New Orleans, Unknown Location, 19th May, 2020

Daphne Claire’s View

I wasn’t used to care so much about revenge but it was happening. Tim was with me to make sure I was just fine. I was just fine. The sky was brought to a dusk and stars were starting to appear on a darkening slowly navy blue to indigo night sky. It was pretty, the moon was rising and the sun had set a few minutes ago completely. We got out of the Roses’ Greenhouse and he was walking me home even though it was far. We had the whole night, before this ended, we’d have the whole eternity to spend by each other’s side. It was weird on how he was still the same seventeen year-old and I was now older, twenty one years old. He hadn’t changed a little bit. But I did. I wasn’t Davina. I am not Davina. And thank god I’m not, she’s too weak, too supportive of the weak. If they fall it’s because they have to. She tries to mend it way too much.

Walking down the street, I kept staring at the balconies as I wore my jacket once more. There were flowers all over but they weren’t plants as interesting as roses to me. It just seemed a little valueless. I loved flowers indeed but nothing compared to the scented petals of the vivid crimson queen, whose beautiful crown is protected by the spikes you have to torn apart in order to reach her. She is quite selfish, not allowing people to pick her up and enjoy her beauty. But, she has a reason to do it. Picking up a flower is a death sentence, no matter how beautiful they’ll look on your jar. That’s why every rose has its thorns.

I quite much considered myself a thorn-less rose, whose petals were slowly being ripped off by the hands of those who could only show hatred and disrespect and make use of me. Vampires, for example. I don’t understand, why didn’t Davina want to help the witches? She is one herself. Or, she was. I am in charge of her thoughts and of her mission. I end up just being a protector. Like I am all the thorns that once were ripped off of that beautiful blooming rose.

Either way, we all shared an interest in common, we all needed to cast that spell. I know that the thorns could be ripped off once there was no threat at any moment, but a rose is born with those, shouldn’t die without those. Yes, die, it’s what happens when it’s collected from its place. When it’s tossed into a bouquet you’ll eventually forget of.

I suddenly felt a pain on my hand. A sting, like some cramp affected my hand. My fingers twisted in pain and I stopped there, shivering and groaning. I felt Tim’s hands on my shoulders, and they eased my pain, warm, calming. The ink is moving. The compass rose’s needle is moving.

“Davina… I mean… Daphne… what’s going on? Are you okay?” I could hear his breathing accelerate in concern. He was so loving… Davina was lucky. Now she’s gone and I’m here.

The ink shined and glowed, in shades of silver and opal black as I moved my inked hand, under the night sky and the street chandelier lights. “We found one.”

Bittersweet Confections, New Orleans, 5th May, 2020

Lorelei Beasley’s View

It has been one day since I found all that. I found vervain tea on an herbal shop so I decided to purchase it, to avoid Kao to compel me ever again. It’s insane. How did he even manage to lie about it to me? How did he hide to me about me? I may be blonde, but I’m not dumb. I should have understood my blackouts sooner. The black gaps in my brain. I didn’t collapse to the ground like they made me believe. I was being compelled thanks to his vampirism and lycanthropy. It was unbelievable. How was that even possible? Kao is a living dead! Vampires are technically dead to turn, right? They turn when they are killed with blood on their system.

I needed information. I needed help, it was driving me insane. Everyone around me was supernatural including me. I am the next hunter. I am normal, completely human, but my dad is a hunter. When he dies, I will have a magical ink running through my arm, chest, back, showing my kills. I will be a psychopath with only one purpose in life, which is, killing those who are supposed to be dead for long, blood impenitent creatures. And the damn tattoo will make me a psychopathic killer with no guts to face reality and notice the blood on their hands. I don’t want to be a monster like them, I want to be human, but, I saw the ink that is invisible to everyone else. That means I am the next hunter, right? That means I was created to kill those immortals who feed on innocent like me, right? I… I need a blade of my own.

Tears constantly running though my greener hazel eyes make them seem foggy, sulked and lifeless when approached by others’ looks. It looks wrong to face it all at once. Well done, Kao, you could have just compelled me not to overreact, don’t you think?

I was also mad at Savannah, she played me and went with me to that class. I never got to understand why. What was the piece of paper missing to this story? Did I torn it apart while going away? Were they really trying to protect me? A witch? A spell? What about it?

“Lorelei…” A gentle hand from a shorter girl touched my shoulder and she offered an aching, worrisome smile. It was Mia Huýnh, my Vietnamese-American friend. She was one of the few that picked up the phone on time and was there for me when I first spoke of things. I said I wanted to meet, nothing else. “You missed the early morning classes and the extra classes after lunch… what happened? You never skip a single class, you’re always on the clubs and extra activities and enjoy it so much that I became worried when I saw you were calling me a while ago… did something happen?” She seemed clueless. Savannah didn’t comment.

I sighed and looked down at my nails, polish falling apart from my biting habit. I bit them so much that the nail polish worn out and just faded. “I need to speak to you, once Zlata is here as well. She said she would bring Dasha too, since she went to pick her up from the primary school. The poor girl won’t understand what we’ll be speaking about so it will be good.”

“Kao asked about you. He was worried. He said you didn’t answer his texts. Did you two get mad or something? He texts you all the time…” Mia was definitely clueless. She didn’t speak much with him. The connection bridge between him and me was Savannah, his friend since they were both little. Despite that she is a local inhabitant and he is a Thailand imported cheap product as I sometimes told him, teasing him. I sighed heavily.

“He’s one of the reasons I called you over. So, I’ll speak when Zlata is here. Maybe, we should go inside of the café, waiting for them to arrive. I’m sure it won’t take long until they do. Maybe a slice of cake would make it easier for me to speak since it’s some hard situation.”

“I see.” Mia nodded and decayed her occasional cheerful smile a tad too much. She seemed concerned, considering that she was always smiling to us. “Well, to make you not think much of it, I will pay you some chocolate cake, you know, like those you like with the scraps and everything. It’s on me.” She tried to cheer me up, so I offered her a tiny smile, hugging her next. She grinned and chuckled like she always did, and then she hopped off of the bench and got inside alongside with me, who followed right after her, inside of the pastry and café. I unlocked my cellphone’s screen and texted Zlata, saying we were inside. This was eating me up, I needed her to arrive already. I really couldn’t keep this in much longer.

We chose a seat by the window, so she could see us when she arrived, and also because it was quiet and isolated. The sun burst through the window so most people preferred the shade and the air conditioners. It was flaming hot outside, even for one of the first days of May, it seemed more like a day on a desert in the middle of July. Oddly enough, the clouds often covered up the sun and hit it like a shy pair of hands covering up a child’s eyes once they’re frightened, and, even the weather behaving that way, the heat was a lot, like corpses could burn in the sun.

I could sense the tension. Did she know of something? Or was she hiding something from me? I could tell Mia was strange. She just sat there looking at her hands and pursing them together, filling the gaps in between her fingers with her own, to then casually look out of the window like she kept on waiting for Zlata. So, she knew it.

I turned to her, sighing and mumbling lowly. I seemed really gloomy ever since I wasn’t compelled anymore, like, I couldn’t even recognize myself. “You know about Savannah and Kao, don’t you?” I then crossed my eyes with hers and gazed, trying to persuade her with my rage consumed pair of lime green, greener hazel eyes.

“What do you mean? You want to speak about them? As, in, them, them? Are you jealous they’re always together or something?” Mia blinked, as she mumbled, reassuring me. “I don’t think you should be jealous of Savannah, if that’s the case, you know, Kao…”

“Shut it, don’t say it!” I covered my eyes as I said loudly, covering up my ears with the palms of my hands. I started crying like a coward now, holding out and gripping my blonde, honey stranded hair, to then bury my face on my hands. “He lied to me, he hid himself from me. He just pretended it was all alright. I can’t take it, I really can’t. I trusted him the most. I… never mind. I just got upset with him. That’s it… I just got upset.” I sighed. I hated him now. I was fueled and fooled with rage that ran through my veins as I spoke. And, it was like gas. It could explode at any moment really, I could literally jump on his face and leave a scar so deep like on how he… no, they smacked my heart, all of them, Savannah, Kao and even me right now.

Mia’s lips puckered and she nodded lowly, pouting then. She slowly moved her lips then and mumbled. “I know you have feelings for him though, Lorelei. We know that for a while, the way you speak to him only says it all. Whatever he did to you, it wasn’t good or you wouldn’t have skipped classes, you wouldn’t be like this now. It just comes to prove my point...”

“NO!” I had to yell that, even if the café had a few people. “I just can’t accept it that he hid everything he is from me. I can’t accept that one of my best friends, Savannah, is one of those too. I can’t accept I am something which they hid from me. I am cursed and they made me forget about who I am. They didn’t allow me to know a single word of what I became. A monster, unhuman, insensitive, dangerous, horrifying. They hid I’m all that from me!”

“What are you talking about? What is this conversation even… what did they hide?” Her expression seemed clueless and slightly horrified. I could tell now that she didn’t have a clue of what happened nor what had been happening for long now. She didn’t know about those supernatural creatures, nor about the weird spells happening on the French Quarter’s cemetery.

“I should have waited for Zlata in first place. She needs to be here too. It’s important so it’s better if the three of us know at the same time. We’ll know what we deal with.” I needed to tell Zlata about the werewolves and the vampires and the witches, and my father’s hunter mark that only I was able to see. “It’s a complicated issue… I should call her in first place.”

Mia nodded, and pursed her lips on a tiny smile. “Sure, go ahead. I will check if she’s coming through the window.” She said as she stopped my hand, unlocking the screen of her smartphone as she looked at it, fixed eyes on the shiny screen. “Wait, I got a text from her just now, she said she’s running a little late but that she’ll be here in a few. She told us to order a snack for ourselves and order a caramel syrup sundae for me and Dasha, please. “She’s tossing her stuff on the bus already but we’ll arrive in a couple minutes so you can order, she said.”

Meanwhile that, I raised my hand up towards the employee and he came to us, smiling gently as he handed me a menu. “I’d like a medium sized Oreos flurry ice cream with chocolate syrup and whipped cream for myself, an extra big caramel sundae and, what about you, Mia?” I said as I handed her the desserts menu.

“I’ll stick with an apple syrup sundae, thank you.” She said with an eye-squishing smile.

The boy took back the menus and smiled back at us as he typed down the panel our request. “Alright, table 23… Apple syrup sundae, medium Oreos flurry with toppings and extra big caramel sundae… I’ll bring those in a minute. Is there other thing you want to order?”

 “Oh, no, it’s all. Thank you.” The employee was nice so he actually made me smile back at how cheerful and competent he was. As he walked off, I looked over at Mia, who was staring at the window. I looked at well and saw a dark brunette haired girl with green eyes and freckles and doll-like lips hold out a primary school girl, with as green eyes and light brunette hair, with hazelnut stranded highlights. It was Zlata and her little eight-year-old sister Dasha.

“Zdraveĭ!” She chuckled as she got in with Dasha repeating her words with a cute voice.

“Well, chào ban to you too, Zlata.” Mia chuckled. That now was becoming a languages fight or something. “Zdraveĭ, Dasha!” Mia then opened up her arms and the little girl went to give her a peck on the cheek. Dasha was a cutie. Then it was my turn to get a peck.

“Hey, Dasha! Is school going well?” I asked as I played with her braid.

“Yes.” She said with a cute lisp, nodding her head. “Teacher said I’m doing better.”

“That is good.” I smiled wide. Zlata and Dasha are Bulgarian emigrants so they had some difficulty knowing how to speak English at first. But Dasha knew how to speak better now that she was at school. They were both born in America, but they spoke Bulgarian to each other most of the time, at home and in other places. Even so, Zlata was good at speaking English and was fluent in both languages. “You two sit down, I ordered the ice creams already. I told the employee to bring an extra big one for you two, I know how much Dasha loves caramel.”

“Thank you, .” Dasha giggled lowly. She couldn’t say Lorelei well because of her lisp that made her mispronounce the r’s, so she just called me , as if it was Lori. She was getting better with her lisp though. After all, my name is pretty exotic. It wasn’t like everyone was called Lorelei these days. I liked it better than having a common name, no one would mistake it anymore. Names like Ellen, Rose, Sarah, those were too common. It was good to be different.

“You’re welcome, Dasha.” I nodded, her hair as she took a seat next to Zlata. “What about you, Zlata? Is everything alright?” Zlata and I only spend some quality time when she’s out from her part-time. Sometimes she left Dasha with me or Mia, since she works on the reception of a hair salon and paints nails at times too. It was enough to keep her alive and so her sister. She gets money from her parents, who are in Bulgaria now, but it worked well for her.

“Oh, yes, it is. I started helping on other things on the salon.” She smiled wide. “What about what you wanted to tell to me and Mia? What was it? You seemed pretty urgent on the phone, I hope everything’s alright…” She made a worrisome expression.

“I’ll tell you once the ice creams are here. It is complicated to explain. You need to know but I honestly wish I didn’t have to say this out loud. It hurts to think about it.” My smile faded.

Mia mumbled as if I wasn’t there. “It’s something about Kao and Savannah. She skipped classes even today so it probably is something pretty bad. They hid something they shouldn’t have hidden at all, from what I got. Lori is pretty mad at them. Especially Kao.”

“Whatever it is, I’m sure Kao wouldn’t lie to you or hide anything without a good reason to do it. He probably didn’t want to–“

I interrupted her and sighed, mumbling. “He is a werewolf. Savannah and Kao are both werewolves. More than that, he is dead. Someone turned him into a vampire werewolf hybrid.”

Mia widened her eyes and frowned. “They’re what?!” She was visibly scared, not believing it at all. “Aren’t you daydreaming or hallucinating or something?”

Zlata didn’t seem surprised at all. “They are from a werewolf pack? From the Bayou?”

“How did you know? Did they tell you too?!” I didn’t how how come she knew about the werewolves in first place. “Why didn’t you tell me in first place, Zlata?!”

“Keep calm, Lori. They didn’t, they didn’t need to. I heard a few years ago a group of vampires was slaughtered and bitten by werewolves in the Bourbon Street, I also heard about a war going on in between vampires, witches and werewolf factions in New Orleans. There is a supernatural council joining the breeds’ factions, humans, witches and warlocks, vampires, werewolves, and later on, the travelers, in which there are passengers, it’s like a nomad group. And, I didn’t need to know any of it because I’m a descendant from Bulgarian travelers. It’s hard to explain everything right now. I don’t really want to remember what my mother did.” Zlata sighed and extended her hand towards the table, mumbling something nobody would understand but Dasha. She repeated the gesture and mumbled as well.

I had my hand over the table and so did Mia, and all of a sudden, the woodened table started becoming flaming hot, like it’d melt our hands. I shook it off. “That hurts! How did it become scalding hot all of a sudden? What did you do, Zlata? Dasha?”

But they kept on mumbling things, and then Dasha’s nose started bleeding and then they stopped. “Did you push it this time, Dasha?” The little one nodded at her sister’s question and wiped her nose with a handkerchief Zlata had. Zlata got back to putting her hand on the table and said something different in what seemed to be Bulgarian, and the table cooled down instantly, and slowly started freezing. She then removed her hand and smiled a little. “Done.”

“How did you do that?” Mia was still startled. “Are you a traveler like those in your family? Or what was it? Why is Dasha’s nose bleeding? What is happening?”

She nodded slowly. “I’m a passenger. My mother made me a permanent passenger into my cousin’s body. We were both around the same age…”

Sofia, Bulgaria, 22^nd December, 2009

Zlata Andreev’s View

I was on winter vacations with my family on Bulgaria’s most developed city, Sofia, the capital. My cousin, Yana Milenka Tsvetkova, my aunt’s first newborn who was about my age, was day and night with me, showing me the most beautiful spots of my mother country, in which I wasn’t born. My brother was, Toma Aleksandar Andreev, and he grew up until he was four in Bulgaria. My mother moved to New Orleans with my dad when I was inside of her tummy. But she only found about her pregnancy in New Orleans, when it started growing. Sofia was beautiful, a city full of light and beautiful places which were highlighted by the magic of Christmas, which was an odd tradition for Bulgaria, since most of us are Orthodox believers. Most is ‘forced’, since it’s forbidden to practice other religions in public. So, some of us are atheists, others are Roman Catholics and others are even Jews. But those last ones are like one in a million. And, because of that exact reason, protests bloomed in the heart of the city, and massacres had started. Yana and I had been roaming around, hiding and watching the city lights, we both were six, even if soon she’d be seven, and I hid after her, looking at citizens hold out guns. My mother, Anka Magdalina Tsvetkova, didn’t approve of us going, and she’d send Toma, who was ten already, after us, not allowing us to take a step near the men and women using guns to hold out the buildings they took as their own. It was strange on how they didn’t have a heart at all and killed the first who threated their safety. So, streets were empty around there.

“Come on, Zlata, this is the prettiest part of the town, since they don’t see us peeking it will be alright. Let’s go see the bridge, it has lights!” Yana said as he pulled me out, getting us gloves and scarves to warm up our throats. She was the sort of girl who didn’t have problems roaming around but she was way slimmer than I would ever be, she ate a lot but she wouldn’t get fat at all. I envied her on that. Well, she was a petty eater.

Orlov Most, the Eagles’ Bridge, had snowflake neon lights and a text by Christmas that I couldn’t read clearly, so far that it was. It was a beautiful bridge indeed, which I could stare at for long and appreciate every single detail of the eagles sculpted in big blocks of bronze. Those were old statues, about 200 years old. Suddenly, it started snowing. I could remember it clearly, and I held out my hand, letting a snowflake melt against it. “It’s snowing, Yana… I never seen snow falling before. In Louisiana it doesn’t happen, it’s too close to Mexico’s tropical weather.”

“Be quiet… they’ll hear us.” Yana mumbled and shushed me with her index on her lips.

“Sorry… I will be quiet.” I mumbled and nodded. She sighed and tapped my shoulder.

Yana’s eyes were squished because of the cold breeze. “Let’s go back home, Tome will be after us soon. We better go away without anyone noticing.” She then pulled onto my jacket.

“Who’s there?” A woman with a gun roamed around, frowning. “Appear or I’ll shoot.”

“Run, Zlata!” Yana started sprinting away from me and left me behind, not even daring to drag me along or even keep her voice down. She just went through a hole on a fence where we came from and I was left to die, murdered, cold-bloodedly.

“I can’t move! Don’t shoot, I’m just a kid!” I started crying and my eyes got soaked, and I started hiccupping and sulking and tried to get up but I fell down, my feet being stuck in between the bushes’ branches. I don’t know how I did it, but it happened.

“Too bad, you didn’t show up.” And I heard a shot be fired. Right on my shoulder. I fell down and felt the branches cut my leg’s skin and I just tried and crawled away as soon as I freed my leg from the bush. They shot me another time as I tried to get off of that place and Yana wasn’t there. “Mama! Bashtá! Toma! Yana!” All I could do was call from my parents, brother and cousin. There was no way I would be able to get up, hurt like that. My shoulders were weak and my shoulder was on fire with the steamy gunpowder that slowly spread through my wound as soon as I was shot. Twice. Two bullets were inside of my body of a 6-year-old and there was no way I’d take those out. But, my mother appeared crying.

“Zlata… what did they do to you? Why were you out with Yana at this time of the night?”

“Yana said… we could go watch… the Christmas… lights on the Orlov… Most… my shoulder… it… it hurts so bad… my… back…” I was whimpering and no words would go out of my mouth. “I told… the lady… not to shoot… but Yana told me to run… and I got stuck… and she shoot me… make this stop…” My voice was gone from the pain on my wounds and from yelling for help when nobody seemed to come towards me to help me.

“You will be alright, hold on, we’ll be at home in a while…” My mother tried to say that with conviction but I was bleeding so bad that I would end up dying in a giant puddle of fresh blood the woman shed nearby the Eagles’ Bridge. “Hold on, Zlata… Zlata!”

My eyes shut for a moment and I saw blackness, but it wasn’t time yet. “I’m… dying, mama. I can’t… do this… it hurts too bad…” My cheeks had all my tears all over them, spilled, and my lungs and eyes were dry like a desert and I didn’t want to open my eyes, it would hurt more to face the lights of the street. I hated that city now. Sofia was leaving me to die.

“You can! Wait until home, we will heal you…” My mother was soaking me and washing me with her tears as she ran home, holding me in her arms like she never did before, holding me tightly and against her chest, motherly. It reminded me of when I was younger and she warmed me after taking a bath near the fireplace, drying my hair as I sat on her lap.

“I’m sleepy, mom, I can’t feel anything anymore…” My voice was dry and no longer as vivid as the six-year-old I was. I closed my eyes slowly and tugged to her shirt. Once we arrived, my eyes opened slowly and I let go, and I could tell my blood was still running. In fact, I was running out of blood and just the changing position reopened the whole wound and I yelled in pain. My mother didn’t know what to do, so she just blamed Yana. A seven-year-old. My mother needed to find a way to save me so she just took Yana next to me and slapped her.

“You see what you did? You almost got my daughter killed! Now she is struggling for every breath she takes. Because you didn’t help her get out from the battlefield. Are you proud, Milenka? Are you proud of letting Zlata die? It should be YOU dying instead!” My mother just held out her wrists, and then her head. Her eyes turned black as he kept on whispering something. Suddenly I out on that body.

“You are insane? You are making witchcraft spells on my daughter?! You vagabond emigrant, you come home to get money from us, and even touch her with your fingers, you damned filthy witch!” Yana’s mother just kept on pushing her to her limit. And she raised her hands and strangled the woman in front to us, who were both conscious again. I couldn’t move at all but Yana tried to run away, but the sight of her mother spitting and throwing up blood made her stop and cry uncontrollably. Then my mother took her on her hands and held out her head, whispering a lot of things again, to then whisper in the end.

“Repeat with me, Zlata. Or I’ll make you.” My mother said as she placed my hands on Yana’s head, nodding her head at me. “Jaryakat a zem daryeet acza. Say it.” It was the Traveler’s spell, to become a Passenger on Yana’s body. I would have to. I didn’t want to but, I had to.

“Jar… jaryakat a zem… Daryeet acza…” And my eyes turned plain black, glowing. And, they lost their brightness. The next step was burn my dead body with some of Yana’s blood, to make me permanent on her body. I later on realized what it was. Too late to stop it.

New Orleans, Bourbon Street, 19th May, 2020

Daphne Claire’s View

“It’s not one of them. It’s, to track one of them.” I said lowly to himself. My lips pursed as I looked at the back of my hand, telling me to turn at the right, on a somehow awkward location. We were tracking down a bohemian stripclub-a-holic or either someone who liked to eat shrimps with beer on some tavern-like restaurant. In fact, it wasn’t that. It happened that a boy was coming right towards me, a boy with a pad on his lips and what seemed to be a cast around his hips. He probably fractured his ribs, or some bone less important than the column itself. In fact, his eyes were dark and he had tattoos, a fully inked arm and a phrase on his chest. His eyes were squished yet intact, and I could notice his Asian features. So, we’re casting a spell by using an Asian as a mean to track the other one? A name appeared as I became blind for a second, having a flash of light and an ID card appeared in my sight. Kim Hanbyeol it was. I knew that name from somewhere. I tried to remember. Michèle-Sophie, it was. She met someone who knew him and told me on how the other boy almost committed suicide.

An ex-suicidal was going to be used to cast a spell? With that, the pointer from the compass rose had an arrow added to it, with three similar pieces and, one of those darkened. So, he would be the first Newcomer? We’d save his life and give him a new breath he did seek for probably, long time ago. Now, his prayers were answered. He was fated to be one of those.

“Do you know if that there is the guy?” Tim asked lowly to me, behind me so he wouldn’t expose himself much. “One of the elements, I mean. The bowl is already, and then the tattoo has nine unfilled flowers around it and an arrow with three pieces.”

“It’s him who we have to ask where Kim Hanbyeol is.” I nodded slowly and kept on a straight face with emotionless expressions as I stepped forward the inked minor.

“I heard you need to find Kim Hanbyeol. So do I. I broke his cell and he said the bill is out so I’m going to pay for it. He’ll be here in a minute for sure.” The young boy nodded slowly.

Tim stepped towards him and smiled gently. His pupils spread through his icy-sky blue iris and he started to speak. He was about to compel the young boy. “Bring us Hanbyeol. We need to speak to him. Don’t fail on bringing him here, no matter what you do. Bring him safely.”

With that, the boy faded in between the neon lights, the body shape divagating through the walls as he’d walk towards his friend, searching for him, getting lost in the city full of lust, darkness and neon, toxic colors.