Blood and Shadows

by Dayne Edmondson

  Bridgette sat in a cave in the Silver Wood, roasting a rabbit over the open fire. What was happening to her? Seeing Dawyn, her brother, today had unbalanced her. When she looked at him and recognized him a flood of memories had come rushing into her mind. Images of her mother, father and younger brother had sprung up at random. Memories of another life had flashed before her as she remembered her life on Earth before she and Dawyn had found themselves on this planet under mysterious circumstances. She remembered cars and planes and trains. She remembered computers and cell phones and pizza. She remembered going to school and being a student. She remembered being on the cheer-leading team and having many friends. She remembered her first boyfriend, Thomas Smith, and so much more.

  How had she forgotten all of this? Looking back, Bridgette realized she had been a good person, once. But now…now what was she? She looked down at her hands, full of hard calluses and caked with blood under the fingernails, semi-permanent no matter how many times she washed in the nearby Tar River. She was an assassin, a killing machine. She had killed countless men and women without a thought or care for their lives. Granted, many of the people she had killed had been killers themselves and deserved death, but still, as the faces of those she had killed flashed in her mind’s eye she felt herself growing sick.

  She wanted to escape – to leave this cave and never look back. But something held her to this place. Was it magic? Bridgette wasn’t sure, but she knew something wasn’t right. Somehow her memories had been suppressed, but why hadn’t this inability to leave this cave gone along with the inability to remember her past?

  As the thoughts in her head spun, a man entered the cave. Lord Garik, or Master, as Bridgette referred to him in her mind, had a cluster of rabbits in his hands. He dropped them at her feet. “Clean these and cook them up,” he ordered. Bridgette found herself grabbing the rabbits one by one and cleaning them out, preparing them to be roasted as Lord Garik went to his bedroll and lay down, groaning. He had been wounded in several places. He seemed to be recovering, but she couldn’t help but notice that one of his hands was missing.

  Why had she done as he bid, without question or hesitation? She didn’t even remember thinking about whether or not to do it – she had just done it. With a chill, Bridgette realized that a spell to somehow grant obedience had been cast on her. While one spell had dissipated with Nikki's death, the other remained, and she was forced to do her master’s bidding no matter what. Somehow she knew that she would do anything, kill anyone, save herself or her master, at his word. Her brain would become single-minded, like a hound chasing a hare, and her body move of its own volition.

  The thought that her mind was not her own scared her. She began to sweat as she continued preparing the rabbits. Try as she might, she could not stop the methodical movements of her hands as she gutted and sliced the rabbits. All hopes of escaping died and Bridgette felt a forlorn feeling taking hold. So long as her master lived she would be a slave to his whim. She felt tears welling up in her eyes, but could not wipe them away. She had just learned her older brother lived and now he felt a world away. He might as well have been dead for all the chances she had of ever seeing him again.

  Chapter 27: The Saviors