(Lucinda Pitters.) The hotel room door was knocked on twice. Jatray switched the television off and went to answer it. "Lucinda how nice of you to come and visit an old friend. However did you find me?" Her voice was a sweet mockery. "I picked up the scent of mayhem on a trail and followed it Commander." Lucinda answered, coming into the room as Jatray stepped aside. Lucinda had gone on the night of the attack, to see why the wolves she had sent out had not returned to the pack. What she found was their dead bodies lying in the path and a draft of lavender stained to the bark of a tree. Lucinda went up to sniff the tree trunk. "Jatray." She had stated, recognizing the expensive brand that the Commander liked to wear. She sent for wolves to come and take the bodies back to the pack, where they would be buried. Jatray smiled. She knew Lucinda didn't approve of her being in charge and it was a pleasure to see her bow her head to her. Lucinda had always disliked her, bu
(Christmas In Mala.) Moonstruck had snuck away to the Bloomfield's estate, by escaping on the raft at the back of the house, she floated downstream and cut through the meadows. The Vampires were not home. She had sat in the high grass waiting for them to return but before they did, she heard the howls. The cries of death. It came from across the river. Normally it would be numerous wolves coming together to howl the loss of another. Now with the Police watching over the neighbourhood, until the Health Officials return in the mornings, only one wolf was sent out in secret into the woods to carry on the old tradition of howling in that long, sad, raw signal, that made other wolves know that one of their own had died. Moonstruck let her head fall into her hands and cried She was too late. She thought. Philip was dead. She shifted into her wolf and howled her grieving reply. Moonstruck stayed in that position for more than an hour and looked up when she saw a car pulling up to t
(Mother Nature.) The woman wore a short dress. Red with glitters, that was more vibrant than her spirit. As the designer, she was proud of the way the material snuggled into her curves like it was lasered to her silhouette. She left the crowd of people, the celebration in full swing and continued down the road until she could hear nothing more than silence. Her camera was swinging on a string across her breast and she checked her watch. It was two in the morning. Looking up at the sky, it had been a while since she had seen each star shine so distinctly bright. Glowing galaxies of haphazard shapes, with no specific pattern, constellation or design. Each star just up in a spellbinding, black, witches brew sky, being their own individual self. She took out her camera and one after the other she snapped at the sky, creating on rolls of film, a slideshow of heavenly selfies. She smiled at the universe because in the cosmos, legend had it that when a demon and an angel mated, when dark
( I Promise It Won't Bite.)Things settled down in Mala when the New Year came and went.It was the second week in January and school had resumed for Moonstruck, which meant that she had less time to spy on the occupants of the Bloomfield house.Moonstruck had kept a steady eye on the Vampires over the past weeks, sneaking around the property night and day, staying at an undetected distance in quiet observation.Now she had to change her schedule as school would afford her less time to continue this activity. Moonstruck decided that she would do all her spying in the evenings after school.All this undercover work, Moonstruck was doing behind her parent's backs. Her parents had advised her to stay away from the vampires until further instructions were given to them by the Council. Something had gone askew in the Immortal society and the Council had halted all attacks, until the matter had been settled.If Lucinda knew what Moonstruck had been up to, she would have had a heart attack.
(The Winds Of Change.)Moonstruck felt her heart pounding in her mouth. She swallowed it and felt it slamming at her rib cage. She was sure if she attacked, then Buttercup too would have turned against her.Three against one, but no fight was fair. However, Moonstruck had no intention of fighting either.Why did Moonstruck let this fairy convince her, that it would be fine to follow her to meet her friends?Moonstruck had returned from school and she had stopped to do her regular spying. She found the three having a picnic out in the meadows. Taking off her uniform, Moonstruck shifted into a wolf. She sat in the grass, using her ears to fan away a pesky mosquito.She smiled at Buttercup's naivety and her willingness to comprehend an incomprehensible world.It was easier for Moonstruck to eavesdrop in her wolf form, because her sense of hearing was heightened and she could listen to conversations more clearly from a safe distance.She watched Buttercup rise from the quilt and Moonstr
(The Others.)Moonstruck was inside the Bloomfield house. The mansion that had been locked up for years was clean and enchanting. Flowers bloomed in vases across the room and looking up, the ceiling was very high. The floor was of blue marble, resembling the ocean on a sunny day. Her shoes clicked on the tiles and Moonstruck felt like Jesus walking on water. The house was very spacious, with two passages leading from the living room in separate directions. The stairs were about a dozen flights up, twisting behind one of the two columns in the center of the room.There were photographs on the walls. One, in particular, caught Moonstruck's eyes. A dashing man who didn't smile, with black hair and intelligent blue eyes. "Who is this?"Moonstruck asked Opal, feeling drawn to the photograph. "That was my Father.""He was very handsome."Opal smiled at Moonstruck, it was a bittersweet smile."I know."She replied.There was tinkering on the roof and soon the rain began to fall."Just in
(From Bad To Worst.)Jatray came into the Fast-Food restaurant. The line wasn't long but the facility was full of people sheltering from the rain.The rain had fallen earlier, stopped, then in the night began to fall again. She checked her watch, it was after nine p.m.Jatray was hungry and she decided she would go to the diner not far from the hotel. She joined the line, standing behind an indecisive teenager who looked up at the flashing menu board over the serving counter, with the expression that she wasn't sure which meal to order.Across the room a man was getting ice at the juice machine, then he moved his hand over to the choices of drinks and settled on filling his cup with Pepsi.The glass of the restaurant ran from floor to ceiling. The view of the outside was foggy, due to the high air conditioning on the inside and the rain pelting on the outside. A child stood on the seat and traced a heart into the thick glass.Plastic booths were all around the room, some empty becaus
(Goblin Land.)As they went deeper down the steps, the dirt over their heads became higher until it was towering over them. Before them were mazes of tunnels, like many subway tracks going around the city.“Where do all these tunnels lead?”Opal asked.“Just about everywhere. There is even a tunnel that magically opens in separate locations across the world. That is how Goblins travel, not by air or sea, but by tunnels.”“They will find us with magic.”Buttercup grumbled behind them, filled with anxiety she bit her nails.“The soil is the uterus of the earth, it incubates and shields anything within it. No magic can infiltrate it. Anything beneath the soil is concealed, never exposed unless it goes up above ground level."Buttercup felt more at ease after hearing this.“Goblins all died out." Moonstruck whispered, remembering the stories she was told as a child, where nothing of this magical tribe still lives. Buttercup also recalls the well-known tales.“Some of us survived the Great
(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