When the tunnel finally came to an end, I emerged in a circular chamber with a high, cavernous ceiling. It was dimly lit by a single lantern burning in a steel bracket in one corner. Directly across the room from me was another doorway… though no door hung from its hinges. I approached and examined it. It looked like the door had been ripped off.
Hm.
I strolled through the doorway to find myself in yet another corridor. I heaved a sigh, looking left and right and wondering which way to turn. I ended up opting for the direction with more lanterns lining the walls. Even after all these years of having escaped The Underworld, I still shied away from the dark. I suspected that my treehouse in The Shade contained almost twice as many floor lamps as those surrounding me.
My footsteps echoed eerily off the walls. I strained to pick up even the slightest sound. Right now, all I could hear was the occasional drip-drop of water.
Could the IBSI really have emptied out this place, too? What would they have done with all the ogres? The royal family? Would they have killed them, after all?
If indeed the hunters had stormed this royal palace already, their first destination ought to have been the dungeons where the humans were kept. Men and women imprisoned for the sole purpose of providing the royal family with their favorite delicacy—the flesh of human babies.
I smiled bitterly to myself. Somehow, I doubted that even the lives of those newborns came close to the top of the IBSI’s list of priorities. The League had witnessed too many times the lack of value they placed on even their fellow humans’ lives.
I continued wandering down this new tunnel for a bit, coming across more doorways on the left and right. I peered inside each of them only to find more dim, empty chambers—some of them pitch black, with no lanterns at all. I used my skill of fire manipulation to emanate firelight into these darkened rooms.
The fact that there were still burning lanterns in this place was interesting to me. If indeed this place was empty, it could not have been deserted long ago. Then again, I didn’t know how long these lanterns were supposed to last. If the wicks were long and burned slowly, I supposed that they could survive for days, maybe even weeks… Meh. I wasn’t a candle expert.
As I’d just about had enough of exploring this floor, I arrived at a narrow stairwell. I immediately ventured down it. I wanted to check out the dungeons to see whether they were empty, too.
I hurried down countless stone stairs until they gave way to a floor, and a small passageway, which contained another wooden door. This door’s handle was stiff, however. Rather than wasting time forcing it open, I took the easier option and assumed a subtle state so that I could pass through it. But I immediately resumed my solid form on arriving on the other side. Even more so than Ben, I never took the ability to possess a physical form for granted, and always chose to remain solid whenever I possibly could. Almost two decades of being a ghost had a way of doing that to you…
I moved through another empty chamber, and then another, and another, until I eventually arrived somewhere a bit more interesting. A lot more interesting. As I passed through perhaps the tenth door since leaving the stairwell, I found myself in a much larger chamber—more like a vast hall. It was filled with row upon row of metal cages, and a disgusting stench lingered in the air. All the cages were empty, and I could not spot any sign of life, but surely this had to be a dungeon where humans had been stored. Perhaps the hunters had evacuated them after all and returned them to Earth.
I moved along the rows of cells, peering through the bars. I soon wished that I hadn’t. The sight within them was sickening. And it certainly explained the smell. I wasn’t sure when they had last been cleaned, but whoever had been in charge of hygiene in this place should have been fired. The floors were littered with excrement and other bodily fluids that I preferred not to wonder about.
It was all I could do to keep myself from gagging, but I continued through the dungeon until I reached the other side, where I came upon another door. Opening it, I arrived in a dungeon almost identical in size and very similar in odor. I roamed around this one for a while before I could take it no longer. I decided to retrace my steps and continue exploring the higher levels of the palace.
But then I heard it.
Soft at first, and then unmistakable.
The crying of an infant…
It sounded like it was coming from behind me, from behind the wall that lined the back of this dungeon. Was there another dungeon there? Truth be told, I had not searched this dungeon as thoroughly as I had the previous one, because the stench was starting to give me a headache. Now, I forced myself to turn on my heel and scan the wall carefully. Indeed, there was another door here. But when I hurried to it and pulled it open, it didn’t lead to another dungeon. It led to a room a fraction of its size… what appeared to be a storage room.
It was filled almost entirely with heaps of tattered blankets. I gazed around for the source of the noise. It was emanating from the back somewhere… I leapt onto the piles and crawled over them. Right at the back of the room, against the wall and lying atop the blankets, was a sleeping young woman—I would speculate in her early twenties—and an infant. A very young one. I would have been surprised if it was older than a week. It was wrapped up in a small worn blanket. The woman had brown hair streaked with the occasional blonde highlight, and her skin was sickly pale, as though the sun hadn’t touched it in months. Her brows—on the thick side—were close to each other in a frown. She wore a torn dress and was half covered by a blanket. One of her arms was outstretched, loosely surrounding the crying baby, while the other rested over her abdomen.
For her to be unable to hear the baby’s crying, I could only think that she was indeed unconscious. As I moved closer still, she was terribly thin. I wondered when she’d last eaten.
“Excuse me.” I spoke up, loud enough, I hoped, to be audible to her through the infant’s crying, but not too loud in case there were still ogres around somewhere.
She didn’t budge. I crept closer and reached for her neck to check for a pulse. It was present, but worryingly weak. I clutched her narrow shoulders and shook her slightly. Still, she didn’t move. I could only assume now that she was indeed unconscious.
After casting a fleeting glance over my shoulder toward the door, I folded the blanket more tightly around the infant and picked it up gently. I couldn’t tell whether it was a girl or a boy. I laid it along one of my arms and held it close to my chest. I had no experience with babies—honestly, little people had never been much of an interest to me—but I had watched mothers nursing their young before, my sister included. I rocked the baby gently in one arm while maintaining a firm hold of it. Then I turned my attention on the woman. She was not heavy as I moved to slide one arm beneath her. I secured her over one shoulder in a fireman’s lift while keeping my free arm around her in support.
The baby was still crying, but more intermittently now. It seemed to be distracted by me as it gazed up at me through sky-blue eyes.
I climbed back over the mound of blankets with the two of them and arrived at the door. Emerging back in the dungeon, I forgot all about the rest of my exploration in this palace and immediately raced to the exit.
Derek
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect on Lucas’s return—assuming that he would return—but I certainly didn’t expect him to emerge from the tunnel carrying a newborn baby and a young human woman slung over one shoulder. He appeared quite out of breath as he hurried to lay them both down on a patch of soft grass.
“What in the world?” Sofia gasped as we hurried toward them. She immediately lowered to the baby and scooped it up in her arms, while the rest of us all hovered over Lucas and the woman.
“What happ—” I couldn’t even finish my question before Lucas’s gaze shot up toward Corrine and Ibrahim.
“You need to fix her,” he informed them. “I don’t know what happened to her exactly—I found her in a storage room within one of the dungeons—but s
he’s unconscious and malnourished.”
Corrine and Ibrahim knelt beside the young woman. The witch placed a palm over the human’s forehead and began to mutter an incantation beneath their breath.
Lucas remained kneeling a couple of feet away watching the witch work.
“What else did you find in there?” I asked my brother.
“Nothing,” he replied, tearing his eyes away from the woman for just a moment to glance up at me. “I found nothing and nobody at all except for this woman and her child. It seems that the ogres abandoned the palace…” He paused. “That said, I didn’t explore the whole place. There could be other pockets in this palace where humans are still living, maybe even some ogres. You should go back and finish the search.”
Lucas had apparently already decided that he was going to stay here with the woman and the witches to wait and watch until she was healed. A group of others opted to stay behind, too, including Ashley, Claudia and River.
I turned to the rest of the League. “We should do as my brother suggests,” I said, before addressing the dragons. “Will you come with us?”
Jeriad nodded. All the dragons went around the side of the castle to shift and change into a spare set of clothes they had brought with them before returning to us.
“I’m going to stay here too, Derek,” Sofia said, glancing down at the baby in her arms.
I nodded. Casting one last glance at the unconscious woman, I led the rest of our group into the dark tunnel entrance of the castle.
Lucas
Gradually, thanks to Ibrahim and Corrine’s expertise, the young woman began to show signs of coming to. Her frown smoothed and her eyelids flickered slightly. Then her pattern of breathing changed; previously slow and steady, it became more fast-paced and erratic until her eyes finally shot open, revealing not a sparkling blue color like her child’s, but a hazel brown. She looked quite different with her eyes open. Large and rimmed with thick lashes, they brought the rest of her features to life—her oval face framed by full, natural brows, her symmetrical cheekbones, a small, pert nose, and heart-shaped lips. She looked younger somehow. Too young to have been through this kind of trauma.
She appeared to be in a daze at first, her eyes unfocused. Then she sat bolt upright, panic lighting up her face. Her lips parted and when she spoke, it was in fluid French.
She gazed at the two people nearest her, Corrine and Ibrahim, and then to Sofia, who was standing with her child. She appeared to be quite oblivious to everybody else after spotting her baby—she struggled to rise to her feet, but she was too weak and immediately sank down.
Sofia lowered and handed the baby to her. The woman clutched it to her chest and, covering her neckline with the baby’s blankets, began to breastfeed the child.
“Vous êtes française!” The familiar voice of Claudia spoke behind me. I knew just about enough French to figure out that Claudia was asking if the woman was French. The short blonde vampire jostled to the front of the group to get a better look at the woman.
“Oui!” the woman exclaimed. Her shock at finding herself surrounded by a group of strangers gave way to a look of relief to see somebody who spoke her language. Claudia knelt beside her and held her hand before continuing to speak in French—I quickly lost track of what they were saying.
Claudia looked up at us and explained, “She is from Nantes, France. A single mother, she had been visiting family in Quebec when the ogres captured her. She was pregnant and gave birth just, like, a week ago—she says she can’t remember exactly.”
“How did she end up in that storage room?” I asked, and as I spoke, the woman’s eyes met mine for the first time. She looked like she was bursting with just as many questions as we were.
“Apparently, the ogres called for a hurried evacuation,” Claudia replied. “She didn’t understand why, but they began taking the humans from the cells and herding them out of the dungeons. She said that it was all very disorganized and confusing, but amidst the chaos she managed to slip into the storage room where she remained hiding.”
Claudia turned back to the woman and asked what her name was—one of the few complete basic French phrases I understood.
“Marion,” the woman replied, her eyes darting to each of us. She still appeared unnerved by us strangers. “Marion Dupont.”
Marion.
“Does Marion speak any English at all?” I wondered.
Claudia was about to translate when Marion addressed me directly. “I u-understand little,” she stammered. “But speaking is… uh… not good.”
I nodded. “I see.”
Then she turned to Claudia again and asked her a question. Claudia’s eyes shifted to me and she jerked a finger in my direction.
“What?” I asked her.
“Marion asked who saved her,” Claudia replied with a small smile.
As my eyes returned to Marion, she was looking at me again. But this time, her expression was quite different. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes. She eyed me with such heartfelt gratitude that it almost knocked the breath out of me. She reached up a frail hand, I supposed for me to take. I returned the gesture, extending my right hand to her. She grasped it and immediately pulled me downward. Then as she came within reach of my shirt, without warning, she gripped it and pulled me closer. The next thing I knew, her full lips were pressing passionately against the sides of my face, first one then the other.
I wished that I could control the heat rising to my cheeks.
“Thank you,” Marion breathed. “You save me and my girl.”
I glanced down at the baby, finally pacified against her mother’s breast. So it was a girl. Somehow, she had looked a little too pretty to be a boy.
“Now,” Corrine interrupted before I could respond to Marion—not that there really was anything for me to respond with other than a lame, “You’re welcome.” “We ought to take Marion back to The Shade,” Corrine went on. “She’s not going to last much longer without some proper nourishment, and the baby could also use some medical attention.”
Marion was still gazing up at me through her large, pretty hazel eyes, even as Claudia began to speak to her in French. I guessed the vampire was now explaining to her what they planned to do next. Then Corrine lowered to Marion and reached an arm around her waist. She helped her stand.
“Claudia, why don’t you come back with us?” Corrine suggested. “It will be useful to have a translator.”
Claudia was more than happy to oblige. I supposed it was a treat for her to find somebody she could speak her mother tongue with.
Marion’s eye contact finally broke from me, as the three women along with the baby vanished from the spot.
The rest of us stood gazing at the patch of grass where they had disappeared for a few seconds. Then Sofia cleared her throat and faced me. She planted a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it. “That was good of you, Lucas,” she remarked.
I grimaced at my sister-in-law. “What?”
“Well, you know, saving her and all…”
I shrugged her off. “It’s what anyone with a heartbeat would’ve done.”
“I know,” Sofia replied. A smile curved her lips. “I suppose it’s just nice to be reminded every so often that you still have one.”
I rolled my eyes as amusement flashed in Sofia’s emerald-green irises. Amusement about what, I wasn’t sure… until Ashley nudged me in the shoulder and informed me with an even broader grin, “Lucas, you’re still blushing, you know.”
Mortified, I swiveled to turn my back on her. I was suddenly glad that Jeramiah had stayed back home on this particular mission.
“Shut it, Ashley,” I grunted.
Derek
We wound deeper and deeper into the ogres’ royal palace. A palace seemed like an odd description for it, though. It struck me as more of a network of dungeons connected by long, dim tunnels.
We headed down a stairwell and, on arriving at the bottom, we discovered filthy halls where humans must’ve been kept. On
e of these was where Lucas had found the mother and child.
We searched all the cells in the prisons, as well as any adjoining rooms or storage cupboards. But we found no more humans.
We headed back up to the higher floors and began trying to move through the palace systematically. This was quite a feat, considering that it was so huge and none of us knew where the heck we were going. When Rose had been held captive in this place, she’d only witnessed a small section of the palace, and most of the chambers and corridors we passed were just as new to her as they were to the rest of us.
As we climbed higher up the palace levels, however, we finally heard something of interest. The sound of… snoring. It was emanating from one of the rooms at the end of the corridor we were standing in. We hurried forward. Jeriad and Ridan reached the door first. The two dragons kicked it down. We moved inside to discover a rather beautiful apartment. This must’ve belonged to one of the royals… But the ogre who lay in the master bedroom, splayed out in the center of a large queen-sized bed, certainly looked anything but royal.
It was a male ogre, lying flat on his back, his jaw hanging open as he snored like there was no tomorrow. Even the noise of the dragons bursting through the door hadn’t been enough to wake him up. Only when they gripped him and began to shake violently did he splutter and wake up.
His dazed eyes gazed at each of us in alarm before he let out a bellow and attempted to charge for the door. Aisha stalled him mid run, and his limbs froze.
I moved in front of him, and glared up at him. “Identify yourself,” I demanded.
Panic shone in his eyes. “Rander Bunkdell is my name,” he stuttered, unleashing a breeze of his rancid breath. Coughing, I took a step back. “Guard to the gates of the palace,” Rander added.