Bridget's Days Ch. 05

"I'm afraid I am going to disappoint you, Hassan. I don't KNOW." I explained the events that led up to the changing of a innocent Irish barmaid into a member of the undead. "Dominic never explained just how he turned me. I know you do have to be bitten and you do have to die. Beyond that, there IS more but what all it involves I don't know and don't want to know."

I brooded for a minute. "I will tell you that to be safe, if ever I kill someone in any fashion that involves my biting them, I burn the body if at all possible, just in case."

"Then you DO kill."

I looked at Hassan in exasperation. "Many, many people kill. But I do not kill for sport nor for blood alone. I leave that to mortals." I paused, lost in my thoughts for a moment. "Hassan," he blinked as I changed both the tone of my voice and the subject, "When you 'smell', is it an actual scent? How exactly were you led here?"

Hassan spent the next hour attempting to describe his gift. It was not an actual "smell" in the air that came to his senses when he was attempting to track someone, but smell was as close as he could come to describing the sensation he felt.

"When I picked up your 'scent' the other night Bridget, what it told me was that you were not human. I assumed that meant you were evil and had to be the killer." The look in his eyes sufficed for the unspoken "I'm sorry".

"Until then, though, you had not picked up anything?" He shook his head and I continued. Then that means the killer IS human, and not any kind of sorcerer or you would have followed him or her from the scene of the murder."

"Yes," he agreed. A thoughtful look matching mine crossed his face and he added. "There was something, something different that I felt, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. Then I lost it when I scented you."

Sometime during our discussion I fell asleep. I was roused by Alafdal.

"Hurry, Bridget. Another woman has been taken."

I sprang from the chair I had been sleeping in and pulled on my boots. Hassan was still fastening his shirt as the three of us pounded down the stairs and into the night.

We rushed through the streets as Alafdal gasped out what he had been told. A pair of beggars had seen a man throw a cloak or bag over a woman's head and drag her away. They had attempted to interfere because the woman was well known to both of them because she had more than once fed them when they were down on their luck. However the man had proven to be more than a match for them and had disappeared with his victim. The men had notified the watch, who had dispatched a runner to us.

We reached the scene. Alafdal questioned the members of the watch and the beggars while Hassan and I circled the scene. I paused, and took a deep and generally unneeded breath.

"What is it, Bridget?"

"I smell blood." I closed my eyes and followed the faint scent. It led away from the scene and down an alley. "Alafdal! Hassan! This way!" I shouted and the three of us were off.

The scent was fading fast. I hurried as fast as I could. Thankfully the moon was full. Then the alley emptied into a street and I stopped. I must have looked like some wild animal as I all but snuffled the cobblestones in my frustration.

"Either the bleeding stopped or he has bandaged the wound." I looked at Hassan. "Its up to you now."

"I'm, I'm not sure," stammered the young man. "I think I can sense something but I can't tell for sure."

Alafdal, flustered and angry, opened his mouth. I waved down the shout I was sure he was about to let loose with and stepped to Hassan. I placed my hands on his shoulders.

"Hassan, close your eyes and relax," I instructed him. "Don't try too hard. Let it come on its own." Breaking contact I went behind him but continued to sooth him with my voice. "Breathe slowly. I'm going to be behind you so ignore the feeling of me. Just reach out in front of you. You can do it Hassan. You found me. Find the evil that is in front of us."

Hassan trembled for a moment and then his eyes opened wide. "This way," he commanded and we were running once more. With no hesitation he led us up and down several streets and alley ways until he turned into an old building. He stopped before a door at the end of the dim passageway. "Here. He's here."

Alafdal drew his scimitar and hurled his heavy set body against the door. In one powerful smash he splintered the barred door and the three of us tumbled into the room, to a scene out of a nightmare.

A woman was tied to a wooden "X". Her clothing had been savagely ripped from her. A man stood before her, a club in one hand and a metal fork with two tines in the other. He spun around at our entrance and I saw the madness in his eyes.

"Stand back!" he screamed. "I will be immortal, a child of the night. You will all be my pawns and my feed. This time it will work."

Alafdal aimed a blow at the madman. With a strength impossible for a normal human, the smaller man grasped Alafdal's arm and halted the blow. He pushed the Guard Captain to one side and sprang for the doorway, backhanding Hassan. All that seemed to stand in the way of his escape was a short, skinny redheaded woman.

Well, I hadn't escaped and he wasn't going to either. I met him in midair and slammed him to the floor. His insanity gave him strength, but I was both stronger and seriously pissed. I pounded his head against the floor until he lost consciousness. And I didn't stop, until Hassan grabbed my shoulder.

"Bridget! Stop! In Allah's name don't kill him. He needs to be brought to justice, if for no other reason than to clear you."

Alafdal bound the senseless man and then went outside and blew on his horn to summon the nearest watch patrol. Hassan untied the woman and he and I tried to see to her wounds. Fortunately we had arrived before the madman had progressed very far in his demented plan.

A dozen members of the guard arrived. Alafdal told off two men to take the woman to the Palace and have a hakim see to her. They improvised a litter and carried her hastily away. The rest assisted him in binding the madman even tighter and gagging him to stop his ravings as he regained consciousness. Then we all made our way to the palace.

Just before we arrived, Alafdal drew Hassan and me to the side.

"Bridget, this was well done, but perhaps you should leave now. You have done what was asked of you. Gratitude you have, mine and others', but the Governor will be under pressure to have you burned because of what you are. He swore no safety to you."

"I know," I took and squeezed his hand. "But I promised I would return. Upon that promise lies the lives of two innocent people."

He nodded and let me precede himself and Hassan into the Governor's audience chamber. It was simply the four of us, plus a scribe seated on a cushion to the side of the Governor's grand chair.

"You have returned."

"I have, and with the task that you set me to accomplished. I ask that you release my friends."

"Done." He gestured and the scribe rose, bowed and left. "He goes now to order their freedom." He studied me. "And you, what do you think I should do with you?"

I shrugged. "I am pretty well in your power. You could whistle for a horde of soldiers and eventually they would overcome me. You know you need not even do that." I waved behind me. "You could order Alafdal and Hassan to take me. You read people well, you know that I could not make myself injure them."

There was a long pause. The man on the almost throne and I locked eyes. Then he smiled.

"Alafdal and Hassan will escort you from the city after dark tomorrow. You may go where you wish, but I would suggest going back to the West. Things are unsettled to the East."

I bowed to the Governor and we all took our leave, returning to the inn before sunrise. That evening I reined in my horse on a rise and looked back at the twin cities separated by the river flowing between them.

I hoped one day I might come back here. It certainly had left some vivid impressions and memories. I grinned. Not the least of those was the fond memory of being on my hands and knees on my bed there, with Alafdal kneeling behind me, his broad hands gripping my hips while he pounded his fat cock deep in my pussy. I would remember Hassan sprawled at the head of the bed, a silly grin on his face and his more slender dick in my mouth. My, I had forgotten how much fun two guys could be at one time.

I touched the purse at my belt. The Governor had surprised me again, rewarding me in gold coins for the capture of the madman. I had arranged for half of the coins to be given to Susanna and Yusef, along with my apologies and my hopes for a long happy life together. I had split the remainder into three parts, leaving a third each beside the sleeping bodies of Alafdal and Hassan. I laughed and clapped my heels to my horse. She snorted and we were off. Maybe next time I would make it all the way to China. In the meantime I would take what life gave me and try to enjoy what I could.

(To be continued)