Justine Ch. 10

"Give me some time and I'll find another one like her."

But the vampire wouldn't be swayed, he had to have Josephine, the other part of the attraction was her name, his name was Napoleon although he looked nothing like Napoleon of history. For whatever reason, Jeremiah decided to capture and train Josephine himself. He determined that the usual way of wining and dining was too risky so one night when he knew that she was working, he waited outside for her.

When she got to her car, he called her name and the moment she looked at him, he compelled her to get into her car and to go wherever he directed her. Even through the compulsion he could smell and feel her fear but he was in control. He took her to the house and up to his bedroom to begin her training. To this day, he still didn't understand what happened next. It was as if a light switch had been turned on, suddenly Josephine was screaming like a banshee grabbing whatever she could get her hands on and throwing it at him.

The rage mixed with fear was a potent combination and then.... She cut herself on a piece of something. By the time he had regained control of himself, Josephine's barely live body lay under him, her uniform was torn to pieces, blood ran from bites on either side off her neck and his flaccid cock lay on her belly.

Not knowing what else to do, he called Malcolm who was there in a matter of seconds.

"What the fuck happened?" Malcolm asked as he looked around the room before seeing the cause of his uncle's panic. "Shit! She isn't dead yet! We can turn her...."

"No, I don't want to be a parent! I don't care what you do with her!" Jeremiah said and left the room leaving Malcolm to clean up yet another mess.

Not wanting to be a parent either, and because of the way that Josephine had overcome the compulsion, Malcolm made the decision to dump her somewhere to finish dying.

"So where is she?" Justine demanded, her eyes black and ringed with hot red flames.

"I..... she's.... I .... she's dead. Malcolm buried her and I don't know where, he didn't tell me!" Jeremiah replied as he tried to figure out how Justine tied him to her mother. "How did you know?" he whispered

It didn't register as a lie because as far as he knew, Josephine Graves was really dead and Malcolm really hadn't told him what he did with the body.

Justine blinked back hot tears, her mother had been one of Jeremiah Mathers' victims in more ways than one.

"I just know." Justine said as she walked toward the cell, "I just know!" she screamed at him. And that was the truth of it, she just knew just as she had known so many other things.

Jeremiah cowered as Justine yanked the cell door open, reached for him, grabbed him and threw him against the bars of the cell. If he thought that she was angry at the human woman's house, he was mistaken. Fury poured off of her blistering his skin, he stopped trying to get away, finally he was going to die.

"Not today mother fucker." Justine hissed, "I promised Quinn that he could beat your ass and if he kills you, I hope that it's slowly."

She walked out of the cell and then turned back. She reached out a hand and the burns on Jeremiah's face, hands and arms were gone.

"I don't want my mate to have damaged goods." she said and walked away.

*********

Violet put her arm around Justine, she knew that she was hoping that her mother was still alive somewhere and Jeremiah had just dashed that hope but still she had shown remarkable restraint. The bastard deserved to die.

Quinn and Edward were playing pool when they came up from the cell. Quinn immediately knew that something was very wrong even before Justine and Violet reached the recreation room. He laid down his stick and met Justine partway to the room.

"Sweetheart?"

Justine pulled Quinn into an empty room and told him about her mother. Without a word, Quinn kissed her and went down to the cell. As soon as the guards saw him, they knelt, "Sire!"

"Let him out." Quinn growled.

"Sire?" one of the guards asked.

"Let him the fuck out!" Quinn snapped.

As soon as Jeremiah was outside of the cell, Quinn was on him. He picked Jeremiah up and threw him against the nearest wall much as had been done to him. He didn't give Jeremiah a chance to recover before he was sailing through the air and smashing against another wall.

"Mother fucker!" Quinn shouted as he picked Jeremiah off the floor and threw him again. When he picked him up, he punched him in the face so hard, that Quinn felt the bones of his face shatter. "You threaten and terrorize women! You entered a human home and threaten my family! You fucking sold people and killed?" he screamed as he continued to pummel Jeremiah. "You killed Justine's mother? Where in the fuck is Malcolm? Speak!!"

Jeremiah spit out a mouthful of blood and teeth.

"Dead."

"Did you kill him?" Quinn demanded.

"Yes."

"Son of a bitch!" Quinn said as he grabbed Jeremiah and threw him again.

Jeremiah didn't move, he couldn't have even if he had wanted to. Fortunately, he didn't need to breathe, if he had he would have choked on the blood running down his throat. He knew that many of his facial bones were shattered, several ribs were broken and the bones of at least one arm.

He looked up at Quinn but could barely make him out because of the blood running in his eyes but what he saw filled him with absolute terror. Quinn was advancing on him with fangs descended and claws stretched out, he was going to be torn apart piece by piece. Jeremiah closed his eyes and said a silent farewell to is mother and prepared to die.

"Quinn, no, I'm not done with him yet."

*********************************

Jeri tidied up the kitchen after making dinner for David her husband of twenty-seven years at least that's how long he said that they were together. She really couldn't remember. He told her that they had always been vampires and she believed him, she had no reason not to. He told her that she had never worked and that her only job was to care for and to please him and as long as she did those things, she would be treated well.

But something bothered her.

Sometimes when she rested, she saw snippets of places that she had never been to before. For instance, there was a place that made sandwiches and there was another place that a bunch of old people lived but most disturbing was the snippets that she saw of a child. She didn't know if it was male or female because all she ever saw were the eyes.

When she talked to David about it, he assured her that it was just an overactive imagination because of all the television shows she watched. She especially favored the hospital show and was always amazed when she understood what they were talking about. Whenever she saw a show where they were performing CPR, she would find herself muttering, "That's not right or you have to push faster!"

Usually after one of those shows, she would rest and wake up not remembering any thing other than what David told her. Today had been one of those days when she woke up not remembering anything, not even what she dreamt about. The only thing of note had been the feeling she got when there had been a shift of power.

"No worries love," David said as he kissed her cheek, "it just means that we have a new queen."

"Will we meet her?" she asked.

"No sweetheart." he said gently as he hugged her. "Tell you what, let's celebrate the ascension of the new queen since we won't be going to the gala."

"Why can't we go?" she asked.

Jeri swallowed when she saw David's steel gray eyes flash. He had indulged her as much as he was going to.

"I would like to go out." she replied with a sincere smile, she loved dressing up and going out.

"That's my girl!" Max said with his deep voice that carried a British accent, "And where would my love like to go?" he asked happy again.

"Could we go to that place that's on the water?" she asked not remembering that last night she could have told him the name of the place.

"Of course we can! Now go make yourself even more beautiful than you are and I'll call to make sure that our table is ready."

Max watched as Jeri walked out of the kitchen. He had been on business in the states when he found her almost dead. It was obvious as to what had happened to her, she had been assaulted and drained almost to the point of death and then just dumped. Without really knowing or understanding why, he took her to his room and began to feed her his own blood.

When she eventually woke up, she had no recollection as to what had happened to her or even what her name was. For several days he really tried to help her remember and then realized his error, he shouldn't have fed her his blood. He was now responsible for her whether he wanted to be or not.

It wasn't long before he fell in love with her and didn't want her to remember so for twenty-seven years, he erased her memories when she started to remember things. He knew by the way that she knew about medical things that she must have been in the medical field in some capacity. He never stopped her from watching whatever she wanted including medical shows but by morning the memory would be gone.

Eventually, he did find out who she was and pieced together what happened but kept it from her. Selfish he knew but he couldn't bear to let her go. That he had to change the way he did certain things didn't matter. That he had to altar the way he made love didn't matter. When she came screaming for him, it was worth it.

He loved the woman that he called Jeri and to whom he gave his last name of Sheffield to.

The last thing that he admitted to himself as he made the phone call for their table was this.... When he felt the shift of power, he felt something that he had never felt before.

Anxiety.

*********

Later that night as Quinn was massaging Justine's back, she dozed off. For the briefest of second's she thought that she felt someone think of her and then it was gone. She opened her eyes which had been their normal shade of brown but quickly turned black and immediately back to brown as she closed her eyes again. The feeling that her mother wasn't dead niggled at her but Jeremiah hadn't lied, she would have smelled it on him if he had but still the feeling persisted that something just wasn't right.

***********

Max's anxiety rose. This time instead of Jeri having a restless rest, it was him. He looked over at Jeri who was asleep with her back to him and made a vow. He would allow nothing or anyone to take her away from him even if he had to kill her and then himself.

Having made that promise, he snuggled into Jeri's back, closed his eyes and fell asleep.