It tastes like blood and sex, fills me up, crooning of massacres and orgies. My kind of power. It seems to be shimmering in this area, contained, but what is it from...or whom?
He watches me, is this a test? Am I about to get ambushed and killed? Why do men in my life keep trying to kill me in forests? How unoriginal. “Do you feel it?” he asks, breaking the silence.
“That big old burst of dark power surrounding us? Hard to miss it, Assmos.” I laugh.
“Where is it?” he questions, his eyes narrowed. One of these times he’s going to lose it, I can tell.
I search the area with my eyes but can’t see anything, so I start to walk around it in slow circles, waiting for something. I pass over a spot that sends a shiver up my spine, the hair on my body standing on end. So I stop there. When I lift my hand, I notice the goosebumps raised on my arms and know I must be close.
My fingers seem to shimmer for a moment, so I wiggle them around, watching the play of light, like a bubble is surrounding them, prisms of colours playing across my pale skin. “It’s here.”
“What is?” he barks, growing impatient.
Muttering about how his name matches his personality, I crouch down to where the power seems to be strongest and close my eyes, looking with more than my physical sight like Nos does. If I have some of his powers, I might be able to use it…
I concentrate hard, focusing on the spot below my hand, peeling back the power. Opening my eyes, my jaw drops as I spot the silver door built into the ground like a bunker entrance. It wasn’t there before, so it was cloaked?
“The power is concealing it from us,” I tell him.
“Good, let’s go inside,” Amos orders, and strides over to stand behind me, waiting for me to open it.
In films this is where the girl always dies. I should turn away and run, but honestly I’m not scared. I can handle anything and I’m curious what the head of the council feels like he has to hide out here in the woods with spells. It must be something bad, and bad attracts me.
Fuck those dumb bitches in movies, I’m the villain and nobody is killing me.
Grabbing the handle, I pull it open, and the hiss of air comes out smelling like blood hidden beneath antiseptic. It swings open sideways, banging against the forest floor. Inside, I see stairs leading downwards with silver railings on either side and the lights hospitals use guiding me down.
I have a feeling he’s waiting for me to beg, waiting for me to be afraid. So I do the opposite. With a wink at him, I throw myself down the stairs, rolling to my feet at the bottom. It’s a smooth grey, almost plastic material down here, with a long corridor lit all the way down, leading away before splitting off into a junction.
Not creepy at all.
Amos takes his time coming down the stairs, the dramatic bitch, and when he reaches the bottom, he places his cane on the floor with a loud bang. I only arch my eyebrow and lean against the wall. “What’s this? Your sex dungeon? ‘Cause I gotta tell you, you just don’t do it for me, sorry, but I do like a good sex swing.”
“You are vile,” he spits.
“Aww, thank you,” I retort, touching my hand to my chest before wiping my face clean. “Let’s get on with whatever you have planned.”
With a huff he starts to stalk forward, guiding me down the unnecessarily long hallway. At the end we turn left, and I hear a scream. A very human scream.
A female human scream.
It echoes through the walls, making me shiver from the bone deep terror in that one sound. Amos doesn’t seem surprised and carries on walking, rounding another corner into yet again another long corridor. This one has a door at the end, and as we walk, the grey wall falls away to a glass window into a large room.
A lab.
There are four gurneys in a row along the back white wall with machines waiting next to them. An EKG machine, defibrillators, tubes, and wires decorate the space. Along the back wall are cupboards, which are built into the wall, with more underneath holding microscopes and other equipment that I don’t even know the name for. When I see what’s on the other side