In the strange way of dreams of vision, Qarakh was suddenly aware of what should happen next—of what had occurred when this confrontation had actually occurred years ago. The fiend would lean over and vomit a gout of blackness onto the ground. The inky mass would then rise up, coalesce and solidify into the shape of a horse, and without another look at either Qarakh or Aajav, the demon would mount the steed and ride off toward the east. Qarakh would then see to Aajav, who despite being in desperate need of blood, would refuse to take Qarakh’s. Qarakh would then carry his brother-cum-sire to the corpses of the Anda and their steeds and help him drink the blood the demon had left behind.
But none of that happened. Instead, after the demon reattached its severed head, it spoke. And the voice that issued from his mouth was a familiar one to Qarakh. It was the voice of the Beast.
“That was the first time you truly gave yourself over to me, and it saved both you and your beloved sire.”
Qarakh experienced a wave of dizziness followed by a sensation of separation, as if his very self were being split down the middle. One part of him was still the young Cainite who had barely survived an encounter with one of the Ten Thousand Demons, but another part was a decade older, khan of a tribe of Cainites far away from his beloved steppe. The older Qarakh now spoke face to face with his Beast.
“It was also the last time,” he said. After the permanent physical change that had taken place—the slight sharpening of all his teeth—Qarakh had realized that giving in completely to the Beast exacted a heavy toll, one that he was unwilling to pay. Ever since that night on the steppe, he had worked to keep his Beast placated so that he might live in yostoi with it, and for the most part, he had succeeded. When fury came, he rode it like a wild mare, shaping it to its own ends and never surrendering outright.
The Beast smiled with the demon’s mouth. “That does not mean it will be the only time.”
Qarakh was rapidly losing patience with the Beast. Though the older part of him knew this was but a memory that had given way to a dream-vision, his younger half worried about tending to his wounded brother.
“I have no time for games,” Qarakh said. “I have merely to will my physical body to withdraw my hand from the earth, and this spell will be broken. So if you have something to say to me, say it, and speak clearly, without riddles.”
The demon’s face scowled, but the Beast did as Qarakh commanded. “Before this is all over, you will need me, Qarakh. And when that moment comes, you shall be mine. Forever.”
Qarakh didn’t have to ask what the Beast meant. “Perhaps I will need to make use of you again, but hear this: I am Qarakh, known to some as the Untamed. No man—or Beast—shall ever be my master.”
The demon’s mouth laughed and its arm gestured toward the depression where the slaughtered Anda vampires lay. “That is the ultimate fate of those who are foolish enough to believe that they can resist me. My way isn’t about yostoi; it’s about submission, about giving yourself to me completely—mind, body and spirit—so that we can become one.”
Qarakh shook his head. “No, that way lies nothing but madness and soul-death.”
The demon’s mouth stretched into a skin-tearing grin. “Doesn’t it sound glorious? But enough talk.” The Beast raised the demon’s left hand and once more bone talons sprang forth from the creature’s fingertips. “It’s time I paid you back for decapitating me. A head for a head.”
As the demon made ready to strike, the younger half of Qarakh mentally protested. It was the demon whose head I cut off, not yours! But the older half knew there was no point in arguing with the Beast. As the talons streaked toward him, Qarakh closed his eyes and willed his physical body to withdraw his hand from the earthen mound…
… and he opened his eyes.
He yanked his fingers free of the earth as if they’d been bitten. He knew that if he’d still been mortal, his heart would have been pounding as if he had suffered through a nightmare. He supposed in a way he had.
He glanced toward the eastern horizon, and though no human eye could’ve detected it yet, he saw the first faint hint of the approaching dawn. It would still be an hour or so before the light became strong enough to be dangerous, more than enough time for him to assume wolf form and return to his ger. If necessary, he could always inter himself within the ground he stood upon when the sun began to rise. He could even sink into the mound and spend the day with Aajav if he wished, though after the vision he had just experienced, he was uncomfortable with the notion.
He continued to sit cross-legged atop the mound and pondered what the vision might mean. He was certain that it meant something; all visions held meaning. The trick was interpreting them. Qarakh’s vision had begun as a memory of the night Aajav and he had faced the eastern
