“Aye that would be them. Although when you live this close to the action you see a lot more than the papers report.” He replies quite frankly.
Most people thought the Fallen to be a myth, reports of them cropping up here and there appeared in the news, but mainly the stories were more popular with reporters from The Paranormal Journal. No one quite knew what they were or if the existed. But those that had been witnesses or believed they existed where terrified.
“Aye my Grandson he’s gone got himself missing too, he thought with him being of Witch blood he’d be able to find out what they were, so one day when he hears the tortured screams in the woods he goes off looking for them. He ain’t been seen or heard from since.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, the girl I’m looking for was dating a guy that has things delivered here JT?” I describe him and ask if he knows who I’m talking about.
The shop keeper looks away from me and greets his new patrons as they walk in. It’s the Hulk and his friends; He looks right at me so I blank him and turn back to the shop keeper.
As the shop keeper replies to me I am aware of the Hulk moving throughout the shop.
“Yes I know him, he and a few friends like to go up to the caves at the bottom of the mountains. They have their equipment delivered here and I keep an eye on it until they come to collect it.”
“Do you know what they do in these caves?”
“I assume they do that spelunking you know where they explore the caves tunnels and what not. There up there now. They came in first thing for some food stuffs they always take enough to feed a family for a month.”
The Hulk was now stood behind me. “Does it take long to get there?”
“About fifteen more minutes by road then another two hours on foot from there. You’d need a map though if you’re planning on looking for him up there.”
He grabs me one and a bottle of water. “There you go love on the house.”
“No there’s no need for that” I reach into my pocket but he just starts ringing in the Hulks purchases.
“You just make sure you keep safe. Don’t forget if you here the screams you run and you run as fast as you can.” He smiles at me and waves me off.
As I walk through the door I look over my shoulder to see the Hulk watching me intently.
Chapter Nine
I’d been walking for around two hours when I heard a sound like the tortured screams of a hundred victims. It was a fair way away so I wasn’t too bothered, instead I foolishly decide to head towards the screams. I follow them for half an hour as the terrain turns rocky, then as the screams silence I stumble upon a cave entrance. Demons are walking back and forth in front of the opening.
I hide behind the nearest boulder and watch as they carry in a crate followed by a body on a stretcher. I am just about to edge closer when my phone rings, I quickly pluck it from my pocket and cancel the call. Aylesbury. Hell he was annoying me lately. I turn my cell off before I get any more calls, knowing Aylesbury he’d ring and ring until he got an answer.
I now had my back to the boulder, so I slowly turn back around to see what was going off to find two guys staring down at me. I smile up at them as they reach down and seize me by either arm. Oh hell!
I struggle but don’t get very far; they were a hell of a lot stronger than me. Another one walks up to me and smashes me on the side of the head. Everything goes fuzzy, my head spins, then I black out.
I come too chained to a wall inside a cave I’m on my side facing the stone, iron chains are stretching from the cuffs on my wrists to a ring bolted half way up the cave wall. The only light flickers in a mesmerising orange dance, I’m guessing some sort of flame.
My head aches and I reach up to touch it not daring yet to move. The chains rattle as I reach up and I hear a man clear his throat from a few feet behind me. I roll over quickly to see my captor, regretting the sudden movement as my head begins spinning violently. When my eyes become focused again I find I’m staring at Warren the same council member that has helped JT escape most of his recent charges.
“Ah my pretty I’m glad to see you are finally awake.” He moves towards the candle melting on a stalagmite at the side of me. This is the only light in the cave and the shadows it creates hides more of the room than the darkness itself. Warren’s face becomes clear in the flickering light and damn he is very good looking. He looks like a clean cut business man, well built under the starched suit with short white blonde hair, his eyes in this light were like dark pools of granite.
He leans in closer and dangles a key on a chain in front of me. “This is the key to your freedom. I’m going to wear it close to my heart knowing that while I hold this you will be close until I make you mine in every sense of the word.”
“Warren, stop tormenting our captive.”
The voice comes from the darkness and it’s gravely resonance reverberates around us. Its authority was unbending and Warren backs off placing the chain with the key on it around his neck.
Footsteps sound on the floor and edge closer to me until a scared face fills my view and a hand grabs the front of my shirt pulling me up to his level. “I suggest you be a good girl and do everything we tell you and if you’re a good little girl I won’t give you to Warren when I’m done with you.” He leans in further to whisper in my ear. “The last girl I gave him died within two hours, he has a tendency to get carried away in bed.”
The threat was clear. He releases me and stalks back into the darkness. Warren comes back over to me and brushes my hair from my face. “I like to take my time with the pretty ones” he says, then back hands me, my head bouncing against the cave wall, darkness again claims me.
I come to chained to a chair, the room I am in is dark completely and utterly black. A match is struck and a candle flares to life to my right hand side and then moments later to my left. In seconds I’m surrounded by a circle of illumination. I still cannot see what is beyond but when I look down I can see the chair is inside an old bath tub. Before I can think of the reasoning behind this set up Scar Face walks into the light. His face is scared right through his left eye not just a slash but a ragged mark that practically devours half of his face, he is tall and muscular, though not overly so, when he moves you can see he is strong and the look in his dark eyes says do not mess with me or I’ll kill you. He has brown hair that was meant to be short but had grown long and un-kept.
As he moves from my front I hear him withdraw the knife from the sheath at his side. As he moves behind me I tense. I feel the cool blade against my upper arm and his breath against my ear. “Now I’m going to see how much you can stand.”
How much what can I stand? I struggle against the chains throwing myself about as much as I can until he grabs my hair and pulls, stopping my struggles. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, do you want to look like ground beef.”
He lets go of my hair and I stay still. I stay as still as I can as he slices his knife into my arm, the sting and bite of the blade being replaced by pain once the blade is removed. I stay still and he stays quiet as he repeats this over and over until I wanted to beg for him to stop. I scream then because I can’t help it but I never move and never say a word, until the pain becomes too much and I pass out.
I wake chained to the wall and lay on a bed of blankets, most of which were dusty and covered with dry crusting blood which I presume was my own. I can’t move, the searing pain in my arms and legs leaving me immobile. I take in my surroundings as I lay on the make shift bed.
The walls had water trickling down them pooling into puddles, and the damp smell was sickly and strong. On the opposite side of the room a stone altar jutted up from the rocky floor, its surface sloped slightly towards me. From the light of the thick black candles melting against the upper stone of the altar I could see the dark leather cover of a very ancient looking book.
The floor is uneven and stalagmites grow from its cold hard base, candles adorn every possible surface providing the room with much needed
light but only illuminating parts of the chamber, their flickering flames causing the shadows to move in an eerie dance on the wet walls.
I hear shuffling footsteps and low voices outside so I shut my eyes and try to keep my breathing even. Better to pretend to be unconscious still.
“Look we’ve got her now and no one dares to come here for fear of the Fallen. It was a good idea leaking stories to the press. Fear is the best deterrent.”
Another voice shouts. “Where do you want this one?”
“Just chuck him in there with the Girl.”
More shuffling feet and then silence, I crack open one eye then another. In front of me was a half man, half beast. He has half formed paws, his face almost a muzzle and that along with the fur slowly receding from his body I figured him for a Lycan, an almost dead Lycan. His glassy eyes were fixed on the wall above my head. I shut my eyes unable to turn away it was either that or watch the remains of his life slip away.
Chapter Ten
I don’t know whether it’s been days or weeks, I’ve been tortured again and again, they let the wounds close up and start knitting together before he starts again. Warren visits more and more, he either stands and watches me or comes with Scar Face to read from the book on the altar.
The Lycan was eventually moved but not until Warren had him positioned so that he stared at me. He had started to smell, but that could also be the bloody blankets I sleep on. I was watched by the dead for a long time before they moved him. I will never forget those empty eyes as long as I live.
I heard things when I was coming around from my torture sessions, I didn’t understand a lot of what I heard mainly snippets of conversations. But I had a lot of time lying around on the floor of the caves and eventually it all started to come together.
They have Brook and I know what they have done and what they are still doing.
The Lazarus have created an army called The Fallen. They are a race of slaves, shadows of their former selves ripped from their lives and turned into mindless killing creatures, the perfect army for the Lazarus and completely expendable. They only last as long as their bodies could contain the curse that has changed them. Once the curse has eaten away at them they die and more are made. They are like zombies.
The only problem, no one would believe The Lazarus are evil until it’s too late. People believe what they want to believe and that would never change. I realised just how big this went, The Don was involved in a slave ring but had disappeared, JT was charming the ladies into visiting the caves, were they all involved? I know there are Lycan’s here, there was my dead friend and a few others they had succeeded in capturing. If Brook was somehow involved I was afraid it might be too late for her.
I had an idea and I was hoping that the simplest of plans would work.
As I scan the chamber I felt the walls close in and the irrational fear I had hidden deep inside, rises to the surface. I was trapped and if I didn’t get out of here soon this would be the last place I would ever see, my own personal tomb. My inner self screamed at me to get out, save yourself before your buried alive or left forever to rot slowly, forgotten.
Breathe, just breathe.
It’s irrational, I know that. But still I can’t help thinking what would happen if the cave collapsed.
I shake my head and try to put those fears away, taking a long steadying breath I get up and stretch as far as the chains that held me would allow me. The cuffs had chaffed, cut into my wrists so much I wondered if they would ever heal. They were iron and the Fae in me felt slightly irritated by that but not enough for it to cause me any lasting damage. Hopefully.
I run my hands through my long dark hair, feeling the accumulated dirt. I must look shocking. Thankfully I’d worn jeans and a long sleeved shirt, they covered most of my body except they were rather ripped and bloody now. Luckily the vest I’d put on under the shirt had remained intact, dirty and bloody but intact. Warren wanted me in every way possible and the protection my clothes offered was a small comforting barrier, I just hoped they held together.
I lay on the chamber floor huddled on my blankets and awaited yet another session of torture and torment. I’d been cut, sliced and beaten in so many different ways I’d become numb, almost resigned to my fate, but not yet broken like he wanted.
Footsteps sounded outside the chamber, he was here at last. He walked into the chamber like he would one day rule the world. I’m definitely going to enjoy wiping that smile from his face.
Warren was The Guild council member for the Lazarus but I’d recently found out that the Lazarus had a Demon Lord pulling Warren’s strings, I only knew him as Scar Face my torturer and the creator of The Fallen, he was ruthless and calculating and extremely good at knowing whose strings to pull and when to make everything fall into place. This made them an arrogant race and hopefully I could use that arrogance to get out of here. I mean what sort of arrogant ass walks around with the key to his captive’s freedom around his neck? That was just asking for trouble.
Warren ignored me at first and walked over to the stone altar, lighting the candles in some sort of order, he quietly mutters a few words as he reads from the book then the flames die.
He then turns back to me and says “Hello my pretty. How are you today?” He walks away from the altar and stands in the middle of the chamber. “Not speaking again today? Good. Maybe you’ll co-operate or maybe you’ll be punished again. Either way will be fun for me.” He smiles his lecherous smile and advances on me, instinct has me up and against the wall before he reaches me. I know I’m strong but I’m not stupid, this guy could crush me like a bug. Between his lust to have me as his play thing and Scar Faces torture sessions I’d be having nightmares for months.
I smile then and shift, standing before Warren in my Nymph form, my dark hair turned to a light golden blond with forest greens streaked throughout, my blue eyes were now a vivid green, my ivy tattoo visible in places. The transformation had the effect I had desired. Warren’s smile grew larger as he pins me up against the wall pressing his body the length of mine.
“I knew there was a reason I was keeping you, if I had know you were a Nymph I would have made you mine the minute I caught you in our caves.”
Smiling I pressed away from the wall and into his body, feeling how much the letch desired me. I’m going to need a really hot bath when this is over to boil him from my skin.
I’d thought of this when I heard Warren list to me his conquests telling me his favourite had been a young Nymph. I had to be careful though whilst most people thought Nymph’s were fairly harmless; Warren had yet to find out about my Fae heritage.
Speaking to him for the first time since I had been caught I looked up into his face and smiling sweetly I said in a voice hoarse from screaming. “We don’t always get everything we want and today is no exception.” As I finish the words I watch his face crumple as my knee connects with his balls. Swiftly I kick him again knowing it would hurt so much more because of his arousal. As he writhes on the floor in agony, I grab the key and pull, snapping the chain that holds it around his neck. “Here’s a tip asshole, don’t be arrogant enough to flaunt your captives means of escape in front their eyes, if they want it bad enough they’ll just reach out and grab it.”
I couldn’t believe that was all it took to bring him down, I never thought it was going to work. If I had I would have done it sooner. As quick as I could, I open the cuffs, dropping them to the floor, then I bolt through the chambers entrance and into the connecting tunnels shifting back into my Human from as I go. As I dodge rocks and abandoned mining carts and splash through little pools of water that had accumulated over time, my hair darkens and eyes turn blue. The tingle that came with shifting quickly moving over my body erasing my vine like tattoo as it went.
Nearing a bend in the tunnel I hear voices and quickly hide in a small crevice, hoping the shadows would hide me from view. Two Demons walk past, I recognise one of them as the one who’d knocked me out outside the cave, a group of
Fallen trailing behind them, their fetid smell making me retch. I hold my hand over my mouth stifling the vomit bubbling in my throat, poor guys wouldn’t last much longer their bodies had already started decomposing.
When they were first turned their eyes turned red, their hands grew claws, their teeth grew to savage points and their skin darkens and becomes mottled. As the curse ate away at them, their flesh started to rot and fall away from the bones until there was nothing left. I wasn’t sure yet how long the process took.
Once the tunnel was quiet again I move out of the shadows and look in both directions then sprint off as fast as I can. At the end of the tunnel there is another big chamber, this one was going to be the hardest to get past, it was a lounge area for most of the other Demons, some were playing with their chosen females others were chatting and drinking. As I scan their faces I knew they would all recognise me, each one had subjected me to some form of torture during my stay and even some of the women had tended my wounds or bought me meagre amounts of food. Each and every one of them would know I shouldn’t be unchained and walking around freely.
I crawl into the chamber and duck behind a seating area, with my back pressed against the wall I see a small tunnel obscured from view by a table. I’d have to crawl through it but hopefully it would lead me somewhere out of the cave system. I look around the seating and see they are all distracted. I crawl towards the tunnel, not daring to look back just in case I pause too long and was caught again.
I make it into the small tunnel undetected and begin crawling through dust, dirt and other things I wasn’t going to think about. After five minutes or so of crawling and head butting walls I see a light. It is a few feet away and as I near I see it is a golden glow moving around in the little tunnel. It was more than likely candle light so I proceed with caution.
Hunted (Scarlet Dawson Book 1) Page 6