Vincent pulled me closer to him, putting a finger in front of his lips. With his number thirteen mark still glowing a dim red, he flicked his right hand, holding it high up. The air around it crackled with miniature reddish lightning. Smoke began to waft from his skin. Several agonizing seconds flew. But no scythe materialized in his hand.

Seemingly incredulous at the failure to summon his scythe, Vincent tried again. This time, the weak glow from his mark flickered until the light disappeared altogether.

I heard him curse in an undertone, resorting to his Cataclyst instead. He let go of my hand and focused intensely on summoning it. The vein on his forehead bulged, his whole body shaking with the strain. I could hear his ragged breaths; see the mixture of frustration and bewilderment on his face as he stared questioningly at his still empty hands. Again, nothing happened.

It was impulse that made me pick up a large chunk of stone from the ground. That told me to position myself in front of my master. At my current state, there was no assurance that I could fight back whoever had found us. Vincent was in no better condition either. Without our weapons we were practically defenseless.

The second option was to jump off the cliff right behind us. As of the moment, that didn’t look very enticing. The huge waves would crush us if we wouldn’t get skewered on the jagged rocks at the bottom of the peak first. Either way, we would both end up dead.

I could see two hulking figures in the shadows, taking the lead. Before showing themselves in the open, they pushed a man forward. Clad in an ill-fitting cloak that was sloppily wrapped around his hunched shoulders, he stumbled in front of us, hugging himself. His red bushy hair stuck in all directions, nearly covering his face. He must be in his early thirties, with prominent jaws overrun by a pair of unkempt sideburns.

“Aye,” said the man with a thick Scottish accent. “This is where I have left them.” He gave me a remorseful look before casting his eyes downward as if in shame. His voice was gruff, almost coming out as a growl as he said, “Forgive me, Aramis. I’ve been caught, it seems.”

Perplexed, I ogled at the stranger, wondering how he knew my name. I struggled to recall where or when I must’ve met him but found nothing useful. Must be another one of Cairo’s cronies. Though, I didn’t see why he had to apologize for turning us in.

Another guy in a midnight blue hooded cloak emerged from the dark. He must be around six feet, maybe more. With a medium sinewy built, he could’ve passed for a model. There was an air of confidence in his strides as he approached us.

“Stop right there!” I warned, clutching tightly on Vincent’s arm.

As if he hadn’t heard me, the man didn’t even pause. He kept coming near us at a leisurely pace. Deliberately, he stepped into the light and pulled back the hood of his cloak, revealing a refined angular face, his skin having the slightest tint of grey. Stern slanted eyes the color of aquamarines gazed back at me as I faced him. His long black hair—so extraordinarily dark it was almost blue—was braided down to his back. Beneath his cloak, he wore what looked to me like some sort of chest armor made of veined turquoise. All in all, he looked like a knight from one of those online RPGs Carter used to play in Christmas break. The strange thing was he didn’t have any weapon with him.

“Intruders,” the man in the armor called out to us, his leveled voice having that diplomatic kind of feel. “Raise your arms where I can see them.”

Taking a quick glimpse over my shoulder, I backed away from them, noting the two-feet gap between my heels and the edge of the cliff. I tugged on Vincent’s arm and turned to him for instructions. Throwing a warning look at me, Vincent shook his head gently.

No cliff diving for us then.

“Who the hell are you? What do you want?” he demanded in his natural King-of-the-World tone.

Perfect timing, Vince. What we really need right now is wind them up real good. So they would get the nicest idea of shutting us up permanently. I told him off through the link.

It was just then that I noticed how silent it was in my head. The space Vincent used to occupy in my mind felt empty.

“W-were not intruders,” I backed Vincent up in the most unintimidating manner possible. “We only got here by accident. We mean no harm.”

The man in the armor let out a laugh. “Harm,” he repeated the word with a hint of mockery. “Harm is a concept that is not present here. And must I tell you, lass that no one— and I mean no one — discovers this island by accident. In fact, no one ever comes here. Alive, that is. Either you intended to go here or not. Do not create a lie you cannot attest to.”

I gulped. Okay. That was awkward. I wasn’t the best liar in town but I didn’t know I sucked this much.

“Alright,” I admitted, my ears growing warm. “We got here because we wanted to. But I didn’t know that Door would lead here—“

Vincent gave me an inconspicuous nudge. I must’ve said more than I should.

“A Door,” the raven-haired guy mumbled pensively. “How fascinating. In any case, you are to come with us for further questioning. Any retaliation would only bring you unnecessary inconvenience. So I am warning against it.”

Eight more men came and took a hold of us. All of them were huge and muscular, looking like club bouncers but in hippie tunics and minus the shades. And they had these bushy beards and long hair tied down their backs. Give them horned metal helmets and they could already pass for Vikings. Or maybe they were. Not sure. If we were to fight these guys, Vincent had better pull out something good from his sleeves.

Vincent was surprisingly calm about all this. He just dropped his gaze as two men went behind him to tie his hands behind his back. Normally, he should be going all wild and homicidal about the fact that he was being touched without his permission.  Not to mention, by two dudes too. Maybe he was planning something. The only problem was that he wasn’t telling me anything about it.

As my wrists were being tied together, I leaned closer to him and whispered, “What do we do now?”

“Weren’t you listening?” he hissed back exasperatedly. I could see that he was trying to keep his unholy temper in check. And even that was looking more and more hopeless by the minute.

“To what?”

Before he could answer me, the group of men started steering us to the cave entrance. Vincent didn’t fight back. He wasn’t even paying attention to the path that he stumbled on a rock once. All he did was stare intently at me as if he wanted to say something. His expression played from incredulous to frustrated. For a second, it was funny to watch. Like he was constipated or something.

The dude behind me pulled me back by the arms when we reached the mouth of the cave. Among the eight, he was the biggest and probably, the only one who owned a razor because his square-ish face was cleanly shaved. “How do we get them down, Levi?”

The guy in the armor must be Levi because he paused for a bit to think. Then he looked at Vincent and me pointedly.

“Carry the girl, Grigori,” he ordered. “Untie the young man. He will have to climb down on his own. May I remind you”—he turned to Vincent—“that escaping will most likely put you and your comrades in grave danger. Particularly, after the sun sets.”

“The only ones in danger in here right now are your hides,” Vincent answered with a fierce glare. Anytime soon, I was sure he would definitely go ballistic. As bigheaded as he was, his pride could only take so much.

In silence, he watched the first three men descend the crag with ease, taking the red-haired guy with them.

The man called Grigori looped his thickset arm around my thighs without so much as a warning and effortlessly slung me over his shoulder. As he climbed down quickly, my stomach rammed against him. I swung askew like a sack of flour. Blood rushed down to my head, making me dizzy. He must’ve done it a lot of times because we miraculously reached the ground before I could throw up.

Abruptly, he set me down. I was lightheaded, trying to keep my balance as I strained to look up. One of the men pushed Vincent to the edge, barking at him to move.

Angrily, Vincent head-butted the man behind him. He spun and elbowed another in the stomach. As the other two remaining moved ahead to restrain him, Vincent bent low and rammed his shoulder against them. Levi didn’t stir from his spot. He just watched as his men staggered back to their feet to stop Vincent.

Four versus one. Considering that Vincent was nearly dead when we first arrived here, it didn’t seem like much of a mismatch. With his hands still tied, he used his legs to keep the men from grabbing a hold of him.

“Run!” he shouted, momentarily glancing at me as he ploughed through his enemies.

My brain seemed to have shut down. Did he just tell me to run? Did he really think I could stomach leaving him again? After everything I had been through to get him out of the Halo? Before the whole idea even began to sink in, Grigori caught me by the shoulders. Even if I had the energy, I couldn’t have fought back. My knees began to weaken and I found myself forcing back a sob.

The memories crashed over me like waves. It was like I was back in the Halo. I was weak, unable to move my body. And Vincent used that so he could throw me away, far away. The Glitch slowly closed with me in it. It swallowed me whole until I couldn’t see him anymore. I was angry. Angry couldn’t even begin to describe that feeling.

“What’re you waiting for?” he yelled again, this time sounding panicky.

“Liar,” I mumbled under my breath so Vincent wouldn’t hear. In turn, I pretended to squirm against Grigori’s clutches. “Can’t! He’s too strong.”

From my back, I heard a deep loud chortle. Grigori loosened his hold on me. “You’re not even trying,” he noted. “You can do better than that.”

“Where are you taking us?” I watched Grigori from the corner of my eye without taking away my attention from the commotion in the cave.

The brawl went on. But this time, Vincent seemed to be losing. The men caught both his arms but he kept kicking and thrashing.

“You heard the man,” Grigori answered willingly. I assumed ‘the man’ he was talking about was Levi. It looked like he was the one in charge. “We got to take you to Mr. S for questioning. I won’t worry about it. He’s usually nice to guests. Only we didn’t have guests from your lot for over three centuries now.”

“You’re immortal.” I knew it was a possibility. Still, I was dumbfounded.

From above us, Levi’s men finally managed to fully restrain Vincent. He looked mad as hell as they began tying him up from the chest to his knees. For an added measure, they used a whole lot of rope. When they were done, Vincent was turned into a cocoon.

Levi came down first. And as soon as his feet touched the ground, he barked, “Lower the prisoner!”

In his mini joyride down Vincent went on shouting, “You can’t do this to me! Let me go or I’ll kill all of you! I swear! I’d peel you alive one by one. You’d wish you were never born!” or something equally humiliating, more or less.

Halfway through, he finally shut up. It was no use screaming like a spaz. A little too late to notice how ridiculous he sounded.

Once back on the ground, he kept his gaze downward. He was staring so hard, I thought he would shoot laser beams from his eyes. But he was quietly trembling. His jaws were clenched as with his hands. He was like a nuke imploding.

“Vincent…”

He didn’t answer. Didn’t even bother to lift his gaze. I swallowed and looked away. Looked like I was going to have a major guilt trip for this. Even then, I wouldn’t say I could have done otherwise.

As soon as everyone was down, we set off to the woods. The trek was easier. In spite of that, my feet felt heavy. The monotonous rustle of the redwood, the waves, the dead leaves crunching under our feet were the only soundtrack on our way.

If someone needed a push, someone would gladly give it to them. So, no one stopped. If anyone stumbled, a pair of big hands would pull you back to your feet then goad you to hurry up. I did, twice. Grigori wasn’t as harsh as his companions. But Vincent wasn’t as lucky.

Once, I heard a cry. More like a howl of a wild animal. Birds took off from their nests. A doe loped past us, prodding her young to run faster. The howl echoed throughout the whole forest like it was coming from under the ground. And by the sound of it, I wasn’t just talking foxes and wolves. Something bigger. Something a lot bigger.

I stopped and looked for signs that someone else besides me had heard it. No one seemed alarmed. Just more guarded as we went on. No one screamed or anything.

“Walk faster,” Grigori whispered.

Maybe it was just my imagination.

Upon reaching the Gate, the red-head lurched to the dirt. I almost forgot that he was with us. When he looked at me, his big amber eyes were both brave and fearful at the same time. He was right to be.With the way he had been behaving, it seemed like he knew what exactly waited for us. And being clueless, I was both lucky and damned.

The more I looked at the red-haired guy, the more he seemed familiar. I just couldn’t single out why. I kept on scrutinizing him, rummaging in my head for some lost memory. Just then, I saw something sticking out from the sides of his head. Half-hidden in his unruly mahogany titian hair was something long and pointed. I almost gasped when I realized that it was his ears I was staring at.

A little of his bare feet showed up beneath the too-long poncho. His nails could make any pedicurist run away for dear life. They were long, sharp and dirty. Very much like an animal’s. There was something else there, dangling in between his feet. Something that looked shockingly similar to a fox’s tail.

As he was being hauled up, he was silently muttering to himself as in prayer.

“The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,

The moon, their mistress, had expir’d before;

The winds were wither’d in the stagnant air,

And the clouds perish’d; Darkness had no need of aid from them—”

Even the verses of his poetry sounded familiar. My mother’s love for literature, her favorite lines were too hazy for me to remember. But I had heard those lines more times than an average little girl hears Snow White before bed time.

“She was the universe…” My voice quivered as I finished the verse of Darkness, my eyes widening in surprise when I remembered the poet who wrote it. “Lord Byron…”

He gave me a somewhat uncomfortable smile that revealed a pair of pointed canines. “H-hi…”

“W-what… How?”

“Keep walking, Little Miss,” Grigori shoved me to the front of the group before I could get any sensible explanation from him—Byron Flynn.

Lord Byron. The poet. The Baron. Whatever. I knew there was something wrong with him when he left the cave. Maybe this was all just a delusion. Maybe, I was really in a psych ward, drooling.

My deep thought was interrupted when we suddenly stopped. I found myself staring at the huge wrought-iron gate leading to the town. The inverted triangle in the middle glinted with the sunlight. From the inside was a small crowd; a collection of old people, young people, big and small; all of them throwing us cautious stares.

As Levi made his way forward, the people began backing away slowly. He placed his hand on the inverted triangle and the gate swung inward on its own with a haunted-house kind of groan.

We moved forward, slowly, watchfully. It was so silent it made me claustrophobic although we were in an open space. Every step was like testing if the ground underneath our feet would cave in. And with each of our step, the crowd split and stepped aside. All we needed was confetti. We could’ve been celebrities.

Or criminals.

We marched into town at the sound of the shutters, well, being shut. I also noticed that the vendor stalls along the dirt road were already deserted. People swarmed the side streets, shoving at each other to take a good look. None of them looked pleased to see us though.

Past the marketplace was a neighborhood so old they still had wells. Where I come from, those were just a way to fool yourself into believing that your dreams would come true. They never did. You just got 25 cents poorer. The houses in there were made of dark wood that stood on four concrete stilts. White roofs deflected the glaring sunlight, making my eyes hurt.

About quarter an hour later, we halted. There was a V-shaped fork in the road, splitting it into two. To the right, I could see an arched wooden bridge over a small pond. The other way headed to a steep set of steps that ended to an entrance straddled by thick parallel pair of black and red pillars, on top of which rested a solid beam curved upwardly.

We hiked up the seemingly endless stairs. The air was thin in these parts. In the end, Grigori had to carry me again over his shoulders after I slipped and just about tumbled down from a thirty feet drop. I tried to squirm—for real this time—and to tell him I could manage on my own but he kept saying, “Don’t worry, Little Miss. I got you.”

We crossed the threshold into an enormous yard. The ground was covered with carefully-trimmed Bermuda grass. Weeping cherry trees were everywhere, petals flitting with the wind. With their branches splayed down as if trying to touch the ground, they reminded me of Luna’s Spoliarium. Wretched, yet magnificent.

Taking the wide cemented pathway along the trees, we arrived in front of a large wooden house. It was spacious, about the size of a soccer field with a ceiling that was a little too low for my taste. The polished wooden floor was elevated off the ground by about a foot block of rectangular stones.

In perfect timing of our arrival, one of the sliding doors opened. There stood the fair-haired young girl who sold trinkets in the market. Apple. Or someone who looked like her. At least, I hoped it was the case. Or else, Vincent and I would be in big trouble.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hi people! Sorry for the long wait. I've been trying to upload for a gazillion years now and my triassic internet connection is killing me, literally. It took me like a century to post this. And I'm so sorry if I can't reply to all your comments and PMs. It takes years to reply to all of them in my current bandwidth. Please please, keep on commenting. And know that I really get inspired when I read them. Next chapter will be on Thursday. Yes! You read right. And please don't forget to vote okay?           LOVE LOVE LOVE, ~shim