The Mother

Chapter 3

Inside the Church building they found a shrine like thing with several pictures, two on the left of a very pretty woman and a deformed male, two on the right, a woman in a black mourning veil with a doll and a man in a hat, but the picture in  the center of the shrine was in full color, unlike the other four, of the same goddess like woman in a gold bird mask. On the center of the candle lite table was something called the maiden crest and it looked like it would fit in the castle gate door. Ethan plucked it off the pedestal and slipped it in his jacket pocket while Scarlett backed up, seeing another crystal and used her knife to knock it down and pocketed it.

  Ethan found a poorly drawn map that showed them the Church and led them through a field to a house, likely Luiza's house. The note on the back confirmed this but it also said the other crest would be at the house, so they knew for sure they needed to head that way. When they left the church, they saw the field to their left and a small set of stairs to the side of the building leading up to another gate with the weird insignia they had seen earlier.

  "Careful, I feel something." Scarlett said as they headed into the field, stopping at the small shack to the left to get handgun ammo and, funnily enough, chemfluid in a small glass bottle that Scarlett would mix with an herb if they found one. They went through the tall grass of the field slowly, taking out the few Lycans that tried to sneak up on them before coming to another locked wooden gate and decided to see what was in the small shack on the right.

  "Close the door! Please!" A young woman said softly when they entered, and Scarlett did as she asked.

  "Hey what are you doing here?" Ethan asked as they went toward her, and she backed away slowly revealing a hurt older man on the ground behind her leaning against the wall below a window. Who raised his machete and told them to stay back. Scarlett completely disregarded his warning and went to crouch next to him and check his injuries while he tried to fight her off.

   "Quit." She hissed batting away his weapon and pealed up his shirt to look at the large claw marks on his side. They were deep and she was completely ignoring the tow behind her talking as she brought out a spare bandage, and stood taring off a strip of cloth from the piece that laid over the wooden boxes next to her.

  "Leave me be, girl." The old man grumbled as he tried to stop her from wiping the blood slowly leaking from the gashes and shifted him to wrap the bandages around his injuries  tightly after folding the bloody cloth and using it as a gauze pad to stanch the bleeding.

  "We're not going to hurt you now hold still before you bleed out." She said standing back up and going back over to Ethan as the girl explained that Luisa had locked the gate and they couldn't get inside. The old man told her to be quite because they were outsiders and Scarlett rolled her eyes, but  the girl pleaded  with to get them inside the gate and told them the man couldn't walk as he had been hurt and lost a lot of blood. Ethan told them he'd find a way in to get the gate unlocked before looking at Scarlett.

  "Stay here, keep them quiet and make sure they don't move until I get that gate open. You're the only person who can protect them while I'm gone." Ethan said as he walked to the larger open window, he could go through to get behind the shack.

  "Got it, don't die Winters or I'll be pissed." Scarlett said and he gave her a thumbs up before going through the window while the turned back to the door, with her pistol drawn, and glanced at the pair in the corner.

  "We may be outsiders, but we've done more for you than your own people at the moment." Scarlett said looking intently at the old man who coughed, blood trickling down is chin. She heard the sound of a lock being undone and opened the door a little seeing a Lycan close to the gate Ethan was trying to unlock. She pulled her knife and snuck out of the door and killed the Lycan silently, so she didn't attract more attention before going back to the shed and telling the girl to hold the door open before pulling the old man up with his arm over her shoulders and he arm placed around his waist.