Dripping in the darkness, somewhere down below, was in my dreams. When my eyes opened, I still sensed something in the air, something between the molecules. It was like a scent, but it was something worse, some kind of thing had touched the air I was breathing - unconsciously I had known, assembling it into a thought.

I followed my nose, my strange, dreamy feeling like I knew something was deeply wrong. When I entered the darkness beneath, I was greeted by the scent of the pack, their eyes shining in the dark.

"I didn't want to disturb your sleep." Bruna was at my side and whispered.

"What is happening, why are we whispering?" I asked.

"We all felt it too, that is why we are here. Your senses have improved since we visited the surface." Bruna explained.

"Our senses?" I wondered. It seemed to be part of the reason we were sent on the mission in the first place. Some of us had gotten past the first obstacle, and no fewer could have accomplished the final task.

"Doctor Imbrium's research was forwarded to General Stone. We have orders to thaw out Dreich. He's quite unique, I understand. We'll need his help to complete another mission."

"Another mission?" I didn't like it. I wanted to stay at Ravenrock. I had a bad enough feeling about our first mission.

The technicians were done, and the massive canister began to open. The air turned cold, and the thawing process was very fast, as the temporal stasis field was removed. I understood it was the cause of the cold, the freezing. To the body, there was no difference in temperature. Time inside the canister was arrested.

"Welcome to Ravenrock, Dreich. I have the contract you signed, agreeing to this preservation process, and your terms were honored. You are now conscripted to serve under my command. I am Lieutenant Colonel Rose."

Dreich's dark eyes opened. I stared at him, the whole pack did. He smelled of something quite formidable. The sight of the pack should have scared him, but he merely glared, staring us all down.

"What do you want me to do?" Dreich asked. His voice was deep and slow, and heavily accented.

"We need your help recovering an object. We do not know its exact whereabouts. Do you know what I am talking about?" Lieutenant Colonel Rose asked.

"Of course. I must ask what you want with it. You understand it could be very dangerous. It is the key to the three unnatural gems." Dreich smiled strangely and bared his fangs in doing so.

"What is he?" I asked Bruna.

He seemed to hear me and responded by saying: "I have not seen lycans in a very long time. I was not sure they still existed. Long were the hunts to eradicate your kind. Look how many of you there are. I recognize your kind, but none of you have ever seen one of me before, that is what I think."

"What are you?" I asked.

"What you do not know." Dreich said mysteriously.

There was a strange stillness as I spoke again, almost as though I were speaking for the whole pack and I said:

"I would like to know all about you."

"I will tell you, although I am certain at least one of you already knows my story, or else I would still be preserved." Dreich answered. "But first, may I have my clothing?"

Doctor Imbrium had a chest with Dreich's attire in it. We watched him get dressed and he hummed to himself, ignoring our stares. When he had completely donned his costume, he turned and faced us.

"Is this where I should tell my story? From my tale, you will understand fully what I am. Perhaps some of you might even think twice about what you have asked of me. Not that I intend to inspire insubordination, but you really should question anyone who gathers lycans and myself for their own purposes." Dreich addressed us.

"They don't need to know your story. You'll be assigned some quarters until we depart for our mission." Doctor Imbrium determined. "Right, Lieutenant Colonel?"

The lieutenant colonel sighed, he didn't like going along with Doctor Imbrium, but he had his orders which apparently involved differing to the good doctor on matters of faith. It only made my questions stronger, and I resolved to speak with Dreich and find out what his story was. Perhaps it would give me some clue as to what our ultimate goal might be.

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When the pack was dismissed and Dreich was settled in, I went to him and found his door was closed. I noted they had installed a lock on his door, although it was not engaged. I looked and saw several more cells had locks on them, adjacent to his. Dreich could just as easily be a prisoner, but evidently his cooperation had spared him that status.

I knocked on the bulkhead style door, wondering if he heard me. His door opened and I felt a chill in my spine under his gaze, my nerves and the hairs on my neck standing up in alarm. I tried to speak, but I wasn't sure how to introduce myself.

"One of the lycans. You want something from me?" he asked. There was some kind of darkness, subtle, sensual and strange. I felt drawn in and sat on his bed, my nerves calming under his steady stare.

"It is okay, be at ease, my handsome friend." Dreich had a small burner and was making some tea. He had a whole tea set and poured some for me.

"You have a way." I noted, feeling oddly relaxed.

"I noticed you down there, I like the look of you."

"My face is a mess of scars." I frowned.

"I see past that. You were a very attractive man. I see what I wish to see, and I see you. What is your name, young one?" Dreich asked.

"Atanarjuat." I said.

"It means 'swift runner', this is your lycan name, no?" Dreich's accent made me shrug. I wasn't sure what he had just said. He repeated himself more slowly, taking care to pronounce his words.

"I was given this name by the pack."

"You are new to the pack, an omega, I wonder if you have stood up to them. They have great respect for you; when you spoke, they listened carefully at the sound of your voice." Dreich told me.

"I got into a fight, defending Halo. I got beaten up, I wouldn't call it respect." I shuddered at the memory.

"You do not understand how violence works. It is okay, I admire a man who loves peace. You think violence is inherently wrong. Am I correct?" Dreich asked me.

"I detest violence." I agreed.

"I love that. I greatly appreciate your honesty and your strength. What can I do for you? Ask me for anything, so that I might demonstrate my sincerity." Dreich sat next to me and patted my knee gently. His touch sent a tremor through my whole body, it was not a bad feeling, just very strange.

"I have questions for you. I want to know all about you." I told him.

"This request is too easy. I'd have told you all about myself anyway. Allow me to offer you my friendship. I sense that is the limit of your intentions with me. Let us be friends, I will support you in all things, and in exchange, you will trust me. Is that agreeable, Atanarjuat?" Dreich asked.

"It seems so. Now, tell me about yourself. Start at the beginning."

"My life spanned almost two centuries. I have forgotten much of it. But I do remember how it began." Dreich seemed to be withdrawing into his own mind, recalling some distant past and then he began to tell me, and as he spoke, it was like I could see the places and people he was talking about.

"The shade of the mountain was my nursery and my cradle was the forest. I drank from the dew and I learned to understand the animals. I was not meant to live out there, and when I thought of my mother, she was there, guiding me. There was a coldness to her, an ancient beauty. Her kind are long gone, and perhaps it is a better world without them. She was what you might call a vampire, although that is an oversimplification of her people. They were never human, they were born as vampires, lived on the blood of humans, and died by those same hands. They could not abide the sunlight for very long before it blistered and burned them. A day would turn their body to charcoal, the reaction to sunlight causing intense heat within them. I can hardly stand sunlight, but I am merely half-vampire, a dhampir."

Dreich waited for a moment for me to understand his words before he continued:

"Aranbel was my mother, but my father was just a peasant from the valley below. When I had grown, I went and lived among them, among the humans. I already knew that the unnatural gems should never belong to humans, nor should the last dying remnants of my mother's people have them. They are potential components of a magical weapon, you see. My mother told me, and she entrusted me with the key to their resting place, telling me that I alone would have the heart of peace. Because I am of both people, you see."

"Makes sense. You're half-vampire, you could care about the fate of both peoples." I agreed.

"When my mother was gone, I understood that my conception was her reason for taking a human man for the father of her child. She had made me on-purpose, a unique half breed, able to belong to either the vampires or the humans. Over time, however, the old vampires began to die off, one by one. They were hunted by an ancient organization that was looking for the key. The blood never really dies, and in their place arose from graves the horrors that feast on blood, creatures you might know as vampires. Those abominations are not my people, they were human, and became infected with the curse left behind when the last true vampire died. Humans were not meant to live without predators in the night, a balance had to be restored, and magic is a nature that cannot long be forgotten."

"Magic?" I asked. Everything seemed so fantastic, vampires and a special key. His mention of magic somehow disturbed me, I had never believed in such things, but it was hard to ignore Dreich, who was right beside me.

"Yes. The old men who are sorcerers, who call themselves the Elders, they struggle to control it, and unleash evils. The stronger their grip, the less of it they can hold onto. They are the same who killed my people, and seek the key that I have hidden so carefully."

"Then why are you helping?" I asked.

"My honor. I agreed to help this nation when they agreed to help me. It was a bargain." Dreich sounded unsure.

"Are you really going to help them?" I asked.

"How else will we discover the secret society of the Elders? They are our true enemy." Dreich confided in me.

"It is a trap." I said quietly. "What did you ask them to do for you, anyway?"

"Only the moon." Dreich chuckled. "I was not expecting a poetic interpretation. Lycans equal the moon, I get it. I thought I would find a world in which humans have ascended from a fear of the night. I almost believed they could actually conquer the moon."

"We have." I told Dreich. "We've literally gone to the moon."

"Surely you jest." Dreich sounded amazed by what I had said. "It would be a time in which human history begins, and the history of creatures of the night would end. My mother told me."