Disclaimer: All concepts belong to L.J. Smith. Characters are mine.

Rating: R

Spoilers: NW concepts only

The Puma Trilogy

Yared

Part One

The syringe was still in her arm when Maple woke up.

She was lying on the floor, only a thin layer of scratchy carpet between her and the cement. Her apothecary box was open beside her.

She could make out the features of Galdwyn’s spare bedroom even in the weak light forcing its way through the velvet curtains pulled over the window. The house around her was silent, but in the distance she heard the whine of a chainsaw.

She sat up, breathing hard, and felt the syringe jiggle painfully in her arm. The flesh had closed so tightly around the needle that it squeaked like a wet shoe when she pulled it out.

"Fuck," she whispered, clamping her hand over the puncture while it closed.

There was blood pounding in her head. She felt as if she had just quit running and her body had yet to slow down. She was wearing a black slip that barely fell to her knees and a burgundy velvet tank top, and she still had her boots on.

She crawled to her knees and exhaled sharply at the pain behind her eyes.

Her gaze fell on the bottle of sparkling purple liquid lying on its side.

It rested on a slip of loose leaf like a paperweight.

Maple started to reach for it and stopped herself. She didn’t want to know what it said just yet.

Instead she got to her feet, ankles nearly buckling in her high heeled boots, and walked to the bedroom door. "Galdwyn?" she called as she stepped into the hallway. "Tish?"

She went to the open door of Galdwyn’s bedroom and looked inside. The bed was neatly made and the lights were out. The comforter was a classic Laura Ashley print, but Maple knew that beneath it were hidden red satin sheets. She knew because the first night she had been here, Galdwyn had showed her around. He walked into the room in front of her and peeled back the comforter to show off the sheets. Then he sat down on the edge of the mattress and ran his hand over the satin, staring silently at her face the entire time.

She hadn’t known what to say, so she hadn’t said anything. Eventually Galdwyn just chuckled and showed her to the spare bedroom. Standing in the doorway, shivering though she wasn’t cold, she almost wished he was here. She might hate him, but the last month he had been the closest thing she had to safety, and there was fear clinging to her tonight. She knew something was wrong.

There was no one in the house, she could smell it. The clock in the kitchen read 6:30 am. Her memory ended around dusk the night before.

If there was one thing Maple had learned, it was not to ask questions.

She darted back into the spare bedroom and grabbed the note and vial off the floor. Her handwriting spelled out,

For a moment she thought she would vomit. She had never vomited before, but from the way her guts rolled up into her chest she knew what was about to happen.

She jammed most of her fist into her mouth and shut her eyes. The tears slipped down her cheeks like fugitives. The distant chain saw shut off and the ensuing silence was filled with her ragged breaths.

"Oh, mighty Mictlantecuhtli, please...oh, fuck...hold onto her..."

The words were spilling out before she could stop herself. She sank to the floor and let her head fall against the side of the bed.

"Mighty Tlaloc, god of the rain,/ guard me always from the sunlight,/ wash the bodies of those I’ve slain,/ and hide me from the humans’ sight."

Her teeth broke the flesh on her knuckles and blood leaked into her mouth. Maple heard herself whispering the prayer again and again until her sobs rendered each word a sound as lumpy as storm clouds.

Then she lifted her head, brought her bleeding hand back, and slapped herself hard in the face.

The pain was like ice pressed against her skin. She felt the cold all the way through her body, and when she opened her eyes again they were dry.

The key to the Echo is under your pillow.

Without hesitating, she threw her belongings into the canvas bag in the closet. A few changes of clothes, a hairbrush, two Chuck Palahniuk books, Coalise’s wallet – only a human girl would say, "Don’t call my parents," and then hand over her driver’s license – and a bottle of rum. She grabbed her suede coat, her cumbersome apothecary box, the copper-smelling key from beneath her pillow, and headed out the back door.

She walked around the circle of houses on the edge of the woods without attempting to conceal her presence. Funny how her escape was all plan and no heart. She was almost disappointed when she reached the path into the mountains without being noticed by anyone.

A quarter mile down the path, she came to a dirt road. Parked along it was an Echo station wagon. She put her bags in the passenger seat and climbed inside.

She drove with all the windows down and the air conditioner on high and the radio blaring anything—jazz, pop, acid rock, commercials. As long as she couldn’t hear herself thinking. She had to stop at a gas station to buy a map of Kensey, so it was almost seven-thirty before she reached Coalise Edison’s house.

She took her apothecary box in one hand and left the canvas bag in the wagon. The Edisons’ house was a massive Victorian colored with funky pastels. The porch furniture was wicker and the flowerbeds had been recently weeded.

She ignored the doorbell and thunked the knocker a couple of times. Footsteps hurried through the first floor and a tall, graying human man answered.

"May I help you?" His hair was sticking out in all directions and his fly was unzipped.

"I need to see Coalise," she told him. "It’s an emergency."

"Another one," he muttered. "Upstairs, last door on the left."

He turned and walked into a kitchen off the entryway, where a curly-haired human child in a highchair was crushing Cheerios. Maple stepped inside and closed the door behind herself.

"Who was that?" a woman in the kitchen asked.

"A scantily clad exchange student. I swear, they have all kinds in Canada."

Maple heard him rattle his newspaper as he opened it and walked quickly to the staircase. She kept her ears open as she mounted the steps.

On the second floor she went to the last door on the left and opened it without knocking. The scent of dust met her as she stepped into the doorway.

The large bedroom had been furnished by looting a Salvation Army store and carefully arranging everything in the least Feng-Shui pattern possible. The walls were adorned with everything from 70’s love beads to the back end of a Mexican donkey pinete, and there wasn’t enough floor space for a person to lie down because the room had been divided into smaller rooms by furniture.

Curtains had been drawn over the four windows, two tasseled silk, one linen print, and a fake fur. The room was pulsing with the soft music of sleeper breathing. No one stirred when Maple closed the bedroom door and walked forward.

She skirted a corner which was dominated by two desks at right angles, another cubicle created by shelf sets and a wardrobe and found a tiny clearing where a bed, an arm-chair, a loveseat, and a long, low book case formed a sort of living room.

Scotch Thrithe and Coalise Edison were asleep on the love seat. Head to toe, with a comforter drawn over them and the cushions that padded the back shoved off. Scotch had one of Coalise’s legs drawn to his chest and was using her socked foot as a pillow.

Maple turned to the bed. There were two guys in, bundled in blankets of every size, shape, and material. Again, head to two. One of them looked older, maybe twenty-three or twenty-four, and had hair the color of midnight falling over his face. She didn’t recognize him.

The other guy was Yared West.

He was sleeping but not peacefully. His brows jerked together as his eyes roamed over desolate landscapes known only to him. She touched an exposed arm, making sure the sleeve of his shirt came between their skins, and felt the warmth radiating off his body. Tears filled her eyes, reminding her how tired she was, and she had to grit her teeth to hold them at bay.

She set her apothecary box on top of the bookcase and opened it. She filled a glass syringe with hazy blue liquid and then carefully dragged Yared's sleeve up almost to the elbow.

The tips of her fingers touched his skin as she steadied his arm for the injection. His thoughts swarmed into her head.

-absolutely never complete, but I know we’re going to kill each other-

She jammed the plunger down, then let go of him and stepped away quickly. Yared rolled in his sleep, reaching out for her and jerking away as if warring with himself. He pulled his arm against his chest. His breathing became erridac.

Maple unconsciously put the empty syringe back in her box and then sank into the armchair next to the bed. Yared moaned suddenly, coughed twice, and went limp. A moment later his eyelids began fluttering as he sank into a true sleep.

There was nothing more for her to do but sit and fight the sobs that kept knocking around in her chest like wrestlers thrown against the barriers of the ring. She pulled her coat tight around her shoulders and waited.

The cell phone in her apothecary case rang. She usually kept it in the satchel she wore around her waist, and she had thrown the satchel into her box when she was packing up.

She almost didn’t answer it, but then she saw Scotch and Coalise stirring and jumped to her feet. "Hello," she said, snapping the mouthpiece open.

"Is he dead?" Galdwyn demanded. His voice was as smooth as his satin bed sheets.

Maple closed her eyes. How she could dread and long for his presence at the same time was a mystery beyond her comprehension. Forcing a catty tone, she asked, "Is who dead?"

"Don’t get smart with me," he snapped. "Have you killed him or not?"

No hints. "I have," she gambled.

"Well, that’s something. We’ve cut his damn sister into thirty-nine pieces now and most of them are still moving. It’s becoming preposterous."

His sister, the bogeyman.

Which meant Galdwyn thought she had killed Yared, who was finally sleeping peacefully thanks to her ministrations.

"Get back here as soon as you can," Galdwyn told her, and hung up.

She remained motionless until the dial tone began to ring in her ear, and then she shut the phone off and opened her eyes. When she turned to drop it back into her satchel, she saw Scotch sitting up on the loveseat, staring at her.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. He kept his voice low to avoid waking Coalise.

"I’m helping," she told him. She didn’t know what to say, how to explain to him that she didn’t know what she was doing here because something so horrible had happened to her that she wiped her own memory of at least eight hours and left herself directions to come. She couldn’t image what he would say to that.

He glanced at Yared. Relief came into his bright blue eyes. "He hasn’t slept for more than two days."

"He’ll sleep now," Maple promised, and he looked back at her. "I’ve given him something that will counter-act the poison in his brain."

"Will he be all right?"

"He’s just exhausted."

Scotch studied her as she sat down in the armchair again. She felt like he could see how tremulous her control over her emotions was, but the question he asked was, "Why are you helping us?"

He didn’t see. She had almost wanted him to see. She said, "Because I think I’m Yared’s soulmate."