Chapter 9: The Countess Lily
Araydia got her wish. As soon as the light of the morning sun filled the room, they left.
"Just beyond this forest Ray, you'll be with your family," D reassured her.
The girl looked at him and smiled. He was leading the robotic horse by the reigns while she sat atop the saddle, feeling like a lady for the first time. The gentle breeze blowing her hair across her shoulders and rippling her gown. She felt a strange spark inside, and it had something to do with the night before. She felt closer to D, which made her feel special.
Though sad enough by the next day their journey would end, she would be reunited with her Uncle. She didn't really him or his family, but they were family non the less. Her mind drifted to Aunt Kess and Granny's condition…
She thought about all these things for a while, just listening to the birds high up in the redwoods and the brushing of D's legs passing the ferns and the soft thudding of the horses hooves against the trail. It was a beautiful forest, completely alive.
And hours passed. Ray wondered if D was getting tired but he refused her offer of giving him some room on the horse. Both of them took in the scenery, until about the afternoon.
They chanced upon a stream where they could rest and the horse could drink. D hadn't said a word to her most of the day. This wasn't surprising. The sun was shining high above even through the thick pines and making the water dance as it rushed over the small boulders.
Wind blew through the top of the trees, making the great redwoods rock and a few birds scatter from the branches. The air was sweet and smelled of pine. How could anything disturb this forest, the girl wondered.
It was time to go on though. D figured they wouldn't get out of the forest till the next day and they would probably be spending a night out here.
He led the horse once more and continued till the trail all but disappeared long ago and one was just left to guess which direction to go. The trees were getting taller, wider and thicker as they went along, allowing few sunlight to pass through the pine needles.
The trail started up once more, as if it started once more from nowhere. D figured ferns must have grown over it from a rainy winter and thought nothing of it.
Araydia had remained quiet. She must have been busy taking in the beauty of the ancient forest and probably didn't feel like asking D her usual bombardment of questions. The wind must have died down, because a breeze no longer blew the girl figured it must have been getting late because the birds no longer sang.
The raven-haired girl just glanced around from time to time as they went on. She was starting to get a sinking feeling in her gut and she figured she was just being a baby. If this really was a scary place, D would have never gone this way, and she had the man to protect her! He wouldn't leave her, he promised Granny…
The man continued to lead the way, when he finally stopped. Something was wrong, he must have gone the wrong direction. Araydia looked around and grumbled;
"Nice place to stop," as she viewed a fallen tree. She glanced the other direction and saw that a lot of the majestic pines were rotting. Their needle-leaves were a reddish brown and their bark crumbling.
"D…" the girl whispered as he turned his head towards her, "The forest is changing…"
And is if on cue, the cyborg horse reared up and knocked the girl off. The beast flailed its front legs in the air, and gave a frightening robotic snort before the reigns were yanked from D's hand and the beast turned and thundered in the other direction.
Araydia hit the ground hard and must have hit her head, for she had the wind knocked out of her and her eyes closed. D was about to rush to her side when maniacal laughter filled the air.
The man turned to see, and as if the forest shifted, an amused Mutant with fire-red hair was standing on top of a boulder that wasn't there against the dead trees a moment ago.
"You humans are so stupid when you don't listen to your conscious." The demon mused. He leaped into the air and before D could see where he landed, another one appeared.
"And look what he's brought with him." The other grinned, looking exactly like the Mutant before, but with ocean-blue hair.
"The Mistress will be pleased," hissed yet another, a female Mutant, with golden-yellow hair.
"Who are you…" D said more deadpanned that asked.
"How flattered, he wishes to know who we are." The female Mutant mused. Now it was visible she was riding on top a large gray werewolf.
"I am Rufus," The red-haired Mutant said with a twisted grin, "And this is Gormain," he said, pointing to the blue-haired Mutant, "and that is our sister, Aurelio," the gold-haired female Mutant grinned. She had the look of kill in her eyes.
D instantly recognized the meaning behind their names. He had studied languages of the world in his upbringing and knew that Rufus meant red in Latin, Gormain meant blue in Irish, and Aurelio meant gold in Spanish.
"We are the three elements." The female mused, "and that's all you'll know."
And with that, the large beast jumped down from the high rock it was perched on and lunged at D. The hunter would have easily knocked the beast away had it been for the forest. It changed, completely shifted, blurring his vision and confusing his mind before one massive paw struck him upside his skull and he blacked out.
______________________________________
D could feel himself being carried effortlessly by two pairs of hands and voices he didn't recognize. At first they were all blending together, but then he realized it was Rufus and Gormain talking to someone and their sister Aurelio chuckling.
"No, don't put him in the same cell as the girl, I want them separate." Ordered a smooth feminine voice.
"Yes, Mistress." All three replied. D groaned in agony as he hit a hard surface. He blacked out once more.
___________________________________
When he awoke, he surveyed his surrounding and noted that no doubt he was in a cellar, underground, he could smell it. His first task was to find Araydia.
The demon in his left hand chuckled and it echoed off the cobble stone walls. "Go searching for Vampires and they end up finding you."
"Quiet. Where are we?"
The symbiot proceeded to almost go into a trance, that thing it did when gathering knowledge from where D did not know, nor would understand.
"I have a bad feeling about this one. We're in the castle of the Countess the people of Araydia's village fear."
D looked around and found his wide-brimmed hat that had fallen from his head. He collected himself and stood up.
"They took my sword." He noted.
The damp air hung around him and was becoming thick to breathe. His boots echoed on the stone floor as he made his way over to the bars, and luckily, they were iron bars.
"This dungeon is made to hold human victims, which they think you are," the symbiot said.
D looked at the bars resolutely and gripped his hands over the cold steel. He took in a breath and pushed the bars apart with a heave and strength not known to any man, or your typical Vampire. The bars bent under the man's will and he stopped as they were just enough for him to squeeze his side- ways frame through. And with that, he ran as silently as he could across an echoing dungeon hallway to find the girl.
"It's always a damsel, isn't it?" the sym teased.
____________________________________________
The dungeon was a lot bigger than D thought. Instead of consisting of just one hallway with a row of cells on each side, it consisted of many. How many people this Countess held in this place of death all at the same time was sickening. In many of the cells, corpses had been left to rot, completely untouched they had probably waited so long to be done a way with they simply died of starvation and left untouched.
"You may not know this D, but I think I'm capable of vomiting," the creature made a face in disgust.
D rounded a corner on his silent run and came to a complete stop. He heard something, he was sure of it.
"Do you hear that?" the sym asked.
"Murmuring…" D answered.
Indeed it was. A chanting sound coming from the hallway just around the corner. He stepped silently closer to the sound. Now it started to sound like chanting. As D stepped closer, the sound faintly got louder until he stopped very near to the sound that was very clearly Araydia's very distinguishable voice.
"Twenty-four bottles of beer on the wall, twenty-four bottles of beeeeeer, ya take one down n' pass it around…"
"No wonder they put her in a cell underground." Said the symbiot. The girl turned her head in the direction and gasped.
"D!"
He brought a finger to his lips.
"Right," she whispered, "I was getting so bored! The Three 'Stooges' left and I had no one to annoy!"
The hunter didn't say anything to her, he just gripped his hands over the iron bars and proceeded to do what he did last time.
"What are you doing?" came a harsh whisper as the creaking bars gave way under the man's strength. Araydia stared at him in disbelief.
"Hurry."
The girl nodded and easily slipped through the opening and followed D as he once more made his way through the dungeon, this time trying to find an exit. He stopped frozen once more and Ray crashed into him, he barely stumbled as the girl fell back with a loud thud against the damp stone floor.
"Owwww! My a---" The dark man snatched the girl up from the ground and muffled her mouth this his hand to keep her from anymore outbursts. She was completely pressed against him, almost tucked underneath his cloak as if it would shield her from something she didn't see right behind her.
Finally, Ray understood the reason why he was so worried about being silent and why he stopped running in the first place. Footsteps!
"Did you see him?"
"Where'd he go?!"
Faint sounds off in the distance, echoing off the walls, as well as their footsteps. No doubt they were the sibling Mutant trio and right around the corner. He turned to leave the opposite direction when a fire-red haired Mutant stood in his way.
"Going somewhere?" said Rufus sarcastically.
The other two hurried around the corner.
"Don't touch him!" Shouted Aurelio. "He's a Damphire and the Mistress wants to see him."
Rufus's expression changed from one of a panther chancing upon a boar to a boar rearing its tusks at the panther. He was baffled.
So their Lady Master had wanted to see him, Rufus knew what that meant. In a blur to human eyes, he snatched the girl while D was off guard and clutched her by arms behind her back.
"Now you have no choice, you do as we say," He looked down at the young girl with wickedness in his eyes, "and the raven haired beauty here just might remain with her innocence."
D gave him a harsh look. He hated being blackmailed, yet it was the only way the creatures of the dark could make him to what they wanted him to do.
"Take her to the chambers." Rufus said to Gormain in a monotone voice and threw the girl at him. The blue-haired Mutant caught her and swung Ray over his shoulder. "I'll handle our friend here," continued Rufus.
"Don't you dare harm her…"
"Oh it's not the child I'd be worried about, it's what our Mistress is going to do to you." He smiled sinisterly, revealing two rows of shiny jagged teeth.
___________________________________________
He did what they told him. Which meant shedding the cloak for fear of any hidden weapons, the dagger from his belt, the other dagger in his boot. Where they had his sword was probably where they had his other weapons, and once more, he was in another cell-like place.
This cell had no bars from which he could escape from, it was completely surrounded by stone walls on 3 sides, while the view in front of him continued down a while until it was completely dark. His hands were cuffed and his feet chained. This was the type of dungeon meant to hold Vampire captives.
A single window lay above his head, with dim rays of light shining through it. And now he could hear footsteps echoing once more on the dark hallway in front of him. Two pairs of feet, and maniacal laughing. It was Rufus and Aurelio.
"So how exactly do you know he's a Dhamphire?"
"How else do you think he made his way through those iron bars."
They both stopped when they were out of the shadowy hallway and looked at D. Aurelio stopped right in front of him.
"Well. The price of a Vampire killing his own kind is death, the same applies to a half-breed. It's only proper that we kill you now."
"No." The soft, unearthly voice of a woman called through the hallway. Both of the Mutant's froze and turned around. This was the voice of their Mistress.
And out of the light she stepped. She stepped into the small rays of light that shot out of the window which made her all the more enchanting. Her hair was pure white with silver streaks and was long and flowing, all the way down to her ankles. Pale. Gothic. This was a usual trait. Her eyes were very enchanting as well. Completely silver, they were almost like an optical illusion to look at. Her lips held not even the slightest tint of pink from the rest of her skin, but they remained tinted with gloss. As she stepped, the train of her gown seemed to float behind her.
"I am the Mistress of this Castle, the Countess Lily."
Araydia got her wish. As soon as the light of the morning sun filled the room, they left.
"Just beyond this forest Ray, you'll be with your family," D reassured her.
The girl looked at him and smiled. He was leading the robotic horse by the reigns while she sat atop the saddle, feeling like a lady for the first time. The gentle breeze blowing her hair across her shoulders and rippling her gown. She felt a strange spark inside, and it had something to do with the night before. She felt closer to D, which made her feel special.
Though sad enough by the next day their journey would end, she would be reunited with her Uncle. She didn't really him or his family, but they were family non the less. Her mind drifted to Aunt Kess and Granny's condition…
She thought about all these things for a while, just listening to the birds high up in the redwoods and the brushing of D's legs passing the ferns and the soft thudding of the horses hooves against the trail. It was a beautiful forest, completely alive.
And hours passed. Ray wondered if D was getting tired but he refused her offer of giving him some room on the horse. Both of them took in the scenery, until about the afternoon.
They chanced upon a stream where they could rest and the horse could drink. D hadn't said a word to her most of the day. This wasn't surprising. The sun was shining high above even through the thick pines and making the water dance as it rushed over the small boulders.
Wind blew through the top of the trees, making the great redwoods rock and a few birds scatter from the branches. The air was sweet and smelled of pine. How could anything disturb this forest, the girl wondered.
It was time to go on though. D figured they wouldn't get out of the forest till the next day and they would probably be spending a night out here.
He led the horse once more and continued till the trail all but disappeared long ago and one was just left to guess which direction to go. The trees were getting taller, wider and thicker as they went along, allowing few sunlight to pass through the pine needles.
The trail started up once more, as if it started once more from nowhere. D figured ferns must have grown over it from a rainy winter and thought nothing of it.
Araydia had remained quiet. She must have been busy taking in the beauty of the ancient forest and probably didn't feel like asking D her usual bombardment of questions. The wind must have died down, because a breeze no longer blew the girl figured it must have been getting late because the birds no longer sang.
The raven-haired girl just glanced around from time to time as they went on. She was starting to get a sinking feeling in her gut and she figured she was just being a baby. If this really was a scary place, D would have never gone this way, and she had the man to protect her! He wouldn't leave her, he promised Granny…
The man continued to lead the way, when he finally stopped. Something was wrong, he must have gone the wrong direction. Araydia looked around and grumbled;
"Nice place to stop," as she viewed a fallen tree. She glanced the other direction and saw that a lot of the majestic pines were rotting. Their needle-leaves were a reddish brown and their bark crumbling.
"D…" the girl whispered as he turned his head towards her, "The forest is changing…"
And is if on cue, the cyborg horse reared up and knocked the girl off. The beast flailed its front legs in the air, and gave a frightening robotic snort before the reigns were yanked from D's hand and the beast turned and thundered in the other direction.
Araydia hit the ground hard and must have hit her head, for she had the wind knocked out of her and her eyes closed. D was about to rush to her side when maniacal laughter filled the air.
The man turned to see, and as if the forest shifted, an amused Mutant with fire-red hair was standing on top of a boulder that wasn't there against the dead trees a moment ago.
"You humans are so stupid when you don't listen to your conscious." The demon mused. He leaped into the air and before D could see where he landed, another one appeared.
"And look what he's brought with him." The other grinned, looking exactly like the Mutant before, but with ocean-blue hair.
"The Mistress will be pleased," hissed yet another, a female Mutant, with golden-yellow hair.
"Who are you…" D said more deadpanned that asked.
"How flattered, he wishes to know who we are." The female Mutant mused. Now it was visible she was riding on top a large gray werewolf.
"I am Rufus," The red-haired Mutant said with a twisted grin, "And this is Gormain," he said, pointing to the blue-haired Mutant, "and that is our sister, Aurelio," the gold-haired female Mutant grinned. She had the look of kill in her eyes.
D instantly recognized the meaning behind their names. He had studied languages of the world in his upbringing and knew that Rufus meant red in Latin, Gormain meant blue in Irish, and Aurelio meant gold in Spanish.
"We are the three elements." The female mused, "and that's all you'll know."
And with that, the large beast jumped down from the high rock it was perched on and lunged at D. The hunter would have easily knocked the beast away had it been for the forest. It changed, completely shifted, blurring his vision and confusing his mind before one massive paw struck him upside his skull and he blacked out.
______________________________________
D could feel himself being carried effortlessly by two pairs of hands and voices he didn't recognize. At first they were all blending together, but then he realized it was Rufus and Gormain talking to someone and their sister Aurelio chuckling.
"No, don't put him in the same cell as the girl, I want them separate." Ordered a smooth feminine voice.
"Yes, Mistress." All three replied. D groaned in agony as he hit a hard surface. He blacked out once more.
___________________________________
When he awoke, he surveyed his surrounding and noted that no doubt he was in a cellar, underground, he could smell it. His first task was to find Araydia.
The demon in his left hand chuckled and it echoed off the cobble stone walls. "Go searching for Vampires and they end up finding you."
"Quiet. Where are we?"
The symbiot proceeded to almost go into a trance, that thing it did when gathering knowledge from where D did not know, nor would understand.
"I have a bad feeling about this one. We're in the castle of the Countess the people of Araydia's village fear."
D looked around and found his wide-brimmed hat that had fallen from his head. He collected himself and stood up.
"They took my sword." He noted.
The damp air hung around him and was becoming thick to breathe. His boots echoed on the stone floor as he made his way over to the bars, and luckily, they were iron bars.
"This dungeon is made to hold human victims, which they think you are," the symbiot said.
D looked at the bars resolutely and gripped his hands over the cold steel. He took in a breath and pushed the bars apart with a heave and strength not known to any man, or your typical Vampire. The bars bent under the man's will and he stopped as they were just enough for him to squeeze his side- ways frame through. And with that, he ran as silently as he could across an echoing dungeon hallway to find the girl.
"It's always a damsel, isn't it?" the sym teased.
____________________________________________
The dungeon was a lot bigger than D thought. Instead of consisting of just one hallway with a row of cells on each side, it consisted of many. How many people this Countess held in this place of death all at the same time was sickening. In many of the cells, corpses had been left to rot, completely untouched they had probably waited so long to be done a way with they simply died of starvation and left untouched.
"You may not know this D, but I think I'm capable of vomiting," the creature made a face in disgust.
D rounded a corner on his silent run and came to a complete stop. He heard something, he was sure of it.
"Do you hear that?" the sym asked.
"Murmuring…" D answered.
Indeed it was. A chanting sound coming from the hallway just around the corner. He stepped silently closer to the sound. Now it started to sound like chanting. As D stepped closer, the sound faintly got louder until he stopped very near to the sound that was very clearly Araydia's very distinguishable voice.
"Twenty-four bottles of beer on the wall, twenty-four bottles of beeeeeer, ya take one down n' pass it around…"
"No wonder they put her in a cell underground." Said the symbiot. The girl turned her head in the direction and gasped.
"D!"
He brought a finger to his lips.
"Right," she whispered, "I was getting so bored! The Three 'Stooges' left and I had no one to annoy!"
The hunter didn't say anything to her, he just gripped his hands over the iron bars and proceeded to do what he did last time.
"What are you doing?" came a harsh whisper as the creaking bars gave way under the man's strength. Araydia stared at him in disbelief.
"Hurry."
The girl nodded and easily slipped through the opening and followed D as he once more made his way through the dungeon, this time trying to find an exit. He stopped frozen once more and Ray crashed into him, he barely stumbled as the girl fell back with a loud thud against the damp stone floor.
"Owwww! My a---" The dark man snatched the girl up from the ground and muffled her mouth this his hand to keep her from anymore outbursts. She was completely pressed against him, almost tucked underneath his cloak as if it would shield her from something she didn't see right behind her.
Finally, Ray understood the reason why he was so worried about being silent and why he stopped running in the first place. Footsteps!
"Did you see him?"
"Where'd he go?!"
Faint sounds off in the distance, echoing off the walls, as well as their footsteps. No doubt they were the sibling Mutant trio and right around the corner. He turned to leave the opposite direction when a fire-red haired Mutant stood in his way.
"Going somewhere?" said Rufus sarcastically.
The other two hurried around the corner.
"Don't touch him!" Shouted Aurelio. "He's a Damphire and the Mistress wants to see him."
Rufus's expression changed from one of a panther chancing upon a boar to a boar rearing its tusks at the panther. He was baffled.
So their Lady Master had wanted to see him, Rufus knew what that meant. In a blur to human eyes, he snatched the girl while D was off guard and clutched her by arms behind her back.
"Now you have no choice, you do as we say," He looked down at the young girl with wickedness in his eyes, "and the raven haired beauty here just might remain with her innocence."
D gave him a harsh look. He hated being blackmailed, yet it was the only way the creatures of the dark could make him to what they wanted him to do.
"Take her to the chambers." Rufus said to Gormain in a monotone voice and threw the girl at him. The blue-haired Mutant caught her and swung Ray over his shoulder. "I'll handle our friend here," continued Rufus.
"Don't you dare harm her…"
"Oh it's not the child I'd be worried about, it's what our Mistress is going to do to you." He smiled sinisterly, revealing two rows of shiny jagged teeth.
___________________________________________
He did what they told him. Which meant shedding the cloak for fear of any hidden weapons, the dagger from his belt, the other dagger in his boot. Where they had his sword was probably where they had his other weapons, and once more, he was in another cell-like place.
This cell had no bars from which he could escape from, it was completely surrounded by stone walls on 3 sides, while the view in front of him continued down a while until it was completely dark. His hands were cuffed and his feet chained. This was the type of dungeon meant to hold Vampire captives.
A single window lay above his head, with dim rays of light shining through it. And now he could hear footsteps echoing once more on the dark hallway in front of him. Two pairs of feet, and maniacal laughing. It was Rufus and Aurelio.
"So how exactly do you know he's a Dhamphire?"
"How else do you think he made his way through those iron bars."
They both stopped when they were out of the shadowy hallway and looked at D. Aurelio stopped right in front of him.
"Well. The price of a Vampire killing his own kind is death, the same applies to a half-breed. It's only proper that we kill you now."
"No." The soft, unearthly voice of a woman called through the hallway. Both of the Mutant's froze and turned around. This was the voice of their Mistress.
And out of the light she stepped. She stepped into the small rays of light that shot out of the window which made her all the more enchanting. Her hair was pure white with silver streaks and was long and flowing, all the way down to her ankles. Pale. Gothic. This was a usual trait. Her eyes were very enchanting as well. Completely silver, they were almost like an optical illusion to look at. Her lips held not even the slightest tint of pink from the rest of her skin, but they remained tinted with gloss. As she stepped, the train of her gown seemed to float behind her.
"I am the Mistress of this Castle, the Countess Lily."