Ravenswood

This chapter represents the start of a new series, one that puts a different, more Sci-Fi spin on the age-old vampire myth. Bye the way, the term 'vampire' is actually an Earth construct, therefore people from another world who may share those traits don't think of themselves that way.

So, yes, there are aliens, good ones and bad ones, and yes, the good ones are here to stand against those who would suppress the more fragile human race, but they don't appear yet, have faith, they'll show up soon, Maura, the lead character, just has to deal with a few adjustments to her world view. While there is no actual sex in this chapter, there is a lot of action to keep you occupied. *Grin*

This chapter could be rated PG-13 for action, but I still like to caution my readers. I hope you enjoy it, leave a comment once you've read it. Feedback is the lifeblood of any writer...dreamweaver594.

Terrus

Maura dashed out of the store laden with some of the provisions she and her father would need to lay low for the next couple of weeks. Supplies were slim and she had to take the chance of getting caught.

Right after she arrived in the store the clerk began to get suspicious. There was a poster of her next to one of her father's plastered on a board near the front door. She paused a moment to study the likeness through her fake glasses. Her hair had grown a lot since that drawing was made. Her amber curls fell nearly to her waist, framing a pretty face with a button nose and arched eyebrows. She was listed as having a pale complexion in the description and standing nearly two meters high, which was tall for a female. It also warned the reader that she was armed and dangerous. She snorted at that. They had no idea.

She glanced around the store. It was mostly empty at this time of the day. She knew there were spies everywhere. Disguises were helpful, up to a point. The one she wore was good, but ultimately a careful observer could peel back even the most professional mask.

Standing at the register Maura was beginning to perspire, which is never a good thing when you wear a mask. Sweat was beginning to drip off Maura's chin. It was equinox, the hottest day of the year. She grabbed the sack the merchant filled with her provisions and bolted for the door. Outside, the larger of the two suns glared down making everything shimmer with the heat of mid-day. She dropped the sacks into the saddlebags on her motorbike when her communicator chirped.

"I told you never to call," she sputtered vehemently.

"You're father's in trouble." The familiar raspy voice grated against her ears.

"What?"

"They'll be there soon...move!"

"Who told you to call me?"

"Artemus." Artemus was an old man she had met only once, he was her father's childhood friend.

"Where are they now? Are they close?"

She heard a click in the earpiece. Everything went silent.

Maura tossed the communicator into a trashcan by the road. She knew that it probably had a trace on it. She gunned the bike and raced down the dusty gravel road. Small rocks flew in all directions as the wheels spun against the loose gravel.

Damn it, why can't this piece of crap go any faster? "Dad," she murmured to herself, "be safe, be safe, be safe. Oh God Dad, be safe." The bike raced out of the dumpy little village leaving only a thin trail of dust behind.

About a kilometer from the warehouse Maura stopped and pulled the bike into a makeshift lean-to just off the road. The night air was chilly and she could see her breath. To be safe, she would travel the remaining distance to the warehouse where they had been hiding on foot.

As she crept closer to the warehouse she could see light coming from the lone window on the roadside of the building. She looked around and couldn't see any other vehicles. She knew they must be close but maybe she made it in time. Then she heard a 'snap' and darkness began to descend.

"Nice of you to drop by Miss Telie-Duranoc," said the voice of a man behind her, "Time to join your father." Maura's mind went blank and everything went black.

As Maura slowly began to regain consciousness she found herself being pulled across the warehouse floor towards her father's desk. For whatever reason, the drug in the dart that was supposed to knock her out only made her drowsy. She held her silence; she had to know what they were doing to her father.

"Put her over there," said a strangely familiar voice. It was male but Maura couldn't quite place it with a face.

"We'll deal with her later. Stupid woman, sold out by an old family friend. I guess anybody can be bought these days."

Her assailant dropped her into the chair near her father's desk. Her head was throbbing and her eyes still couldn't focus clearly. Across the room she could make out the blurry images of several people standing over another person sitting in a chair.

She wanted to find her father, to see if he was safe. Her mind was fuzzy and her thoughts were garbled. Her head throbbed from the effects of the drug. "Arrrrggghh," she murmured in a half daze.

"I think she's coming out of it." She heard another man's voice from across the room. It wasn't the person who drugged her, it was different from the first, more squeaky and high pitched.

"Don't worry about it, the drug should keep her immobilized for another hour or two."

Who was that? She knew that voice from somewhere. Her head lolled to one side as she lost control of her body again, it was coming and going, it was the same with her vision. Maura could hear the snap and crackle of electrical power coming from where the three people stood across the room.

"Alright Valek, I'm going to ask you one more time before I step things up. Where is the portal?" The hum of electrical power grew more intense. "Come on Valek, you can do it, where is the portal? Tell me! Perhaps your lovely daughter over there knows about it too. Shall we persuade her instead?" he hissed as snaps and crackles of electricity filled Maura's ears. She could sense a sneer in his voice though the fog in her mind clouded everything.

Slowly, her vision was beginning to clear and she could see that there were three men standing near a fourth bound in a chair by silken ropes. The fourth man was bleeding; his face was covered in blood burnt black by the electrodes attached to his scalp. It was her father. The man standing over her father and slapping him while holding his head up was Ren, the eldest son of the Diliache clan.

That snake! She knew she recognized that voice! The words screamed through her mind. She flexed her body cautiously to see if she could move. She could. Her reflexes were beginning to return. For some reason the drug was less effective on her. But she had no idea why.

"Eowrgh! Leave her out of this, she knows nothing!" Came a raspy cry from her father's throat as the air in the warehouse was filled again with the crackle of electricity.

Maura could see several electrodes were fastened with steel bands to his chest and temples. His body was going rigid with pain as the power was increased and the air growled with the hum of electricity.

"Perhaps you would like us to give her the same treatment, huh? Would you like to see her writhe in pain?" Ren hissed as he leaned down near Valek's ear.

The old man twisted in pain as Ren moved the dial on the machine higher.

"No? Then tell me where the portal is!"

The men across the room seemed totally focused on Maura's father. Watching them carefully, she slowly stretched her hand to reach the weapon she knew was hiding alongside of her father's desk. Stretching further, as silently as she could, her fingers touched the metal braid on the silk wrapped handle. Still watching her father's assailants like a hawk; she moved her body across the arm of the chair she had been dropped into. Her hand closed around the hilt. She drew the weapon, and in a lightening fast blur, she closed the distance between her and her father's attackers.

The weapon sliced through the air. Snap. Snap. Two darts whizzed by her ears as she dodged them and brought the weapon down on the shooter. The blade flicked through him effortlessly then Maura slammed the hilt of the weapon into the second man's face. But before the second man could slump to the ground, unconscious, Maura drove the weapon to the hilt through Ren's chest. As she twisted and drew the blood soaked blade from his body, she pushed him to the floor. She bought the weapon down again and cleaved his head from his neck. That, she knew, would send a clear message to the D'liache clan.

"Maura...run...run. Go...go, Maura...go." Valek voice now very faint.

"Father! Don't talk, let me help you."

"No, it's too late. You have to go. They'll come for you next. Run to the valley of the Three Rams. Find the way." His voice, now a faint whisper, faded as he began to fall in to unconsciousness.

"No Father, don't! I won't let you die!" She screamed as she cradled his head in her arms.

"Be safe... Go." Then the tension in his body was gone.

Maura watched the light go out of his eyes. She knew he was gone forever. Rage filled her eyes as she looked at the burn marks the assassins had seared into his body.

"Oh Father, I am so sorry," she stammered.

A low moan from the man she had knocked unconscious brought Maura around swiftly and with a single blow she cleaved his body in half.

She'd trained relentlessly with the sword her mother gave her for half her life but she'd never killed another being. And now three bodies lay at her feet. Her eyes were filled with tears as she scanned the scene that surrounded her father. "It's like I'm no better then they are! Oh Father, what have we become?"

She glanced down and saw her hands were drenched with the blood of the three assassins. She wiped her blade on the third man's shirt and replaced it into her scabbard. Then she pushed the chair that held her father's body across the room. She untied the silk bindings and lifted him gently onto his desk.

From out of cabinets and cupboards scattered around the warehouse she gathered whatever she could that would burn. She arranged his lifeless form as well as she could then built his funeral pyre on the desk. She knew that the D'liache had ways of extracting information, even from the dead, but not from their ashes.

She dumped several bottles of liquid across the desk, drenching his body. Her eyes filled with tears once again as she struck a match. The flare of the match caught the fuel with a 'whoosh' and in seconds the fire engulfed the desk and her father's body. "Your last wish dear Father, your secrets are turning to ash."

The fire continued to burn brighter. As Maura walked outside she turned and watched the entire warehouse suddenly become engulfed in flames. She knew that it would only be a matter of time before they would find her if she didn't run. She knew that if they did find her they would torture her like they did her father and that was what she feared the most. What secrets did my father hide in me? She could never be sure. She knew she would have to run. The words looped over and over in her mind as she sprinted towards the ditch and her motorbike. The Valley of the Three Rams, the Valley of the Three Rams, why couldn't she remember what it meant.

For weeks Maura hid in the shadows among the ruins and filth of this God forsaken city as the search for her continued. Everywhere she turned there were posters of her face and rumors of her whereabouts. An enormous bounty was placed on her capture. Gangs of mercenaries scoured the city looking for her. Their methods were just as ruthless and thorough as the vermin who killed her father. Anyone who knew her father or his daughter was tortured for information.

Finally, with nowhere else to hide, she understood that it was time to flee the confines of the city and take her chances in the wasteland. At least in the wasteland there would be fewer soldiers.

She slipped along the shadows near the high outer wall and watched two soldiers pass by on the ramparts overhead. She knew she had to leave her home. There was no place else to hide. She had to get away from the city and the clutches of the D'liache clan.

As with any place where walls are intended to keep invaders out, little thought was given to keeping people in. Maura had watched the midnight watchmen patrol the perimeter with military precision for over a week, lurking in the shadows below. There never was any change to their routine, which is exactly what she wanted. Precision means consistency and she needed that to make it easier to slip through their defenses undetected.

Another pair walked by; their heels clicking on the stone pavers. Across the narrow lane that ran the perimeter of the wall were stacks of old crates and boxes ready to be sent to the trash collection point outside of the barren city walls. Behind the precariously stacked crates a small door stood on broken hinges. It was held shut by rope and rust.

Maura slipped behind the haphazardly stacked crates. She waited until the next pair of steel shod boots clicked along the parapet then to fade out of earshot; she pushed the rusty door open slowly. The hinges groaned in protest. Once the gap between the wall and the door opened wide enough she was gone in a blur, rolling against piles of rotting garbage.

Moments later, lying behind a shallow rock outcropping, she paused to catch her breath. Weak from exhaustion and hunger, she looked back at the towering spires of the city that was once her home. The shimmering marble and crystal spires that emerged from the surrounding ring of mountains once looked warm and inviting when she traveled to the city as a child. Now, in the darkness of the moonless night, they looked cold and hostile, shrouded in sterile white guard lights. First sunrise was only two hours away and she needed to be lost in the wasteland before their scopes could see her.

Throughout the following day, Maura walked deeper and deeper into the wasteland. Hunger and thirst were beginning to fog her mind. Near the second sunset she stumbled and began to slide and roll down a steep embankment. Rocks, gravel, her pack and sword tumbled after her as she fell onto a narrow ledge of a ravine that ran alongside and halfway up a canyon wall. The ledge of the ravine, it kept her from falling further to the canyon floor, it offered a little shade from the ruthless beating of the Terrian suns. She looked over the lip of the ravine to see a sheer drop of nearly a kilometer to the bottom of the gorge. She laid there barely conscious a moment longer and then passed out as the second of Terra's two suns set on the horizon.

Maura slowly opened her eyes; she had no idea how long she had slept. It was pitch dark out; the only light came from stars that filled the indigo sky. She could feel insects crawling across her body. She jumped up quickly and brushed them off but then, just as quickly, she dropped to the ground as the sound of voices and the clanking sound of a land crawler echoed in the distance. Searchlights from the crawler pierced the darkness and swept the canyon walls.

Crap. She wondered if they saw her jump up. She was beginning to panic. She held her breath and peeked over the ledge again. She looked to see if there was any reaction from the searching men below. None. Good. It was time to move on, but where? She had no idea where she was.

She picked up her pack and weapon to carefully edge her way along the shallow ravine, so as not to disturb a single stone. She started to move away from the search team. In the back of her mind she felt that for some reason she knew this place, as if she'd been here before.

The nagging feeling of 'déjà vu' was replaced by shock when she realized that she was near the end of a box canyon. In the starlight she could barely make out the surface of a vertical wall that closed off the far end of the canyon. There was no way out ahead. She was trapped. If she went up the canyon wall they would see her. If she stayed quiet and didn't move, the sensors on that crawler would find her. She looked around for another way out. Nothing. Then she saw it.

Up ahead maybe fifty meters, there was a deeper shadow along the wall. It could only be a cave. She crawled along the narrow ravine until she arrived at the mouth of the cave. It was damp inside, damp and cool. Air was rushing from the mouth of the cave; that must mean there was another way out. Escape. Or maybe they won't see the cave entrance from the canyon valley below. Either way, she had no choice. She slipped into the cave and further into darkness.

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:

The author copyrights Ravenswood and all of its parts. The reproduction of any part of Ravenswood without the written permission of the author is expressly prohibited. This story is a work of fiction. All of the characters, their names and the places they visit, are purely from the imagination of the author. Any resemblance to persons, places, or things is not intentional and purely coincidental.