Chapter 6: Welcome to the underground.
We landed on an air strip in New York City, Kyle and Lena slipped back into their hooded cloaks bowing their heads down so that no one could see their ears or eyes and know that they weren’t exactly human.
Catching a taxi we travelled down some main road and spent more time in traffic than anything else. The taxi stopped and we piled out walking a short distance to an underground subway. It had a wooden panel in front of the staircase keeping people from entering.
“Uh I think it’s abandoned” I pointed out as they ducked under the wood and started to walk down the stairs.
“Yeah it is, now hurry up before we get caught” Logan said grabbing my hand and pulling me forward.
Walking down the stairs I tripped and stumbled falling forward into Logan. His hands shot out to catch me before I fell down the stair case.
“Why do you find the need to trip everywhere we go?”
“It’s not my fault!”
“Pick up your feet it’s not that hard” He said turning around and walking off again but slowing and turning his head to check on me every two seconds.
“Well then stop dragging me into places with gaps, stairs and twigs” I muttered falling into step behind them.
The old station was covered in dust and spiders making me jump a little closer to the others. We walked over to the edge of the platform and they started jumping down landing on the gravelled tracks.
“I thought you hate trains?” I said to Logan as he helped me down his hands grabbing my waist and gently settling me down on my feet.
“I do, but we’re not catching a train.”
“What’s wrong with trains? They’re so cool” Lena said walking ahead of everyone else.
“Lena shut up!” Logan yelled at her making her giggle.
I was walking along the tracks and felt a vibration. “Uh guys, theses tracks don’t get used any more do they?”
“I don’t know, never stayed long enough to find out” Logan called over his shoulder.
“If I get hit by a train I am going to haunt the crap out of you!”
“I’ll deal with it” he answered back. Jackass!
“Relax, these tracks haven’t been used in years, he’s just messing with you” Kyle said coming over to walk next to me.
“Why is he always messing with me?”
“Because he feels comfortable with you, you know it took years for him to even joke around with us let alone open up to us. But with you he seems to have opened up easily.”
“Opened up? He hasn’t told me anything”
“Yeah but he is so relaxed, you have me amazed Britney” I smiled at him accepting the compliment even if I wasn’t too convinced about what he had said.
“When you two are done chatting then maybe you’d like to give us a hand over here” Logan shouted.
Kyle and I walked over finding a little gap in the wall; if I was claustrophobic this would have been problematic.
“Ready?” Lena said smiling at me.
I nodded back at her and walked over to stand next to her. If I ever get back home I have to tell Danni about this, she would get along so well with Lena.
“Stay close ok, don’t look anyone in the eyes, understand” Logan said while Kyle smiled reassuringly at me.
Logan reached behind him gripping a knife and slicing his hand. He raised his hand and let the blood drip in front of the wall. The wall started to shake and then push back sliding off to the side, revealing a dark hole that made me think of Logan’s eyes.
Why was I even thinking of his eyes at a time like this?
Lena went to go through the whole but was stopped by Logan; he looked at her making her take a step back. He looked around the whole before walking in and disappearing in the darkness soon followed by Lena.
“Just step forward, you’ll feel a little dizzy but the others will be there ready to catch you.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, panic and fear clearly evident in my voice.
“Trust me, it will be ok”
Taking a deep breath I stepped through the darkness feeling a rush of air hit me like a wall. I felt as the floor disappeared from under me making me scream as I fell in nothing but darkness. With my eyes shut as tight as possible I continued screaming until I felt something hit my back and legs.
Opening my eyes I looked up to find Logan’s face right next to mine. Well this is a weird angle.
“Are you done?” he asked raising his eye brows at me.
“Yes” I muttered looking down at the rest of my body; he was holding me bridle style which is probably why this angle was so weird.
“Are you going to put me down now?”
As if he hadn’t realized he shook his head and dropped me making me land on my butt.
“Ow! Gently next time” Not that there was going to be a next time, damn it! I really need to think about what I’m saying before I actually say it.
“Well next time work that in to your question.”
I looked around for Kyle and Lena but came up empty. Where were they?
“Where are the others?”
He spun around before sighing and shaking his head.
“Well Lena was here a minute ago and Kyle hasn’t come down yet”
I looked up seeing nothing but darkness for the roof while the rest of the room was a made up of nothing but dirt. It was lit with two candle mounted to the dirt walls lighting up the circular room while more light was let in from the corridor just in front of us.
Hearing an echo sound I moved to the side and watched as Kyle came down landing on his feet. How could he do that with such grace?
He looked down at me and smiled before walking over to help me up. Get your note book and pen out Logan this is what chivalry is.
“Thanks” I smiled at him.
“No problem, now where is my sister?” he said looking over to Logan who looked a little hesitant.
“She took off when Britney came down”
“And you didn’t go after her!”
“Well no, I had make sure she got down ok”
“God Logan!” Kyle said stalking off down the corridor looking for his sister.
I walked over to Logan and looked at him for some direction. I was in a strange place and had just been dumped on my ass after falling however many feet, he was the only person I knew and frankly I felt safer being close to him.
“Remember what I said stay close” he repeated to me.
“I know how many times are you going to tell me?”
“As many as it takes for you to get it through your thick skull”
“I’ll give you thick skull!” I yelled at him. He’s the one with the thick skull not me.
“Shh, you’ll attract too much attention”
I mimicked him under my breath mocking him as much as I could in the one sentence.
Following him down the corridor we stopped coming to a black heavy door with studs decorating it.
“Nice touch” I muttered looking them over. They looked sharp enough to pierce skin.
“Yeah, I like them” he said grabbing the door handles and pushing them open. “Welcome to the underground.”
It was amazing if you could past the different people or things that were walking around. It was like a street running vertically down from where we stood at the door way with make shift houses and stores on either side. Walking along side Logan I started looking around, seeing what looked like a group of small plumb humans having a heated argument about something.
“Dwarfs, they have quite the temper” Logan said looking over at me.
“What about them” I gestured over to a group of small reptile things that made me want to crawl under my bed and hide.
“Goblins, creepy little things and the best pickpockets you will ever meet” he said as if it were a compliment.
“And them?” I pointed over to two massive creatures that stood two stories high, they resembled the Goblins only bigger fatter and with large horns that curled in all sorts of directions.
“Trolls”
“Don’t they usually live under bridges?”
“I wouldn’t say that if I were you or they my decided to start eating you.”
“Oh ok, and those” I said pointing to two group of what appear to be humans.
“Some are… um… what would you call them? Vampires and werewolves?” ok this one I knew, how could I not with watching all of the twilight movies.
“Oh, so they turn into wolves and the others suck my blood” easy enough.
“Not exactly, the werewolves turn into this wolf bear with hint of reptile kind of thing – real ugly, not that soft fluffy dog in all of your movies and the vampires are usually pretty alright but when they have human blood it does something to them making their face go funny and it gets really gross.” So not as easy as I thought.
I nodded and followed him looking around still. I saw some other creature things but didn’t bother asking, he had already told me so much today and I didn’t want to push the limit. Well that was for about five seconds until all of the questions started bubbling up again.
“So to get in you had to cut your hand?”
“The key is in the blood of someone who is accepted by the underground. Many Volucris can’t get in here, they aren’t liked down here”
“So how can you?”
“I’ve spent the last five years working my way in; I fit in better with the underground. The goblins, trolls, fairies, elves, all of that sort of thing”
“Fairies!” I was getting excited now.
“There not what’s in your books, they are more ‘I’m going to eat your face’ then the ‘bippity boppity boo’ kind”
“Oh, shattering” I muttered taking in all he has said. I wonder why he doesn’t fit in with the other Volucris? Is it because of his personality, because I can so see that being an issue but where I come from we don’t just kick people to the curb if we don’t like them, we suck it up and deal with it, even if that means putting super glue on a teachers chair.
I decided to leave that topic for another day, not wanting to pry too much in to his life in the one day.
“Where are we going?”
“We’re here” he said stopping out the front of a massive mansion styled home, or whatever it was. The white and gold house was the cleanest, shiniest and biggest thing here.
“What’s in here?” I asked turning around to face him. He took a deep breath and turned to me, only he wasn’t looking at me. I spun around to see Lena and Kyle with their backs turned to us and a man, tall and muscular with blond hair sat in front of them holding an ice pack to his face which was a number of shades of purple and blue.
Logan walked past me pulling me along as he went until we were with the others.
“What happened?” he asked the blond man.
“Well I tried to reason with Marco and he set his troll on me.”
“If you let him go to the underground alone again I swear I am going to kill you Logan!” Lena shouted moving to help the man to his feet.
“I’m fine Lena”
“Don’t worry Conner, Logan can go sort this out and then we will head home, right Logan?” Kyle said stepping back to stand next to me earning a suspicious look that I couldn’t place form Logan.
“Sure. Lena, take Conner and Britney back to the plane and fuel up” Logan ordered them.
“Why me, I want piece of Marco?”
“Because if something happens I don’t want you getting killed” Logan’s voice was clear cut and commanding.
“He’s right Lena but I think we should keep Britney with us, neither of them is in any fit state to protect her” Kyle said ordering his sister around.
Logan nodded in agreement.
What the hell just happened there? I don't want to fight a troll and who the hell is Marco?