Chapter 4
"That's a very beautiful name you have, my lady," Darren said standing up.
"Thank you," I said smiling as he helped me up.
Once I was standing on my own two feet, Eric and Darren kissed my hand as a sign of respect.
"We need to go, Darren." Eric said walking out onto the balcony to make sure that Derek wasn't on the balcony and then grabbing a sword and waited on Darren.
Darren walked over to me and handed me a pendant.
"Will we meet again?" I asked, confusing myself again.
Darren looked at me and shook his head, "Maybe, who knows. But if you ever need us for anything, hold onto the pendant and concentrate. We will find you, no matter where you are."
And with that said, Darren left the same way Eric did. I looked at the pendant; it was a beautiful dark red J encrusted with an obsidian black surrounding. 'Beautiful.' I thought.
I snapped out of the memory when Derek took his hand away from my face. I was still very confused at what I had just seen until a man had tightened some rope around my wrists. He motioned for one other man to come towards him. This man had something in his hand that was wrapped in silk cloth. I sensed evil power emanating from what was in his hand. The man handed it to Derek, who just smiled as I looked shocked.
"Seeing as your power is that of light and that power comes from the silver rose crystal. I had this little piece of equipment made especially for you." Derek said leaning down to my eye level again.
I was still staring at what he had in his hand while he was talking, which I found out, you don't want to be staring at anything when Derek is talking to you. It pisses him off, bad.
He unwrapped the silk to show what looked like a small version of leech, but mechanic and square. He picked it up and placed it right where the silver rose design was on my cheek, and as soon as he placed on the spot, it began to slowly drain my power. I felt the power inside my body begin to leave as the mechanic leech continued to stay on the design. I decided to try a spell to see if it would short circuit the damn thing, but no use. 'Damn' I thought as I mentally cursed. Derek just smiled at the expression on my face. I looked at Derek and tried to get free from the rope around my wrists and then tried to attack him that was until the man behind me placed a gag in my mouth. 'Bastard!' I thought, while thinking of ways to get free and kill Derek.
Derek stood up and leaned over to me and went to whisper something in my ear when I head butted him. Okay so I improvised something, sue me. You would do it to. Well, let's just say that the head butt that Derek got, earned me a hard slap across the face. Izuru tried to break the ropes again and with no avail, for the second time. I glared at Izuru and he stopped.
"No wonder why he doesn't do what we tell him to do. My men were having issues just trying to tie him up. But just a second ago when you glared at him, he stopped struggling and just sat there. You just keep amazing me every minute, Princess." Derek said smiling demonically.
I just continued to glare at Derek until he got up and walked away.
"Escort these two in to the car." Derek ordered
The men all saluted Derek and began to drag me and Izuru to the car. I would've struggled but when you've got a magic draining leech on you draining your power you would be smart to obey your captors. Izuru also abided by what the men said to us because he didn't want to get me injured, I was already low on power and he knew that, so he was being smart.
Once we were in the car I got severely tired, that little magic sucking leech is annoying! I looked outside the car windows whenever I could seeing as the men sitting on either side of me were huge. Derek was sitting in the front of the car and I couldn't find Izuru anywhere. Then I thought 'the trunk.' When Derek turned around to see check to see if I was conscience and probably just to see my pain ridden face.
I sighed as Derek spoke: "If you're looking for the boy, I believe my men put him in the other car behind us."
I relaxed after Derek said that but then tensed again when the car stopped. I looked outside the window, which was still harder than hell to do, and saw nothing.
I looked at Derek, who ignored me and got out of the car followed by his men in both cars. I thought them throwing me in the car was bad enough, but no, it wasn't, they ended up literally dragging me out of the car.
Which wasn't easy, but as soon as I was out of the car, they brought Izuru out, still being obedient as ever. I saw his face and thought about what would happen if I called his name and let him attack the men. I pushed that thought out of my mind and accidentally bumped into one of the men. He turned around to face me and got angry as I glared at him for stopping. He lifted a hand to hit me when Derek stopped him.
"We need her in one piece, if the Mistress finds out that she's alive we're all screwed. I need to properly drain her power in order for the Mistress to be happy. Do you understand me?" he said looking at the man as he released his arm.
The man nodded and gave a mumbled "yes sir" and turned around again. Derek looked at me and I glared at him and turned to face Izuru, who noticed and glared at Derek. I looked around to still see nothing in front of us.
"Where the hell are we at?" I asked jerking my head around to face Derek.
He smiled.
"Why we're at my base of operations my dear." he replied grabbing my arm and escorting me through the barrier that had bypassed my senses, damn leeching nano shit.
I began to struggle in Derek's hold as Izuru noticed and gave me a worried look and I shook my head at him and mouthed a few words, and he nodded. I allowed Derek to pull me along as I memorized my way throughout his headquarters.
"Why don't you just kill me and get it over with already Derek? We've been at each others throats for years now." I said as Derek walked a couple of feet and held out his hand.
It looked like he was touching nothing but thin air, which confused me completely. I watched as Derek mouthed a few words and then his hand glowed a slight gold color and a door appeared out of nowhere and then the rest of the building appeared as well. I stared in shock, confusion and bewilderment at what just happened.
"What...the...hell?" I muttered looking upwards to see how tall the building was.
The building was huge! I'm not talking your normal type of huge either. I'm talking about the-my -headquarters-is-castle-huge, huge. The thing had the style of feudal era England nobility and the age of it showed. It looked like it was from the mid to late- 1800's. Derek saw my face and smiled as he nodded to one of the men. When the man got to me he grabbed my arm and jerked me forward.
"Take it easy you shithead, I am a woman after all." I said angrily glaring at the man.
All the man did was huff a breath of air and mumble something under his breath. I sighed and reluctantly followed him so he wouldn't jerk my arm anymore. I needed that arm in one piece if I ever wanted to fight again with two arms instead of one. I also didn't feel like going through the pain of having it broken. I like it when none of my bones get broken. It makes my life a lot easier to live and kick ass when their not broken or injured in any form or fashion. Though I have to admit being an immortal sucked ass on the occasion but other times it's the best thing on the face of this planet. I watched as the second group of men pulled Izuru along with them as they followed us down the hallway and around some corners and down some more hallways and all the while I was memorizing each and every turn and step we took so that when the time came me and Izuru could escape without a hitch. Izuru saw my face and understood what I was thinking and then did the same thing I was doing, except a lot better than me. I knew that Izuru hated being bound by anything whether it was by rope or chains. Anything that could bind his hands, feet, and body to a wall, he hated with a passion, he also had a huge fear of prison cells. It wasn't the fact that it was a confined space it was more or less the fact that whenever he was in a cell memories came flooding to him of what happened to him all those years ago, before I met him and rescued him.
-FLASHBACK-
~Tokyo, Japan 1787~
It was during the Kansei Reform of 1787 when I met Izuru. The seasons were harsh on the village people because they had poor harvests year after year. I had been traveling throughout the area when I had stopped in Izuru's village. I had met a couple in the woods as I came to the village and asked them what was wrong when they told me that their son was being held prisoner for something he didn't do. So I offered to help them out by rescuing their son from the prison. They were overjoyed at the idea and a little shocked because they were letting a foreigner do the rescuing. But they allowed me to do it anyway and offered to pay me a reward to do it but I refused their offer. So later that night they couple told me where their son was being held at and then I was off.
After a couple minutes of scouting the surrounding area out I went in undercover and unnoticed. I didn't know the exact way to the prison cells but I did my best. After about an hour of looking I finally found the right hallway that led to the prison cells. Once I was down the hallway I noticed a set of stairs and figured they led down below to the cells. I followed the stairs until I got the prison cells.
"Hello?" I whispered.
I heard nothing so I spoke again.
"Hello?" I called out a little louder.
This time I got a reply but it wasn't the reply I wanted to hear. What I heard was a gargled scream coming from further down the basement. Then it hit me. The power of a bloodthirsty vampire feeding off a human. I remember that the couple had stated that the shogun had taken only one prison which was their son. I silently cursed and ran down the hallway until the gargled scream got louder and thicker. As I rounded the corner I saw a small lit candle which was the only thing illuminating the half-dark cellar. I noticed that the vampire feeding was none other than the shogun himself.
"Well, didn't expect to see a vampire here..." I stated calmly and coolly as I debated on what I was going to do. I hadn't brought any weapons with me seeing as it was originally a rescue mission and nothing dealing with vampires or supernaturals of my kind.
The vampric shogun turned around and looked at me with a glare that said 'why are you interrupting my dinner?'
I sighed and shook my head at him but stopped when I looked at the victim. It was the couple's son. Now that I had noticed he was the only one in the whole cellar. I concentrated on the boy's life force and sensed just enough life force in him to keep him alive but also not enough, three thoughts crossed through my mind at that moment: 1.)save the boy and give him some of my life, 2.) seeing as the vampire had already taken a lot from the boy I noticed that a change was going to happen if the vampire isn't going to finish feeding off the boy and 3.) let the boy die right here and lie to his parents...
I banished thought number three out of my head and out of this world because I swore to myself that no matter what I would never let a human die, not on my watch. So I went with choice number two: let the change happen. But once the change did happen I would have to either give the boy the vampire's blood or give him some kind of immortal blood. Then it hit me, my blood! I can give him some of my blood. I looked at the vampire and broke a piece of wood to a point and then pointed it towards the vampire.
"Feeding off the humans may be your nature but try to do it when I'm not around, otherwise there will be hell to pay." I said lunging at the vampire.
After a grueling fight with only a wooden stake as my weapon I ended up winning the fight. I looked at the flaming corpse of the vampire I had just slain when a scared gasp came from behind me. I jerked around to see the boy looking at me with tear-stained eyes and his mouth a gap in a wide O-shape.
"Crap," I muttered as I walked over to the boy and held his shoulders as he started to struggle.
"Calm down, just calm down. I need to get the restraints off of you so you can move freely." I said as the boy continued to struggle in the restraints.
I sighed and remembered that the change was occurring in the boys body and he needed blood quickly otherwise he would die from the change. I silently cursed again and took the candle, blew it out and broke the little plate bowl it was in. I then took a shard and sliced my wrist open, remembering that I only had a couple of seconds before the wound closed. I leaned towards the boy and held my wrist up to his mouth and let the blood drip into his mouth. He looked at me scared, and I smiled.
"You need to drink or you'll die from the change in your body." I said kindly.
The boy looked at me and nodded slightly as he pressed his lips to my open wrist wound. It stung a bit when his lips touched the wound. The boy began to suck the blood out of my wrist. After a minute he pulled back and I sensed his heartbeat regulate and slow down along with his breathing. I sighed and tensed my arm up so the wound would heal. After a second it healed up and the skin looked the way it did before I sliced it open a moment ago. I looked at the boy who just stared at me with a look of confusion and amazement as I healed my wound up.
"What's your name?" I asked kindly.
"I-Izuru." he replied meekly as he licked his lips of the blood.
He then realized he was still bound to the wall and began struggling again when I got up and undid the bindings. Once he was free of the bindings he hugged me with all his strength. When he realized that he was choking me he let go and apologized. I smiled and shook it off as I introduced myself. After a couple of minutes we left through the manor and out the way I came in.
After a couple of minutes we met up with his parents who thanked me for what I did and then Izuru did something that shocked his parents. He stated that he wanted to travel with me wherever I went. His parents wanted to know why he wanted to travel with me and he told them what had happened in the prison cell. I was shocked at why he was telling them all of what happened and with the looks on their faces stated that they believed every word he was saying. He was just about to say something he shouldn't when I placed a hand on his shoulder and shook my head no. He understood what I meant and shut his mouth as his parents debated on what to do.
After a couple of minutes his parents looked at me then at Izuru. We both waited for what they were going to say which felt painstakingly long. Then Izuru's father stood up and walked over to me and placed a hand on my shoulder and smiled.
"Take good care of my son..." He said smiling at me.
I nodded and stood up with Izuru following suit. I bowed to his parents and left the house and began walking.
"Where are we going?" Izuru asked confused.
"Don't know..." I replied.
"I don't want to be a burden on you," he said meekly as he took my bag off my back.
I looked at him and smiled, "then become strong while you're with me and you won't be a burden."
-PRESENT DAY-
That was when I met Izuru and gained a new partner. By the time I had finished my little memory relapse, I noticed that Derek had stopped walking and was standing in front of what looked like a bedroom door. I looked at Derek and then glanced at Izuru as Derek nodded and the men surrounding Izuru, they nodded and pushed him in another direction. I glared at Derek, who just opened the door and walked in. I on the other hand didn't want to follow him, so I just stood there thinking of when it was a good time for me and Izuru to escape this hell hole Derek called a headquarters. Derek popped his head out of the room and glared at me. I shuttered at his glare and followed him back into the room. When I looked around the room I noticed my instinct was right when I thought it was a bedroom door. To one side of the bedroom I noticed a vanity mirror along with a door to the side, which I presumed led to the closet; and on the other side of the room I noticed a huge king-sized bed with black and red silk sheets and comforters along with pillows.