He marched onward, not even pausing at my plea. "She wouldn't welcome my help."
"But - "
"No!" The word was spoken with a finality that was just shy of chipped into stone. I glared at him and promised myself that the first chance I had, I'd pry the information from him about the kid, and pass it on to Melissande.
"This way." He veered off into a yawning black opening, releasing me in order to throw his weight against a root-bound stone door. It squealed its protest, a nasty stone-grinding-on-stone noise filling the small chamber as the vampire slowly pushed the door closed. I stumbled backward over a large rock, the dim flame of the lighter not doing much along illumination lines.
"Who are you?" As I spoke, a dull, solid rumble shook the room, stopping with a horribly final sound. The vampire turned from the now closed stone door. "Who are you, and where are we, and just exactly why have you kidnapped me?"
The vamp searched until he found an arm-sized piece of wood. It must have been dry, because it flamed pretty quickly when he applied the lighter to it. He held the burning wood high like a torch, his shadow massive as it flickered on the rough-hewn stone walls behind him.
"My name is Adrian Tomas, this is a small room off the tunnel leading from the castle's bolt hole, and I have taken you so that you will unmake a curse created by the demon lord Asmodeus."
"Adrian?" I whispered, my brain reeling. "Adrian the Betrayer? The one who turns his people over to Asmodeus for endless torture and horrible deaths? That Adrian?"
"Yes," the vampire answered, the light from the burning wood glinting on his fangs as he smiled a grim smile. "I am the Betrayer, and you, Charmer, are my prisoner." "You're going to kill me, aren't you?"
"What?" Adrian held the burning root high as he walked the perimeter of the dank hole he had thrust me into. It was approximately the size of my bedroom back home, two of the walls carved out of stone, the other two made of earth supported with aging wooden beams. Judging by the broken barrels heaped in one corner, at one time this room had probably been used as some sort of storeroom. "Why would I want to kill you?"
The root had burned down almost to his hand. Adrian came to a halt in front of me, evidently satisfied that no light could get into the room.
"Why? I'm trapped, caught, ensnared with a rogue vampire who spends his leisure hours tossing his fellow vamps to a demon lord. Why shouldn't I think I'm going to be dinner?"
He tossed the root onto the dirt floor where it sputtered as the last few inches continued to burn. "I told you I wanted you to help me. I don't make a practice of eating people I need."
"Yeah? That would be a whole lot more convincing if you weren't licking your fangs while you said it." The light from the burning root dimmed. I pressed against one of the stone walls and wrapped my arms around myself. I hate the dark. I hate being closed into small places. Ever since that night ten years ago...
An odd sort of martyred expression came over his face, all hard planes and harsh lines in the dying light. "I wasn't licking my fangs. I never lick my fangs. I'm sorry they bother you, but there's nothing I can do about them."
"What," I asked, nervously watching the flame on the root go from blue to yellow to red as it consumed the last bit of fuel, "your fangs are stuck in landing-gear-down mode?"
He sighed. I don't know why, just the thought of a vampire having anything to sigh over struck me as funny. Obviously, the lack of oxygen in the room was making me delirious. "Something like that, yes. Why are you trying to climb the wall?"
"Don't you think you should build a fire before that bit of wood goes out entirely?" Behind me, the damp chill of the rough stone sank through my jacket and settled into my bones.
"A fire?" He looked at the almost dead root, then back to me. "You are afraid of the dark."
"Yeah. So a nice big bonfire would be really good right about now. Er. That root is dying. You should do something about it."
"What is your name?"
"What?" I moved forward cautiously, keeping one eye on him as I crept toward the barely burning root. "Is it some sort of vamp rule that you have to know the name of the person you're about to kill?"
I squatted next to the root and blew on it, trying to keep it burning while I found something else dry to feed it. Kindling, that's what I needed, something small and thin.
"It's not a rule, no, but I find it's always nice to know what to put on the headstone."
I scrambled around in the dirt and found a couple of slivers of wood which I tossed onto the root, blowing on it to keep the flame alive. It was almost completely black in the room, so dark I couldn't see Adrian anymore, but I could feel him. I could feel him and the darkness and the weight of the massive stone castle over our heads pressing down into me. "Nell," I gasped as the root glowed red, then faded. As the light died, panic, true panic, was born within me. "My name is Nell."
"Nell." His voice, as rough as the stone that imprisoned us, rubbed along my skin as if he were touching me. "That is a strangely old-fashioned name for such a modern woman."
I stood up, disoriented by the dark, panicked, my breath coming short because there wasn't enough air. It had been sucked away, and trapped as we were in this tomb of stone and earth, I had no way to get more.
His voice came from another direction, as if he were circling me. "Nell, why are you afraid of the dark?"
I spun around, my eyes blind, trying to see something... anything. "I'm not so afraid of the dark as afraid of who I'm trapped with. Stand still, will you?"
"You are afraid of the dark," he whispered behind me. "Your heart is beating so fast I can almost taste your fear."