The Hunting

Chapter Nine: The Gamble

"Please. You have to do this for me."
Lazarus smelt like rosin, so he must've just been practicing. That usually put him in a good mood.
"I don't have to do anything for you."
Kore bit her cheek. He was right. He didn't owe her, if anything she owed him. But he had to help her. He had to help Una.
"If she dies, who will cook for us?"
"Cooks are replaceable."
"But friends aren't."
Kore looked down. He already knew that she cared about Una, he just wanted to hear her say it. He was always against the friendship she had formed with a human. It wouldn't last. They both knew that, but Kore couldn't believe that Una's life was almost already gone.
They stood in the library, their sacred space. Nobody was allowed to enter this room besides them and no one else had entered it until Kore decided to save The Hunter. It was Kore's idea to build it over the servants' entrance. She still didn't regret it.
"Please. It'll be safe. I'll be here in case it goes wrong and you need my blood to-"
"Oh yes, your magic healing blood. Tell me again why you can't use it to save her." Kore didn't reply. "I know you, Kore. And I know that you know that it won't be enough to save her. She's old. She was already close to death. So close, in fact, that a mere head injury sent her to the brink of it. You're selfish. You always knew she would die but you never planned on letting her. You just didn't realize that until now."
Kore didn't deny it. She could only stare at him and wait for the verdict. For him to tell her that it was time to learn her lesson and watch Una die. Una had a family in the village that she didn't get to see very often. How would they ever find out that she died? Kore wasn't allowed to leave the castle without permission.
"I'll help you. But just this once."
She wanted to thank him, to jump up and down and give him a hug, but he had already turned his attention back to the table of books scrawled out infront of him. He would now ignore the world until he was finished. So she smiled at him and danced from the room to make preparations. She did not notice his eyes follow her out.
Turning somebody was tricky.
There was a long and painful ritual that involved Lazarus' dagger and the sharing of blood. Kore didn't want to be there when he turned Una, every time she witnessed a turning she felt sick. She still had a scar on her shoulder from when he turned her, a reminder of the night she killed her father.
Her room was littered with candles, more proof that Irene was back. Irene had an unhealthy obsession with candles, she used to make them until she was turned. Apparently, candles saved her life.
Kore ran her fingers along the spines of her books. She'd need to distract herself from what was going on downstairs. All of her books were fiction stories. Fiction was more fun than real life. More adventurous, more exciting. Other worlds are easier to cope with than your own.
Things were too quiet, even though she could hear guards moving and talking and there was always the whisper of the flame. She chewed on her lip. Una might not survive the transformation. People often didn't. Una was old, though Kore eventually gave her blood to heal, her chances were slim.
Kore's ankh found her fingers and the pleasant stinging was back. She barely registered.
God, this is too much death for one week.
There was always too much death. She killed people, this month she had to kill even more. It still wasn't working. A pack member, Jerome, died six months before and now Atheia. Kore had to go kill The Hunter soon and Una probably wouldn't survive the day.
Too much death. Is there such a thing? People were meant to die. Apparently, Kore wasn't.
Her pack was in a lower corridor, their rooms all together. Two of the rooms were now empty. She wanted to go talk to them. About Atheia and what was going in in the village. Share a joke with Owen, make fun of the guys with Evelyn, have unnessecary arm wrestling matches with Marcellus and Julius. She didn't move.
Her bed was huge. Much too large for just one person, but it was comfortable. She wanted to sleep. Her body was still heavy and aching from shifting the day before. She wouldn't be able to sleep if she tried, not with Una and Lazarus downstairs with a dagger and blood and....
She shook the thoughts from her head. Una was a fighter. She would make it.
Kore was sick of staring at her books and notebooks and paintings. She didn't feel like any of them but she needed something to do to fill the slow hours that always came when waiting.
She wanted to do something for Una.