The desert was a vast and lonely place at noon. She knew that all of the royals were currently in a meeting about her. They were trying to decide her fate as a wife to some royal from a distant land. Gazing out of the ornately carved window, Jazlyn looked down at the people she would one day govern.
She stepped onto the balcony. Walking to the railing she had an amazing view of nothing. Just the vast and empty sands of the desert. They were currently in the middle of building the pyramids that would serve as tombs for both the royal family and the peasants.
Looking down, she noticed an oddly dressed peasant. Instead of the beige dress robes the peasants usually wore, he was wearing black. She studied him for a moment, until he passed from her line of sight. Intrigued by this oddly dressed man, she slipped into the common clothing she had stolen from a few of her servants and exited through a secret passageway she had had privately installed by a few well paid slaves.
As Jazlyn exited the door she had made the slaves mark ‘Forbidden’, she saw the dark man turn a corner. Keeping always a few steps behind him, she followed him through the winding twists and turns at the heart of the commonplace. She did manage to note a few items she would want one of her more loyal slaves to fetch for her. It would look too odd if she asked the normal slaves to get them.
It did not take very long for her to arrive at the location he had been heading for. He turned into a small shop. She didn’t recognize him, although that was not uncommon. The way these shops came and went, it was hard to know everyone by sight, let alone name.
Jazlyn snared quite a few gazes from the common people. They had given her the name, ‘Peasant of Beauty’, for none of them knew her true name. She walked through the doorway of the shop. Unlike most of these places, this one had a woman for a master and the young man was the apprentice.
She began looking at the odd objects she saw gleaming upon many tables and racks. The weapons she saw were unlike any others her Egypt had ever seen. Most of her slaves would probably never want to see them anyway. Jazlyn studied all of the weapons. The blades gleamed sinisterly, and the whips looked much less friendly than a desert snake that had missed a few meals.
She picked up one on the whips. It was braided silver, with one strand of gold weaved throughout it. She looked at the twin barbs at the end of the whip. They each had shards of metal embedded into them. This whip was specially designed to tear into the flesh of disobediant slaves.
Jazlyn saw the young apprentice standing in the doorway. She looked up at the master of the shop. “May I?” She inquired.
The master looked at her and nodded. Jazlyn turned and caught the mans eye as she cracked the whip harshly against the floor. When the young man failed to flinch, she raised an eyebrow questioningly. “Are you not afraid boy?”
He looked at her coldly. “No, I could never fear such beauty, no matter how dangerous the weapon she holds.”
Jazlyn prayed that her skills with a whip had not withered away in the time she had not practiced. Without warning she craked the whip expertly over her head and then let it snake around the young mans neck. The twin barbs lay at the collar of the dark shirt he wore.
As she unwound the whip from the young mans neck, she said, “Beauty is a cold thing. Fear it.” She turned to the master. “How much?”
The master looked at her, a smile playing at her lips. She too wore odd clothing. “Royalty never pays here. Take it.”
Dumbfounded, Jazlyn nodded once. Angry that these odd peasants had seen through her disguise, she walked toward the doorway. The young man stepped aside to let her pass. He watched her as she shouldered her way through the marketplace, not caring who she tripped or what their business was.
Succumbing to curiosity, he followed her through the dusty streets ot the marketplace. He didn’t bother keeping a great distance, she was too preoccupied with herself to notice anything else. He followed her until she came to a door marked ‘Forbidden’. This would usually deter anyone, but she walked right up to the door and entered it, shutting it behind her.
He smiled.
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Jagger was restlessly pacing his room when Syane came in. She watched him for a few moments, so absorbed in his own thoughts that he didn’t notice her immediately. When he did, had instantly assumed a position of defense.
Syane smiled. Jagger relaxed himself enough to continue pacing. “If you want her that badly, you know what you have to do.”
Jagger looked at her with annoyance. The fact that she could read his mind irritated him still, even after all these years. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do that.” He replied crossly.
“Jagger, it has been centuries, and you still have yet to change someone.”
“I know.” He snapped, walking toward his collection of weapons. He chose his favorite knife from the immense rack of them.
Crafted centuries ago by one of the first shape-shifters, its blade could kill even a vampire. Careful not to touch the sharp edge, Jagger grabbed the knife by the point and threw it at the wall. It landed dead center, exactly as he had expected it to.
Syane did not take her eyes off of her fledgling to see if he had hit his mark. She simply followed his movements across the room. “You know what you have to do.” She said simply.
Finally losing his patience, Jagger replied curtly, “I’m going for a walk.” as he began to disappear.
Syane smiled as she said, “Wouldn’t going for a walk imply that you were actually walking?”
As if on cue, Jaggers laughter resounded in her mind. “You know me so well Syane.”
As his voice faded away, Syane turned her mind toward more pressing matters.
Walking along the empty street of the marketplace, Jagger sought his next meal. It did not take him long to find it. He soon came upon the man who had offended his blood mother. He took threats to Syane seriously, and his anger could use a good outlet. Coming up behind him, Jagger grabbed the man by his throat. Not bothering to ease the pain of having his blood drawn through his veins, Jagger fed from the man.
He sank his fangs into the mans neck as roughly as he could. Normally he would send the person he fed off of to a distant place in their own mind where they would not feel the pain of dying. The man started to cry out, but Jagger quickly silenced him.
Suddenly Jagger felt a presence behind him. Tossing the dead man away, he turned, only to realize he stood face to face with the royal he had encountered earlier. She held the whip he had delicately forged in her right hand. Eyes wide, she stared, bewildered and disgusted. He didn’t know what overpowered him then, but he had the darkest desire to change her. To make her forever his.
He called out to her mind, willing her forward. She obliged, she was helpless to do otherwise. She never cried out, only when he bit into her neck did she come alive, a spark shocking her into action. She fought him, fought him with everything she had, but as the life was drained away, she became too weak.
Pulling away, Jagger raised his wrist to his lips and tore the flesh from his veins. Placing it against her lips, he tried to force her to drink the blood that poured forth. Thrashing wildly, she refused. Anger settled into him and he held her head still with his free arm. He placed his wrist once more to her lips, and she had no choice but to comply.
She passed out. Jagger looked down at her. Watching her stop breathing was odd, hearing her heart stop beating even more so. She was still alive though. If you could call what she had become alive…
Jazlyn restlessly paced the confines of her room. She had spent all day daydreaming. At dinner that night, she could barely keep her mind on the royal she was supposed to be sucking up to, to put it simply. Her parents wanted the riches he had, as well as all of the land he held in his possesion.
Jazlyn didn’t much care about any of it anyway. So as night began to fall over her homeland, she once again started down the secret passageway to the deserted marketplace.
Excitement grew within her. She hadn’t felt like this in years, sneaking out to see a man she didn’t even know. As her excitement grew, she began to run down the stairway, hoping that her royal robes would not be the death of her. She burst through the door marked ‘Forbidden’, and came to an immediate halt in the street.
There stood the apprentice, a man in his grasp. As she watched, the apprentice seemed to kiss the mans neck, but as her vision adjusted to the lack of light, she realized that this was no ordinary kiss, it was a kiss of death.
As if sensing her mere presence, the young apprentice turned around. He looked at her intently, and as he did, she felt compelled to move forward. Into the arms of death itself. She felt the touch of his mind upon hers, an eerie feeling at best. The whip she had absent mindedly carried with her hung limply from her hand.
Jazlyn no longer cared. The simple task of existing had ceased to become a necessity. She simply was. As his fangs broke her skin however, she began to thrash wildly, knowing that to give up now meant certain death. As he drew the life from her veins, she grew steadily weaker. Unable to fight any longer, she collapsed.
Held up only by the young apprentice, she watched him tear his own flesh from his wrist through a fog of uncertainty. Jazlyn felt him place the torn wrist to her lips, and almost accepted what he had to offer. Her wit returning, she struggled, only succeeding in having him pin her to the dusty road of the commonplace.
Then all she felt were the black curtains of life closing around her. It seemed that her life as she knew it had ended. How she longed to be back in the palace with that retched royal…
***********************************************************************************************
He threw the rag down at her feet. “Clean yourself up.” Said a deep voice. Jazlyn stared at the rag that blood had long since stained orange. Kicking it away in disgust, Jazlyn tried to stand, only to fail and slump to the floor.
“What did I do to deserve this?” she thought, trying to see in a room of intense darkness.
“You didn’t do anything wrong…yet.” Came a voice from the far end of the room.
Trying to stand again, Jazlyn succeeded and braced herself against the wall. “Who are you?” she snapped, taking a tentative step towards the voice.
“That is unimportant right now. We will make introductions later, but right now you need to feed.” stepping out of the gloom, Jazlyn cought a glimpse of a tall, black haired man.
“What do you mean feed?” she asked, trying to sound calm. Opening a door, he stepped over the threshhold, letting dazzling light fill the room, which Jazlyn saw was filled with mirrors. Stepping towards her own reflection, Jazlyn saw there was something very wrong with the way she looked.
Her plain brown hair had turned midnight black, and her already milky skin had turned even more pale. Her emerald eyes had turned totaly black, and they no longer looked like her eyes staring back at her. She felt taller as she glided towards the open door. Steping into the light of another room, she saw two men in deep conversation. Looking at the short, red-haired boy, she dismissed him with a wave of her hand, striding towards the black haired man. As she stood toe to toe with him, she demanded answers.
“Calm down Jazlyn” he said placidly, placing his hand on her arm. Yanking her arm out of his grip she demanded to know where they were. “You are in Mekka.” Jagger said simply, as if it was nothing important.
Jazlyn turned in a fit of rage. Unleashing her rampant anger she whirled back toward the mirrors. A silver vase stood on top of an immense table. The table itself glowed with a sinister brightness, radiating the reflected light off of its ebony marble surface. She grabbed the vase and turned toward Jagger. “If you do not give me the answers I…” She stopped. Jagger? Who was Jagger? Ignoring the thought she began her sentance again. “If you do not give me the answers I seek, I will smash every mirror you have so delicately placed upon these walls.”
Jagger looked alarmed quite suddenly. His alarm gave way to amusement and he stepped forward. “Give me the vase Jazlyn. You would not want to destroy the artifacts my mother Syane has so patiently collected over the centuries now would you?”
Jazlyn brought herself to her full height. “Jagger! I want the answers now! Tell me what I wish to know!” She turned away again, and in doing so, released the heavy silver vase.
It hit the first mirror with a scream of metal upon glass. The glass fell in slow motion to the hardwood floor. As it hit, it made soft tinkling noises, as a chime would make swaying in a gentle wind.
Jagger stood still, rooted to the spot by his anger. Unable to contain himself any longer, he launched his lithe frame at Jazlyn. His beloved, his death, his pain. He grabbed her by the throat, pinning her against broken shards of glass. “Never, never, do that, ever again. If you do, you will wish I had let you die in the street as a mongrel.” He snarled.
Jazlyn let out a hiss of pain as the glass bit into her neck and back. She managed to wheeze out a reply. “I would have rather died in the street a mongrel, than ever be here in this wretched place with you.”
Jagger released her, wearing a sinister smile. Jazlyn had never felt such a rage well up inside of her. She could not find the control she needed to stop herself from commiting an insanely stupid act. She roared in anger, throwing herself at Jagger with every ounce of power she had ever harbored, every hateful word she had ever held back from anyone. She would no longer be a puppet, a mindless animal for people to amuse themselves with.
She whirled Jagger around so that his back was to the mirrored walls and slammed him into the broken mirror she had been pinned to moments before. “Never, ever, treat me like a mindless animal Jagger. I will haunt your life for as long as you will ever roam these lands. And no matter where you go, pain will follow.”
Jagger threw Jazlyn away. “You are losing your strength, you must feed.” Jagger grabbed her by the wrist. Before Jazlyn could pull away, they were in a different place, the air dense with moisture.
“W-w-where are we?” Jazlyn stuttered, too confused by the sudden change in location to care how pathetic she sounded.
“We are on the outskirts of your kingdom. You need to feed, or you will die.”
You need to feed or you will die. It was as simple as that. The words echoed in Jazlyns mind. Feed or die, feed or die. Wasn’t she already dead? She was thrown from her thoughts by Jaggers sudden movement. In mere seconds he had captured his prey.
Dark skinned, the girl was no older than Jazlyn. At the touch of Jaggers mind she was subdued. Quiet and still for the moment.
Jagger lifted the girls wrist as Jazlyn watched him. He pressed one delicate fang into the girls tender flesh. A single jewel of blood blossomed forth, trembling on her wrist as if trying to return to the bloodstream it had been pulled from.
As Jazlyn watched a group of children walk past, she wondered why they didn’t see what was happening.
As if answering her thought Jagger explained. “I am influencing their minds so that they notice nothing unusual. You too will be able to preform this task once you have fed and are properly trained.”
Suddenly a metallic copper scent filled Jazlyns sinuses. She threw her head towards the girl that lay suspended in Jaggers arms. The droplet of blood was running down her arm. Suddenly overcome with the need to taste this substance, Jazlyn moved forward toward Jagger.
He saw the bloodlust in Jazlyns eyes and held the girl out to her. Within moments she was piercing through the girls neck with her milky fangs. She began to draw the life from the girl.
As if suddenly aware of her surroundings, the girl came alive in Jazlyns arms.
Jazlyn looked down, surprised at the sudden movement of the supposedly unconscious girl. In seconds, the girl had drawn a blade from a sheath that had previously hung at her hip. Jazlyn cried out in alarm as the knife grazed the tender flesh of the underside of her forearm.
Acting on instinct, Jazlyn dropped the girl and retreated away from her, only managing to corner herself. Suddenly, the girl roared with an unholy rage and changed before Jazlyns very eyes. Shifted was a more proper word, but nothing so mundane had ever been seen at the palace, and now was not the time for proper descriptions.
Where a lithe girl once stood on two legs, now a Leopard crouched on four. Poised to spring forward and catch Jazlyns throat in her wicked fangs, the Leopard leapt into the air. Seeming to glide over the air, as did a snake through the papyrus, the Leopard hit Jazlyn squarely in the chest.
Before the demon could administer the death sentence, Jagger leapt into action. Hurling himself at the creature, he drew the knife that long ago had been forged by the species that now assaulted Jazlyn. With one swipe, Jagger cut the agile cats underside. The wound was meant to kill, but in all of his red tinted anger, he missed his mark by inches.
Roaring in rage, the Leopard turned, running into the darkness of Egypt’s desert, long deserted by the suns rays. Jagger turned to Jazlyn. She was staring at the underside of her arm in astonishment. The cut that had surprised her out of feeding a moment ago had vanished. As if she had never been slashed by the weapon of a vicious shape-shifter.
Jazlyn looked up to see Jagger staring at her. As if light had just been shed on the situation at hand, Jazlyn gaped at him. “You tried to kill me.”
“What? No! I’m sorry that this happened Jazlyn, you see, shape-shifters have extremely strong mental shields against vampires. When their shields are up, they look and seem to think as would a normal human. I thought she was nothing more than a slave girl when I chose her for you to feed off of. I was wrong.” Jagger looked at Jazlyn, the look she read there was the closest thing she thought she would ever get to sincerity. “Please forgive me.”
Jazlyn scowled. “Why should I? You nearly got me killed…” She added a bitter afterthought, “Or got me killed again anyway.”
Jagger too scowled. “You’d think you would thank me for saving your life, and then apologizing for a mistake I made. Instead, here you stand, anger written across your countenance, telling me that my apology is not accepted.”
“I never said your apology was not accepted, and I didn’t think it either.” Jazlyn said, a smile beginning to play at the outer corners of her lips.
Jagger strode forward, grabbing Jazyln by her wrists. “Now, I think we had better find you someone to dine with before you die of starvation.” He said, sarcasm dripping off of his words the way poison drips off the fangs of an Egyptian cobra.
“Perhaps I dine off of you, and then establish my rank in your lovely little rat trap instead?” Jazlyn said sweetly, although her words rang as false as did the bells of centuries to come.
Jagger laughed, a note of happiness he had not expressed so freely in years. “Come Jazlyn, you have much to learn.”
The two of them faded from sight, leaving the shadows to themselves, their dark whispers hiding the story of what had happened this night. By morning, the whole of Egypt would be looking for the lost princess, but not one would ever see the jewel of the morning ever again. She had merely faded from existence as so many of her ancestors had done. Not with age, but with an eternity stretched out before her.
Concord, Massachusetts 2003
Jazlyn roamed the familiar streets of Concord, Massachusetts. She had long since forgotten the anxiety of moving to a new home. As far as she was concerned, this was home. It was about dusk, and she was on the prowl for her next meal. She normally didn’t prey on the people in her own neighborhood, but she had waited way to long to feed, and didn’t have the time or energy to fade from one existence into another.
As she was moving among darkened alleys, Jazlyn noticed a young boy. He could be no older than fourteen, and no younger than eleven. Easing herself into his mind, she realized that he was homeless.
Perfect. Jazlyn thought to herself. They would think he had merely died at the hands of some drug addict or another. She came up behind him soundlessly, as her arm snaked around the young boys neck, she subdued his minds with thoughts of tropical places, far from the world in which he now lived.
As Jazlyn bent to take the life from the boy’s veins, she caught a glimpse of a horrifying past. The boy’s father had committed suicide when his son was only eight years old. The boy had found his father, suspended from a rafter in his parents’ bedroom. A few months later his mother began to develop into a heavy cocaine user.
She spent every penny they had on cocaine, and soon they were out in the streets. She had used this boy; Christopher was his name, to get money for her addiction. She had eventually died of an overdose, leaving Christopher to fend for himself in this unusually cruel world.
Jazlyn stepped away from the boy, pity open in her usually blank eyes. He blinked, once, twice, to clear the fog from his mind. Jazlyn knelt down so that she was at eye level with the boy.
vampgoddessraven: “You have no home?” She asked, a note of concern in her voice. The boy merely shook his head. He had obviously been traumatized by the entire ordeal. Jazlyn pried at him. “What’s your name?” She asked, although she already knew the answer.
“Christopher.” He gave only a first name, nothing more. Just Christopher. Jazlyn realized that she was not influencing the boys mind. He did not flinch or recoil from her presence though, as did so many other humans she had encountered.
“Would you like to come home with me Christopher?” Jazlyn asked softly, not wanting to, but feeling a strange tug at her long unbeaten heart.
The boy looked at her then. Studied her eyes with an intensity she had not expected of a twelve year old. He was only twelve. Not trusting of this new stranger, Christopher turned and fled. Sighing, Jazlyn chased after him. She knew what he must be thinking, ‘great, another person to abuse me.’
She caught him quickly, and took his arm firmly but gently in her hand. “Christopher, I don’t mean you any harm. You have nowhere to go, and you’ll die of malnutrition before another person offers to take you in. Besides, if you don’t like it with me, we can find another more suitable home for you. Ok?”
Again he stared into her eyes, so intent that Jazlyn nearly blinked in surprise. After a few minutes of this staring contest, Christopher nodded, timidly, warily, but a yes none-the-less.
Jazlyn smiled. “You have to do me one favor first. Promise me you will stay right here, and not move until I get back. Ok?”
Christopher nodded again. He had nowhere else to go anyway. He watched Jazlyn turn the corner. He sat on the ground and wondered how bad it would be, how long they would keep him before they too threw him out into the cold and lonely streets of Concord.
Jagger sat at the table, worry etched across his brow. Jazlyn had not come home the night before, nor had he seen her that day. As he began to pace he saw visions of her lying somewhere, colder than his very heart.
Shaking his head, Jagger dismissed the thought. Jazlyn was far too strong to become prey. Unless Kayla herself had gotten a hold of her anyway. As if on cue, Syane materialized in front of the table Jagger occupied. He smiled in greeting. As he looked up however, his smile immediately faded away.
“What is it Syane? You look as if someone drove a stake through your heart.” He said it lightly, but it hid a darker emotion.
“Ha, if it was that simple, it would have been done a long time ago.” She spat bitterly. “No, it is worse I am afraid. Far worse.”
Worse? Jagger did not think that anything could be worse than someone stabbing a stake through his beloved mothers heart. “What is it then? You know I have yet to read your well concealed mind.”
Syane snorted. “We have had two deaths in the past day. The first, Aryn’s fledgling Xavier, was killed at the hands of one of Kayla’s assassins. One of her more violent assassins at that.” Syane growled angrily.
“That’s only one. Who is the other?” Jagger inquired, sensing that this was going to take a turn for the worse.
“Arlita, my own fledgling.” Syane all but hissed through gritted teeth. “She died not by the hands of one of Kayla’s assassins, but by Kayla herself.”
Kayla was the leader of the most powerful clan of witches. Powerful and hateful, she harbored a terrible anger toward all of the Vampiric world. Kayla’s one goal in life seemed to be to destroy all of the vampires in existence. Close to impossible, but Syane and Jagger both knew that Kayla would give it a good try.
Jagger could feel the anger well up inside of him. He himself had been directly affected by the deaths. Or at least one of them anyway. Arlita had been his only blood sister. They rarely saw each other, but they were closer than most human brothers and sisters would ever get. “Well? Do we just stand here and let her death go unpunished, or do we stand up and fight these worthless mongrels?”
“We wait. We must bide our time, and hopefully the winds will change to favor us. Until that time however, you must tend to Jazlyn and your new charge.” Syane said, a hint of a smile playing at the corners of her blood red mouth.
“My new charge?” Jagger inquired. “What does that mean?”
“The story is not mine to tell. You will see soon enough.” With that last word Syane faded from the room, just as Jazlyn walked into it.
“Jazlyn! Where have you been? Kayla has been killing again, what if she had gotten to you?” Jagger scolded.
Jazlyn raised an eyebrow. “I’d have ripped her head off and hung it on a stake in front of their encampment.” She said lightly, although Jagger could detect the seriousness she held in an undertone.
Jagger looked at her closely. He sensed that she was hiding something, something she was not yet ready to tell him. Without thinking he asked her.
“What do you mean what am I hiding? I hide nothing from you.” Jazlyn replied in that silky voice she had become so accustomed to using when she wanted something.
“Well, if you aren’t hiding something, then you most definitely want something.” He snapped.
Jazlyn looked at him. “Well, if you must know,” she said as she turned around, “Wait one minute and I’ll show you.”
It was Jaggers turn to raise and eyebrow. Show him? Meaning that she had already gotten what she wanted and needed approval? He sat back in his chair, waiting for Anubis-knew-what.
When Jazlyn returned, she was toting a young boy behind her. Reaching into the child’s mind, the first thing he saw was his father’s suicide, his mother’s horrid addiction. The next thing he saw was the boy himself, homeless and walking the lowest streets of Concord. He also learned that the boy was twelve.
Jagger looked at Jazlyn. “So? What do you want me to do with him?”
Jazlyn too used her gift for telepathy so that Christopher would be spared the argument she knew was coming. “He has nowhere to go. I want to keep him.”
Jagger looked at the boy, then at Jazlyn, a cold smile playing on her lips. “Then change him.”
“No.” It was simple; Jazlyn would not have the boy changed. She turned and looked at Christopher. “Sweetie, I know this is going to sound strange, but you have to do something for me.”
Christopher looked up at her, fragile trust hanging in the balance between them. “What?” The boy asked timidly, so quietly that Jazlyn almost couldn’t hear him.
“I need you to take this little knife here,” Jazlyn handed him the knife. “And cut my arm right here.” She pointed to the top of her forearm.
Christopher looked at her strangely, but did as she had asked. Jagger had realized what she was doing only seconds before she actually did it. “You ungrateful wench. You let him cut you so that you would have blood-claim. Damn you right to hell Jazlyn!”
Blood-Claim was a vampire’s way of getting revenge. If a human harmed a vampire by chance, the human then became the vampires own. No one could change or harm the human in any way, or the vampire that the blood-claim was owed to would kill the violator with no compunction. In the vampire world, it was not illegal to kill another vampire, but more often than not it was considered low. Yet there are always those little exceptions.
Jazlyn smiled. “I’ve already got a one way ticket. Come on Christopher, I’ll show you to your new room.”
With that, she was gone, showing Christopher around his house. Jagger could not stand humans, but human children? That was even worse.
Christopher had been waiting in the hallway when Jazlyn came to get him. She had proven to be kind and gentle with him, so he had developed a trust in her. When she brought him into the parlor however, he knew who she had been talking to.
A man sat before a large table, looking at Jazlyn with a mild curiosity. When he saw Chris however, his already black eyes got darker still. He was obviously tall, with dark eyes and black hair. He had a milky complexion and a mouth that seemed never to smile.
He did not like this man. Chris was usually a very obedient boy, one who would jump at any command, but he knew that he would never obey this man. Dislike and hatred had a fine line between them. His feelings for this man were on that fine line.
While he had been immersed in his thoughts, he had not noticed anything else, including if they had been talking or if they had, what had been said. He had only been snapped out of his thoughts by Jazlyn.
She asked him to take a small knife she had offered and cut her forearm. Startled, he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say. He trusted Jazlyn, and he was fairly sure she wouldn’t do anything to hurt him, so he took the knife and did as she asked.
After he had done this, Jazlyn and the man looked at each other. Anger burned within his eyes, and laughter within Jazlyns.
“I’ve already got a one way ticket.” Jazlyn said to the dark man. She turned to Chris. “Come on Christopher, I’ll show you to your new room.” And with that, they left the parlor and the dark man behind.
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The bar was crowded tonight. Karin stood against the bar looking out at the crowd. She was looking for her cousin Kayla. Kayla had told Karin she would be there at seven. It was seven-ten. Karin was very big on punctuality.
Karin saw the front door open in her peripheral vision. She turned her head and spotted Kayla as she walked into the bar. She took her time wandering over to Karin, who had already been there for twenty minutes. When she got there she sat down at the bar, not looking at Karin until she had flirted with the guy next to her for five minutes.
Agitated as it now stood, Karin glared at Kayla. Normally her and Kayla got along perfectly, but as of late, Kayla seemed to be… different. Somehow more distant, less willing to interact with her cousin.
Kayla finally turned her head toward Karin. Inclining it slightly, she acknowledged her cousins existence. “Hey cuz, what’s up?”
Karin looked at Kayla, anger simmering just below the surface of her control. “You’re late. Again.” Karin snapped.
“It was only by like half an hour.” Kayla pouted.
“Yeah, on top of the hour you were late last time, and the time you just never even bothered to show up, and on top of that, you can’t even give me a good excuse.”
“Look, stop giving me an attitude ok? It isn’t my fault that something came up.”
“I’m going to leave, and if you really want to see me, you’ll find me.” Karin snapped, and walked out of the bar……