1 Beginning
There is no pain on waking, only a drunken, nauseous, spinning that will not stop.
When was the sky ever this sickening blue? She tries to focus on the stars, to keep the sky still, but there are too many; each one stabs her eye like a tiny silver needle. She closes her eyes again and tries to slip back into the darkness, but the dark is spinning too, and somehow that is worse. Slowly, she opens her eyes and confronts the reeling firmament.
There is something heavy pressing onto her chest. She drags herself out from under it, her hands pushing into something soft, warm and wet beneath her, until finally, she can sit upright. A sharp, chill breeze is blowing; she can feel all of its tiny, pointed teeth scratching against her skin.
At no point does she consider that she might still be alive in the conventional sense. The first thing she is able to focus on is herself, and the wounds that are apparently beginning to heal on her body. They alone are enough to convince her that her instincts are right, she can no longer be human, and if she is not human, there is only one other thing that she can be. Somehow, she has been resurrected. Somehow, she has become a vampire.
She remains sitting for what seems like an eternity, until the sickness finally passes. As her head clears and she looks around, she realizes where she is; the Carrion pit where the Sarafan throw the carcasses of those they have finished with. Where her own dead body was obviously thrown after interrogation. The corpse she had been lying beneath still leans against her side, the sightless eyes staring into her face. She looks away quickly.
As she surveys her surroundings, a feeling of unease creeps over her, a feeling that quickly threatens to become full blown panic.
It is not the transformation that she has undergone, nor the close proximity of so much dead and tortured flesh. It is the slow realization that, besides the rats, she is the only living thing in this place. She is completely alone. That cannot be! She knows little of vampires, but she knows that they have to be made. She cannot have taken this form spontaneously. Someone must have made her. The fact that she is starting to heal, and her complete lack of hunger indicate that someone must have helped her to feed as well. But why would they leave her here? It makes no sense. And just how long has she been unconscious?
She knows where she is, and the sight of her wounds has brought back more memories of how she has come to be there, than she is entirely comfortable with; but of her maker, or the manner of her making, she has no recollection at all.
*
Staying alive consumes most of her energy for the first few days. She returns home as a matter of course, she knows the house intimately, and can easily make herself a safe haven in the unused parts. She observes the occupants with a strange detachment; she leaves them alone and feeds elsewhere to avoid detection, nothing more. She is entirely free of sentiment or nostalgia for life she once had.
The only person to provoke an emotional response is her husband. For it was he, she discovers, who had given her name to the Sarafan.
Following this discovery, she divides her time between honing the skills she needs to stay alive, and taking her revenge.
She begins to haunt the house. The servants are easy to terrorise and it is merely a matter of weeks before most of them have left, telling all who will listen of the ghastly supernatural events they have witnessed. The smell of rotting flesh which had begun to pervade the house, no matter how diligently they cleaned, the dreadful screams which had woken them nightly, and worst of all, the objects which they had seen move by themselves, or had even had flung at them as they had gone about their duties. The truth, that Jaslinde might not be as dead as Nicklaus had wished her, occurs to no one. It is almost too easy.
With most of the house unoccupied, Jas turns her attention to Nicklaus himself. Within two weeks of her arrest, he has sent her children away, she does not enquire where, and he has moved another woman into her home. Closer acquaintance with the object of his affections does not increase her respect for either of them; the usurper is certainly pretty, but dull-witted and almost totally lacking in imagination, which probably explains her continuing presence in the house. She is also just beginning to show that she is with child. As a motive for murder, Jas finds her extremely disappointing.
Her campaign is relentless; she continues to torment the occupants as before, but now she singles out the master and his new mistress for particular attention. Her possessions are still in the house, so she sets about reaffirming her presence. Time after time, the new mistress awakens to find Jas' toiletries set out on the dressing table, Jas' clothes in her wardrobe, Jas' shoes under the bed. This continues until all Jas has ever owned has been burnt or put out of the house. After this, she simply destroys all that her rival has. It is the shredding of a particularly expensive silk gown that seems to be the final straw, causing her eventually to leave.
Nicklaus is in a hell of a different kind. For some time now, the servants have refused to stay in the house after dusk; yet, Nicklaus wakens every morning to find the fires lit, his clothes set out, and an apparently splendid breakfast prepared for him. On the first morning, he simply assumes some of the servants have seen sense, until he lifts one of the silver domes covering the food in the dining room. All of the dishes are exquisitely prepared, and all are absolutely heaving with maggots and cockroaches. If he is out after dark, a similar meal will await him on his return. It is only a matter of months before his nerves are completely shattered.
At this point, his mistress, who has borne him a son, returns, insisting he legitimise the birth by entering into marriage with her. After the marriage, which is arranged with almost indecent haste, she moves into the house again; staying with her new husband just long enough to have him declared insane, and removed to an asylum. Now that she has control of Nicklaus' house and more importantly, his carefully hoarded fortune, she quickly sets about spending his money, throwing lavish parties and living a life more suited to a high-ranking lady of the nobility than a modest merchant's wife. In no time at all, she is the talk of Meridian, her scandalous exploits providing much meat for the town gossips to chew over.
Jas visits Nicklaus, while he still has some of his wits left, and gloats over his misery. He is locked into a cell that makes the Sarafan dungeon look sanitary, and the care he receives, like all the other poor inmates of this place, ranges from indifference to simple cruelty. Jas torments him in the quiet hours before dawn, reminding him constantly of how he betrayed her, only to be betrayed in his turn, by the woman he loved. When he is finally reduced to a gibbering wreck, she leaves him, wishing him long life and much unhappiness, the latter practically assured in the dank hellhole of Meridian's asylum.
Now that her rival has served her purpose, Jas has no further reason to let her live. She has not forgotten the woman's part in her own death, and she wishes to see that she too, receives her just reward. Her opportunity is not long in coming. After a particularly debauched gathering at the Ortram residence, Jas finds her enemy, in the early hours of the morning, sprawled across her bed with a surprisingly young companion, dead drunk.
Jas kills the youth first, taking things slowly and letting him make as much noise as he will, for the neighbours will not find that unusual; there has been plenty of noise already that night. Alas, the woman sleeps through the entire proceeding, despite the anguished cries of the boy beside her, and Jas eventually has to resort to drenching her with copious amounts of water so she will wake up and realize, that not only is her companion dead, but that she is next. Her reaction, when she finally sits up and focuses on the gory scene before her, is ample reward for Jas' efforts. Ignoring her hysterical screams, Jas tears strips off the bloody sheets and binds her tightly where she lies.
There is a candle beside the bed, Jas lights it and holds it aloft for a moment, looking down in stony silence at the woman who had thought to take her place. Then, she proceeds to set fire to the hangings around the four-poster bed. She watches the flames as they lick up the curtains and then begin to snatch at the coverlet, quiet at first, then roaring as they start to devour the bedding. Jas smiles coldly as the terrified woman struggles against her bonds, begging for mercy. When the entire bed is consumed by the fire and there can be no hope of rescue, she leaves. The house is completely destroyed and Jas later learns that the child also died in the fire. This means her task is complete. The house of Ortram is no more.
*
The master of the Sarafan dungeon, she leaves until she is more confident of her ability to fight and more importantly, to move unseen. The Sarafan Stronghold is no place for a fledgling vampire to venture unprepared. The entrances to the dungeons are not well guarded though. The passage between them and the carrion pit is barely guarded at all; the stench is enough to deter most people from venturing near.
Jas arranges a rather nasty accident for the dungeon master. Somehow, he trips and falls face down, into a brazier of coals he is using to heat up the tools of his trade. Blinded and driven out of his wits with the pain, he then plunges down to a lower level of the dungeon, crushing an arm and breaking both legs in several places.
His injuries are severe, but not life threatening. He receives the best of care from the Sarafan, but for reasons his nurses are unable to explain, none of the broken bones will set straight, despite numerous attempts at resetting, and he loses the use of the injured hand and arm. He lives, but he is blind, crippled and in constant pain.
Jas leaves Meridian as soon as his maiming is completed. She has grown tired of these parlour tricks, tired of humans and ultimately tired of her revenge.