Tales of a Shifter (P5) The White Mountain

Chapter 107 - Their Hatred

Chapter 107 – Their Hatred

Sister Ann was sitting in a dimly lit cell in the basement. The Cell was clean, but sparse holding only a cot and a toilet, and a minimal space blocked into the wall with long thick silver bars.

Brandon experienced a small sense of unease and unexpected surprise when he came to see her fully in the light. The Alchemists was dressed not in white robes like she had been the last time they had spoken. Instead Ann was dressed in a long black dress and simple black stockings, which looked very clean and somehow out of place on the Mana User.

The fresh slimming clothing did something strange in that moment for Brandon. It made him feel uncomfortable with his own initial surge of disgust and dislike that he wanted to unleash on her but seemed suddenly unwarranted. She was an Alchemist, but without her robes that word lost some of the fear it should have ignited in his gut. The Sisters creamy brown skin looked different in the glow of the candles, black hair cropped nearly to her small scalp glimmered in the dancing light to him, Ezekiel, and Walter as they approached, black smoky eyes watched them with cool calculation and curiosity.

But her face was nicked and bruised in some places, a small cut above her left eyes was swollen making her seem too human to him. He sensed and saw something less desperate and raw in her demeanor then the last time they had meet, but....he also sensed how vulnerable she was as she was essentially cornered by three men who were much stronger than her.

A single woman, locked in a cage, at the mercy of the Leopards and himself. A woman....who for all her ferocity and aggression and intensity was in reality much smaller, and prettier then she had appeared in her oversized robes. Shockingly Ann looked undeniably female where before he had just seen another hated Alchemist in his mind. A means to end his and Ezekiel's suffering. At the time he realized that he hadn't seen Ann as anything other than a tool and tolerated her, but he had not wanted anything to do with her beyond that. She had been less then human in his eyes.

How strange life seemed sometimes.

With a silence born of uncertainty Brandon and Ezekiel stood back as Walter snapped the lock in the door, grabbed a rope tied around the cell door, and silently pulled the Cell open. It seemed the rope was used to keep the Shifters from having to touch the Silver. Brandon took a slow breath out as Ezekiel pushed on his back, and they stepped into the Cell as the Sister rose up from her cot and graced them with a cold smirk.

"Well? Hello Boy, you look better then you did the last time we spoke." The Sister lifted her left hand and pointed with it lazily. "So? Have you come to do as you promised back in the Base? I would hope that even one such as you can keep his word..."

Brandon glared at her silently. Her black eyes no longer blazed with retched rage and insane determination. They were flat....and unemotional. Numb. He would have even called them quite sorrowful, if he had the sense to see that in her. Instead he saw her cold welcome as a challenge and he sneered at her.

"No....I'm not here about the promise we made." With a shake of his head Brandon cut an arm across his chest. "Even if I want to kill you? Even if it would be easier on all of us if I did get rid of you? I think...we both know that it's not going to happen like that between us. Mostly because I need to know things about Alchemy, about the Brotherhood....and about myself. Things I think you can to tell me."

Brandon bit his lip hard. "There are things only the Brotherhood or Hovel can tell me and right now you're the only one I can get my hands on." Brandon glanced at Ezekiel then away. "Honestly I want nothing to do with you Ann, but I cant just....I can't kill you either. I wont kill some defenseless woman or be foolish and waste an opportunity either. You will live because your just more useful to me alive. For now anyway. "