Chapter 14: Discoveries
Hee. Lovely lovely little reviews. See what they do to my muse? They make her/it hit me on the head and glue me to the computer keys so that I can get another chapter out, even though right now I'm suppose to be working on my science fair project, my speech, a report on the politics of Tudor England, a color pencil realistically shaded picture showing "Art in the Heart of the Park" (I'm doing Cat In The Hat, gone bad. Real hearts heh), and studying for a test on The Epic of Gilgamesh. (Don't read it! For the sake of your sanity, don't!) enough of my rambling.
Pushing open the coffin lid, I stretched and slipped out the door towards my own room. My bare feet tread silently upon the stone floors of the icy fortress; I had long since gotten used to the cold.
Upon reaching my room, I opened the window to let in the last remaining rays of sunlight that managed to peep over the forbidding mountains. I usually tried to wake before Dracula did in order to catch some glimpse of the sun, which I rarely got out into now.
After dressing, I picked up the length of cloth that I was embroidering on to keep myself occupied. Even though no one would ever see it, it gave me a small degree of satisfaction to see my story laid out in neat, colorful stitches. It was nearly done. Well, that was natural, seeing as I'd been working on it for a little over three months, ever since we returned from Budapest.
At least, I think it was three months. Time was a slippery thing in this place, which by my count I'd spent for blasted long months in.
In my anger, I accidentally stabbed myself with the needle. It brought a drop of blood to the surface, which I quickly wiped away. Rule number one: never display blood. Period.
However, when I removed the handkerchief, there was no trace of red on its white linen surface. Puzzled, I examined my finger closely, but could find no trace of the puncture wound. Maybe there would be something in one of the libraries (there were two) that could explain vanishing injuries.
I liked the smaller of the two libraries better, not because it was closer to my room, but because it had a closer, warmer feel to it. There was only one window, the ceiling wasn't as high and vaulted, and there was an extremely comfortable armchair right next to the fireplace.
After laboriously combing through the shelves, my eyes landed on a book titled Ethereal Beings. That looked promising and I took it back to the armchair, but not before opening the window to let some air in. The night was finally clear and after a four-day ice storm I was nearly going crazy from confinement.
The book was written in an old formal style, full of loops and flourishes. It was slow going at first, but I got the hang of it before long. After going through fairies, shades, ghosts, and elemental spirits, I found a passage on angels.
Angels are widely considered to be the most reclusive of the ethereal beings, second only to shades. Since their natural habitat, as one might call it, is in another plane, it is near impossible to study them from a distance as one might a fairy or sprite. Thus, what is known about them is gathered second-hand from eyewitnesses who have encountered one.
The common angel is most often found in the service of the Lord, where it carries out such philanthropic activities as guardianship of marked humans, delivering answers to prayers, and healing the sick or wounded. They also serve as guides for the souls of deceased humans, guiding them to heaven. An angel's healing is most often carried out invisible or masked by blinding light, but one theory is that the angel transfers a small amount of its own blood to the afflicted person, thus healing them. These actions are made possible by the ability of angels to heal themselves extremely quickly –
That would explain it. I rose stiffly from the chair and hissed as feeling returned to my legs, which had long since become numb. The air inside the library was freezing cold now. Putting the book away I left the library, intending to get something to eat. Suddenly though, the thought of food made me slightly nauseous. And I was a little dizzy.
Great. The last thing I needed was to get sick. Next time, I'd leave the window shut.
I was halfway back to my room when I heard it, a strange noise echoing faintly off the fortress's stone walls. At first I wasn't sure if I'd really heard anything, but, straining my ears, I heard it again. The cry sounded nearly human, but I couldn't be sure from so far away. I'd have to find out where it was coming from.
Slowly, quietly, I prowled the upper levels of Dracula's castle, but could find no trace of anything. So I went lower, making my way down towards the entrance level.
Nothing on any of those floors either. But the sound was definitely getting louder, though it was still fairly faint. I wasn't even entirely sure it was human. There was something animalistic about the quality of the sound.
Frustrated, I sat down on the steps leading out of the entrance hall and tried to think if there was anywhere I might have missed. Surely in someplace this large I wouldn't know about all the rooms, right? There was something familiar about the sound. I think I had heard it a couple times before.
Hmm. I could remember, vaguely, seeing a couple Dwergi enter a room and pass through a dark entrance. Perhaps that was it. I took the left passage from the hall, down a flight of steps, and headed down the second corridor on the right. There was a door at the end, which I was sure led to the room I'd seen before.
The wooden door stuck slightly and was heavy, but after a few minutes I managed to get it open. It opened upon a small stone room, bare save for a weapon's rack and a few burning wall sconces. But no sign of the passage that the Dwergi had taken.
I bit my lip and felt the walls for any unusual cracks, but the old stones make the task difficult. To aid my search, I picked up a light from one of the wall sconces. There was a grating sound and a cunningly concealed door covered in stone swung inward to reveal a darkened set of stairs. Replacing the light, I slid inside.
It was very dark in the passageway, but luckily it was short. Nothing however, could prepare me for the sight that met my icy eyes.
It was a large room, stone, very dreary and ominous, made more so by the weapons stacked or hung every where. Dwergi were everywhere, attending to various torture devices. You didn't have to be smart to recognize those. One was cleaning up a pool that glistened reddish-black in the torchlight.
Blood.
I shuddered and averted my eyes. A large steel cage sat in one corner of the room. It was bolted to the stone walls and inside it was the slumped figure of a man, held in a sitting position only by the chains that fastened his arms above his head.
In my haste to reach the cage, I didn't notice the other occupant of the room until a cracked voice stopped me just feet away from the cage.
"Miss should no' be in here." I spun around to face a hunched over man, if that's what you could call him. His hair lay faded and thin upon a bony skull, his limbs were gnarled and twisted, causing him to limp, and where his left eye should have been, there was only a mass of scar tissue. He laughed nastily. " 'S not a good place fer ladies."
He spat upon the ground and clutched the metal prod in his hands. Before I could reply, he turned and shuffled off, muttering to himself, "But 'oo ever lissens te Homeros?"
It did not seem like Homeros cared whether I was in the room or not, so I returned my attention to the man in the cage, who was looking at me with empty brown eyes.
"Come to torture me too? You're one of his, course you are."
"I beg your pardon? Um, I'm not here to torture you sir." This caused him to raise his eyebrows slightly.
"I promise. Why are they doing this to you?" I knelt, concern etched upon my face. "Please, is there some way I can help you?" The man looked at me quizzically.
"You're not a vampire, are you." It was more statement than question. I shook my head.
"No, I'm not. My name is Destiny." I lowered my voice. "Tell me how to help you." He laughed humorlessly.
"You can't help me. 'Sides, no one would aid a werewolf." My eyes widened, but I did not shrink away.
"I can try to free you," I whispered. "You shouldn't be trapped here as I am. Tell me how." He strained at his bonds.
"It's not safe, you here me? It's not safe. I'd kill people, I'd eat them. I'm a monster!" he hissed, then paused as if he'd remembered something. His next words came out in a hurried whisper, as if he were afraid. "Wait! Dracula…he has a cure…for werewolves…if you find the cure –" He broke off, looking at something. Belatedly, I felt it to.
"Destiny!" Dracula snapped. "Get away from the Lycan."
Rising and turning, I spotted him at the room's entrance. The blue in his eyes did not herald anything good, for either me or the werewolf in the cage behind me. Moving with that supernatural speed of his that really irked me, he was down among the torture devices in a second.
"How could you do this to him," I cried, flinging an arm towards the cage. "Have you no decency at all!? Have you no shred of guilt in that dead heart of yours for what you've done to him!?"
"No, I do not! He is in my service! And you should not be down here!" Dracula bellowed back. My lips were pressed so tightly together that they were almost a solid white line.
"Well, you never forbade me to come in here! And since when do you have the right to control my every movement?" I demanded, furious.
"When you carry my children!"
Within the space of about a second, there was no blood left in my face. My ears roared, my breath caught in my throat, and I fumbled behind me for a hold on the cage bars. They were the only things keeping my upright right now, as all the strength had left my knees.
"How long?" I asked Dracula tersely, trying to keep from screaming. He didn't answer.
"HOW LONG HAVE YOU KNOWN!!!???"
I love this chapter, and the next one's going to be soooooo dramatic. But if at least 5 to 10 people don't review, I won't post, so there. : P munches on cookies