Prelude (Underworld Lucian Fanfiction)

18 - Chapter XVIII: The Questioning

Paris, France.

6:07 am. Thirty-six hours later...

"Where are they?"

She breathed. "I do not know."

"Where are they?" The lycan-woman drew her arm back. She was standing in front of a gas-lamp, her face a vacant silhouette looming above.

Reinette closed her eyes, preparing for contact. She understood that her interrogator was evil...that this tawny-eyed woman was just beating her. That it did not matter what she said. "I do not...know."

The back of her head struck the floor, causing her to spit blood, the liquid running down her neck. She wished it had gone farther. She wanted to spit in that woman's face. She no longer cared that one of her eyes was caked shut. The room kept drifting in and out of focus. Stars. How could she be seeing stars? She knew they were in a sewer. Paris, city of sewers and concrete and lying on a floor for twenty-four hours after being dragged out of a box, stripped and beaten. They had taken the time-piece...the clothing. Everything. It was a wonder that her teeth were still in.

"From the beginning." The woman was speaking Latin...very badly, she might add, but then she should not complain. It had taken them almost half a day to believe she spoke no French. How many times were they to go through this? How could she have had anything to do with their disappearance? They had nailed her inside a box for bloods' sake. The woman was raising her hand again...her thoughts costing her.

She swallowed, answering quickly. "We were...travelling from Vienna. Lyosha, Raze, Sabine, Kolya, and I." She had no qualms about giving names; she would have sold her own mother at this point. She had sold Kolya already. She had told them everything she knew about him...his past, his murder. "There is a woman in Vienna...a lycan woman named Allegra. She can confirm my..."

The hand slapped her across the face. Spots. She saw spots this time. Please...stop...hitting me, she thought, suddenly disoriented...unable to focus on her assailant. How did they expect her to answer? What was the point? These lycans were sick. Whenever she seemed about to pass out, they fed her...first a goat, then a hen...now a rat. They had pushed it in her face, but she would not drink. Never another rat...

"Start again."

He had promised her...never another...rat.

"We were travelling from Vienna."

He had given her a time-piece.

"Again!" Slap. "The beginning. Use different words."

Different words. She began to laugh. At the start, she had feared for her secret. She had feared they would find out she was a blood-seer... but these lycans were clean...careful around vampires. They kept their blood to themselves. If anyone were to stumble on this place, they would only find her body and the pair of gloves this bitch was beating her with. She knew...when she woke, it would start all over again. The lycans had all day...and all night. "We were t-travelling from..."

Another slap.

"...Vienna." She was on her front now, slipping on the blood. The floor was freezing... She no longer cared if she was naked. That dignity was gone. Stripped. She had been so sure of herself...planning to poison him when the time came...and then the train...that bloody train happened.

Slap!

She blinked, unsure whether to trust the sound. The wet sound of skin hitting against skin. She could no longer tell the difference between numbness and pain. She was lying on her back now. "We...all of us...together...we were travelling..." Her head was starting to weave and dip, like a music box, playing the same bloody music over and over again. They did not care whether she looked the part of an old woman. To these animals, she was a vampire. An enemy. A creature on the other side.