The Pendant

Jade looked at her arm in the moonlight, turning it over and gazing at the green tint to her skin. The boat had started moving again and she could not focus on the work at hand. She understood that her existence was based on borrowed blood but this was the first time that she could see its effects. The idea that her body was alive, or rather unalive, because of some other creature’s death made her sick.

She felt him approach before she felt his warm hand on the small of her back. She closed her eyes and let his warmth filter into her back. “So back to staring out at the ocean again Jolly Green?”

“Cute.”

“I thought so.” His blue eyes twinkled in the light of the moon as he smirked. The soft ocean breeze tugged at his curls and pulled at his jacket. “Wonder how long I will get to call you that?”

“If you like being alive not very.”

He snorted a laugh, “Still feeling out of place?”

“I felt out of place back in the U.S. Now out of place is miles away and I have started to reach hopeless. Look at me James. How am I supposed to be anyone’s anything when my own body can’t even support itself? Something has to die for me to keep living. I have the green skin to prove it. Not only did I just kill a mystical creature that men have spent centuries looking for but I had to pull you into the kill so you could survive the stupid demon that has taken residency in my body. Now you are an accessory to my crimes.”

“Not like I haven’t been there before. Besides mermaids are a menace and the fewer there are the better. Believe me those little, ok not so little, bastards eat people, bones included. Not something you really want to run into while on a joy ride. You being you is no different than me being me. Something has to die in order for me to live, so I can eat. I might not take bites out of my own arm when I am hungry but I slaughter cows, you just normally eat my leftovers.”

Jade laughed and felt herself relax a little bit, her eyes never left her arms. “I am really green and I just keep getting darker.”

“Hey at least now you can’t say you are pale.” He laughed, his hand running small circles at the base of her back.

“Tell me a story.”

“What kind of story?”

“A demon story.”

“The first vampires?”

“Ok.”

“The vampire is older than words.” James started, his deep baritone voice reverberated in his chest and Jade found herself resting her head just to feel his sounds. “It transcends time. It is older than man and older than animal. Its birth took place long before the creatures of today walked the earth. Its birth was in the time when demons ruled the world and the sky was perpetually black. No sunlight kissed the earth and its barren grounds were inhabited by what we now know as nightmares. Blood flowed like rivers over the jagged rocks of this begotten world. It was from the blood river and the ashen ground that the first vampire was born. Its place was to be at the side of the master demons, the kings and queens, and tyrants of that time as their pet, their toys, and their amusement. Their bodies adjusted to the harsh conditions learning to feed from the rivers. Their soulless essences followed orders and did as their masters wished. In the end the masters were slowly abolished. The nightmares forced to take up inhabitance in the minds of the creatures that were slowly starting to take over the lands. As the masters started to die the clouds started to lift and the sun started to grace the world with its presents. It was the introduction to the sun that caused the vampires to shift yet again. Their bodies burned and scorched in the UV rays of the sun, they needed to adapt and evolve if they were to survive. The rivers of blood were starting to dry up and they knew they were running out of time.

“It was during a particularly violent battle with the new inhabitants of the world that one of the vampires bit into the neck of one of the first humans and started to drink the fresh warm blood. It swallowed large gulps of the crimson fluid. When it had drank its fill it dropped the spent body. In a last ditch effort to survive the human reached out and bit down on the vampire’s leg. He took mouthfuls of his blood back before dying at the creature’s feet. The vampire lifted the man’s body and took it back to its cave, intrigued by the human that had fought so desperately. The next night before the creature went to leave for another battle the man woke up. The vampire, startled, went to attack, only to be thrown across the cave. The man roared in rage and his face took on the aspects of the demon before him. He became the first demon to learn to create the vampire race. Many followed in his footsteps creating the half-breed human demon race of modern vampirism but there were others that scoffed at this discovery. They refused to partake in the creation of the half-breed and soon were wiped out.”

Jade looked at James with a small smile. “Thank you.”

“Anytime. See my knowledge is good for something, and my dad thought I was wasting my time.” James let out a rich laugh and planted a small kiss on the top of Jade’s head. She jerked away from him, her eyes wide in shock. “Sorry. I didn’t mean…It…I”

“James!” His eyes were looking anywhere but at her. His heart rate had increased. Jade watched him with curiosity. “Calm down, you are having a panic attack.”

“It’s just I didn’t mean.”

“James stop. You didn’t do anything wrong. You just startled me.”

“Oh that’s good… wait how is that good? Startling you could you know rate up there with startling a bear or a tiger or something equally scary when startled.”

“Yeah, thanks for that. You know I think I am going to head down and wait for us to dock.” Jade turned on her heel and headed for the cargo hold.

“Jade wait, Jade!” James called after her. His shoulders slumped forward when she dropped down into the cargo hold without the use of the ladder without as much as a glace behind her.

Below the deck Jade let her tears fall. She had heard him calling after her but it had all been too much. She just lost her Chris and now she had this man, a man who knew what she was but still talked to her like she was normal. She wiped her eyes dry; disgusted with herself at the amount she had let herself cry in these last few days. She had never been one for tears and had not shed one since the day she had been turned but in the last few days it felt like it was all she ever did.

She left herself growl deep in her chest. That reaction to life was more acceptable than useless tears. At least if she was angry she could fight, she could be worth something. Lying in a heap somewhere crying like a small child was no good to anyone. That was how people go hurt. Her weakness could get people killed. She needed to get over what she had become and the death of all the people close to her so she could function.

She shivered, that just sounded cold, it sounded like something her demon wanted her to say. Stop feeling, which was something she just could not and would not do. She would not lose the last thing that she had that made her just a little bit human.

“Jade?” James ventured down the ladder, the insecurity in his voice resonated throughout the cargo hold.

“I’m here.” She stepped from around a large crate and gave him a smirk. “Sorry about before I needed a minute.”

“I didn’t mean, look Jade I was rude.”

“Yeah it would have been rude if you hadn’t been right. I look like a human but in actuality I am a monster. I didn’t ask for this but I have to learn to live with it. You saying that to me was like telling a toad it has warts. Like no shit.”

“I don’t think I have ever heard it put that way.”

“And I can promise you won’t again.”

“Are we cool? I mean if we aren’t I can do… well I don’t know what I can do but it would be something.”

Jade chuckled. “Yeah we’re good. There is something you can do for me if you feel so inclined.”

“Anything you just name it. I won’t feel better about what I said up there until you let me make it up to you.”

Jade chuckled, “I feel like a drink or six and I remember seeing a few bottles of rum in the kitchen area… get your drink on with me.”

“I think I can handle that!”

Jade laughed and jumped up on the deck. She smiled and leaned back to look down at James, “I like this better since I shattered the door.” James let out a rich laugh and shook his head. Jade returned a few minutes later holding two bottles of light brown liquid. “Jackpot.”

Landing next to James she thrust one of the bottles to him before opening the other bottle. She sat down next to her bag and raised the bottle to her lips. She took a long drink before she felt eyes on her. She lowered the half empty bottle, eye brow cocked, “What?”

“That was, how did you? You should enter a drinking contest or something!”

“It’s easy when you don’t have to stop to breath.” She chuckled. James nodded and took a few mouthfuls of the warm liquid. He could feel it burn down into his chest as he swallowed. “You don’t have to catch up. I don’t have a circulation the alcohol absorbed into my stomach lining and through my muscles, uh let’s just say that it takes a lot to get me drunk. You on the other hand not so much and we had enough of you puking your guts up on the first day here.”

“Makes it hard to blame a one night stand on the booze huh?” Jade let out a loud cackle then clamped her hand over her mouth. “Maybe your tolerance isn’t as up to snuff as you think.” Jade rolled her eyes but took a smaller drink.

“So you know about me right?”

“I know enough I guess why?”

“I don’t know anything about you really other than you were in jail.”

“What do you want to know?” James looked at her, amusement danced in his eyes.

“I want to know about your girlfriend.”

“And who says I have one?”

“That was my way of asking if you did.” Jade chuckled, “did it work?” She could see the alcohol starting to take effect on James. His cheeks had splashes of red on them, his eyes had started to glaze but he took another drink.

“I don’t have a girlfriend but I did have a wife at one point.”

“You did?”

“Yeah.”

“As in you don’t anymore?”

“Yes.”

“May I ask what happened?”

He sighed and took a much larger swallow of the amber liquid before he spoke. “She and my daughter died.”

“I’m sorry.” Jade lowered her eyes, her boots becoming very entertaining.

“You didn’t kill them.”

“What happened? If you don’t want to talk about it I would understand.” She took another big swallow to hide her embarrassment of asking such a personal question.

“He happened.” James sighed and took another long swig. “Timothy got them. He had heard about the work I was doing in Egypt with the temple of Apep.”

“Apep?”

“Apep is a demon in Egyptian lore. We had found a temple dedicated to him and I was excavating it. Anyway he had contacted me several times while I was over there trying to get me to join his team. I told him I had no interest in helping him. He told me I couldn’t afford not to. Thinking back to it I should have just said yes and my girls would still be alive but I didn’t, I told him to go to Hell. He just laughed at me and said I had been warned. The next week I received a call saying my girls had been in a car accident. That their car had run off one of the covered bridges and into the raging waters below. They found the car and my girls about four miles down the river stuck on some rocks. They had been trapped in the car, drowned.”

“Goddess!”

“That was about five years ago. My little Liza would have been 9 this year. God I miss them.”

“That goes without saying. We will get him James, he will pay, even if you don’t want revenge I sure do.”

James smiled and sat next to her. He pulled her into his body and laid a gentle kiss to the top of her head. “We will be docking within the next day or so, you should get some sleep so I can watch you kick his ass from here until tomorrow.”