Chapter 6
2986words
As luck would have it, the quartet were all locked in the same large cage. One which appeared to have been previously used for some kind of large animal, most likely the wyvern. The cage was part of a wagon in the middle of the village, the village itself built in a semicircle with the large barn visible down the road.
Trinady knew it was pointless to fight the entire village of vampires, especially with half of their numbers injured in the battle with the vampiric wyvern.
It was only a matter of time before the vampires finished them off. Jathom wasn't doing well, having lost a shocking amount of blood in such a short amount of time when the wyvern bit his legs, and it appeared that it was only a matter of time before blood loss took him. Bertrum had a broken arm and was sulking in the corner of the cage.
“Out of the frying pan...” Kuma sighed again.
“At least you were useful.” Jathom breathed heavily as he spoke. “All I did was get bloody thrashed.”
“You were a good distraction.” Bertrum growled. “I got bloody thrashed for absolutely nothing.”
Jathom and Bertrum bickered for a few minutes until Jathom was simply too tired to fight any longer.
Trinady only stared into a dark corner of the cage.
There was a corpse, fairly fresh, curled up in the corner of the cage, and Trinady was examining it closely.
He took note of the fancy thread work in the man's tunic, and most alarmingly, the pin on his breast pocket.
“That looks like the royal seal, doesn't it?” Trinady asked Kuma, who moved closer to get a better look.
“I'm not very familiar with the local royalty. Are you sure that's what it is?” Kuma reached out and held the pin, squinting in the low light to get a better look.
“It's a phoenix perched on a crown. That's been the symbol of Castle Blackstone for hundreds of years.” Trinady said calmly. “This man must have worked for His Majesty the King. He hasn't been dead more than a few days.”
“Yeah, that explains the smell, but what the hell is he doing here?”
“That's a damn good question.”
“He didn't last long.” a female voice hissed from outside the cage. A lovely raven haired woman stood by the cage door and flashed her fangs. “He died screaming while we fed. Tasted disgusting, but beggars can't be choosers out here.”
“What?” Kuma barked.
Bertrum cursed.
“Why did he come here?” Trinady asked calmly.
“How the bloody hell should I know?” she hissed. “I only drank him, didn't get much chit-chat with the bastard.”
“Charming...” Kuma said dryly.
“Give us a kiss, fuzzy boy.” the vampire chided as she grinned like a lunatic.
Trinady cleared his throat. “He looks like he worked for King Marcellus. Are you sure it was wise to kill him?”
“The master is a wise one, alright.” She grinned again, flashing her fangs. “He's the one who had a chit-chat with the bloody prick, so why don't you ask him.” She hissed once again and walked away.
The quartet sat in silence for some time before a small voice whispered.
“Hey, I hear you guys are looking for me.” It was the neko vampire they set out to find.
Kuma shot her a look that terrified her.
Trinady sighed. “She couldn't have killed your friends, Kuma. She never traveled the same road.”
“The map said she never traveled here, either, yet here... she... is...” Kuma growled, his brown eyes turning a frosty shade of blue.
The neko took a fearful step back. “What's his deal?”
“He thinks you killed someone he knows.” Trinady said as he rubbed his forehead.
“I haven't killed anybody!” she cried, prompting shushes from everyone in the cage except Kuma. She covered her mouth for a moment before whispering “I haven't killed anybody, I swear.”
“I don't believe you.” Kuma said dryly, his eyes still glowing bright blue.
“I've been eating small animals. I can't even go home because I might hurt my family.” she glared at Kuma and said, “You try being a monster and see how you feel about it.”
“Oh...” Kuma grinned, and a faint snarl escaped his lips. “I'm already a monster, kid.”
“I'm not a kid...”
“We're not getting anywhere here.” Trinady interjected. “We have what we need to cure you, but we can't do anything while we're stuck in here.”
“I'm not helping if he's planning to kill me.” she said as she gestured to Kuma.
“They're hunting you, too.” Trinady said.
“Sorry, but... I just need to keep moving. It's like a choice between death and death for me right now, and I would rather take a chance on finding my own cure instead of letting bright-eyes kill me, or these vampires kill me, or the next whatever that wants to kill me, I'm not taking the chance. Good luck.” And with that, she was gone in a blink.
And silence fell upon the group once again.
Until Trinady started sniffing the air.
“What is it?” Kuma asked. “What are you sniffing out?”
“No...” Trinady stood up and searched the village, but saw nothing. “Why is she here?”
“What's happening?” Bertrum sat up wearily.
Jathom was unconscious.
A slender hand slid up the cage door and gripped the lock, and with a flicker of light, the lock opened.
“What are you doing here?” Trinady whispered.
“I'm saving your ass, by the look of it.” Alice whispered back with a smile.
The door of the cage squeaked as Alice opened it slowly, Trinady and Kuma keeping a lookout for any nearby vampires, but somehow, the street was empty, all residents in their homes, and the only light was a small torch attached to the cage itself.
“How in the hell did you get this far into the village without being spotted?” Trinady said as he quietly exited the cage and embraced Alice, and Alice's cheeks flushed before she returned the sentiment. “Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to see you, but why are you even here?”
“Her Majesty sent me to make sure you were getting the job done.” Alice replied as she took a step back away from Trinady. “Apparently she doesn't have a great deal of faith in men.”
Kuma dropped out of the cage with a quiet thud and gave a subtle nod toward Alice. “Tell Her Majesty thanks for the timely rescue, but it's only a matter of time before these blood suckers notice what's going on.”
“They probably already know.” Trinady said softly. “Their leader has been watching us from the shadows this whole time. Just... watching us.”
Kuma cursed and spat on the ground. “It's all just a game to him.”
“Either way, I think we should get going.” Alice replied. “Unless... there's a reason to stay?”
“My sword.” Trinady sighed. “They took all of out gear, but I didn't see where exactly they took it.”
Karma suddenly poked he head out from behind the cage and startled everybody before asking, “Which one of you is the bear?”
“Are you a vampire?” Kuma growled, annoyed at how easily he was startled.
“I'm an assassin!” Karma hissed with a seriousness that was entirely uncalled for.
“Outstanding.” Kuma said flatly. “I'm the bear.”
“Friend of yours?” Trinady asked, grinning at Alice.
“A new friend, yes.” Alice smiled. “Meet Karma. She saved my ass, and we've been traveling together since.”
“Well, thank you for saving her.” Trinady smiled softly at Karma before his expression became dire. “We need our gear. I'm not keen on fighting my way out of here, but I'm even less keen on doing it unarmed. I would change, but stealth is the better option here, and I'm much quieter in this form.”
“And you have no idea which of these buildings your sword is in?” Alice asked, her expression becoming just as dire as Trinady's.
“Not a clue.” He replied flatly. “But I have a feeling that wherever our gear is, there's likely a trap set up around it. We're going to have our hands full.”
“I have an idea, than.” Alice said with a sly grin. “Since you and Karma are both good at the whole stealth thing, how about you two go after your gear, and I'll stay here with your new friend and see if I can't get your men back on their feet.”
Trinady and Kuma look at each other and shrug simultaneously, and Trinady looks to Alice and grins back. “Sounds like a pretty solid plan to me. Karma?”
Karma stopped poking Jathom's pale cheek and saluted the rest of the group. “I will keep you safe, Mr. Wolf!”
Trinady and Karma crept away toward what was presumably the leader's longhouse, the exterior much more decorated and dramatic than the rest of the village, with carved motifs of mountain cats and raptors devouring humans carved into the door frame. Trinady wondered if it was a design choice by the leader or if the lead vampire commandeered the entire village as a part of his scientific studies. He didn't really want to know.
As the pair approached the building, faint talking could be heard from within, and Karma wasted no time in searching for a way in, but started making inappropriate hand gestures that Trinady could not translate into useful information, so he held his finger to his lips and pointed to the side of the building.
The pair crept around the side of the building and found a cellar door, just begging to be infiltrated.
“The obvious trap.” Trinady whispered. He looked around and saw a small window near the top of the building. “Can you get in through there?” he whispered, looking into Karma's big green eyes.
Karma nodded enthusiastically.
“Good.” Trinady started. “You go in up there, I'll go in through the cellar. If it's a trap, only one of us will get caught up in it. You're not squeamish about killing, are you?”
“No, Mr. Wolf. I actually decapitated three vampires just a few hours ago.” Karma grinned a little too enthusiastically, but Trinady only grinned right back.
“Good. As far as I can tell, everyone here is a vampire, so don't feel like you need to hold back.”
Karma nodded enthusiastically once again and began deftly climbing the building toward the small window, and Trinady carefully opened the wooden cellar door, the rusted hinges groaning quietly.
Trinady peered into the pitch blackness that awaited him, and stepped inside.
While Trinady's lupine eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness of the cellar, the gloom still made movement difficult, and he wondered how well the vampires could see in this darkness.
He squinted in the darkness as he slowly, cautiously, made his way across the large cellar, the stench of old grains and stale air filling his sensitive nose.
Near the back of the room, he could faintly see a set of stairs, and cautiously and quietly he made his way toward them, where he saw a faint light piercing the doorway above.
The stairs squeaked softly as he made his way upward, and as he approached the door, only silence greeted him on the other side.
Good, he thought to himself. Maybe they're busy with that Karma girl?
Trinady gripped the doorknob and turned it slowly, testing it for any possible noise it could make, but the door was silent as he turned the knob and opened it cautiously, peering through the small opening before poking his head around the other side.
The hallway was empty, but let well enough that he could see much better, small candles flickering on the walls in greeting.
As he entered the hallway and closed the door, all he could hear was his own blood coursing through his veins. The silence was... unnatural.
The sound of his blood became unbearable, and he found himself breathing loudly just to drown out the deafening silence that surrounded him.
A hand gripped his shoulder, and he spun around to find...
There was nobody there at all.
Every cell in his body screamed at him to leave. To run. Escape before you die.
A footstep echoed from behind him, and he whirled around only to once again find nothing and no one there, and the hallway seemed to stretch into oblivion, the darkness growing and consuming him slowly as one by one, the candle flames diminished and disappeared.
Soon, there was only darkness surrounding him.
Karma's feet touched the polished wooden floor like a whisper, and her keen green eyes took in every detail of the room within a single breath.
Across the room sat a large fireplace with a small table and two armchairs in front of it, the low flames crackling quietly in the well lit room. Hanging from the ceiling was a large chandelier, and it was most likely being lit by magic in some form or another. To her left was a large red door, and to her right was a large brown door, and behind her was only the small window she entered through.
Her eyes darted around the room for signs of life, but it was empty and quiet.
Karma kept her grip firmly on her sword as she slowly, silently, crept across the room to the table between the armchairs, and could not help but notice the plain looking book in the center.
She approached cautiously, and as she got closer, she could see the word “Memories” written in calligraphy on the front cover.
She hesitated to remove her right hand from the sword, and instead used her left hand to open the book.
Her eyes widened in shock.
Inside was a painting of three people: a man, handsome and well-dressed with a curly mop of red hair on his head; a young woman, beautiful, blonde, wearing an elegant dress; and between them, an infant, with curly red hair and green eyes.
Karma recognized the painting.
From her childhood home.
“Impossible.” she whispered as she turned the page to find another painting, this time of only the blonde woman from the first painting. “M-mother?” she hissed, a note of panic in her voice.
Suddenly, the woman in the painting blinked.
Startled, Karma dropped the book to the floor, loosed the breath she had been holding and kicked the book into the fireplace.
She watched, and breathed a sigh of relief as the edges of the book slowly curled up in the fire.
“I don't know what kind of magic this is,” she hissed, her fear being replaces with anger. “But trying to scare me won't work. Especially with...”
Her monologue was cut short as the book flew open in the fireplace, sending sparks flying everywhere, and pages flipped until it stopped on the image of her mother once again, and out of the flames shot a shaky burning hand, followed by an arm, and a burning mess of blonde hair, the 'person' emerging from the flames still looked painted, while the flames were slowly eating away at the edges of the figure before her.
Karma watched, holding her breath as the the figure emerged from the flames and stood nearly twice her height, wreathed in flame and screaming as though it were in immense pain.
“Mel...o...die...” it whimpered loudly
“Mother...” Karma whispered as she heaved out a heavy breath.
The painted thing tilted its head and the burning blonde hair shifted aside, revealing piercing blue eyes staring directly into her soul. “Melodie!” it shrieked.
A tear streamed down Karma's face and she clenched her teeth.
“That's not...” she started, but found it difficult to speak.
The thing lifted a hand, it's painted and burning fingertips stretching into horrible claws, and a wicked smile spread across its face, mouth full of jagged needle-like teeth.
“Melodie...”
Kuma stood watch outside the cage as Alice healed the unconscious Jathom's badly wounded legs. The bindings had stopped the bleeding, but the holes from the wyvern's fangs went nearly all the way through his thighs, and a faint green light shone from Alice's hands as she worked as quickly as she could while avoiding attracting unwanted attention.
“I can heal the wounds and get him back on his feet,” Alice whispered to Kuma, her eyebrows furrowed in deep concentration. “But he's lost a lot of blood, and there isn't anything I can really do about that.”
“That damned monster drank him,” Kuma growled quietly. “Faster than I've ever seen anyone drained of blood in my life.”
“Have you seen a lot of blood loss in your life?” Alice asked, peering over her shoulder at Kuma, who stood and didn't say a word in response. “Poor question to ask... my apologies.”
“Let's just say...” Kuma started with a sigh. “Let's just say that war changes your perspective.”
Alice nodded in agreement and continued healing Jathom's legs.
The raven haired vampiress seemed to appear out of thin air, startling both of them, and she glared at Alice maniacally. “Master said to leave you lot alone.” she hissed. “Unless you were to succeed in escaping your cage.”
Kuma's fist smashed into the side of her face before she could utter another word, and she tumbled to the ground beside the cage, but quickly got back to her feet, blood dripping from her mouth and nose.
“You're gonna regret that, fuzzy boy.” She screamed loudly into the air, no doubt calling down the entirety of the village upon their heads.
Quickly, doors opened and hissing echoed around the cage as a dozen vampires left their homes and entered the street.
It was still an hour before dawn.
