Jasmine sat on a blood red settee, her steel blue taffeta dress billowing out around her like a cloud lit by the midnight moon.She sat straight as a spindle, her face staring straight ahead at Zane as he sat in one of the chairs across from her.Zane was sitting forward, his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands.He looked as though he was scowling up from under his brow, his eyes the pale silver that comes with being satisfied with human blood. Bree sat in a chair next to Zane.She was looking down at her hands as she fidgeted nervously with the folds of her rust colored dress, creasing and un-creasing the silk with her fingers.After many moments like this, Zane got up hastily and stepped over to the cold, dark fireplace and thrust his hand forward, a stream of fire shooting from the end of his fingertip with a low roar.The logs in the fireplace combusted instantly from the intense heat with a whoosh. Bree jumped a little and Jasmine, so used to Zane’s way of doing things, just looked over at the fireplace.Zane then came back to sit next to Bree.
“I couldn’t say anything.” Jasmine’s voice was soft and timid.“Just in case it wouldn’t happen.There was no guarantee that it would have happened.”
“You should have told me!” Zane was clearly upset. “Do you have any idea how frightening this is for me? Had I known, I could have at least prepared for it.”
“And give yourself a thousand years to build another wall of hate so this would not affect you at all, either?” Jasmine looked worried and upset. “There was no certainty.Had I told you, you’d worry.Then, you’d hate the human race even more.If and when they would call out to you, you would not hear them if you had been expecting them to.”
Zane stood up in anger. “And you think my hearing them is any better!?” Jasmine flinched.Bree reached up and touched Zane’s arm.He looked down at her, irritated.She spoke softly. “Please, Zane. Sit.Please?” Zane sighed and sat back down, slumping in his chair.
“Mother, I hear them, I feel them, it is as if I am them.”
“It is only the ones you drain of blood, drinking until the last weak beat of their hearts gives way and the body dies.” Jasmine had answered Zane’s next question before he had a chance to ask it.
“Yes.” Zane sighed.“It is as if I am drinking in their souls, the last beat of their hearts thrusting them within me where they will remain trapped forever.”
“Is it true?” Bree looked as though she was going to cry.Zane growled.
“Zane?” Jasmine looked worriedly at her son.
“What?” He raked his hand through his spiky black hair, letting it fall over his face and then rest on his collar.
Jasmine then looked at Bree, then back at Zane. She hesitated, then spoke low and firmly.“Yes, but only partly.”
“Oh no!” Bree burst into tears, her voice coming out like a wailing shout. “No!It can’t be true!Souls trapped inside of him?Do you know how many he has drained?” Jasmine winced.She knew, of course she knew. “For all those years, for all those centuries!Can they see?Can they feel?Can they hear?” Bree reached out to Jasmine, unable to grasp her hands because she was too far away. “Tell us!Tell us all you know!”But before Jasmine had a chance to speak, Zane was on his feet again, roaring.
