Sanctuary

“Shining brightly, even for a second, is better than living a dull-grey life for eternity.” –Jing, Kind of Bandits, Jing

In a world full of glamour, beauty, and back stabbing; Shaun was all too glad to discover that she could leave that world at any point and time and immerse herself in her own. She quickly took to heart that appearances meant everything. She dressed to fit the image of how humans dressed in vampire’s heads so that they would quickly dismiss her from her mind.

 

Landing on the street below just out of sight of a long line that covered at least two blocks, she glanced at them, trying to see if she notices any familiar faces. Content that she recognized at least three of them, Shaun headed for the entrance of Sanctuary. Staring straight ahead, she listened to the conversations around her.

 

“Why don’t you just take the back entrance?” Paul asked frowning at her without moving.

 

“Because that would be too easy and, then, you wouldn’t have to deal with pissed off stiletto wearing hormonal women.”

 

Paul sighed morosely, “I had to work for you.”

 

“Remember you don’t work for me, you work for the man.” Shaun winked at him.

 

“Just seems like it.” Paul stepped aside; he put on his mean face and glared at the girls who gasped angrily.

 

Shaun chuckled to herself. Paul was just shy of being seven feet tall; he had a large face squished looking face, and looked more like one large barrel. Dark scraggly hair and hunter green eyes. Shaun was one of the few people that knew that he loved kittens, played, guitar, loved folk music, and had the white picket fence dream. However, he was realistic. Since he had a past ancestor that was a giant, it restricted him from certain jobs, property purchases, and other venues in his life.

 

Before entering, Shaun turned and waved at the scantily clad girl shivering in the cold.

 

Outside the club looked nothing more than just an old metal warehouse, covered in graffiti. The heat from the writhing mass of dancers bordered on suffocating. Inside the walls were painted dark with various coloured, strobbing lights with the thumping music of A.D.D. System of a down drowning out all other sound. That is unless you had heightened hearing which Shaun had.

 

“The remainder is/ an unjustifiable, egotistical, power struggle/ At the expense of the American Dream/ We don’t give a damn about your world, with all your global profits and all you jeweled pears…”

 

Shaun veered toward a dainty woman with sun glasses sipping at bottled water. She wore her black hair pulled back in a small ponytail with wisps of it escaping around her face. A green t-shirt with the club’s logo on it and black dress pants. “Learn anything new tonight, Liz?” Shaun yelled taking the seat next to her.

 

The women shook her head, “Just the usual woes of Dire, Dwellers, and…” she frowned suddenly, “and human. Damn, someone brought a human with them.”

 

“Great.” Shaun rolled her eyes.  “You want,” she didn’t even get a change to finish since Liz was already up and heading into the crowd. Smiling, Shaun stood and headed for the staircase by the bar; remembering that there was once a time when Liz would have sent others into the crowd to handle a human being in it. Somehow, Liz always managed to kick them out, though no one was sure how she did it.

 

“Bring about the solution, bring about the fusion/ Bring about the collusion/ Bring about the revolution/ Bring it about…”

 

Shaun walked down the hall feeling the floor vibrate from the music. She opened the door and walked into a cool, air conditioned room painted black, too.

 

“There is no flag that is large enough/ to hide the shame of a man in cuffs/ you switched the signs when you closed our blinds/ You changed the channel then you changed our minds/ No flag large enough, Shame on a man in cuffs, You closed our blinds…” Shaun could still hear the music but muted.

 

A man sat behind a large, mahogany desk with ornate carvings. His hair wasn’t just one colour, but a multitude of different shades of brown ranging from copper, to a honey brown to as dark as the desk. It was straight and styled around his face and just above his shoulders. Though, he was hunched over the desk, muttering to himself Shaun knew that his eyes were so dark that the pupil was undetectable. He rested his forehead in his hand, and tapped his pen against the paper in front of him.

 

She almost didn’t recognize him in his black dress shoes, grey slacks, and black t-shirt that clung to his frame accentuating his physique.

 

The memory of when she first met him rose to the surface, when he had jumped on her; she thought it was there to mug her. Instead she tossed him off her lightly, unknowing if he was human or not and not wanting to harm him if he was the former. He charged once again, Shaun had sighed and punched him. He flew across the courtyard and slammed into the stone wall, cracking it.

 

“Sorry,” Shaun had whispered when she walked up to him. He slowly pushed himself up to kneel in front of her. The man had lifted his head at her; fluorescent blue eyes stared into hers. She would’ve moved on, if it wasn’t for his eyes. The desperation, hunger, and hope in them. The image of the rain creating streaks in the dirt caked on his face, always stayed in her head for a reason she couldn’t understand. His hair was matted with mud, leaves, and sticks in it. Blood oozed from his split lip either from a past scuffle or from her.

 

Then, he spoke two words to her, “kill me.”

 

Shaun kneed before him in the mud uncaring that it soaked into her dress; gazing at him. He had been panting clearly showing his fangs and his body taunt from either trying to not attack her since he saw her as his last hope to end his existence; or from attempting to not shiver.

 

“No,” Shaun told him.

 

The hope left his eyes like a candle that had been blown out. “But I can help you.”

 

Shaun stood, grasped his shoulder and pulled him up.

 

“How can you help me?” He stumbled over his words trying to speak around his fangs without cutting his lip. “The only way to help me-”

 

“Is to kill you? Please, don’t be so dramatic.”

 

Shaun had grabbed him by the ear and basically dragged him down the street with him going “Ow, ow, ow, ow…”

 

Grinning at the past, Shaun closed the door quietly and walked to the desk, quietly. He didn’t even look up at her. Shaun hopped up on the desk; startled he jerked backwards. “Shaun,” he greeted a smile in his voice.

 

“Jas,” Shaun nodded her head as she sat on his desk, Indian style.

 

“Did we have a meeting tonight?” He wondered, frowning.

 

“Nah, just figured it’s been awhile since I’ve bugged you.”

 

“How… thrilling.” Jas said voice dripping with sarcasm.

 

“Admit it. You missed me.” Shaun straightened and adorned an arrogant air.

 

Jas laughed softly at her antics. “And If I don’t?”

 

Shaun considered, “Then, I guess I’ll have to throw you to the elephants.”

 

“The elephants?”

 

“Yep,” Shaun nodded, “the man eating elephants.”

 

“Where do you get these ideas from?”

 

“My brain, of course.”

 

“Of course,” Jas swiveled on his chair, stood, and went to the tinted window that allowed him to see the crowd, but no one in the crowd to see him.  Shaun turned on the desk so she was facing the glass.

 

“Something on your mind?” She asked, elbows resting on her knees, and hands folded under her chin.

 

“There’s been a few rumors circulating around about you?”

 

“What kind of rumors? There’s so many of them.”

 

“Some of which you started?” Jas asked turning.

 

“I plead the fifth.”

 

“In Shaun speak… yes.” Jas shook his head to clear it, “the rumor is that Easley has put you on a council to sign a compact between the vampires and the humans.” He turned to face Shaun, “Is this true?”

 

Studying him, Shaun answered, “Yes.”

 

“How does this affect made vampires, Shaun? Are included in it at all?”

 

“To be quite honest, I have no clue.”

 

Jas frowned, “Wouldn’t a draft be drawn up and the vampires be fighting for that one to be passed?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“So, didn’t you read it?”

 

“There’s a slight problem with that draft…” Shaun rubbed at the side of her nose.

 

“Tell me, you didn’t use it in a barbecue.”

 

“I didn’t.”

 

Jas sighed in relief as he leaned against the glass.

 

“I ate it.”

 

“Good- YOU WHAT?!” Jas leaned forward and shouted.

“I’m fine just in case you were wondering.”

 

“Shaun,” Jas approached her angrily.

 

“Let me save you a breath. ‘I’m so disappointed. How could you? What am I to do with my life now?’” She said in her most bored voice.

 

“I wasn’t going to say any of those things,” he stated defensively.

 

“Suuuure,” Shaun drawled the word out.

 

“I wasn’t. Well, the last one I wasn’t going to say, but the other two, yeah.”

 

Shaun hopped off of the desk, “How stupid do you think I am?”

 

Jas gaped like a fish out of water.

 

“Trust me; I know what I’m doing.”

 

“Last time you told me that; I ended being holed up with a hunter and a broken leg.”

 

“I managed to get you out didn’t I?”

 

“Yeah,” Jas sighed feeling a headache coming on, “that isn’t… you at least have a plan with dealing with the humans.”

 

“Human and nope,” Shaun answered riffling through some of his papers.

 

“Human?” Jas asked intrigued.

 

“Yep, just the one. It’s fun.”

 

“How is it fun? You haven’t done anything that borders on mangling?”

 

“Nah, just the occasionally mauling,” she joked. “It’s fun because he’s like clay.”

 

“How is he like clay?” Jas wondered.

 

"Well," Shaun paused a moment considering the question, "he has all these thoughts and ideals about born vampires; and here I am destroying every one of them. See, its fun."

 

"You enjoy yourself way too much," Jay observed.

 

“Next you are going to tell me that I make boys cry.” Shaun rolled her eyes.

 

“Well, there was that time in London when you drop kicked that Dire…” Jas mused.

 

“Please, she didn’t know how to take no for an answer.” Shaun scoffed. Out of nowhere she yawned loudly, “Wow. Where did that come from?” Shaun asked in wonderment.

 

“Your mouth,” Jas had the sudden urge to bang his head against a wall. 

 

“Hmmm,” Shaun hummed to herself, “bug ya later,” she waved as she left.

 

Sighing Jas walked to the desk and felt his stomach drop to the floor. All the papers he had been working on were no longer there. “Shaun, damn it,” he cursed himself for not keeping her in his direct line of sight at all time. 

Reviews

[Yaooooooo]

Very well written..
Keep up the good wrok and feel free to send me a request...
Thanks for sharing,
One!