by Chase Erwin
I was so disgusted with myself. I padded over to a corner and sat there, whimpering.
Kane snapped his fingers, and the other guard bowed. Kane pointed to the body. “Dispose of it,” he said.
The guard unceremoniously walked to the corpse, picked it up by the non-mauled hand, and drug it out the same door. Blood smeared across the concrete floor as he did so.
When it was quiet again, Kane walked to the large pool of dark blood that was remaining and he dipped three fingers in it.
“Come here, boy,” he said to me.
I whimpered more. I wanted this to be over.
“Abel,” Kane said with a sharper tone. “Do as you’re told.”
I walked over, tail hung low, ears folded.
He held up his bloody fingers as if he was holding a treat.
Failing once again to fight the animal instincts, I lapped at the blood. He laughed.
The next thing I remember, I was back in Dr. Kane’s exam room, having reformed into a human. I was so exhausted, though, I almost eagerly accepted the vial of sleeping potion.
I was too sickened by what I had done to listen to Kane’s self-righteous speech and phony words of encouragement. I just nodded as he hooked the leather straps back around my arms and legs.
14. Rescue Mission
There were always two guards standing outside the door to Dr. Kane’s exam room where I was being kept — a short, squat one and a taller, thinner one.
They had little to no contact with me. Dr. Kane was the only one who was ever allowed in my room.
One night, I was drifting in and out of some actual natural sleep, when there was a tremendous explosion that shook the stone walls of the compound.
There were people running in both directions past the door. I could hear snippets of hurried questions and answers.
“Where’s Kane?”
“He’s already gone!”
“Dammit, we have a protocol for this!”
“Get rid of it all. That’s an order — destroy all evidence!”
“What should I do?”
“Go fortify the breach - I’ll take care of him.”
The door to my room unlocked, and in slid the taller of the two guards, his longsword drawn. He had a disgusting smile across his face as he stared me down and unlocked the shackles and the restraints.
He motioned for me to get off the table and stand before him.
“Did you hear that? Orders are ‘destroy all evidence.’”
A chill ran down my spine as he rose his sword.
“And you’re evidence.”
I had to act fast-but what to do? He must not have known why the gauntlets were attached to me — I needed to think of some sort of magic to use to escape, and pray to the deities that it would work!
I only had seconds to think — what could I do? Fire? Frost? Water?
Water.
The second I focused on the word water, my body took over.
It felt like I slowly walked under a running faucet. My body turned into a viscous, silver liquid — and I sank to the floor as a puddle.
The sensation was unbelievable, but I didn’t have any time to marvel in the achievement - I had to escape!
I pictured myself running towards the door, and my liquid form propelled itself in that direction.
“Oh, no you don’t!” The guard jumped towards the door and slammed it shut.
Damn it! I darted around the room to buy some time.
The lab sink! Could I get up to it? Maybe I could go down the drain and hopefully find my way outside the compound.
I tried to make my way over there, but the guard seemed to know exactly what I was going for. He blocked my way again.
We did this cat-and-mouse chase for a few more moments. Suddenly, I felt very fatigued. Obviously this little trick couldn’t last for very long.
I felt a hot tingly sensation, and within seconds I had reformed into my normal human shape.
I dodged as the guard slammed his sword down. It missed me and clanged noisily on the stone floor.
He raised the sword up again, and as it came down I raised my right hand out. I don’t know what I was thinking — it was a stupid move.
The blade sank into my flesh easily. I yelped in pain. As I did… an orange aura began to envelope my arm. It intensified until it arced into electrical energy — energy which leapt from my hand to the metallic blade, and into the guard.
He was being electrocuted — by me! It felt as if I had placed my hand on a hot grill. I let go of the sword, hoping that would break the electrical connection.
Instead, it intensified. The bolt shot from my hand and continued to arc into the sword, frying the guard on the spot.
The power surge finally stopped, just in time for the smaller guard to return and push the door open to see his partner fall to the floor, dead.
“You little rotter!” The guard rose his own sword above his head and advanced on me.
I was panicking so hard, I began to lose all of my usual defenses and sense of reason. I began to plead for my life.
I was so panicked; and he was so filled with rage, neither of us saw another person enter the chamber.
“Just shut up and meet your maker,” growled the guard. He began to make his swing…
And then a long-bladed axe landed brutally right down the center of his skull.
The sight was so grisly, and the latest in a series of gruesome and violent deaths I’d been witness to in just the last few days.
I couldn’t speak any more at this point. I was babbling. A mixture of pleas for help, protests for the violence to stop, the urge to run away — it was all coming out as a nonsensical slew of noise.
The short guard’s body slumped down. Had I been more in control of my sanity, I would have seen that his assailant was dressed in different garb than the Ravens I had been used to. The material on this man was red, somewhat more tattered and worn than the heavily tailored clothes the Ravens wore. He was clearly not one of them.
“Hurry, Abel,” the man yelled. “We’ve got to get you out of here!”
He grasped me by the hand, and all I could do was try to follow his lead.
How did he know my name, I wondered — was someone looking for me after all? Did someone send these people for me? Or was this another gang of criminals, just trying to make a brazen take-over?
It felt like I was in slow-motion, even though we were running frantically down a zig-zag of corridors, ducking crossbow arrows and incendiary devices exploding on all sides of us.
We dodged to our left into an empty storage room that had a hatch door. It was open, and another man with red clothing was standing guard.
We jumped over an overturned rack that was filled with glass vials of potions and other concoctions. All the colors of liquid within the shattered bottles were blending together into a thick black sludge, and oozing down a nearby drain hole.
“This way, quick!” He gestured for the door. I was still holding my rescuer’s hand as he dashed for the door. I followed close behind, and the one guarding the door ducked in and closed it shut behind him.
The next thing I remembered was being led into a wagon — the same kind of wagon I had been brought to the lair in.
I wasn’t in my right mind. I had lost so much of my sanity. All I knew was that I was in another wagon, with another single barred window, and I was flanked by burly men who all had longswords out of their sheaths.
All it meant to me was that I was still not safe, and I wouldn’t be until I could run clear of all these people and be out on my own.
15. Breaking Point
I took several deep breaths as we bounced around inside the wagon.
SCREEEEEEEE! SCREEEEEEE! SCREEEEEEE!
I yelped in pain, gripping my ears as the sound of a loud siren blared.
“Turn it off!” I screamed, falling to my knees. “Please, turn it off!”
I looked up at the four uniformed men who jumped into the cab alongside
me. They looked baffled.
“Turn it off!” I yelled harder.
I couldn’t hear, but one of the men shrugged as if he hadn’t the slightest clue what I was talking about.
Immediately the sirens stopped, replaced by the sound of Dr. Kane’s deep, gravelly voice. I couldn’t see him, but it sounded as if his lips were right against my ears.
“They think you’re crazy, Abel… and you are. Do you really believe these men have come to save you? Foolish little boy…”
I writhed in agony upon hearing him, my arms still trying to block out all the noise.
“No! No! Get out of my head!”
The men looked increasingly uncomfortable.
“They don’t believe you,” the voice of Dr. Kane said. “They won’t believe you — no one will ever believe you again. There’s only one thing you can do… kill them. Kill them all.”
“No, damn it! I won’t! I won’t!” I sobbed.
One of the men reached out for me with an open hand, but what I focused on was the short sword he had in the other hand.
I was certain he was going to stab me with it.
I yelled out again, and without further warning, a bolt of yellow energy quickly encircled my right arm and fired at the short sword, knocking it out of his grasp.
“What in the bloody hell?” The man yelled.
SCREEEEEEEE! SCREEEEEEE! SCREEEEEEE! The blaring began again, and I fired off another bolt of electricity that bounced wildly off the walls of the wagon.
There was an uproar inside the small cab; one of the men signaled to the driver outside to stop.
There were arms grabbing for me, but I ducked each attempt, pointing both hands at the latch to the wagon. Another large blast of light caused the door to burst open, and I bolted for it.
I tumbled out of the wagon, rolling three times against the dirty ground. I rose immediately and ran into the forest.
“Get him!” I heard one of the men yell.
“Dare you defy me?” Kane’s voice echoed in my head. “I said kill them.”
“I am not your pet and I am not your project any longer,” I shouted in the open air. “You have no claim on me!”
There was maniacal laughter reverberating in my head, the fervor of which made me feel sick to my stomach.
“That’s where you are wrong, Abel. You are mine, now and forever. You will be back. Under my roof, under my command. Just you wait and see!” The laughter returned, only to dissipate a few seconds later.
I was running and running, unsure where, but certain I didn’t want to be captured — if for no other reason than I didn’t want to kill the men who were after me.
“Remember all the horrible things you have done…” Kane’s voice triggered a flood of memories: ripping the throat out of the horned fae, crushing Belladonna, the girl whom I had sold cookies to years before.
“Shut up,” I muttered, continuing to run.
“You’ve killed dozens of innocents,” Kane murmured. “More than you remember. You, Abel, you have killed so many people. All their blood is on your hands…”
“Stop it,” I pleaded. “Stop it, stop it, stop it!”
I tripped over a dead stump, falling to the ground. The impact knocked the wind out of me.
“But it won’t stop,” Kane told me, his voice seeming to echo off the trees. “You can’t stop what’s buried deep within you. It is what you are, Abel Mondragon. You… are a killer.”
I let out a wild scream, causing birds and other night creatures to vacate the area in fright.
“I am always watching you, Abel Mondragon,” Kane’s last words to me struck like a knife. “We will be together again… one day.”
“This way,” yelled one of the rescuers, and within seconds a scurry of footsteps made a fast approach towards me.
I laid in a heap, wrapping my arms around the tree stump and sobbing. The images of blood, gore, death and destruction kept filling my mind’s eye, alternating with the sounds of Kane continuing to laugh in amusement.
“Found ‘im, sir,” shouted a guard.
“I’m sorry,” I cried. “I’m… sorry…”
“Shh, just breathe,” the man said as he knelt beside me.
“Please,” I begged of him, tears in my eyes. “Please kill me. There’s voices that won’t stop. They want me back; they won’t stop until they’ve found me.”
“Just breathe,” the man said again, taking pity on me. “It’s all over now. You’re safe.” He motioned to the rest of his crew, who cautiously approached me. Anti-magic shackles were placed on my wrists, and I was slowly led back to the wagon, to wherever it was they were taking.
I felt no need to contradict him. There was no use. There was no safety.
As far as I knew then, my life was very much over.
But, as I would learn not too long afterward, it was just the beginning.
About the Author
Chase Erwin was born in New Mexico, raised in Central Texas, and spent several years studying journalism in the Dallas area before working for television stations in Huntsville, Alabama and Austin, Texas.
He has had a love of the printed word right from the cradle; family legend has it he learned to read through a combination of TV Guide and Wheel of Fortune.
Chase lives in Austin with his husband, Tyler, and their two cats, Nate and Belle.
Other titles by Chase Erwin include the Bloodbound series (Bloodbound, Mind’s Eye and The Railroad Ripper).
