one."

He raised his eyebrows at that.

"Really? Then how come you left me?"

That was easy for her to answer.

"Because you're an asshole!" It came out as a shout, and she followed it with a long, piercing scream as all her fear and outrage finally found voice. When she found words again she threw them out into the night as loudly as she could. "Help me! Somebody, please help me this stupid ugly bastard is gonna kill meeeeee!"

She went through several variations on that theme in the next minute or two, and Evan winced from the volume, but seemed unconcerned otherwise. That nonchalance went a long way towards killing any remaining hope that she would get out of this with her life.

When she fell silent, her throat raw, he shot her a grin.

"That's better. Nobody's going to hear you if you yell, but I've really got to get this right." He went back to his drawing, making sure he made the design too large for her to easily reach the lines.

"Big night tonight, with the Summer Solstice." He noted. Leigh had turned her head as far away from him as possible, noting in passing how crudely his pentacle was drawn, and surprising herself by feeling outrage that he could so pervert such an ancient symbol of witchcraft. Even though she couldn't bring herself to accept the religion fully, it still infuriated her to see any aspect of it defiled in such a fashion.

Evan, oblivious as always, set the bag of powder aside before continuing. "You know, I'll bet you're the only witch in the world who isn't off somewhere, doing some stupid, pointless Wicca crap right now." He crouched beside her, reaching out to grab her roughly by her hair. "I suppose that means that none of them are around to save you, huh? Not that anyone would waste their time with a worthless bitch like you anyway." Evan leaned close, so close that his lips brushed her ear.

"Forget about that goddess crap, babe. I've been working on something since we broke up." She wasn't looking at him, would not look at him, but she still saw the flash of white teeth from the corner of her eye. "Tonight you're gonna see some for-real magic. No poetry, no chanting or dancing." Using his grip on her hair, he forced her to face him, and in the building firelight his eyes were bright; manic… and on the brink of madness.

"Tonight, we're going to get real."

Tonight was a night of power, and perhaps that once would have mattered to her, but no longer. Now, instead of a celebration that would have warmed her soul, a time that she would have spent in the loving company of witches male and female, young and old alike, the seasonal turning only emphasized what she spent most of her time trying to forget.

Kenna realized her mistake when she found herself ready to leave a full twenty minutes before the limousine was scheduled to pick her up. Facing that utterly empty span of time with nothing and no one to occupy her attention, she came very close to panicking.

The emptiness that constantly hummed at her core could surge upwards in such moments, and had on occasion, once it was free, held her in its grip for months at a time. She had no urge to go to that place within herself right now, had no desire to wallow in despair and self-pity so deep that all of existence took on a grim, joyless pall.

Reflex sent her towards the television; surely nothing was more suited to numbing the mind against painful recollections than a little channel surfing.

The massive (and massively-expensive) unit sat neglected along with the other components of the home theatre system her agent had given her for christmas the previous year. She picked up the remote, spending the usual few moments deciphering the myriad brightly-colored buttons and their accompanying cryptic symbols. Finally locating the On button she touched it with a fingertip… but did not press it. With a sigh she replaced the remote on the shelf and turned away. She could find something else; for whatever reason it did not feel like an attack was likely right now.

Besides, television had never been something she was particularly interested in; the comedic antics of sit-coms left her unamused and feeling vaguely embarrassed for the characters, the dramas showed her nothing she hadn't seen played out more poignantly in real life, and the news programs only served to depress her. Wandering slowly across the open central area of her luxury penthouse suite, Kenna warily contemplated the old loneliness that lay within her. It might be semi-dormant now, but it was still as strong now as ever it had been. Having money was nice, being surrounded by beautiful things was comforting, in a distant sort of way, but….

But I want more. She thought, bleakly. I thought that perhaps modeling would help, that if I was the center of attention in even so small a small way, then it would all seem less… empty. But I was wrong.

One wall of the room was hung with photos of her from various modeling shoots, and the section of framed magazine covers on which she was featured had grown quickly over the last two years, as her star had risen in the fashion industry. She was not quite a supermodel, not yet, but her agent had high hopes for the coming season.

Kenna sighed, the long nails of her perfectly-manicured hand gleaming softly as she reached out to lightly touch one of the glass-covered images.

And so Kenna Aeddaer, the lonely, beautiful, wealthy young woman, will be going to a party alone tonight, where her agent will be introducing her to yet more photographers, magazine editors, millionaire playboys and rock and roll musicians-slash-drug addicts, and any one of them will be more than happy to come back here with her and shag her brains out. And she's done it before, let's not pretend she hasn't.

Looking away from the various photos of herself strutting down the fashion runway, or posing for the camera in various exotic locales, she found her reflection looking out from an antique mirror that hung a few feet away. The image within the glass was no less lovely than those gracing the covers; pale, flawless face, haunting grey-green eyes and waist-length hair the color of an October sunset. She knew herself to be gorgeous, knew it without letting more than just a little self-satisfaction shape her attitude.

At least, she hoped it was just a little.

I've always looked like this, She thought, idly combing her nails through the soft strands that framed her face. And yes, I do like it, but to be honest, it's the least part of who I am.

Her looks had certainly opened doors in the modeling community, though. With a face and body that were by any modern definition well-nigh perfect, opportunities had come quickly.

As had those individuals who sought her out, out of a desire for conquest, or for boasting rights, or for simple, animal lust. And Kenna, who was, perhaps, more vulnerable than most when it came to promises of comfort, and affection, and attention, had tried over and over again to find within those individuals something of what she had lost… but every time she had been disappointed.

Not that they hadn't wanted her; on some level each of them had.

But being –wanted- isn't the same thing as being –needed-, is it? She silently asked her reflection. Her eyes looked back at her, the answer floating within their depths.

No. Not the same thing at all; and I miss being needed.

I miss it so much.

From across the room a soft chime sounded; Stephen was downstairs with the limo, waiting for her. She took a deep breath, stepping back to survey herself as best she could in the small mirror. Even if she found the whole thing increasingly unsatisfying, she owed it to Donna, her agent, to be presentable tonight. Of course no sooner than she had thought it she saw the glaringly obvious run in her stockings. She scowled, bending slightly to survey the damage. Predictably, it was bad, running from the hem of her designer-original silver mini-dress, down her leg, nearly to the upper straps of her white heels.

Why didn't I notice this when I needed something to occupy me? She wondered, then dismissed the thought. Stephen wouldn't begrudge her the minute or two it would take to change, but she needn't delay even that long. It took a moment, a long pause which brought a frown of concentration to that beautiful face, and a single tiny crease of effort between her gracefully upswept brows, but then a faint shimmer danced over the material of her stockings.

My; it's been so long I'd nearly forgotten how to do it.

The ghostly glimmering died away, leaving only smooth, unmarked silk behind. She ran her fingers lightly down the material, making sure of the repair.

There. A petty use of power, I know, but it's not like I was using it for anything else.

She hurried across to where her purse lay, gathering it up and making sure she had her keys, hairbrush, and makeup inside. All of those items, too, could have been done away with, their functions performed with minor uses of the ability she had just used, but except for rare, minor transgressions, that was not her way. The magic is just like the rest of it; pointless, without purpose. Using it only makes me wish that things were different, and wishing doesn't make it so… not even for me.

Kenna left the empty apartment without looking back. She had somewhere to go, and if she tried very hard then perhaps she could at least pretend that someone would be genuinely glad to see her when she arrived there.

There were four men in the clearing where she lay, now, and Leigh didn't like the looks of any of them. Not so much their appearances; only one of them was really what she would call ugly. No, this was more in the way they held themselves, as if they were continually tensed, ready to lunge forward without warning, or maybe it was the feral vacancy in the eyes that all of them seemed to have in common….

Laeira would say that I was sensing the darkness inside them, She thought, trying once more to shift her arms enough to regain circulation. She's always going on about how people can train themselves to see beyond the physical, if they practice their meditations long enough, and learn how to stop shutting everything out.

For herself, that was just one more aspect of Wicca that Leigh had never been able to accept. If mental powers were real, if psychic abilities really were such a big part of the religion, why hadn't anyone ever been able to prove it? If all these practitioners of witchcraft were really out there, doing magic that worked, how come someone hadn't done something tangible with their power?

No, the simple truth was, it was all just wishful thinking.

She certainly didn't need any special mental abilities to determine that the four men staring at her had less than friendly intentions. The expressions on their faces were almost enough to make her wish Evan would hurry back from wherever he'd gone.

Almost.

After he had finished threatening her, her old boyfriend had spent a minute putting the finishing touches on the crude diagram he'd outlined on the ground, and then trotted off into the woods. Now, she heard the distant sound of a car door slamming from that direction.

More equipment for whatever ritual he thinks he can do here. Leigh thought uncomfortably. I'm not afraid that he's going to actually do something, like cast a spell or whatever; none of that stuff is for real. What really scares me is what he's going to do to me after his little magic trick doesn't work.

Evan had always been the sort that was easily frustrated. When she'd first met him, while doing some research in the university library, he had seemed like a great guy; charming, attentive, a lot of fun to be around. He had been very impressed with her ability to ferret out the locations of rare, old volumes, something at which he tended to have very little luck. She'd been spending a lot of time researching ancient religions, trying to find something purer, something more… primal, than the faith she had rejected back in her teens. Evan, too, was interested in obscure religious texts, even if he was somewhat evasive when it came to explaining why. She hadn't been inclined to press him; her own reasons for investigating the subject were embarrassing enough, she didn't want to scare him off by telling him that she was looking for the roots of something she'd begun to catch glimpses of in certain books, and in some very odd corners of the internet. Most people wouldn't understand her fascination with a religion that featured both a God and a Goddess, opposites of each other but neither of them evil; two equal aspects of infinity which complimented each other instead of being warring factions, neither of them living in a hell where 'sinners' were punished, and with no rigid, smothering doctrine which must be meticulously adhered to lest one's soul be damned forever. What she had found, she'd liked, and it had lead her further down what she hoped would ultimately be a fulfilling path.

However, it didn't take long for her to notice that whatever it was that Evan was finding in his own searches of the library's texts, it wasn't to his liking. Soon he had abandoned his project altogether, which was fine with her since that meant that their occasional dates became more frequent. He seemed genuinely interested in her, was willing to listen to her talk about anything and everything, though when her reading led her to search out and make contact with a group of local practitioners of the old religion, ('witches', as they preferred to be called, though that word still made her Christian-conditioned mind cringe every time she heard it), his interest in her quest grew more intense, almost… obsessive.

After a few weeks, his occasional, idle questions about her coven and their activities had become something akin to an interrogation that took place after each gathering she attended, and he seemed more interested in reading the texts and notes on Wicca, both past and present, that she had gathered in her studies on the matter than in spending time alone with her. When she had finally had enough and broke off their relationship, he had taken it badly. A week afterwards, her apartment had been broken into, and some items stolen. She had no proof, but she had known that it was Evan, for the only things that had been taken were her books and papers on the history of Wicca; nothing that could be easily found in a bookstore, only the obscure works that had been the most difficult to obtain.

It was only afterwards that one of her college friends had heard and relayed to her the rumors that he was involved in some manner of occult practices, possibly Satanism.

Leigh had been inclined to dismiss that out of hand; to most people, what she herself was doing came under the heading of 'devil worship', though that couldn't have been further from the truth. Still, Evan's increasingly erratic behavior, and his fervor to learn everything he could of her religion without actually taking part in it, had left her with an uneasy feeling.

However, when weeks had turned to months with no sign of him, she had successfully pushed him out of her thoughts.

Until tonight.

Looking at the four men standing there waiting made her stomach hurt worse than it already did, so Leigh craned her head and looked towards where the sound of the slamming car door had come from. Facing away from the bonfire like that, she was able to see the skyglow of the city over the trees.

They didn't take me too far away after all, She thought, and despite herself she felt hope stir. If I can get loose while they're doing whatever Evan's got planned, I can find help.

The only problem with that was getting loose. She wasn't tied with rope, she had been bound with duct tape; what felt like an entire roll of it, and no matter how she struggled the stuff refused to shift so much as an inch. Plucking at it with her fingers only brought sickening lances of agony from her abused hands, and she soon had to desist. Through the tears brought by her pain and despair, she saw Evan reenter the clearing. He carried a book bound in dark leather, and a sheathed knife so long that it was practically a sword.

It was the sword that really frightened her; if he wanted to recite the bible backwards at her, or play old Danzig CDs or whatever it was that Satanists did during their rituals, that was fine, but she did not want to see what Evan would do with a knife.

Other than flashing a brief, anticipatory grin at Leigh as he unsheathed the long blade, he did not waste any time acknowledging her. Instead, he gestured his four companions into positions at the other points of the pentacle he'd drawn around her, placing himself at the point closest to the bonfire. As a result his shadow fell across where she lay, and his face was lost in darkness as he opened the book to a point about three-quarters in and began to read aloud.

"Affero nox noctis, creatura flamma, exigo despero…."

Leigh listened as he stumbled through the phrases, wondering if he had the least clue as to what he was reading, or if he were just sounding out the words.

My Latin isn't so good, but I think he's saying…'Bringer of Darkness, Creature of Fire, Ender of Hope, I summon you.' Well, isn't that just too cute.

She would have laughed, under different circumstances. As it was, her face was twisted into a sort of frozen smirk. It probably wasn't a good idea, especially when all five of them were gathered around where they could easily see her expression, but she couldn't help it.

Evan is just so very far away from my idea of an Evil Sorcerer. I mean, even if this stuff did work, he didn't do any preparation at all. Her weeks with the coven of witches, who worked innocuous 'spells' designed to help both others and themselves in subtle ways, had given her a look at what spellcasting actually involved. The witches treated it as serious business, with precautions taken against accidental effects and always exercising special care to handle the 'energy' they gathered as carefully as possible. I could never really believe in it, but all the same most of what they did made sense to me. You create a work space by casting a circle; a magical barrier to contain and focus the forces you're dealing with. Once that's done, you clear the circle of any influence or energy that was already there, so that it won't interfere with what you're going to be invoking. Then you call on various spirit powers to strengthen and reinforce what you've done with your own will and concentration, and then you're set.

They always stressed to me that most of the ritualized stuff was just a play; a set of keys that over time your subconscious mind would learn to accept as cues for dealing with the world in a different way. That part, I could almost buy into; when they talked about the psychology aspects of it, and how a lot of what they did was just talking to an older, deeper part of the human mind, I was pretty comfortable with it. But then they would go off on how 'hostile beings' and 'dark forces' were out there, and you had to be careful otherwise they would get you… that sounded too much like the boogie-man to me, and I grew out of that stuff a long time ago.

Although, staring up at Evan's silhouette, backlit by leaping flame and holding a gleaming blade, she had to admit that at least some form of malicious, 'hostile being' most certainly had managed to 'get her'.

That silhouetted figure loomed suddenly closer, breaking off his speech in mid-word and leaning close to her.

"Is something funny?" He growled, only the gleam of his eyes visible with the backlighting from the fire.

Leigh shook her head, frantically trying to decide what to do.

I don't want to piss him off, but anything that makes him take more time has to be a good thing. Maybe I can stretch this out long enough for someone to notice the fire and come to see what's going on.

"Ah, well," She had to clear her throat before going on; it felt so tight from the tension gripping her that it was difficult to speak normally. "I was just thinking that, for all the time you spent listening to me talk about how witches do magic, you're not doing a very good job of it."

That came out a little more taunting than she'd been hoping for, and his eyes narrowed.

"Oh, really?" Sarcasm dripped from the words, and he knelt there beside her, the knife uncomfortably close. "And just what am I doing wrong, in your educated opinion?"

He was sounding almost too reasonable, which was a danger sign with him, but now that she'd started it seemed just as dangerous not to go on with it.

"A couple of t-things." She swallowed, fighting against the nervous tremors that were racking her. She was so scared; whatever Evan did to her, the other four men wouldn't stop him. She could see it in their faces, looking at her now with either utter emptiness, or worse; anticipation. She wrenched her gaze back to their leader. "For one, you're breaking your pentacle right now." She indicated the ground with a jerk of her head, where his knee rested inside the design he had traced out. "Whatever you're going to do here, that can't be good." He looked down, then, moving with exaggerated care, repositioned himself.

"Anything else?"

She still couldn't make out his face against the light from the fire, but his shoulders looked tight, like he was holding himself rigid, under ruthless control to keep from doing something violent. Leigh tried to think of a way to defuse things.

What I need is something to break up this little party, maybe…. She glanced at the other four men, still waiting silently. Maybe I could make some of them leave? If one or two of them took off, then Evan wouldn't have his five for whatever this is. Paranoid bastard that he is, he might even get worried that one of them was on his way to the cops or something.

"Okay, how about raising power?" She asked, trying her best to sound helpful. "You guys didn't do anything at all; you're doing your incantation completely cold." He just stared at her, and she hurried onwards. "If you don't call the Guardians, o-or whatever it is you use, then all you've got is the power from you and these others, right?" None of the other four stirred, they just kept staring, and it was really starting to freak her out, even beyond the point she had already reached. "The, uh, absolute least thing you need from your help, here, is for them to back you up. Maybe a basic supporting chant, with them singing something over and over, to add their power to yours."

God knows—dammit-- Goddess knows I did enough chanting during the rituals we did at Marne's house. I can give them one to do, one of the sillier-sounding ones; maybe it'll embarrass them into stopping this.

"And, you know, if you're really going to do something big, you might want to raise more energy by, uh…."

She'd been about to suggest they dance, which any Wicca would instantly agree was a great way to raise mystical energy. It also had the great advantage of being something that most men would have a real aversion to, at least initially, even normal, mentally-balanced men. These guys, with their ultra-serious, badder-than-thou attitudes, would never so something so damaging to their macho image. If Evan agreed, then he would likely have an instant mutiny on his hands, which was exactly what she needed.

She had been about to say it, yes, but the words froze in her throat as Evan shifted position slightly, reaching out with the hand in which he held the long, glittering knife.

"I appreciate the advice, babe," He said, laying the edge of the blade across her collarbone. "But the thing is, I'm not much for singing and dancing, and neither are my boys." Leigh stayed absolutely still, not even daring to breathe, but she feared it was too late to worry about triggering the man's violent nature. Without warning, he drew the sharp steel across her skin, not applying much pressure, but still opening a long, shallow cut. She cried out, but that only seemed to please him. "Y'see, I didn't do any of the preliminaries because we have you." He flicked the blade towards one point of the pentacle, sending a few drops of her blood to land in the white powder forming the lines. Turning back to her, he extended the knife again, and though she tried to pull away her range of movement was too limited to offer any chance of evading him. Another quick movement with the blade, and another cut was opened, this one across the outside of her shoulder. Again, he sprinkled blood over the pattern, repeating the process over and over until there were a total of five small cuts adorning her upper body. The fabric of her blouse kept her from seeing just how bad it was, but she could feel the warmth of the blood spreading slowly outwards from the wounds. She wanted to scream, but with him right there, holding the now red-stained knife, her throat was completely locked.

Evan smiled, nodding in satisfaction.

"See? Your blood, and your fear." He stood, stepping back to his place and raising his book once more. "That's all the power we'll need. And if we have to drain you dry to get what we're after, then that's okay with me."

Lying there, bleeding and afraid, Leigh had no words, no sound beyond the voice within her own mind.

He really is crazy. Completely and totally insane… and he's going to kill me. The halting Latin resumed, and she didn't even bother puzzling the words out; it didn't matter what he was saying, none of it mattered. Unless a random jogger happened by, or a police helicopter decided to investigate the open fire, she was not going to get out of here alive.

Evan, so lost in his madness that he actually believed his old book plus her blood was raising some kind of magic, kept on reading.

"—Sorry, Donna, but I'm going to be a little late in getting to the party." Kenna tried her best to sound disappointed; it wasn't her hardworking agent's fault that her most successful client had grown disillusioned with the glamour of such high-society events as this one.

"But Kenna," The voice coming through her cell phone was a bit shrill, frustration edging dangerously close to whining. "We've had this planned for weeks! This is your chance to meet the people who can take you to the next level!"

The woman laid a slim hand over the phone for a moment, ignoring the resultant muffled sounds as she cocked her head slightly. While the car in which she rode was not a full-sized limo (she found those a bit too ostentatious even for her tastes), it remained a wondrously luxurious vehicle, and its interior was very quiet indeed. Nevertheless, she was hearing something, had been hearing it since leaving her penthouse apartment twenty minutes earlier. Not a sound, exactly, but still something which could not be ignored.

"We're getting closer, but it is still another mile or two at least, Stephen."

The driver's eyes met hers in the rear-view mirror, and he nodded. He had been with her for some time, and was accustomed to her occasional odd whims. This particular whim had them heading out of the city, into an area that had been mostly left behind as other parts of Manhattan had been developed. Kenna leaned back and let the leather-covered seat cradle her as she raised the phone to her ear once more.

"I'm sorry, Donna. You were saying?"

"What I was saying was, just what is so important that it's worth risking your career over?"

At that, the young woman could only sigh.

"Would you believe me if I told you that I didn't know?"

There followed a moment of silence, doubtless caused by Donna counting silently to ten in an effort to control herself, for which Kenna was duly grateful. When the older woman continued, it was in a decidedly conciliatory tone.

"Listen to me dear. If this is about you needing, ah, something to help you relax before you have to deal with all these important people, all you have to do is ask." The young woman in the car closed her eyes, pressing her fingertips briefly against her temple as the well-meaning agent prattled on. "I mean, it's understood that modeling is a high-pressure occupation, and heaven knows you wouldn't be the first client I've had who needed a little 'help' staying calm when things got crazy—"

Kenna opened her eyes. Whatever it was she was sensing, it was close now.

"Donna, relax. There's no need to call the pharmacy, and I'll be there as soon as I can. Goodbye."

She turned off the device before replacing it in the cradle designed to hold it. A moments consideration followed before she spoke again.

"Turn left the next chance you get, Stephen. Whatever it is, it's somewhere in those woods."

"Yes, ma'am."

The car slowed, and as it did she sat quietly, wondering just what it was that had touched her so unexpectedly, and whether it might mean an end to her long isolation.

"Affero nox noctis, creatura flamma, exigo despero! Aedammair!"

It seemed like forever, but the reading, and the cutting, and the terror had probably only been going on for half an hour. Early on, Leigh had found her voice again, and had screamed long and loud. Evan had been pleased at first, noting aloud that the more fear she felt, the better things would be. It wasn't long, though, before he got annoyed at having his reading drowned out by her cries, and proceeded to kick her in the stomach as hard as he could, leaving her curled up on her side, protecting herself as much as she could manage, and gasping for breath. After that, she was quiet, except for small, involuntary cries when he reached the end of a passage and used his knife to inflict another small cut.

After the fourth or fifth repetition he was looking a little anxious, and even his four followers were starting to fidget a bit. Leigh, recovered enough to speak, if not enough to shout, cleared her throat.

"Evan, he's not going to come." Her voice was a croak, barely recognizable as her own, but the clearing was silent except for the crackle of the fire and the frantic turning of pages as the man struggled to find a more effective passage in his black book, and her words carried clearly. "If you're expecting Satan to pop in here and pat you on the head or whatever… it's not going to happen."

The dark-haired man looked up from the page he was scanning, a sneer tugging at his mouth as he stared down at her.

"You don't know anything about this, bitch."

Leigh held his gaze, trying to reach whatever bit of him still clung to sanity.

"Listen to me, about this stuff I do know something." Her chest hurt every time she drew breath, her mouth and jaw pained her with every word, but it was either speak or die. "This is the same thing that kept me from going to the Solstice celebration tonight. Those people, those witches, they try and conjure things too. They have these rituals to invoke the God, and the Goddess—" But they don't tie anyone up, or cut anyone to ribbons, to do it. "—and they think they feel a 'presence' when they do, but it's not real." He was just looking at her, holding that damn book and that damned, bloody knife, with no more comprehension in his eyes than if she had spoken in Japanese. "Evan, if it were real, then everyone would be doing it. Calling down their own, personal God or Devil every full moon, or new moon, or Solstice, and Equinox, and maybe every second Tuesday for a direct line to heaven!" He scowled at that, and she took a painful breath before going on more carefully. "Okay, or hell, whichever. But think it through; how many little groups like yours are there in the world, do you think? Wouldn't every one of them already have immortality, or ultimate power, or whatever it is you want, if Satan answered to this kind of thing?" He was still staring at her, and she wanted desperately to start screaming again. "Evan, it's pointless to kill me for a ritual that isn't going to work!"

There was quiet for several seconds following that, and when he finally answered it was in a low, strange voice.

"But it will work, Leigh. You made sure of that."

She stared at him, completely lost now.

"What?!"

He nodded, and for a few moments his eyes held none of the hate and resentment that had become so much a part of him.

"I had tried everything, done every kind of spell I could find, and nothing had ever happened. I tried sacrificing dogs, and cats, and goats… but it never worked."

She nodded, hoping this was a way out.

"It never worked, and that's because it isn't—"

He overrode her.

"It never worked because I was doing it wrong." He smiled at her then, he actually smiled at her. "But then I met you, and you showed me where I was messing up."

She shook her head a bit, trying to clear the cobwebs from her brain, but it didn't help.

"I showed you?"

"Yes. And this was the key." He held up the book he had been reading from, displaying it proudly. It took a few seconds, but Leigh finally recognized it.

"The Libram Lamia Diabolus…."

He nodded, looking down and stroking the ancient leather cover.

"That's right; 'The book of witch's demons'." He looked up at her, his face earnest. "This talks about all the devils and demons your kind makes bargains with. When I got this from you, and read the notes and translations you'd done, I knew this was what I had been missing."

Leigh shook her head, wondering if there was any chance she could make him understand the truth of what he held.

"Evan, that book… it's wrong. It's just like the Malleus Maleficarum; it was even written at almost the same time." That book, the 'Hammer of Witches', dated back to 1487, and for over three hundred years it served as the guidebook by which suspected witches were tried, tortured, and put to death. Hundreds of thousands of women, possibly many more, had died during that time, and largely because of the ignorance, intolerance, and outright hatred given voice in that book. "Evan, anything you found in there, it's either just made-up stories, or else it's twisted so far from the truth that it has no relation to reality at all." She'd found the old, battered copy of the Libram Lamia Diabolus in the library's sorely neglected collection, misfiled under 'Latin Literature'. It was probably too valuable to be loaned out to a student, but the work was so incredibly obscure that no one else there realized what it was.

Obscure, and like she'd just said, having no bearing whatsoever on anything besides Catholic paranoia in the Middle Ages.

"What does that book have to do with all of this?"

He grinned, like a child with a secret too good not to share.

"I told you; it showed me what I was doing wrong. You see, in a way you're right; hundreds, maybe thousands of people try to invoke Lucifer every day. And on top of that, there's thousands and thousands of preachers and rabbis and what have you, talking about him too. With all that, with all that 'noise' getting in the way, it's no wonder he can't hear the real calls." He said that so calmly, so seriously that Leigh's last hopes of reasoning with him faded away. "But in here," He brandished the book at her again. "This lists all the most powerful demons that witches used to worship, the ones that gave them magical power in exchange for sacrifices." Now it was his turn to stare at her pityingly, as if it were she who had lost all contact with reality. "Your kind forgot all this a long time ago. Now all you do is gather flowers, and clean up beaches, and dance and kiss and all the rest of that new-age feminist crap. You don't have any real power, anymore. But when this demon comes, I will have power." He stepped forward, and she couldn't help flinching away as he used the knife to make another shallow cut, flicking the blood at each corner of the pentacle. "Its name hasn't been spoken in centuries, you see. It will hear me, it will come. Especially since I'm using something much better than a goat for a sacrifice." Straightening, he administered an almost casual kick to her ribs. "What better gift for a creature of the pit, than a woman like you, damned to hell already for witchcraft, but too stupid to make it work?"

Despite the fresh pain, and the fear for her life, Leigh felt a flare of anger.

"Stupid? Me?!" A spate of coughing wracked her, and when it had passed she tasted blood in her mouth. "You're the idiot, Evan. That book doesn't list demons; that wasn't what I was looking for when I was translating it. It's a book of—"

Another kick, and this time she cried out as something inside her chest gave way.

"That's enough out of you." He stepped back into position, glancing at each of his four companions. "It will come, don't worry. And when it does, it will take her," He nodded to where Leigh was still trying to draw breath. "And in return it will give us all the power we could ever want."

Despite his confident words, something that looked very much like doubt seemed to flicker briefly across his face, and he took a moment to compose himself before finding the relevant passage in the book once more.

"Affero nox noctis, creatura flamma, exigo despero! Aedammair!"

They were very close to the source of it now, so as Kenna stepped out of the car she made sure to close the door quietly. Three other vehicles were already parked along the side of the dusty access road; a clear enough sign that something was taking place in the wooded area beyond.

It isn't really a forest, She mused, looking around. This is still New York, and there are urban developments in every direction, for miles and miles. These few acres, though, are remote enough, and wooded thickly enough, to give it the feel of somewhere very isolated.

Despite appearances, the spot was in fact a small, regional airport, apparently abandoned, with stands of small trees and dense vegetation growing unchecked on all sides of the single paved runway. The largest such area was at the end opposite the small hanger and attached sheds. The dense grove of weedy young trees might measure five or six hundred feet in across, and the entire airport area was surrounded by a tall chain-link fence topped with three strands of barbed wire. Looking in that direction, she could feel the disturbance which had caught her attention earlier. It was stronger now, and tinged with desperation. She had to go find out what it was; Kenna might almost have said that she was being drawn there against her will, but in truth she wanted to see.

"What are you going to do now, ma'am?"

Stephen's voice startled her, and she glanced over to find that he was standing beside the car and giving her a concerned look. She smiled at him, hoping to alleviate his fears.

"Oh, I was thinking of taking a little walk. Would you please wait here for a few minutes?"

He frowned, apparently having difficulty believing that she was serious, and Kenna sighed.

I suppose this goes beyond the limits of eccentric behavior to which even a fashion model is entitled.

"Forgive me for saying so, ma'am, but this is not the sort of thing a woman like you should be doing."

He was concerned for her safely, which she found quite sweet, but the voice resonating within her was louder than ever, calling desperately now, and she shook her head at the driver.

"No, Stephen, you're wrong." She turned her face towards the trees; she was close enough now to feel the faintest prickle along her skin…. "This is exactly the kind of thing a woman like me should be doing." He was confused now, as well as concerned, and she moved one hand in a small gesture. "Please, don't worry. I'll be back soon." Ordinarily he would have argued, perhaps even flatly refused to let her go in there alone, but the subtle wash of power she sent along with the words had him nodding unhappily and getting back behind the wheel to wait.

I hate to do that to him; he's a good man. Kenna began walking, her expensive, impractical shoes utterly silent as she moved between the parked cars, then crossed the gravel verge that bordered the fence. As she had expected, there was a gap in the metal mesh, where the barrier had been cut away. Careful not to snag her long hair on a protruding bit of wire, she ducked through, then headed towards the dark mass of trees ahead.

As she traversed the expanse of tall grass between fence and grove, the woman was met by a sudden breeze. Much cooler than any summer wind had a right to be, it wrapped itself around her like a familiar garment. From the far distance came the sound of hooves rhythmically striking the earth, as if a horse, or possibly a forest-born stag were pacing her, just beyond the limits of sight.

Kenna smiled softly, for a moment so lost in the past that for a moment she came near to forgetting the reason she'd come to this place.

The old powers remember; of course they would. It is only people who forget.

That thought made her lips twist with bitterness, but she quickly brushed the feeling aside. What mattered, here and now, was discovering just what was taking place beyond the sheltering trees. As she stepped in among the slender trunks, the first glimmer of firelight reached her searching eyes, and the nature of that fire was instantly clear.

Ash and Cedar?! It was not a familiar thing for her to be so completely surprised, but this was something she had never thought to see again, even in her wildest dreams. But how--?

Such questions would have to wait. Moving towards the inner border marked by the trees, she surveyed the scene before her. A young woman, pretty, if not beautiful, lay bound and bleeding among five men. One of them, the one holding the knife and the book, was speaking some very interesting phrases, albeit badly.

She thought for a moment to observe, to watch and discern more clearly the shape of what was taking place, but now that she was this close the call could not be ignored. Without hesitation she stepped into the clearing.

Evan was on his thirtieth or so repetition of the verses by this point, and Leigh was pretty sure that she was slipping into shock. Sometimes, between cycles of reading and cursing he would drag his ceremonial knife across her torso, to freshen the blood that was drying to a sticky coating on the metal. The top she was wearing had been cut into tatters; the only thing holding it on her at all was the adhesive action of her blood. Staring upwards with blurring eyes, she tried to ignore the sound of his voice, and focus instead on the sky. At some point the low-hanging clouds had cleared away to reveal a wonderful expanse of stars. Living as she did in a huge city like New York she didn't often see so many; the haze and light pollution usually obscured them. Tonight, though, they blazed with a nearly unnatural clarity. It probably had something to do with the odd chill that suddenly hung in the air.

Or maybe that's just me, and the blood loss. Leigh thought wearily, as she shivered. This is still late June, and it's still plenty warm. The breeze is just making me think that it suddenly cooled off.

"C'mon, man, this isn't working!"

She blinked, rolling her head far enough to the side to see that one of the heretofore silent men had moved from his place and was glaring challengingly at Evan. For his part, the director of the night's festivities was looking decidedly unhappy at the interruption.

"Shut up, Craig," He snapped, brandishing his knife at the man. "It is too working, I can feel something happening." Licking his lips, he turned his attention back to the book he held. "Just let me go through it one more time—"

"You've gone through it enough." Craig replied. He was a big man, bigger than Evan and seemingly accustomed to getting his way. "I think what we need to do is kill the girl," He looked down to where Leigh was looking back at him with wide eyes. "If we're going to sacrifice her, then let's get it over with." He had a knife of his own in one hand, though were it had come from she hadn't seen. "Once her tainted soul is part of the mix, the demon will come."

Evan looked ready to argue; not in any kind of bid to save Leigh, but simply to maintain his leadership role.

"Listen to me; I'm the one running things here. I found the book, I figured out the ritual, I'm the one who'll decide when she's gonna get—"

Leigh didn't hear the rest. She'd turned her head away from both of them; she did not want to listen to these two monsters in human form talking about how soon they were going to finish killing her. Of course, there were still the other three men in position around her, but she found she could stare between them, off into the darkness of the surrounding trees. Other than the stars overhead, they were the most peaceful, most tranquil part of the entire….

She squinted, unsure for a moment if her eyes were somehow tricking her. There, at the edge of the firelit clearing, stood a woman. Even as Leigh tried to decide if this were another symptom of extreme blood loss, maybe some kind of wishful-thinking hallucination, the figure moved forward, straight towards her and her captors.

Someone came! She exulted, wishing she had enough energy to shout for joy. Someone was driving by and saw the fire, and now--. She twisted her head, suddenly aware that the argument behind her had died away. Sure enough, both Evan and Craig were staring at the approaching woman. The excitement Leigh had felt just a moment before died a sudden death, leaving only sick dread in its wake.

--And now, two of us are going to die out here, instead of just me. She finished, bitterly.

The woman, however, knowing nothing of the danger she was in, came forward with a confident, graceful walk. It took only moments for her to approach closely enough for Leigh to make out her features.

She was beautiful; literally the most gorgeous woman Leigh had ever seen. A finely sculpted face, so pale that in the half-darkness it lent a strange, ethereal cast to her features. Her flowing, waist-length hair swirled in a sudden gust of wind, catching the light of the fire and throwing it back in a shimmering wash of orange and red. She looked to be dressed for an evening out, in a glittering silver minidress that was cut modestly enough, but still showed off one of those nearly impossible figures that millions of women –Leigh included—desperately wished they could have themselves. Her eyes coolly swept over the scene, taking it in with nothing of the fear and confusion that one would expect as a normal reaction to a situation involving five men, two of them with knives showing, and what was obviously their captive.

Leigh, cursing herself for having taken so long to get past her surprise, finally managed to cry out.

"Get out of here! Call the pol—" She broke off with a grunt as Evan kicked her in the stomach yet again.

"Shut up!" He growled, laying the tip of his blade across her cheek. Leigh, staring at the woman and desperately praying that she would turn and run, saw that she was instead simply standing there, watching the proceedings with no expression at all on her lovely face.

Craig, who at her shouted warning had half-lunged forwards in order to intercept the woman if she tried to flee, was momentarily taken aback by her failure to show any fear. After a few seconds, though, he headed towards her in a slow, menacing walk.

"No, you know better than to try and run, don't you?" He asked her, his eyes flicking over her features as he approached. "But what I'm wondering, is what brings such a swank piece of merchandise out here, in the middle of the—"

He was five feet away from her, knife held low at his side, his empty hand rising to reach for her, when it happened. Her eyes, shining like clear crystals in the light of the fire, flickered orange-red for an instant. Just for a heartbeat, so quick that it might have been only a trick of the uncertain light… but at that moment Craig went limp, and crashed to the ground where he lay very, very still.

"Craig?"

Evan still had the knife laying across her cheek, but everything else was focused on the woman, and what had just happened. His three remaining cohorts were staring too, and when they looked back at their leader their faces were drawn with sudden fear.

"Holy shit, Evan, it's one of those witches you said wouldn't come to save her!"

Striving to cover his own uncertainty, he gestured angrily with his knife.

"All of you; get her!"

The first one, the one who had spoken, stayed frozen in place. The other two, not as fearful, or maybe just less able to believe a woman could pose any real danger, threw themselves at the intruder.

For her part, the strange woman merely started forward again, stepping daintily over the fallen man as if he were just a random bit of filth she had happened upon in the road. When Evan's followers ran at her, their arms wide in anticipation of grabbing hold of her, she never broke stride.

Leigh's heart seemed to skip a beat, and her stomach fell away, much like it did when she was heading down on a very fast elevator. What she saw; the woman's form dissolving in a nearly instantaneous blur into a whirling mass of orange and yellow and red leaves… that couldn't be real. Neither could the way in which that swirl passed through the men's grasping arms, only to reform in a similarly impossible fashion, into the woman, still walking calmly forward, now nearly upon where Evan and his frozen assistant stood over her. A scent, like that of expensive perfume mixed with exotic spices, suddenly filled Leigh's nostrils. The two men who had been so effortlessly bypassed had whirled to stare after their intended prey, but they made no move to try again.

Suddenly, disconcertingly, Evan began to laugh. Leigh tore her eyes from the beautiful, impossible woman, and looked up at him, trying to understand what he found so funny. Shaking his head, laughing so hard that tears were squeezed from the corners of his eyes, the man drew away from her, stepping back a few paces. His mirth trailing away into sporadic chuckles, he saw her looking at him and waved a hand toward the stranger.

"No, don't look at me, babe; look at her." Of course she did, noting with startlement that the woman had stopped just beyond arm's reach. For someone wearing such high-heeled shoes, she moved with an impossible silence. Not to mention that she shouldn't have been able to get across that field, much less those woods, in shoes like that. Probably not high on the list of impossible things this person had just done, but Leigh's mind was set up to look at things it could understand.

People who could turn into whirlwinds of woodland debris and back again were not included in the category of understandable things.

"You were thinking I was crazy, weren't you?" Evan taunted. "You were telling me that all of this was a big crock of shit. Well, I guess it turned out that you were wrong after all." With a bright, almost proprietary smile, he gazed at the silver-clad woman.

"Meet Kennocha Aedammair; my demon."

The woman, her gaze fixed on Leigh, took a final, graceful step forward, then slowly lowered herself so that they were closer to eye level. With her knees together and turned to one side, she smoothed one hand over the hem of her dress in an absent gesture, somehow managing to keep everything covered even though that dress presented a definite shortage of material to work with. Evan, grinning widely now, was openly admiring the view.

"Damn, she is hot!" He raised the book he still held, waving it aimlessly as he stared. "I mean, your notes said that she was, that's part of why I picked her out of all of them, but I never thought she would be this—"

Leigh lost track of what he was saying, lost track of everything, as the woman's eyes looked into her own. They were pale, grey with a shade of green to them that seemed to change as the light changed, and they looked through her like she was a pane of glass. When her hand drifted up to touch Leigh's face, the battered woman didn't flinch; the thought never even occurred to her. She knew this woman, knew her, and not just as a name she had found months earlier, while translating Latin in a dusty book that history had all but forgotten.

Evan, still with that insufferable grin on his face, had shifted position slightly so that he had an unobstructed view of the proceedings.

"She's yours," He said, addressing the woman (demon?) directly for the first time. "I brought her here for you."

Her cool fingertips trailing lightly over Leigh's swollen jaw, the woman tilted her head slightly, her eyes still looking deeply into those of the captive.

"For me?"

Her voice was soft, and when she spoke the wind in the trees seemed to echo her words for long moments afterwards. Evan, looking a bit impatient, nodded.

"Yeah, you know, as a sacrifice?"

She still did not look at him. Leigh, still lost in those incredible eyes, was still able to note that there was no pain from where the other woman touched her injuries, not even when her fingers brushed lightly across one of the cuts inflicted by Evan's knife.

"This one is not yours to give, I think." She replied after a moment. Then, speaking in a near whisper, she leaned her head close to the woman who lay there, bound and helpless.

"Leigh," She said, "You've known a great deal of fear, tonight." The chill wind blew a spill of long, red-orange hair across her face like a silken veil, and she absently tucked it behind one ear before continuing. "What I'm curious know is, do you fear me?"

And despite everything, irregardless of all the pain, and terror, and despair she'd been living for the last hour or two, the answer to that came instantly to her lips.

"No."

Only after she'd said it did Leigh even bother to think it over, but the truth of her reply didn't change. No matter how insane all of this had become, or how what she had seen challenged everything her life had been so painstakingly built upon, she could never be afraid of this woman. Those eyes, so deep and fathomless, held a power and knowledge that she could never hope to understand… but what she saw there did not inspire fear; in fact, it was quite the opposite. She wasn't afraid anymore, at all. Not of Evan, or his friends, or anything else.

Everything would be alright now, of that she was certain.

And the reason was right there in front of her.

Kennocha Aedammair, named demon by the Catholic Church some five hundred years earlier, and one of Escharra magazine's 'ten top faces of the world' somewhat more recently, gave her a smile of such soft, wondrous beauty that Leigh felt her heart would break at the sight of it.

"Good." The woman –if woman she could be called—whispered back at her. Then she lightly stroked the seemingly endless loops of duct tape that held Leigh tight, and quietly, without fuss, the sticky material dissolved into a shower of dried, brittle leaves, and fell away.

Then she stood; a smooth, graceful movement, as all her movements seemed to be, and walked towards the fire. Leigh, helpless for the moment until circulation returned to her numb limbs, looked curiously at Evan. The man looked to have missed their exchange; he was busily shuffling through notes that were tucked into the book. Now, clearing his throat, he began to recite aloud once more.

"Ashtaroth, Behemoth, Mephisto, I call upon you now. You have answered my plea, and sent your minion forth into the world. Now place in my hands that which will leash this demon to my will…."

Leigh, rubbing awkwardly at her tingling wrists, turned away from him, looking instead to where Kennocha gone after leaving her side. 'Kennocha Aedammair', was an old Gaelic name which her studies had revealed meant something along the lines of 'Beautiful Fire', and it was to the fire she had moved now, standing so close to it that her outline was blurred by the dancing flames.

"—And she will obey my commands, as I obey yours. She will give me the power to bring chaos to the world of men, in your name, O dark lord." Evan paused for breath, glancing up to see what the red-haired woman was doing.

What he saw, what all of them who were watching saw, was the woman hold her hands before the fire for several moments, as if gauging its heat, and then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, she stepped in among the flames. Leigh gasped, and one of Evan's followers muttered a low string of profanities, but those were the only sounds. Kennocha, untouched by the bonfire's fierce flames, reached out her hands as if to caress the leaping column of orange that surrounded her.

With what looked to be considerable effort, Evan tore his eyes from he spectacle and resumed his invocation.

"Belial, Asmodius, Lucifer, hear me."

Kenna was not much impressed with the bonfire. Yes, it had been built using the Ash and Cedar woods which were sacred to her, but it had been done by men who knew nothing else of what she was, men who held nothing of her within their dark, twisted hearts. Without intent, without some bit of belief to reach into the worlds that lay beyond the merely physical, the fire was little more than an example of simple combustion.

Still, even poor tools could be made to serve an experienced craftsman. Her hair dancing and swirling around her in the pillar of rising heat where she stood, Kenna brought her hands together before her. An exercise of will brought the essence of the flame to pool above her palms; a sphere of denser, nearly liquid yellow-orange. Inhaling deeply, breathing the fire that surrounded her as naturally as a human breathed air, she laid her will upon the dancing flame. It acquiesced without struggle, willingly, even joyfully moving to obey her command. Smiling indulgently at the semi-sentient forces she was wielding, she raised the sphere overhead.

Leigh had managed to struggle to her knees, but when the flames flashed outwards reflex sent her back to sprawling flat on the ground. From Kennocha's upraised hands, a score or more narrow streams of brilliant flame snaked outwards with the speed of thought. Looking little thicker than a person's finger, they wove their way outwards in all directions, reaching nearly to the near edge of the encircling woods before stopping. The searingly bright streams seemed to pool there, each one forming a small sphere of fire which drifted there in mid-air. When the weaving streams suddenly ended, the floating flames remained. Leigh, warily sitting upright once more –and wincing at the dirt that had found its way into one of her many cuts-- carefully counted them.

--Twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven of them. Hm; three times three times three. Well, I suppose that makes as much sense as any of this.

Poor Evan, still under the impression that all was going according to plan, had paused again in his 'spellcasting' to watch the show, giggling all the while at the supernatural special effects. His minions, minus Craig of course, who was still sprawled motionless on the ground some ways off, looked uneasy, but their leader's confidence seemed to be holding them in place.

As for herself, Leigh had decided to just go with it, at least for now.

She only hoped her own notions as to just what was happening were closer to the truth than her ex-boyfriend's. When Kennocha stepped out of the bonfire, there was something subtly different about her. She was unmarked by the flames, still as ethereally beautiful as she had been when she entered, but there was a hint of wildness about her now. Her eyes held a cat-like glow as she regarded the humans standing before her, and unseen, primal energies seemed to crackle at her merest movement.

It was as if the human guise she wore had been loosened slightly, to reveal a glimpse of what lay beyond.

"Leviathan, Beelzebub, Legion, place the chains in my hand, that I may bind her." Evan, tucking his book under one arm, approached the woman. She watched him come, making no attempt to move away or to use any sort of power upon him. Even when he ran one finger down the flat of his blade, collecting a half-congealed mass of Leigh's blood on the digit and then extending it towards her face, she did nothing but stare at him. Slowly, the man drew a glyph upon her forehead using the blood, and to Leigh it was like watching a malicious child scrawl nonsense upon the Mona Lisa with a marker.

Satisfied with his work, Evan took a step back.

"I bind you, demon, to your master once more, and through him, to me." He was all but bouncing on his toes with happiness; in someone less psychotic it might almost have been cute. "From this night forward, you will obey me in all things." His eyes roamed over her exquisitely-formed body, and it was obvious what he was thinking when he repeated "In all things." Shaking himself free from those fantasies, at least for the moment, he turned to his followers. "Now we're set, boys. With this on my side, I'll finally get some respect. And if you all do what I say, then I'll make sure you're taken care of good."

Leigh, forgotten in all the activity, watched with interest as Kennocha, never once showing any sign of effort or discomfort, stood staring at the man… as the glyph he had drawn upon her forehead dried up and flaked away, leaving behind nothing but the scent of crumbled autumn leaves.

Guess I was right after all, She thought, though in her heart there had never been any doubt. Not from the first instant she had laid eyes upon the woman. All that remained now was to somehow break the news to the gang busily plotting just a few feet away.

"Uh, Evan?" She still wasn't feeling well, was feeling downright terrible, actually, but this would be worth the effort of standing upright for a few more minutes. "Evan, there's something I need to tell you."

She could tell by the look on his face that he had indeed forgotten about her. Seeing her there, untied and no longer crippled by her fear of him, the man took a moment or two to frame a response.

"What?" Well, it was a response, just not a very memorable one. He seemed to realize that, and tried again. "What is it you have to say to me, bitch?" He jerked his thumb back to where Kennocha stood behind him. He had not yet seen that his mark was gone without a trace. "I got what I wanted, you should be running like hell and counting yourself lucky I didn't need to kill you to work the spell."

Leigh grimaced, trying to find a posture that didn't hurt… and failing. All those kicks must have broken at least one of her ribs; maybe he really did deserve what she was going to tell him after all.

"Yeah, about that 'spell'. Ah… who exactly do you think this is that you have standing over there?"

He frowned, trying to figure out what kind of trick question she was posing.

"Hello? In case you haven't been following along, babe, what I have standing over here is a hellaciously powerful, dyed in the wool, sexy as hell demon. And if you want me to order her to eat your spleen while you watch, then just keep on talking."

Leigh nodded, rubbing meditatively at the tip of her nose.

"Uh huh. Well, the thing is, that book you stole from my apartment… it isn't talking about demons. Not really, anyway."

Now he was back to being confused.

"Of course it's about demons; the demons that witches hung out with back when they actually had powers and stuff."

She nodded, folding her arms across her stomach. If she didn't move a lot, then it didn't hurt so much when she spoke.

"Exactly my point. Evan… witches don't 'hang out' with demons." She looked him in the eye, waiting for comprehension. "Ever. At all. Not even back then" The look she got back from him was completely blank, so she tried another tack. "Remember who wrote this thing, and when they wrote it. These people were working for the Church; according to them, if you had a funny-shaped birthmark it was okay for your local priest to burn you alive, or to torture you until you gave up all the other 'witches' you knew about."

It was slow, but the wheels in his head finally began turning once more.

"They burned witches…." He said, uncertainly. Leigh could only shrug, though it made her wince as it tugged at her wounds.

"Some, yeah. Most of them weren't, but that's not what I'm getting at. They twisted it all around, Evan. They said that witches were evil, when all but a tiny few were not. They accused them of worshipping the devil, when there is no devil in the craft." She looked past him, at the woman-shaped entity who stood there so quietly.

"So, if they got all that wrong, how much stock can you put in a book that describes all these demons?"

He stared at her, and then slowly, as if suspecting some sort of trick was being played upon him, he turned to look at Kennocha. She stared back at him, unmarked and beautiful, and not the least bit subservient despite his attempt to bind her.

"B-But… I called you. You came when I called you!"

She was unimpressed by his claim.

"I came to a call, yes. But it was never your voice I heard." She glanced at Leigh, and Evan followed her gaze with a growing fury.

"No! I called you, and I bound you!" He still held the blood-stained knife in his hand, and he brandished it at her now. "I've marked you for my lord, and as one of his servants you must obey!"

The woman looked back at him, regarding the man as if he were some remarkably disgusting form of beetle she had discovered.

"Your mark means nothing, nor does your church's twisted image of Cerranos. The true Horned God has no interest in binding me or anyone else."

Evan looked to be near tears now; he half raised the book he held in his left hand.

"But it says here; you're evil!"

Leigh, who was recalling more of those passages now, shook her head wearily.

"Those people saw anything other than their own faith as evil; they twisted what they saw around them to fit their own fears and suspicions."

Evan, falling back into a chanting cadence, recited the opening to his ritual, in English this time.

"'Bringer of Darkness—'"

Leigh broke in, overriding him.

"'She who protects us from the dark, and from that which dwells within the shadows of night.'" The actual verse, as opposed to the corrupted version set down by a monk in the fifteenth century, was something she had discovered after she and Evan had broken up, in accounts from witches hailing from the remotest reaches of the Irish countryside. He looked at her now, eyes wide and staring, chest heaving as he panted. Unable to meet her gaze, he looked back to Kennocha.

"'Creature of Fire, breath of hell that burns ghastly bright—'"

"'Mistress of light, bringer of warmth in the season of snows….'"

Evan ignored her, doggedly continuing.

"'Ender of Hope, foul corruptor of men—'"

"'Lady of Healing, of peace and rest after a season of labors.'" Not death, though that was a natural part of things as well, but merely a quiet span before the season's turning brought spring around again, with its quickening of energy and renewal.

Leigh and Evan glared at each other, neither one so much as blinking until a soft voice intruded.

"You both forgot 'Beauty'."

A moment passed, then as one they both turned to stare at her. Eyes wide and guileless, the woman regarded them calmly. Leigh frowned, combing her memory.

"I don't recall seeing that anywhere in the books I looked at."

Kennocha shrugged, gracefully of course.

"Sometimes people fail to make note of the obvious."

Leigh stared, then had to giggle. It hurt to do it, but she had no choice.

Evan just kept looking more and more lost.

The girl seemed to have a sense of humor; that was probably just as well, considering. The man, though….

Kenna regarded him narrowly, trying her best to keep a tight rein on her anger. It was hard; she had been born of a fiery, passionate people, and she was no bland being of proverbs and pacifism. Her initial urge had been to incinerate him on sight, but she had stayed her hand. It had been a long, long time since her full powers had been unleashed, and she was no longer certain of her control. So, as stupid and cruel as this man was, she had fully intended to let him live.

That was, until he opened his mouth and made things worse.

"You damned whore!" He shouted, his face turning a fairly dark shade of red. "Stupid, stuck-up… slut!" He threw the book down, glaring at her with wild eyes. "I don't care what she says," A wave of his bloody knife at the witch, who took an unsteady step backwards in response. "And I don't care what you say!" Holding the ceremonial blade before him, point up, he clasped both hands on the hilt. "I brought you here, and you belong to me. If you won't obey," He grew suddenly calm, and Kenna frowned, trying to follow the rapidly-shifting currents of his thoughts and emotions.

"Then I'll kill you both!" The man screamed… and charged her.

He actually ran at Kenna, full tilt with the weapon extended before him, and nothing in the last eleven centuries of a generally sedate existence had prepared her for a crazy man lunging at her with a knife. Kenna was still standing motionless when he reached her, had not yet decided what to do when the knife entered her body… not that any action was required of her; it all happened of its own accord.

The eruption of power flung the man backwards, leaving him half-stunned and lying on his back some thirty feet away. The knife, which had ended up on the ground nearby, gave out a sound of twisting, tortured metal. Overcome with remorse at what it had been used to do, the weapon shattered into a thousand tiny bits, and within moments even those fragments had crumbled away into nothingness.

Kenna, who had not actually been harmed in any meaningful way, looked down. The blade had inflicted a minor wound, a shallow puncture in her belly, but it had healed almost as soon as it was made. That, however, was not quick enough to prevent a few drops of her blood from falling to the ground at her feet. When they struck, the earth below her rang like a bell, and an invisible shockwave raced outwards in all directions.

For over a hundred miles in every direction, the ambient temperature of the muggy June night plunged instantly, falling over thirty degrees. Water vapor, precipitated out of the suddenly chilled atmosphere, materialized as a dome of mist that blanketed all of New York state and portions of several others.

Closer to where the blood had been spilled, the young trees that surrounded the clearing where they all stood trembled, their leaves shifting from green to red and yellow and orange, striving to leap forward to the season they felt trembling in the air.

Because of the mist, visibility had dropped to just a few feet, but that was no obstacle to her. Stalking forward, Kenna found the man still lying where he had fallen. One of his helpers had also found him, and was in the process of trying to help him to his feet when he looked up to see her approaching. The look in her eyes was enough; without ceremony the man dropped his comrade and joined the rest of them in fleeing as quickly as his legs would carry him. Not that they would get far; the lights she had set around the clearing would bar their passage, just as they would have stopped any hostile force from entering. Them, she would deal with in a moment, but this one, the one who had dared brutalize an innocent, neophyte witch, and had then had the gall to strike her… his time had run out.

Extending her hand to one side, she called fire. No sooner had she formed the thought than a mass of flame fled to her hand from the bonfire, forming itself into the shape of a fiery spear in the instant it touched her palm. The man's eyes were open, he could see his end coming just as she could see into his shallow, rotting soul. There was little of worth there, and what scattered remnants of humanity that were left were nearly lost in a fetid morass of bitterness, envy, and hatred that reminded her of the stinking, sticky trail left behind a slug.

Lifting the bright-blazing lance she had created, Kenna drew her hand back to strike.

"Don't; please."

She didn't need to look; it was the witch.

"Why not?" She looked into him, saw the things he had done, the things he had wanted to do, and there was no pity within her. "He hurt you, Leigh. He would have killed you, and many, many others before he was through."

"I know. But taking his life, especially like this… that's a crime, as much as anything he's done."

Kenna turned her head, noting that the woman was shivering in the cold, damp air. Just that quickly, her anger transformed into concern. She could harm, or she could comfort; both were fundamental aspects of her nature….

It was just a matter of what was more important.

With a thought the lance dissolved into a pillar of flame that perched obediently in her hand, radiating a warmth that drove back the chill mist and brought a sigh of relief from the battered witch.

"Thank you."

She was talking about more than the warming fire; her eyes held pleading in their depths, and Kenna sighed. It was hardly worth upsetting the woman; the pitiful excuse for a man simply wasn't worth it.

Still….

"He is too dangerous to simply let go, you know." Too stupid to know when to quit, too; that was quite obvious. "He will come after you again, this time with no aim but to punish you for his failure."

Leigh nodded, looking so weary and bedraggled that somewhat to her surprise Kenna experienced a stirring that was somewhat more personal than anything she had felt towards the woman thus far. It was not sexual, exactly, but it was more than the knee-jerk reflex that had brought her to the witch's aid in the first place.

"I know, he's bad news. But that doesn't mean that he can't be helped, somehow. Maybe he can be healed." She gave a small, uncertain laugh. "Witches are supposed to be big into healing, right? Maybe I should start thinking like one."

Kenna frowned at that.

"I believe that a person must first want to be healed in order for that to take place, and I doubt that is true in his case."

Leigh spread her hands.

"Well, what then?" Seeing the look on her face, she hastily added, "Other than killing him, that is."

Staring thoughtfully into the flames she held in her hand, Kenna felt a notion slowly form.

"I know of a place where I could banish him, a place where he could do no harm."

The human woman nodded, looking relieved.

"Yeah, that sounds pretty good. What do we do?"

Kenna dismissed the fire, which billowed upwards into the mist and was gone, then bent to pick up the semi-conscious man.

"It's very simple. Just follow me."

Up until now, Leigh had more or less been cruising along on autopilot. Whatever happened, happened, never mind the utter impossibility of it. If she had divided her emotional resources trying to make sense of everything while still in the middle of the events just past, she probably would have broken down just like Evan had.

Now, though, things had quieted, and she had plenty of time to wonder at each reality-bending event as it came along. Like, for instance, when the slender, delicate-looking woman beside her reached down and lifted Evan. She lifted him like you would pick up a bag of smelly garbage, holding him at arm's length… with one hand, her fingers wound in the front of his shirt. Showing no strain whatsoever, she walked slowly towards the bonfire, visible as a bright glow through the otherwise obscuring mist.

"Are you coming?" The… being, asked her. Leigh, her throat dry from more than just blood loss, nodded mutely and followed in her wake.

In the distance, strangely muted by some trick of the fog, panicked voices cried out. Evan's men, it seemed, had encountered some difficulty in their bid to flee the site of their gathering. When she looked about uneasily, Leigh could dimly make out the ring of guardian fires Kennocha had called into being earlier. Now they were shifting slowly, moving back and forth along the perimeter, their light waxing and dimming in response to whatever the men were doing in their efforts to escape. When she looked at the beautiful woman, she saw something very much like satisfaction in those grey-green eyes.

"Do you want to kill them, too?"

Kennocha glanced her way, and nodded gravely.

"They deserve to die, yes." She said it without hesitation, without either remorse or cruelty, and a knot of unease settled in the human woman's stomach.

"How can you say that? I mean, if you're what you have to be, then—"

She took a deep breath, trying to order her racing thoughts. Upon a moment's reflection, it occurred to her that she had never actually heard the woman confirm what she herself believed to be true.

"I'm sorry, but… just for my peace of mind, could you maybe—"

With Evan still dangling like a child's doll from one hand, the being turned to fully face her.

"Forgive me; it has been a very long time since I found myself in this situation, and I might have misjudged your knowledge of such things." She seemed suddenly taller, as if the humans were no more than infants. Her presence swelled to fill the clearing, and the trees beyond; if Leigh had closed her eyes and stopped up her ears at that moment, there still would have been no doubt as to who and what stood there before her. When the woman spoke, the words didn't crash like thunder, instead they resonated with soft, infinite clarity through every molecule of the listener's body.

"I am Kennocha Aedammair, whom the Gaels once knew as Goddess of Autumn, among other things," Abruptly she was of merely human dimensions once more, and with a strangely wistful smile gracing her lovely face. "And I have to say, I'm very happy to make your acquaintance, Leigh."

In response, the human woman just stood there, probably for much too long though it was hard to measure time accurately when your mind was reeling helplessly.

Have I lost it? Leigh wondered. Did I crack under the strain? Maybe I'm still tied up, bleeding to death, and all of this is a big, beautiful hallucination I cooked up to entertain myself.

The being, moving slowly, as you would when you sought not to startle a frightened child, reached out and gently took hold of her hand.

"I know it's hard for you; really, I know." Tugging at the hand she held, Kennocha drew her towards the fire. "Please, come with me. You're badly hurt, and there are limits to what I can do to help you in this place."

Stumbling after the woman, Leigh surprised herself with an abrupt laugh.

"A Goddess has limits?"

The other was looking at the fire, staring intently at it as they drew near.

"Even the universe has limits, Leigh, though they are quite broad. So it is with me." The heat of the fire was making her skin prickle, they were standing that close now. When Kennocha turned to look back at her, the human woman noticed that her hair was the exact shade of the fire; oranges and reds and the occasional hint of yellow-gold. She indicated the flames behind her. "This will serve, though barely. I need you to trust me now. Can you do that?"

Trust you? I do trust you, utterly; that's part of what has me so scared—the fact that I'm not scared at all, when I should be.

"I-I think I can do that," She managed aloud.

"Good." For the first time, though, the being, the goddess, looked a bit uncertain. "I really think you might want to close your eyes for this; especially since you are new to this sort of thing."

Leigh thought about it for a moment, wondering just what lay in store for her.

Well, whatever it is, it can hardly be worse than what she's already saved me from, can it?

Better not to follow that line of thought too far. Obediently she closed her eyes. When the hand holding her own tugged at her again, she let herself be pulled forward.

Wait, pulled forward?! Isn't that straight into the fire?

One step, then two, and there was warmth; not heat, not burning, just a tingling that danced across every inch of her skin for one long moment as Kennocha's hand pulled her forward one more step, and then it vanished.

"You can open your eyes."

Leigh opened them; felt them widen as she stared.

They were someplace else; still beside a blazing fire, but now it burned in a place of rocky hills covered with bare, leafless trees. A chill wind brushed her skin on its way past to gently stir her companion’s hair. Clouds streaked the night sky with silver, reflected from the enormous moon that hung overhead.

Other than the wind blowing through the skeletal branches, there was no sound to be heard in that place; none at all. Kennocha unceremoniously dropped Evan to the ground, where he lay in a groaning heap. When Leigh looked into the woman's—Goddess's-- eyes, she saw a profound sadness there.

"It has been so long," She whispered, reaching out to touch the trunk of the nearest tree. It was huge, more than five feet thick and it towered above them, the black bark casting back an occasional glassy gleam of moonlight, as if it had been grown from obsidian. Kennocha took back her hand, and shook her head. "I had not thought it would be like this."

The human woman looked around. Even the grass that grew on the forest floor was brown. Not from drought; the cool air still held the taste of moisture from a recent rain. No, this was something else, some deeper lack that had left everything within sight lifeless.

"What happened to it all?"

Kennocha shook her head, turning away from the sight of the barren hills as if even the sight of them were too painful to bear.

"Here, let me help you." She stepped closer to Leigh, and the human woman held herself motionless as the entity reached out and lay slim hands upon her.

I'm not afraid of her; I know she would never hurt me, but, well….

It was just the enormity of it all. This was a goddess, perhaps the very deity she had sought out in her thoughts a thousand times in the last few months, as she tried to embrace the spiritual aspects of the old religion… and failed. Shame filled her, and Leigh felt her face flush crimson even as Kennocha's cool fingers began to ease the pain of her wounds. Looking down, she watched in distant amazement as a single, careful swipe of a hand wiped a long cut away, leaving smooth, unmarked skin behind.

That's impossible, Was her instinctive thought, but then she took another look around. But then, I guess that just puts it on par with all the rest, huh? The goddess was working methodically, working her way through the many wounds Evan had inflicted over the course of the evening. Her touch was soothing, and the relief from the pain was wonderful, but Leigh could not help but feel that this was a gift she didn't deserve. It was difficult to find the words, but she forced herself to at least try.

"Listen, uh, Lady Kennocha? I—"

"Kenna." She looked up from where her fingers were tracing –and erasing—a vicious slice along Leigh's forearm. "You can call me Kenna, if you like; the 'Lady' is alright while we're here, but if you use it back in New York then people will probably think I'm one of the English royals they've never heard about."

Her lips quirked just a bit as she said that, and Leigh felt herself relax a tiny bit.

"Ah, okay; Kenna." She took a deep breath, then grunted; her ribs still sent jagged shards of agony through her when she least expected it, and it hurt so bad—

--Until the goddess took hold of her, one hand pressing ever-so-carefully beneath each of Leigh's arms. Within moments, the pain had eased, and after a few seconds more, it had faded away entirely.

"Better?" She asked, her eyes shadowed with concern.

Leigh nodded, gingerly probing with her tongue to see if she had inadvertently drawn blood when she had bitten at her lip to keep from crying out.

"Yeah, much better, thank you." She tried the deep breath thing again, warily, but this time she was able to manage it. "The thing is; um…." It was going to sound so stupid, but….

"Kenna, I… I appreciate everything, the rescue, and your healing me," She hesitated again, waiting for the other to finish tracing a line of bruises along her hip that were invisible under her jeans but had nevertheless been hurting quite a lot. Looking up from her work, the other frowned.

"But?"

"But… I don't understand why you would have done it; any of it."

Kenna stared at her with those impossibly clear, infinitely deep eyes for a long moment before looking down once more. Carefully taking Leigh's abused hands in her own, she closed her fingers around the woman's puffy, broken digits.

"You were in need, you called me, and I came." She seemed genuinely puzzled. "What part of that confuses you?"

Cool, blessed relief began spreading through her hands, but that only made things worse, somehow.

"That's just it, though. I didn't call you; sure, I was afraid, really panicking." She had to look away from those eyes, staring down at the sere grass at their feet. "I'm sure that in my head I was screaming for somebody, anybody, to come and save me, but I was calling God, my mom, my dad; probably even Santa Claus, too." She managed a quick glance up at the woman, at the more-than-woman before her. "I guess at some point I got around to mentioning you, too; when Evan used part of your name in his Latin I at least half-remembered you from that research I was doing on the Goddess in ancient cultures, but—"

Kenna cocked her head slightly as she regarded Leigh, and after a moment she shrugged.

"So long as I was in there somewhere, I'm satisfied."

Leigh shook her head, her black-banded hair flying. Pulling her half-healed hands away from the Goddess, she grabbed that hair, holding up a bi-colored lock. That coloration was a symbol for her, of her failure to be something she had tried to be, a theme that seemed to be a recurring one in her life.

"Don't you see? I'm not a pagan, not a real one, anyway. I'm just—" She foundered, trying to find a way to explain. "I wanted to be, I really did, but I couldn't make myself believe…."

"In things like me?" Kenna asked softly.

Leigh nodded, looking down at her hands.

"Yeah."

"Well, then." Pursing her lips, the entity stood there for several moments before speaking again.

"Do you now? Believe in me, that is."

Looking away from her did no good; all around her, for as far as her eyes could see, an impossible world stretched to the horizon. Not so far away, Evan lay helpless upon the ground, shuddering and sobbing, lost within the dark recesses of his own mind.

She felt like she knew a little of what he was feeling.

"Of course I believe in you, how could I not, now?" She glanced at the stark, bare-limbed trees, and the desolate, empty landscape, and had to suppress a shudder of her own. "But that doesn't change anything; not really." Leigh lifted her head, facing the woman directly. "Thank you for what you did; you saved my life. But…." A breath, without physical pain but still holding pain of a sort. "But I can't help but feel that coming to all of this, like this… it's wrong. It's a cheat, like showing someone that hell is real, and then calling him a virtuous person when he starts acting nice and going to church every week."

A shadow now lay upon Kenna's wondrous eyes, but she nodded her head once.

"I see. By showing myself to you, I've taken away your choice in the matter; whether or not to believe." Silence hung between them; Leigh studied Evan with needless concentration, and the goddess stared off at nothing in particular for several breaths. Eventually she stepped back towards the fire.

"Come. I'll take you back, now."

A guilty sense of relief washed through Leigh, and she hurried to follow the other woman. Before they left, though, she looked back once more at the man who had triggered tonight's strange happenings.

"What about him?" She asked.

He was semi-conscious, and even if this was some kind of parallel world or something, she shuddered to think of him wandering around. The image of him, stumbling through the dead forest in the bright, silent moonlight, calling out to his master and cursing Leigh's name… it seemed like something out of nightmare. She didn't need something like that.

Kenna gave her a long look, then turned to face the man.

"Evan." His head snapped around, his glassy eyes fixing on her instantly. A dreadful hardness filled the woman's beautiful face, but all she said was; "Sleep, Evan. Sleep now."

And he did. Lying there beneath the trees, he relaxed into a deep slumber, looking truly at peace for the first time since Leigh had met him.

Then Kenna reached out, and took the mortal woman's hand, and led her back through the flames, to her familiar, mundane world.

There, in the small clearing, in a patch of scrub forest just outside of New York, the goddess raised her hand. The bonfire gave a last flare, and then went out; extinguished as completely, as quickly as a snuffed candle. In the distance, beyond the now-thinning mist, the ring of lesser flames also vanished, and the sobs and screams of desperate, frightened men quickly began to fade with distance as they made good their escape.

Leigh looked at the other's face, noting the disappointment there. She was glad she wouldn't have to watch as the four men were killed, no doubt in some awesomely destructive way. So long as Evan was out of reach, she doubted that any of them would cause her trouble.

Kenna startled her slightly, then, by breaking the silence.

"I've someplace I need to be, now, but I can drop you off at your home… if you want."

She nodded, looking off into the darkened woods.

"That would be good, thanks." Then she hesitated. "Uh, when you say 'drop me off'; that wouldn't be by way of some kind of… magic, or something, would it?"

This prompted a small, half-smile from the goddess.

"No, it would involve you following me across this field to where my driver is waiting with a car."

"Oh. Okay, I can handle that."

So they did that. They walked, she was introduced to Stephen, and she shared the back of the car with an entity of vast age and seemingly limitless power. There wasn't much more to say to her; what could one say?

As a result, it was a long and silent ride, and when it was over she got out of the car, mumbled another repetition of her thanks, and then fled down the sidewalk. Her flying feet carried her past the spot where she had been ambushed and beaten just an hour or two earlier, and gods, it seemed like a lifetime, now. Behind her she heard the car drive off, but only when she was behind her own door –firmly locked--, did she let herself go.

Sobbing uncontrollably, she fell to the soft, carpeted floor, and wept.

“--Really incredible sound on the new songs. I'm telling you, if you want to come back to the studio with me right now, we could have our own private listening session. Trust me, once you take a listen it'll blow your mind—“

“--Loved the pics from your shoot in Maui! How you kept from burning to a crisp out there with that skin of yours I'll never know—“

“--Uh oh, don't look now but that's James Kasinsky, the executive editor at Mannaxim magazine. Now, Kenna, I want you to… Kenna? Kenna!"

She came back from her thoughts with a jarring abruptness. Ever since arriving at the party, she had just been letting the voices and faces swirl around her without paying any of it penetrate. Donna, though, was not about to let herself be ignored. Looking into the woman's intense, somewhat frantic eyes, Kenna forced herself to pay attention.

"I'm sorry, what?"

Her agent scowled, though she was careful to keep her face turned away from the nearest photographers as she did so.

"Really, my dear; I just don't know what's wrong with you tonight!" Donna paused to smile radiantly at a passing couple, both minor players in the advertising industry, before resuming her rant. "I mean, I go to the trouble of meeting with these people all week, I tell them that you'll be here for the photo op, so that they can get their people started on the paperwork once we've gotten the story leaked to the right people, and here you are, standing there, zoned out and not being much more interesting than a statue!"

Kenna shrugged listlessly, looking down at her feet.

"But a statue with really nice shoes; you've got to give me that much." She looked up in time to snag a glass of wine from the try carried by a passing waiter, and took a sip as she looked over the room. "None of them were glad to see me, Donna." She said, her voice soft. "None of them really cared. Some of them tried to act like they did, but they were just empty words…."

Her agent harrumphed at that, her fingers busy as she adjusted Kenna's hair, then the hang of her dress, looking for all the world like a stage mother readying her child for an important audition.

"Believe me, there are a lot of people who are ecstatic to see you here, not least of all because you're going to make them a lot of money." The woman frowned suddenly; her fingers had found the small hole that Evan's knife had made in the silvery fabric of Kenna's dress. The wound had healed, of course, within seconds of the attack, but in the aftermath she had forgotten all about repairing her clothing. For a moment the goddess thought she would have to make some sort of creative excuse to cover how the damage had occurred, but her agent simply gave the material a slight twist, tucking the bit with the hole inside the pearlescent white belt that cinched the dress at the waist. "There. So long as you don't raise your arms too high, no one will see that." She stepped back, making a last inspection. Apparently everything was to her satisfaction, because she smiled brightly. "All right, you wait here, and I'll be right back with them."

Kenna nodded obediently, and the woman hurried off. Taking another sip of her wine, the goddess watched her go.

It occurs to me that I don't have the least idea who these people of hers are, or what they want from me. Was it… a shampoo commercial?

That seemed like it might be right, but she honestly could not have cared less. All the brightly-garbed, beautiful, glittering people in the big room, chatting and laughing, seeing and being seen, and none of them were half so alive, or half so real, as the dirty, disheveled woman she'd rescued earlier.

Discovered, Rescued, and lost, all in one fell swoop.

I still don't understand what happened. She called me, the first person who's done that in…. Kenna was somewhat disconcerted to discover that she could not even remember how long it had been. The last of her worshippers had been a tiny, isolated clan on the rocky, eastern coast of Scotland, that much was still clear in her memories. They came late to Christianity, those few, the very last to abandon me for the new ways. Was it…? Yes; what they call the Ninth century, now. She stared into nothing, daring for the first time in centuries to cast her thoughts back to those times. So long; so very, very long, now since I last spoke with those who knew me for what I am, and walked among those who loved me for who I am, as I loved them.

Tonight, for a few, fleeting moments, she had dared believe that such things had come to her once more. Even one human being, able to accept the reality of Kenna's existence, would restore to her so much she had lost all those years before.

I hadn't realized how crippled I've become, She thought, turning away from another ridiculously handsome male model who had been advancing on her with a predatory smile. What might have seemed attractive to her a few hours earlier now held no appeal whatsoever. Kenna was tired of appearances; she wanted something real, again. When she asked me why my mirrorworld was so dead and empty, I couldn't tell her the reason.

The truth was, it had been that way from neglect. Over a millennia had passed since Kenna had last traveled to that place, which had once been as much a part of her as the wild and beautiful lands where her people had dwelled, and the explanation for that was as simple as it was terrifying.

--She had not remembered that it existed.--

When the last of her worshippers had died, or left the high meadows and stone circles where her rites had been held for countless generations in favor of the rude churches raised by the christians, she had been unsure if she would continue to exist. After all, she had been called forth by her people's need of her, and that need had, apparently, ceased to be. After a time, however, it grew clear to her that she would go on, perhaps forever, even if she saw no particular purpose in such a continuation.

What she had not realized then, had not seen until this very night, was how diminished she had become. Not really in terms of her powers; those seemed much as they always had been, but in her very awareness of what those powers were; the very fact that they existed at all. A few hours ago, she had strained to mend a run in her stockings. Her; Kennocha the Fierce, who had once raised towering walls of flame across the wide, bloodstained moors to protect her people from raiding tribes, and who had preserved her folk when all of the world they knew had been buried beneath a sheet of ice half a mile thick.

Tonight, some of what she had lost had been returned to her, all because a frightened witch had called out to her; perhaps by accident, by all indications without even being aware of what she did, but that changed nothing.

Or did it?

I frightened her; badly. Even without trying to probe her, I could see that she's very much a creature of the rational mind. Despite all the romantic, wistful longings for a world of magic and gods, she never really thought it was true; not deep down, where it matters.

And Kenna had just waltzed in, flaunting abilities she'd only rediscovered in those moments, when there surely must have been a way to rescue the woman without traumatizing her. Of course, it had only been after she had seen Leigh's reaction to the display of power that she realized what a mistake it had been; how was she to have known that a witch who could send such a powerful call into the night had a fundamental inability to deal with proof that the supernatural existed?

I should have known because I'm a Goddess, that's how. I should have stopped, and thought it through for a few seconds, instead of rushing in full-tilt to see who had called me.

Kenna raised her wineglass to her lips once more, but found that it had somehow been emptied while she was lost in thought. With a frown for the offending glass, she set it down and wandered through the glittering crowd.

I don't like it here; I don't like these people, or the fact that I have to be civil with them… how many of them could have endured what Leigh went through tonight? I barely spoke to her at all; hardly more than a dozen words passed between us, and already I'm sure she's one of the strongest persons I've met. She might not know it yet, and maybe she needs a bit of tempering to realize her potential, but—

The woman paused in the wide doorway that led out onto the mansion's rear patio. Out there were gardens, and a lavishly-decorated expanse of walks and landscaping now dotted with various party attendees, but she saw none of it. Instead, she was looking at an image etched in her memory; Leigh's face as insisted that she was not worth the personal attention of a goddess when she had not managed to come to her faith on her own. The mortal woman had been on the edge of complete exhaustion, in pain despite the healing Kenna had given her, and the goddess had respected her privacy, refraining from looking into her mind to examine her emotions. Now, though, she found herself wishing that she had performed at least a brief probe.

Because it doesn't make sense. If she was able to shake off being attacked, beaten, and nearly sacrificed by those madmen, she should have been able to handle anything else, even the knowledge that magic exists, and that I'm real.

As puzzled as Kenna had been at the woman's request to spare her violent ex-boyfriend, she had still been impressed by Leigh's composure. Now that she had recovered a bit from her own profound disappointment at the woman's rejection of her, though, the goddess couldn't help but wonder at that.

How is what she saw, what I showed her, worse than what that man and his friends did? She can cope with the insanity they represent, but not the concepts that I represent?

She stood there in the center of the patio, peripherally aware that the crowd shifted continually, but always respected a generous bubble of space around her. Likely she was leaking some of the confusion and growing hurt she was feeling, and it couldn't have been comfortable for an unshielded human mind to be catching even a fraction of her emotions at that moment. It was a measure of her state of mind that she did not especially care; not just then.

The more she thought about it, the more closely she examined her memories of the woman's face, and voice as she looked at Kenna as they both stood in her private universe of dead trees and empty, barren hills, the darker her mood turned.

So of course that was when she felt it again.

What--?! Her head came up, and she turned unerringly to stare into the distance. It didn't matter that all she could see was a bare section brick that faced this side of the mansion. In her apartment, miles past that particular spot, Leigh was calling her once more. Not urgently, as she had when her life had been in imminent danger; there were no tones of terrified desperation now. Kenna forced herself to look away, studying a random potted plant on one corner of the patio.

Why should I care? I came when she called before, and as far as I could tell she would have been happier if I'd let those bastards kill her. At this point she would have welcomed the distraction of someone hitting on her, but the patio was rapidly clearing, men and women alike experiencing an unconscious, overpowering influx of dark, turbulent emotion. They might not understand what was happening, but some corner of their psyches understood that it would be better to be elsewhere. Irritated by their desertion, and finding it increasingly difficult to ignore the brilliant beacon at the edge of her mind, Kenna paced restlessly across the flagstones. I don't care if she's calling; the woman doesn't know what she wants, and I'm not her dog, to come whenever she crooks her finger.

Only… maybe she'd been wrong about Leigh. Maybe….

Turning slowly to look at that wall again, she took a slow, deep breath.

There has to be a reason for all of this; it has to have some meaning, doesn't it?

It seemed that a millennium of living as a human had left her with some of the their uncertainties.

Across the miles, a witch called to her, and that was something for which she had longed for so very long….

She made her decision, and reached for the energies that lay within the deepest part of herself.

Moments later, when Donna, with half a dozen executives in tow, came through the doorway in search of her most valuable, most frustrating client, she found the patio utterly deserted.

Leigh was curled up in her bed, underneath every blanket and pillow she'd been able to find in her apartment. Despite a long, hot shower, she was still shivering with cold; no matter how deeply into her nest she burrowed her limbs still felt like ice.

And I can't make my brain turn off. It had been nearly an hour, now, since she'd laid down, and she hadn't been able to close her eyes for more than a few seconds at a time. Everything that had happened should have been enough to wear her out, to let her fall unconscious as soon as she went horizontal… but it seemed like it was working the other way.

Everything's changed. My life… the whole damn universe; it's all different now, and I don't know what to do next.

In just one evening she'd given up on a religion, been attacked and abducted, tortured, and then been saved by a creature out of a particularly obscure corner of myth.

Her eyes wide and staring in the near-darkness of her bedroom, Leigh had to acknowledge one more thing that had taken place that night.

I lied. To a goddess, to the woman who saved my life, I lied. What does that say about me? About the kind of person I am?

She forced herself to close her eyes, to try and sleep, but it was no good. Just like every other time she'd tried, she'd no sooner closed them than the images came. Evan, leering and demonic in the leaping firelight, leaning over her with his bloody knife reaching for her yet again. His followers, staring at her with dead, empty expressions on their faces and a sick, gleeful anticipation in their eyes.

Pressing her face into her pillow, Leigh tried to drive those faces from her mind. After a few moments she managed it, but what came to take their place was even worse. Kenna, standing amid those awful, obsidian trees; small, beautiful, and with an almost child-like look of hurt abandonment in her eyes.

A faint sound reached her ears, and just like she had every other time, Leigh bolted upright. Her hands clutched at the baseball bat she had taken to bed with her, and she spent several moments fighting frantically to free it from the blankets in which it had become entangled. Her heart pounding, she sat there, staring at the faint light from the kitchen that showed her the hallway outside her room.

Nothing, She told herself, half-angry at herself for being such a frightened baby, and half-terrified that this time she might be wrong. No, it really is nothing. Again. Laying the bat beside her, she put her head back down on the pillow. If I keep jumping every time the refrigerator kicks on, I'll be a nervous wreck by morning.

As it was, she would be lucky to get five hours of sleep before she had to get up for work, and she always felt awful all day if she didn't get at least seven.

Determined not to give in to the fear that was still scurrying up and down her spine, she closed her eyes.

The noise came again, softer this time, but much closer. Leigh's breath caught in her throat, and she forced herself to open her eyes slowly. The far wall of the hallway was faintly visible in the light from the kitchen, and she caught just a glimpse of a shadow, a person's outline, as it moved beyond her line of sight.

Sweat suddenly stood out over her entire body, though she was wracked with a chill at the same moment.

Someone was standing there, looking at me.

Her first impulse was to grab the phone and dial 911, but something made her stop with her hand still resting on the handset. Though she was not really sure why she was doing it, Leigh found herself slipping out of the bed and moving towards the doorway, the bat clutched in both hands. She peered cautiously around the corner, but the hall was empty. From here, though, she could see that the living room light was on, and she knew for a fact that she had turned it off before going to bed. Slowly, as quietly as she could manage, she crept down the hallway. When she reached the living room there was no need to peek around the corner; the intruder was standing in plain sight, her back to Leigh and her head tilted slightly as she read the spines of the various books that lined the shelves on the far wall.

It was Kennocha—Kenna, as she preferred to be called, still in her silver party dress, her autumn-fire hair spilling over one shoulder as she bent to examine the small turtle who lived in the aquarium in the corner.

Leigh, still in the doorway, managed to find her voice at last.

"W-what are you doing here?"

The woman turned her pale, perfect face towards her, and Leigh's throat closed up at the look in those grey-green eyes.

"I'm not quite sure," She answered softly. "You seem fond of calling out for aid, and then, when someone answers, you seek only to drive them away." Her gaze fell to the baseball bat still clutched in Leigh's now nerveless hands. "I suppose this is the reception I should have expected, after… before."

Swallowing heavily, the mortal lowered the bat slightly, but she did not set it aside.

"I still don't know what you're talking about, with this 'calling' business." There, her voice sounded better with that hint of indignation stiffening it. "I don't care what you are; but I know I don't n-need—" Damn, but her tongue kept trying to betray her; it was hard to speak harshly to this… being, no matter how desperately she wanted her gone. "I don't need a stalker harassing me. Please, leave me alone."

The woman took a step towards her, and Leigh had all she could do not to shrink back. Not that Kennocha looked angry; the opposite was true, she looked confused, and hurt, and frustrated, and somehow Leigh could feel those emotions as clearly as if they had been her own.

"I could ask the same of you," The woman said to her, folding her arms across her stomach with no care of her expensive dress. "If all you intend to do is torment me like this, then I would rather you spare me the pain and go back to whatever it was you did for entertainment before tonight."

Leigh frowned, unsure of what the other woman was talking about.

"Huh?" Was all she could come up with at that moment, but Kenna only scowled.

"You lied to me earlier, didn't you?" The human felt her face grow hot even as her stomach clenched, and the goddess nodded slowly as she saw the reaction. "I thought as much. You told me you were not ready to accept such things as magic, and the existence of a goddess, but that was not the truth. You didn't reject what you had seen, or the changes to your worldview that those things brought. You rejected me; me, personally." She cocked her head, and her eyes held a gleam that was either anger or immanent tears, or both. "What I don't understand, what I need to understand, is why."

Leigh tried to bluff her way out.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I told you, I'm thankful that you rescued me, I'm glad you put Evan someplace where he can't hurt anyone, but the whole idea of a religion is to find your place, your peace of mind. Just having it handed to you defeats the whole—"

"Shut up." Just that, in a quiet, level voice that could have frozen an ocean in an instant. Leigh closed her mouth, and Kennocha's lips pressed together in a thin line for a moment before she spoke again.

"I may not be a psychology major," She nodded towards the books on the shelf across the room. "But I have been around, in this form at least, for over thirty thousand years, and I tend to figure things out eventually." She took another step forward, but when Leigh tensed the goddess stopped again. "There; that. Why are you afraid of me? When you first saw me tonight, when our eyes met, you must have felt what I did." She unfolded her arms, but didn't seem to quite know what to do with them. They lifted slightly, as if to reach out to the human woman, but in the end she dropped them to her sides. "Leigh, you knew me, didn't you? The moment you saw me, you recognized me for what I am."

The mortal shrugged, looking away.

"Sure I recognized you." When she glanced up the relief on the face of the goddess was painful to behold, so she looked down again, pointing to the coffee table. "There. I knew I'd seen you someplace, and when I got home tonight it was right there in front of me."

Kennocha followed her gesture, to where the latest copy of Vogue lay, among a scattering of other magazines. Her own pale face and orange-red hair graced that cover, as she modeled clothing that perhaps one woman in a thousand could wear… or afford. Looking up at Leigh, her eyes flickered with annoyance.

"That isn't what I meant, and you know it." Turning away, she paced to the curtained window, lifting one hand to tug distractedly at the drape before looking back. "Knowingly or not, you've called me twice tonight; once when your life was in danger, and just now, when you were lost in fear and uncertainty." She turned to fully face the woman again, though the entire room separated them now. "Leigh, you would not have done that unless you were ready to accept that there was something out there, someone out there, who would hear you, and answer. Why, then, are you turning me away?"

She had no answer, none that she could bear to put into words, anyway, but that turned out not to be necessary.

"Shall I tell you what I think?" Kennocha asked quietly. "I believe that it isn't the impossibility of what I am that you reject, but rather, who I am." Her face was not just pale now, it was white; a mask that was only betrayed by her glittering eyes. "I'm not who you wanted to answer that call, am I? You welcomed me when I came, but once you had a chance to look at me, you found me wanting in some way. Right?"

"No, it's not that at all!" Leigh said, desperate to ease the pain she felt radiating outward from the other like heat from a fire. "It's…." She tried to frame her feelings into words; it was difficult, she hadn't really managed to process exactly what she was feeling. "It's just such a shock, having a… goddess, just stroll up and beat the bad guys who're about to sacrifice you, and—" She waved one hand at the glittering, glamorous woman. "—And there you are, looking so beautiful, and being so nice, and knowing me by name even though nobody ever told you my name, and, and—" She took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to keep hold of what little composure she had; likely a doomed effort. "And basically, just the fact that you are standing there is still enough to blow my mind. I mean, I g