Guardian(Part III): Desolation

Chapter 12: Finn

Nato shook me by the shoulder to wake me up. Did she let me fall asleep against the gates of the castle ruins at the expense of her own need for sleep? I reminded myself that she had been conditioned to only sleep for a few hours every day. I didn't know how long I had been asleep, but it must have been for a while, since the sun was going down. The constrictor sleeping in the ruins was about to wake up to raise hell, unless we killed it first. That was only one reason that Nato woke me up, though.

"Look," she said, pointing into the distance. Three armored vehicles were driving towards the gates.

"We should hurry," Nato suggested.

"Yeah," I agreed. We both stood up to walk through the gates, and towards the throne hall where we last saw the vampire. We sensed its aura from that direction, but when we got there, we didn't sense it nearby. Nato and I looked to the skylight in the ceiling, seeing that the stars were out, and the sun had gone completely down.

"She's awake," I growled, forming my aura blade.

"But she's not here," Nato reminded. "Let's split up and look for her."

"No," I denied. "It'll just make it easier on her to kill us."

"Alright," Nato understood. "But we still have to look for her. Will she be hard to find?"

I didn't know how to answer her question. I hoped to find her as quickly as possible, but at the same time, I hoped we didn't. A constrictor was a particularly powerful kind of vampire, capable of crushing a victim as thin as possible as it drained their blood. I couldn't imagine how painful and frightening that would be, for anyone. To be crushed until there was nothing left, and slowly die of blood loss, was not a fate I would choose. It wouldn't happen to us, or anyone else after tonight.

"Only if we don't look," I finally answered. We went back into the corridors of the castle ruins, following the aura of darkness hanging over the place to find its source. We must have wandered through the halls for a long time, sensing this vampire's aura in a room every few minutes, but whenever we checked inside of them, there was nothing. I was sure to keep an eye out for my surroundings, while also making sure that Nato was still with me.

"She's playing with us," Nato complained.

"She sure is," I agreed.

"Finn!" Nato suddenly screamed, and she threw me to the ground with an aura blast. I heard something crash onto the ground near where I was standing before, and looked up to see Nato on her back, struggling to fight off something that was on top of her. I couldn't clearly see what it was, but it didn't matter. I pulled myself to my feet and charged at it as fast as I could. I slammed my shoulder into the dark figure that tackled Nato, and threw it off of her. I formed my aura blade again as Nato rose off the ground.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Yes," Nato answered. We both stared at the monster that just attacked us. It had a serpent's tail instead of legs, and dark scales covering its body other than its underside. Long, slender arms with claws on the fingers came out of its shoulders, and it had a head with long, dark hair that covered its upper chest, with fangs in its mouth, and red, glowing eyes. It was definitely a constrictor, a female one. The vampire gave a loud hiss, then turned around and began to slither away.

"Come on!" Nato shouted, taking off after it. We both ran as fast as our legs could carry us, but it seemed like the constrictor was moving faster with no legs carrying her. I warped out in front of her with my aura blade to try and cut her off, but she suddenly turned and ran into the wall, and completely went through it instead of being stopped by it. The hole opened up into a courtyard filled with snow, and several floors down from where we were. Nato caught up with me, then saw the vampire slithering through the snow she landed in, towards the door to the castle's throne hall.