Hello reader, thanks for stopping by!

If you feel like you recognize this story from somewhere else, you may have read my first go at this about 10 years ago. This is a re-write of Agent Jaden Korr, which I stalled on a number of years ago. I've been re-working it and hope that I can keep the momentum going on it this time. Feel free to check out my original story, but I will be actively working on this version. Some parts may be the same, while other parts are updated.

Please give me some feedback in the reviews if there's something you like or would like to see changed!

~Julianna

James almost pitied them. Almost. The two proud Agents before him were terrified, although they tried desperately to disguise it. The woman's mouth was bloody. The man's left eye was swelling shut. They both had their arms secured to their chairs. Their hands were mangled with broken fingers and missing fingernails. Their futures were once bright, but had recently become rather limited, and would shorten exponentially depending on their answers to his next questions.

"Are you intending on co-operating now?" James asked, seating himself on the table that was placed in front of the prisoners, disregarding the chair on the opposite side of the table from them. He smiled at them. It wasn't a particularly nice smile, for all of his attractive features. The expression was full of malice and contempt. James wasn't a particularly nice man. He protected those he felt he should protect, and fought for those that he chose to. The prisoners were not among those people.

The female Agent stared back at him unflinchingly. The male Agent nodded furiously. James was disgusted. For all his bravado, the male Agent was weak and cowardly, while his partner had steel in her spine. James admired her, and almost felt sorry for her. He almost regretted having to eventually kill her. Almost.

"What do you want from us?" the female Agent asked. Her voice almost didn't tremble. She was afraid; James could smell it, but she was heroically hiding it. James decided he liked her in his own fashion.

"We want you to answer some questions for us, that's all," James replied smoothly. He smiled again, showing most of his very white teeth. The scent of fear in the room drastically increased. James could nearly start a count-down for when the male Agent would wet himself. The tension in the room was effecting one of the room's other occupants.

The others in the room were both Vampires. James Sired the female Vampire, and she had Sired the other male Vampire. It was this other male who was being affected by the brutality of the interrogation. This was his first interrogation. He was unconcerned with the violence of it; he had been living a violent life long before he became a Vampire. The fresh blood however, combined with the scent of fear saturating the room, was testing his limited control. For Andrew, being exposed to fresh blood and being unable to enjoy it was a rather new concept. Vanessa, his Sire, for all appearances, was unmoved and bored.

James heard Andrew shuffle his feet. When he glanced at him over his shoulder, he observed the boy gazing hungrily at the Agents. James caught the boy's eye and raised a dark eyebrow. Andrew flinched slightly in embarrassment and tilted his head back, running a hand through his dark blond hair, sighing gustily. He smoothed his features once more into an emotionless mask and returned his gaze to James, mimicking his eyebrow-quirk. James grinned. He liked the boy.

"Tell me, Agent Dawson," James said, turning back to his prisoners, "How many years have you been an Agent?" The woman was assessing the question, trying to find the trap in it.

"I became an Interim Agent when I was seventeen," she replied evenly. "I was twenty-one when I became a Junior Agent, and a Senior Agent at twenty-six. I became a Senior Agent fifteen years ago. Thirteen years ago, I took my first Interim Agent apprentice. "

James nodded genially. "Twenty-four years is a long career," he acknowledged. "And how about you?" he asked the trembling young man.

The boy opened his mouth to reply, but Agent Dawson overrode him. "Interim Agent Simmons has been my apprentice for eighteen months. He is nineteen. He has no knowledge of classified information, besides what any Interim Agent would know. He is of no value to you," she added, squarely meeting James' eyes.

"And what would you suggest we do with him, Senior Agent Dawson?" James asked mockingly.

"Release him," she replied instantly.

James grinned cruelly. "If I gave you the choice of who would walk out of here, you or him, who would you choose?" he asked, already knowing she'd ask to save the boy. The boy stared at her with wide, terrified eyes.

"It doesn't matter whom I choose," Agent Dawson replied coldly. "If I tell you to spare my apprentice, you will have your rabid Newborn twitching back there maul him," she jerked her head at Andrew, disgust colouring her tone. "If I ask you to spare me, you'll kill me for the audacity of asking for my own life. Either way, I lose. So get it over with," she challenged, "or let us go. Ask your questions and do away with us. I don't value my life enough to pollute myself with your presence, even if it hastens when my last moments will be." She spat blood on the floor and thrust her chin out defiantly, meeting James' eyes rebelliously. Agent Simmons began to sob.

James smiled into Agent Dawson's furious face. Despite his loathing of all Agents, he admired the feisty woman. She was literally staring death in the face, and she had yet to flinch. "Vanessa," James ordered, not breaking eye contact with Agent Dawson, "untie Interim Agent Simmons." Mutely, Vanessa did as she was told. Simmons sat stiffly in his chair, his swollen red eyes darting about the room. "I propose a contest," James said. "Your two year old Agent versus my two year old Vampire. If your boy wins, he walks out of here. If my boy wins, yours doesn't," he concluded simply. He smiled, "The contest starts now."

Andrew lunged as Simmons tumbled out of his chair, screaming, "Karla!" Simmons managed to avoid the initial attack, but Andrew grabbed his mangled hand, bringing him to his knees with a shriek of pain. Andrew seized Simmons by the throat and slammed him against the wall. Simmons tried to elbow Andrew in the head, but Andrew ducked under the blow and delivered a bone crushing punch to Simmons' ribs. The young Agent gasped and jerked, inadvertently baring his neck, giving young Vampire perfect access to the thick veins and arteries of the throat. Andrew plunged his fangs into the young man's flesh, opening a fatal wound.

Agent Dawson watched stone faced, tears streaming unchecked down her cheeks. She clenched her teeth to keep her lips from trembling. She watched every second of the torturous death of her student and refused to let her captors see how terrified she was. She was a Senior Agent of the Organization, and she would not grant scum the satisfaction of seeing her beg for her life, even if it was what she wanted.

James looked mockingly from Dawson to the dying boy, then back again. "Your boy didn't do very well," he commented, with the same tone one uses when their disagreed upon prediction of rain has been validated.

Dawson met his eyes boldly, tearing them away from her dead student. "You have to admit," she said coldly, "he was at a distinct disadvantage. Your contest wasn't exactly fair."

James grinned. "All is fair in love and war," he quoted in a sing-song voice. "It is hardly my fault if you brought the boy out into the world so ill prepared for what awaited him." He learned forward in mock seriousness, "I'm sure he had a bright future ahead of him." Dawson's face contorted with rage, and she spat in James' face. She would have punched him, had she not been restrained.

James laughed as he wiped his chin of spittle. "You know," he said, leaning forward, placing his hand on Dawson's, "I must say, I'm starting to like you, Agent Dawson." He squeezed her hand lightly, she winced as it shifted broken bones. "You have a certain," he paused, searching for the words, his grip slowly tightening on her hand, "bravado that sets you apart, if you know what I mean. I think," the pressure on Dawson's hand was now enough that she started to whimper quietly, "that I should Turn you, just for the fun of having more conversations like this one. What do you think?"

Dawson screamed as James suddenly squeezed her hand with all of his strength, crushing the already damaged bones, mangling the already injured hand.

"What do you think, Karla?" James asked sweetly, still crushing her hand.

Dawson's face was contorted with agony, her mouth open in a silent scream. With a massive force of will, she clenched her teeth to regain enough control to grind out, "I'd rather die, thank you very much."

James leaned in close enough that he could have kissed her, had he moved a few inches closer. "That can also be arranged," he whispered. "All you need to do is answer a question, and I'll end all of this for you."

Dawson's eyes forced themselves open, and they burned into James'. "Then ask your damn question," she snarled through gritted teeth, "and go straight to hell!"

James smile widened, showing his four fangs menacingly. "I'll be sure to take you with me when I decide to go," he promised. Abruptly he moved about the table he'd been perched upon and sat in the chair opposite Dawson. He pressed a button on the table's touch-pad and an image appeared in the air between them. It was a simple picture, taken many years previous, of a young pregnant woman, captured mid-sentence as she spoke to a person out of frame. She was walking down a busy street, surrounded by people, her very pregnant belly allowing her a wide berth by passers-by. The wind had evidently picked up at the moment the image was captured, because her gauzy dress was streaming behind her, plastered to her body, accentuating her swollen stomach. James pressed another button and the picture changed slightly. It was of the same woman, likely seconds later, but her companion was now visible. "Who is the woman, Karla?" James asked. "Who is she?"

Dawson stared evenly at James and replied, "It's me. I haven't changed that much." She wasn't lying in the least. She was the companion of the pregnant woman. The shot was more than twenty years old.

James was however frustrated with her uninformative answer. He strode around the table, seized Dawson by the back of the head and slammed her forehead into the table. He wrenched her upright by her hair and snarled, "Of course it's you, you stupid bitch. Who is the other woman?"

Dawson laughed weakly, blood bubbling on her lips as it streamed from her broken nose. "You know," she chuckled, "I taught interrogation techniques at the Academy. Causing head injuries are not the most effective tools when interrogating one's subjects. It can sometimes make the subject forget the questions, or even the answers." She cried out as James viciously jerked her head back by her hair.

"Who is she?" James asked again, bending over her with his fangs bared. "Tell me now, and I'll end it quickly. The longer you make me wait, the longer you'll have to wait. I may only be able to kill you once, but that could take a long time." He suddenly released her head and knelt next to her. "Who is she, Karla?" he cooed sweetly.

Dawson began to laugh in earnest. She threw her head back and let it wrack her body with its spasms, despite how much it hurt her. "You mean to tell me," she managed to burst out, once the laughter subsided, "that you've killed my student, and will kill me, because you have an old picture of me having coffee with my friend twenty years ago?" She laughed again. "You must be getting bored in your old age, James," she chortled. "What's wrong? Slaughtering babies doesn't hold the appeal anymore? How is it that you can afford to waste all this time and energy on a picture? Is Tsar unhappy with someone, and so you have a lot of extra time on your hands?"

"Who is she?" James asked once more. "I won't ask you again. Refuse me and I Turn you."

Dawson instantly sobered. He could threaten her with death or torture. She could handle those. She couldn't handle him Turning her. It was something he could so easily do, and then he would worse than kill her – he'd make her like him. She closed her eyes in defeat. She would do anything to avoid that fate, and James knew it. "How don't you know who she is?" she asked, stalling the inevitable.

"Because she was a civilian, and therefore we didn't monitor her," James replied, his patience wearing thin. "Answer the question Agent Dawson," he ordered.

Senior Agent Karla Dawson, a twenty-four year veteran of The Organization, cursed herself for her fear of the Turn, cursed her weakness at not being able to withstand that particular threat, and cursed herself for betraying her friend. "Her name is Elizabeth Korr, she was married to Chief Commander Nathaniel Korr," she said in a dead voice. "But they're both dead, so what does it matter?" she asked desperately.

"Was the child carried to term?" James asked, ignoring Dawson's question.

"Yes."

"What is its name?" he asked, managing to keep the anticipation out of his voice. At last, he'd have a name!

"Jaden," Dawson replied, hating herself with every traitorous breath. "Her name is Jaden Elizabeth Korr. She's a Junior Agent now."

"Lovely," James cooed, gently patting Dawson's hand, earning a wince. "Simply lovely." He stood and moved behind her. "Thank you for your co-operation, Karla. Your services were much appreciated." He maliciously smiled as he watched her shoulders hunch under the weight of her shame. He let the damning sentence hand in the air before he gripped her chin and pulled her head back, sinking his fangs into her exposed throat.

Dawson stiffened and gurgled as she clung onto life, but James was draining her fast enough that she lost consciousness quickly. Before she was dead however, James pulled away. He deftly cut the palm of his hand with a fang and let a few drops of blood fall into Dawson's open mouth. He also rubbed some over the gash at her throat, which instantly sealed.

"Take her out and see to it that she is found by the right people," James ordered, wiping his mouth on his sleeve as he turned and walked from the room, a triumphant smile on his lips.

Thank you for starting my story again with me! I hope you enjoy what's to come!

~Julianna