Blood Scent
Arrival
Maniacal laughter accented a single lightning flash. Thunder boomed through the windy night around the black castle coming into view. Black were the stones that built it. And pearly off-white were the dead that could be seen guarding the walls. A man's scream could be heard from somewhere inside.
"Shut up fool!" came a raspy, loud answer to the scream.
There began an eerie silence.
Lightning crashed outside of a window in an evil laboratory. It lit up the human and demon entrails which lined the shelves. A hunchbacked lackey could be seen messing around with various toxic chemicals. A shadow flitted from the corner of the room. To the window. And then it was gone.
This shadow came to light as a vampiric creature. Stalking his prey through a grove of dead trees, it followed the young girl with a wicked smirk of ruby lips. In his hand was clutched the Orb of Baast.
Bloodstains and skulls decorated the steps leading up to the castle, where weary travelers stood, unsure of what to expect. Kazuma Kuwabara tripped and landed face-first in a fresh pool of blood. Feminine laughter was heard, but when the group glanced above to find the source...the hight window was empty.
The gang walked up the steps the rest of the way. Seconds from reaching the door knocker, a door slid open beneath them. Swallowing the group whole. They fell upon a pile of dusty, fragile bones of unknown creatures. Many of them human. At the sound of a deep growl, the four boys looked off to the side. There were two tunnels to choose from. Deciding to take the right-side tunnel, they soon become submerged in the oder of decaying flesh. The dead-end wall they had come to was smeared with blood that recently dried.
Time to turn around. When they did, they were halted by a giant winged spider. As if it were crossed with both a bat and an amphibian of some sort. Kuwabara's scream could be heard through the floors above. Yusuke Urameshi just made a repulsed facial expression at the sight of the creature however. Kurama and Hiei made quick work of the abomination. As they turned to look at their friends, the two of them pause. With Kuwabara, there was suddenly a girl who hadn't been there before. It was as if she had appeared out of nowhere. Yusuke seemed to be just as surprised as them.
Once gathering his own composure, the Spirit Detective took a step closer to his sidekick and the girl. He tripped over a skull, hit the bloody wall shoulder-first, and fell clean through to the other side. He had found a secret passage to the floor above. It was most likely how the girl got down to them in the first place. She seemed distant, and half conscious. Putting her arm around his shoulder, Kurama helped the girl along as the group traveled up the stairs and into the laboratory. The hunchbacked figure looked over at them.
"We've been waiting for you."
"Hey look Urameshi! It's Igor from that Frankenstein movie!" a certain orange-haired human exclaimed as he rudely pointed in punctuation.
"Don't you dare talk about my brother!"
"Sorry, geeze."
He was then slapped upside the head by none other than Yusuke after a glance from Hiei. Kurama seemed to ignore the antics and kept his eyes on the stout minion.
"Who has been waiting, and why are we here may I ask?" he asked.
"Master does not like to be talked about without permission Sir. All answers will come in due time."
"Hn. Where will we find this 'Master' then."
"Y-yeah, I wanna g-go home..." Kuwabara added to Hiei's statement. He was already getting the chills from this place.
The creature didn't seem to notice.
"Wouldn't you all like drinks?" It held a creepy grin.
Kuwabara gave it a dirty look. And yet asked his question anyway.
"What kind of drink?"
"This place reminds me of-" Kurama began to muse. Only to be cut off by the hunchbacked minnion.
"This," it replied to Kuwabara, holding out a mug of what looked and smelled like your average Iced Tea. Yusuke took hold of it.
The girl, who had been hiding behind Kuwarabara (easy to do with his size) from the minion, suddenly spoke up. She dashed from her hiding place, and knocked the mug from the boy. It crashed upon the ground.
"No! Don't drink that!"
"What the hell was that for?" Yusuke retorted in his surprise.
"It'll make you like that ting downstairs!"
The creature got sight of the girl. And immediately raised alarm.
"Prisoner on the loose! Prisoner on the loose!"
The entire group stood there stock still. Somewhat in surprise. In Kurama's case, it was also because he remembered the thought he was shifting through minutes before. Meanwhile, skeletons began to phase out of the stone walls on three sides of the room, closest to the group. A few rise up from the floor. Animated, de-fleshed, and hollow. The girl turned and fled into the hall. Yusuke and the others held no choice but to follow her down the dungeon pathways. Kurama muttered something something quickly to Hiei.
"It can't be after all these years..."
Kurama nodded. He was sure of it.
"She has no memories or she would have escaped already."
They both turned their eyes to the girl running in front of them.
"This way," she called back to them, turning a corner.