River Cast: Part Two in the Tale of Lunarmorte

River Cast

Part Two in the Tale of
Lunarmorte

By Samantha
Young

SMASHWORDS
EDITION

*****

PUBLISHED BY

Samantha Young

River Cast

Part Two in the Tale of
Lunarmorte

Copyright © 2011 Samantha
Young

Smashwords
Edition License Notes

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*****

River
Cast

Part One in the Tale of
Lunarmorte

For Robert

I stood

Among them, but not of
them; in a shroud

Of thoughts which were not
their thoughts.

Lord
Byron

The State of
Things

Existing in the shadows of
our world are supernatural races; children blessed by the ancient
Greek gods with unimaginable gifts, and at present they are
fighting a two-thousand-year old war with one another. The Midnight
Coven, an alliance of dark magiks, faeries, and daemons born of
black magik, believe that the vampyres and lykans are lesser
supernaturals and a threat to mankind. They are at war with the
Daylight Coven, a confederate of light magiks, faeries, vampyres
and lykans who believe in the equality of the races.

Into this war
eighteen-year old Caia Ribeiro is born…a lykan with a heritage
unlike any other. A consequence of the manipulation of the gods and
fate, Caia is unique – a half-lykan, half-water magik. And to make
it even more complicated, her mother was the daughter of the Head
of the Midnight Coven: Caia is half-Daylight, half-Midnight. No one
is quite sure of the extent of Caia’s abilities, not even her
mentor Marion, the sister to Marita, the Head of the Daylight
Coven. All they know is that after her explosive killing of her
uncle Ethan, Caia is the heir apparent, and with it has trace magik
- the ability to sense the emotions and whereabouts of every member
of the Midnight Coven. The pack, Marita, and all their allies,
believe Caia is the key to bringing down the Midnights. But Caia is
not so sure. Not only is she an eighteen year old girl trying to
come to grips with adulthood, she’s a girl still reeling from the
death of her friend, Sebastian; confused by her feelings for the
pack’s Alpha, Lucien; excited but terrified by her magikal powers,
and frightened by the contradiction of the trace magik.

You see… Caia is beginning
to realise that the war isn’t all black and white. There are
members of the Midnight Coven who are good people, magiks who have
long forgotten why the war began, magiks who don’t view other
supernaturals as a threat, Midnights who would just as happily see
the war to an end. Is the trace wrong? Is she going insane or just
falling to the other side? Because everyone closest to her would
believe her to be a traitor if she shared her concerns… wouldn’t
they?

And if all that wasn’t
enough her best friend, Jaeden, is still missing from the pack,
having run off after being rescued from the malevolent clutches of
Caia’s uncle Ethan. Caia had seen through Ethan’s eyes the
atrocities he committed against Jaeden’s young body and mind, and
only she understands Jaeden’s need to be separate from the pack for
a while.

However… perhaps it’s best
Caia isn’t fully aware of Jaeden’s true situation. It would be just
one more major worry to add to her never-ending pile of
responsibilities. For not only is Jae out hunting rogue vampyres -
a crime against the Coven, as the law constitutes that only a
vampyre can hunt a rogue vampyre, and only a lykan can hunt a rogue
lykan - she has even bigger problems.

When Ethan had Jae locked
in a cage, messing with her body and mind, utilising an enormous
amount of fire magik to torture her, something… happened. It had to
have had right?

Otherwise, where did her
damn telekinesis come from?

1 – Lone Ranger

“
Son of a-”
Jaeden launched into a somersault to avoid the bullet whizzing
towards her head, and whipped around from her position on the muddy
grass in time to propel a blade at the vampyre’s wrist. The vamp
girl screamed as it made perfect aim, the gun falling to the ground
as she clutched her bleeding artery.

“
You bitch!”
Blondie screeched, glaring at her as Jaeden stood up and began
sauntering towards her with an intimidating lack of fear. The wound
caused the vampyre’s eyes to glow with deadly intent.

“
Ouch.”
Jaeden winced wryly. “Your oh so original comeback is like a
veritable stake to the heart.” She smirked, pausing as her fingers
brushed the line of steel blades she had strapped to her
belt.

Blondie hissed, her
incisors lengthening slowly. “My boyfriend is not going to like me
coming home wounded.”

Jae chuckled,
“Oh honey, you’ve been such a bad little girl, chewing on humans
and breaking the Coven laws... your boyfriend is going to be a
little bit more concerned with the fact that you won’t be coming
home
at all
.”

The husky laugh that
comment provoked was a liiittle eerie. “I’m breaking Coven laws?
What about you wolf girl?”

That didn’t even deserve a
response. She was breaking Coven laws for the common good. Teeth
here was a skanky ho who got off on killing human boys after they
gave her a little ‘somethinˈ somethinˈ’. Yeah, she wondered how the
bf felt about that.

Sighing, Jaeden opened her
leather jacket and pulled out the small axe she kept hidden there.
The vampyre’s eyes widened marginally, and then shuttered when she
realised Jaeden was watching for her reaction.

“
So,
Vampyra.” Jae grimaced, hitting the blunt edge of the axe off of
the heel of her palm. “You ready to meet your ma-”

The vampyre launched at
the gun on the ground cutting off Jaeden’s unoriginal parting quip.
With a flick of her wrist, Jaeden pushed with her mind and the gun
jumped up from the grass, inches from the vamp’s fingers, flying
into Jae’s outstretched and waiting hand. Nonchalantly she tucked
the gun into the other side of her belt and smirked at the amazed
look on the girl’s face.

“
I thought
you were just a lykan,” She breathed, real panic now swirling in
her gaze.

Jae shrugged. “I
am.”

“
Was that
magik?”

Her question received
another shrug. Truthfully, Jaeden didn’t know what her telekinetic
abilities were. Her greatest fear in fact were those abilities...
and whether it meant, as she suspected it did, that some of Ethan’s
malevolent energy had transferred to her during her captivity and
torture.

“
Look.” The
vamp giggled a little hysterically. “Why don’t we just forget about
this? I’ll go home, you go home, and I’ll never come back to your
turf again, OK?”

No. Not
OK.

“
See that
guy.” Jae pointed to the dead teenager that lay slumped against a
grave stone. His neck had been ripped open so badly it was a wonder
his head was still attached to his body. She concealed a shudder,
turning away from the gruesome and tragic sight. “Did he suggest
the same thing to you when he first felt the bite of your teeth?
Did you listen? Apparently not.”

Blondie spluttered, “He’s
just a human!”

She snorted in response.
“Yeah, well, weren’t we all once.”

“
I have
money.” The vamp began to back up as Jaeden drew closer with the
axe. “Whatever you want.”

Jeez, when were
these chicks ever going to learn?

“
This isn’t a
negotiation. You kill humans… you pay the price.”

The axe was spinning
through the air on its side before she had even finished her
sentence. It sliced through wind and then straight into the
vampyre’s jugular. Her eyes popped wide, and she made a horrific
choking, gurgling sound. Her legs gave out beneath her and the
choking got worse as blood started pouring out of her
mouth.

Jae didn’t even
flinch.

She strode towards the
vamp, knelt down beside her and put pressure on either ends of the
axe until it cut right through, crunching and squishing until it
hit the muddy ground beneath her, her head completely detached from
her undead body.

Silence.

Jae pulled at her axe and
then wiped the axe blade clean on the girl’s cashmere jumper, using
her own scarf to wipe the blood splatter off her face.

A quick glance at her
watch. 5.20am.

The sun would rise in
fifteen minutes, burning the body to nothing. No one would ever
know she had been there. It was funny that, she mused, standing up
straight, turning away from the consequences of her soldiering, a
vampyre could walk around in the day no problem. But once their
undead bodies were really... well... dead... the sun did a cleanup
job. Legend had it this began after Apollo, the Greek god of the
sun, had a child, Asclepius, who pissed off Hades by bringing the
dead back to life with his healing powers. Since the dead were
Hades charge, he went to his brother, Zeus, who had Apollo’s kid
killed. In revenge, Apollo killed the Cyclops, enraging Zeus, who
caught up with him and threatened to send him to Tartarus. With a
little sweet talking from Leto, Apollo’s mama, Zeus lessened his
punishment, with the proviso that Apollo help him keep the deadly
creatures a secret from humankind by cleaning up their bodies when
they died. Apollo gave the job to the sun, and the rest is ancient
history.

Jaeden sighed, her eyes
settling back on the boy. She hated to leave him like that but she
couldn’t be involved in any way. He would just have to be found by
a human in the morning. It was a large, central cemetery. It
wouldn’t be long. Not that, that made her feel any less like a
monster for walking away.

Before she had begun this
new life with Reuben she hadn’t known that much about other
supernaturals. Pack Errante, being so small, was protective of
their kids, and only a few of them really knew much about the world
outside of the pack. Learning that for the past few centuries
vampyres bodies had evolved because of the goddess Demeter’s little
curse of fertility, and had begun to die by the time they reached
three, four hundred years old, made her feel somewhat better that
they weren’t overpopulating the world, and thus making the job of
tracking down rogues even harder. But there were still the few out
there whose bodies hadn’t been affected by evolution, and if the
legends were true, a rare number who were second generation
vampyres: the first to be born, after Hades stole Persephone
(Demeter’s daughter) and made her Queen of the Underworld, thus
enraging Demeter enough to curse Hades’ vampyres with fertility.
The ability to have children gradually changed their natures over
time. They became less aggressive, more human. Well… in general.
Jaeden shuddered at the thought. If there was still a vamp out
there from that time, it was probably a feral killer with the
survival skills of a god. She pushed the folklore meant to scare
small vamps at campfire out of her mind, and she wandered back to
the basement loft she was living in with her head lowered, bumping
into some late night revellers once in a while. The closer she grew
to the apartment, however, the quieter the city streets became. The
sun had risen, and soon those quiet streets would be buzzing with
city slickers who had no idea they shared their world, their jobs,
and sometimes even their homes, with supernatural beasties such as
her. More importantly they had no idea a war was raging, and that
if a certain young woman didn’t live up to her prophecy, that war
might spill over into their lives.

There would be nothing
left of them.

She sighed, entering the
building’s dark entrance and quietly jumped down the stone
stairwell at the back. She could hear voices coming from the end of
this hallway and smiled softly as she approached the sliding steel
door. Lily and Adam were fighting over the Wii again. She rapped on
the door and it slid back within seconds. Gazing at her, with an
annoying crease of concern between his eyebrows, Reuben stepped
back to allow her entry.