Authors: Carl Purcell
Sorceress' Blood
Sorceress' Blood
By Carl Purcell
All
characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to
real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Written by Carl Purcell
Edited by Jim Parsons
Cover Art by Robin Ludwig Designs
Text copyright © 2012 Carl Purcell
All Rights Reserved
Dedicated to Stacey; always one of my biggest supporters.
Chapter 1
The idea of hitting rock bottom in life is a myth. The truth is that,
when you are sure things can’t possibly get any worse, that is
when they inevitably do. Rebecca was having a bad day – the
kind of day where you wish you had never got out of bed. She'd just
come out of a little restaurant where she'd applied for a job and the
interview had gone terribly wrong. For one, she hadn't noticed the
red stain on her top that morning until she passed by a mirror in the
restaurant. Then there was the head chef who had interviewed her. He
greeted her warmly in front of the late morning customers and led her
to a little office adjacent to the kitchen. The moment he'd closed
the door misogyny reared its ugly head.
“Alright, sweetheart...” he began. Rebecca knew right
away how the interview was going to end. He refused to believe a
woman could ever work to the standards of his kitchen; Rebecca got
the feeling that if he, and not the manager, had spoken to her on the
phone, she would not have had the interview at all. The pinnacle of
her abysmal failure was when she handed over her resume to the head
chef and noticed for the first time that only half of it was present.
Her printer had run out of ink half way through printing. This was
the ninth job interview that had been the victim of some blunder or
another in the past two months. Her savings were getting thinner by
the day and there seemed little hope of ever getting a new job. She
didn't know what she'd do if she couldn't find something.
Rebecca truly believed she was at rock bottom as she stood at the
pedestrian crossing, waiting for the green walk sign. She wasn't sure
what the big hold up was. Next to her was a man snuffling loudly and
hacking up one of his lungs into a blue and grey handkerchief. Across
the road was a little girl with her black hair in two braids. Rebecca
thought it was strange that such a small child was out on her own –
not to mention crossing roads. The child was pushing the button
repeatedly, her head down and her eyes on her feet.
Just as the light changed and the three pedestrians moved across, a
car came screeching around the corner and drove straight at them.
Rebecca stopped and took a step back; the gentleman crossing near her
ran right back onto the side walk. Rebecca was about to mutter
something obscene about the driver when she noticed the little girl.
She had rushed onto the street and, at the sight of the car, stopped
dead in her tracks. The red sports car was on a direct collision
course with her little body and could not possibly stop in time.
Everything went quiet, muffled by the sound of her breathing and the
loud beating of her heart. Time slowed for Rebecca. She rushed
forward with all the strength in her body. Without pausing, she
scooped up the little girl and dived out of the car's path. The two
narrowly escaped death and tumbled on the asphalt. Sounds became
clear again, her heart still pounded but she couldn’t hear that
over her own deep gasps for breath; time had returned to its normal
pace. She was lying on the ground, sheltering the little girl who was
shivering in terror.
Son of a bitch!
The thoughts were like a
reflex – the uncontrollable kick from a tap on the knee.
Son
of a bitch!
Rebecca was hardly aware of what had happened. She
had moved with far more power and speed than she ever knew she had.
Now her muscles were tight and she was holding onto a little girl she
didn’t know. Rebecca heard the coughing man take the
handkerchief away from his mouth a second and begin to ask a
question.
"Are you..." His voice was drowned out completely when the
sports car careened to a sudden halt up the road. The door opened and
Rebecca looked up to see a man with no shoes, a shaved head and
covered completely by a heavy, black, buttoned up trench coat.
"Damn it!" He shouted and slammed his fist on the roof of
his car. "Missed by a hair." He came towards Rebecca and
the girl and Rebecca felt a sense of foreboding as she helplessly
watched his threatening, purposeful strides. He had a look of wicked
determination and he was reaching into his coat pocket for something.
“You nearly killed us.” She said but it barely came out.
“You wouldn't have died. Not yet.”
Rebecca didn't need any more warning than that and got to her feet as
quick as she could. She glanced over to the man on the side-walk in
time to see him fleeing the scene. He would not be the knight in
shining armour to come rushing to her rescue today. Rebecca took the
girl's hand and tried to pull her up. The little girl wouldn't,
couldn't move. Her legs were jelly; her body wasn't responding.
Rebecca persisted, trying to pull the girl up with increasing
desperation.
“Come on, you have to get up." She pleaded. The girl
looked back at her with a silent, dazed expression. She was
frightened, confused and stunned: She had no idea why that car had
nearly run her over or why this strange woman was trying to drag her
away. Rebecca looked at the driver coming towards her. He took each
step slowly, savouring every moment of Rebecca's fear. His hand was
no longer in his pocket. Now he was carrying a small blade. His eyes
were fixed on them, bearing his every malicious intent. Rebecca had
no intention of finding out what plans he had, if he ever got in
range with that knife. Rebecca summoned all her strength a second
time and lifted the girl off the ground into her arms. She turned
around and took a step away from the driver. Immediately her left leg
buckled under the weight and they both fell to the ground again.
Rebecca lifted herself up on her hands and saw that her leg was
bleeding. For the first time she became aware that she was hurting.
Her hands felt grazed, her elbows bruised and her leg was cold. Every
painful sensation her adrenaline and her ignorance had kept at bay
now flooded her body.
The driver was upon them now, smiling, knife held at the ready. He
paused, his grin transformed into a frustrated scowl. He looked up
and Rebecca looked with him. A nondescript, shining, navy sedan had
come around the corner and stopped in front of them.
"Do you need a hand?" The driver of the sports car
concealed the knife in his pocket and extended the other hand to
Rebecca. She looked up at him, unmoving and back at the sedan. The
door opened and another man stepped out.
"Get away from them!" he bawled.
The black lines tattooed down the right side of his face slithered
like snakes as his jaw moved. The false politeness the bald man had
used crumbled and gave way to frustration and anger.
"You!" He took the knife from his pocket and raised it
above his head. Rebecca shut her eyes tight and shielded the little
girl with her body. She turned away from him and braced herself for
the end.
The tattooed man drew his own weapon. He fired once and the driver of
the sports car stopped. He hit the ground after the second shot.
Rebecca opened her eyes and looked around. Her eyes locked with those
of the corpse for a second - one second longer than she could stomach
- and then she turned away from it. No one made a sound; even the
girl had stopped her whimpering. The tattooed man picked up the body
and placed it into the boot of his car. He locked it and came back to
the driver’s side door.
"You'd better get in," he said to Rebecca and waited.
Rebecca watched the newcomer. Every fibre of her body was urging her
to run the other way. She looked down the road. No one there. No
where she could hide. The man still held his weapon drawn and, no
matter where Rebecca looked, her eyes always came back to it.
Sometime in the last few minutes, the world had stopped making sense.
Rebecca was only certain of one thing: she didn't want to argue with
the man holding the weapon.
Rebecca stood up and looked at the little girl.
"You'd better get home." She then moved towards the car.
"Her too." Rebecca looked back at the little girl and
extended her arm towards to her.
"Come on," she said. The little girl sat on the ground,
shaking silently with her knees pulled up to her chest. She looked
down at the ground, still terrified. Rebecca went back over to her
and pulled her. "We have to go. Come on." The little girl
looked up at Rebecca slowly but didn't say anything.
"Hurry up!" the tattooed man ordered. Rebecca nodded
fearfully and limped over to the car, the little girl following
behind her like a robot. None of them spoke as much as a syllable as
their driver took them from the scene and eventually out of the city.
"What are your names?" he asked them, looking back at his
passengers in the mirror. He had waited until the city was behind
them before he said anything. The little girl didn't answer; she just
stared down at her feet. Rebecca did her best to look strong and
didn't say a word. He tried again. "My name is Julian. You don't
need to be afraid of me. I rescued you, didn't I?" That was true
but then he'd also kidnapped them. What's more, he'd made it clear he
had no problems with murdering someone in broad day light.
"Where are you taking us?" Rebecca tried to show courage
but her voice was frail.
"I'm taking you to a safe place. When we're there, everything
will become clear." He said it in a matter-of-fact voice that
was neither threatening nor promising. But that still didn't put
Rebecca at ease. She went quiet again and waited, looking out the
window from the back seat as they passed by a field of cattle and
then turned off the highway to another road. A small red package
dropped into Rebecca's lap. She hadn't even noticed the driver throw
it back at her.
“There's a bandage in there,” the driver told her without
taking his eyes off the road. “For your leg,” Rebecca
didn't say anything but unzipped the package, found the bandage and
wrapped it quickly and firmly around her wound. Enough to stop the
bleeding, she hoped.
The car turned off the road onto one that led them up a steep, grassy
hill. They passed a rising field of grape vines before coming upon a
grand and beautiful mansion faced by more windows than Rebecca could
count. It rose three stories with a roof window at its peak. Green
vines climbed its golden walls. The garden flowers grew delicately
with rainbows of colour; dotted around them were Romanesque statues
of beautiful maidens and handsome young heroes. The house and the
grounds were breathtaking and for a moment Rebecca forgot her
situation entirely. The car toured past grassy knolls and flower beds
before coming around a mighty oak tree to the front door. Julian
stopped and a young man came to his door.
"Welcome back, Sir Julian," the spirited youth said. Julian
greeted him and then stepped aside so that the young man could take
the car. Rebecca got out and helped the little girl out the door and
to her side.
"This is the home of our order," Sir Julian explained
proudly. "A stronghold. Here you will be safe, both of you."
Rebecca had regained her sense and with it, her fear. She kept the
little girl close to her side protectively. Of all the strangers
around her, the little girl was the only one who wasn't involved in
trying to kill her or kidnap her. That made the little girl the
closest thing she had to an ally. They followed Sir Julian into the
mansion and through an entrance hall carved in marble, and then
through a corridor under the stairs. This short corridor went by the
biggest dining room Rebecca had ever seen, with three long tables
arranged in a U shape; at the back of the room was a smaller table
with a beautiful red and gold table cloth laid over it. They then
went around a corner; through a glass window they could see a small
garden and fountain inside the house. Julian led them through a door
at the end of the corridor into a long white hall with walls lined by
classical portraits. As they got to the other end, the portraits got
fewer and then framed black and white photographs took their place.
At the very end were a couple of coloured photos.
Julian stopped by a door at the end of the portrait room and asked
them to wait there. Then he went through the door and left them.
"Are you okay?" Rebecca knelt down and tried to comfort the
little girl. She didn't get a response from her. There wasn't even a
change of expression, or an expression at all, for that matter. The
little girl was quiet, emotionless, and robotic. "You must be
pretty traumatised by all this." Rebecca sighed and stood up.
She didn't know the first thing about children and somehow she'd come
to be trapped with one – a very broken child at this point.
Worst of all, they depended solely on one another and were,
surrounded by people with unknown intentions. She wondered why the
girl had been out alone when this began. She wanted to know where the
girl's parents were. When Rebecca had set out for a job interview
that day she had no idea she’d nearly get killed saving a
little girl from a crazy driver and then kidnapped by the very person
who appeared out of nowhere to save them. Had anyone told her that
all this would happen and that she’d end up in a lavishly
decorated mansion instead of being raped and murdered and left in a
ditch off some back road, she’d have thought that person was
crazy. Just as crazy as the situation she found herself in as Sir
Julian opened the door again.