Who had they been, these genetic Sires of hers?  She’d never bothered to find out.  Was there any humanity at all in them by the time her genetic life breath had been taken?  Sometimes she wondered.  The darkness in her.  Was it hers or that of her Sire?  Was there some cruelty woven into the strands of alien genetic material that now wrapped around her own like barbed wire?  Or had they both been victims of the same malevolent organization?  Or was the darkness just something that had been borne into her, the gods knew that her own brother and mother had not been saints, far from that.  Or was it the shared demon that was split in five that reared its dark and attractive head, she knew not.

Head throbbing, she climbed out of bed, padded to the small refrigerator, removed two units, tore them open with natural teeth and drained them.  She no longer gagged at the taste of dead blood thickening in the back of her throat, but the near-flavorlessness of it made her long again for the sweet hot metallic tang of living blood, savored on her tongue, sliding warmly to her stomach. 

Life. And all that came with it.  She missed it.  Moments like this always shuffled her to the darkness in her heart, the darkness that was always seemed to brim.  She sighed.

She felt herself sliding into that emotional trough that matched the emptiness of her days when she had nothing to do.  But today, she had things to do. Somewhere out there were two children, children in the shadow of a darkness she could not name, but someone was helping Winnie.  That much was sure.  And one more thing.  The girl child.  She was gifted in some way, gifted strongly enough to burn her way into Jo’s mind and bring her to her knees.  An event that had happened rarely in her life, and she needed to put down that power, or at least understand it.

A suspicion formed in her mind, picking and tugging at her mind’s voice.  She picked up her phone and speed-dialed Nat.  “Do you have any evening wear in your closet,” she asked as soon as Nat answered, not bothering with the formality of ‘hello, how are you?’