Jackson Washington

Jackson "Jake" Washington, known on Hunter-net as Bookworm55, is one of the Imbued, and the signature character for the Innocent creed.

Jake had always been a bookworm, but at 18, in his first year at college in Boston, things were beginning to look up for him until the Messengers imbued him. His first experience of the supernatural was meeting a little dead girl; he found and tipped off the police about her murderer. He quickly found Hunter-net and made a few contacts among the Imbued, wanting to study and explore the new world he'd entered into, even though it frightened him. He made contact with a warlock he nicknamed "Purple" (because of the colour of his aura when using the Second Sight) and learned much from him.

Three weeks after his imbuing, Jake met a beautiful woman named Phaedra in his local bookstore-café, and quickly realised she was a vampire. True to his creed, he didn't hunt Phaedra, but instead talked with her, hoping to understand her and learn more about vampires. An adolescent virgin, Jake didn't resist her sexual advances, allowing her to bite him and even tasting some of her blood, but even though he was learning and beginning to understand her, things went wrong. On their third meeting, a local hunter Jake knew named Andy followed him and attacked Phaedra; she flew into a rage, killed Andy and pulled off Jake's legs. He blacked out, his next clear memory of hospital, where he was recuperating from a "car accident", his care paid for by insurance.

For a while, Jake dropped off Hunter-net, though he eventually returned to post a bitter document titled "The Enemy", drawing heavily on his conversations with Purple and Phaedra to set down everything he knew about supernatural creatures. He temporarily took over the running of the site from Witness1 following a period of downtime. As he pieced his life back together, Jake grew to regret the "Enemy" post, since despite what happened to him he still didn't believe that "monsters" were inherently more evil than human beings. Differences with Witness1 led him to create the Vitalis site and sub-list for those who, like him, thought of themselves as on a mission rather than a hunt, but after the Montreal "Body Snatcher" Tragedy and the fallout over Oracle171's involvement, he grew conflicted.

His feelings led him to realise that Phaedra must have helped him survive after her attack, and set things up so that he would be looked after in hospital; he became convinced she must have a soul, and left Hunter-net again to find her with the aid of an older hunter named Fyodor. He did manage to speak to her once, and he travelled the country with Fyodor in the hope of finding her and learning more about the monsters. Fyodor, a much more ruthless hunter, eventually left Jake to his own devices, but not before channelling the power of the Messengers to restore Jake's legs.

Jake continues to travel around America, knowing he can never go back to his family - he has no way to explain to them how his legs have been healed. He is still obsessed with finding Phaedra and proving to Hunter-net that she has a soul - and that other monsters must have them, too.


 * HTR: Hunter Book: Innocent