It had been late in the evening when they had first confronted Renfield. By three o'clock in the morning they had recovered sufficently to allow safe travel. Jaera refused Bregan's offer of a ride, saying something about the stagnation of reality and left. That left only Katrina.
"I'm hungry again, I would be a danger to you."
"I have an idea about that," Bregan said. "Come on. It's just me in the apartment right now, and I think I can handle you. Tomorrow night, there's someone I'd like you to meet."
Katrina's tired face crinkled with concern, her last nightmare was still fresh in her mind.
"I still owe you that violin, you know. How can I get it to you if I don't know where you are?"
Katrina shook her head in disbelief, but he was right. She severly doubted that she'd be able to beat him, even in frenzy. She smiled as she raised her face to meet his.
"If you insist."
Marie pulled up to Micheal and Bregan's apartment building sometime around noon. She had to find out what he had been doing all this time. His car wasn't parked in the lot, so he wasn't there, but he had to return sooner or later. Then it would be time to get some answers.
She walked straight to the room and used her key to get inside and lock the door behind her.
Marie strode back to the room that was Bregan's thinking she could find some clues there. The shades were drawn in, but she saw a lump in the bed, like a body, and moved forward to investigate.
She found, curled up in Bregan's blankets, the cold body of a teenage girl.
At first Marie thought the girl was dead, but as she watched the girl's face scrunched into an expression of fear and despair. She was apparently deep in the throws of some nightmare.
"What is she doing sleeping this time of day anyway?" she asked no one in particular. She reached up to pull open the shades for a better look when somebody grabbed her hand. Marie jumped away and twirled to find Bregan standing behind her.
"She's ill," Bregan said as he pulled the blankets back over the girl. "I'm taking her to someone that can help her tonight." He set down the violin case he had carried in down on his desk, which was loaded to brimming with items related to the Predator movies. "How's Mike?"
"The doctors believe he's going to recover." Marie scanned the young man before her, looking for some clue to something.
"Good news," he said as he slumped into a chair.
"Somebody tried to kill him yesterday," Marie said.
"Were you there when it happened?" Bregan tensed.
"The oddest thing happened," she contined. "A piece of glass killed the girl who was trying to kill him. It was like it was intelligent or something." Marie watched Bregan for some reaction.
"That is strange, what did the cops say?"
"I didn't know how to explain it, neither did they. I think they passed it off as a case of self-defense." Bregan smiled.
"How lucky for you, such things don't happen everyday."
"Not without help anyway," she leveled an accusing stare at Bregan but couldn't find anything to answer her questions. She heard sobbing sounds and looked back to see red tears run from the girl's eyes.
"Please leave," Bregan requested quietly. Marie left wondering, but not daring to ask, what illness makes one cry tears of blood.
Jaera finished her meditation early that day, she was unsatisfied with her performance against the vampire, Renfield. She had not taken her revenge on her own as she had wished, but that was a minor consideration. She was disappointed that she had failed to recognize the need for allies.
Next time would be different, she knew some new tricks now. Most important among them that of seeking help.
Unlike most of the Sky-Chasers pack, Two-Feet was neither homid, nor Fianna. She was lupus and belonged to the Children of Gaia tribe. She was the pack's only philodox. The pack came to her when their was discord, they came to her to settle their problems. She was the judge, the mediator, the deliverer of punishment and reward. She was also one of the pack's leaders, despite the predominately Fianna background.
It was possible that she was the leader, but no official choice had ever been made among them. She was seen as superior in times of peace, Ian Caghen, an ahroun, led the physical battles, and Wanders-Alone, a theurge, led the spiritual battles. All three were of the second rank in garous society, and none claimed leadership over the others, that was just the way things were.
She had received her name from the other lupus she knew. They had meant it as an insult, but she took it as an honor. Simply put, Two-Feet was one of the few lupus to actually be comfortable in homid form. The tribal elders said that made her the perfect mediator for the two breeds, while others said it merely made her a freak. If she had been a part of another tribe, the Red Talons for example, she would probably have been shunned or worse.
She held her court in the house the pack had bought on the edge of town, near the caern they belonged to. Her chair sat at the head of a large conference table situated underneath a hanging crucifix. The crucifix was a source of ridicule among the other packs. Some felt that displaying the trappings of a human religon was betrayal of the garou people, others were just jerks. The Children of Gaia, however, had long respected the ideals of christianity. The peaceful tribe felt a spiritual kinship with hese fellow speakers of mercy, healing and forgiveness. The history of the garou told that the Children had helped guide the church to power along with a group of mages known as the Celestial Chorus. That time was long gone, however, and with it any official communication between the cousins of garou and human.
Despite the formal appearance of this court, she really had no care for the trappings of power, or of power itself. She merely wished to prevent unnecessary conflict. This trait of the Children often led some to believe them to be cowards or weaklings. That was a mistake that the Get of Fenris, a tribe who respected only strength, made more often than they would admit.
Before her now stood Bregan Rohan, the pack's younger theurge. He had come in the night, alone and asked to meet in private. He was not one of the pack's best warriors, she had beaten him many times in ritual competition. Nor did she sucspect him of being able to turn against them, so she was not worried about herself. The situation did arouse her curiousity, however.
"Theurge Bregan Rohan, you come to me with a request for aid." She told him.
"I do."
"You requested that I meet you in privacy and I have agreed, but I ask why." She waited for him to respond.
"I am afraid that the other members of the pack would not understand my position." Two-Feet cocked an eyebrow.
"What is your position?" her voice mocked his expression exactly. Most lupus weren't capable of such mockery in homid form. Most weren't even comfortable with speech.
"You know the rite of cleansing."
"You have seen me use it."
"Can you cleanse a person?" she thought she knew his problem now. He had been on a personal quest to avenge his brother, it was possible that he had become contaminated with a bane in that time.
"Who is this person?" she asked as a formality. Bregan held up his hand to indicate that she wait for a moment. He turned around and opened the door, gesturing for someone to enter.
What looked like a fifteen year old girl wearing black jeans and a blood stained t-shirt that had once been white. The girl appeared nervous and frightened and shuffled in slowly. She had dark hair, and oh so pale skin.
Two-Feet could smell what she was then.
"You bring the Kindred here?" she accused Bregan.
"I ask that you cure her of her affliction. She and two-others aided me in the destruction of a vampire who dates to the time of the civil war."
"She is a vampire, a leech, a minion of the Wyrm. She should be destroyed."
"And if she were a Garou wishing to be freed of a bane?" Two-Feet had to concede to the point. Other Garou wouldn't have, but the Children of Gaia were well known for their tolerance, and Two-Feet could see that the Wyrm had not gained a solid hold upon her yet.
"If the ritual fails, we will kill you," she told Katrina.
"I don't want to live...forever." Two-Feet nodded in acceptance.
"Wait here, I will summon the pack," she said. Bregan nodded acceptance. Within an hour all ten members of the pack had arrived.
"You have summoned us her for a cadaver?" Ian yelled disbelievingly.
"Be quiet, we have neighbors," Wanders-Alone answered. He was the most powerful theurge, there was only one other, of the pack and he was also a metis, which made his position odd. Metis were the result of two Garou mating, they were generally deformed in some way and always sterile. Garou were meant to breed with wolves and humans, not each other. Such was the equivilent of incest to the garou, as such metis were generally despised.
"I have told her my judgement and she has accepted."
"What is your judgement?" Nobody had expected that voice, fewer had seen him enter. Dreamwalker, the Silent Strider lupus had arrived. He had perhaps twice the experience of any other individual in the room, but outranked none of them. Nobody really knew what he had done. He was respected among the younger Garou.
"If we fail, she dies. To do otherwise is to let a threat walk free."
"Agreed," the last speaker was a ragabash member of the tribe, Steals-Laughter. He wasn't quite as cheerful as most of his auspice. He wasn't into pranks or jokes, he used the trickster nature he had been born with for more practical means. All the jokes had been burned out of him long before he even discovered his wolf heritage.
"Then we must find a place to perform the ritual." The pack put their heads together and soon thought of a suitable place just outside the city, complete with pure water and birch trees.
Within an hour they had arrived at the appointed place.
"You must truly want to be cleansed for this work, otherwise all my knowledge would be useless," Two-Feet told Katrina. "We will perform the ritual at dawn, for it is then that its power is strongest. When light overcomes darkness, as it did nearly two thousand years ago, and will again when Gaia is healed of the Wyrm's cancer." She told Katrina this as the circle was being drawn with the branch of a birch tree dipped in pure water. Katrina sucspected that the dawn was meant to kill her if the ritual failed, but she set aside such doubts. "You must not leave the circle for any reason, understand?" Katrina nodded.
They waited patiently for dawn, Dreamwalker looking on curiously. Watching Bregan give words of encourgement to the girl in the circle awaiting Gaia's judgement. As the moment began to grow closer Katrina noticed less and less the people around her. Breaking the blood bond was child's play compared to the willpower it took to remain in that circle. She centered her focus on the eyes of the man who had brought this chance to her.
Then the moment finally happened, light began to break on the horizen. Something seemed to twist in her soul as the sunlight began to burn her vampiric flesh. Something screamed at her to run from the sun, to preserve her current existence. She recognised the thing, it was the same thing that drove her to kill twice, the same thing that gave her the dreams that haunted her sleep. It was a self-serving thing, and it wanted to make her an extension of itself.
In the real world the branch of birch was set on fire and Two-Feet began circling along the line drawn in the earth. All the Garou were in crinos form as they watched waiting for the moment that required their participation. Katrina, in the circle, felt the fear intensify as things such as eager werewolves, the rising sun and a burning stake combatted with her will. The struggle in her mind eclipsed the burning of the sun as her desire for freedom warred with the vile, shapeless thing that reached from darkness.
She looked to Bregan, and could barely distinguish him out of all the other wolf-men. As she extended her willpower to fight the unnatural instinct to flee, the philodox's ritual progressed. Her power reached into the umbra to repair and cleanse the girl's body and soul.
As soon as Two-Feet made a complete circle the werewolves surrounding the circle howled in eerie, terrifying manner. The sound of their voices nearly sent Katrina running in terror. She held her ground, however, even as the pain began. Pain that she could feel even through her battle. Mixed in were her pain and hope and the gripping thing's pain and fear.
She didn't feel like she was burning, so she knew it wasn't the sun. It felt more like something was being pulled from her, ripped out of her soul. Then it ended, and Katrina collapsed exhausted and exhilirated.
She could feel the sunlight stream down and touch her face as it finally peeked over the horizen. She could feel her heart pumping hot blood again, and she felt her lungs pull in air of necessity rather than pleasure. It had worked, she was human again.
She examined her teeth and found no fangs. She looked at her skin and saw that it was flushed with her own blood. She was still physically fifteen, but in a few short years that would change. She was alive, and that was what mattered.
She rushed out of the circle then to where she had identified Bregan and hugged his hairy form as he shifted back into homid form. He held her close to him as she cried tears, real tears not blood, of happiness on his shoulder.
Dreamwalker approached the two, Two-Feet behind with the other two leaders in two.
"Very impressive," he said simply. This was Bregan's vision of the ideal Garou. Dreamwalker was wise, kind, strong, and brave.
"You sound like you're giving me the credit." Bregan accused.
"He is, to both of you," Two-Feet agreed. When Bregan and Katrina stared at them in confusion the lupus in homid forms explained themselves.
"Dreamwalker has just informed me that he has seen this tried before."
"Not a single of the Kindred who attempted it succeeded in passing the tests of ritual. Every one of them eventually tried to run and as a result was burned or killed by one of the garou."
"But it worked..." Katrina whispered as if expecting to become a vampire right then under the sun.
"Yes, but the ritual is just that...ritual. The real power is here," Two-Feet pointed to Katrina. "In you, we are just limited in unlocking it."
"I still don't see what part I played," Bregan said. Two-Feet smiled at him knowingly.
"Boy, your eyes never left each other through the entire thing."
"I'll be by later for the full story, but for now know that you have performed nothing less than a miracle this morning." The mystic touched an amulet he wore about his neck and began to walk away. They quickly lost sight of him as his amulet began to function.
The remainder of the pack passed by to give grudging congradulations on their way out of the clearing. Soon only Two-Feet, Bregan and Katrina remained.
"I will want to hear the story as well, Bregan. This must be reported to the elders of the Spring Oasis Caern."
Back at the mansion, former lair of the vampire known both as Jared Mason and Renfield, Jenny felt another connection to the world resolve itself. She had led Katrina to means for her salvation, all by telling her to run.
Now she was tired, she had to get some sleep, she had no choice. She had been active too long.
Later that day copies of her songs appeared in the office of a record company manager with a written permission to use them as they wanted. She wanted a legacy, not fame. After the manager read them, and liked them, she felt all her connections to the physical world cut.
She heard a deep part of herself cry out in rage, but only faintly, as she took the first of many steps out of this Underworld to transcendence. Only then did she sleep, leaving her thwarted shadow in control for eight hours. It appeared as a twisted version of her other half, and laughed. There were still many chances for it to win out in the end, and end both their existences.
Five years later, Katrina thought back to the events that had occured following her cure. She still possessed some of her vampric powers, but rarely used them. Mostly when she wanted to talk to the occaisonal animal. The nightmares had remained as well, but they had diminished over the past few years.
First came Micheal's recovery, he apparently remembered nothing of his conversation with Bregan or the spirit world in general, but nothing else was blurred. Soon afterwards he and Marie were married on a bright summer's day under the blue sky.
Then came Katrina's reunion with her family, this was a media event of some size, because it revealed the innocence of certain individuals. The authorities were given a description of the true criminal, this matched exactly with reports of the drug-lord Varney's description. The few Kindred who knew the implications behind that chose not to persue matters, certain prominent members of the San Franciscan garou displayed themselves quite prominently on the screen. The Kindred would not survive an open war with the Garou.
Of course Katrina went back to school, she completed it within two years by taking extra courses to make up for lost time.
Enrollment in college came next, and she was now in her junior year of that, majoring in music. She was already making a name for herself as a skilled violinist and composer, of course some of her music was a little too morbid for most tastes, but that was too be expected considering her history.
Last year she had married Bregan, the event being a small affair with only her immeadiate family, Micheal and Marie, and Two-Feet and Dreamwalker. The latter using the names Tina Feason and Derrick Konn. The mage, Jaera Citereh had also made a brief, surprise visit, not staying long for fear of the coming consequences of acquiring to much paradox.
Today, she had learned that she was pregnant. Soon Bregan would be home from his shift, he had finally become a cop, and she would tell him then.
Katrina thought on how none of this would have been possible except for the gift she had received five years ago.
A gift of sunlight.