Disclaimer: (On vacation)
Johnny gripped the stirring wheel tightly. Exactly how Adam West drove this thing so easily in the first place was beyond him. Neatly cropped fields placed along the sides of the road zipped by as they drove down the road. The lights and silhouettes of buildings of the city were far behind them. Squee sat in the passenger seat only half awake with heavy eyelids. Johnny noted that any passing cars had to vigorously swerve out of the way to avoid a head-on collision. The Bat mobile took up almost both lanes.
His gaze rose every once in a while to the stars in the night sky before him. They were his sanctuary when his mind wasn't. He could just stare at them for hours at a time until his mind wondered away from him, into sleep. Sometimes he would lay on the roof under clear nights and count the tiny solar systems and massive galaxies until the sun came up. Those days were cut short by a pair of headlights and several weeks in Rose's care.
The tip of the highest tower became visible in the horizon. Johnny took one hand off the wheel and gently shook Squee awake.
"Squee, Squee, wake up," Johnny whispered, "We're almost there."
His little hands rubbed tired eyes. He stretched his short arms and released a deep squeaky yawn. His eyes practically bulged out when he saw the height of the castle slowly peering up over the hill they were climbing. It looked so sinister with its five sharp towers and dark stone. It reminded Johnny of an evil hand with great talons reaching for the clouds. His eyes gazed upon his own hand. Even though the long black gloves were clean, the true blood could never be removed. These hands were quite evil themselves.
They arrived. The castle had to have been at least fourteen stories tall! The more spacious windows at the base were lit up on the inside through the glowing colors of stained glass. But the narrow short windows up along the towers and higher levels were dark and empty. It seemed as though that was where Ned would be. The parking lot layered a little ways away from the castle, which was where the tourists would gather, was completely vacant without a vehicle to be seen or heard. Once headlines were made about a mysterious case in which a rusty suit or armor chased a group of tourists around the castle with a sword, they business was gone for good.
Squee craned his head back as far as he could to see the very top of the castle towers. Johnny was fumbling with something in his coat pocket. A long thin blade of silver flashed from the moonlight as it was drawn into the cool summer night's air.
"Squee," Johnny approached his short friend, "I might not always be able to protect you while we're in there. If you want to help Rose, you have to be able to help yourself too."
He held out the knife for Squee to take. His little hands clasped around the handle and examined it like it was either a precious treasure or a time bomb. His enormous eyes took in the sight and feeling of holding a dangerous instrument of death. It gleamed in his hands as he tilted it slowly back and forth. His first dagger.
"Use it to protect you." Johnny spoke with a serious mist to his voice, "But remember what you are. Wielding a weapon can do strange things to your mind. Even an once of power can send a man back to his primitive stages."
They stood before the tall oak doors. But their entrance was blocked. The heavy bars of the Iron Gate before the door could probably stop an army from penetrating its powerful barrier. Johnny jammed his fists into his pockets. The breeze swept through the length of his coat and chilled his ankles. Johnny just looked at the gate as another pathetic rope that restrained him from finding Rose.
"There's got to be another way in!" the little one squeaked.
Johnny merely stood there. His mind was flying at the speed of sound. He froze and pondered of a strategy to break into the armed fortress. His cold eyes scanned the building up and down. But something came to his attention.
"Squee," Johnny's eyes traced up the castle entry to a large stained glass window three stories up, "I don't think our entrance will be a quiet one."
Rose slowly lifted her head. Every inch of her body felt so heavy. Weight just seemed to enjoy clinging to her body and making her struggle to stay conscious. When she drifted into sleep earlier, she was unaware of her visitors. Ned had sent two rather demented looking maids into her chamber to dress her for the wedding. They must have been stronger than they looked, because when Rose woke, her feet were flat on the cold stone floor and her arms were pulled high above her head. There were no walls for her to lean against. They had chained her in the center in the room.
Rose looked up to her hands. The wrists were latched together in cuffs held up by a thick iron chain that stretched all the way up to the high ceiling. Her ankles were shackled to the middle of the floor. She could see where the giant heavy anklets were leaving deep pink pressure marks on her bare feet. Her whole body felt as though it were numb.
Her eyes fell upon the paintings that covered the walls almost entirely, darting from one to another. They were all based on a woman that looked a lot like Rose herself. The woman sitting in a garden, another of her holding a white rose, and another of her waltzing with a shadowed man in a dark night. She was everywhere.
A rather distressed looking maid in a dark dead grey dress accidentally pricked her with a needle. She was occupied in tightening the midriff of the white wedding dress. Rose yelped out in surprise.
"Ouch!" she cried.
"Hush now," the maid silenced her, "I'm not having anymore enjoyment in this than you are. Master Ned's last four wives were all the same dress size."
"I never thought Ned was one to prefer a wife in a white dress," Rose retorted.
"Well, I always did have some sort of attraction to innocence." A voice purred as it came near.
At the open doorway to the circular prison cell, Ned leaned coolly on the threshold. He waved his hand to dismiss the maids. They lifted the lengths of their dresses and hurried out of the room, needles and thread bobbins falling here and there to the floor. He approached his fiancée, coming very close to her.
"I suppose that this is the same wedding gown all your past wives and meals have worn." Rose said sharply.
Ned's eyes narrowed a bit. He looked Rose up and down. The dress she wore was simple. It was a long angelic white gown under a slimming layer of snow white Toole. Being strapless, it was easier to dress her in with her arms raised above her head. Thanks to the alterations made by the maids, it fit to her curves perfectly. The boddess held her torso snuggly and was laced up tightly in the front.
"It is almost perfect." Ned spoke as he dug in his pockets for something.
His hand came back out with something silvery tangled around his fingers. Rose watched as he unraveled a delicate shining necklace with a thin white foggy crystal as a pendent. She shivered as the cold metal was placed around her neck. Ned stepped back to view Rose's entire form.
"Now it is perfect," Ned smirked cruelly, "I must say, you look as beautiful as she did on our true wedding day."
Rose spoke, "Your original love, I presume?"
Ned looked away, "Yes, Xiao was a woman of immense beauty and had a heart almost as pure as an angel. You would have never guessed that she was a blood drinking creature of the night. When I first saw her, I mistook her for an angel or a goddess. But her fangs were her telltale."
Rose questioned to him, "I still wonder why you chose me of all the women in the city."
Ned directed his eyes upon her, "Even though I am still quite young, my memory fades little by little as I cling to this transparent life. After all, I was supposed to die. The Vampire Lords didn't know I would become cold. I became able to destroy a life from the inside and out and carry no shame on my back. So, I married and fed over and over just for the soul purpose of satisfying my hunger. But even so, all my victims have a few things in common."
He held his narrow gloved hand up to Rose's face, gently stroking his fingers down her cheek, "One, they all somehow resemble the beautiful Xiao…"
Rose glared, giving Ned a look of venom saying that she would rather not he touch her, but he rambled on, "Two, they sing the most enchanting songs. Your lullaby was the loveliest thing I had heard in years."
"Your selection is still quite wide," Rose snapped softly.
Ned continued with an air of demand, "And three, they have a heart that is clean and pure."
He stared into Rose's deep chocolate eyes, only inches away from her, "I believe I have made the correct selection."
He gently tilted her chin up. Now, a shiver of fear spread from where he touched her. Rose's whole body froze where it stood. Even though she was restrained, the power to struggle had suddenly left her. A sense of fear took over her body. She realized that she would be dieing within the night.
"Is it all ready Squee?" Johnny called from inside the bat mobile. He had to lift the eye protector of a helmet he found in the trunk to be heard.
Squee, who was outside holding a control device, nodded and awaiting his orders.
He strapped himself in with the seatbelt extra tightly. "On three, two one, now!" Johnny counted down and held onto his helmet tightly.
Squee held his breath and tapped a little black button on the controller that read 'Eject'. Suddenly, the roof of the Bat Mobile flipped open and Johnny, still in his seat, shot out of it like a clown from a jack-in-the-box. He rocketed like a cannonball straight through the stained glass window above the iron gated door. Shards and splinters of colored glass rained and spat in every direction as Johnny crashed through the window and into the castle. He and his chair landed on the marble floor loudly and tumbled all the way to the foot of the grand stairway. When the ride was over and all had come to a still, Johnny roughly crawled his way out of the mangled driver's seat. It didn't help when the giant black parachute shot out of the back several seconds too late.
Johnny searched around the door frame. His eyes gazed at a stately looking lever that looked as though it set off the chain that pulled the Iron Gate outside up and down. With much frustration and effort from his skinny arms, Johnny finally tugged the lever to the opposite side. The massive thick metal chain began reeling up and the sound of something heavy outside was being lifted. When all the movement ended with a loud 'clunk' the giant wooden door slowly opened with a loud and long creaking noise.
"It worked, Johnny!" Squee came bounding in, "It worked, it worked, it worked!"
Johnny held out his hands, "Shhhhhh! I think we've been heard. We better move, and fast! Follow me!"
Ned suddenly froze, less than an inch away from Rose trembling lips. His ears pricked. The sound of a loud crash with a spray of shattering glass echoed throughout the castle. He looked towards the door.
"We seemed to have guests," Ned abandoned Rose where she was and smoothly walked out the door. The tap of his booted footsteps slowly faded away into the halls of the castle.
Johnny and Squee weaved their way through the shadows of the castles corridors. The only way they could find Rose now would be if they search in every room they come across. But Johnny didn't care. He felt a surge of determination like he had never experienced before. He would do whatever it took to rescue Rose. He won't let her die. Or worse, be married to Ned.
We're coming. Hang on Rose…
The Maiden of Light: Okay, this one felt like it took weeks, even though it was only days. My schedule has been commanding me with a whip! Softball games, chores, kidnap Jhonen, practice, 4H projects, movie night with boyfriend, conquer earth, water neighbors' plants...I'm going to kill somebody! And to top it all off, I had a garage sale to tend to. Why me? Why! DOSITE (Japanese for 'why')! I've gone ever so slightly, almost, an itty bitty bit (completely) insane. Read, review, and run!
Schedule: cracks the whip Get back to work! You have softball practice in an hour!
The Maiden of Light: cowers in fear Yes, sir.