by R. L. Weeks
“Well, I’m not a bitch!” I said with a hint of a smile.
“Don’t tell me you have a soft spot for me after all.”
I scoffed. “You wish! Come on, get up.”
He struggled to his feet. I put my arm around him and took some of his weight. “Where do we go?” I asked. I could hear voices and running below. They were coming.
“Underground,” he said quickly. “Go to the bookcase.”
“We’re going to read?”
He limped over with me to the bookcase. It still stood sturdy against the wall, but most of the books were lying on the dusty carpet – all except one.
“Pull that book out.”
I furrowed my brows but did as he asked. As I pulled it, I saw a lock on the wood behind it. “It’s locked.”
He handed me a little bronze key. “Here,” he spluttered. I could tell he was struggling to breathe.
I pushed the key into the lock, and the bookcase opened up. I jumped backward as a passage appeared. “Let’s go,” he said and pushed me in, closing the bookcase behind him. “We don’t have candlelight.”
I pulled out my phone and put on the flashlight. “No need for that,” I said with a smile and followed him down the dark passages behind the walls.
We delved further and further down. We heard the bookcase open from above and began to hurry. “How far?’ I asked.
“We’re close.”
We hurried down some stone steps until we came to a grate. I kicked it, and it fell through the hole.
He rolled his eyes. “You have one fight, and now you’re a Spartan or something? I have a key.”
“Oh,” I said sheepishly. “Still, let’s go.”
We both ducked through the hole and fell out into an underground city. It was so similar to the world above it, yet the small differences made it feel like it was eons apart. The roads were all black tarmac and were spotless. In fact, everything was sterilely clean.
He pulled me around a corner and down a small street. “We need to stay hidden.”
“I can’t believe you have an underground city.”
“We have a lot of them,” he said simply. “Through here.” He gestured me down a small path, past several white, glossy buildings. “We need to disguise ourselves. Casey, you need to make your decision. You can’t be human down here. They’re all after you.”
I sucked in a breath and looked around. “Do I have a choice?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Then I can help you all?”
He nodded.
“You’ll keep me safe?”
“Always,” he said with a wink.
I stopped walking. He turned back. “What are you doing?”
“Why me? I mean, apart from the prophecy stuff. Why help me?”
He looked down. “I couldn’t save all those kids, but if I can save you, and the others, then my death will have meant something.”
I softened and smiled warmly. “You’re not a complete dick then.” I laughed. “But you did torture me.”
“I had to, but look – now you’re fearless.”
“Were you when you died?”
“If you are fearless, they cannot hurt you as much. That is the main reason I did what I did.”
“Okay,” I said, defeated, remembering all the games he used to do with me. Ones like Jane was being put through on stage. “Show me your world first. I need to know what I’m up against. I need to know what I need to do. Who are the Night Wanderers?”
He dragged me down a street. “They are the elite ones. I’ll show you once we’re far enough from the gateway to the hotel. Hopefully, they’ll think we escaped out the window.”
We walked until we came out onto a square. The water fountain was made of gold on the black tarmac, and the water had an array of colors – like a rainbow. “Pretty.”
He huffed. “Yes, beautiful.” He dragged me to a small side street.
One man, who was wearing scrubs like a doctor, walked into a blood bank. “The blood bank is a torture hole for unsuspecting humans taken from above. They are hung upside down and drained, then their blood is fed to the Vampires who were too lazy to go above ground and feed from humans,” Scorpio said.
“That’s horrible.”
Scorpio squeezed my hand. "I know. All those people that go missing, never to be found." He pointed at a show house that stood grandly at the bottom of the side street. "A theatre for human entertainment. They take humans up on stage and make them do all sorts of acts for them, then feed off their energy after.”
I felt bile rise in my throat. "Doesn't surprise me.”
“This is why you matter."
I sighed. “I know.”
“This city is called Mors Civitatem – the capital of the underground cities for supernatural creatures.”
We walked down the metallic streets toward the bright lights of Mors Civitatem’s center.
“Here.” He pointed to a shop window housing tons of bottles filled with blood. “That's where they make Polong.”
I gasped. “They make them? So, they're man-made then?”
He laughed. “Yes, well, Vampire-made.”
We looked closer at the blood-filled bottles. He pointed at one. “They take the blood from a murdered human and cast spells on it to make small demons. They're ruthless, too. Well, you saw from the show.”
I nodded. “Well, I didn't watch the fight. That was when I saw George and that woman. Shall we go?" I asked, feeling nervous.
He buttoned his grey coat and smiled. “This will all be over soon.”
I forced a smile. It would – just not in the way he expected, because there was no way in hell that I was becoming one of them.
