Arch 1 Chapter 6

Arch 1

Chapter 6

Eira woke up with the most horrible headache she'd ever had…at least, she thought it was. She opened her eyes, but her vision was blurred, as though she were submerged under water. She groaned and brought a palm to her forehead gingerly as she pushed herself up, with the other, pressing it into the ground. What had happened? It had been something awful, hadn't it? Why couldn't she quite grasp it? Why did her brain feel as though it were sloshing around in her skull? And most importantly…where was Max?

Her squinted eyes popped wide as she gasped, the memories filtering back in slowly, painfully. Despite the raging pain in her head, she whipped it around, her chest heaving. She didn't see Max anywhere.

"Max? MAX?!" she shouted fearfully.

She stood up, and the pain that wracked her body would have crumpled a human. She finally took tabs on where she was. The room was completely barren, sheer concrete and cinderblock walls on all four sides, and Lord only knew how thick they were. They had learned from their mistake with the barred cage, and she quickly deduced this was not where they had kept her before, but a new facility who knew where. There was a single, reinforced steel door at the front of the room, the only way in or out. She looked up and she could see, way, way up, there was glass that she couldn't see out of. More one-way glass. It, too, was thick, and designed to be bulletproof.

"Your precious Max isn't with you, Little Dove." came Claron's voice from somewhere on high. Eira's face curled up into a vampiric snarl, her eyes going red as she stared upward balefully. "Ooooo, temper, temper…" he tutted. "Don't worry, he won't be hurt. He'll not be yours, either, but he will be left alive. I am afraid this is where your two destinies diverge, my dear."

"What are you talking about?!" she barked. "I need to be with Max! GIVE ME MAX!"

"To the contrary, sweetheart, all the money I'm going to get says you belong to Mr. St. James and the Cloak and Dagger."

"The…the what?"

"Oh, of course, I guess you wouldn't know, you feral little thing, would you?" he sighed and took a deep breath. "The Cloak and Dagger, Dove, are an outfit of human Hunters-of which half of you is. I've gotten all I need from you genetically for my own research purposes. You, however, are still very valuable to the leader of the Cloak and Dagger, Everett St. James. You see, since you're partially human, you will be far easier to breed than if you were pure vampire. St. James wants a super army, which you can give him, now that I've found a way to make them docile enough to make them obedient to him, and a way to subdue you. It's fairly easy. A little genetic tweak here, a little genetic tweak there. Of course I will be given amnesty, as I have provided him a means to his ends."

"I…I do not want to just…" she was looking on in horror now, the terrible understanding sinking in.

"Be a test tube and an incubator? Well, sorry, sweetest. It is your fate. You'd best accept it, and let go of whatever delusions you had about you and Max."

Delusions? What did he mean by that? All she wanted was to spend her time with Max. She wanted to see him smile, and be the reason he was smiling. Did…did that mean something more than what she realized? She had observed, of course, many times in her long, reclusive life, couples walking together and murmuring sweet nothings to one another, seeming to just glow from the comfort of each other's presence. But this was not a thing Eira, herself, ever thought was a thing meant for her. It was too beautiful, and everyone had always been terrified of her, and chased her away on the rare occasion she managed to get close. Was…was that what this was? Was that what she was feeling?

"I will do no such thing!" she snarled, slamming her fists into the wall.

"It matters not, Little Dove. You won't have a choice. I can make you do anything I wish, and you will have no say in the matter. And, let's face it, if you go feral enough that you could possibly get out, you won't have the human cognition to figure out how to. You're stuck, I'm afraid."

Eira bit her bottom lip and dropped her head. She knew he was right. The only way she could maybe escape would be at her strongest, but her strongest was when she was wild, an animal. There was…just nothing she could do. She was useless, all because she couldn't control herself.

I am so sorry, Max. I have-I have failed you.

How was this fair? He had saved her, and freed her, and taken care of her. Now she had the chance to repay him, and she just…couldn't?

No. No, she would. If she could only just hold on long enough to get to him…

No. She had to hold on long enough to get to him. She could do this. She could do this for him.

Her eyes darted, following a certain path, a certain trajectory.

She crouched, planting the bend in her feet firmly in the spot where the wall met the floor. She exploded so fast, not even the best cameras would be able to track her. She hit the wall opposite the one she launched herself off of, bounced off, hit the wall parallel, and went back and forth a few times before she reached the zenith of her climb. Her body arched and she arrowed down towards the glass. As she fell, her body changed, her new clothes, regrettably, shredding.

Some vampires, as it were, had special Gifts. Telepathy, foresight, mind reading, and so on.

Eira's Gift, though, was shape-shifting, specifically, into animals. A lot of it was largely instinct, what she needed to turn into, which suited her well, because that was typically what she ran on. She closed her eyes, and her body elongated, shimmering, blue-black scales replacing her pale skin, a long tail whipped out behind her. She had transformed into a dome-headed dinosaur, a Pachycephalosaur, basically a battering ram with scales and an attitude, but with the strength of an angry vampire hybrid behind it.

The hard dome of her head met the glass, punching through as it splintered, then shattered, her body sailing through. She felt the sharp edges of the glass bite into her, even through her tough scales, raking along her sides and belly and back. She would heal quickly. She would scar, as her healing abilities were not as perfect as those of a pure vampire, but she would still heal quicker than any human could imagine.

She careened to the floor, her blood leaving ruby ribbons and droplets flying behind her. People started screaming and running. A red flashing light cam on as alarms blared, and an annoying, entirely too-calm female voice announced that there was a "Security Breach on Level Zero" over and over again, immediately annoying her and putting her into an even worse mood.

There were several men with long poles with loops at the end, and several with these sticks that spat lightning out of the end of them, running right towards her.

She needed something with more…teeth.

She shifted again, this time becoming a large, feathered Dromaeosaur. She screeched at them, opening her mouth to reveal her long, sharp teeth, an intimidation tactic that made them hesitate for the split second that she needed them to.

She leaped with a mighty cry, landing on one with her mouth wide open, her head in her mouth to his shoulders. He wailed as she bit down, whipping her head to fling his lifeless body hard against the wall, a fan of blood spraying out and covering everyone and everything in its path.

She leaped on another and sunk her sickle-shaped claws into his shoulders, and pushed her legs down, shredding his body and causing his insides to become outsides.

Ah, the blood, the thrill of the hunt, how she reveled in it. But she…she couldn't let it overtake her. She had a mission she couldn't forget.

Max, Max, Max, thrummed her heartbeat. As long as she could keep his name in her mind, she could do this.

Once she had taken care of the threat, she looked around for Claron and Gretchen, her nostrils working to find their scents, but this must not have been the area that they were in. Her first instinct was to find them, hunt them down and enjoy it, but the part of her that was holding on knew time was not a luxury she had.

She flew through the halls, relying on her keen sense of smell to guide her to Max. She hadn't realized it, but she'd memorized his scent.

Everyone was running for their lives when they saw her now; not a one was trying to be a hero. She was too quick and too ferocious for them.

Make me "docile", will you? Control ME, will you?!

She raced through the halls, her nose leading her until she came to another metal door, no different than any others she'd run past, except for one thing: Max's scent was coming through the slight cracks between it and the walls and floor surrounding it. The door was still steel, but it wasn't nearly as strong as the one that they'd used on her enclosure.

Their hubris amused her. Did they not fathom that she may possibly escape? Did they assume they could stop her if she did? Did they not think she would be able to find Max?

Fools, fools, FOOLS!

She shifted into a Triceratops this time, backed up as much as she could against the wall opposite the door, and slammed into the door.

The first time, only the tips of her horns made it through. She did it again, and this time, her horns completely punctured the door, and she threw her head to the side with a mighty roar, wrenching the door off its hinges.

She flung her head back and forth until the door flew off the horns, smashing into the floor and skittering across it hard enough to send sparks flying.

Max looked up from where he as curled in the corner, meeting the beast's red eyes. He looked alright, maybe a little roughed up and woozy, but otherwise ok.

"Eira…" he said, knowing immediately.

"Old…man…" she huffed.

"I…I don't know. But they'll kill him if we don't find him.

"We find." she crouched down so he could climb on her back, which he did.

She stood up and trucked forward. Anyone that got in her way, accidentally or otherwise, was knocked to the side, or gored and thrown off her horns without her breaking stride as she rampaged through the place.

She wasn't nearly as keen on Barlowe's scent as she was Max's, so they relied on Max's heightened sense of smell. They started to get nervous. It was taking some time, and they hadn't located him yet.

"THERE!" Max said at last in relief, pointing to one of the doors, which she gave the same treatment as when she freed Max.

Barlowe was chained to the far wall, and in much worse shape than Max had been.

He looked up blearily.

"Oh, my. That is certainly a surprise." he said weakly.

"Eira, get your horns through the links and break them off." Max said.

There was no time to try and just get the manacles themselves off. They could work on that later.

Eira obliged, and Max helped Barlowe to climb on Eira's back.

She ran along the halls, looking for a way out. There was an office off to the side of one of the halls they went down, and there was a window on the wall. That would have to do. No time to be choosy. She backed up and flung her body forward, crashing through the office, the window and wall giving way to the force and mass of her large body as she broke through it, dust and glass shards and pieces of the wall exploding all around them. The frill sprouting from the back of her head protected Max and Barlowe. They had gone up a few levels, and she had only realized it as she was coming down. It seemed like slow motion as they flew through the air, until the jarring sensation when she hit the ground. Dirt and grass flew out from beneath her, almost leaving a crater in her wake, and she threw her head back, roaring in pain as the sound of bones cracking filled the air.

She rolled onto her side and Max was able to fling himself and Barlowe clear.

Eira changed back, the roar becoming a scream as she did, her body protesting when it was so broken.

Max ran to her and scooped her up, holding her close to him. Her cars were slowly healing, as were her bones, grinding and snapping back into place, but she'd have so many new scars. Her body was limp in his arms. She'd passed out from the pain and the exertion and the blood loss. He'd have to fed her when she woke up.

"You'll be ok, Eira, you'll be ok." he whispered, though it came out more like a vow. He stood back up, his arms curled tightly around her. "Barlowe, can you run?"

"Laddy, I dinnae care if both me legs were broken. I can run."

"But where even are we?!"

"The hell does that matter?! Jus' run, boy!" he said, taking off in no particular direction, other than "away", and Max followed hot on his heels.

You'll be ok, Eira. he thought worriedly, continually glancing down at the girl in his arms. I'll keep you safe. I'll protect you.