Chapter Twelve~

The door opened, and to my surprise it was Katie, her stick figure-like form barley needed to open the door larger then a crack to have her whole body through. "What are you doing?" I asked, my voice slick and silent, I didn't know if she had come to help us or if she were about to alert the guards to our presence.

"Quickly!" Was all that she said as she opened to door wider and reached her hand out. She was close enough to side her tiny hand along Danica's arm and pull it up over her shoulder. She was helping us, but why I couldn't figure out. She held Danica's other side up and together we made our way out of the room. "The guards think that you are on the other side of the compound, but we only have a few seconds before they realize that your not."

"Down here!" I heard a boy yell from down the long corridor, though I could see no one. "He's gone down here!" My pace quickened.

Danica was still barely conscious, but she was trying, her feet tried to walk but all that they could really do was drag. I knew that whatever they had given to sedate her was strong and as far as I could tell it wasn't wearing off anytime soon. As we raced through the hallway I looked at her, her head bowed as if in great contemplation, or giving her allegiance to some royal leader. One of her arms was stretched out and dangling over my shoulders and the other was doing the same around Katie's. The wounds on her arms were still bleeding as well. The white linen bandage already was died red with blood and soaked all the way around and blood was now beginning to drip and slide down her arm and fall in small globs on the ground. We would be discovered this way! We had to hurry, for all of our sacks.

Katie knew this strange labyrinth like the back of her hand and she lead us through it with ease. "Why are you helping us?" I asked as we passed along another wising corner that lead to an almost identical corridor as the last one that we had gone through. She said nothing, and I wondered if her silence was out of contempt, or some darker purpose. Could she be leading us into a trap? "Katie!" I pressed, all I could see of her form was her tiny bare feet as they continually stepped in front of her, she was, and I had to admit, a step ahead of me.

"I am a slave here, just as you would have come to be. Very few of us get to escape this place, and if I can help get you and your friend to safety then my being here is worth it."

I wanted to say something to her, anything, but I couldn't find the words. I believed her though, if ever I believed anything anyone ever told me it was that she meant well in helping us.

We turned another corner, and from behind us I could hear voices again; a succession of commands like: "This way!," "A blood trail!," "Hurry!" Hurry, I knew that we would have to get out of here soon, from what I was hearing they were only a few feet behind us and just around the corner.

"How much longer Katie?"

"We're almost there."

We turned another corner, and off to the side I could see the throne room that we had been taken to when Danica and I had first arrived. The throne room was crisp and clean, with dark marble floorings and a single seat, fit for a single ruler in the center of it. As I looked into the dark room, a dark figure passed into my sight. It had me frozen in my step, and Katie quickly stopping to see why I had stopped. It was a man, I could tell as he moved from the shadows of the corner of the room. Dark eyes staring me down as he gracefully walked from the shadows, no muscle moving unless he wanted it to. It took him only a matter of seconds to get to us from across the room, and the slight movement of his unusually dark black hair was the only sign that he had moved at all. He was a vampire I realized quickly, I could tell by the eyes.

"Jaguar!" Katie said through a hoarse and creaky voice. I knew enough about Midnight to know that Jaguar was the leader, and I knew enough about leaders to know that he wouldn't just let us go. I heard the guard's voices again, louder and closer this time and I contemplated making a run for it. I looked directly into Jaguar's eyes, they were dark, as though a veil were hiding any emotion and detection of feeling in them. Jaguar met my gaze, just as I had met his, and for a moment all we could do was stare each other down.

The moment passed, and Jaguar's eyes quickly passed to Katie. I heard her whisper something to him, her words were light but I though I made out: "She would want you to." With Katie's words he looked back at me and with his hand he pulled from his belt a small blade that was made of silver and incrusted with small stones of the palest green that I could only guess were made of Turquoise.

"It has always brought me luck; you will need it before the end is over." He handed me the blade, and I held it firmly between my fingers firmly. With the flick of his hand and the down set motion of his eyes he sent us off to our freedom. I had no idea why; he would allow us to go freely, when Theron and Jeshickah so adamantly desired to keep us here. Katie continued to lead us and from behind us I heard Jaguar direct the guards in another direction, buying us valuable time that we needed to escape.

Finally we made it to the doorway that would lead us out. "Come with us?" I asked her as she let go of Danica and took a step back.

She smiled, the smile of an innocent child, and not the slave who had been held captive for most of her life: "There are more that need to be freed before I can leave. Now go, but beware of the shapshifter's on the outer gate, they will be hidden from you, but they will know that you are there!"

"Thank you, for everything."

She smiled again.

With Danica still unable to walk on her own I held her underneath my arm and we made our way out of the compound. The first obstacle that we faced was the rain, which I hadn't realized while being inside was falling so hard. Large pellets of rain fell over our heads with no order or rhythm, just a constant spray of water that fell so strongly that it felt like concrete when it hit you. We made our way through it harshly, my skin stinging from the ferocity of it. The next thing that we encountered was the shapshifter lookouts that Katie had warned us about. They were not located in any kind of order like most lookouts are placed, but rather crows and ravens were perched on treetops and circled the perimeter in no selected order or path.

As I made my way to the twelve foot high stone fence that separated the compound from the woods a large Raven dove at me, slicing its tremendously sharp beak into my arm and poking all the way through to the bone.

The darkness of this place was unimaginable, there was no light from inside or out, and the moon, was hidden by shrouds of black clouds, that, with the rain seemed to be crying. "Go away!" I hissed, as the raven came down at me again, I had to push it away with my free hand but still it's beak scratched at me. "Common Danica," I propped her up more, she was still limp and barely conscience in my arms.