Jezebel awoke to the sudden pain of her arm. As if it had just been bitten by ants, ants that clung and scratched and still nipped. She undid the covers of her bed, throwing them to the side. The mattress was stained. A once pink color, now red. The beads of blood on her arm spread all across the tattoo, a stain that went down her arm and that made her lean over, hunched by the bedside, clenching her arm.

That was the first time it happened to Jezebel. Exactly three days before she would be killed, and exactly three hours before her mother would call her in for an emergency meeting.

The rest of the morning went awkwardly. Badly, actually. She could not hold a plate or a cup or really do much of anything, for her left arm felt exhausted and pain and every now so often, bled with a new shade of green-black ink. Her eyes would roll back before the pain struck, a kind of face that made everyone wary of her as she crossed and walked through the halls of the casino. It wasn't as if there were many employees here anyway, most of them were being kicked out by the matriarch, mother. And those that did survive Salome would merely quit themselves.

What worried her then wasn't the fact that she couldn't pick up a spoon without writhing in pain, or the fact that she dangled her arm carefully in front of her, or the strange faces people made as she sucked in her pain and endured.

What worried her was mother who had called early in the morning. And whom, after the morning ritual had been completed, decided to visit her. She was waiting in Junior's room. Which made her feel odd when she stepped in. The last time she had been in it, yellow tape had nearly tripped her but now...with Junior a few days dead, the place was wiped clean. As clean as Salome wanted it at least. There were still some oddities that stayed, namely the broken train set, and the ruined race car toys that had been crushed by Junior's body collapsing on them. Salome sat on the edge of the bed. Jezebel stepped in, her arm clenched by her hand, for each sudden jerk made her shoot with pain.

Luanne sat in the corner, in a rocking chair, breastfeeding. Her eyes were focused on the infant. The infant looked back, drooling and smiling a toothless grin.

She loved that child, which was at least one comfort in here. One that made her smile.

"So it's happened to you, hasn't it?" Salome asked. She had a blanket on top of her, one blue with small white clouds, the one Junior had been tucked under after his death. She was holding it close to her chest, and it draped down, past her legs, where it spread out across the tile floor.

"What has?" Jezebel tightened the grip on her bicep.

"Don't play dumb, girl." She said. "I didn't raise you stupid. What's underneath your sleeve? Show me."

Jezebel turned her face away from mother and to Luanne, who had not made a movement the whole time. She seemed displaced, or perhaps disinterested. Cold, bitter. And so she was stuck, between two different kinds of angers, one like the fast-fall of magma and the other like the icy cold waters.

She sighed and unbuttoned her cufflink. She worked her fingers inside her sleeve, wincing, and began to roll them up, almost to her armpit. The air conditioner blasted above her. The air hit her arm, like a slap.

"What do you have there?" Salome asked.

"How am I supposed to know? I thought it was just a bruise..." She couldn't even lie to herself anymore. The 'bruise' was too abstract to be normal, to stylized and sharp and well designed. It was strange arcana, she knew that (she had studied it as a young girl) and it was growing, becoming more defined.

"A bruise?" Salome asked. "Now you're beginning to color me. What is it that you have. Tell me."

Her voice was harsh sounding, a bullet traveling straight to her heart. She couldn't even work the courage to look her in the eye.

"You were raised with the knowledge that this might happen one day, that you'd be a vessel, weren't you?" Salome set aside the blanket and walked up. She grabbed Jezebel by the arm and pulled it up. A movement that stretched her skin and caused the smearing of blood to worsen and drip.

"I know that." She jerked her hand. Her wrist was red. "I know what this is, I know what I'm in for."

"He's going to contact you soon, do you know that?" Salome circled her, dragging her long hands across her neck and around her shoulders, rubbing her arms together and keeping her close, motherly. A motherly caress, one so warm enough to make her forget the pain of her wrist. One, so scary enough, to incite a new kind of pang in her stomach. She was afraid.

Jezebel walked away. Salome tried to follow, stopping halfway.

"You're the first to get it. I always knew you'd be the first to get it." Salome said. "You always had the aptitude and the spunk for this kind of magic."

She said it. The word. Magic. The dark arts, arcana. The many, almost forbidden words. She had only trained in it loosely, had just joked about its capabilities (she was never that imaginative) and mused about the supposed infinity that was Arcana. It had started when she was a young woman, no older than twelve, and she assumed that after four years, would have ended. It was only books and strange pictures to her, and a few funny little moments of moving rocks and lighting fires. That's all it was to her, she thought, a game.

But the sudden pain...and the blood...and the mark spoke of something much worse. More, strange.

"What does this mean." Jezebel found conviction in looking at her nephew. Her face straightened. "What am I in for, tell me."

"You were the first one to be contacted by Mammon. Some get it quicker than others, and that's a kind the kind of advantage we should capitalize on." Her fingers moved, making little imaginary dots and lines. "We have to start planning." Her (Salomes) eyes were crazed. "We have to catch them off guard...we should go for Richter first, he'll be the most dangerous and then -"

"What are you talking about?" Jezebel asked. "Contacted? What?"

Salome turned around in one shrewd move, wiry and full-eyed.

"You are a child of Mammon, you know this. Your father is dead, and now He will begin contacting all of you, from the other world. You see, don't you? You're going to confer with Mammon, you're going to gain the power to kill your brothers. To avenge Junior."

"What the hell are you asking for?" She jerked back, she touched the wall.

"I'm asking for your daughterly duty. A filial agreement, a promise to natural law that ought be appreciated and honored." Salome said. "There's going to be a game soon, one that decides who goes on and who does not. Who becomes the next head and who doesn't, and I'll be damned if I let those savages take it."

Those savages. Her step brothers and sister.

"And Richter? Luanne? What do they think?" Jezebel asked.

Salome pointed to Luanne, now sweating, but very still, looking down at her infant. She rocked him with her knees, gently and steadily. The child looked out with empty eyes, sucking his thumb. He was judging Jezebel almost as harshly as Salome was.

"This is insanity. I can't kill anyone." Jezebel asked. "And you haven't even answered my question! What is this-"

Salome grabbed her by the arm. She squeezed, her bony fingers stabbing into her wrist. And with one thumb, pushed in. Jezebel felt the pain like an electrical surge, hitting every nerve up her arm, past her shoulders and towards her spine. She stumbled back, arm falling to the floor. And to her surprise, she sunk.

Her arm sunk into the floor. It made her scream and retrieve back. Her legs followed. And by then was begging for help. That was the only time Luanne looked up.

Salome grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out.

"Focus, like you're trying to swim through water. Focus."

She did as much. Screaming at first, hands waving at first. But soon she began to kick out, to pull her body weight up from the floor of tiles and concrete, to solid ground where Salome could clutch her quick.

" You are not normal. You never were." She said. "You are a Wolfe. Chosen people. What you see now is not the full development of what you are, but what you can be. You need to speak to Mammon."

"I don't want this. I don't want to be the head of anything." Jezebel said. She was breathing her, her palms flat against the floor in concern. "I'm not killing anyone."

"Are you under the belief that you have a choice?" Salome asked. "There is no for you. You either die, or you join us. I promise you Richter will kill you like he did your brother. And if not him, then Turnus. And if not Turnus!" Her voice stopped. It went quiet. "Then Aenea. They'll kill you, I promise you that."

"Why?"

"Because unlike you, they have a hunger." She said. "They want to take from us what little we have left. Do you understand? They want the money, the city, the power. Who wouldn't? A promise by a God for wealth beyond you or my imaginations. The pride. The pride! Of being a servant of Him. Of Mammon."

Jezebel looked up. Her mother had taken her hands to the air. A cross rattled down her neck, a phony symbol. Heretical even, considering her mother's allegiance. For the God she referred to was anything but the holy man. Anything but the divine and all-good and all-powerful. No, what Salome put her hands up to was anything but good. And Jezebel knew this, staring up from the floor, afraid that she would fall through once again, in pain that her arm was betraying her.

She felt blood once more and looked. A pool had settled underneath her arm, and her eyes rolled back as she screamed, once more.