JERBEAUA
CHAPTER ONE—THE NATURE OF THE BEAST
...If you could only see the way she loves me
maybe you'd understand, why I feel this way
about our love, and what I must do. If you
could only see how blue her eyes can be when
she says...when she says she loves me...
The lyrics to Tonic’s ballad stormed through Jerbeaua's mind as she sped along the turnpike headed to anywhere. Tonic. What a name for an alternative rock band. But then again, the name was fitting, for the man she thought of whenever she heard this song was her mortal drug of choice. She stopped thinking of her potential lover for a moment so as to appreciate her newfound prize.
A Lamborghini Diablo. Black with gold trim. Fast, and lean as it took the corners of the expressway ramp on two wheels. She had stolen the car only fifteen minutes prior to her quest for speed after she killed its owner—a tall, thin, older man with a midlife crisis.
The man bought the car of his dreams after he ripped off a number of DaVinci paintings from a curator in Rome. It was funny how he got away with the crime. The unsuspecting curator never saw him coming. The man, a modern day stereotype of the Italian gangster, tricked the curator who was hoping to make a deal with the gangster. Instead, the curator wound up on the floor of the art gallery, his brains splattered across a priceless vase.
Too bad.
The poor man hadn’t lived long enough to realize it is always a mistake to make a deal with the devil. Human or otherwise.
Jerbeaua hissed, as she smelled the blood that flowed over the marble floor of the art gallery.
The blood. The life.
She decided to let the murderer live, for a while, out of curiosity. Although she had seen his type before, she liked to witness the antics of such men. She liked to watch them, see the smile on their faces as they took what they desired. Then she'd watch the color fade from their faces when they finally realized an even greater danger was upon them. By then, the game would be over, and it was a woman who had played the winning card.
Jerbeaua stalked the gangster for two weeks, through Rome, Florence, and then Venice. His travels eventually led them to New York.
One night, the gangster stole away to a Manhattan office where he put up the facade of being a legitimate businessman. He stepped into his private office, closed, and locked the door.
“The safe,” Jerbeaua read his thoughts as he slithered across the room to remove a large painting from the far left wall. Her victim was turning the knob of a small vault, attempting to pull up the combination, when Jerbeaua growled.
He didn't know what hit him.
Jerbeaua smiled. Her pearly whites glistened, as she her petite human hand morphed into a large paw with razor-sharp claws. Before the gangster could mutter a sound, Jerbeaua's paw ripped through the wrinkled skin of his throat.
She had swung her arm with a bit too much force and decapitated him. As his head separated from his body, Jerbeaua watched it fall to the floor and bounce toward the door. The headless corpse sank slowly to the floor. Blood gushed from the gnarled stump of the neck.
Jerbeaua watched her hand return to normal with such wide-eyed wonder that anyone who was watching her would have thought this had been her first time performing such a gruesome task. After almost five centuries, her own strength still amazed her.
Squatting over the headless body, Jerbeaua began to dig through the pockets of the gangster's three-piece suit.
The keys. She'd found them. They were all she wanted, really. After a moment of consideration, Jerbeaua reached into the inner pocket of the dead man's suit jacket and pulled out his wallet. He had a number of hundred dollar bills, crisp and clean, folded neatly, held together with a golden clip shaped like a dollar sign. How garish.
Jerbeaua shoved the stack of hundreds into the inside pocket of her leather trench coat. She stood. Reaching into the right pocket of her coat, she pulled out her other black leather glove and put it on. She had been wearing the left glove during her metamorphosis, but refused to destroy the right glove by putting it on any sooner.
Glancing around the room a brief moment, Jerbeaua noticed the office was
immaculate. The file cabinets were clean, the desk of mahogany was shined and waxed, and three short stacks of papers lay on the desk, apparently in some particular order. Not an item was out of place.
Until one noticed the severed head on the floor near the door and the headless body that lay in a pool of blood on an off-white rug that was once the hide of a number of white mountain wolves. Jerbeaua recognized the fur and was suddenly thrilled that she had taken the gangster’s life so viciously.
“How would you like it if I skinned you and lay you on my office floor?” Jerbeaua asked the dead body before sauntering to the door. She thought a moment then shook her head. “I really should learn to be more neat when I play.” Kicking the head to the side, she left the office and took to the stairs, moving so fast human eyes would see her clearly as she whisked by. She was headed for the parking garage—space number 4—the gangster's private parking spot.
Jerbeaua cruised the streets of Manhattan Island under the light of the moon, listening to the radio. Fortunately for her, the moon was not in its demonic state, which meant she was safe for the time being. Soon, however, she'd be forced to isolate herself, to protect her humans, her pets. Although an immortal, the wolf in her felt the need to obey the full moon's desires. For now, however, she would enjoy the gaze of Luna while racing through the streets of the Big Apple in a stolen Lamborghini.
The little things in life kept her sane.
Tired of listening to the city's leading rock station, she fumbled with the buttons on the radio. It was near to midnight, and she was in the mood for a more relaxed R&B flavor.
Unfortunately, her ears had a mind of their own, and they seemed to be in control of her fingers. When she reached a popular billboard station, her search ended.
The ballad, by Tonic...it was playing again, and she had to listen to it. It was as if the words had hypnotized her, and she couldn't get away from it no matter how hard she tried. The song reminded her once again of why she wandered the earth in despair; why she killed sadists, as if she were a saint; why she wished she'd never drank the blood of the Father, for now she was the Alpha. All of her memories consumed her as the song played on.
And then there were tears.
“How dare you?” Jerbeaua asked herself. “You're a monster. You can't love anyone. You shouldn't love anyone. Most especially Xavyor.” Even as she told herself the words, she knew it was a lie.
You can lie to anyone and everyone, but to lie to yourself is the worst of sins.
An old friend told her that once. Damn him.
Jerbeaua thought of Xavyor—Xavyor Ross—the striking young man who consumed her every waking thought. He would soon be married to another, and Jerbeaua would have to live with the pain of knowing he would never be hers.
Ever.
And, every time she heard that song, she imagined her fingers slipping slowly through his velvety black hair. Every time she heard the song, she remembered his thin moist lips pressed against her neck. And every time she heard that bloody song, she thought of his beautiful blue eyes as he gazed upon her sadly.
“I feel you inside me,” Xavyor admitted, one night when they were alone. “The way you look at me. The way you think so much of me. And, your sadness...I feel your sadness. You have every right to hurt, having been alive for so long and yet, to never yet know the intimate touch of a man. I feel for you, and I want you so bad.
“But, please, don't do this to me,” Xavyor begged, “We're from two different worlds. I am not the man you think I am, nor will I ever be. So, please, don't make me choose between you and this life.”
Seeing his heartbreak, noticing his despair, Jerbeaua chose for him; she set him free.
Accepting that Xavyor could give her nothing, Jerbeaua demanded he keep his promise to his fiancé, the way men kept their oaths in the most ancient of days. Jerbeaua would have it no other way.
She left him with the knowledge that he would never be alone. She would always be there, in some form, watching over him:
And maybe, I'll find out, a way to make it back someday, to watch you, to guide you, through the darkest of your days…If I could, then I would, I'll go wherever you will go, way up high, or down low, I'll go wherever you will go…
With a kiss and the words to a song, which promised him that she would be with him forever, Jerbeaua left Xavyor alone in his apartment in Houston, Texas. She took to the open road, as she always did when she ran away from her troubles.
She hadn't seen him in two years.
Now she cruised along the highways and byways of another place, staring up at the brightly lit buildings towering above her, listening to the lyrics of another song. Xavyor seemed so close, yet centuries away.
And Jerbeaua knew why.
It had nothing to do with their distance in space. It was their distance in time. Five hundred years of lost mortal time.
His name was Jean Luc Boudreaux. A nobleman of Blois, France during the 16th century. He and his sister Guienneve had taken her in as a hired hand. Jerbeaua knew she loved him the minute she laid eyes on him.
Jean Luc was rugged and strong, romantic and charming. Jerbeaua loved everything about him. His intellectual prowess, his majestic spirit, his long wavy black hair, his round piercing blue eyes. Jerbeaua even loved his wiry 5' 6" frame. An expert
fencer, Jerbeaua used to escort him to his matches in the public square. And, he was as passionate a lover as he was a fighter. At least, that is what Jerbeaua imagined, every time he took her in his arms. Before they were able to consummate their love, Jean Luc was executed.
The charge was heresy, and a pair of jealous noblemen made the accusation. Jerbeaua could still taste their blood in her mouth, from the night she helped tear them to shreds for what they did to her master.
She knew it would happen eventually. Her master was such a pure innocent soul.
Nothing sacred could survive “in such a graceless age”.
And, he did not reject her! Even when confronted with the shame of her love, he refused to back down from his accusers. He refused to denounce his faith or his love for his African servant girl.
Jerbeaua could still see the innocent Jean Luc, as he stood chained to the torture stake, engulfed in flames. His eyes filled with blood, and the torrent of bloody tears rolled down his cheeks like heavy scarlet bands. He promised her that very night, as he burned alive, that he would never leave her. He would always be with her in spirit. She continued to read his mind, as he promised one day he would return to her. They would be together forever.
Jean Luc had kept his promise. He had returned to her in the 21st century, in the guise of Xavyor—the young virile Texan born in his image.
The sad song, which spoke of a love affair that many rejected, penetrated Jerbeaua's thoughts. She promised Jean Luc she would never love another, and yet, she loved Xavyor.
But, Jean Luc and Xavyor were one in the same. Were they not?
She felt the tears rise, but forced them back. As the song played on, it took her away; back to the time when it all began. The time when love understood the rules, but would not willingly accept society’s bounds.
A time when men and women could not control the animal within.
Tonic (Emerson Hart). "If You Could Only See." Lemon Parade. A&M Records, 1996.
The
Calling. "Wherever You Will Go." Camino Palmero. RCA, 2001.
