Did you have trouble getting away?" Hugh said
It was the next morning, a very different sort of day from yesterday. The sky was overcast and the air
was heavy. Everyone Jez had passed at the Concord BART station looked a little depressed.
"Eh, a little," she said, and sat down by Hugh on the platform. They were at the far end of the station,
beyond the covered area with benches, beside a little concrete security house. It was a safe and private
meeting place since the station was almost deserted after the morning commute. "They chained up my
bike with this huge chain. Claire drove me to school-she's been watching me like a werewolf guarding
dinner. And Aunt Nan called the office to make sure I didn't cut" Hugh shifted in concern. There was a
tiny breath
of warm wind, and it stirred his fair hair. "So what did you do?"
Jez grinned. "I cut." She shrugged and added, "I got a guy from my auto shop class to drive me here. It
wasn't hard."
He smiled at her sadly, his gray eyes distant. "But they're going to find out. Jez, I'm really sorry for
completely messing up your life."
She shrugged again. "Yeah, but if I don't do it, everybody's life is going to be even more completely
messed up. Every human's."
"I know." He shivered slightly. Then he drew up his legs, clasping his arms around them. He looked at
her with his chin on his knees. "So what did you find out?"
"That the girl Morgead thought was the Wild Power isn't." He looks so cute that way, Jez thought
helplessly. So-compact. Morgead would never sit like that.
Hugh winced. "Great. You're sure?"
"Yeah. It was a little kid, eight years old, and she was something special-but not that. She was..." Jez
tried to think of a way to describe it. Hugh watched her with eyes that were clear and fathomless, sad
and wry and gentle all at once. And suddenly Jez got it. She gasped.
"Goddess-I know! She was like you. That kid was an Old Soul."
Hugh's eyebrows went up. "You think?"
"I'm sure of it. She had that same way of looking at you as if she's seen all of history and she knows
that you're just a little part. That... trig picture' look. As if she were beyond stupid human things."
"But not a Wild Power," Hugh said softly. He looked half discouraged and half relieved. "So then the
Morgead connection is useless."
"Actually, no. Because he's got evidence for the Wild Power on videotape." Jez explained about the
movie and the fire and the blue flash. "So somebody around that kid is probably it. I know that area and
so does Morgead. We may be able to find out who."
Hugh chewed his lip. Then he looked directly at her. "It sounds dangerous. Just how is Morgead taking
tins-you coming back and all?"
Jez stared out across the BART tracks. They looked like regular train tracks, except for the big one
labeled danger electric third rah.. There was a sound like faraway thunder, and then a train came whizzing
up like a sleek futuristic white dragon. It stopped and a few people got on and off in the distance. She
waited until it left again to answer.
"He... wasn't very happy at first. But then he kind of got used to it. I don't think he's going to make any
trouble-unless he finds out, you know."
She wasn't sure what else to say. She didn't want to talk to Hugh about Morgead-and she certainly
didn't want to explain what had happened. Especially not when she was so confused about it all herself.
"You still think he'd hate you if he found out you were half human?" Hugh's voice was quiet.
Jez laughed shortly. "Believe it. He would."
There was a silence, while Hugh looked at her. Suddenly Jez found her mind posing an odd question. If
it were Hugh or Morgead, which would she take?
Of course, it was a completely ridiculous question. She couldn't have either of them. Hugh was an Old
Soul, and beyond her reach. Not to mention that he only thought of her as a friend. And Morgead might
be her soulmate, but he would murder her if he ever discovered the truth.
But still, if she did have a choice... Hugh or Morgead?
A day ago she'd have said Hugh without question. How strange that now it came up the other way.
Because, impossible as it was, deadly as she knew it to be, it was Morgead she was in love with. And
she had only just understood that this moment.
What a pity that there was no hope in the world for them.
Jez found herself giving another short laugh- and then she realized that Hugh was still looking at her. She
could feel color rise to her cheeks.
"You were miles away again."
Tm just foggy. Not enough sleep, I guess." Plus all that fun yesterday. She was still sore from the stick
fight and the fall with Iona. But that wasn't Hugh's problem.
She took a breath, groping for another subject. "You know, there was something I wanted to ask
you. Morgead said the Council had dug up another prophecy-about where each of the Wild Powers is
from. Have you heard it?" When he shook his head, she quoted:
"One from the land of kings long forgotten; One from the hearth which still holds the spark; One from the
Day World where two eyes are
watching; One from the twilight to be one with the dark."
"Interesting." Hugh's gray eyes had lit up. " 'One from the hearth'... that's got to be the Harman
witches. Their last name was originally 'Hearth-Woman.' "
"Yeah. But the line about the one from the Day World-that one's a human, right?"
"It sounds like it."
"That's what Morgead thought-that's why he thought the little girl might be a Wild Power even though
she was human. But what I can't figure out is what it means by 'where two eyes are watching.'"
"Mmm..." Hugh gazed into the distance, as if he liked the challenge. "The only thing I can think of that
combines the idea of 'Day* and 'eyes' is a poem. It goes something like 'The Night has a thousand eyes,
and the Day only one.' The one eye being the sun, you know, and the thousand eyes the stars at night."
"Hmpf. What about the moon?"
Hugh grinned. 'I don't know. Maybe the author wasn't good at astronomy."
"Well-that doesn't help much. I thought it might be a clue. But the truth is that we don't even know if it's
the human Wild Power we're after."
Hugh put his chin on his knees again. "True. But I'll let Circle Daybreak know about that prophecy. It
might help eventually." He was silent a moment, then added, "You know, they dug up something
interesting, too. Apparently the Hopi Tribe predicted the end of the world pretty accurately."
"The Hopi?"
"I should say, the ends of the worlds. They knew that it had happened before their time, and that it
would happen again. Their legend says that the first world was destroyed by fire. The second world was
destroyed by ice. The third world ended in water- a universal flood. And the fourth world-well, that's
ours. It's supposed to end in blood and darkness- and end soon."
Jez murmured, "The first world-?"
"Don't remember your Night World history?" He tched at her, with a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"The first civilization was the shapeshifters'. Back when humans were scared to go out of their caves, the
shapeshifters ruled and the humans thought of them as gods. Animal spirits, totems. It was Shapeshifter
World. That lasted for about ten thousand years, until a bunch of volcanoes suddenly became active-"
"Fire."
"Yeah. The weather changed, people migrated, and the shapeshifters lost control. After that it was really
Witch World. The witches did better than
everybody else for ten thousand years, but then there was an Ice Age-"
"And the Night Wars," Jez said, remembering. "When the vampires fought the witches."
"Right. And after all that, the vampires were in control; it was Vampire World. Which lasted about
another ten thousand years, until the flood. And after the flood, human civilization really started. It was
Human World, and it has been for a long time. The Night People have just been hanging on around the
edges, hiding. But. . ." He paused and straightened. "That started about eight thousand
B.C."
"Oh."
"Yeah. The millennium marks the end of our ten thousand years." He gave his gentle, half-mocking smile.
"We humans are about to lose our lease. Something's going to happen to bring blood and darkness and
then there'll be a whole new world."
"Only if we don't stop it," Jez said. "And we will- because we have to."
Hugh's smiled changed, softening. "I think we're lucky to have people like you trying." Then he lost the
smile completely. He looked uncertain. "Jez- you know, Old Souls aren't really beyond 'stupid human
things.' We're as human as anybody. And we ... I mean, and I..."
Jez's heart was beating uncomfortably fast. The way he was looking at her-she'd never seen Hugh look
like that at anything or anyone.
Another rumble in the distance, and then a train came rushing in.
Hugh blinked, glanced up at the digital clock display above the platform, then checked his watch. He
cursed.
Tm supposed to be somewhere. I'm late."
Jez's heart gave a strange thump. But not of disappointment. Weirdly, it was more like relief.
"Me, too," she said. "I'm supposed to meet Morgead before everybody else gets out of school. I ought
to take the next train to San Francisco."
He still hesitated. "Jez-"
"Go on," she said, standing up. "Ill call you if I turn up anything. Wish me luck."
"Be careful," he said instead, and then he was hurrying away.
Jez watched him go. She couldn't help wondering what he had been about to say.
Then she turned to walk back to the central part of the station. She was partway around the concrete
guardhouse when she heard a noise on the other side.
A stealthy, sneaking noise. Not the kind a security guard would make.
Jez didn't hesitate. Smoothly, completely soundless herself, she changed course, turning back and going
around the structure the other way to get behind the sneaker. The instant she had a clear view of the
intruder's back, she jumped.