Shattered Pentacle

Lyra did not charge blindly into an enclosure of powerful predators hoping to deal with any encounter as it came. The power of any mage came from preparation, so she prepared.

She lingered in the doorway for a few seconds, muttering a few words in Atlantean and drawing with her knife. Rainbow looked up from the glass to watch, fascinated and amused.

“I am larger, I am stronger. This is my territory. You will respect me and let me pass.” She said it, and it was so. Though nothing about her appearance would change to any watching human, the vampire’s captives would see differently. To their instincts, she was now the strongest member of their kind in the area, instantly worthy of deference and fear.

“That’s it?” Rainbow asked. “A few silly words, and...”

Lyra left her in the viewing room, marching straight out into the darkness. She wasn’t trying to hide—either from the animals, or the more dangerous thing inside. The last thing she needed now was to take a vampire by surprise.

I belong here. I’m helping you.

The space inside might’ve been a zoo exhibit, though it was larger and more richly appointed than the one in Canterlot. A large water feature crossed the enclosure, pooling into a pond on one side. Many tracks broke the night, with torn leaves and damaged trunks visible at various points inside.

Something very large lived here—several somethings. Lyra found her destination easily, of course. The struggling heart of the injured creature called for relief, its blood soaking into the mud and its mind wild with a fear of death it could not quite comprehend.

She saw it in the moonlight, with the cat eyes Capper had given her. A huge grizzly, covered in makeshift bandages, yet still on its back. What had hurt it so badly, she couldn’t see at a distance. Yet with her eyes closed, she felt damage within its chest. Something pierced its organs—a bullet.

Whoever tended to this creature had tried their best, but infection set in anyway. Some of its flesh was necrotic now, and its mind was racked by fever.

Lyra heard no movement behind her, not even a single leaf crunching in the darkness. Suddenly, there was a cold hand on her back, right at the base of her spine. Those fingers were thin and delicate, with perfectly rounded nails. She felt no warmth through them, and nothing to touch their shared bond with the living world.

“Why are you here?” whispered a voice, low and feminine. Yet even in the stillness, there was terrible anger. “I have come to grieve. You dare interrupt my mourning?”

A dozen little spells popped into her mind, then out of it again. Magic or no magic, she couldn’t cast anything if the Kindred killed her in one stroke.

“I can save the bear.”

“With blood?” asked the voice. Lyra didn’t move, but she saw motion out of one eye. Long pink hair caught the moonlight, before vanishing into the shadows again. Still the grip remained on her back. “He will not take it. And from your smell, you have none to give.”

“Not blood,” she said. “Life.But I have to do it while he still lives.”

The cold fingers released her neck. “Rainbow brought you? I thought it was hopeless... not without giving us away. The Sheriff would be furious if we had to pay off animal control again. If there’s something you can do, please.”

She looked back at the vampire who had caught her by surprise. Lyra felt a brief shock of terror, something familiar about that otherworldly beauty and marble-chiseled grace. She’d seen it somewhere before, somewhere far from the Hedge’s glamour and strange magic.

The bear growled out again, thrashing along the ground. With each movement, it tore free of its bandages, worsening the already awful injuries. “Your bear will be just fine.”

Lyra stepped forward, whispering another spell under her breath. Animal language came with time, just as she now understood cats without a spell. Bears were related—distant cousins of evolution. But not close enough that she could speak to them without a little help.

“Hold still,” she said, holding out her hands. “Your pain is over.”

The animal snapped to alertness; pained eyes fixed on her. “Hurt! Deep inside! Tried to hurt my friend. Fought. Burns now, everywhere!”

“Not anymore.” She touched the blade into the grass, drawing a circle into the loose dirt. She added a few quick runes, mostly to steady her nerves. “Where ancient kings and hunters rode against the false gods, sometimes their beloved hounds fell beside the road. The beasts looked up, pleading for relief. Though they were not men, and knew not the truth, they knew love. Where it had been given, it was returned. Arise.”

Though every healing was its own little miracle, the task was no longer difficult for Lyra. She took hold of the damaged pattern in both hands, and she worked the frayed threads over. Rotting flesh fell away, and new skin took its place. A smattering of heavy buckshot tumbled to the dirt, then the wounds finally closed. Blood stopped pumping from the wound, and strength took the place of weakness.

She took a single step back then, sliding her dagger back into her belt. “I can’t give you freedom, beast. But I can give you that.”

The bear ignored her. Something rushed to meet it through the dark—the vampire, barely a blur in Lyra’s vision. She embraced the injured bear, holding it as a sane person might a treasured pet returned from the vet.

“You’re okay! That’s amazing, Harry! Thank the nice human for her help. What a nice human she is...”

“Thank you,” the bear said, in his ursine way. Lyra backed away from the two, back towards the viewing room. There were other predators in this enclosure, and the shorter she remained vulnerable to them, the better.

She didn’t get far. Before she could reach the door, a familiar figure was beside her again. The vampire was taller and thinner than Lyra, wearing what had once been a fine gown of gossamer and silk. Only now it was torn, bloody, and had little leaves poking through the expensive fabric.

“You’re a witch,” she said, voice flat. “What’s your name?”

“Heartstrings. You’re the... Seneschal? Volita, right?”

She nodded. They had already reached the building, or very close to it. Volita stopped a few steps away from the light, and Lyra halted just beside her. It felt like the wise thing to do, anyway. “What did she promise for your help?”

Too bad I didn’t think of that. “Nothing. My friend and I were just here for a meeting when I heard the... distress, from inside the cage. Thought I could help, so I helped.”

Volita waved her into the building. “If I couldn’t already feel the life in you, I would still know you weren’t Kindred. No angle? No favor I owe you that we don’t get to negotiate. The net gets a little tighter.”

“Not the way we do things. Well... not the good ones. Some of us are like that. But to me the whole thing is so... exhausting.” She met the vampire’s eyes. “In every tyrant's heart there springs this poison: that he cannot trust a friend.”

She shut the door behind them, then locked it.

Inside, Reagan sat awkwardly across from the guard, both close to the observation window. She looked between them but found no sign of violence.

Rainbow snapped alert as the other Vampire entered, lowering her head respectfully. “Apologies for the interruption, mistress. They insisted on a meeting, through your brother’s old channels. I thought you might want to see them, if only to cut ties. Or throats.”

Volita stiffened, glowering at Rainbow. If that was on the table before, it isn’t anymore. “I’m not entirely convinced these are the same group of witches we made arrangements with before. Tempest was no better than the Camarilla. That’s why my older brother liked her so much.”

Rainbow bowed again, a little deeper. “Of course, mistress. It’s possible they came upon our contact information some other way.”

The vampire named Volita waited for Rainbow to bring her a seat, then settled delicately down into a reclining position. If she even noticed the damaged clothes or the bear blood on her, she didn’t react.

Lyra returned to the seat opposite Reagan, looking as relaxed and comfortable as she possibly could make herself.

She kept the stick in two fingers, ready to draw on the spell within if these vampires turned on them. Even a pleased vampire could turn into a horrifying predator in an instant if their mood changed.

It doesn’t matter how human they look, they aren’t.

“You’ve taken considerable risk finding me,” Volita said. “Even greater to step outside into the habitat. It seems only fair that I should hear what brings you here. After that...” She shrugged. “We’ll see. Since taking my brother’s office, I have little time for hobbies. Even if you bring something interesting, I may not be able to help you.”

Reagan and Lyra shared a look. Reagan nodded, urging Lyra to speak. Before that moment, she wasn’t the one they planned to deliver their request. But if she was the one to win the vampire’s cooperation...

“There’s a magical door we need to open. Goes to an old ruin, and it takes blood. Special blood that only a powerful vampire can provide.”

Volita was silent for a few seconds. Long enough that her guard settled a glass into her fingers, rich with red blood. Only—not the same stuff as she’d been drinking. This glass was so dark it was almost black. And the smell—not as familiar.

No craving! Lyra thought, an involuntary smile spreading across her face. I don’t want it anymore! Capper was right—she’d grown too much to be vulnerable to the vampire’s temptation. She’d never drink vitae again.

“You ask a great deal,” she said. “Some in the Camarilla would say I should deal with you right now. That you even understand this much is unacceptable.”

That would probably be where Bonnie started shooting. Lyra, though—that desire was now tempered. Monster or not, Volita seemed to care about her pets. Was that love false too?

“But not you?” Reagan said. “You don’t agree.”

“For Tempest, I might have. That woman...” She took another sip. “A poor example of your kind, I’m sorry to say. If you’re friends of hers, I hope you’ll understand.”

Lyra choked back a laugh with her arm, attracting stares from both vampires before her. Reagan gave her a warning look, but she continued heedless anyway. “She’s as awful as you think. Worse. We’re not friends.”

She reached into her pocket, producing a photo of the sealed door. It showed nothing except the Atlantean and the flat surface, no hint of the mine or the space around it.

They weren’t going to leak the location of this potential ruin to their enemy, even accidentally. “If you agreed, maybe you could give us the blood, and we could get the door open. I don’t think we need very much at all.”

Volita shook her head sharply. “Impossible. I would need to attend—or another similar in potency to myself. That’s what you want? A little blood?”

Reagan nodded. “Nothing else. You don’t have to help us explore or secure the ruin once we open it. Open the door, then leave.”

“And you would do something in exchange?” Volita asked. “Something of appropriate value to the labor you want from me.”

“We won’t kill people,” Lyra said. “We can’t get involved in vampire wars. But if it’s something that we’re allowed, yes.”

Volita giggled. “I don’t need help with killing. But you witches are good at finding missing things. I lost a friend, and I would like to find her.”