Blood & Juniper

I feel numb, my skin is unraveling, peeling and floating away. My sight is unfocusing, everything seems to be moving, spreading like paint in water. Not real, not reality. My mind is melting, I'm falling apart.

I stare at a place a face should be, this isn't making sense. The sounds aren't making sense. I can't form a coherent thought.

Juniper's complex swell of emotion is missing, I sink further down into that barren space. Hollow.

Everything has gone so wrong.

'This is a trick.' My brain babbles, my nose starts to burn, 'This didn't happen, not to June.'

The mutilated body slumps over, scraping the wall as it gives up. The arms are peculiarly locked over the c.h.e.s.t like those classic depictions of Dracula lying in his coffin.

'Get up. Get up, Juniper! You can't do this!'

I don't follow the movement, just stare until my eyes blur with more tears I can't afford to shed. I snivel beneath the stranger's hand.

Christina rises to her feet with a joyful sound, absolutely beaming. Whoever said there is no peace in revenge has clearly never met this ruthless woman.

She turns softened eyes to her huddled followers, without that hatred clouding her features she looks like a new person. The tension dissipates and her minions' relief is palpable as they hop to their next task.

That thick male voice is back, 'I will loosen my grip upon you. Do not speak, we can converse within your mind.'

So, I'm not crazy, it's not all in my head… Well, it is but isn't. The person holding me appears to be talking and no one else can hear. Or they're pretending not to.

An inkling of curiosity is nudging me to get a good look at my keeper but I'll have to turn my head. I don't know if I trust myself to move yet.

'Yes, I'm holding you now. Are you composed?'

Is he joking? She's gone! She's *dead* and I'm next! I'm far from composed. I'll never feel right again and this telepathic conversation isn't helping.

'I meant what I said before. I cannot promise much, but I'll do what I can to aid.'

I scowl as a few more tears squeeze their way out. The constant question is automatically birthing into thought, '*Why*?'

'You had a premonition, did you not?'

If my stunned thoughts didn't give it away I'm sure my twitch of alarm just did.

'I don't know what you're talking about!' I jump to denial and it would never sound so phony out loud. It's actually impossible to lie to a mind reader, a lost cause.

'But you are not a descendant of the Deviations Bloodline,' he states.

June's words pop into my head before I can siffle them, 'We have no bloodline.' Then again in my panic, 'We have no bloodline.' A third time in near hysterics. I clamp down on my tongue so the pain will urge my filterless brain to shut up! At this rate I'm a gold mine of incriminating information. 'Damn it, Ashlen, ignore him!' This whole room is going to have a field day with me!

I get a sudden chill as my gaze flicks to Juniper's unmoving b.a.r.e feet.

I can't wrap my head around it. It was a thought, likely a provocative or horrendous one, but a *thought* that decided her end. I quiver involuntary. I need to get a hold of myself and find a way to block them out fast! And how am I hearing this guy in my head?

'Fear not, our conversation is private. I am shielding your mind,' his tone is languid, calm. I notice for the first time an odd pronunciation hugging some of his words. Is he disguising an accent? 'No one in this room, other than myself, is aware of your peculiar gift.'

Liar. He's trying to lull me into a false sense of security. No one told me about any abilities that can shield thoughts… Or having completely wordless conversations for that matter.

*Is* he lying?

'I am also an anomaly,' I wince as he comments on my analysis, 'Most Seers merely read the thoughts of others, whereas I myself can shield and bestow them.'

That still doesn't explain why he'd have any reason to help me.

'Black sheep should look out for one another, otherwise be exploited and culled.'

I'm not safe. He's hearing everything.

I need a distraction. I shift cautiously to peer at him. His white arms are exposed, the sleeves of the robe have been cropped. Even though he's crouched down I can tell he's very tall. He'd be wiry without the lean definition drawn over his arms and shoulders.

He's abnormally pale for a vampire, borderline albino with a shock of soft platinum hair. The whitest of blonde falling past his c.h.e.s.t. My eyes flare when I reach his striking face.

The celestial nose perched between his smoldering eyes are almost feminine, gorgeous really, but his thin face is undoubtedly masculine. Sharp cheekbones and pointed, smooth jawline. And those eyes! Piercing, gleaming like polished chrome.

His eyebrows and eyelashes are much darker, a refining balance to his lack of pigment and making those silver irises stand out that much more intensely. He doesn't look real, he's a phantom.

His elusive hand slides away, making me question if it was ever really there at all. I gawk at his finely sculpted profile. His face is void of emotion save that one visible eye which cuts through my mind like a lobotomy pick.

'We are alike in our oddities," he reiterates in my head, his blank expression doesn't budge, 'We must look out for one another.'

I continue to gape, absorbed but suspicious. I'm unsure what to make of him. So, he's helping me because I'm a freak among freaks?

'That's one way of putting it.'

I shake out of my amazement, hating how he's answering questions not meant for him.

'I apologize.'

"Order is restored," she announces to the bonfire, "Now we wipe the slate."

'Look away,' my captor advises.

I see Christina reach for a dark scraggly ball on the ground. Black hair. I look away.

"This was not entirely to my plan," I try not to notice Christina speaking to the dangling head in my peripherals, "Nonetheless, I am not… Dissatisfied. Your reign of discord ends here."

She lowers the bodiless skull and I bury my face in the man's arm. The fire breathes and pops, eager to be fed. Then comes the putrid odor of burnt hair and stale flesh. I shudder and cry softly, more stunned than anything.

'Are you going to get me out of here?' Greif oozes through as I ask wordlessly.

'I cannot.'

'Then what's the point!' I silently snap.

'Your vision suggests that your survival is plausible. I will keep your secrets and draw suspicion from you. You, also, should refrain from drawing attention to yourself. Christina may enslave you if she discovers your unique talent.'

So, there's a chance she won't have me killed…

'It is not a mercy. She will break you,' the voice hints at the first trace of grim emotion, 'She will take the things you hold dear, strip you of what you are until there is nothing but devotion to our Monarch. Her tool to manipulate and nothing more.'

I'm struck by his words, my mistrust is fading into condolence. I don't want to but I'm starting to believe him.

Is that what happened to him? Do all vampires become cruel and ruthless as time goes on? That or get crushed under the boot of the merciless. It's hard to control my speculations as they surface.

There's no response in my head this time. I watch him as he regards his leader, listening to words I can't hear. His eyes slowly drift back, he moves like liquid mercury, a dream state maneuver. Those silver rings beat down on my face almost snow white, steely and emotionless as hawk eyes.

I cast a glance in Christina's direction, eyebrows reflexively raising from the sight of the nude woman. She's burning her clothes in the fire, chuckling to herself all the while. Her subjects hardly react to the absurdity. Maybe they've seen it all before.

The flames engulf the garment as she drops in the last of it. Her head flings back, letting the hard cackles fly. The orange hair swirls down her n.a.k.e.d back in perfect Deja Vu. An elegant hand dr.a.p.es over her mouth to quiet the mad sound. The laughter cuts and her p.l.e.a.s.u.r.e ices over. She pulls her smudged palm away to glare at it.

"Wipe the slate," she sneers at her hand, lips thinning over bloodstained tiger teeth.

A lackie materializes from the dark with a large basin of water, placing it at Christina's feet.

'My liege seeks your demise for only your blood ties, but you have not slighted her.' the man conveys to me as Christina dips her hands into the vessel. The water tinkles as she ritualistically scrubs the clinging gore, washing away the recent violence.

'I anticipate a swift lose of interest, if you manage to escape.'

I glance at Juniper's feet again, attacked by remorse and regret. I have my doubts.

"Apollonio?" Christina's voice is cream and sugar, but that edge of frost remains.

She's standing glistening and clean as marble, a feminine statuette posed in a grand hall. Her robes made her look long torsoed and twiggy but exposed I see powerful legs and a notably ample bust.

Her nebulous eyes rest on the man holding me. It dawns on me that unusual name probably belongs to him.

'Yes, it is Apollo,' he confirms, 'And I'm sorry for this.'

'Sorry for wha-'

A flash of images has me choking. Things being shoved into my brain. It's a burst of rancid color, a horrific movie of people screaming and dying. Vampires, vampires burning in the sun, howling and squirming, mounted to stakes plunged into the ground.

I can't shoo away the mental picture. Unwilling, I witness the anguish of nameless victims. Red blistered skin turns burnt orange then black as they bake in the daylight. Crispy noses and the tips of ears shrivel like lumps of coal. All extremities shrinking and seeming to rot away until catching fire. I writhe, trying to think of anything else but it's simply too vivid to ignore, the cries of agony are too real!

I nearly cry out with the suffering souls but Apollo throws a hand over my mouth again. Tears run out the corners of my abused ducts.

Is this what happens in the sun? This is hours not minutes, slow and torturous! I see a few with their eyelids melted, bloodshot eyes bubble like boiling water. Flames creep through their veins, spreading and taking over exposed flesh. Fire eats up the thrashing bodies until they finally go stiff.

They turn into a brittle piece of misshapen charcoal, macabre slabs crumblings and withering away as the embers slither through the molten cracks. Black to ashen gray like the horrifying human stones of Pompeii, a shell of what was once alive.

I think the worst is over but it's only begun, more grotesque abstraction is forced into viewing. Juniper is being beheaded by Christina again but this time I can't shut my eyes to the repeated event. Flesh tearing like plastic, black spewing like a mud dam breaking.

Her eyes are so wild and horribly bugged out as they shine electric sapphire, tilting, neck bones snapping. And then that face darkens, going slack. It falls and hobbles into the shadows, detached.

The dismemberment wasn't done cleanly. It's nauseating like she ripped the face off and left so much meat behind. The arms signal disturbing finality. Crossing over the corpse, crumpling like a dried up flower.

The wretched daydream comes to an end, but the damage is done. Apollo is no longer holding me. I'm sobbing, alone and betrayed on the ground.

'Why, Apollo?' I nearly whisper aloud. Is it my turn to suffer now? '*Why*?'