The Watchers Wake

Chapter 27 - So not Edward!

Show time, we have an audience, Jari smiled at me and kissed me lavishly. Remember everything I have said to you.  I love you but you must do what is right even at the expense of me.  OK? Ohh and by the way I am going to be a bit of a jerk from this point on.

Nothing unusual then, Adam sniped.

We walked out into a vast space.  Naked low watt bulbs floated in the darkness.  I couldn’t see the ceiling or the walls.  The floor was clay, hardened but still obviously dirt. 

“So Harold, where is the tea?  I have mine strong, two sugars, no milk.  Ohh and I love those little biscuits with the...”

“Jariel, so nice that you came.  We don’t get to entertain very much so you must excuse our manners.  No tea.”  The voice came from the shadows in front of us. 

A figure shuffled into the light and I tried very hard to control my horror.  The creature was a misshapen skeleton with no muscle structure just a thin powdery white skin stretched over the bones.  Something red sloshed within it as it moved.  Scott’s blood I presumed.  The hands and feet were clawed, the arms seemed to be held clenched to the body and the torso was bent over the legs to give the impression that it was squatting.  Yet despite this it still moved too fast for me to follow. 

The lightbulb above us began to swing gently as if a window had been opened and a breeze had caught it.  The swing motion shifted the light to reveal the creatures head.  Its hair was long, sparse, and colourless.  The skull was deformed with a more than serious overbite, almost like a snout as the nose was absorbed into the upper jaw.   And of course its eyes glowed red.  It was nice to know that Hollywood got one thing right. 

Not exactly the Cullen family, Jari teased me, Nor Lestat, Bill, Stefan, Angel, or even Blade, to name but a few.

Dang, all that romantic fantasising about Edward was wasted time then.  Despite the horror of it all, or maybe because it was overly abhorrent, I almost felt heady.

“But all the same it was nice of you to bring guests, or are these gifts?” The creature slurred.  The overbite not only adversely affected its speech but also it breathed like Darth Vader.

“They will leave with the boy Harold.  I presumed that he would need to be carried out.  And this one, well she can’t keep her hands off me.” He pulled me against him and kissed my lips while running his hands over me to demonstrate.  Harold made a strange noise.  Jari sniggered, “Ohh that’s right, you don’t have the ‘equipment’ to derive physical pleasure.   Let me remind you what you have lost.  She screams when she ...”

“She will scream plenty for me too,” Harold interrupted tersely obviously this was a sore point for him and Jari laughed and kissed me while grinding his hips into mine in rhythmic motions. 

The creature hacked an annoyed cough-like laugh. “Don’t worry about missing this one Jari, Beatrice will be more than willing to kiss you!”

“Not quite the same appeal,” Jari slid his hand up my outer thigh up past the hem of the very short skirt.

Don’t be distracted Natalie, look around.

“So you come into my home and taunt us with your latest skank?  Why are you here Jariel?”

Jariel still held me tightly to him but was not ‘taunting’ anymore.  I concentrated on my own task.  I tried using my eon.  The air shimmered and suddenly it was like someone turned on the florescence.  The caven lit up.  It was huge.  The ceiling was at least three stories up and the harden dirt walls seemed to grow out of it, unevenly meeting in the middle.  The side walls were what I imagined a rabbit warren would look like.  Dotted with tunnels feed by crooked well beaten tracks.  I caught the lit of red eyes in more than one of the earthen holes.  Quickly, I glanced behind us to ensure that the one and only exit was still directly behind us.  Great, the wall was also brick with no holes or surprises.