Page 15

Ruby

Something is wrong.

When I wake up, I can see only darkness and quickly realize my hands are tied. There is a hood over my head, something thick. The air is stuffy and smells musty.

Don’t think about that.

Whoever had taken me had thrown me in a car and driven off with me. I tried to pay attention to the road, keep track of time but it was impossible. I only know we drove for a long time. We stopped and I could hear talking outside but nobody talked to me.

Finally, the boot was opened.

“Come on!” Someone yelled at me but my legs were cramping from lying in the boot so long. I couldn’t move. I felt a punch in my side and doubled over with pain.

There was a burst of laughter.

“At least she’s still alive.”

They picked me up and hauled me somewhere dark and cold and threw me on the floor. I don’t know how long I was down there for. I must have fallen asleep. There were dreams, horrible nightmares in which men screamed at me, beat me and left me for dead. I couldn’t be entirely sure that they were dreams. I didn’t know when I’d eaten last. I was so thirsty. So thirsty. I thought of water, of apple juice, of a cold beer on my patio at the end of the day. I thought of ice cream, cool and creamy, melting in my mouth.

I think I cried.

Then I heard footsteps, I was picked up and put in a chair, my hood pulled off.

For the first time, I could see where I was. It was a chamber of some sort, basic, like in a basement. The air smelled of wet of soil and the floor was rough stone. A figure came towards me, small and thin, with gleaming wet eyes. He was repulsive.

He stood in front of me, licking his lips like he was looking forward to what he was about to do.

I closed my eyes and braced myself.

“Look at me!” he commanded. When I didn’t open my eyes quickly enough, he slapped me across the face. It stung and I could feel my cheek burning.

“When I talk to you, you look at me, you hear?”

I nodded and looked at him.

“You’re going to tell us everything about the vampire scum you’ve been fucking,” he said to me.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

The violence seemed to come out of nowhere. My head was yanked back by my hair as one punch after another connected with my body. The pain was overwhelming, I tried to distance myself from it but it was impossible. I buckled over and fell from the chair, there was a kick to my back which was excruciating. I heard screams in the room and realized they were mine.

“Had enough yet?” the small man with the rat eyes appeared in front of me. I could barely see him, blood was running into my eyes. I couldn’t wipe my face because of my tied arms. I was crying, ugly sobs, begging them to stop hurting me.

He motioned to another man to put me back into the chair. This must have been the one assaulting me. He was huge and silent but there was an aggressive air around him.

I huddled into the chair feeling my body ache and burn. There was a sharp pain in my ribs and it hurt to breathe.

“Ready to talk yet? The vampire, tell us everything about him.”

There was a blow to my head and I fell over in my chair.

Mercifully, everything went dark.

I didn’t wake up for quite a while. When I did, there was pain all around me. My thoughts were messy, confused. All I knew, was that I was in danger. I was going to die here. I needed to give them what they wanted. Luc could take care of himself. I didn’t want to betray him but I couldn’t die here.

I couldn’t do that to my mother.

Who would look after her?

She was waiting for me to call, to come to her, I couldn’t let her down.

I thought of my father, how he had begged me not to turn on the shifters and that is what I’d done.

My mouth was so dry. I probed around my mouth and tasted only blood. I longed for water, cool, sweet water.

My father had told me of the many kinds of shape shifters. The dogs and the wolves were the best, he said. Worst were the reptiles, who had no emotions, couldn’t feel anything. Some were seers, taking the shape of birds, able to fly the entire sky of our world in a day and see whatever needed to be seen. There were rodents and insects, it was incredible how many different forms some shifters could take. The changelings were rare but powerful, able to keep their human intelligence while taking on animal form. If all the shape shifters in the world united, they would be more powerful than any vampire army, my father had said. Then he laughed as if to say, as if they could ever agree on anything.

But maybe that had happened.

Perhaps our clan from Buzzard Creek had joined with the lot from Sunside Swamp. I’d heard of the compound there, the weird workings of the leader they called Sunny the Snake. Even Tomás had been careful not to offend him.

I lost consciousness and woke up again later.

I was still alone.

There was a bottle of water but I couldn’t open it. I tried to move my body but it caused me such pain, I could barely move. I tried turning myself around to reach for the water but I couldn’t grasp it. I started crying with frustration and desperation.

I didn’t want to die here.

Eventually the door opened and Rat Man came in. He stood in front of me, looking at me.

“You want the water? All you have to do is ask.”

He picked the bottle up, opened it and held it to my mouth.

The water splashed into my face and I gulped it eagerly.

“There you go,” he said, in a friendly voice I didn’t trust for a minute.

“It doesn’t have to be this hard,” he said.

He put me back on the chair and stood back.

“Are you ready to talk?”

I nodded.

“Wonderful!” He smiled broadly, revealing small teeth, pointy and yellow.

I swallowed hard.

He fetched a chair and sat down opposite me.

“Tell me about the vampire.”

I nodded again, “Luc.”

My voice was thick. I struggled to speak as my mouth hurt, my lips were swollen and painful.

“His full name,” Rat Man demanded to know.

“Don’t know,” I shook my head and he came forward threateningly.

“You fucked him without knowing his full name? What kind of a slut are you?”

“Don’t know his full name,” I repeated. “He wanted to talk to Tomás about a dead friend.”

“His dead friend? Who?”

I thought long and hard, but I couldn’t recall his name. Had Luc mentioned the name to me? I couldn’t recall. Rat Man didn’t believe me. I got another slap for that. I didn’t lift my head back up again after that. I felt that maybe death would not be so bad.

Rat Man went away. I heard the door close and I didn’t care.

I thought of my mother, of growing up with my parents in the small house behind the shop. It wasn’t all bad, my childhood, there were moments where we laughed and had fun, before my mom got sick.

Suddenly I remembered one time when I was about eight years old. I’d gone playing in the forest with my friend Charlie. We explored some caves and lost track of time, not realizing that our parents were fraught with worry when it became dark and we weren’t back yet but the real issue was that our parents couldn’t find us, the best trackers were not able to find our scent. When we emerged and made our way home, our families were frantic and then overjoyed at our return. When I told them where we were, the adults fell silent, exchanging strange looks. Charlie was taken home and my parents put me in the bath but I heard them talking in their room.

I snuck out to listen at the door and I heard my father telling my mother that we must have gotten into the tunnels. She asked, what tunnels and he became evasive. She pressured him to tell her and he said he wasn’t allowed to talk about it. None of them were. It turned out all the members of his biking clan had been working on the tunnels. It was a vast connected underground network and nobody knew how long it extended for but work on the tunnels had been going on for years. When someone was down there, their scent was buried and their energy was blocked.

I knew then, with certainty, that this was where I was.

I was in the tunnels.