'No!' Vanessa screams defiantly, appearing between Rufus and me.
Something happens. I feel it, but I can't say what it is. Except that Rufus has shredded Vanessa into a burning zillion pieces and is holding me up by my neck. His grip has a planetary force behind it: it will crush, and nothing will stop it.
It crushes.
I watch as Rufus casts me aside. And I watch myself burn. My mind is trying to keep up. What...?
Vanessa smiles at me from my left. She is so pale now as to be translucent, but her smirk is triumphant. She has beaten the huntsmen. I don't know how or why, but she has defeated actual lycans, even these lycans of legend.
The hulking lycan I grazed with a claw flies to his feet. Together, the huntsmen tear the pack apart, even those of the pack who arrived just recently, all twelve of us. They are ruthless with their business, efficient. Each lycan exults in every kill; Rufus' destruction of Vanessa having broken her hold on their minds, leaving no illusion to stand in their way.
Only that it is still all an illusion, a grander one than Vanessa ever managed. If her old illusions were as powerful as mere candle flames, this new illusion is the burning plasma of the sun's fusion.
But Vanessa... is fading. And she might just have sacrificed herself to save me.
Vanessa's gray eyes study the lycans as they hunt the apparitions she put in their heads. A tear falls from my face; I am impressed and heartbroken at the same time: for someone who is actually elsewhere, Vanessa's powers have dominated the power dynamics here. Through dozens of miles, her telepathic mind is multitasking to create her presence in each of our minds, and not to mention overpower lycan minds.
It is not a cinch but a strain. Vanessa winces from the effort, and flickers like a reflection; still she shores her resolve against the lycans. Her fortitude is an iceberg, extending deeper under the surface than above.
Dean circles the dreaming huntsmen to stand beside Vanessa. His gaze is awed as his fingers reach for hers. Vanessa has no substance, and their hands go through each other's, but they keep them together that way, which seems enough for both of them.
'Should we attack?' Troy asks, practically dribbling bloodlust from his fangs.
Dean raises a hand—the one not entwined with Vanessa's immaterial one—to ward him off. 'This is the only way to win,' he tells him.
Troy obediently backs off, replaced by Alicia. 'How is Vanessa doing this?' She asks, amazed, as with the rest of us, studying the scene. 'I can see the illusion, I can even see through it; but these lycans can't? It feels so real.'
Dean smiles proudly, looking first at Vanessa, then me, 'Yeah, this is the work of not one White but two.'
I can only stare in confusion.
Before I can utter a word, Vanessa exclaims, beaming at me, 'Oh, how much I have missed this!'
'Claire is somehow part of the illusion?' Alicia asks, glancing at me. In fact, the rest of the pack is giving me strange looks like I am Augusta her-Excellency Lycaone. Okay, maybe not Augusta Lycaone but close.
Troy keeps a tight bottom lip and says nothing.
Philly, a quiet member of our pack, addresses the elephant in the room, which, up until that moment, I had been trying to ignore. 'What happens now?' He says.
Naturally, we turn to Dean, who turns to me. 'I name Claire alpha,' he replies blandly.
I groan, 'This is all happening so fast. I need some time to think about this.'
'Claire, there is no time to do anything,' Dean responds. 'We've prepared you for this.'
'I know!' I burst out. 'Still doesn't make it any easier.'
'Look around, Claire. This isn't easy on any of us.'
It is an alpha command. Perhaps Dean didn't intend it, the command slipping into his voice unintentionally due to the stressful circumstance, but I find myself looking at everybody from teary-eyed Alicia to furious Troy. Dean is right, it isn't easy on anyone.
I sigh.
'I will be back whenever I can. I promise,' Dean says.
I give a lifeless nod.
Vanessa glares upward, to the sky visible through the tree canopy. 'Moonrising,' she says, then glances back down.
I feel a flood of power inside me trickling to a stream. The illusion shared by the lycans crumbles. I belatedly realize that I have been a conduit for Vanessa's mental power, which explains why there is a solid track of frost between our feet, and ice crystals have formed around my boots. Vanessa's telepathic assault was indeed a fusion: her mind's and mine.
Rufus blinks as a ray of moonlight touches his chest. He flexes his empty fingers as the scene changes finally. All too quickly, his maniacally violent eyes crash upon us.
But the moon has risen and he has lost the Hunt.
Though it doesn't at first seem like he is inclined to uphold the Hunt's codes, Rufus straightens himself with regal dignity, reedy as a straw but standing a head taller than even Dean.
'Whites, you have proven once again the dangerousness of your kind,' he says.
Abruptly, I realize that he is talking not only to Vanessa but me.
'Happy to impress,' Vanessa quips mockingly.
Rufus stares us to death with the rest of the huntsmen standing behind him, eerie in their silence. Their burning eyes are furious, sparing the largest hatred for Vanessa. Oh, and me. I swallow the knot in my throat.
Out of nowhere, a smile appears and plasters itself on Rufus' face. It belongs on his face as much as if a bat had smiled.
'This is the last time you defy your betters, Vanessa,' he says. 'Ironic that you should defeat yourself at the same time that you...' it clearly pains Rufus to say it, evident in his hesitation and wince, '...best the Hunt.
'I shall leave you to mourn the White,' he concludes.
One by one, the huntsmen step into shadow, and merge with the night. Their scents and sounds fade completely, even their heat signatures. There is absolutely no way to track the Hunt now, since it is as though they ceased to exist.
I revise my opinion. If Vanessa was able to match the huntsmen and defeat their minds, albeit with my unconscious help, then they aren't truly invincible. Just close.
Possible, other pure werewolf families can match them in some other ways, even if briefly. Like I witnessed, Dean clearly almost matched Rufus in strength. And maybe Olligrander would yet be able to track the huntsmen, despite their disappearing act.
But I have bigger concerns.
Vanessa slowly clutches her chest and wheezes. Dean tries to grab her, but his hand passes through. Finally, he settles with placing his hands on the edges of her unreal self, very much like a person grasping air.
'This is it,' Vanessa says, practically transparent at this point. The frost at her feet has started to melt, which is a sign in itself.
'Vanessa, stay, I beg of you,' Dean sobs to her face.
Vanessa only gives him a bittersweet look of longing. 'Time for beddy-byes,' she says with a forced grin to us, the rest of the pack.
'Ever the joker,' Alicia cries.
'Claire White, promise me you'll miss me.'
So I promise her. I will miss her, promise or no.
Dean lets off a series of anguished howls as Vanessa addresses each member of the pack in turn. Only Olligrander, who is not truly a member of our pack but a friend, is missing. But I wouldn't be surprised if he is eavesdropping from wherever in the world he is.
'Mason With-no-last-name,' Vanessa says to me out of the blue. 'This is why he needs you: With-no-last-name.'
Vanessa then continues to say things seemingly at random to every member of the pack, because she is clearly saying farewells and encouraging us one last time.
Her gaze moves to the only person standing aloof from the rest of us. 'And Troy, Claire needs you, as do the rest of the pack. I hope you see it.' With that she exhales, fizzling. She saves her last words, naturally, for Dean.
'Come for my body, damn Elderwood,' she chuckles resignedly.
And she is gone. A distinct vacuum appears in my mind, like an ocean that once used to be. Dean collapses on all fours, followed soon by the rest of us.
Our anguish extends far into our being, since, besides our own individual pains, we bear each other's pain, more especially Dean's, who is alpha of the pack.
The future is no longer White.