Lady of the night

Chapter 7

Casandra sat on the bed reading Sherlock Holmes, half asleep yet very much awake. Her room was dimly lit and still it was almost to bright for her eyes. She put the book down and rubbed her eyes with a sigh.

“Still can't sleep, huh?” Casandra said to herself and looked towards the door.

She slowly got up and walked out of the room, she had decided to get some water and then give sleeping another try.

A noise from downstairs made her freeze in the middle of the hallway. She was supposed to be alone. The floorboards of the downstairs hallway creaked halfway to the stairs, so did the third step of the stairs as well as a few other steps. Casandra didn't move a muscle. She tried to listen for more noises or footsteps.

Burglar? Someone from the mansion? Nicolai? Thoughts of who it could be raced through her mind as well as scenarios of what she would do if it was one or the other.

The floorboards creaked again with a long slow noise, suggesting that someone was trying to sneak and didn't know the building well enough to know where it creaked and not.

Casandra stopped breathing for a few seconds before turning and slowly and as quietly as possible make her back inside her room.

She closed the door quietly and hurried over to her handbag where she had her phone. As she took it out she heard the third step creaking.

She quickly looked through her list of contacts and growled a little at herself when she passed Nicolai's name.

She held the phone to her ear when another step creaked.

“Pick up, please pick up.” She whispered.

“Casandra?” Nicolai's voice said on the other end after only four signals.

“Sorry call you so late.” Casandra said as she felt her heartrate pick up, she needed her medicine.

“It's alright, is everything ok?” Nicolai asked.

Antoher step creaked followed by a second creak. The intruder was now in the hallway.

“There is someone in here.” Casandra said with a quick breath.

“Who?” Nicolai asked, in the bakground she heard a noise that could have been keys being picked up.

“I don't know but they are sneaking.” Casandra said and gave up finding her medicine in her bags.

“Don't leave the room and try to block it. I'm coming over!” Nicolai said.

“Ok.” Casandra said and looked around the room when she heard a small creak not far from her door. “Please hurry.”

After ending the call, she moved quickly towards a big oak restingchair that stood by the window with a mathing chair and a small oak coffeetable. She pushed and pulled it towards the door and stopped when it was lodged infront of it, making it impossible to turn the handle.

As she took a step back a loud bang on the door made her shriek out in fear.

The chair shook from the impact and the intruder growled from the other side of the door. Casandra put a hand over her heart and tried to calm down. She turned back to her bags and rummaged through the carefully packed contents. Her breathing was unsteady and her heart was racing making her vision blurred. She finally found her medicine and quickly took two pills out and swallowed them. She tried to close the lid, but her hands was shaking badly.

Outside the door another pair of footsteps had joined the first intruder and they were now both trying to open the door by pushing down the handle, which didn't even make it halfway. After a few tries they gave up and the house was once again silent.

She heard the stairs steps creak as the intruders made their way down. Casandra stayed put, to afraid to move as well as waiting for the medicine to take effect.

After almost ten minutes of silence Casandra moved to the door, she pushed the chair from the door enough to open it and get out. The hallway was dark and silent. Her room was at the end of it and to her right was only a window that revealed a clear starfilled nightsky.

She took a deep breath and walked out of the room. She kept close to wall and made it closer to the stairs. She looked down the stairs and slowly made it down the first step.

Casandra listened at every noise and slowly made her way downstairs. She looked down the hallway. The double doors to the sittingroom was wide open and didn't have a strange shadows inside. The family bathroom was closed and there was no light inside. She took a few steps ahead and stopped when she passed the sittingroom. The large foyer was pitchblack. Next to the sittingroom was the enormous diningroom and infront of that was the equally enormous kitchen.

Casandra felt a strange sensation in the back of her neck, it tingled, but not in a good way. Fear was written all over her face. Someone might still be in the house after all. She turned slowly to get a glimpse behind her. All she picked up before screaming and bolting into the kitchen was a pair of yellow glowing eyes, almost two heads higher then herself.

After entering the kitchen she heard a silent thud and suddenly the intruder was infront of her.

He was large and had enough muscles to be a body-builder, his eyes glowed yellow and he didn't blink even once as they stood on opposite sides of the breakfast table. Casandra kept her eyes locked in the intruders. She had never seen him before and still he seemed familiar.

She moved slighlty to her right, the intruder followed her movement. Casandra raced plans through her head as to how to get back into her room fast enough to put the chair back infront of the door.

She made a fake dodge to her right and then bolted to her left and ran out into the hallway. She heard a thud again and saw the intruder somehow land infront of the stairs. Casandra stopped and looked around herself. How did he get there without passing her?

The intruder smiled and revealed strange looking canines. Casandra bolted into the diningroom and the intruder followed. But this time Casandra had him fooled as she slammed the door open into the sittingroom and made a run for it towards the stairs.

The intruder grunted something in a language that sounded Russian. She made it up the stairs in record time and kept running towards her room and thanked the lord she had left it open. She darted in and twirled sharply to slam it shut and got the chair into position faster then she had expected.

The large crashing sound on the door only seconds later made her realise how fast she must have been moving. It wouldn't be possible for someone with her health to make it back that quickly, was it?

“Nice, I had hoped to spare the décor.” A male voice with thick Russian accent said from the other side.

Casandra swallowed and stepped back towards the window. The door suddenly shattered into splinters and the chair landed on the other side of the room.

Casandra screamed and pushed the window open and took a step onto the windowsill when the world suddenly got dark around her.