Much awaited, I know. Enjoy lovely readers. :)


She was beyond screaming or crying, in a state f shock that was almost dream-like. The apartment was way too bright. The clock on the kitchen wall was too loud. She had a distracted feeling that it wasn't either night or daytime.

It was like coming out of a theater and being surprised to that it's still light outside. She felt that this couldn't be the same place that she'd left an hour ago.

She wasn't the same person that had left.

Everything around her seemed like some carefully staged movie set that was supposed to be real, but wasn't, and only she could tell the difference.

I feel like a stranger here, she thought, and putting one hand to her neck where she could just detect two little puncture marks. Oh, God, how am I ever going to know what's real again?

But I should be happy; I should be grateful. I probably just saved my own life out there. I was alone with a vicious, evil, murderous monster, and...

Somehow that thought died away. She couldn't be happy and she didn't want to think about how evil Jethro was.

She felt hollow and aching.

It wasn't until she stumbled into her own bedroom that she remembered to look down at her right hand.

On the fourth finger was a ring.

It was made of gold and either white gold or silver, she could never tell the difference. It was shaped like a rose, with the stem twining around the finger and back on itself in an intricate knot. The blossom was inset with tiny stones, sapphire blue stones with black transparent stones. Black diamonds, Jenny wondered.

It was beautiful, stunning.

The craftsmanship was exquisite. Every delicate leaf and tiny thorn was perfect. But a flower? What was she? Five.

It's a symbol of the Night World, her mind reminded her. A symbol of people who've been made into vampires.

It was the cool wind voice back again, for more.

At least she understood what it was saying this time, the last time, when it had given her advice about silver and wolves, she had been completely confused.

Jethro had wanted her to wear the ring; he claimed it would protect her. But knowing him, it was just probably another trick of his. If it had any spells on it, they were probably spells to help him control her mind.

Bastard!

She couldn't believe that she'd let him manipulate her again.

It took nearly an hour to get the ring off, and that wasn't without trying. Jenny had used various products, ranging from soap, butter and Vaseline, pulling and twisting until her finger was red, aching and swollen.

She used a dental pick from an old fossil-collecting kit of hers, to try and pry the coils of the stem apart.

Nothing worked.

Until, at the last pick accidentally slipped and blood welled up from a small shallow cut. When the blood touched the ring it seemed to loosen somehow, and that was the moment that Jenny had quickly wrenched it off.

Then she stood panting slightly, the struggle with the little metal band was over, nevertheless, it left her absolutely exhausted and unable to focus on anything else.

She threw the ring in her bedroom wastebasket and stumbled towards her bed.

I'm tired... I'm so tired. I'll think about everything tomorrow, try to sort my life out. But for now... please, just let me sleep.

She could feel her body vibrating with adrenaline after she had laid down on the bed comfortably, and she was afraid that sleep wouldn't come. But tense as she was, her mind was too foggy to stay awake. She turned over once and finally let go of consciousness, she let everything go.

Jennifer Shepard fell asleep.


Jana of the Three Rivers opened her eyes.

Cold and desolate, Jana stood by the rushing river and felt the wind blow through her. So alone.

That was when Arno burst out of the bushes on the riverbank. There were several hunters with him and they all had spears. They charged at the stranger at full speed. Jana screamed a warning, but she knew that he didn't have a chance.

She could hear a few minutes of chaos far away in the dark. And then she saw the stranger being driven back, by Arno's hunters.

"Arno – don't hurt him! Please!" Jana was speaking desperately. Trying to block the men's way back. "Don't you see? He could have hurt me and he didn't. He isn't a demon! He can't help being the way that he is!"

Arno shouldered her aside. "Don't think you're going to get away without being punished, either."

Jana followed them up to the cave, her stomach churning with fear.

By the time everyone who'd been awakened by Arno's hunters understood what was happening, the sky outside had turned grey, it was almost dawn.

"You said we should wait and see if the Earth Goddess would tell you something about the demon while you slept," Arno said to Old Mother, "Did she?"

Old Mother glanced at Jana sorrowfully, then back at Arno and she shook her head. Then she started to speak, but Arno was already talking loudly.

"Then let's kill him and get it over with. Take him outside!"

"No!" Jana screamed, it didn't do any good. She was caught and held back in strong hands. The stranger gave her one look as he was driven outside in a circle of spears.

That was when the real horror began.

Because of something that Jana and the shamans had never imagined... The particular stranger was a creature that couldn't die.

Arno was first to jab his spear into the stranger, the whitish-grey flint spearhead went into his side, drawing blood. Jana saw it with her own eyes and as soon as she did, she ran out of the cave, still trying to find a way to stop this.

She also saw the blood stop flowing as the wound in the boy's side, mysteriously closed and healed itself. There were gasps all around her. Arno, was looking like he couldn't believe his own eyes, and for a second, Jana thought the same.

He jabbed again and watched with his mouth falling slightly open that the second wound bled and then healed.

Only the wounds that remained open were those that when the spear was driven into the wooden shaft. One of the women whispered gently, "He is a demon." Everyone was frightened but nobody moved away from this strange boy, after all there were lots of them and only one of him, regardless of how dangerous he may be.

Jana saw something happening in the faces of her clan.

Something new and horrible.

Fear of the unknown was changing them, making them cruel. They were turning from basically good people, people who would never torture an animal by prolonging it's death, into people who would torture a man.

"He may be a demon, but he still bleeds." One of the hunters said breathlessly, after jabbing his spear into the victim in front of him, "He still can feel pain."

"Get a torch!" said someone else, "See if he burns!"

And then it was terrible.

Jana felt as if she were in the middle of a storm, able to see things but buffeted this way and that, unable to do anything about it. People were running. People were getting torches, stone axes, different kinds of flint knives.

The clan had turned into a huge entity feeding off its own violence. Not only was it mindless, it was unstoppable.

Jana cast a desperate look toward the cave, where Old Mother lay confined to her pallet. There was certainly not going to be any help from that direction.

People were screaming, burning the stranger, throwing stones at him. The stranger was falling, bloody, smoke rising from his burns. He was lying down on the ground, unable to fight back. But still, he didn't die. He kept trying to crawl away.

Jana was screaming herself, screaming and crying, beating at the shoulders of a hunter who pulled her back.

And it went on and on.

And he still wouldn't die.

Jana was in a nightmare. Her throat was raw from screaming so much, her vision was going grey, she couldn't stand to watch this anymore; she couldn't stand the smell of blood and burning flesh or the sound of blows.

But there was nowhere to go, no way to get out.

This was her life.

She had to stay here and go insane...


Jenny sat up in bed, gasping.

For several moments, she didn't know where she was. Though a gap in her curtains, she could see the grey light of dawn – just like Jana's grey dawn – and she thought that she still might be in that horrific nightmare.

But then, slowly, the objects in her bedroom had become clear.


And for this chapter... That's all folks!

I'm back in the game. Xx