Annalisa Story/Disclaimer
EPILOGUE: Flame and Shadow
The first time Ywj Pheej saw her was in the twilight of a moonless night. Although he had been in America since he was a baby he had never seen a woman quite so tall, standing well over six feet. Her height did not detract from an easy grace and poise that spoke of someone at peace with their body and whom understood their place in the world. Her hair looked like gold in the light of still-burning fires and her light brown eyes favored those self-same flames like polished amber.
In the interplay of dark and light Ywj Pheej could tell she was naked save for the strap of the quiver that held arrows over her shoulder. Despite the swell of her bosom and flare of her hips being quite alluring, she was far too intimidating with the still quivering bowstring of the longbow in her hands for him to be anything save awestruck.
Annalisa Guida Lettercraft, Rite named Lights the Path, had saved his life. He had only met her once before to know whom she was, when he and his family had first come to the small Arkansas Sept, she had been away up until just a week ago.
With a crash, the bawn's caern lodge collapsed behind Ywj Pheej and he looked away to be sure that none of the other Kinfolk had been inside at the time. The Caern was being overrun, even as the bane the Garou archer had shot still shrieked in pain. By the time he looked back all he saw was the faintest shimmering blur and he wasn't certain of that.
Another bane shrieked, another arrow vibrating in its twisted nightmarish skull as it writhed half in and half out of the physical world only a few feet from a couple of the children who were hugging one another in uncertainty and outright fear. The banes were semi-corporeal things that were vaguely humanoid and the rest was either teeth or shadow.
"Get them out of here!" called a clarion contralto. It was melodic and yet commanding, and Ywj Pheej could only imagine it belonging to their stealthy protector.
He did not have to be told twice as he gathered up the children and fled from the Sept, hoping their shadowy protector was not the only Garou left to defend the Kin's retreat.
Flames were everywhere as Annalisa moved like mercury through the shadows, uncaring that her body was exposed. She had been lucky that only her dress had burned since she had favored the gift to smell like a human in order to slip by domesticated animals when she was traveling through Asia.
She had not even had time to greet Jessica since returning, and the Caern had been completely breached. Even with those Kin she had been covering for, the carnage was awful. There had been a recent influx of Laotian kinfolk who were spending a lot of time on the bawn and too few Garou to protect them.
Stopping, Annalisa drew her bow. A shadowy, ape-like, thing was tearing into a fallen body, and though she knew it might reform later Annalisa intended to rob the bane of all its power and make it leave the physical world shrieking for what it had done.
Combat the Wyrm wherever it dwelt, and whenever it bred.
Her loosed arrow would have severed the spine of a human at the Atlas vertebrae, but the bane was not human. The bane arrow talen, however, pinned the wretched thing to the ground and caused it to shriek horrifically.
"Annalisa... " choked out a familiar voice, "By Gaia, you are a sight for sore eyes... "
"Jessica!" exclaimed Annalisa as she knelt beside the smaller woman.
"I'm sorry... I couldn't... " choked Jessica.
"Shh," responded Annalisa, walling off her emotions, "I already saw them. Henry went after my family first. The bindery is in flames."
"The coward... " coughed Jessica, and Annalisa cursed inwardly. Jessica had been eviscerated, she was in her human form so she wasn't regenerating, and the wounds looked to have been made by a blade rather than claws.
"Yeah," said Jessica as though confirming Annalisa's fears, "He took Shimmersong from me... he gutted me with my own klaive. I don't have long sweetie. Just leave me and go after him."
"No," said Annalisa, "You may outrank me, but I'm not in your pack. I'm not Anastasia. Let's find Fred, I am not leaving you to die."
The smells and foot prints and paw prints were all a mess, but with Jessica carried carefully on a makeshift litter Annalisa gave up tracking the traitor Henry and found the rest of Jessica's pack.
Or what was left of them.
"Jessica... don't look," Annalisa warned as she saw where Jessica's pack mates had fallen. They had been torn limb from limb. Fred was barely recognizable, mostly because his glasses remained intact.
"They are all dead... " said Jessica.
"Don't you give up on me," said Annalisa as she searched Fred's bloody corpse. As she suspected, Henry had not recognized the metal whiskey flask as a fetish. It was something that Fred had mentioned working on.
"Fred didn't need it himself," explained Annalisa, "But he was happy to point out that not even every Child of Gaia has Mother's Touch and they certainly can't use it on themselves. This is his flask of purifying waters... it should heal you."
Praying over the flask softly, Annalisa tried to summon up her minuscule spiritual connection, "Please, I beseech you, cleanse my friend of her wounds," and as she did so she poured the water over Jessica's wound and gave it to her to drink. It flowed from the flask as though endlessly and Jessica's wounds began to heal.
As though being washed away, the horrible evisceration seemed to slowly vanish, the flesh became miraculously whole.
"Fred never even mentioned this to me," panted Jessica as breath became easier.
"What can I say, I have a knack for finding things out," said Annalisa, "And I might have done the leatherwork for the holder it's in."
"But the Caern is truly dead this time, they desecrated the heart. Henry led them in, ambushed us, and now he's gotten away... " said Jessica.
"For now maybe," said Annalisa as she offered the flask to Jessica.
"No," said Jessica, "You keep it. Fred would have wanted it that way. You may need it. If nothing else, offer it as Chiminage where you are going."
"Where I am going?" repeated Annalisa as she got Jessica to her feet.
"You mean I managed to surprise YOU?" intoned Jessica with a weak, mirthless, laugh "The elders were going to assign you to head to Prospect California since you never joined a pack here. It might even work out for your hunt... I think Henry knew they were sending you there. So be careful."
