Mary walked over as I finished bandaging my wounds.
I stood up. “How bad are you?”
Scratches and red blotches covered her skin, matching my own. Crypt Sprites were worse than I had given them credit for.
“I’ll be fine.” She searched her body. “Nothing life threatening.” She motioned to my leg with her own, face hesitant. “Do… zombie bites… work like in the movies?”
“No.”
She exhaled, shoulders relaxing. Brushing a strand of hair from her eyes, she surveyed the carnage from the battle.
Bodies lay everywhere. Several zombies still wandered in flames, their puppeteers vainly trying to escape the fire.
Crypt Sprites burrowed into a corpse’s brains and used the head as their cockpit: once that cockpit was on fire, they couldn’t escape. They burned alive within the dead.
“Its not too bad.” Mary swallowed.
I just stared. Its never been like this. The realization dawned on me that I really was not as experienced as I liked to think myself. I’m a nobody, really, in this world. Haven’t even faced a werewolf…
Vampire slayer indeed. If I faced Benedict as I am now, I would be ripped to shreds.
My blood boiled to molten iron at the idea. I marched to where my machete had fallen and snatched it up.
The Lobanski crypt rose like the cave of Grendel’s Mother, black beneath a lake of sky.
But my Hrunting gleamed in my hand, and my inner fire blazed to match that of Beowulf. Sheathing it, I clambered atop the toppled gargoyle.
“Be careful.”
“Always am.” I ignored her doubtful cough.
Broken stone and lichen beneath my fingers.
Digging my fingers in, I heaved myself up. I wavered, attempting to balance on the pit’s edge.
A chain hung like a spider thread between my feet, anchored into the marble. Half the anchor peeked out of the stone, cracks surrounding it. Someone had driven it into the wall for the purpose of hanging this chain.
What on earth—
As my eyes adjusted to the light of the mausoleum, I made out several more chains, hanging in a similar manner. All seemed to be tethered to something within.
There were, of course, the normal items of a mausoleum, that being the dead and their stone homes. I also spotted a leaking bag of Baragsdyn Budaa. But I had expected these. The chains had no explanation I could think of.
“What can you see?”
“Chains.”
“What for?”
The iron links quivered.
My hair stood on end. “There’s something alive down there.”
“Do you need me up there?”
“No.”
I dropped through the hole. I landed in a crouch. Despite my focus, I still managed a silent apology to whoever’s corpse I stood on.
My eyes absorbed the darkness. I felt a twinge of claustrophobia but it dissipated. Bit by bit the night became twilight and the twilight became but shadows.
Myriads of chains twisted from the walls like a metal web. At the center of the mausoleum they converged on the spider— or rather the fly.
A figure stood motionless, manacles clinging to it’s wrists, ankles, arms, legs, waist and neck. If the floor were to suddenly drop beneath that person, they would fall only a foot before they would come to a perfect stop, the chains holding them in the exact same stance.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and turned on the light.
Silver eyes gleamed back at me.
I took a step back, raising my machete.
Before me, chained like a lunatic, stood a woman. A ball gag was wedged in her mouth, and her face was pale. She could barely breath.
Snatching a knife from my pocket, I sawed through the gag’s cord and let it fall. A deep welt ran from either side of her mouth where the cord had wrapped.
She didn’t attempt to breath, only stared at me with translucent eyes. She closed her mouth, teeth bared.
Her canines were fangs.
My heart sped up.
I swallowed. “Who are you.”
She blinked, long and slow. “The Sun Witch.”
What? “Who put you here.”
She watched me, tilting her head to one side. She still hadn’t breathed. “What was it you wanted?”
“Answer me.” I held my machete to her throat.
She gazed down the blade, raising an eyebrow. “You can’t kill The Sun Witch.”
My heart froze, but I forced a neutral expression. “This is silver, blood sucker.”
“Cute.” She said it from the back of her throat, as if she were collecting phlegm. “Have you seen my cat?”
“What?”
For the first time, she moved against her chains. “My Hell Cat, Moruvius. He burrowed into the wall that just collapsed. He lived in Frank’s head.”
None of this made any sense. I felt like Alice gone down the hole. “He lived in a head.”
She closed her eyes, clenching her hands. Her tongue ran along her lips. “The gargoyle, my good idiot.”
I felt a temptation to open the mausoleum door, but I didn’t want Mary in here. “I didn’t see any cat.”
“Not that kind.” She fixed me with a single eyed gaze. “It flies? Has a bone head?”
The monster Mary had shot lurked in my mind’s eye. In the same instant I decided I didn’t want this lady to know we had killed her cat. “Never seen it.”
“Hmm…” She chewed on her lip. Her bite tightened and a trickle of blood ran down her chin. “Here. Come here. I’ll tell you what you want, just let me drink.”
Drink. The tomb seemed to ring with the word.
“I am starving.” She began panting, leaning against her restraints. “I need to drink.”
“No.” I clutched my machete as if it were the hand of my mother. “The only blood you deserve is that of a bloated tick.”
“Then you’ll do fine,” she hissed. “You know, You’d look quite cute with a sunflower stabbed through your eye.”
“Suck yourself, witch.”
She screamed. It sliced into my skull. My ears rang.
“Give me FOOD!”
“SHUT UP or I’ll stab you THROUGH YOUR SH- - OF A HEART.”
Her cries faded like a dying siren. Through it all she hadn’t taken a breath.
She’s not human. She’s not human.
I knew she wasn’t. I knew she was a vampire. But seeing that truth—
All I can say it was worse than zombies.
Scraping from the roof.
A shadow covered the drifting light. A moment later, Mary crashed onto the stone floor. She scrambled to her feat, gun in hand.
Both relief and anxiety came at her arrival. She should’ve stayed.
The Sun Witch and Mary stared at each other.
“Your sister?” The vampire stretched toward Mary, though she could only go about an inch.
“I’m Mary. Who are you?”
The Sun Witch hissed. “I am Rebecca, The Sun Witch. And I am thirsty.”
“Pleased to meet you.” Mary scooted over to me.
“You look sweet.”
Mary looked at me, eyes questioning.
“Who put you here.” I forced myself to lower the machete. “I’ll get you blood. But first give me answers.”
Rebecca scrunched her eyes together, squeezing handfuls of her dress “Give me your blood. I won’t bite. I can drink from an open cut. But give me blood. Now.”
I hesitated.
Its the only way you’ll get answers out of her.
She could be bluffing.
But this is the one chance you’ll get. Once you leave, whoever trapped her here will not let you come back.
Handing Mary my phone, I grabbed my machete’s blade. I took a breath and tightened my grip on the cool metal. I ran it along my hand, wincing at the sensation. Warm blood began pooling in my palm.
I had sudden flashbacks to Bella, lying there in the dark bathroom, her wrists dripping out her life. Her beautiful life.
It made everything more awful as I approached Rebecca and extended my hand.
She attacked it, slurping it, guzzling what she could. I winced and had the urge to vomit.
After a few minutes she grew less frenzied. She lapsed into lapping it like a dog. She even looked like a dog, chained and—
Die, you monster. Just die. I suppressed the sadism, focussing on the stinging wound.
Pain. I needed pain to drive it away. Why are you like this?
Rebecca stared up at me, face dripping with blood. “That’ll do.”
I retreated, wrapping my hand in my shirt. “Alright.”
I took a few minutes to recover myself. I took a breath. “Who put you here.”
Rebecca licked away at the scarlet on her lips. “Murderers. You know the Ra-ras?”
I nodded.
“They killed my sister. I killed ten of them before they pinned me down.” She smirked, eyes gleaming like moons. “But I know them. When I escape, I shall find them.”
She flicked her eyes to Mary. “Have you seen my cat, Mary?”
“Cat?”
“Did the Ra-ras assemble the zombies?” I cut in. She can’t know we killed her… thing.
Rebecca straightened her posture. She looked like a vandalized statue. “Yes, with outside help.”
I attempted to piece it together. Why didn’t they just kill her? Anyone who knows how to summon zombies would be able to kill a vampire. “What did they need you for?”
Rebecca narrowed her eyes. “They want a weapon. Idiots.” Her fingers stretched, spiders in the dim light. “I answer to no one.”
“Are you a vampire?” Mary shone the phone light at Rebecca’s teeth, though at an angle not to shine in her eyes.
Rebecca squinted. “I am more than a vampire. But for simplicity’s sake, yes.”
“Let me handle this,” I hissed.
Mary shot me a look. “You think a vampire killed my sister.”
“Not here.” The ‘Sun Witch’ didn’t need to hear any of this.
Rebecca smiled like the Cheshire Cat. “I didn’t I killed your sister, Mary. But if you have anymore, I would love to.”
Mary sprung forward and I shot out my arm to stop her.
The vampire’s nostrils flared. She stared at Mary as if seeing her for the first time. “I smell Moruvius on you.
“Where is my cat.”
“I’ve seen no—” Mary’s face changed slightly.
She’s realized it. Grabbing Mary’s hand, I marched to the Mausoleum door.
“You’ve killed him.”
I tried the door. It couldn’t open. I could feel Rebecca’s gaze on me like a chained collar.
We circled back to where the hole cracked into the sky. As I helped Mary up, I dared a glance toward Rebecca.
Her eyes shone like twin pits of hell.
—Cruthadair fo Dhia
You have good sentence fluency. Great final line to leave us wanting more!