by Travis Bughi
Adelpha moved first, stepping back from the narrow crossroads, and Emily jumped to avoid being stepped on. The big amazon brought up her bow in one hand while her other one drew an arrow from her quiver and nocked it. Chara was only a half second behind her, and they both aimed in the direction they’d been traveling.
As if on cue, there was a roar from down that darkened alley. Emily jumped, and the blood in her veins ran cold, for there was nothing human in that roar. It was a snarl turned cry for blood, and as Emily stared into the darkness ahead, a hulking mass with a pair of glowing yellow eyes rounded the corner, wielding a jagged hunk of metal. It charged.
“Ogre!” Adelpha shouted, and let her arrow fly.
Adelpha’s bow was a silent killer, only making a thunk as it left the string. The arrow slipped into the dark, disappearing from sight, and Emily gasped as one of the yellow eyes winked out of existence. The charging ogre snarled and crashed to the ground, sliding across the ground from the force of its charge until it came to a rest just a pace from Chara. Emily, blinking and frozen in place, gaped at the arrow in its eye.
“Where are the others?” Adelpha said. “I heard more than one.”
“Smart bastards are probably flanking us,” Chara said. “Emily!”
Emily snapped out of her shock and reached over her back to grab an arrow. She grabbed three instead and had to shake two free of her grasp when she pulled them out. They clattered on the ground, making wooden tink sounds that seemed perilously loud. There was another roar, and Emily tried to nock the arrow like she’d been shown. Her heart was racing, and her fingers fumbled trying to place the small notch onto the thin string.
Another ogre came charging out of the shadowy alleyway, down the same way as the other despite what Chara had thought. In front of its body, it held a door with the hinges still bolted to the side, but Adelpha and Chara did not hesitate. They aimed their bows low and put an arrow each into both four-toed feet. The ogre snarled more than screamed and crashed to the ground. While Chara nocked another arrow, Adelpha slung her bow and pulled out the long knife at her side.
“You’d think they’d know better than to howl before charging,” Adelpha muttered to herself before addressing the fallen ogre. “You should have run while you had the chance.”
She stepped forward with powerful confidence, and Emily felt a rush of envy at how Adelpha handled herself. The ogre on the ground snarled again and wielded the door like a club, swinging at the approaching amazon while crawling back. She hardly seemed concerned as she held her knife, watching patiently for an opening to finish it off.
Adelpha passed into the crossroads again, pursuing the injured ogre when another purple brute stepped quietly out of the shadows. Emily sucked in air, anticipating Adelpha to leap back or attack with her knife, but she did not move. Painfully and fearfully, Emily realized Adelpha didn’t see this new ogre. It was just a pace away, massive club raised high, yellow eyes fixed on the big amazon.
Chara raised her bow, drew her string, and let her arrow fly all in one motion. It pierced the ogre’s neck, but to Emily’s complete shock, the ogre merely flinched. Chara’s hand was going for another arrow, her lips parting to shout a warning, but the ogre’s club would fall long before that. Emily had but a split second to make a choice, and she made it.
As the wooden club swung down to crash on Adelpha’s head, Emily took the last step needed to close the distance between herself and the ogre. She dropped the bow and leapt forward, plunging the arrow—the one she’d failed to nock—straight into the brute’s ribs.
It yelped and brought its arm in just slightly, the club falling and grazing Adelpha’s left shoulder and sending her sprawling to the ground. She was alive, though, and Emily took her hands off the buried arrow and paused. For a moment, she could hardly believe she’d done that. She blinked, both shocked and awed.
The ogre held no such questions. It glared at her with yellow eyes and lashed out with a massive hand, striking her before she could flinch. It hit her with its wounded side, but that seemed to make no difference to its strength. Emily’s vision blurred, and her mind shattered with pain as she was thrown clear across to the other side of the street where her head banged into the wall.
The world went dark for a second, and she tried to focus. She cracked open an eye, but all she could see was a fuzzy, dark world.
Something grabbed her by the arm, though it took her several moments to realize it.
“Got her! Got her!”
A bag went over her head, and she felt herself being dragged.
Chapter 14
Eventually, Emily was lifted up and slung over a massive shoulder. She assumed it was an ogre, judging by the size and lack of fur. By the time her senses came to, her hands and feet were tied, and none of her kicking seemed to matter to the ogre at all. Only a short while later, she heard heavy doors open and close before she was placed in a wooden chair. The restraints on her wrists and ankles were released and retied to the chair’s legs by large fingers. Emily didn’t fight them this time. The strength in each hand alone seemed greater than all of hers.
Then the tying was done, and there was silence again. Emily thought to yell out, but a combination of shock and fear made her hesitant. In the void, she realized she was cold.
“Once again, well done, Mr. Borgan,” came a calculating, male voice.
“Yes, yes,” was the return reply, this voice quicker and pitched high. “Now pay up, Drowin. My ogres do not come cheap, especially when two of them are killed. That’s going to cost you double.”
“Now Mr. Borgan, you knew the risk when you took the job, you stubby little leprechaun.” The reply was the first voice, still cool and calm yet now carefully dipped in poison. “The price we agreed on will cover your loss.”
Emily was completely rigid now. Her hands were balled into fists, and her teeth were clenched tightly. The bag over her head was thin enough to see a flicker of light nearby, just off to her right. Judging by how it danced, she guessed it to be a candle. Also, thanks to that brief conversation, she knew there were two other people in this room besides whatever ogres had brought her here: a leprechaun named Mr. Borgan and another man named Drowin. As to where she was or why she was here, she still had no idea. She resisted the urge to shout out in favor of listening a bit longer.
“This one has some spirit,” Drowin spoke, a hint of admiration in his voice. “It’s like she expected this to happen.”
His voice sounded human, Emily decided, but different somehow. It sounded like the speaker had something in his mouth. Emily swallowed but stayed still.
“How can you tell?” Mr. Borgan asked.
“Her heart is rather calm,” Drowin replied. “I expected her to be terrified at being captured. Most humans are, especially when they cannot see.”
Most humans, Emily repeated. Is that a hint that Drowin isn’t human?
Emily shivered, not from the knowledge but from the cold. It was damn near freezing, wherever she was. She’d never been this cold in her life! Through tiny gaps in the sack over her head, she could glimpse her breath misting in the candlelight.
“Chara?” Emily said, trying to keep her voice calm. “Adelpha?”
There was no reply. A dark shadow came into her view, and the bag was ripped off her head.
“Welcome, amazon,” Drowin said, soothingly. “Welcome.”
Emily had been right about there being a single lit candle nearby, and its dim light flooded her vision, making her blink. When she tried to look past it, her eyes would not adjust to the dark. The candle illuminated only her immediate area, and there was no one standing nearby.
She looked around at what she could see. It took only a second to realize she was in a building—a huge building by the looks of it—because the ground was some kind of stone tile polished to a shine, and the light from the candle didn’t illuminate one wall or even the ceiling. Directly above her, though, there seemed to be a large hole in the roof that revealed the night
sky. That didn’t explain why it was so cold though. She tried to wiggle her hands and feet against the rope. Mist poured out from her lips.
“I hope you find the knots tight enough,” Drowin said, and then stepped into the light.
At first, Emily thought she’d been wrong. Drowin looked human to her eyes, dressed like a wealthy merchant with brown hair groomed back and given as much care as a woman might give. Like a knight, he wore neither beard nor mustache, and his skin looked pale and smooth to the touch, as if he hadn’t seen a drop of sunlight in all his life. His eyes were a piercing blue, and Emily felt like he was staring into her heart. Emily thought the way he carried himself seemed feminine, but she could not deny that he was extremely handsome. Her heart twitched a moment at his beauty, but what she saw next snapped her attention back in place.
Drowin was smiling, and his grin revealed that two of his teeth were actually small fangs that tipped over his pale lips.
“You’re a vampire,” she gasped.
“Ah, so you’ve heard of us,” his smile did not fade. “What a shame. I was hoping to tell you about my kind, personally, but I suppose infamy reaches even Themiscyra. Then again, perhaps I’m the one who’s mistaken. You don’t dress like any amazon I’ve seen. Anyway, I still have the pleasure of telling you my name. First though, I feel I must get to know you personally.”
When Emily did not reply, the vampire stepped forward and placed a hand behind her head. She didn’t resist at first, until his ice-cold hand made contact. She jerked in shock, but he had already wiped his hand against her hair. When he pulled his hand up, Emily could see a smear of her blood on his finger.
He stared at the blood with hungry eyes before licking it clean from his finger. His eyes closed, his expression showing he was clearly savoring the taste, and then he glanced back to Emily.
“Spirit indeed,” he noted. “Youthful, human blood is always best, I feel. As for my name, you may call me Count Drowin.”
Drowin gave a nod, and Emily felt a wave a cold air brush against her as he moved
He’s making the room cold, Emily’s eyes went wide. How is that possible?
The realization took Emily’s breath away, and she gaped at Drowin instead of giving him whatever reply he sought. The vampire gave her a disapproving frown and turned smartly around, looking into the darkness.
“You’re lucky your ogres didn’t use a club on her, Mr. Borgan,” he said. “If they had struck her any harder, or with anything sharper, she might have died.”
“I don’t see the problem,” the leprechaun huffed. “She’s to die anyway.”
Emily jumped in her chair, her limbs snapping against the ropes. The chair rocked in place, making the vampire turn back toward her.
“What?” Emily shouted. “Kill me? Why? What did I do? What do you want?”
Drowin seemed surprised to see Emily had found her voice again, and then he turned apologetic, his arms opening wide as if this were a matter beyond his control.
“What do I want?” he sighed. “Well, nothing from you, really. Nothing at all.”
He gave her a hungry look, belying his words, and then crowned it with a smile. Emily pooled every bit of stubbornness she had and glared at him. If he expected her to break down in tears, then he shouldn’t have picked a poor, plains farmer who’d spent nearly every winter going hungry and who’d hidden one long night from a banshee. She was scared, sure, terrified even, but she wasn’t going to let that lock her up.
“Hm,” he smiled. “Maybe there is one thing I’d like from you, but I’ll have to go without it. You are here because another has asked for you. I can’t explain any more. She wants it to be a surprise.”
“Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to play with your food, Drowin?” the leprechaun asked from the shadows.
The vampire did not laugh, but others did. There were a few chuckles from all around the room, maybe four or five by Emily’s count. She tensed a bit, having forgotten that there might be others hidden in the darkness. The chuckles had been deep and inhuman, probably Mr. Borgan’s surviving ogres. Immediately, Emily remembered Chara and Adelpha.
“Where are the other two amazons?” she demanded. “They had better be alive!”
The vampire raised his hand and brought it open palmed across Emily’s cheek. The slap was loud and it stung—Drowin’s ice-cold skin adding a special sting to the blow. Emily fought down the urge to shout, but what really hurt was the headache from the ogre’s blow that returned to her head.
This vampire is strong, Emily realized as her teeth chattered.
“As much as I love a woman with spirit,” Drowin said, “I will not tolerate empty threats. Besides, your fears are unrealized. Mr. Borgan’s pathetic brood of purple beasts had little interest in the other two. They left one injured and quickly outran the second—with their tails between their legs, I might add.”
The voices that originally laughed now growled, and Emily heard more than one heavy foot take a step forward on the hard, stone floor. On the out edges of the candle’s flickering light, she saw hulking shadows take form holding weapons nearly as big as her.
“That’s enough,” Mr. Borgan called out instantly, his person still hidden. “I’ll not have blood on my newly polished marble.”
Yes, Emily thought, those are definitely ogres. She counted five sets of narrowed, yellow eyes flickering in the candlelight. All of them were fixated on Drowin with bloodthirsty intent, and yet the vampire seemed unafraid. His calm demeanor actually increased when the ogres growled again.
Just then, Emily heard the creak of a heavy door off to her right, and faint moonlight spilled in to show two silhouetted figures entering the room. They closed the door behind them, and the candlelight flickered, almost going out before returning to full strength. Whoever entered was hidden in the darkness to Emily.
“Did the gargoyles give you any trouble?” Mr. Borgan asked.
“No, the password you gave us worked fine,” one of the newly entered replied.
The voice was distinctively human and male, but accented in a manner Emily did not recognize. He was clearly a foreigner, but more interesting than that were his shoes. They made a strange and unfamiliar, wooden clip-clop sound as he walked. Beyond that, Emily now knew that the building she was in was protected by gargoyles.
As if ogres and vampires weren’t enough, Emily thought.
“Who is this?” the other newcomer asked in biting anger.
This one was female and lacked the accent of the male. She also walked silently and did not have whatever wooden shoes her male companion wore. The woman was apparently referring to Emily with her question, and Drowin answered accordingly.
“This is the woman you asked for,” he replied.
There was an uncomfortable pause, one where Emily held her breath for every moment waiting to hear why she’d been brought here. Then the woman shrieked, literally screamed, and Emily flinched at the sound.
“You imbecile!” she yelled. “That’s not her! How could you mess this up? You were to look for the two amazons entering the city and capture the youngest one!”
The woman screamed again, and Emily felt the odd sensation of flushing with relief and worry at the same time. The vampire did not balk, unaffected by the woman’s wild nature, and looked into the shadows to where the leprechaun had last spoken. The woman’s screams stopped, and Emily imagined her darting a sharp glance at Mr. Borgan, who stuttered a bit when the attention focused on him.
“My ogres told me there were three amazons,” he spoke meekly and cleared his throat, “and this one was the youngest.”
Another pause went by before the woman gave an exasperated growl, and Emily heard her slap a hand against the building’s stone wall. Whoever this woman was, Emily thought, she was barely hanging on to the edge of sanity. Not even the cold aura produced by Drowin was enough to quench the flames of her anger. It didn’t take long for Emily to realize that Adelpha was meant to be sitting in this chair. If Emily
had not come along, then it would have only been Adelpha and Chara entering the city.
“She’s not an amazon!” the woman yelled. “Just look at her clothes. She’s clearly a farmer! Your stupid ogres have ruined everything!”
Mr. Borgan didn’t speak right away, but he eventually worked up the courage to defend himself.
“My ogres told me that she had a bow, an amazon bow,” he said. “Also, she attacked one of them. Also, you said there were only going to be two, but there were three. My ogres followed their instructions as best they could.”
A few ogres grunted their agreement. Drowin turned back to where the woman’s voice had come. The attention in the room seemed to be following his view, because the woman shrieked her frustration again, and Emily heard a scratching sound. She realized the woman was dragging her bare fingernails along the wall.
“It’s irrelevant now,” the woman said, regaining a fragment of composure in her voice. “I’ll have to do the deed myself, I suppose. As for you, vampire, if you want a basilisk, you’re going to have to pay for it now. It won’t be cheap either.”
A basilisk, Emily repeated the word. She remembered her mother and Chara comparing a basilisk to a banshee, and that they were native to Themiscyra, but Emily knew nothing else. What was even more puzzling, Emily thought, was what killing Adelpha had to do with capturing a basilisk. As to how the two related to one another, Emily was entirely clueless. Mostly what she was concerned about, though, was how all this was going to affect her.
“That’s Count Drowin,” the vampire corrected her, “and it was your information that was flawed, mortal. I’ll agree to a paid price, but you will discount it for your poor judgment.”
Count Drowin was like a wall of calm to the woman’s fury. She seethed and growled, rivaling an ogre in her unshackled flood of hateful emotions, but Drowin never once lost his composure and only appeared slightly disgruntled.
“What about my losses?” Mr. Borgan peeped up. “I had better be reimbursed. I lost two ogres to capture this girl. It doesn’t matter if she’s the wrong one; I still upheld my end of the bargain.”
