Stirring The Pot

Anita looked around at the crowd as she and Richard walked into the Circus of the Damned. Each had been contacted by Jean-Claude and asked to come by tonight. He would reveal nothing else. They were met at the door by a grinning Jason. "What's going on Jason?" Richard asked.

"Come on in and find out." Jason replied, still smiling.

As they walked into Jean-Claude's quarters, he rose from the couch smiling. Jean-Claude walked toward them and Anita couldn't help but smile back as she looked over his lean form. He was dressed in skin tight black leather pants and a sheer black shirt with a wide, blood red, satin collar and matching cuffs. His boots were thigh high suede leather that hugged his legs. She could tell that there was nothing but him under his clothes and she felt herself grow warm.

While Anita and Richard were watching him, Jean-Claude returned their perusal. Anita had just come straight from work and was wearing black jeans, black Nikes, with a royal blue blouse. Bert had thrown a fit about her wearing black, but Anita ignored him. Jean-Claude could still smell the blood on her. Richard had been at home and had come dressed in blue jeans and a denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up. When Jean-Claude reached them, he embraced Anita and kissed her. As he released her, he caught Richard's eyes. They were still working on settling their differences but they both knew that they each loved Anita in their own way. So they were back to dating again. The no sex rule was back as Anita still wasn't comfortable with her new powers or the marks yet.

Jason walked past them and sat down on the floor in front of one of the matching black couches. That was when Richard and Anita noticed someone sitting on the opposite couch. Slowly the figure turned and leaned over the back of the couch, looking the trio over, especially the two newcomers.

"Ah, ma chere, I have been terribly remiss in my duties as host. Let me introduce you to Anita Blake and Richard Zeeman. Anita…Richard…Jules Meadows."

Jules rose from the couch and walked toward them, smiling. As she neared them, she held out her hand. "Hello."

Richard smiled back and shook her hand. Anita, who was always more cautious, studied her carefully. What she saw was a woman not much taller then herself, dressed in white hip huggers and matching sleeveless crop top. She had long, sunny blond hair and bright blue eyes that shimmered with her smile. Anita noticed that when she smiled, even though she showed her teeth, that her canines weren't completely visible. Reaching out with her powers, Anita touched Jules and found that her power was very faint and cool. It felt like her's and Jean-Claude's. Then she noticed a touch of something else but couldn't figure out what it was. Finally, she took the hand that was held out to her. It was warm and human-feeling.

"Well Anita. What do you think?" Jean-Claude asked her with a knowing look.

Anita hated it when he did this and instead of answering, asked a question of Jules. "So how long have you been a vampire?"

Jules let out a genuine laugh. "I'm not a vampire, although Jean-Claude thought you might think that, but I'm not quite sure why?"

Anita looked surprised. "The way you smile…and the feel of your power…it felt just like a vampire's." Then she remembered that other feeling. "But there was something else there." Anita looked a little puzzled.

Jules laughed again, and the laughter was filled with life. "That's because my shields are up. All you've felt is a little brush of what I have. If you're really curious I'll lower my shields and then you can try again. I bet that you'll be able to tell what I am then."

When Anita nodded, Jules lowered her shields, watching Anita as she did so. Slowly she released her power so as not to hit her with it all at once.

Anita felt Jules' power slowly flow over her. She gasped at the strength of it as it washed over her. It was cool and warm at the same time and suddenly, she knew what Jules was, at least partially. Looking a little surprised, she said. "You're a lycanthrope!" Looking a little puzzled, Anita asked, "But what else are you? You don't taste quite right."

Jules smiled. "I have been a were for a long time and as for the other, it is a gift I inherited from my grandmother. She had telekinetic and telepathic powers which she passed on to my mother and then to me."

"A long time? You can't be much older then I am. How old were you when you got infected?" Anita asked, a little suspiciously. She had noticed that Jules' hadn't mentioned just what kind of were she was.

Jean-Claude interrupted, "Now Anita, we don't want to be rude to our guest. Let's all have a seat. Perhaps, if you ask nicely, she might answer your questions." With a small bow and a knowing look, he directed everyone back to the couches.

As they were sitting down, Asher, Jamil, and Damian walked into the room. "Jules, you've already met Jason and Asher. I'll let the rest of our happy little family introduce themselves." Jean-Claude said with a flourish of his hand.

Jules looked over at Jason and laughed when she caught him blatantly looking her over. Asher stood back so that the other two could introduce themselves. Jamil walked over and instead of shaking her hand, sniffed her. "I am Jamil. You smell like lukoi but there is something strange to it." Jules returned his greeting with a little nip of his neck. Immediately, Jamil's power flowed into the room but just as quickly died when he met her eyes. Anita was amazed.

Jules slowly turned toward the unknown vampire as he glided toward her. "I am Damian." However, instead of taking her hand, he presented her with a slight bow. As he moved off, Asher walked forward and took her hand in his.

"Good to see you again, Asher." Jules said as he brought her hand to his lips and kissed it.

Meeting her eyes with his, he smiled. "It is good to see you again as well. I hope that your journey wasn't too bad."

"No, it wasn't bad at all." Jules replied, reluctantly drawing her hand from his. Turning to the other men, "Gentlemen, I'm Jules and the pleasure is mine." Everyone knew that she was telling the truth. "Now, that the introductions have been made there are some questions that I need to answer. Richard, I have not presented myself to you or the pack as I'm not sure that I am staying or just passing through. I am here for a job, no more, no less at the moment. I am a performer, and Jean-Claude hired me to come and perform at Danse Macabre. It is a two week contract, which we will discuss as to whether I will be able to fulfill it or not."

All of this was addressed to Richard as the local Ulfric. If he didn't approve, then the contract would be null and void. Richard nodded, "Of course, there are some other questions that I need answered."

"Yes, and hopefully they will be answered when I answer Anita's question. Anita, you wanted to know when I got infected. Let me start by telling you a little bit about where I came from. I was born and raised in northern Washington State, in…Serenity." Jules smiled at everyone's reaction. Jean-Claude just smiled as he already knew her history. However, everyone except Anita gasped and looked shocked.

"What? I'm missing something." Anita looked around a little confused and was beginning to get angry. She hated being left in the dark.

Richard turned slowly dragging his eyes to Anita. "Serenity was a town where all manner of Lycanthrope lived together in peace and harmony with normal people."

Anita thought about what he said. "You said was. What happened to it?" Anita somehow knew she wouldn't like the answer.

Jules stopped Richard, "If it's all right with you, I'd rather Anita find out a little later in my story." At Anita's reluctant nod, she continued. "We didn't really have separate packs, but were more like one large pack consisting of all the animals. Granted, they all had their own individual meeting places for the night of the full moon, but there was also one large meeting place. My father was Ulfric of the wolves but was also a contractor. My mother was a wereleopard. She had only a small amount of the powers from my grandmother, but she was able to use it and the munin to heal the sick and injured. In Serenity, the type of animal you were didn't matter. The weres intermingled and no one saw it as wrong. We were all family in a way. Serenity had been around for decades when my parents moved there. Both of my parents had been victims of attacks and to heal themselves, emotionally as well as mentally, they had move to Serenity. There they met and married."

"I was the oldest of three children." Jules paused as a wave of sadness hit her and a little leaked out to the room. Quickly, she tightened her shields and continued with her story. "When I was five, I started showing signs of telekinetic and telepathic powers. My mother called my grandmother, whose power was much stronger then hers and she came to live with us. My mother felt that she would be better at teaching me to control my growing powers."

Jules began to fidgeting a bit, and even looked slightly embarrassed when she continued. "When I was ten, my parents went out for the full moon, leaving my grandmother in charge. Being headstrong and curious, I wanted to follow my parents. I managed to hide my plans from my grandmother and that night I sneaked out of the house to follow them. You see, I knew what my parents were but I had never seen them change or in their animal form. My father's full moon gathering place was closest, so I went there. Everyone in town knew where the places were."

Jules paused once again, "Might I have a drink? All this talking does make a person thirsty."

Jean-Claude nodded and Jason stood. "What would you like?"

"A coke would be fine, thank you."

Jason went and was back in no time with the drink. After handing it to Jules, he went and sat back down on the floor between Anita and Jean-Claude. "And?" Jason asked, leaning against Anita's leg only to have her move it. Jules sat the glass down, watching the exchange between them.

Jules leaned back on the couch and smiled when Jason winked at her. "I hid myself in the bushes and watched in horror as my father suddenly appeared to be racked with great pain and then he changed. I must have made a noise because all the wolves turned toward me and in my panic, I ran. It was a blind run and the next thing I knew, I was falling. My mother having sensed my panic had come running. Both of my parents had not finished their change when they had rushed to save me. They knew they had two choices to make. They could let me fall to my death, or they could make a grab for me and pray that I didn't get scratched and if I did, that I wouldn't become infected. Unfortunately, that was not meant to be. At least my parents were there to help me through it. The strange thing though was that I had been scratched by both of them. When such cases had happened before, it was usually the dominate animal that the person scratched became. However, something in my genes allowed me to choose. I can become either wolf or leopard at my choosing. That is why I taste funny."

Anita shook her head. To have grown up with that kind of burden was unthinkable. She would have rather died. "How did you manage?"

Jules shrugged, "It wasn't a burden at all. Just as with my telepathic powers, I was properly trained from an early age to live as normal a life as I could. When you grow up with something, it's just second nature, I guess." With this last statement, she smiled.

"You just read my mind!" Anita accused.

The smile quickly left Jules' face to be replaced by anger. "No, I did not. I refuse to read anyone's mind without his or her invitation. My grandmother was a very ethical person and made it very clear in my training what was wrong and what was right. Skimming surface thoughts or thoughts that leak out is not reading a person's mind. There are only a couple of times that I would read someone without their permission. That would be if their life was at stake and can be saved by me doing so, or if someone is lost and needs to be found, or their mind has gone in upon itself and the person can't be reached."

Richard looked a little puzzled. "How would reading a mind save their life?"

Jules looked each of them in the eye. "If the person was conscious, but unable to talk, I would only skim the surface thoughts. A deeper probe would only be necessary if the person was unconscious. Also, if I knew that a person was being held and another person knew where they were, I would risk a reading to get them back."

Jules paused and looked over at the door. "Someone is coming." When Damian and Asher moved toward the door, Jules stopped them. "It's one of mine. Do not harm him, please."

"One of yours?" Jamil questioned, still in guard position near Richard. Richard also looked at her with speculation.

When the footsteps stopped in front of the door, Damian opened it, slightly surprising the man poised there to knock. When Damian motioned him on, in walked a man who appeared to be in his late-forties to mid-fifties. He was dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, and cowboy boots. His hair was long and pulled back into a ponytail with a bandana around his head. He stopped in the doorway and looked around the room, taking in each person there. When he had completed his survey, he walked over and sat on the arm of the couch beside Jules. "Lady and Gentlemen, may I introduce Patrick. Patrick is my manager and self proclaimed bodyguard."

Everyone could feel the power roll off of him. He wasn't trying to hide it at this time. He had obviously been a shape changer for a long time. The way he moved let you know that he was dangerous. His power showed that he wasn't as powerful as Jules but he was close.

Jules looked up at him with a warm, loving smile before looking back at her audience. "Shall I finish my tale?" At everyone's nod of approval, she continued. "My life was normal and happy as a were community could be. You see, Serenity was a place where those who needed to heal could come. Those whose lives had been shattered by what they had become or by the treatment from those that had found out. It was that way for eight more years of my life. When I turned eighteen, I went off to college like any normal teenager. With one exception, I was also going off to study with someone more powerful and knowledgeable than my grandmother in how to control and use my ever growing mental powers."

"I'd been away at school, only coming back for holidays and breaks for a couple of years when it happened." Jules got a far away look in her eyes and Patrick put his arm behind her, but didn't touch her.

"When what happened?" Anita asked, looking around she saw that all the werewolves had gone still and pale, while the vampires were frowning. She really hated not knowing what everyone else seemed to know.

"It was about a week after the full moon and it was late, around 2:30 a.m. I was in my apartment studying when I heard a great cry in my head. The next thing I knew, I was on the floor holding my head and there was this vast emptiness within me. Then suddenly, they were all there. All the people from my town. All my friends, neighbors, family, weres and human together. They suddenly filled me till I thought I was going to burst. In my head, I saw men with machine guns and flame-throwers drive quietly into town and destroy it. They killed everyone. They knew exactly who and what they were shooting at because the bullets were silver."

Jules shook herself and came back from where she had gone. There were tears streaming down her face but she didn't seem to care. Taking a deep breath, she reached for her drink and took a couple of sips. Setting it back down, she noticed a handkerchief in front of her. Looking up, she followed the hand up to the face. It was Asher. For a moment, they looked eyes. Giving him a small smile of gratitude, Jules finally took the handkerchief and wiped the tears from her face.

Everyone had remained quiet and waited for Jules to continue. Blowing her nose, she held onto the handkerchief and continued. "After I got over the shock of what was happening, I blocked what I could, ran to my car and raced across the country. I managed to turn what was normally an eighteen hour trip into a fifteen hour trip but it still wasn't enough. By the time I got there, the town was nothing but smoldering heaps of rubble. I searched with my mind trying to find some spark of life. That's when I felt the rush once again of the townspeople. They surrounded me, flowed through me, and helped me located the one tiny spark of life left in the entire place. I rushed toward it and began digging. I found Timmy lying beneath his mother's body. He had been shot and had many other injuries from the building falling down on his but was holding on. I wasn't sure what to do but I had watched my mother often enough. I closed my eyes and let the munin flow around me and into Timmy. I felt his pain and then the miracle as he began to heal. Unfortunately, Timmy was human, he wounds too grave, the amount of time that had passed, and my lack of experience were just too great to be able to heal him completely. He's been in a wheelchair ever since."

Jules sat there balling her hands into fists without knowing it. Patrick leaned down, wrapped his arms around her and slowly opened her hands to reveal the crescent cuts from her nails and the bloodstained, ripped handkerchief. Jules closed her eyes and with a sigh, leaned back into his arms. "After the healing, I sat there holding him as the munin showed me each and every detail of their destruction. As I sat there thinking I was going to lose my mind, I was then shown the one thing I wanted the most at that moment." Jules opened her eyes and sat back up out of Patrick's arms. Her face had a hard but satisfied set to it. The faces of each and every man that had been there. At that moment, I ceased to be Jules Meadows. I became known as Angel the Performer and Deathangel to those that I hunted. After they destroyed Serenity, they separated and it took me until this past year to find them all. It took me five years, but I got them all. There aren't any of them left. My munin is now satisfied."

"So the Eir are no more." Richard stated sadly. "Wasn't there any outside family to go to?"

Jules looked up and smiled a truly bright smile. "On no. They are still there. Timmy and I may be all that is left of the original Eir, but as we traveled, I did as my clan did before me. I gathered the hurt, the outcast, and the mistreated. In honor of my people those that I gathered became known as the Eir. We are now a small mixed group of nomads. As for outside relatives, Timmy was an only child whose family had lived in Serenity for generations. I believe my mother had a brother, but she lost contact with him. I've only met him once and if it weren't for the pictures that we had sitting around the house of the family as I grew up, I wouldn't even remember what he looked like."

"How small is small?" Jamil asked, wondering if this was going to turn into a problem. The last thing they needed was another pack moving into the area.

"Our numbers vary. Some of those that need healing are sent to us by other packs and they return to them afterwards. Others want more of a settled life and we look for a pack that will suit them. Some of them stay. Right now, we are numbered with out human friends a total of thirteen."

"So why did you really come here?" Jason asked

"I heard that Marcus was no longer in charge, which in itself was not unusual. Then I started hearing rumors that Richard was trying to change the way of things. When Jean-Claude offered us a gig, I figured we'd come and check it out. Maybe, just maybe, here we might find, if not a new Serenity, at least a haven to rest for awhile. So Richard, do we have your permission to stay at least to the end of our contract?"

Richard studied Jules, then Patrick as if judging them. Finally he stood, walked over to stand in front of Jules and held out his hand. "Welcome to St. Louis, Jules. Of course, I'd like to meet the rest of your little group."

Jules stood and smiled. "Thank you, Richard. If you would like, you could meet them tomorrow. They will all be at Danse Macabre tomorrow for rehearsal. We start at ten, break for lunch at noon, and begin again at two. Of course if that is a bad time for you, we will be warming up and doing final checks around seven."

"Well, as I teach during the day, seven it is." Richard said, returning her easy smile.

Patrick stood behind Jules and began walking toward the door. "Fine, I'll see everyone around seven then." With a final look around the group, Jules joined Patrick and they left.

Richard turned to face everyone. "You know, if she is who she says she is, Jules may be just what we need around here to pull it all together."

Jean-Claude smiled as he stood. "She is indeed who she says she is and I'll have to agree with you on this. If we play our cards right, she just might be the one to heal all our ailments."

Anita sat and listened to the two men talk about Jules and began to think back over the take she had just heard. The first thing she was going to do was a little research on the town of Serenity. She still didn't completely trust Jules. After that she would just keep her eyes and ears open. Then maybe, just maybe, if things did work out, she would discuss the pard with her. It would be nice to have another strong woman around that she could talk to; someone who wasn't dependant on her.

Anita looked at the rest of the men in the room. Jamil didn't look too happy; Damian had moved closer and was watching her. Jason and Asher however were both looking at the door that Jules had recently walked out of. For a reason she couldn't quite put her finger on, she began to smile, a large happy grin. Looking back to the two men who were connected to her in more ways than one, she saw their surprised looks. "What?" She asked as she began to laugh.

Jean-Claude turned more fully toward her. "Ma petite, I don't think that I have ever seen that particular look on your face before."

Richard shook his head. "I agree, what is so funny?"

Anita continued to grin as the rest of the room looked at her. "Oh nothing, I was just thinking how much fun this could be. Jean-Claude, you really do know how to stir things up don't you."

Slowly everyone began to think about whom they had met tonight. Slowly, here and there other smiles began to surface. Yep, what they were in for they didn't know what but whatever it was, it wouldn't be dull.

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