Chapter 10

The attacker lunged again, and D neatly thrust the sword through his chest. He fell back, stumbling through the doorway to land in the dark corridor. D paused indecisively over his body, and then quickly turned away. "Come on..!" He grabbed my arm and tugged me after him. The wooden beams above our heads began to catch fire and the thick smoke rolled against the ceiling.

"The stairs!" I cried and pointed out desperately to the only escape way we had.

"No, there are more of them upstairs. This way!" D pulled me to another padlock door. Though he didn't bother with the keys, he only kicked the door to shreds in one smooth motion and dashed through it.

The darkness quickly swallowed us as the tunnel twisted and turned, going over upwards. I glanced over my shoulder time and again. My eyes scratched the darkness for signs of pursuers, but I saw nothing.

At last, he stopped released my hand, and threw open a trap door above us. Cool moonlight spilled down into the corridor and I shrank back from it. D pulled himself through the opening. He told me to stay where I was, then he disappeared from my sight. He was back in a moment, crunched at the edge of the opening. "It is clear, come on!" He held his blood-stained hand to mine, I took it, too numb to care.

He then pulled me up into the night where I fell on the Dewey grass and grasped mouthfuls of fresh air.

"We must not linger; we may yet be followed!" He slammed the trapdoor shut and kept himself busy locking it from the outside.

I sat up and nodded mutely, all of my limbs shaking, I tried desperately to catch my breath and gasped out the question, "Who were they?"

He sighed. The moonlight made his skin gleam while and turned the blood splatter. " A coven," he said quietly. "They were witches just like Simeone."

I stared at him for a moment, waiting for the punchline. I threw back my head and logged, "Of course they were!" In that moment it seemed the slender thread that separated waking from nightmares had snapped, and I guessed that I would never see a Twinkie again.

*****

D had clearly said that the monsters were witches- a coven and that was what Simeone was. That to me, seemed like a sick joke, that shouldn't have been funny. But somehow, it really was.

More funny, was the fact that it could possibly be true.

When my laughter had subsided, I stood wearily and touched my burning shoulder. I pulled my hand back in surprise and eyed the scarlet on my palm. I was badly bleeding.

"Oh fu*ck!"

After everything that had happened, I knew I was lucky to be alive, unlike my poor phone. Still, it was sarcasm, not gratitude that bubbled out, "So, let me guess their mother is a witch too. And I will be right calling her mother witch?"

D kicked the bloody sword into a stand of weedy grass. Without asking permission, he placed his hand on my neck and tilted me to one side to examine my wound. "Yes, of course, they all were. Even your late fiancée!"

"It is too dark out here to see anything" I objected quietly, preferring to ignore what he had said. "I can see well enough to say that you have gotten quite a bite." He sounded calm, too calm like that was just an ordinary thing.

"Bite? You have to be kidding me right?" My voice faded as I recalled the witc movies I had seen. I didn't know that I had accepted his explanations yet, in fact, I wasn't even sure of what I had seen or heard. But what if it was true? What if they were witches? A lump of cold dread formed in my thoughts and forced me silent.

"Yes, you have been bitten." He peered so closely at the wound that his breath tickled my skin. "It doesn't like he tore any muscles," he murmured absently. "You will have a scar of course, but you shouldn't need stitches."

He then released me and took a step back. His eyes stayed on the dark trees surrounding us. The trunks close together to form a wall of blackness. "We should keep moving."

He started to move away, but I stayed hanging back, my mind spinning. If those were witches- if, and I had been bitten, "does that mean I'll be uhm?"

D turned back to me and cut my words, "A witch?" He sounded amused. "No, that's only a myth. It takes a lot more of that to be a witch."

"Oh well!" I felt an odd relief. "She doesn't have any power over me or anything, right? I read that in a book one day." D shook his head to the negative. "The one who had a bit on you is dead, but even if he wasn't he wouldn't have any control over you. It really doesn't work like that." He glanced from the trees to my immobile form. His dark eyes seemed to see past my brave front, to the scared little girl inside. "We need to get moving."

I flushed at the imagined intrusions and moved quickly to join him. "Of course, I'm Sory!" Nighttime sounded around us, they made me so uncomfortable, so I talked over them,

"How does someone become a- uhm a Witch?" I hesitated as I struggled to get these words out of my mouth. I whispered the last word, afraid that saying the name could conjure one of the witches from the thin air.

Despite my logical disbelief, I still wasn't sure what was real and what wasn't. Though I had seen Simeone and felt the inhuman strength of the man who attacked me, it seemed so absurd.

" It is complicated," He answered. Shrugged his shoulders casually, but his tone made it clear that the conversation was over. We reached the trees and plunged into them. I shivered as the word replayed in my mind. "A coven!"