They were asked to wait until 10am before they could check in. Derick checked the time, it was 8:00 so they only had two more hours to wait.
They remained in the reception lounge having nowhere else to go. The hotel staff, because of their waiting customers, quickly tidied up the room so their guests could move in instead of waiting for long. It wasn’t their usual check-in time, but they had to make an exception as Joana and Derick had seen the whole ruckus the angry customer caused, it was their way of persuading them not to tell anyone and pretending it never happened. Derick looked at Joana, who had already started dozing off in the couch, he hoped they would be done on time, as he was already beginning to suppress the urge to doze off too. At exactly 9:30, they were called to check in. “How much is it?” Derick asked the receptionist who was arranging the payment.“It’s 4,000 CNY per night, for the master’s suite,” she said curtly.“Why are you standing there?” He asked her.“Nothing, I just finished taking a shower,” she said.“Really? You’ve been in there for how long?”“I don’t know, the water refreshes me,” she shrugged.“Are you going to sleep or are you going to keep bothering me?”She looked at him more attentively, he was talking to her in a neutral manner, like he was unaffected by the situation, whilst she was freaking out inside. The urge to be with Derick was not one she could suppress easily.“Well?” He asked her again, snapping her out of her thoughts.“Sorry for waking you up, I’ll sleep now.”She dried her hair with the small towel she took in her hand before climbing into the bed with him. She didn’t know if she could sleep consciously, knowing that what she wanted was right beside her. Derick slept off again, but she couldn’t. She didn’t want to take any chances by going to sleep and having those dreams again only to wake up beside the one she w
They flew to the side of the cliff and went through the falls and into the cave. They were already partially drenched from the waterfalls.Derick tried to look into the cave to see if anyone or anything was there. It was a small cave, and one would find it hard to believe that a mighty dragon would dwell here.Suddenly they heard a small feminine voice.“Who goes there?”They looked at each other, waiting for the other person to respond before Joana decided to after Derick gave her a “it’s your quest” look.“We are vampires, we have come to ask for something.”She hadn’t prepared anything to say and was unsure if she gave the right answer, but it was better than saying nothing.There was a long period of silence and Joana was beginning to wonder if the voice heard her correctly. They began to hear a small rattling noise coming from the other end of the cave and suddenly a small
“The people who blame me for the chaos and misfortune in the world today are not wrong to blame, of course, there is someone responsible for all those bad things that happen, and that someone is no other person than my brother, Yang.”Joana gasped. She never thought that the white dragon would be responsible for all Yin was blamed for, part of her wanted to say that it was a lie, that Yin might just be telling them this to get them on her side. But Yin seemed like a really nice person, and the bigger part of her told her that Yin was telling the truth. And besides, why would she need two random vampires on her side anyway?“If you think I am lying, which I know you do, check the black and white symbol representing Yin and Yang, the Tai Chi symbol. The two sides each have a small circle of the contrasting color. The two small circles represent our hearts, the black side, me having a white heart, and the white side, Yang, having a black heart.”
Joana might have had a hard time finding the ingredients and all, but she sure was happy for the few hours she spent with her new friend, Yin. She was even more excited that she had one of the ingredients now as she and Derick hurried back to the hotel. They would have to wait till it was evening before they would leave the hotel and go back to Beijing, so she was practically stuck with him for another day.They both flew into the courtyard fast before anyone could see them and entered the room giggling as they were lucky enough that the sun took its time today. Derick locked the door behind them and then they suddenly met each other’s gaze when he turned, none of them could look away as they kept on standing there, staring at each other for a few minutes, then all of a sudden, the excitement that filled the air was replaced with intense passion, the same one they felt when they made love many nights ago.Derick didn’t know what took him to wh
For days, Joana hadn’t stopped talking about her meeting with Yin, she told the coven all about it when she and Derick returned from Shanghai, and even till when they all returned from China. She truly enjoyed her stay there with the coven, especially her private time with Derick which she made sure no one knew about. Dana had promised her that there would be more fun times like this if she would stay longer, but she knew that would only depend on if she found the ingredients on time.She would now move on to search for the next ingredient, earth from the volcano of life. After their meeting that night, the sun had already begun to show its face and they were all dismissed for the day. Joana went to sleep also, preparing for another round of studies when she woke up in the night. She hadn’t slept a few minutes in when she heard a soft, gentle female voice call her name.“Joana! Joana! Joana!”She was half asleep when she heard it, s
Derick and Joana set out the next night to journey to the spirit world. They chose to go through the north pole because it was much closer to where they lived. As they flew, Joana reminisced on the discussion they had last night. Though she was pleased that Derick chose to help and follow her as he had been of much help to her lately, she also found it somewhat annoying that he thought she couldn’t handle herself. Asides that, they had returned from China only a few days ago, and yet they still hadn’t talked about their intense moments of passion. Joana felt the need to talk about it, but Derick stuck to the agreement and said nothing. She wanted to ask him how he felt, but she didn’t want him to get the wrong ideas or think that he could get her to change her mind about marrying Andrew.“We’re here,” Derick said, snapping out of her thoughts. The north pole was closer than she imagined, and was filled with so much snow that she c
“I’m sorry,” Joana said. “I only came here to collect the water. I don’t know why you showed me this, but I didn’t need to see any of it. I have already read about it in Marylin’s diary.”“I didn’t show them to you,” the river responded. “Your heart did, those visions provided answers to the questions your heart seeks. And there’s still more besides what you saw, there’s still a lot that happened that you don’t know about. I think you would be interested in seeing the remaining part of the vision.”“Thank you, but I don’t think I’ll be interested in seeing anything that happened in the past. That’s why it’s in the past. I have all the answers I need now right here with me. I don’t think there’s anything else I need to know. I went in search of my own answers and I found the supreme council. The only thing I am interested in n
The third ingredient: Earth from the volcano of life.In the middle of the Caspian Sea,Lies a volcano standing free,Sitting high above its bay,Watching as the eagles play.Mighty volcano, give us earth,Boiling magma which you birth.It sees the sky high up above,And boils the earth, a mighty stove.But then one day, the lava dried,What happened? This fine volcano died.Former magma turned to stone,Only earth now fills this cone.Why then call it the volcano of life?When it stands there held by the hand of death’s knife?We call it that name because we hope it will wake,To calm the cold sea and for old nature’s sakeBut watch out as the small sea troll,Lurks around this big volcano.It looks around for who it’ll bite,Filled with nothing but greed, hatred and spite.
Joana cuddled little baby Jennifer by the fireplace of the quarters she and Derick had moved into after getting married, she rocked her to sleep, singing her one of the lullaby songs grandma Jen used to sing to her when she was little.Being married to Derick, they still had their misunderstandings but now that they both shared a bed, they now had a place they where they could settle those little pending issues.After a few years of getting married, Joana was more than surprised to find out she was pregnant, she felt it was either the supreme council that just wanted to give her a gift, or the fact that she and Derick had had sex like a million times till the point she conceived, she didn’t care for whatever reason she became pregnant, all that mattered was that her little bundle of joy was right there in her arms, and had brought nothing but happiness into their lives ever since she came. She named her baby Jennifer, after her grandmother, because she kn
Six months later…Joana looked into the gift that the evergreen river had gifted her for her wedding day. It was a magic mirror that allowed her and any other vampire to see their reflection. She looked into it and saw how beautiful she looked in the magical flowery dress the pixies had made for her for her special day. This gift was truly a keeper and she sure would cherish it.“Are you ready to get married?” She heard a voice behind her. She turned to see Dana and Hillary in their bridesmaids dresses the pixies had made for them too. They went to get some flowers that she would hold to walk the alter, as if she didn’t have enough flowers on her dress already.“The more, the merrier,” Dana said.“You look stunning!” Hillary gasped, taking in the view of the beautiful white dress.“You two look amazing also, come and see yourselves in the mirror,” she showed the mirror, an
Back to the present…The news of Marylin’s suicide had the whole coven in silence for days. It killed the happy mood that had been brought about by Derick’s reappearance, and no one was able to eat or sleep during that period. Who would have thought that a story that everyone thought would be a happy ending, actually turned out to be a tragedy?Dana soiled her pillow with tears those nights while thinking, so her husband had lied? He announced to everyone that she died from a strange sickness, and yet couldn’t produce her body, she should have known something was up then. This was the most disheartening news she would ever take.John was truly a snake, she was even sure that he hadn’t bothered to go and look for her when he found out she was missing, he was a bigger bastard than Andrew, and she wished he were still alive so she could go and kill him herself.With all the bad news, she was still happy for Joana, she had
Marylin’s POV…I returned to John’s house after breaking the news of the sacrifice and me becoming human to the members of my coven, they were all distraught by the news but that didn’t make me change my decision. Besides, the supreme council had already said the action was irreversible once I performed the sacrifice, so even if they succeeded in convincing me to stay, it wouldn’t matter anymore. The only thing that gave them a little comfort was when I told them that it wasn’t going to be permanent; my 200th descendant would return as me again with only no memory of the life I’m living now, and would become a vampire on her 18th birthday. Dana promised to always send her messenger bat to watch over my descendants until it reached the 200th, so she would help her return to the castle when it was time. I didn’t care whatever she tried to do in order to bring me back to the coven, all she needed to know was that I was leaving them
Joana searched and searched but couldn’t find the river anywhere, she tried to remember where she saw her the last time she and Derick came here, but in that same place where she met the river, there was nothing there but empty land. She then realized that she probably couldn’t see the river because the river hadn’t called her, but that would mean she would have to pray. Her heart sank, she remembered how long it took for the river to respond the last time she prayed, and she wasn’t sure she had that much time now that her spirit was here. She then got on her knees and began to pray, hoping that the river would hear her and respond quickly, now that she was closer.She hadn’t even begun praying when the river called.“Hello Joana, welcome back. I see you brought your spirit body here this time around.”“Hello river, please I need your help. I am sorry for how I acted the last time; I need to find the one I lo
Back to the present…Reading about Marylin’s experience with the gem piece made Joana remember something important. She quickly dropped the book and hurried over to her bag where she had gathered her own set of ingredients. She emptied the contents in it and lo and behold, amongst the ingredients in her bag, the gem piece was there. She remembered that she didn’t put the pieces back in their normal positions on the five stones because of the pack of wolves she encountered after leaving the supreme council’s presence.If Derick had truly gone to the supreme council to take his life, he wouldn’t have been able to summon their presence without this gem piece she had in her hand. Realizing this made her heart skip a beat, if Derick was still alive, then where could he have possibly gone to? Where could he have been all this while?She rushed out of her room and went to meet Edmund in his quarters, Hillary and Dana had gone hunt
I didn’t waste time in going into their presence as the book told me all I needed to do. I flew to the heart of mother nature, united the gem pieces thereby summoning them and poured my heart out to them when I did. The leader of the supreme council; the one who sat in the middle, then spoke to me.“We have a solution to your problem, we can take away your immortality and make you a human so that you can be reunited with the one you love, but keep in mind that once you offer this sacrifice, your decision can not be changed. You will begin a new journey and you will bring back five ingredients; the first is waters from the evergreen river, tears from the black dragon, earth from the volcano of life, a speck of pixie dust from the enchanted forest, and finally your immortal blood.“All these ingredients are needed to make a sacrifice at the center of the heart, where you first summoned us. If your sacrifice is accepted, then you will becom
After that weekend at Johnnie’s parents’ house, I tried as much as possible to distance myself from his family, even though they began to visit him more regularly to find out if I had any witchery going on. They always came during weekends and sometimes during the weekdays, his mom and his aunt most especially. I knew the reason why they were coming; to check to find anything that would confirm their suspicions that I was a witch or that I had bewitched Johnnie so they could go and report to the king. They gave up when they couldn’t find anything after a few weeks.Alas I was finally free from his family, and now I could have more alone time with my Johnnie. More good things started happening to us as Johnnie, with the whole of his life savings, bought a small land in the town as he was tired of his job, and wanted to go into pig farming. We would both run the farm together, and I even agreed that I would help with night duties while he slept. He would b
After Dana’s visit I became more wary about what people said and thought about me, I never trusted anyone apart from my Johnnie, I managed the vamscren she gave me to make appearances in many parts of the town during the day. It worked, and after a while, all the witch rumors about me stopped, people just assumed that I was heliophobic or something.Johnnie decided that it was now time for me to meet his parents, we were going over to their house for dinner tonight. I was excited at the thought of going to meet them, I only hoped that the fact that I wouldn’t be able to eat anything wouldn’t pose as a problem.We went to their house in the evening after he came home from work. Their house wasn’t in the same neighborhood as Johnnie’s and in this area, there were entirely different faces, they lived in the outskirts of the town. I made sure to look my best before we left and soon, we reached the house. It was bigger than Johnnies and