It was supposed to be a simple contract.

Heatherlegh had been a merchant's guard for a period of several months. He had learned the many details of the caravans under his master's jurisdiction, and one day while escorting a wagon laden with luxury goods, had killed his fellow guard and the driver and taken the supplies to a different merchant to sell off. Since then he'd had to use the black market, which is how Alain found out he was going to strike somewhere that evening and deliver the supplies later in the night.

Heatherlegh used a sword and dirk most of the time, and so Alain felt pretty confident he could stop the man. The rains of the Sunday evening had died down to a drizzle in the outskirts of Rhy'Din, and Alain remained hidden in the back of the wagon, waiting for it to be waylaid.

He did not have long to wait. A crashing erupted from the underbrush along the road; the driver shouted and drew his sword as the bandit cut the horse free of the wagon; and Alain emerged from the wagon just in time to see Heatherlegh and the driver engaged in a sword fight.

"That's enough, Heatherlegh," Alain said as he dropped down off the edge of the idly rolling wagon and unclasped his holster.

Then Heatherlegh did something very unexpected. He headbutted his opponent, drew an old flintlock pistol, fired a shot at Alain, and ran the driver through with his sword.

Alain whipped around as the little ball of metal buried itself in his side, and an intense pain and vibration rang through his ribs. It might've hit bone. He groaned, staggered and spun on his feet, drew his gun, squinted at Heatherlegh's retreating back as he made a break for the woods... and fired. There was a sharp cry, and the man fell and did not stir, with a sizzling black mark right between his shoulderblades.

He was bleeding... bleeding way too quickly, and too far from town. He stared dumbly at the red oozing through his shirt, running down his leg, and then set his teeth and clasped a hand firmly over it. What was near here? Anything?

Gwyneth's cottage. Gwyneth was a healer. With the image of that little house burned into his mind, he staggered off into the woods.

Gwyneth sat beside him on her bed, and stroked his brow thoughtfully with her fingertips. The touch stirred him from his dreams -- dreams confused with memories. He felt she had awoken him before, and he had agreed to stay the night... he was given more potions to heal him... his cell phone was fried... his gun was missing...

Blue eyes flew open, and he sat up suddenly in bed. Gwyneth drew her hand back, startled. He looked over her... and sighed quietly, setting his head back into the pillow. He felt so comfortable there... so strangely comfortable... "Good morning."

She smiled again. "Good morning, Alain..." There was always an odd quality to the way she said his name. "How do you feel this day?"

"Better... thanks." He pulled back under the covers to rest against the headboard, and tested his side gingerly. It did not hurt much... but Gwyneth swatted his hand at once.

"Do not play with it. You must listen to me if you wish to be whole." She looked sternly down at him... but seemed to catch herself, and turned her expression into a smile. If not for such a fuzzy mind, Alain would have reacted more strongly to her admonishment, and he gives her a small smile in return. Blue eyes moved from hers to look for something to change the subject to.

"...give you an ointment." Alain blinked some at her; his brain was not processing things very well, and it frustrated him. "It will speed the healing and keep the scar from taking hold."

"I appreciate that," Alain grinned. "Because otherwise, it'd be one hell of a scar," and one more to add to the patchwork that adorned his body. It was then he realized he was naked under the sheets. She undressed him, but oddly, he could not bring himself to feel embarassed.

"At least you had the sense to come to me, Alain."

"You're a good healer and a good friend." He smiled at her. It was sinking in that, yes, he owed her his life. She might argue she had repaid her debt, but it still felt profound to him.

She reached out to stroke his cheek, smiling down at him. "You're always welcome here, Alain..."

The alarm bells that went off in his head, that always went off at such touches, sounded... distant, and unimportant. "Thanks, Gwyneth." But still he made no move of his own.

"You will eat now." She stood. "I will bring you breakfast." His eyebrows went up at her tone, but he merely nodded, and she moved off to the kitchen, which gave him some time to assess his situation.

He'd been shot, but didn't hurt too badly. Cassie likely thought he was dead by now. He had slept in the bed of a woman who likely wanted to sleep with him, which didn't bother him, and he had trouble collecting his thoughts or worrying about things, which made it hard for much to bother him at all.

Several minutes later, Gwyneth returns with a breakfast of porridge and eggs. "That was fast," Alain grinned as she set the plate down for him.

"The porridge was already made." She reclaimed her seat on the edge of the bed. "It will fortify you... warm the blood to promote healing..."

He nodded at all of this, and dug in. "It's very good." He stopped long enough to sip his tea.

She smiled at that. "The hurt has made you hungry... I can satisfy your needs."

At that, he choked on his tea, and pounded his chest as he coughed and sputtered.

"There is more porridge," she teased him, and he grinned sheepishly and shook his head.

"Oh, yes, the porridge... no, I'm fine, thanks..."

"Did you find my bed comfortable, Alain?" Again, there was that odd lingering on his name.

"Slept like the dead." Her remark had stirred his foggy senses a little, and brought his wits back to him through the lingering effects of the potions she'd given him. He watched her as he finished his tea.

"But you are very much alive, no? Warm..." She reached out and stroked his arms, while his blue eyes followed her every move with a slowly growing tension. "Heart beating..."

"Best I can tell."

She placed a hand over his heart then, and looked him in the eyes. There was seduction written all over that smile, and something... not quite right, stirred in his blood. A hunger that was both familiar and utterly alien to him. "I can feel your heart, Alain, your strength... beating... You are a passionate man."

He lifted his chin a little, his eyes moving back and forth from her eyes to her fingers. "Some might say so..."

"A wild animal." Now her hand was wandering, and that strange hunger got stronger. "Not to be domesticated... you are wild like the forest..."

His wits rallied again, against the strong drugs working against him, and he sat up suddenly, much as it pained him. "I should be going." Remembering he was naked, he moved quickly to locate his clothes, and kept one hand on the blankets to preserve some decency. "Cassie and God knows who else must think I'm dead..."

She rose from the bed to stare at his naked back as he dressed, and composed herself. "I will let you dress... and get the ointments I promised you."

His hand found his fried cell phone. The rainwater had probably shorted it out somehow. That part was not a dream, then. His gun was nowhere in sight. He felt naked without it.

She met him at the door while he buttoned up his shirt. He felt groggy, and it pained him to move so fast, but he kept it up. "Really, I can't thank you enough, Gwyneth... you saved my life." Those words, though, and the way she was looking at him, made him slow down. He stared. The morning sunlight was in her hair, and her gaze was both warm and predatory.

"Alain... it is bad luck to accept gifts without renumeration..." She smiled slyly as she held back the gift. "A small token is all it will take to ensure good luck."

His breath caught a little in his throat. She'd never looked so beautiful or desirable to him before. "Perhaps a rain check is in order, for I have nothing to give."

"No, Alain," she said quietly. "I will accept nothing less than a kiss."

"A kiss...?" he repeated questioningly, and his eyes searched her face.

Her voice became firm: "A kiss. I am owed no less."

He raised his eyebrows at that. But he was curious... and if he was merely repaying a debt... so he told her, "Just one."

She whispered something to herself, but Alain could not hear it... so he stepped up to her. He tried to be casual about it, though he could hear his blood pounding in his ears. His hand moved awkwardly to her upper arm, and he... kissed her. A soft kiss on her lips, and she raised herself on her toes a little to better kiss him back. It was innocent, at first...

...but a thought occurred to him. What would it be like? Just to indulge that lust for a second? To see what those dreams are all about, only for a moment? Are they anything alike? Would it be so intense? The kiss had already lingered too long, and then he deepened it. The moment he did, he was aware only for a fraction of a second of something definitely going wrong. His mind went more blank than it ought to have in that situation, and he could not shake the images of her from his dreams. Her neck arched, moaning for him, clutching at his back, moving with him... and at the very center of his being, an intense, unnatural hunger for her had been awakened.

He was aware of little but a rising hunger and the sensations they were sharing. The kiss became deeper, he tasted her tongue... she was pushing her hair out of the way to let him at her neck, and he pushed her against the wall... He could think of nothing else but her, and it struck him again there was something wrong.

She was all there was, his mind told him, but he knew there was... something. Something else, out there, that wasn't her. His kisses stopped. He stepped back from her with a bewildered, uncertain look. Her lips moved, but he couldn't understand her. There was another. There had to be. He stumbled backwards into the door, and then yanked it open. He ran out into the woods, feeling delirious, but as he ran, her words finally carried clearly to him, carried on the wind --

"Come back to me, Alain... I will be waiting."

(Heads up, this post is mature-ish, though I've tried to go easy on the details.)

When his senses began returning to him, he was in the throes of passion. The sound of a bedframe creaking and heavy breathing in the air around him. His heart beating fast. He looked up, and saw her body moving and her eyes clenched shut. And in spite of it all, he groaned when she moved harder. His face was hot, and he felt a drop of sweat move down his chin.

How had this happened? How had she done this to him? Why did he remember so little?

The potions! He cursed himself for his lack of foresight, for his slow-wittedness, and groaned again. She was bringing him closer. Much as he hated putting his body through such disappointment, he would nip this bud. Just a simple matter of pushing her off and...

...His hands were bound. He tilted his head back and looked at the headboard. There were green and black candles, a bowl of lotion of some kind (its presence there was pretty self-explanatory), and red powder, part of a circle. Alain was no magician, but he had watched enough B movies to guess this was some kind of ritual. He tried to move his legs, but his feet, too, were securely bound. Struggling to focus in spite of everything, he sought to move his arms apart. He gritted his teeth and fought against his binding, but to no avail. He was not strong enough.

"You'll be strong enough soon, my love," she cooed. She never stopped moving.

He tried lifting his body to throw her off of him, but she pushed on his chest to keep him level and laughed delightedly. Wicked noises escaped her lips, and he graoned yet again. Whatever it was she wanted out of this, she would be getting soon...

Then he saw something. A little green light slipped between her lips when she sighed, and he could swear he'd seen it somewhere before, but his memories were still quite foggy. It hovered between them... and he began to lose his concentration. She cried out, arching and twisting, and he let out a gasp. He clenched his eyes shut... and there was a flash of green, and mostly darkness as his eyes rolled up into his head.

Everything, it seemed, had been turned down to Volume Level One. Her sighs and even his own breathing sounded as if air pressure had partly sealed and deafened his ears; the smell of their sweat and the candles was fainter than it should have been; even the feeling of her sitting on his stomach was vaguely felt. It took nearly a minute to figure out she was stroking his chest, at which time a voice spoke to him, that was clearer than any of his other senses.

Didn't that feel liberating?
Who are you?
Your new best friend. I'm going to give you power.
I don't understand... and I don't care about power! Where's Cassie?
Oh, you care about the woman, but don't care about power... how very interesting... Oh, and what's this?

Memories flashed before him. Chastity's dead body, and Miss B.'s grinning visage.

Stop that. You've no right.
Why is it you care about your women so, but can't even protect them... and care so little for the power to protect them?
...You're misleading me. I could've saved her, if I'd just...
Ah, but you didn't save her. And you can't save Cassie.
What... what are you talking about?
She'll need saving someday. Especially with you around. Her life was so quiet until the man people wanted to kill walked into it!
That's not true... she--
Don't argue, Alain. You know how true it is. I'm sure she's marked for death already.
Who? Who would do such a thing to her?
There are monsters that prowl this city... monsters that you hunt but can never, ever stop. She would be safe, but you'll get her killed. You're too weak to hunt them, too weak to stop them... too weak to save her.
...You can do as much as me to change that.
Oh, but you're wrong. Do you feel... that?

There was a surge of... something, in his veins. His senses came closer to him for only a moment. Something felt... dark, and wrong... but so right. There were things in the room he could feel, the lingering wickedness of Gwyneth's ritual, the spirit in his head. Then he saw flashes of images, great black feathered wings, the snapping jaws of a beast, crimson twisted around a pearl pinnacle, the moon, and great feelings of hunger... and power. And then it all went away...

...and in spite of everything, he yearned to have it back.

I am more than the little spirit you just felt, that you were able to see as you've never seen before. I am a traveler, a Vagabond, and you are not the first being I have visited in this way.

Alain could only listen, and struggled for the defiant argument to make this being go away.

I met a spirit named Kael once... He'd been an archangel before, and wanted to join the legions of Hell... but things did not go so well for him...
Angels? Demons? I don't believe in them.
Ah, you silly mortal... that does not change the fact that they are real! I have a little piece of him in me, a token I took before lifting my possession of him... no, none of his potency, but I am sure he will come in handy for you. Ah... do you believe in men with the qualities of beasts? The Artemene, they were fabulous creatures... such a pity they are all dead... oh, but I drove one mad with rage, and took a souvenir!
You're sick... I can't believe this...
I'm just trying to help you, Alain... Ah yes. Apostolos. The poor old Greek bastard thought he could serve God. A hunter like you. A pity he was a part of what he hunted... God cannot love such a creature. And don't bother telling me you don't believe in God.
What does any of this have to do with me?
You have only to forget the cares you have now, accept the power I give you... and you will never fail to protect anyone, ever again.

Most of Alain doubted that... but he could feel a part of him wanting that power to keep him away from pain. The ability to never feel that burden of guilt again.

And why shouldn't we accept it? We forget one woman of many, for the sake of your sanity and the care of so many more!

Alain didn't bother asking who that was. He recognized his own voice.

But I love her! I will not let go of her.
Your love cannot save her. It will do her no good when she is dead.
I won't give it up. I won't allow it. I'll wake up, and I'll silence my doubts and be done with this wicked spirit... and I'll free myself of Gwyneth, and--
We don't need your permission. I have a new ally. You've betrayed yourself.
It's for our own good, you know.
I'll let you bear witness. In time, you will regret your refusal, and come to join with us.
No... you can't...

Alain already felt his senses slipping further away. His hand clenched, but he wasn't controlling it.

You can't do this! This is impossible!

But the spirit, and the new Alain, would humor him no longer. He felt confined... and he was, confined within his own mind or his own spirit. He saw blackness, a circle of light overhead shrinking into a tiny pinprick as he fell away, drifting away into darkness as if sinking under a frozen surface... all the feelings he associated with death. He would have wailed with despair, if he still had the control to do it.

The new Alain, and the vagabond spirit, could feel everything that was going on. Something, somewhere in his jaws, was changing; he cried out with the intense pain as blood oozed to the corners of his mouth, but did not bleed for long. The world around him suddenly seemed so much more... alive, complex, dark and mysterious. And his hands clenched into fists. Oh, this would be good, the new Alain thought.

The scarred-and-tattooed right hand moved to Gwyneth's soft hand on his chest, and he could no longer recall what the tattoo was for.

"Strong Alain," she whispered to him... and smiled.