Chapter 7: The Ill-Fated Capture of Reed
Voices murmuring in the distance. The sound of beeping. Someone's heart beeping weak and slow…the buzz of a computer monitor. Steps creaking above and below. Smells of coffee…tea…the whisper of cutlery…rustle and bustle of papers being crumpled. Not crumpled…shredded. Shredded papers…sounds like…office work…sounds like…photocopying…sounds like…
Reed's eyes whipped open, both hands grasping for her non-existent satchel, while she instinctively curled her legs closer into a fetal position. Instantly, she squeaked, slapping both palms against her face in a vain attempt to shut out the extraordinarily bright light blinding her from above, her feet now kicking out against several blankets, sheets, and what felt like wires attached near her...
…not near her…
…on her.
Trapped…claustrophobia…caught…
…monsters!
She began grappling with the lines, blindly tugging and twisting with one arm, messily stripping off wires, one by one, until the beeping monitor registered her as "quite dead" and the IV attached to her arm relocated its drip mechanism to the goose-down of her pillow. One palm still clapped about her eyes as she freed herself (noting the paper-like material of her gown,) the historian flipped off the sheets and blankets, wrapped her fist around something woolen, and gingerly stretched a foot towards the floor, touching icy tiles with a toe as she grimaced slightly, still unable to see beyond her palm, but determined to finish her journey to the area underneath the hospital bed.
As usual, an efficient sense of ostrich maneuvers served her well…and within seconds, all that could be seen was a shivering bundle of the "something-woolen" blanket shoved into a corner beneath the bed where Reed had decided to bury herself until further notice. Still unable to quite contain her whimpers or the prickles on her skin, the historian feverishly began to grasp onto her sanity, replaying the horrific events of the day…hour…week?...before…
The ruffian had…had…
…accosted her in the tunnel! And then…what happened?...she'd been…no…no, they'd been walking after she screamed. More like running, but then the elevator…they'd reached the elevator and that perverted fiend! He'd been…he'd been sniffing, and he…that…Raze…he'd asked her a question…and…
…she'd fainted.
Of course.
A dream…it had all been a dream. It must have been. She'd been so frightened by that fall earlier, she must have…associated him with the monsters of her dreams. And Aeduin…how did Aeduin fit in? Perhaps, deep down inside, the…
…wound on Aeduin's face frightened her?
No…that was stupid. Urith and Aeduin were the only ones besides Nigel that didn't frighten her into shudders, so why on earth would she dream Aeduin into a monster? Perhaps she was going mad.
Yes…yes of course. Madness. That's much better than monsters…
Nodding to herself with a sigh of relief and still wrapped in her security blanket (fluffy, warm, and very comforting), Reed finally had the courage to unwrap her hand, squint her tender eyes and peer tentatively through the little gap she'd left in the wool wrapping for oxygen purposes.
Of course, no longer staring directly at a sun-panel and screened by the bed she was hiding under, it was now a tad easier to inspect the surroundings (namely…the bottom three feet of the entire room as dictated by the height of the bed.) Bathed in light, the entire room was white, clinical, and extraordinarily hygienic looking. A bedside table to her right, a door immediately facing the bed, a wooden chair to her left and a little curtain running along one side of the mattress beyond the chair. She was totally alone. Completely abandoned to herself. Not a single soul in the entirety of the…
"You're not dead then?" A cold, wintry voice asked politely from the air above.
Her eyes snapped shut again. Recognizing the voice through muffled ears, her expression turned to one of tremendous irritation. It was becoming quite tiresome the way people were creeping up on her these days. Of course, she'd felt the skin prickle, but really, there were limits! Grimacing at the rudeness of it all, the historian raised her mouth to the wool gap and primly stated…
"Go away!"
"Oh come now, Victoria…" A head flipped over the side of the bed, an entire length of ivory-blonde hair falling to the ground as Aeduin's upside-down head came into view. He cocked his eyebrow. "…lots of people faint in elevators. Not your fault at all…"
"I'm not Victoria…" she growled.
"Fine. Reed…" He rolled off the bed and landed easily on bare feet, depositing himself into a cross-legged seat where he squinted an eye at her. The fluidity and languid nature of his movements couldn't distract from the fact that Aeduin was incredibly frightful when he wanted answers. He swallowed and tried to look pleasant, if not downright endearing…
"Anything on your mind?" he said innocently.
A growl escaped the wool. "No…" she muttered.
"You're quite sure?"
"You mean other than losing my sanity?" she grated through wool.
"Hence the word…anything…but do feel free to enlighten me…" he murmured, still smiling casually through his teeth.
Almost before the smile had escaped the Second Knot's teeth, a high-pitched hiss came out from the woolen blanket, followed by a muffled growl, the entire eruption sounding as if the historian had developed an intemperate cold in the middle of boiling hot summer. She flipped off the blanket and stuck her head out ferociously…
"You know, Aeduin, for a second there I thought my answer was no…but now that you've asked twice, why, of course…how stupid of me! I realize by no, I actually meant…piss off!" she barked.
The dark-haired Reed twisted the wool back over her head and snapped into an embittered silence (tinged with the occasional shiver of frustration.) Although frightfully petrified by most people, Aeduin had crossed the line and regardless of how tense she was feeling, the woolen blanket, formerly known as Miss Victoria Reed, had decided there would be no more speaking this day.
Completely unruffled by the excessive negativity, the laid-back administrator merely took a whiff of fresh air…and nodded.
"Alright then…I'm leaving the call button, though you are technically registered as dead according to your heartbeat. If you lose or break the call button and feel like talking, leaving your room, or eating, Urith will be around to check on you later…"
Still making an effort to appear pleasant, the Second Knot, sometimes known as the Farkas Hospice Administrator Aeduin Styx, slid the hospice call-remote across the floor, and waited patiently for a reply. Though Reed had had far too much human contact for one day, he only had to wait several seconds before a pale, suspicious hand slipped out from beneath the blanket, grabbed the remote, and went back to its business of masquerading as air.
Not bad considering the girl had undergone two blood-seals in the last eight hours since earlier this morning (one to reinstate the failed blood-seal installed by Urith several months ago, and the other to reseal a number of the girl's memories. As per usual, the nervous historian would assume the entire thing was a dream, Raze would be wiped from her thoughts, and she'd spend the rest of her weekend suffering from a severe bout of paranoia and skin prickles.)
Satisfied with this acceptance, Aeduin nodded at the blanket, effortlessly rose to his feet and made for the door. However, just as he was about to leave, Reed managed to muffle out one more statement of bitter mistrust…
"Is Raze still in the building?"
"What?" he said curtly from the door, and then, relaxing his fists and murmuring as if it were the last thing on his mind…
"Oh Raaaze…Yes…yes, I'm afraid he is still on the hospice grounds. But rest assured, my dear Reed," Facing the door, Aeduin's smile became feral. "…I have banned him from the East Wing as long as you yourself are situated here. In fact…if Raze so much as lifts a finger towards you again, I will ban him from the entirety of this hospice for the rest of his life, however short that may be."
Without another word, the long-haired administrator composed himself, tried to lighten the extraordinarily tense grit of teeth that Reed couldn't see from her blanket beneath the bed, and left the room, closing the door as silently as when he entered ten minutes ago.
Left to herself (finally), Reed swallowed, a tad upset at the slightly feral growl that had entered Aeduin's voice as he spoke the last sentence. She herself had been shocked by Raze speaking so gruffly in the elevator, but the way Aeduin spoke of the matter, it sounded like the well-toned leather-clad ruffian had tried to…
Immediately, she cut herself off, trying to counsel herself away from any rogue memories that might suggest she hadn't dreamed at all, and the event of two creatures battling upon a marble floor had been real. The historian curled tighter into her blankie.
You are mad, Reed…that's all there is to it. Everything was a dream. It was all a dream. There was no sniffing. No creatures fighting. No screaming. It was all just…
…a dream.
…o…
Twelve feet away. Outside the hospice door of Reed.
Aeduin stood with his back against the door, his arms wrapped around Reed's satchel. An intense frown had plastered itself over his features, and he was dramatically grinding his teeth in an effort to rethink the situation. His problems had just escalated. The first blood-seal had, indeed, reduced the alpha scent on Victoria's skin…
…but the second…well…it appeared the second hadn't even mildly affected her memories.
The way he had worked it…the second blood-seal ought to have wiped all trace of Raze from Victoria's blood, yet the pale historian was still cowering under her bed, whimpering about her madness, and asking whether certain creatures were still on the premises.
His forehead creased into what could be interpreted as regret…
Ever since Ambrose had been infected two years ago, they'd of course been forced to seal a number of Victoria's memories, including several with lycans, vampires, and the occasional rabid three-headed dog…but this was the first time a memory had blatantly stuck on the historian like fleas on a mid-winter pelt. A very bad sign considering what might happen if certain other memories made their way to the surface of the cowering historian's conscience.
Flipping open the satchel (recently acquired in the last ten minutes) and dimming the corridor lights, Aeduin carefully moved the various objects around until finally, using the cloth as a buffer between his fingers and the silver, the Second Knot held the silver cup Reed had brought with her to the hospice. Staring deeply upon its designs, his eye began to glow faintly, the yellow pupil turning white as he followed lines and swirls, imploring the pathways to open before him as he searched for the key. The anvil…two dots…and the line. Searching…searching…
…nothing.
He sighed, allowing the cup to fall back into the satchel. The same problem that had plagued the Two of Knots for several centuries…allergies. Bloodseekers needed to touch their runescript, following the non-existent pathways without sight, walking their fingers through darkness and song. And this…
…the grandest mechanism ever to stop a lycan bloodseeker from reading a pattern…
Silver.
The Second Knot began loping to the West Wing, dropping Victoria's satchel and the silver cup in his office on the way, knowing he would need both later. Turning swiftly from the locked door, without thinking, he bumped into Urith on her way towards the youngling's hospice room. Much like two pups quarrelling over mother's milk, the siblings glared at one another for a moment…
…and then abruptly, rolling her eyes and smirking, Urith reached out, embracing her brother once around the neck to show that regardless of how useless that brawl was earlier, she forgave him for causing Reed mental harm. Slightly unnerved by her sudden obvious show of affection after two years, and vaguely touched, Aeduin lost his tenseness and returned the embrace. He had always hated fighting with his sister, and in two days, he had already incensed her three times in a row. Though safe within the walls of Valhalla, he almost longed for the days when it was just the two of them stuck beneath the earth…
However it was not to be.
The sound of two Rope Runners approaching from the distance cut short their affections, and just as suddenly as they embraced, the Two of Knots let go, resuming their harsh exteriors and showing no sign that they actually enjoyed being hugged once in a while. With a final mystifying wink at her brother, Urith dropped into her usual stance of lethargy and continued on her way, while Aeduin, frowning fiercely at the world, began sprinting once more through the corridors, his mind now concerned with his personal plan regarding the ill-fated Victoria Reed…
If he didn't know before, he certainly knew now. Victoria was a mess…she could hardly look at sun-panels, and after this morning's fiasco, there was no way she'd be in a state to enter the silver-infested veins of Lucian. A pity for Urith who still had her heart on using the girl…but no matter. In four day's time, after they completed their purchase of the entire Kovacs silver collection and placed the entire lot in storage, he would simply request that they wait for the more opportune time before sacrificing the youngling…
Yes, he figured to himself in passing. The more opportune time…known as…
…never.
His lips drew into a fearsome smile. It was all fine and dandy to plan "murder for a good cause", but regardless of what Urith might say later about him getting soft, he wasn't about to kill the youngling just so they could get a little calling time with Lucian. There had to be another way…there was always another way. And until he found it, Urith wasn't coming within a millimeter of the first key to Lucian's tomb, so conveniently draped around his neck like the woman draped around Raze's earlier that morning.
Arriving at a dark, ominous door after his swift sprint down the maze-like corridors leading to the West Wing, Aeduin punched in a key-code on the side of the door, smiled for the camera, and placed his palm against a small scanner on the left. Immediately, the door slid to the right, revealing a long line of steps winding down…down…down…through what appeared to be an underground tower of stone. At the very bottom, just out of sight unless one peered over the railing, a single torch could be seen wavering in the darkness.
The lycan entered the tower and began following the torch, allowing the door to slide shut behind him. After all that work on Reed's blood-seals, it was time to check on Raze. Time to answer a few questions…and unfortunately…time to allow that stupid pup his tri-annual glimpse of Lucian, the true master of lycans.
…o…
The East Wing
Still shivering beneath her bed, Reed's ears pricked a little as she heard the door open. Almost silently, two feet padded closer to the bed and languorously stretched out on the icy tiles to the right of the bed. Licking her lips, Reed felt her heart beating a little slower and turned her head furtively about, eventually glimpsing a visitor's teeth from the corner of her eye through the woolen blanket.
Meeting her gaze slyly, her teeth widening ever further, Urith smiled frostily from her resting place, the fingers of her left hand playing delicately with two steel chains bound around her neck.
"Hello Reed…" she murmured.
Reed swallowed. Dr. Urith Styx's normally casual tone and unruffled smile had been replaced by ice and, with two words, had covered Reed's skin in a shower of skin-prickles, fear, and an overwhelming stretch of nausea as she realized Urith wasn't here to check her pulse. Even as she opened her mouth to scream, Urith had already pounced on Reed's blanket, wrenching both the historian's arms behind her back as she stomped on the little bump formerly known as "remote call-button", the crunch of metal suggesting that indeed, it too was now technically…dead. Immediately fixing both eyes on her prey beneath the bed, the First Knot began to whisper inhumanly in the terrified Reed's ear, her hand still clamped across the woman's mewling screams, the words coming out as dull iron,
"You know, I like you, youngling…" she said. "Truly I do. You are swift…your inherent skills of the rogue are astonishing…you dance well…and yet…such fear. Such terror lodged in your veins. Just listen, Reed…your blood is ready to burst and your heart…can you not feel it? Pounding. Fighting. Threatening to strike your wounded soul to the ground if you do not break upon air. Is it coming back to you? Our nasty little secret? You weren't supposed to remember, but this time," she leaned closer, her whisper searing upon Reed's sanity as she sang the words slowly into her ear as if telling a fairytale.
"…this time, I will tell you the secret, youngling."
Urith's smiled into Reed's eyes, her yellow orbs turning an icy shade of blue as she began to change before the girl, her words still lilting upon the song.
"The wolves are real. Aeduin is a monster…" she whispered, her voice dry, wintry and echoing. "I am a monster…" she pressed her cheek against the girl's hair. "…and your brother? Your brother Ambrose is a monster too, little one. A sick monster…but a brutal, nasty little creature, nonetheless. And just for that," and as she spoke, Urith kissed the historian lightly across the temple as a mother bidding farewell to a child. "…I want you to remember that if we fail in this journey and you suffer for it…on my honour, I will end your life swiftly."
And now...
...humming over the speed with which she had caught her prey, Urith twisted Reed firmly into the warm blanket, tying knots and loops and bonds about her mouth, eyes, legs, and arms, so that within seconds, the dark-haired Reed resembled nothing short of a trussed up…"chicken." (But seeing how the current situation is horrid enough as it is, the word "swan" will be used out of compassion for one who is about to be murdered.)
Flipping the muffled bundle of "laundry" onto her back, the long-haired lycan smelling of sage left the room, taking a moment to smile viciously over her plan regarding the dark-haired Reed…
By the time Aeduin finished with Raze and realized his switched "key" weighed an ounce lighter than it had ten minutes ago (or better yet, came to terms with the fact that Urith never touched anyone without good reason these days,) the inner tomb would be open…
…and dear…sweet…little Victoria Reed would be fed to the wolves.
Or wolf, that is.
And the moonlit breeze smirked as she dropped blindly down a second passageway to the West Wing, her fingers dancing about the matching keys of Lucian's Tomb now hanging from her neck…
A/N: Please read and review! (Thanks for the favourites and review of the last chapter by the way...good to know a few people don't mind that it's taking me two centuries and an age to wake up Lucian. Anyway, please keep reading and ooooh...a review button...it's so pretty...it's like alpha...go on. Press it!)
Will Urith feed Miss Victoria Reed to Lucian? Will Aeduin stop her in time? Will Rushwriter ever wake Lucian?
Tune in next time on...
...Lucian's Respite!
Greek Chorus: Oooooooo.
Norse Valkyries: Ahhhhh.