Vampire Princess

Chapter 9

Hours later the car we're in finally slows to a complete stop and the driver’s door opens and then closes with a bang. 

The sky outside had darkened long ago and the stars twinkled high above us in the cloudless sky.  Michael hadn't moved an inch since we made the agreement, simply observing everything. 

Leaves crunch as someone approaches the car and I shift closer to the door, tensing, waiting, to attack. By some unspoken agreement Michael does the same and we prepare to spring. 

The door opens an inch but no more. I watch as a small cylinder is tossed inside before the door slams shut and I hear retreating footsteps. Michael and I look at the object curiously. It looks too small to be dangerous and Michael apparently has the same thought as he reaches to pick it up. 

The last thing I see is the top popping open ing to emit a smoky gas. Then I'm gone. 

I come to in a dark room smelling of mold and the faintest hint of rot. Even to my heightened senses the place is dim and cold. I groan slightly and try to push myself into a more comfortable position but stop as I become aware of the chains binding me. 

"Michael," I whisper yell searching the shadows for him. "You alive?"

"No." The groan startles me and I whip my head around to find him tied up a few feet away from me. 

I just roll my eyes. "Can you move at all?" I ask. He's probably stronger than I am so he might have a better chance of breaking the chains. 

The vague outline of him that I can see in the dim lighting, tugs against the chains causing them to pull but not break. "No good," Michael says after a bit of trying. 

"I didn't think so," I sigh. My eyes scan the room quickly. The place looks like the love child of a jail cell and a medieval dungeon. There's a window above us letting in beams of silvery moonlight but other than that there's no source of light. Bars take up most of the wall in front of us, it looks like a sliding door, solidly built and locked so even if we somehow break our chains we either have to bend the bars and risk alerting anyone who might be around or attempt to break the lock. 

The entire room is made of stone and the floor is covered in grass or some kind of hay that I really don't want to touch because of the suspicious smell of mold and decay wafting from it. This place is definitely ancient but in surprisingly good condition. 

"Any idea where we are?" Michael asks lightly as though we're not kidnapped and locked in a cell. 

"I thought you might know," I answer uneasily. Lovely, we're locked up God knows where, by some random people who may or may not be vampire hunters who want to kill us. 

"Relax," Michael tells me, apparently sensing my tension, "it'll be fine. If hunters had got us we'd be long dead." So he's apparently a mind reader now. 

"Wow," I say sarcastically. "You really know how to comfort somebody." I pause. "Do you have any idea at all where we are?"

"No," he says. "But I think we're about to find out." The sound of echoing footsteps resounds in the silence of the prison as a trio of Amazonian women comes into view. 

The most imposing one, who looks to be in charge, steps forward and slides the barred door open allowing the other two to step in before her. 

They just touch the cuffs of our chains and they fall away under their dark hands. All of them are tall and covered in intricate, swirling tattoos that might be in a language but I don't understand it at all. They wear brown, scratchy looking dresses that end at about knee length with a black weapon belt at their waists.