Jasper's POV:
As soon as I could and before the chaos and confusion from the rash of murders died down, I set off to find the three newborns I had smelled earlier, because they had hunted on my territory. I had sent a warning to Emilio's coven that Houston was mine, but there were dozens of newborn armies in this region, several of which had adjacent territory. I did not recognize any of the scents, so I was assuming that these intruders were from one of these many other covens.
I found them along with seven other members of their army to the east, well outside of Houston. Again I hit them with calm, lethargy, and drowsiness before I approach, so that they were all incapacitated before I began. There were more of them than there had been last time, so I was even more careful not to give them a chance to rebel. And once again I singled out the leader, lifting his lethargy enough so that he was aware, while ensuring that his followers were not even able to move.
"Hello, I'm Jasper and you've made quite a mess in my territory," I stated. I made a show of walking around and intimidating each and every one of them, but did not let the leader speak yet. "Houston is my territory and I'll not allow any hunting in my territory, unless it is by me. You do not seem to be aware of that, because three of your rank broke that law and took six of my humans.
"Six of them! Houston is such a small town that your activity has caused me quite a commotion. Your actions, combined with my own hunting needs, lead to seven humans being murdered within a twenty-four hour time period, in a town with only a few hundred people. Did you think it wouldn't be noticed? Did you not think I would notice? Or have you not heard of me?" This time I lifted the grogginess and lethargy enough for their leader to answer my question and compelled him to explain himself.
He was a bit short for a commanding officer, but he was a large muscular guy, with a body type similar to Emmett's. Only Emmett was not so short, did not have nearly as many scars, and was not missing patches of his hair where it had been pulled out by the roots. This man's eyes were a darker shade of red than the others and that combined with the marks of war etched into his body, clearly identified him as the leader. Plus he had an air of superiority, authority, and confidence to him and the others looked at him with respect, so I was positive I had the right guy pegged as the leader.
"We've never heard of you and weren't aware of the occupation of Houston. We thought it was fair game and were just passing through on a reconnaissance mission to the north. Our leader, Adrian, is concerned about the movement of Carlos and his army. They normally stay in northern Texas, but we've found their trails in our lands, to the east of here. We just wanted to know if they were planning on attacking us. If you let us go, we'll make sure to avoid your lands from now on," the leader said. He was trying to save his skin, by saying whatever he thought I wanted to hear, but I could tell he wanted to end me, despite the calm I was still subjecting him to.
"I'll let you go, to deliver a message to your leader. However, I can't do the same for all of your soldiers. Three of them took from my land and the penalty for that is death," I said, before ripping off the heads of the three whose scent I recognized and sending fear into the observers. I even lifted the peace and allowed their own rage to simmer so that they would remember this day and know not to cross me, but I did not relinquish the lethargy, so they could not fight back.
I started a fire and disposed of the remains as painlessly as possible, because I had long ago grown wary of torture. I did not like to kill, but I could not show weakness now, so I carried on with what I knew needed to be done. "Any vampire caught taking humans from the Houston area will meet the same fate," I said once I was done. "And if one of my humans travels outside of Houston, to your territory, you're not to touch them. My humans are my property."
"How do you expect us to know one of yours if it leaves your city?" the leader asked sarcastically. "All humans look the same to me."
"What's your name?" I demanded. He had told me the name of his leader, but not his own.
"Raul," he answered. "But you haven't answered my question." He was getting bold, brave, and defiant. If his army was capable of backing him up, he would have attacked me, but as it was, he was not yet ready to attempt to take me on one on one.
"By their smell. If they smell of me, they're off limits," I said. As I was talking, I started to think about Mariel and the possibility that a vampire would come across her scent while she was away in Arizona and that I would not be able to protect her. If I could just put out word not to touch my humans and make the ones who are mine clearly recognizable, then she would be safe even if she happened across one of my kind.
"And if they bathe and don't smell?" he asked, trying to bait me into a fight. He was too scared to attack first, so he was hoping I would save him the trouble.
"I'll mark the ones I'm particularly saving. How about I write my name on their foreheads; is that good enough for you?" I asked.
I had seen vampires mark humans before, when they wanted to drink said human themselves. We used to do it back in Maria's coven when we would bring humans into our lair to feed more leisurely or when we wanted to take a snack along on a long desolate journey. Once I had hid in the desert watching another army's activities for two full weeks and I had brought along two humans to keep me satisfied for the journey. I went with Peter and to make sure that we did not mix up our food, we wrote our names on them.
I used a vampire tooth from one of my many victims and finely carved my name in very small print onto their foreheads. They bled at first, but it quickly scabbed over and by the time I killed them, their wounds had heeled and clearly spelled out my name. The letters were whiter than the rest of their skin, but it was so tiny that the humans could not read the names on their fellow captive's foreheads. Peter and I had a good time trying to make them guess what the small markings on their forehead meant. We were a little more macabre back then than we are now.
I could use the same technique to mark all of the humans that I wanted to make safe here, so that even if they left Houston, other vampires would still know that they were off limits. I could mark Mariel, Mariam, the Jacksons, the Allens, and maybe even the Whitlocks, because it would not do for Grandpa Whitlock to die at the hands of a stray vampire before conceiving my father. Grandpa Whitlock was always traveling and trading, as part of his business, so his safety was a real concern.
"Why does it matter to you so much? There's plenty of food around here," Raul replied.
"I'm trying to breed tastier humans," I lied, thinking back to Allison's creation of a tastier flavor of synthetic blood by combining Classic and Sudanese proteins together in the same blood cells. It had been such a hit that even non-vegetarians were ordering packets of synthetic for dessert.
"How?" he asked, suddenly in awe of me. I had impressed him with this idea.
"I found a strain of particularly tasty ones; very sweet and juicy. And I have another strain of nutty tasting ones, so I'm combining the two and in a few decades we'll see if I get anything edible. If I succeed, I'll start farming the humans and then sell them and ship them out to vampire consumers everywhere." This sounded much better than the truth that I was protecting my own relatives and that was important, because vampire and human relations were scrutinized in the South back in these times.
"The Volturi would never allow it, because the humans would notice that they're being farmed like that."
"They didn't notice in the sixteen hundreds when we started shipping particularly good tasting Europeans across the globe."
It has happened many times in the past that one strain of human or another became favored by vampires everywhere. And when it happened, we would interfere so that the tasty ones spread at the cost of their blander or gamier counterparts. But Raul was not old enough to remember this and obviously no one had told him of it, because he just looked at me with dumbfounded stupidity.
"That's how Europeans came to the new world, not because Columbus discovered it. It was already heavily populated by Native Americans and vampires. The vampires knew the world was round and we were trading worldwide amongst ourselves. It was only when we realized that Europeans were sweeter than Native Americans that we planted the idea of the New-world into Columbus' head.
"It was easy enough to get the humans to go, because we promised them money, land, power, and freedom and did not kill too many of them right away. See you have to wait until they reproduce or you lose your stock and have to start all over; a few vampires learned that the hard way. And after a few decades, word got out that we had a tasty variety and vampires all over the world wanted a bite, so we started shipping them far and wide."
"Sorry, I didn't know. If you'll just let us go now, we promise not to interfere," Raul said, backing down now that he was impressed by me. "Maybe if it works out I could talk Adrian into joining your venture. It sounds like a fine idea."
"Very well, you can go, but don't let me catch anyone from your coven feeding within my territory again," I said and he nodded.
Raul's feelings were sincere, so I turned around and left. I did not release my hold over the men until I was over a mile away, so that I had a reasonable head start in case one of them changed their mind and decided to come after me. I made it all the way home without feeling their presence, so I decided to go ahead with my earlier plans. I had slipped a tooth from one of my victims into my pocket as I tossed the heads into the fire and it was time to use it.
I explained to Mariam and the Jackson's what I was doing and they were upset by the idea of me carving my name into their foreheads, but once they realized it would make them safer, they started offering up the babies too. I did not give an explanation to the Allens or the Whitlocks, choosing instead to enter their premises in the dead of night and mark them while they slept. The first one woke up in pain when the tooth first sliced into the skin, but I used my empathy to put him back to sleep. For the rest I laid on the lethargy before I started.
The marks were so small that other humans barely thought twice about the little scabs that had appeared on the foreheads of so many Houstonites. The Whitlocks and Allens woke up confused by the matching injuries they had all received in the night and Grandpa Whitlock tried to scratch his off. Augustus was even about to burn his off when Mariam stopped him and said it was just a bug bite. The bug bite story quickly spread and people started leaving the forehead scabs alone long enough for them to heal.
Once everything was settled in Houston with the branding and with the aftermath of the seven vampire-induced murders, I took off to find Mariel. She was still in Arizona with her new husband and she was already pregnant with her second baby. I explained the purpose of the branding and then I marked her, her husband, and their first born child. I stayed with them for a few weeks and made sure my name was legible, and then I returned home to Houston and my little cabin.
Author's Note:Now Jasper's family will still be safe after he leaves.
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