(The Bloomfield) The waves wobbled Isdabella's stomach and almost everything she ate was deposited in the ocean as she leaned overboard and vomited. At nights she spilled her guts into her chamberpot. She had made friends with two passengers on the ship, a married couple called the Bloomfield, who had stated that they owned a wealthy corn plantation in Mala. They were in first-class cabins, as the Sailor had said the worth of her necklace would ensure that she was exposed to only the best service onboard. The Bloomfields occupied the cabin next to Isdabella's. They were a week at sea and the Bloomfields said they travelled a lot and knew it would take several months for the ship to dock in Mala. They told her of an exquisite place were corn was the master crop. Mostof the corn was sold as cornstarch, cooking oil, and other buy products of the crop in factories across the world. Corn from Mala sounded like a very demanding and lucrative commodity. With concern, they wondered just ho
(A Baby At Sea.)It was faith that Isdabella should have boarded a ship to Mala and fallen in the good graces of the Bloomfield.Isdabella and Jessica Bloomfield returned to join Bob on the deck. When he turned to see the two women arriving, his chest puffed out with pride.He finished his whiskey quickly and joined them.The dress Jessica had given Isadabella fitted her perfectly, a soft blue that matched the haunting eyes of the golden hair young lady, the velvet material protruded over her pregnancy and swept at the top of matching blue slippers. The deck was lively that evening, with other men discussing business, drinking and smoking, and women keeping up conversations about fashion and other activities that they consider important to them. Sailors moved around with boxes of food, barrels of fresh water and boxes of liquor that they were taking to the storage cabin. A band of musicians played notes that tugged at passengers and led them to the dance floor. Isdabella listened
(The Immortal Council.)Someplace on another continent, there was a factory that produced paper. The building was old and stretched from front to back like three adjoining coaches on a train. Inside humans worked the machines by hand to attain those perfectly pressed white sheets.In a spacious room with only ten chairs around a large table, the Immortal Council met, camouflaged as a board meeting for factory affairs. "We received news that Saint the Werewolf is dead. "Lucinda Pitters stated. She had travelled a long way away from her Island, for this meeting and was hoping that she could convince the council to stop Simeon from proceeding with his murder of her kind. Simeon was in his right to kill Saint, but the other wolves that he was killing out of bitterness was immoral. "I think we should pass a law to prohibit him from killing another wolf, surely his right for revenge is has been accomplished."She stated.The leader of the Wizards smirked loudly."You know by now that Sim
(Doug and Opal.)Opal stood and brushed the front of her dress as Doug entered the house. He had not found the one who had killed Simeon the vampire. He had searched diligently but saw nothing, just a dog running away in the distance."Is he healed yet?"Doug asked Opal. There were splinters from the shattered glass all over the living room. "I don't think he will ever be healed Doug, he is dead. Truly dead."Doug looked at Opal in disbelief, he came around to examine the man in the chair. He was dead clearly and Doug understood then that they were not invincible. "Did you see anything or anyone out there?""Nobody at all."Doug admitted. Opal felt tired from disappointment."It has been a long night Doug. I think I will go to bed and rest."The pregnancy was also taking a toll on her. She had not told Doug about the baby, he was already too overprotective. She would tell him when the time was right. This was not the right time, not with so much happening all at once.Opal knew she
(The Wolves Of Mala.) It was past ten p.m. when Opal and Doug dragged themselves down the path to return home. Thanks to Tamar, they must have been introduced to, talked and shook hands with every member of Mala. Doug could be a charmer when he wanted to be. The side of him that was only a glimpse and Opal had sat down in a chair and admired him. She witnessed the rare occasion when Doug smiled with everyone and kept up the conversation. He was winning at a game of chess to which he should have been the pawn and he had them anticipating his next move. That evening Doug was the Alpha of the male group and by the end of the night, he was invited to a Sunday evening game of tennis, and a Wednesday night game of cards. A few numbers of shameless females sneaked into his pocket. Retracing their steps to the Bloomfield property they observed that there was no moon tonight. Just the songs of birds, the toads and crickets adding their harmony to the hum of the sea. Doug and Opal were j
(Future Mala.) Buttercup came to a place where homes were close to the sea and the water swept up to the sand dunes. Boats were bubbling on the water with their glass bottoms, waiting to take paying customers on a tour of the deep, blue ocean. The Ferris Wheel continued to spin. There were various hotels around the Island and a handful of corn crops along the houses that were further inland. There were Great Houses with streaming visitors going in and out, having in their excited hands, brochures of the plantations, advertising tractor rides and a tour of Mala's history when it was a corn industry. The Island now was a first-class tourist attraction. Before Buttercup had left Fairyland, she was informed that she would find the Vampire and her mate on an abandoned corn plantation called the Bloomfield Estate. However, when she had located the Bloomfield Estate, Buttercup wondered if she was indeed in Mala. The sign said Bloomfield Estate, but what she encountered were cars pu
(An Interesting Ally.)Doug laid Opal down on the bed and she turned her back to him. She was shutting him out, she needed to shut him out, that was how she healed her heart. She would talk when she was ready and only when she was ready. He just needed to be available to listen. Opal could not be rushed.Opal could be as strong as she was delicate. Sometimes she was a ferocious warrior and at other times she was a child who was amused at everything and often could cry at the drop of a hat. Doug understood this, so he pulled the covers up to her chin, closed the window and left the room.Doug came into the living room.Tonight was a hell of a night, he thought, switching on the lights. He went over to the window that needed fixing, he would fix it tomorrow.As he looked out he saw a figure coming towards the house. It was the curved outline of a woman, silhouetted in the dimness. Doug reached for his gun on a shelf of books and decided he was not going to handle anything else tonight.
(When death knocks at Your Door.)Lucinda Pitters gritted her teeth. Things were quickly spinning out of control and she hated to lose control.Lucinda was a Nurse at the local hospital and thus her services were requested. She worked tirelessly with the Health Team as the virus spread throughout her community.She adorned herself with the plastic gown, gloves and mask, going from house to house of the sick, taking blood samples and giving medical care. Her duty was, however, firstly to her people. What she was really doing undercover, was swapping the wolf's blood specimens with human blood, to keep her pack obscured. She looked around her. Her quiet, tribal community was filled with police, health officials and the whaling of ambulances parked along the sides of the road.She saw bodies in body bags piled on each other near a fire that never seemed to go out, waiting to be burnt.She saw a family huddled together at the front of their house, their posture bent in despair. The Gri
(A New Story.) The consequence of fiddling with time is that it alters the trajectory of events. If I had not caused an earthquake that loosened the temple walls, the stone tablets would never have slipped through the cracks and floated on the waters of an underground source that led them from Sicily to the sea. The Priest were all Immortal Spirits, that were rejected by heaven because they were not pure enough and rejected by hell because they were not evil enough. They lived in limbo, between the realms of the afterlife and guarded the treasure of the Immortals. Like a safety deposit box, Immortals took to them the things they could not keep and could not let go of. In order to preserve her records of a past she could not bear to part with, Jatray had brought her stone tablets to the Priest. Trusting that whatever it was the Priest would not be tempted to look inside and uncover what was there. Priest bowed to no-one but to the Creator and Medusa. She was their queen,
(A New Sunrise.) "It is outrageous that you aim those weapons at me!" Jatray was adamant. She had watched as the Goblin boy had taken the Hybrid into the safety of the house. All was lost now. She contemplated. Izzy, the hybrid, Simeon, all because of the damn pregnant Vampire. Her mind screamed. Doug's back was towards Jatray being held captive by her own soilders. The Council cared not about his group anymore. The real threat was Jatray. Her hatred was the ultimate sin against life, nearly wiping out an entire specie. Jatray knew she was going to be executed, she had decided that if she was to die, she was taking Opal's baby with her. The fetus was already weak inside the mother and would not survive if she struck it under a newmoon. ****************************** Doug had one hand over Opal's shoulders as they watched Hercules draw back his breath into his body. His body jerked as one who had been shocked and then shaking his head, he sat up. "Is it over?" He
(The Treasured Secrets Of A Hybrid.) Maverick looked around him. There was death everywhere, and it reminded him of the day of the Great War. He laid the hybrid gently on the ground. Then, with a great roar, he lifted himself and pointing to the moon, Maverick began to chant. With both his hands towards the sky, darkness started to spread in the globe of the newmoon. Opal had told him about the effect of a new moon on a hybrid, something he had not known during the Great War. Now that he knew, there was something he could do about it. "That is goblin magic." Jatray said surprised. She hurled a wolf's corpse that she had recently bled to death aside. She wiped her lips and spun around, trying to figure out the source of this powerful craft. "Maverick?" She stated shocked. She had long considered the Goblin King to be dead. Pulling her bow from behind her, Jatray launched an arrow across the battlefield. Maverick went down on one knee after the poisoned tip struck his c
(The Battle.) Opal had again fed and bathed the hybrid. It was a sort of routine now. As Opal went about the house, it was difficult to see only memories of Moonstruck. Her bagpack, her belongings here and there. Bruce went for an early morning jog because he could not bear to touch Moonstruck's blood, while Hercules and Doug did the cleaning up of it. She went back to the hybrid's room and was surprised to see her sitting up in bed, her back supported by the pillows. "Hi." Said Opal, she was taken aback when a response arrived because she had not anticipated one. "Hi." A small voice repeated like an echo. Opal went around the room drawing aside the drapes, opening the windows and letting in fresh air. A few windows had escaped the wolves entrance and the hybrid's room was one of them. The early morning sun was gentle to a vampire, like rubbing essential oils into the skin. It was when the sun had matured in the sky that it felt like their skin was cooking. "If you
(A Day Of Farewells.) Moonstruck's body had been carried home by the wolves. All around them, lightning flashed, thunder roared and Mala wept for the daughter of the soil. Softening the earth with her tears so that the grave would be easy to dig. Lucinda had sent back word with a small wolf, around ten years old, who came through the cornfield in jeans cut off at the knees, a fade brown t'shirt and kinky black hair. The boy's chocolate toned body stood at the door that was left open all night. The sun was coming up on their sorrow, fighting it's way through the drizzling rain. The boy, drenched from head to toe, stared around at the blood in the living room. He saw the occupants of the room with watery eyes of disbelief, turned towards his presence. The group had sat in chairs and had not moved since Moonstruck's body had left the Bloomfield's house. Nothing had been touched, nothing cleaned up and the boy, though young, also felt the blow of this heavy grief. He cle
(Who killed Simeon?) You can tell much about a man by the way he drives a vehicle. Opal thought as Hercules sat behind the steering wheel and turned into the Bloomfield's mansion. He avoided every obstacle along the dirt path, then slowed to wait for a herd of goats to pass. He was a patient man, who took time to navigate his way into and around, your body and your heart. He slowed down when he sensed Opal needed to adjust herself in her seat and she did. He was an observant lover, who will take the time to give you what you needed. Opal could decipher that he was the type of man, who took pleasure in your pleasure. "Buttercup didn't stand a chance." Opal chuckled and addressed him. "What?" He spoke as he passed through the plantation's open gate. The hybrid was between Doug and Opal, the poor thing slept with her head resting on Opal's lap the entire way from the airport. Doug was dozing off on the other side of the back seat. Bruce was asleep in the front sea
(Declaration Of War.) Buttercup and Annex had put together a simple yet spendid gown. The shoulders of it was a thin string of white pearls that ran down into a square neckline of white lilly of the valley petals. Following that, white Cosmo flower petals extended from the waist. Cosmo petals also constructed a long trail sprinlkled with the yellow, seed belly of the plant. In Fairyland it was good luck and tradition to line the trail of a wedding dress with pollen. It represented conception within the family and marital prosperity. Wherever the bride went, a new generation of the flowers would spring and prosper in its species. Buttercup stood beside her Mother, who was wiping tears from her eyes and her Father had his chest puffed up because he had produced such a beautiful bride. ******************************* The venue was Sparkle Cave and on one side stood the young man's large family, on the other, stood Annex much smaller group of family members. Sparkle Cave was na
(Stolen Treasure.)Jatray fed Izzy soup while she sat up in bed.She brushed the pink hair from her forehead and stared into those brown eyes reminiscing on nothing but pain.There was nolonger a fire there.The spunk of the woman extinguished to ashes.Some people skip past the years of childhood and pre-adolosence. Leaping over each hurdle and embracing life with a positive, joyful bliss.There are some, however, who have knocked so many hurdles over, stumbling through the stages of growth. Some will rise and pick themselves up, while others will let their mind sit in the heap of their fall.In Izzy's eyes, Jatray saw that she had lost the strength to fight and she was spreading her bed in that mind of hers, to lie permanently beneath the sheets of her suffering."Don't get comfortable there Izzy. It will make you forever distrustful and bitter."Jatray said to her. Izzy turned her head to the side and silent tears rolled down her dark cheeks.Jatray placed the bowl in the tray. L
(The Rescue.) The once refined and sophisticated living room was demolished. Curtains ripped, slashed by knives and splashed with blood. Chairs and sofas overrturned, the fighting went on for far too long. Doug grabbed the foot of the piano with one hand and slammed it into Nathan, who was coming at him swiftly with a knife. Broken glass pierced Nathan's skin as he was hurled through the window. Opal had somehow snatched the woman with the chicken by her bloody apron. She reeled her in like a YoYo, turned her around and sent her fangs deep into the neck. It felt so satisfying, the thrill of letting out all she had pent up inside. The rush of fury for all the disruption in her life. The tortures she had done nothing to deserve. She drank the fresh blood, straight from a beating pulse. The woman's heartbeat slow down and just like the chicken, she convulsed in Opal's hand. "It is not enough!" Opal screamed into the room. Her rage building. Her Father bei