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Angel ignored the whistling, whispering air around him, and kept going, keeping to the darkest shadows as the greenish sickly light continued to grow brighter. Shadows leapt along the walls in a dance that terrified if one cared to watch it, but Victor didn't really give a shit. He was here for a single reason, to find Sarah, dead or alive, and bring her, or her body, or even what was left of it, back to the farm. The beasts casting the shadows he recognized as the same sort of beasts that he'd fought earlier that night. He counted, taking time, and focusing his mind to its utmost performance. As far as he could tell, there were about thirty of them, all misformed vaguely wolf like beasts, that howled and cackled. Angel counted his bullets and his mind and eyes narrowed. He could do it. Even if it took more than one bullet apiece, he could kill them all. His teeth, his fangs glinted ivory in the dark, sliding from their sheathes in anger.

'Go softly!' urged the air around his head. But his blood would not go softly at all. nothing would hold him back, and with a silent mental cry of anguish he began firing, picking off the beasts one by one. Pause to change clips, throw the empty clip away, reload, fire was you free the next clip. Soon they were coming for him, and he moved in the darkness, mowing down more of the creatures, laming them, crippling them, killing them. His mind was as dark as their lair, but lit with the hot red flames of anger and anguish, not the heatless green flames that this place was lit with. As they rushed him, he slashed coolly at throats and paws, severing body parts with thoughtless power, long knife flashing,as powder burns scorched the arm of his leather jacket, as he fired, again and again and again.

The beasts in the end, were only beasts, compared to the monster beneath the stairs, they were not a great force to Angel's full frenzy. And beside his normal abilities, there was a support, that made his reactions faster and his blows even harder. At last there was no standing to oppose him, and the fire within his heart dimmed. The howls and chants had ceased, replaced by the whimpers of the wounded, and the faint sobs somewhere in the cavern. Victor spared a few moments to cutting off the heads of the beasts, so that they had no chance of healing, before following the sobs.

Sarah huddled against the wall, her jeans and blouse in tatters, and one sandal gone. There were bruises spread over her visible body in a mottled pattern. She would not at first even let Victor near her. He spoke soothingly to the young girl, until she looked at him, and didn't see a monster, but the drifter who had tried so hard to save her family. Her eyes were already red and puffy, but she flung herself into his arms and began weeping again, throat already raw. Angel heard a noise and turned, swiftly, arms still full of weeping girl. Beasts filled the cavern again, but they were smooth, sleek and handsome. They were werewolves and they were examining the dead bodies with a certain amount of satisfaction. From inside the pack came a human, dressed in hunter's garb.

"Congratulations," he said. "You've managed what my pack couldn't and taken out a pack of rouges, the evil ones." Victor's eyes were steely above Sarah's weeping head. The werewolf looked down at the girl. "It's a shame for one of our kinfolk to be hurt so," he paused. "We have healers..." Angel picked Sarah up in his arms, and without answering walked across the cavern, and down the tunnel to the surface. The werewolves parted and watched him pass.

The sun was high, and it blinded Victor momentarily. He felt somewhat drained, and the air around him was still. He began the long walk back to the farm, putting one foot in front of the other, and trying not to think of anything, other than keeping Sarah safe.

'I failed them,' he thought. 'Sarah is hurt in ways I can't touch, and Maggie and Adrian...' His eyes burned with unshed tears, but he pushed them down and kept walking. 'I'll stay with Sarah,' he told himself. 'I'll stay with her for the rest of her life, and keep her safe with all my power.' The girl, seeming more frail and fey than ever had fallen asleep in exhausted slumber as he carried her, but she twitched with restless painful dreams.

There were sheep in the pasture again. The door had been replaced. John, looking skittish and afraid, was in the pasture beside the sheep. There were even a few goats. Angel had no idea how this had come about. When he kicked the door open gently, he had a feeling. Adrian and Maggie's bodies had been neatly wrapped in thick blankets, and each laid on a sheepskin. On each of their foreheads had been drawn a glyph. There was a sound, and Angel turned. The werewolf leader was behind him. He gave a strange smile and nodded, once, then left closing the door behind him. Victor walked up the stairs and laid Sarah in her bed. Dispassionately, he pulled her clothes off and slipped the unconscious girl into her nightgown, then pulled the covers up to her chin. Angel collapsed into the chair beside her bed, and lit a much needed cigarette.

He was cleaning his gun when she woke up. Sarah looked at him, and her eyes spoke a single question. Was it real? It hurt his heart to do so, but he nodded. Sarah swallowed, strangely dry eyed now. "Well," she said, throat choked. "I guess we have to bury them."

Sarah moved slowly, but surely. She always stayed in Victor's sight, except when she was changing. She milked the goats, with much half hearted cursing, as Angel hitched the nervous horse to the wagon. The two bundles were set in the back, along with the shovel and two young trees from beside the house. Sarah climbed up onto the board, and Victor took his place beside her. they headed to the small burial plot at the edge of the woods.

Two graves were a definite strain on Victor's already exhausted resources, but he dug them, deep and well. As gently as he could he set their bodies in the earth, and filled the graves. Sarah leaned forward, and drew the glyphs that had been on their foreheads on the graves, then the saplings. She raised her abused voice in wordless song, and Victor stood behind her, and finally let his tears flow.

'I can't break down,' he thought to himself. 'I can't. I can't...' And now, Sarah had to comfort him.

They returned to the farm. Sarah's lively spirit seemed smothered by her experience, which she would never tell Victor about. They lived from day to day, trying to not think about the hundred things they missed about Maggie and Adrian. Winter began to settle around them, and they tired not to think about anything.

Sarah was acting odd. Victor couldn't place it, he had no idea what was wrong of what he could do. She began to seek solitude for the first time since her mother and brother had died. Angel let her have it. He read the books as best he could that he'd found in the forth room upstairs, and as he'd feared even learned to milk goats without getting it all over himself. John was gradually learning to trust again, and Victor spent time encouraging that.

There was a death on the farm. The feel of it jerked the dark haired man awake. Victor sat up in bed, and threw his covers off, running down the hall to Sarah's room. It was empty. He looked all through the house and found nothing. Then, in the basement, he found Sarah. She'd bitten through her lip as the red-brown haired teen had driven a knife deep into her own abdomen, tearing it open. A tiny, misshaped wolf-creature lay among her guts and blood, and Victor finally understood. There was a touch on his shoulder. He turned, and saw the wolf-leader again.

I was afraid this would happen," he said sadly, looking at the young girl's corpse, huddled around her middle.

"Why didn't you tell me?" snarled Angel, half sob. "There were things I could have done!! I have a doctor's training." He looked at the girl who had been almost a daughter to him. "I could have...."

"There are many could haves," the man said, and Victor noticed a faint dusting of white hairs in the strong figured man's reddish gold hair. "But there is nothing to be done now." The man reached down, dipped his fingers in blood, and drew a glyph on the girl's forehead. Then he reached out and drew another on Victor's head. "You are a friend to my kind," he said.

"I'm friend to no one," Angel said, eyes brimming with tears. "No more. No more friends, no more loving, no more pain."

"Then we are your friends," the werewolf said, and bowed his head, with a faint smile. "Against a time you learn better."

The frost was murder, but he did it. In a line with her mother, father, brother and dog - Victor wondered about that now, if it had been a dog or actually a cousin of some sort, Sarah was buried. The strange, half-formed twisted fetus he burned, and tossed the ashes to the winds. Victor stood over the grave and was uncertain what to do. He was crying again, and tears dripped down his cheek, following the curve of his neck to soak into his collar and dampen the scar tissue down his chest. There had been a thin tree there, replanted and waiting for him. He buried her at the foot of it, and memorized what order they were in. The dirt had soaked into the trees making a dark marking of the glyphs drawn there. Victor arranged stones on the grave into the proper pattern, then dampened and smeared the earth on the tree for Sarah. He knelt in front of the three graves, and poured out his heart to the dead spirits, each word tearing his heart. He told how he'd failed them, how if he'd only thought clearer, they wouldn't be dead now. How they shouldn't have trusted him, how they shouldn't have loved him, and that he would never love anyone again, as much as he loved them. How he'd come to be there to love them. What he was, what he had been. Why he'd been on the run.

By the time his rounds of self accusation were over, it was well on its way to dawn again. All through the longest night of the year, he had sat beside the graves and sobbed his heart out. He felt as empty as a dry gourd. Victor lit a clove and stood.

"And I guess," he said at last, as the sun rose up, faint and dim in the ice-blue sky, "I guess this is goodbye, my loves." He turned away from the sun, and began walking.

* * * * *

The trees had grown up well, he was glad to see that. They were about as big around as his waist, not bad for the six years he'd been gone. He carefully chipped the bark off in the patterns blazed in his memory, marking the graves in a more permanent manner. Also the faint mounds were each graced with a pebble design. He knew they wouldn't last through the next winter, or quite possibly even through the spring, but it was the thought in this instance at least that counted.

Victor was right. He had never loved anyone again. Attraction, yes. Sex with appalling regularity. But he'd never loved anyone. It hurt too much to think about it. And every time he heard a child laugh or shout, it was like hearing them again. Here, he could almost hear their voices on the wind, like that strange wind that had borne him along when he had, futilely rescued Sarah. After all this time, it made his hart sink to think of it. The pain of loss. Their voices called out to him across time and death again, and this time, Victor didn't pull away, but extended his uncanny grasp of the supernatural to touch it. He expected anger, he expected resentment, reproval. But what he got was a wave of love, one from not just three, or even four but five sources? He opened his eyes, and realized that even the father cared, appreciated well what Angel had tried to do.

"If only..." the dark haired man choked out.

"If only what?" came a voice. Victor turned, raising to a half-kneel, prepared to get up and fire at a moment's notice. The man looked familiar and leaned heavily on a cane. A wispy beard clung to his chin, and it was mostly gray. The strands in his hair and beard that were not gray however, were still a valiant red-gold. After a moment of thought, Victor recognized the man as the leader of the pack of werewolves.

"You can't do anything for them now," the now elderly man said, gesturing. Victor looked at the trees, then suddenly realized that other trees bore carvings at waist height. More than half a dozen more than the ones above his loved ones. And they were larger, older. And behind those - was that a glyph half hidden by ivy? Angel's head boggled momentarily wondering how many werewolves and their kin where buried here. It suddenly occurred to him that the old werewolf had known who he was, even though he hadn't aged at all. "We still howl of you," the man said. "And how you tried to help my grandchildren. And how you alone took out a hive of the tainted ones." Victor still faced away. "We still do not know who you are. Many of my kind call you the Angel, and that alone. The people..." The old man paused. "We waited for you to return. We knew you would, to mark the graves forever."

"Am I that predictable, old man?" asked Angel.

"Yes." Victor gave vague thought to gutting the old man, just because he felt like it, but dismissed it. Even old, this man, this werewolf probably could hurt him. And in the end, Angel really didn't want to hurt the man, so there was no point. "You still ache." The wind whistled across the field and between the trees.

"Every path I take," Victor said at last, "seems to make me want to come back here. But there isn't any point. They're gone." The old man nodded.

"I can give you," he said, "a path to somewhere far from here, that only one path can lead you back here."

"A new place to wander like a lost soul?" Victor asked, and gave faint smile.

"We have heard more tales of you," the man said, and Victor turned away, almost modestly. "You try to save people, even as you couldn't save them."

"I'll get over it eventually," choked out the dark haired man, lighting a clove and scrubbing at his eyes. There was a burst of silvery light, and Victor looked up. The man stood before a long tunnel made of moonlight.

"Here is magic," said the man. "Go on, and wander - and someday - heal."

Victor Shelly, called Angel, rose to his feet and glanced at the graves of his loved ones. He leaned over and kissed each newly carved glyph in turn. Then, head held high, he walked away, down a one way path of moonlight. It disappeared behind him, leaving the elderly man alone in the skirts of the forest. The elderly werewolf smiled faintly to himself, and limped away. The lonely man would, someday, find his reward.