“I’m not the one who needs saving!” I protested. “I have to save Vaze and my brothers!” My captor flipped me around and grasped my shoulders firmly, making me stare directly in to his coal black eyes.
“I know!” He said. “But if you’re going to save them, you’re going to have to let me save you first!”
I stared at him with my mouth gaping so wide an owl could have flown right in and I wouldn’t have noticed. His skin was pure white with absolutely no color at all. He looked like he could be around Seth’s age, but I knew he was older—by a lot. His long hair was so dark I assumed that it was the color a blind man sees. He was tall and lean, though much stronger than he looked. But what stood out the most were his teeth, which were normal all except for four sharp fangs where the canines should be.
“You’re a….” I said with wide eyes and my voice fading out. Blood left my face. The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up.
“Please don’t scream,” he said pleadingly. “You don’t understand what is going on.”
I listened to one thing, I didn’t scream. Instead I lunged at the vampire and pinned him to the ground with my knees and with my dagger drawn at his throat. He was so shocked, he didn’t react. I knew my only chance was to kill the unholy beast before he killed me.
“Wait no, wait!” he pleaded while putting up his hands in surrender. “You’re not getting into that castle without me!”
I stopped with my dagger lightly pressed against his neck and a thin trickle of ruby red blood appeared on his snowy white skin. I didn’t pull back though, I wasn’t a very trusting person in the first place and at the moment I was on the edge.
“How do I know I can trust you?” I asked skeptically. “I don’t even know you and worse, you’re a vampire.”
“That’s good, you’re not easily tricked, but I stopped you from going into the home of the queen of vampires,” he said. “Right now I’m trying to be the good guy, but you’re making it kind of hard.”
“Well if you’re the good guy, why’d you let Vaze and my brothers go in there and not me?” I asked angrily. If he had been there the whole time, then he could have saved all of us. The fact that he didn’t pissed me off.
“I tried to stop them,” he said soberly. “I tried to block the queen’s curse, but it seemed to only work on you. Now the only hope they have of getting out of there alive is us, so we should work together, and not kill each other.”
Though I didn’t want to admit it, the leech was right. Without them I was short five partners, and I wasn’t the best at thinking things through, as I hope you have already realized. I got off the vampire, and allowed him to get up. I didn’t offer help. I would agree to working with the bloodsucker, but I wasn’t going to like it. From all the stories Seth told me, vampires were evil creatures with no feeling and thought they were superior to humans; which in my eyes is bull. No one is better than anyone else, no matter what. Every life has some kind of value, even homeless scum like my brothers and I. Hell, even flies do, though I don’t know how, but I’m pretty sure they do.
The vampire got up from the ground and brushed off his silver garbs. He wiped the blood from his neck and licked it off his fingers. I looked at him in disgust.
“Don’t blame me,” he said looking at me with hurt eyes. “If I had things my way, I would still be human.”
“It’s still disgusting,” I said. The vampire rolled his eyes and offered me a hand.
“My name is Gabriel,” he said while offering his hand to me. I returned his warm gesture with an icy stare.
“Scarlet,” I hissed in response. He drew back his hand quickly, as though I would bite it—again.
“So what do I have to do to get in there?” I asked impatiently. Gabriel smiled.
“I have a secret way,” he replied mischievously. “No one in the castle knows about it except for me, so we won’t be bothered by anyone, not even the rats.”
He gestured for me to follow him as he walked away from the clearing with the castle. I took one long last look back at it.
“I promise, I’ll save you guys, or die trying,” I said aloud to make it a solid promise, though they wouldn’t be able to hear me. I was going to leave this cursed forest with every last one of my brothers, or die here with them.
I followed the vampire through the dense corpse trees. A distant howl cut through the air. I didn’t flinch, let alone acknowledge it. I kept a dead set pace with a dedicated mind. I didn’t even care that I was following a vampire into a dark place where no one could hear me scream.
Soon enough, Gabriel stopped. He stomped around on the ground all around him until instead of a small thud coming from each stomp, the sound of something hollow being hit came to both our ears. Gabriel turned to me and smiled.
He crouched to the ground and brushed dirt away. A small circular handle appeared and he lifted it to reveal a trap door leading into a dirt tunnel. There were hardly any supports in the tunnel, and it looked like it could collapse any second, but I hopped into the black abyss almost the second Gabriel revealed it. Gabriel hopped down after me, and closed the trap door behind him.
I had prepared to light the way with my fire, but as soon as the trap door closed I saw that there was no need. Strange blue stones illuminated the dark tunnel. The light they gave off was hardly enough to see by, but it didn’t matter to me. I started walking when a firm hand fell onto my shoulder.
“That’s not a good idea,” Gabriel’s deep voice said from behind me. “Since this tunnel is natural there are also natural trenches in here, so I should lead the way, because I know these tunnels by heart.”
I let him pass in front of me to lead the way without a fight. I didn’t really care to be honest. If the vampire wanted to fall down a trench and die first, it was cool with me. That would actually be a good thing. I’d know where not to step after that.
The vampire’s white skin glowed blue in the faint light. I followed the leech for about five steps when questions popped into my head.
“Hey,” I said trying to get his attention. He cocked his head back to look at me but didn’t stop walking. “If you’re a vampire, why are you showing me the way into your queen’s castle?”
“Because I’m hoping you’ll kill her,” he answered casually. I was even more confused then.
“Um,” I started, dumbfounded. “Why exactly?”
“Because she’s an evil hag,” he said while looking at me again. If I had to guess, then I would have guessed that I had a very confused face on at that point. “You wouldn’t understand. I’ve been waiting for a chance like this for nearly a thousand years.”
“But she’s your queen, shouldn’t you be all about protecting her?” I asked. I would assume people would want to protect their rulers, unless they were like me and they didn’t really care what happened to them as long as it didn’t effect what they did care about.
“None of us chose her, especially not me,” he said darkly. “She took my entire family and anyone else in the castle and turned them into vampires. None of us wanted to be vampires, but she didn’t give any of us the choice. She attacked us one by one and changed us into monsters. She locked my family away because we were rebellious. We would not drink blood from the humans she lured, because they were always good people, and never people who deserved to die. We chose to go and hunt bandits or murderers instead, sometimes even sickly people who were about to die anyway only to end their suffering. Everyone else was too afraid of the queen to join us, but no one is serving her by choice. When she locked my family away, I was out feeding, and when I returned I was attacked and almost forced to the same fate as my family. As we speak they are being starved to death, and if the queen isn’t killed soon, they will be dead.”
“How do I know that when you free your family, they won’t be so hungry that they’ll eat me and my brothers?” I asked. Don’t get me wrong, I was sympathetic to him and his situation, but I was more concerned about my own family than his.
“Because, dear Scarlet,” he began happily, “at that point, we will no longer be vampires. No one inside the castle is a true vampire except for the queen. If she is killed, we will all turn back into humans.”
“Wow,” I said in disbelief. “Is it really that easy?”
“Well… no,” he said. “Since none of us are true vampires, we only have immortality, no super strength or speed, and when we bite people and don’t kill them they do not become vampires. We can bleed too. But the biggest advantage we have is that we can withstand the sun, while the queen cannot. I’m not asking you to kill her on the spot, but the to just keep her busy until morning, and when the sun comes through the windows of the throne room, she will turn to dust and we will be free. But I’m also telling you it will most likely be just the two of us fighting a queen whose strength matches up to one thousand.”
I didn’t ask any more questions. It was a lot of information to process in the first place and if I didn’t think my head would explode from too much information, I’d ask about a million more questions, but I didn’t want to risk it.
I followed Gabriel for about an hour before we stopped. The greyish tunnel walls with the little blue stones scattered randomly around were slowly leaving, and the tunnel started to get darker. Though I could hardly see at all, Gabriel seemed just fine. The tunnel continued in front of us and was completely lightless. The vampire motioned for me to wait as he advanced into the darkness. The sound of metal scraping against metal tortured my ears as golden light flooded the tunnel.
The sudden light stung my eyes and I threw my arms up to shield them until they adjusted. When I dropped my arms, I saw Gabriel standing in front of a doorway of golden light, waiting for me to follow. I took a deep breath before going after him. From this point on it would be like entering the lion’s den, like my brothers did. However in their case, they didn’t do it by choice. I was really starting to rethink the whole thing, but Gabriel didn’t give me the chance to come to a conclusion. A look of alarm flashed across his face, and he snatched my arm and dragged me in to the golden lit room.
Gabriel threw me behind himself as he flipped around and shut the door. It sealed easily enough, and when I looked for it I couldn’t find it again. It looked exactly like the stone wall that surrounded it. A faint line in the expertly cut stone was all that signified the door. No one could simply stumble upon it by accident; they would have to be searching specifically for it, and even then it would be a one in a million chance that they would actually find it.
As soon as the door had sealed, Gabriel snatched my arm and before I knew it we were running out of the golden room into a gloomy hallway. The whole layout did scream vampire. The walls were originally grey, but black cloth was draped onto them and arranged in a way that blocked out most of the windows. The rugs were blood red with intricate black, curvy designs. I even thought I saw one of Velkire’s symbols, which was unnerving to me. Chandeliers of gold hung from the ceilings, but they gave off very little light, making the hallways seem sad and lonely but dangerous at the same time. It felt like something could grab you from a corner and eat you. It was a possibility. I hadn’t seen any other vampires besides Gabriel, but I knew there were more. I could feel it in my very soul: there was evil in that castle.
We passed a few wooden doors and a couple of smaller hallways that branched off from the one we were taking. There were a lot of decorations such as suits of armor and large paintings of past kings, queens, princes, and princesses. A particular painting caught my eye. I only got a fleeting glance of it, and wasn’t able to see too clearly, but what I did see raised more questions in my mind. A king with white hair stood with a warm smile in the painting. His arms were around a fair queen with black hair and green eyes, and a young boy with pale white skin like his father and hair like raven feathers. He had his mother’s eyes. The boy was smiling and his eyes were alive with laughter, as if someone had just said something funny while the picture was being painted. The mother had her arms around a small baby girl with brown eyes, like her father, and white hair as well. What stood out to me the most besides the fact that this was the last painting in the entire hallway was how the boy looked a bit like Gabriel. The boy’s skin was just a tad darker, but then again, Gabriel was a vampire, and all vampires’ were as pale as snow unless they had skin as dark as night.
Before I could ask questions, a huge double door entryway loomed before us. The doors were narrow, but the tops of the immense doors disappeared into the darkness of the very top of the ceiling. I was about to walk towards them when Gabriel grabbed my arm again.
“Not that way,” he whispered. “Not yet.”
With that he led me back to a small door on the side of the hallway. It was worn down, beaten up, and an all-around boring door. I couldn’t help but feel a tad disappointed. When Gabriel opened it, it let out a pained moan and dust flew off the hinges. He winced and glanced around to see if anyone had heard. A second later he dragged me in and shut the door quickly. It whined in protest but obeyed him. A twisting staircase loomed in front of us. I cocked my head up to find the top, but it disappeared into the darkness. The only light came from narrow windows in the walls, but only allowed a sliver every fifty feet or so.
“Hold on,” Gabriel said as he saw me trying to advance on the stair case. “If we continue on in this light, we might fall off the edge.”
Gabriel’s white hands searched along the wall. Suddenly, he stopped, and pulled an unlit torch from the darkness. He handed it to me and began to search his pockets.
“I just need to find my flint,” he said, half to himself and half to me. I looked at the top of the torch and it burst into flames.
“Here,” I said, handing the torch back to him. The second he took it, pain raced through me like I was being ripped apart by brute force. It jolted through my entire body, and stopped at my stomach. I toppled with my arms in a death grip across my waist, but the second I hit the ground the pain was gone. Gabriel put the flaming torch back in its holster on the wall and quickly helped me up.
“What happened?” he asked. “And how did you do that?”
“There was an ember still burning in the torch,” I lied. “I just blew on it a little, and don’t worry. I only pulled something.”
Gabriel didn’t question, which was good. I still didn’t entirely trust the leech, and if it turned out that he was lying I didn’t want my only advantage to be known until it was too late for him. But the pain was new, and I was clueless myself. For all I knew, I really had just pulled a muscle. I tried to convince myself that that was the case, but deep down I wouldn’t accept it. Pulling a muscle never hurt that bad.
I decided to let it go and followed Gabriel up through the staircase. The steps were ancient and looked like they could crumble to dust beneath our feet, so I chose to stop looking down every time we climbed ten feet higher. As we passed a slit of a window, a black dot whizzed in and out of sight. My eyes shot outside instinctively, but there was nothing to be seen. Gabriel continued on without noticing that I stopped, leaving me with only the silvery light of the moon to see by. Not wanting to be alone in a castle full of man-eaters, I ran to catch up to Gabriel. While trying my best to not fall off the rail-less stairs, I caught up to Gabriel by almost running into him.
He had stopped in front of a decrepit wooden door that didn’t fit well with the castle. All the other doors were nicer than this, though they had all looked ancient. Gabriel handed me the torch and told me to step back. I did what I was told for once. After taking a step back, Gabriel rammed into the door with his shoulder. I had expected it to collapse, but his efforts had no effect what-so-ever. He tried again three times, but each had the same result as the first.
“Gabriel!” a small girl’s voice called from the other side of the door. Relief and happiness flooded Gabriel’s face as he put his ear to it.
“Jezebel!” he called back. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, but they took mother and father. The
guard said something about some people they caught. They want them to eat them. And he threw a weird boy in here with wings! They told me to kill him, but I wouldn’t, and they left him here. He broke out of the spell quickly, but then he left. You have to stop that boy, he’s going to try and save his friends. I tried to tell him he would die, but he wouldn’t listen! He said something about a girl, but the guards said all the prisoners were male. He’s going to die.”
“No one is going to die except for that queen,” I said, filled with a new sense of determination. “Jezebel, where did they say they were taking the boy’s friends?”
“Gabriel, who is that?” the little girl asked.
“Help,” he answered plainly. “Now I need you to tell me where they said they were taking mother and father.”
“Th-the throne room,” Jezebel stuttered. “You’re not going to go there, are you?” Gabriel didn’t reply. I could hear the little girl’s breathing begin to choke.
“Gabriel!” she sobbed. “Don’t go! We’re the only thing we have left in this world!”
I felt horrible for Jezebel. She was just a little girl, and her parents had just been taken away from her. Despite the fact that she was most likely a vampire as well, she was still just a child. I couldn’t understand her pain at the time, because I had never had a true family. However, I knew what it felt like to lose someone close, even though I didn’t lose them permanently yet. I wanted to make sure Jezebel didn’t lose anyone either.
“Don’t worry Jezebel,” I said as soothingly as possible. “I’ll bring Gabriel back to you, I promise.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment. The only sound was her small sobs. Just when I was about to turn away from the door, the little girl’s voice said, “You’re the girl everyone is talking about. When you think you have triumphed, you will fail.” The little girl’s voice was completely different. It was still a sweet little girl’s voice, but it was completely emotionless. Her words rang around inside my head, as if they were bouncing back and forth within my skull.
Playing With Fire Page 8