Duck Lake just back to die

round the lake the apparition went, the siren queen's body following. what was left of caiaphas' mind was an inferno belching inane chatter; fiery offshoots of fractured hellish thoughts. here one minute, gone the next.

temporal and fleeting -- like a streaking comet, a setting sun, a life.

caiaphas had no ability to think about the meridian of her life, nor the swiftly approaching evening of her death. her thoughts came in crippled tangents, underrun with one universal and undeniable instinct: fear.

she had never been in terror of her life, not once; yet now, the husk that was caiaphas was driven by fear unremitting. it consumed her the way flames would consume a fire-licked tree, burning rapidly in hot orange from the inside out.

she kept on; kevlyn was close. kevlyn was near.

yet something stood in her way - something tangible, a threat -- furiously, caiaphas' maddening stare fell on spyridon. she did not see him for the acolyte he had once been, nor the friend of her pack -- she saw him only as a shimmering, deadly threat.. and that threat put the fear of her life into her.

she drove forward, a guttural noise in her throat more close to drowning than a growl. drool frothed in obscene rivulets from her parted mouth as she staggered, her feverish eyes focused only on the ghoul before her that must be vanquished.