*Ainslee*
Every hair on my body stands on end, a sheen of sweat forming on my otherwise freezing skin. My head swivels in the direction the voice has come from, but I can’t see anything at all, only darkness.
Did I imagine it? Perhaps my fear of being caught by one of the vampires is messing with my mind.
No, I definitely hadn’t imagined the voice that had greeted me as I’d slid into this confined space. “Who’s there?” I whisper into the void my mind has me convinced must be empty. The idea that we are in a small carved out space beneath the church where just about anything could be hiding, including all sorts of creatures, even the dreaded faepires, has me recoiling, trying to put some distance between myself and the inky blackness where what might even be a disembodied voice originated.
My fingers tremble at my side as I consider reaching over to feel through the darkness, but I don’t dare move. I can’t, even if I want to. That panicked paralysis that had held us all at the starting line for a beat permeates me now.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” The voice sounds sincerely apologetic. “Just thought it might creep you out more if you thought you were alone and later discovered you’re not.”
The more he speaks—at least I think it’s a he—the more at ease I feel. It seems clear to me now by the situation we’re in that this is just another wolf shifter hiding from the vampires. I take a deep breath. He does smell like a wolf—heavily so, in fact. Beneath that, I smells other scents. The forest. Mud. Plants.
Flowers….
I take another breath, and the distinct metal smell registers as well, but then, we’ve all been around the vampires all day long, and I’d smelled their scent when the screaming began, so it is easy to convince myself not to be alarmed. The odor has to be coming in from outside.
“Who are you?” I whisper. Both of us keep our voices as soft as possible. Though it is more difficult to hear the screaming from down here, it is evident the culling is still taking place in the forest around the church. Every once in a while, I hear someone shout or otherwise cry out. Even the chatter on the mind-link has stopped, other than Nelson asking if I made it in okay. I told him I did while I waited for an answer from the stranger.
“You can call me John,” he says quietly. “What’s your name?”
“Ainslee.” I think through the people I’ve met earlier in the day while we were all chatting and eating. I’ve met a couple of Johns, but he doesn’t strike me as being either one of them for some reason. It is possible. “What village are you from?”
“Clawriver. You?”
“Uhm, Beotown.” Where is Clawriver? Have I ever heard of it? “I thought only five villages had representatives here.”
“That’s true. You asked where I’m from. I just moved to Moonfalls a few weeks ago.”
“Oh. Well, that sucks.” John has bad luck, I decide. Maybe I shouldn’t be hedging my bets with him. Not that I am going anywhere now. The only way I will is if my friends hiding in the crypt are discovered and tell me to run.
“Yep, not fun,” he admits. “But I had a friend escape last year, and he suggested I hide here, so here I am.”
“Smart.” I don’t want to keep talking to John, even though he seems nice, because I want to listen. I want to count. We should have about five hours from the time the vampires were released until the sun comes up, so I figure we have about four and a half left. I want to count the seconds, but he seems to want to chat.
“Where are you from?”
“Beotown,” I tell him. I inch over a bit, away from him, trying to feel how much room we have. My hand comes into contact with what feels like a concrete barrier. My feet are also pressed up against what is likely the foundation. I have no idea what this place was initially intended for, and I probably don’t want to know.
Maybe John has an answer. I won’t ask. I don’t want to talk.
“How old are you?” His tone conveys that he’s just making conversation, so I naturally respond.
“Nineteen. You?”
“Older.” He’s doesn’t elaborate, and I wonder if that’s because he is twenty-five, almost old enough to escape this. For some reason, I think he seems older than me. It’s hard to decipher his voice since we are whispering, but there’s a tenor to it that makes me think he’s more mature than the other boys that are here, at least the ones I’ve met.
Something about his presence now makes me feel safer than I would otherwise. I imagine the vampires finding us and John fighting them off while I slip away. Not that I want him to be a sacrifice for me, but he soothes me for a reason I can’t understand. I let out a sigh.
“You don’t have to be afraid of me, Ainslee. I’m not here to hurt you.”
I turn my head toward him, wondering if my eyes have adjusted enough to the darkness that I can see any of him, but I still can’t. Not even the whites of his eyes. But then, he might be turned away from me.
“I’m not scared of you,” I assure him. Then, after a few moments of consideration, I tell him, “It’s the vampires I’m worried about. Obviously.”
He shifts slightly, the creak of wood and release of dust making my pulse race. What if he does that when there’s a vampire in the temple?
“I don’t think they’ll come in here,” he whispers.
“Why not?” Nelson made it sound like they’d either never heard of the temple or were afraid of it, but both of those scenarios seem unlikely to me. Vampires are intelligent creatures. They’ve been holding their cullings here for a long time. Surely, they’ve stumbled upon this church before. Would they be so afraid of the Moon Goddess that they’d refuse to come inside? I find it unlikely.
The more I think about it, the more nervous I become.
John’s explanation is not helpful at all. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I just feel like we’re safe, that’s all. If they were coming, don’t you think they would’ve by now?”
I open my mouth to respond, but before I can, the metallic odor that always alerts me that vampires are nearby intensifies.
“They’re already here,” I whisper into the darkness.