Hellfire

Chapter Sixty

I didn't know how long I'd stayed like that, time wasn't a concept easily followed in dreamscapes, but I didn't stop hiding in the shadows, eyes closed and breath even, until I felt cold brushing me. It was a male, comforting scent that soothed away my anger and the knotted need to fight, and heard a gentle knock on the trapdoor.

It was like a switch had been flicked, the fear melting into safety. My eyes flew open, not to my dreamscape, but to consciousness. I found myself in an unfamiliar room, my body naked and buried in comforting blankets and bats. This wasn't home, though. The bed was old, the springs digging into me, and I smelt a distinct dusty tinge to the air, as if the place wasn't cleaned enough.

My body slowly began to feel, and I found a vampiress I didn't know roughly probing my arm. I wrenched myself free, disturbing the bats coating me, and gazed at her hard.

'Who are you?' I hissed out fiercely.

I didn't know where I was, just in some musty, dark and terribly put together room, and it was making me panic. Fire was rising up, the bats beginning to hiss with aggression and a warning rumble thick in my chest, until Stan was stepping forward and wringing his hands.

'It's okay. Just calm.' He said slowly, as if trying to soothe a terrified wolf about the tear his throat open. 'This here,' He gestured to the very thin and very pale vampiress; bags heavy beneath her eyes and her skin mottled in that way that told me she likely drank drugged blood on the regular. 'Is Grace. She's just healing you, like the Lord ordered.' He nudged her lightly. 'Say hello to her.' He whispered hoarsely.

'Hello.' Grace replied, her voice worryingly dream-like that told me she probably wasn't sober. The dreamy smile that smeared over her face just amplified it.

I focused on Stan instead. 'Is Lucius here?'

He nodded warily and instantly planted himself frantically in front of the chair bundled with my ruined clothes when I fixed on them. 'He said to keep you safe. That means you have to stay put.'

'I'm not staying put, Stan!' I snarled.

I had no patience for him. None. Lucius was home. I could feel it through his bats. His presence was stronger, a brush of cold and whisper of his mouth over the curve of my shoulder. I had to get to him. He needed me when that monster was on the hunt.

But Grace had snatched at my arm, a light smile on her face. 'The Lord said to hide you.'

'He was very firm about it.' Stan agreed and smiled weakly. 'I don't want to test him. He's not in a good mood.'

I was fuming, a guttural hiss erupting viciously from my thickened teeth that Stan took a wide step away from me.

'Give me my clothes.' I snarled. 'And get out.'

He didn't seem to know how to handle me. He looked to Grace for support, but she was in her own little world now, smiling to herself and not paying attention to anything. So Stan, placed his hands on his hips and tried to draw himself up as defiantly as the weasel could.

'No.' He said weakly.

'Stanley.'

He shook his head and stubbornly kept his ground. It made my blood spark with impatience. I had to be out there. Lucius needed me. My city needed me.

Then the bats descended. A cloud rushed beyond the walls, rattling the grimy windows and filling the air with a twittering squall. Ice began to creep, sliding over the peeling walls, frosting over the scratchy bedsheets and coating my hair. The bats on me drew tighter, the breath of Lucius' presence heavy in them, blanketing me and making my skin shiver.