Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

She stood. His beauty almost mocked her as she approached. It glided over his features and left not an inch untouched. Then the warm scent of vanilla waft to her nostrils and for a moment she forgot where she was and who she was. Images flashed before her; images of bliss and writhing among sheets.

"Actually," his voice jarred her from her thoughts. "There is one thing you can do for me."

She shuddered to think of what it might be.

"If I allow you to seek out your friends, you must gather together key ingredients for a special potion I want to brew. I can easily obtain these items myself, but prove yourself to me and I might join you in your fight against Krosnos."

She asked, "What things do you want?"

"First, retrieve my book from the ruins of an underground temple located here in Drayton Falls. Then head over to the laboratory over on Main Street. I believe you know it as a hospital or at least it use to be. Find me some vials and syringes. Then leave the rest to me."

A wicked gleam surfaced across his face, darkened the hue of his eyes and for a moment they flickered an odd symbol in his pupils. She admitted herself a bit disappointed. She closed her eyes, paced back to the hearth of the fireplace and rested her had on the mantle. She knew what would cure the ache inside her, but clearly he wasn't going to be the one. A chill crept around her neck like icy fingers. Never had she felt the need this strongly before, but she wanted his hands on her breasts and his…

"Just one more thing," he said and she turned. "If you should happen to run across blood samples while at hospital try and save them for me."

Around her the room lifted as colors rushed in and built a new environment. The smooth straps of her backpack slid over her arms as the shotgun materialized in her hands. She regarded it with a smile and now hand within her grasp the power she had always missed. She searched for Helm, but where he stood was now thick forest landscape.

A thunderclap roared in the darkened heavens as a searing bolt of lightning parted the bleak shadows and revealed nothing hidden in their black coves. She took one uncertain step after the other and frowned. He had been vague on where to find the temple. However, as she pressed on through mud and tall grass her feet seemed to know exactly where to go.

Staring into the abyss, Sheva clutched her sides. She didn't know how long she stood there. It seemed like a haunted daydream. Her eyes fixed on the two stones. They coiled skyward as though a pair of decayed teeth. Locked between them was a panel of buttons. When she pressed them she realized they were bulges of dry muscle that writhed under her fingertips. It would have revolted her but she was beyond that.

Her jaw tightened as segments of earth divided and folded inward. Exposed under a thin screen of dust were a flight of limestone stairs. The thought of descending them pegged her with panic. To say she didn't know where they led would be a lie though also true. The entrance was a disguised oddity that existed from some sort of alien intelligence. What lay in wait below was the same mystery with its predictable turns and bends. Though she saw it for the first time, she found her way to the chamber as though she were a regular visitor to these catacombs.

It lay on a pedestal. Age and dust settled over it. It wore a stamp of neglect. She reached to remove it from its cradle, her fingers trembling.

 

This was what he wanted. If she were to retrieve it for him along with the vials and other interests he declared she would have proven herself worthy. It amused her in a way. He had been the source of her fear. Now she wanted to know him. In his recent form she had envisioned his sleek chest and hard inches. The essence of bliss lay within him. She was sure of it.

She blew particles of earth off the front. Under it foreign silver lettering came into view. They flourished, colored gold beneath her examination and formatted into a language she deciphered automatically.

It pulsed through her. As she hugged the book against her breasts she sighed. Her eyes fluttered shut. Warm unseen fingers reached out from the leather binding and weaved through her hair and stoked the nape of her neck. She wanted to believe it was him reaching out between spheres. However, when her eyes opened she saw it was something or someone else.

She gasped as a set of red violet eyes stared. They had neither a face nor a body. She made the journey to the surface. With the book tight under her arm she fled without taking a second glance.

When she collapsed on her knees, her breath came in short gasps. She shrugged out of her backpack, unzipped a side compartment and shoved the book inside among the many clips and shotgun shell boxes.

It seemed the better half of an eternity before she moved. Forests became few and as she found her way back to Drayton Falls and the remains of a hospital and adjacent clinic, she pushed by maimed wonders that did no more than recede out of her path. She did not stop to question this though searched for a clue in the recess of her mind that had been untouched by need for him. The answer was a guess. Perhaps he was watching, invisible and invincible from whatever realm he and his kind hailed from. Maybe he offered protection to his loyal subjects.

Sheva worked her way through ruin, climbed stairs since the elevators no longer operated, and discovered a cabinet where fresh vial set undisturbed in a holding case. She kept them in the protective box after paying them a glance. In another cabinet were syringes still in their sterile packages. They lay stacked in boxes she scooped up. She squirmed out of her backpack, unzipped a compartment, rearranged a few items and placed her discoveries inside. She decided the weight of the book would crack the delicate vials, therefore exchanged the book into the compartment nearest her back. She then returned her arms through the hoops, collected her shotgun that rest against a wall and backtracked to the first floor.

She continued on the stairs. A sign posted halfway down pointed its arrow left. It promised samples of blood if something else hadn't found them. With that she made haste to the basement. On the landing the same sign pointed its arrow and beneath it read: Laboratory. It was only a moment before she slid into a U shape bend of cubicles with chairs and long stretches of counters. For the most it had escaped major damage.

In a small refrigeration unit set on one of the countertops her search bared fruit as within the cool steam vials of very old blood came into focus. She collected them and carefully placed them in her waist pack. Now what should she do? She waited. Hadn't she been a good doggie and fetched his supplies? Where was he?