Chapter Eleven

Daryl finally faces Lord Drayton and ends up in a worse situation than he originally imagined. Can he transform Draytons evil intentions of Daryl?

What a beautiful day. The sun was shining high in the sky, the summer breeze drifted through our hair as we held each other tightly under an old oak tree. The birds were singing a melody meant for us and we danced lovingly still not letting go. We went for a run across the vast green field hand in hand. Felix’s long black and red hair bouncing with each step, his blue eyes glancing at mine and occasionally looking where we were going.

Then the clouds rolled in, rain began to pour, lighting began to flash and thunder began to crash. We stopped running and enjoyed passionately kissing in the rain. Suddenly I felt a sharp pain on my left cheek and was flung away from Felix. It was like I was being pulled by an invisible force. I landed hard on the ground and Felix was running after me. The same invisible force that had pulled me away from Felix was shaking me. My whole body was shaking uncontrollably. I could see the world around me crumbling and evaporating in the air, the tree crumbled into nothing, blades of grass would fly into the air before breaking into tiny pieces and disappearing. That’s when the force gave me one last pull and flung me into the air and back to the ground.

 

The sense of falling along with the sharp pain of being slapped awakened me suddenly. I opened my eyes quickly and sprung myself up, screaming and nearly knocking Tamsin out.  My breath was heavy with shock and Tamsin looked at me in relief.

‘What happened?’ I asked curiously, looking around at my surroundings.

‘The fall made you become unconscious. I had to wake you’. I never really understood why her words were always so soft. She made everything sound like a children’s story.

‘I wouldn’t worry. Arc used to say that it happened to people who weren’t expecting it’ Her words warmed me as usual as I stood up.

‘Come on, we need to find Drayton’ She stood up and we walked along the red sand towards an old wooden look-out post about a mile away.

The beach which we were washed up on was bright red with tiny rivers of water diluted with grey clay flowing down towards the deep black lake like blood vessels through a body. The sand was littered in the bones of humans and the ashes of vampires. In the middle of the lake stood a colossal castle reaching up to the roof of the cavern of which we are in. There was no sunlight, no moonlight, no stars; just the rocky ceiling lit by the firelights in the high castle windows, surrounded by black crows circling the highest tower.

 

I tried my best to carry on walking and not to think of what might happen to Tamsin and I once we got in. In fairness my mind was completely focused on Felix. That dream I had just had felt too real, almost like he was controlling it.

‘Tamsin? The bond between vampires, can you explain?’

‘The bond is between the bitten and the biter. The biter becomes the bitten’s other half so to speak . You feel each other’s emotions, pain and so forth’. I could tell that she was trying to not to go into detail, she was hiding something from me. Something that I need to know but don’t.

‘So, how come I didn’t feel any pain when Felix died? If he is the biter and I am the bitten surely I would’ve felt his pain’. She stopped and turned around to face me. Her eyes widened but shook as she grew ever closer. She was lying, but why?

‘Shadow creatures don’t kill painfully, that’s what makes them so dangerous. That’s why Drayton would use them, they are quick and also no one would know their other half was dead and or dying’. Her voice was starting to sound angry. She wanted me to believe that Felix was dead, but I refuse. That dream felt so real.

We continued walking to the look-out tower in silence, I didn’t want to anger her anymore. She would turn around occasionally to make sure that I was still here and then swiftly turn back when I made eye contact.

 

We reached the old wooden tower and began to climb the rickety ladder to the top. Running next to the ladder was a rusty chain that looked like it hadn’t been used for years. The floor creaked as we placed our bags down and walked around. I stared out of the window into one of the lower windows on the castle, hoping that Felix might be in there somewhere just waiting for me.

‘Daryl’ called Tamsin from the back of the room.

‘DARYL’ I turned around quickly to see her holding the end of a rusty lever.

‘Can you stop daydreaming and help me pull this’. I walked over casually, placed my hands on the lever’s rusty handle and began to pull towards me. Chains and gears grinded against each other as we pulled and the sound of metal components rang throughout the large cavern as, from beneath the water, a long bridge spanning from the look-out tower to the doors of the castle, rose up and locked into place, opening a small wooden door next to the window of the room.

The bridge was, like everything else, old. What looked like giant sabre tooth tiger teeth were strategically placed along each side of the bridge and the old cobble walkway was covered in green slime from the bottom of the lake.

 

We picked up our bags and slowly walked along the bridge. The birds circling the top of the tower were starting to screech and dived right for us, swooping at the last second to go in for another dive. Tamsin and I ran across the bridge to avoid the birds attacking us. They kept diving and hitting us with their wings, pecking us with their beaks and flew back up into the air. We ran and ran until the door to the castle was twenty metres away when it opened and tall man with silver hair stood in the open doorway. We stopped dead in our tracks and stared at the man who’s hair was swaying lightly in the little wind, his eyes were big and red, his fangs protruding from his mouth. He looked the spitting image of Arcturus. This was Lord Drayton. Above the door was the four symbols of the four orders with everyone scribbled out but the dragon of supremacy.

‘Bow to me’. He said in a stern voice that was impossible to refuse. Both Tamsin and I bowed to him as he walked closer to me. Upon lifting my head back up Drayton was standing right in front of me, practically nose to nose. He grabbed my arm in a tight clasp and walked me inside.

‘TAKE HER AWAY!’ He screamed into thin air. From beneath Tamsin’s feet more shadow creatures appeared, surrounding her in darkness before residing back into the ground taking her with them.

I wanted to struggle as he directed me through the narrow corridors. The touch of his hand, of pure evil against my arm burnt through my coat. As we walked people on either side of the corridor bowed at their master except a select few that bowed towards me and an even select more few not bowing at all. Drayton ignored them but I could see the thoughts in his head, the thoughts that he was going to kill them later for not respecting him. maybe that is what he was thinking, or maybe it was my evil side showing, either way. It will happen sooner or later. We walked up to a pair of huge blood red double doors that opened themselves as Drayton approached. As we walked past I noticed that the doors didn’t open by themselves but where pulled open by humans, or vampires in human state, chained to the doors. Their bodies were thin and their eyes were lifeless. I tried to pass a small smile towards them, to give them hope of freedom. The one closest to me let out a little smile back, but again it was lifeless.

 

He dropped me in a large room with a black marble floor and a tattered red carpet leading up some steps to a small stage where his throne was situated. Cages with skeletons hung between the black marble columns, swaying freely, squeaking every time they passed a certain point. Drayton walked up to his throne, his coat swishing behind him and his hair casually swaying to and fro. He sat powerfully on his throne looking down at me as I stood myself up and began to walk to him.

I got halfway before, out of nowhere, shadow creatures appeared and clung to my arms, legs and body. I couldn’t move, I struggled to free myself. I knew what I had to do to free myself, but I needed to be on Drayton’s good side before I do anything to threaten him.

‘You must be Daryl. I’ve heard so much about you’ His voice croaked an a little smile appeared in the corner of his mouth.

‘I must say, you have impressed me so far however. There’s one more test to pass’ he stood up, I thought “This is the part where he kills me”. He looked down at me and continued with two words.

‘Free yourself’. Before he had chance to say anything else I quickly transformed into a vampire, then black smoke and moved incredibly fast, breaking free of the shadow creatures, pulling out one of my silver guns from my coat and stopped dead in front of Drayton. Holding the gun, loaded with a silver bullet to his face. My heart was pounding and I could feel my eyes glaring at him as he glared back.

‘You remind me of a younger me, just with human weapons’. He emphasised the human in that sentence. He turned his back and walked back towards his throne before sitting down and glaring at the silver gun that was still aiming at him.

‘Finish him’ He ordered. Without thinking I jumped into the air and into a torch lit area away from the shadow creatures. I could see them coming in from every dark spot, weaving their way through the darkness to get me. I had to fight them off. I could see Drayton on his throne smiling. “Why didn’t I shoot?” I thought to myself. I didn’t have time to think. I jumped again bouncing off of the columns shooting at the creatures that were coming in from all directions. I remember my aim being terrible when I first started using a gun, but this time the adrenaline was pumping through my body like a tidal wave. My bullets kept hitting them and they disappeared into ashes on the floor. More creatures appeared on the ceiling where I was jumping between columns and I shot at them too. Pulling out my second gun I jumped onto the huge chandelier in the middle of the ceiling. I shot at the holdings of the other two chandeliers making them crash to the floor in an explosion of light turning a large majority into dust. I jumped back down, still shooting at the creatures. This felt awesome, it felt like I was in a movie like the Matrix or something. I walked towards Drayton’s throne in a straight line, in the light, still shooting at the last remaining creatures. I was five metres away when I ran out of ammo in my guns, the last creature was waiting for me to enter the dark patch between me and Drayton. I swiftly pulled out one of six silver stakes and jabbed it hard into the creatures body and ending on one knee looking down at the floor.

Silence fell over the hall until Drayton stood up and started clapping sarcastically.

‘My my, you are living up to expectation. Would be a shame to kill you so soon’. He kept that little smirk in the corner of his mouth as he spoke.

‘Why do you want me?’ I asked, I didn’t know if I wanted to know.

‘To break the prophecy. I can’t have you taking away all of my power. The Four Orders wouldn’t want you taking all of the power. Well what’s left of them, just me then’.

‘You, you killed Arcturus because he wanted freedom’ I was beginning to get angry.

‘FREEDOM IS A MYTH! We were never free. When humans first found out we existed they quaked in fear, bowed at our feet. Bowed at the supremacy of the vampires. Until my brother came along and wanted freedom, the chance for humans to be equal like us. Of course they killed us knowing our weakness. You wouldn’t understand, the war between vampires and humans has raged for millennia’ His words were spoken in a proud sense. He was proud of his work. However I couldn’t help but notice that something wasn’t quite right with his story. There was more to it but I didn’t want to anger him no more.

‘TAKE HIM DOWN TO THE GLASS BOX. And don’t even think about escaping, these creatures are hunters, not the simple workers you killed’ His words of disgust echoed through my body. Have I just killed innocent creatures? Well to be honest it didn’t matter to me, it felt good. And I could tell I was impressing Drayton.

The creatures dragged me out by my arms backwards. They were a lot taller than the others and my feet was scraping along the floor. I still hadn’t changed back to a human and the humans on the door back away in fear. The creatures dragged me further and deeper into the castle. The deeper we went the darker it became until we entered a room, lit by torches on every wall. In the middle stood a large glass box with one side open.

I was thrown inside by the creatures who quickly lifted up another sheet of glass and placed it over the open side, sealing it perfectly.

 

There was nothing else in here. Just me and my thoughts in an empty glass box with tiny air-holes that I would never get through, even as black smoke. The torches went out and darkness fell over me, the box and the rest of my life.

Reviews

[Vanessa Rico]

As for your inbox note, I cant believe you think this is boring...just the last chapter my beloved Felix died!! So sad and tragic! You have some great action scenes that I wish I could write! So no this is definitely NOT boring! You always capture my attention and grip me until the end...where you leave me hanging!!!! LOL still loving the story! I cant wait for more!

Wow, great chapter. You just have to leave me in suspense don't you. Cant wait for more!