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Carpe Noctem Book Three
Never the Twain Chapter Fourteen
by Lianne Burwell
May 2002
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Magic was new to LiAnn, but she'd taken to it quickly. Once she 
would have dismissed it as fantasy, just like she would have 
ignored the existence of vampires and demons, but in the last 
year she'd had to grow up a lot. She was no longer the woman 
she'd been, in more ways than one. San Francisco had shattered 
many of her illusions about the world she lived in, and her 
return home to China had shattered the rest.

Illusions. She used to think she had none. She'd tried to avoid 
them since the day a man had knocked on the door of the one-room 
home she'd grown up in and handed her father what she now knew 
was a pitiful amount of money. She'd cried for her mother as the 
stranger dragged her away, but her parents had stood in the 
doorway, dry-eyed, watching her go. Her last sight of home had 
been of her mother turning around and going back inside while her 
father counted the bills in his hand.

And yet now she realized just how many illusions she'd clung to 
despite that. Look at how long she'd ignored Michael's madness. 
Look at how she'd convinced herself that she and Vic could settle 
down and raise a family, complete with the home with a white-
picket fence. And look at how she'd managed to avoid seeing the 
other world that surrounded her.

No more. Now she experienced the world with all her senses. She 
lived life to its fullest.

Amazing how losing her life had been just what she needed to 
start living again.

She shook her head, chuckling to herself. What had the Director 
expected when she sent her to China? 'You have issues that start 
with your parents. You need to deal with those issues,' the woman 
had told her. Damned bitch. Did she think that her parents were 
going to welcome her back with open arms, and everything would be 
perfect? Oh no. The Tseis had reported their daughter killed by 
one of the wild animals in the woods near their remote village, 
and had gotten permission from the government for a second child, 
the son they'd so desperately wanted. To have their daughter show 
up proved them liars and frauds. They could have gone to prison, 
which was nowhere near as pleasant as in Canada or the United 
States. Her mother would have been sterilized, her father would 
have been sent to the work camps.

No, having their daughter reappear was their worst nightmare made 
flesh, and they'd moved quickly to get rid of the nightmare. Oh, 
the shock on their faces, though, the second time she'd knocked 
on their door. Oh, the screams and hysteria. After all, they'd 
killed her with a machete, then taken her out to the edge of the 
jungle and left her for the animals. She never should have come 
back.

LiAnn smirked to herself. They hadn't been as lucky.


It hadn't taken her long to find the area of town where Sanji had 
been living. His kind might be dangerous -- look how easily he 
had seduced then killed Mika -- but they could also be very 
predictable. The burnt skeletons of townhouses that had once been 
pleasant middle-class homes back at the turn of the century 
jabbed skyward in silent accusation. She didn't spare them any 
thought. Their lives had been bought with the deaths of many 
trees, screaming in agony as metal saws severed their links to 
the earth. Death bought death, in her books.

No, the building remains were of no interest to her. Instead she 
closed her eyes and held her arms out, spinning first slowly, 
then with greater speed in the middle of the street. If anyone 
had been around to see, their eyes would have probably bugged out 
with shock at the sight of a nearly naked barefoot woman whirling 
like a dervish, ignoring the debris strewn around her.

Then she slowed, and finally stopped, a wide grin on her face. 
Oh, yes. The smell of the Raksha was heavy in this place. The 
smell of sulfur and brimstone overwhelmed the faded soot and 
ashes of the fires that had destroyed the neighborhood. The death 
agonies of the people -- homeless squatters -- who had died in 
those fires were still fresh, available to those with the will 
and the desire to harness them, like Sanji. She ignored them.

The stench was strongest from one building, though. This one was 
partially intact, the only one with any part of its roof left, so 
it didn't surprise her much. Stepping over the garbage and 
debris, she entered the house.

Yes, this was its lair. The place stank of death and despair. Her 
lips drew back into a sneer as she began to search the ruin for 
her prey.

Tonight, it ended.

>>>~~~<<<

Pausing to rest for a moment, Jackie had the sinking feeling that 
she was going in circles. Every single intersection seemed 
identical to the last one, and the sounds of traffic never seemed 
to get any louder. Every choice seemed worse than the last. And 
there was never an exit. Just tantalizing promises of grates 
overhead, always just out of reach or so tightly welded that they 
couldn't be opened. And she'd never mastered the ability to walk 
through dirt. The night was half-gone, and she was in deep 
trouble.

She could still hear Sanji following her, too far away to hear 
what he was saying, but close enough to recognize the mocking 
tone in his voice. And yet he never seemed to get any closer. 
She'd finally realized just what was happening: This was a setup. 
He'd planned for her to try to escape. Now she was in his 
territory, and he was playing with her, like a cat with a mouse. 
The only reason he hadn't found her yet was he wasn't tired of 
the game yet.

But eventually he *would* get tired, and when that happened... 
Well, she wasn't sure what would happen next, but she had the 
feeling that she wasn't going to like it.

But people were looking for her. Vic had been trying to call her 
when Sanji grabbed her. He had to know she was missing. And if he 
knew, then the Agency was hunting for her. She held onto that 
thought, even though realistically she knew that there was little 
chance of her partners finding her. All she could do was keep 
running, and hope that Vic and Mac, or maybe even LiAnn, would 
find her before Sanji did.

A low chuckle from somewhere behind her jolted her out of her 
thoughts, and she pushed away from the slime-covered wall, 
already moving again. Her feet were aching, her shoes being long 
gone, and she no longer noticed when a small furry form brushed 
past her leg. All she could do was keep moving and keep hoping.

But hope was fading fast.

>>>~~~<<<

The area of town they ended up in was depressingly close to where 
Mac had had his run-in with the mugger the other night. He hadn't 
asked anyone what had happened to the man yet, and he wasn't sure 
he was going to. He didn't think he really wanted to know.

But in this area, their car was going to stand out like a sore 
thumb. Even locked, it was an open invitation to be stolen. Of 
course the Agency would quickly retrieve it, but it would be a 
hassle.

But hassles weren't a consideration right then. The only thing 
that counted was finding Jackie and getting her out in one piece. 
After that, dealing with Sanji, preferably permanently, was the 
second priority. And then there was LiAnn to think about.

His stomach clenched as he got out of the car. From what little 
they knew, it sounded like LiAnn wasn't exactly the person he 
remembered anymore, and he wasn't sure how he felt about it. 
Sure, he wasn't exactly the same person he'd been a year ago, 
even without the whole vampire thing going, but still, LiAnn 
*never* changed. It was one of the most comforting things about 
her. Now he wasn't sure what she was anymore, and that scared 
him. It scared him even more than the day he'd realized that his 
adoptive brother, Michael, was a psychopath.

Vic was standing in the middle of the street, sniffing the air. 
Mac followed his example, but while his sense of smell was much 
more acute than it used to be, he wasn't sure how to interpret 
what his nose was picking up. All he could do was sneeze and 
wrinkle his nose at the stench. It wasn't a normal stench; that 
was all he could tell. "So now what?" he asked.

"That pendant of yours giving you any information?" Vic asked, 
scanning the street. Mac sighed.

"Nothing. Of course, I don't have a clue how it works or what it 
can do, other than giving vague images of things that only might 
be happening." He growled low in his throat, frustrated by the 
vagueness of it all.

"Then we do this the hard way."

Vic headed over to the side of the road to one of the drains down 
to the storm sewers. Definitely too small for either of them to 
fit through. Luckily, the things were designed so that in the 
case of trouble, city workers could get into them. At the end of 
the street, right before the intersection, was an access grate.

Vic bent down and hooked his fingers into the holes that were 
probably intended for some sort of small crane, since the manhole 
cover was solid metal and looked pretty damned heavy. He 
squatted, then heaved, every tendon in his neck standing out in 
stark relief. The cover didn't move.

Mac knelt down, and the two of them scraped at the edges of the 
manhole cover. It didn't take long to find out what the problem 
was. "Welded shut," Mac said, grimacing.

"And in the not too distant past," Vic added. The welds were 
still slightly shiny, saying that this wasn't something that had 
been done years earlier. In fact, it had to have been since the 
fire that had destroyed the neighborhood. "I'd say this clinches 
it. We're in the right place."

"Yeah, but how the hell do we get down there?" Mac asked, 
slapping his palm against the metal. He winced, and shook the 
hand briefly to get rid of the sting.

"The hard way," Vic said with a feral grin. He got to his feet 
and headed for the car. Mac watched, puzzled, as the man pulled 
out a black bag and came back.

"What's that?" he asked, nodding towards what looked like any 
ordinary gym bag. It even had the logo for one of the big health 
club chains printed on its side. Cheap, and just like a thousand 
others in the city.

"This is why I wanted to stop at the Agency on our way here," Vic 
said with a grin. He unzipped the bag and started pulling out 
bits and pieces. Explosive pieces.

"Perfect," Mac said, the corners of his mouth pulling up. Big 
explosions still brought back the occasional bad memory, but 
little ones? Those were just fun. And right now, an explosion 
suited his mood.

The stuff Vic had in his bag looked like silly putty and behaved 
like silly putty, but it was better than any commercial explosive 
on the market. It was one of the Agency's inventions, and even 
the best sniffer dog would ignore it. An explosives expert 
wouldn't recognize it, unless, of course, he worked for the 
Agency. Totally inert, unless you had the right kind of 
detonator. They spread it around the cover, between the metal and 
the surrounding pavement, then Vic set the pencil-sized 
detonator, pressed it into the putty, and they ran for cover.

The explosion was relatively quiet, as explosions went, but it 
was still pretty loud. The fact that no one showed up to 
investigate confirmed what Mac's senses had already been telling 
him: There was no one in the area. At least, no one alive. As for 
Sanji, if he was around, he wasn't paying any attention to them.

The manhole cover hit the pavement about thirty feet away with a 
satisfying clang that was even louder than the explosion had 
been, and when they approached the gapping hole where it had 
been, they could see down to the bottom where a small amount of 
water was sitting, stagnant. Mac wrinkled his nose. "God, it 
stinks down there," he muttered more to himself than to Vic.

"Yeah, well you're the one who thinks Jackie is down there, so 
get your ass down that hole."

Mac grinned. "You say the sweetest things," and blew Vic a kiss 
before swinging his legs into the hole and reaching for the 
ladder that led down into the darkness.

>>>~~~<<<

The muffled sound of an explosion brought Jackie's head up. What 
it meant, she didn't have a clue. All she knew at that point was 
that she trapped in a maze. Her suspicions from earlier had been 
confirmed. This was the third time she'd found a tunnel that was 
blocked, either by metal gates or a collapse. She had a sinking 
feeling that the only way out of the maze was the same way she'd 
come in: through Sanji's lair. Hell, she was ready to risk even 
*that*, if she could just find the right damn tunnel.

She set aside another chunk of concrete, her hands filthy and 
bleeding from the sharp edges. After finding the cave-in, she'd 
decided to see if she could clear it, but it didn't look like she 
was going to be able to get through before Sanji found her. In 
fact, she better get moving if she didn't want him to catch up 
with her. His voice was getting closer and closer.

Damn, she was getting tired. It was almost tempting not to move. 
She could just wait there for him. Wait for whatever it was he 
planned to do.

Like hell. She gritted her teeth and started walking again.

>>>~~~<<<

Finding the entrance to the tunnel system was easy. She closed 
her mortal eyes and opened her third eye, and the corrupt 
energies almost glowed to her inner sight, with a dark 
malevolence that seemed to pulse, it was so strong. Inside the 
house that she had already identified as its lair, it led her to 
the basement and a tunnel. Closing her third eye, she took a deep 
breath, then nodded in satisfaction. It wasn't just the demon's 
scent; she could also smell Jackie's scent leading into the 
tunnel.

The heat inside the tunnels was incredible, and there was enough 
water in the tunnels -- storm sewers, from the look of them -- to 
add a pleasant humidity to the air. It wasn't quite the same as 
the jungles she now thought of as home, but it was a pleasant 
reminder. She'd only been there for a couple months before being 
given the task of hunting the Raksha down for the crime of 
killing her queen's chosen heir, but the jungle was already more 
home than anyplace else in her life, including Hong Kong, 
Vancouver, and Toronto. And when she had the demon's head, she 
could go back, her position guaranteed. However, if she didn't 
kill it, she would never be allowed to return, and that was 
unthinkable.

She wasn't going to fail.

Once she was into the tunnels, though, the trail became confused. 
The demon's mark was everywhere, and Jackie's trail also was 
confused. Added to that, no sooner had she moved past the entry, 
it disappeared. A simple magical trick, but very effective. If 
she needed to leave by that route, she would have to concentrate 
very hard to see through the illusion, and for that time, she 
would be vulnerable. Fortunately, she wasn't limited to that one 
path.

But for the time being, with no clear sign of what path to take, 
she set out at random, searching. Eventually she would find 
either the Raksha or Jackie, and if she found Jackie, the Raksha 
would not be far behind.

That was when she heard the muffled thump of an explosion. 
Sounded like her former partners had decided to join the party.

LiAnn grinned and quickened her steps, gliding over the scummy 
water, leaving nothing, not even a ripple, in her wake.

>>>~~~<<<

Down in the tunnels, Vic couldn't shake the feeling that he 
should be sweating, something he hadn't done since his Embrace. 
The sewer system was dark, hot, and humid, all elements that 
would make for a nightmare if he'd been asleep. Unfortunately, 
this was no nightmare. It was all too real.

A stench filled the narrow space. It wasn't just the smell of 
decay coming from the stagnant water and the slime and mildew 
growing on the tunnel walls. There was another stench underneath 
the expected smells that made him want to sneeze. A stench that 
made his skin crawl. He forced back the sneeze, and gestured for 
Mac to stay quiet.

The silence was deafening at first. Then his ears adjusted, and 
wasn't silent anymore: No city was every truly silent, even after 
midnight. Water dripped, and somewhere, faintly, a horn honked. 
Something squeaked, and skittered away through the muck. Probably 
a rat. And there were footsteps, too unfocused to tell where they 
were coming from. Footsteps and a voice calling out. He couldn't 
tell where it was coming from either, but it seemed stronger from 
one direction.

He nodded to Mac, raising a finger to his lips, and they set out 
down the tunnel, as silently as they could. He had his gun in one 
hand, and a silver dagger in the other. He wasn't sure that 
either would work against a demon, but hey, it was worth a try.

>>>~~~<<<

Jackie came face to face with another dead end that she was 
certain hadn't been there before and had to fight back the tears. 
The grate above her head mocked her. It seemed like nearly every 
turn she took was now a dead end, even when she was certain that 
she'd been down that way before. The tunnels were an ever-
changing maze that was closing in on her. A rat in a maze; that's 
what she was.

She turned, and she slipped on something slick. Her ankle 
twisted, and she heard a crack. She cried out at the sharp pain 
and collapsed to her knees. This time she wasn't able to hold 
back, and tears flooded her eyes, spilling down her cheeks to 
drip from the edge of her jaw. She tried to push back to her 
feet, but collapsed again. There was nowhere to go and no way 
that her broken ankle was going to support her.

"The game is over, little night-walker."

Jackie brushed one filthy hand over her face, wiping away tears, 
and looked up to find Sanji standing at the end of the passage 
where she'd come from. He'd been waiting for this, she was sure. 
Waiting for her to give up. Waiting for her to despair. The 
expression of his face was pure glee.

The tears stopped, and she pushed again. This time she made it to 
her feet. Well, one foot. The broken one she held up off the 
ground, trying not to jar it. The pain was almost unbearable, but 
if the bastard was going to kill her, at least she would meet 
death on her feet, not her knees.

Sanji smiled. "You have courage, I'll give you that. Most prey 
gives up long before this. In fact, some of them don't even 
bother to try to escape at all. Mere sheep, good for nothing but 
the slaughter. Join me," he urged, stepping forward. She hopped 
backwards carefully, and he stopped. "Together we could bring 
fire and death to this world. It's inevitable, you know it is. 
Revel in it!"

Jackie shook her head. "I don't think so," she said softly, but 
firmly. She wasn't tempted in the least. Sanji was charming, 
definitely attractive, but now that she was looking for it, there 
was definitely an edge to his voice that hinted at madness. Not 
the almost cheerful madness of her clan, but the kind that let 
him torture his prey. No Kindred that she knew would go to the 
extremes of setting up this underground system just to play with 
their prey before killing them, unless they were Sabbat.

Sanji obviously could see her resolve, and he looked almost sad, 
although Jackie didn't buy it for a minute. She didn't really 
think he would have done all this if he was really serious about 
getting her to join with him. It was just another part of his 
game. Another way to raise her hopes, then destroy them, before 
he killed her.

Then the grin was back, and he started to walk forward, his form 
shifting with every step until what was left was large and 
covered with fur, with fangs and claws and a long tail lashing 
behind him. It didn't look like anything she'd ever seen before, 
and she really hoped that she would never see anything like it 
again. Of course, he was also probably going to be the last thing 
she saw.

She scooted backwards until her back hit the tunnel wall. Her 
foot felt like it was on fire, but she didn't even notice. All 
she saw was her death coming for her.

That was when something hit the beast from behind, driving it to 
the ground, and knocking her backwards so that her head hit the 
tunnel wall hard enough to nearly knock her senseless, and the 
last thing she heard for a while was the sound of part of the 
tunnel collapsing in on itself, trapping them.

END CHAPTER FOURTEEN