Ravenswood Ch. 02

This is the second chapter 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, landing on Earth to name a big one. While there is no actual sex in this chapter, there is a lot of action to keep you occupied, be patient.

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.

*****

EARTH

A shimmering blue/white light materialized, as if tracing the perimeter of a hidden opening. The portal that opened in the evening sky hovered several feet above the ground. It sizzled with the sound of rushing water yet no water spilled from an opening that looked very much like an arched doorway. A young woman, scruffy and covered in dust and grime, peered around the edge of the portal. Where was she? The smells, the sounds, everything on this side of the portal seemed different, totally foreign. She could see lights in the openings in what appeared to be buildings, but they were nothing like she had ever seen before. And what was the green stuff that stretched across an open plain from the portal to those buildings? Where were the desert sands, or rugged mountains she was familiar with? The city, which should loom in the distance, was absent, replaced by tall things that looked like spires but waved in a gentle breeze. What the hell were those things? Wait, she saw something like them before, at the Terrian pole.

Could this be some hidden place on Terrus? She had traveled all over the planet but she never found a place like this. A cool breeze moved across her face, it was humid and carried with it distant sounds of laughter. Human sounds...was this a human place on Terrus? Was this what her pursuers wanted to learn about?

She had been running for weeks; trying to stay hidden from those who would torture her for information she didn't even know she had. And now this, trying to avoid detection she fell into a cavern that led her to this strange opening in a wall of stone.

Checking behind her and seeing no sign of her pursuers, she sat down on the bottom of the threshold and reached down with her legs towards the green plain that expanded before her. From the other side, the portal looked like frozen water and yet no liquid spilled from the opening on either side. Cautiously, she extended her foot and placed it on the ground below the portal.

Once safely down, she drew her long blade and crouched, ready. It glimmered in the moonlight. With no immediate threat, she gathered her pack from the portal then turned quickly left, then right, before she darted across the ground to find cover among a cluster of the strange spires standing nearby. The arched opening she stepped through only moments earlier snapped shut with a crackle and a pop and then disappeared completely.

Overhead, the night sky was filled with stars and insects began to chirp their rhythmic call once again. Insects? There weren't any insects where she lived; the ground was too arid and rocky. There were insects on Terrus but near the poles and none as melodic as these, or so far away from the ocean.

Now, standing closer to these strange spires, she could see that they were alive, covered with a coarse material that proved rough to the touch. Above, small green pieces of fabric like material clung to the branches with tiny stems; they waved in the gentle breeze.

The night sky peeked through the shelter of these fabric-like leaves. She looked closer, the stars were wrong. She didn't recognize a single constellation. Where was she? What had she done?

Suddenly, glancing back to where the portal once was, she realized that if the goons who were chasing her discovered that doorway she wouldn't be safe here either. She needed to find a place to hide, but where? She sheathed her weapon and surveyed her surroundings.

It looked like an open plain, no, that wasn't it, it was more formal. Plants were trimmed neatly into rows that lined formal pathways of rock and stone. There were lights nearby, perched atop long slender poles, and funny looking buildings? What were those? Confusion fogged her mind as she searched her surroundings for something familiar. Where on Terrus was she?

She stood up slowly and pulled her pack onto her shoulder. Everything she owned was in that pack. Dried rations, bags of synth-blood, and what money she had remaining from her month of hiding from the D'liache clan. It was all stuffed inside. She slung it onto her shoulder, and after a brief pause, she moved quietly through the cluster of spires towards the strange buildings several hundred meters away. She had to know where she was and what these structures represented.

A nagging thought crept into her mind, she had not just jumped to another part of Terrus but she had jumped into another world, an alien world. She knelt down and ran her fingers through the thick blades of whatever the green plant was beneath her feet, it was soft and luxurious. There was no place like this on Terrus, no place as lush and verdant as the ground she stood on.

The buildings were different, too. Not like the towering stone spires of home or the ruggedness of the arid landscape. There were no walls to protect them from marauders. She finally recognized the tall spires, they were trees! There were trees on Terrus, mostly at the southern pole, but there weren't so many different kinds. Things were more spread out here, not clustered together.

She drew in a big breath. The fragrance was something she'd never sensed before. And there was softness about the place; it seemed peaceful and serene. Some of the buildings still had lights on. Voices and music came from many of them. She recognized the sounds they were making, her mother taught her the language of her homeland when she was little. The sounds they were making were familiar, even some of the words that she never learned from her mother had similar sounds on Terrus. There was a tranquil quality to this world that she had not known before.

Suddenly, she realized what the buildings were. They were homes. Yet they were so open, there was no evidence of guards or defenses. She stood thunderstruck. People lived in these structures. But they weren't like in her world.

Hiding behind some foliage, she peered into an open window at people moving in the buildings. Were they humans? Her mother was from a world filled with humans; was this that world her mother called home? Her mother tried to explain the beauty of the place but her words never conveyed a scene like this. She'd seen pictures taken by the few explorers who returned to Terrus. Humans who populated this planet were similar, yet different, more varied in skin tone and other features than those from her home planet. But they were similar nonetheless.

She moved away from the cluster of homes. As she approached a place where two hard paths intersected, the whitish glow of a light perched atop another long pole revealed something she had not expected. The ground was green, everywhere. She turned slowly taking in everything; the ground, the trees, the buildings...everything. It was beautiful!

Maura crept up to a nearby building and peered in to one of the windows. Several humans were sitting at a table eating. This certainly looked familiar to her. People gathered together to share a meal, something she did countless times with her father. She moved to another building and saw a female helping a child dress in bedclothes. She remembered her mother doing that to her when she was young.

She dropped back down to hide beneath a large clump of short trees, what her mother called bushes, and sighed. Maybe she could disappear if she could just blend in. Her sword master on Terrus once said 'the best camouflage was none at all."

She stood up, adjusted her pack and turned to walk towards the city. Perhaps the language lessons her mother gave her as a child, albeit brief, would help, the rest was up to fate and hope and luck.

As she walked on into the night. Something her father said a long, long time ago flashed through her mind. He was standing next to an archway just like the one she stepped through. The image had faded from her mind as a small child, but now it returned crystal clear. The archway that looked like falling water, it's shimmering surface seemed frozen but not cold.

He said, "Maura, if ever you are in danger and I'm not here to protect you, go to the valley of the Three Rams, and find a way to this portal. Step through it and you'll find friends on Earth who will protect you. I will come to you as soon as I can."

Earth. She paused in thought. So this was Earth. Her father was dead and she was lost in another world. The memory of her father's death and the pillar of fire that consumed his body came crashing back into her mind. Her heart ached as she collapsed to her knees beneath an big tree and wept.

"Maura...run...run. Go...go, Maura...go." Her father's voice had been very faint. His tortured body was weak; he could barely lift his head.

Maura moved to cradle her father's head and shoulders. "Father! Don't talk, let me help you."

"No, it's too late. You have to go," he said as he reached for her. "They'll come for you next. They'll never give up. My secret...it's too valuable."

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

"Be safe... Go." His last words faded then the tension in his body was gone.

Slowly the light of his eyes extinguished. She knew he was gone, forever. Rage filled her heart as she looked at the burn marks the monsters had seared into his body.

She held him in her arms and carried him to his desk. In a matter of moments, the funeral pyre she built for her father was engulfed in flames. "Your last wish my dear father, your secrets have turned to ash."

The fire burned brighter as Maura walked outside the abandoned warehouse. The building erupted in an explosive flash as it was engulfed in flames. It would only be a matter of time before they would find her if she didn't run. If they did find her they would torture her and that was what she feared the most. What secrets did he hide in her? She couldn't be sure.

She closed her eyes and wiped them with the palm of her hands and then she stood slowly. She took a big breath and shouldered her pack once again. Behind her, the place where she stepped through the portal was peaceful now. She turned and began to walk towards the lights in the distance. Perhaps it was the center of a human city, perhaps she would find a safe place there, and perhaps others would be there to protect her like her father promised. But what or where is safe for someone like her on Earth?

Maura thought of the tales told in and out of the classroom when she was in school. They told her that humans and people like her could never be together. They told her that humans were too susceptible to negative energy and that it was this darkness of the human soul that attracted her kind. But her father told her that it wasn't necessarily so.

"Most humans are filled with love," he said as they walked together in the garden beside her home. "But human love is fragile and can easily be clouded with fear, anger, and mistrust. There are those who would use that weakness to an advantage. Instead of seeking out the truly dark ones to be cleansed, they would use fear and panic to instill the negativity they craved. It was despicable. Yet humans have such remarkable resiliency." Her father brushed back a wisp of her hair and pushed it behind her ear. "They can bounce back from the brink of despair often with a single touch, or a smile, or kind word. They truly are such beautiful beings. Perhaps that's why I married one." Her father gazed at the carved headstone that bore the name of her mother, Thalia on its face.

His smile was mournful. "Your mother was an angel, Maura, and I miss her so very much."

As they stood in silence in front of the simple shrine Maura kissed her father on the cheek. "She's still with us father, always in our hearts."

Maura walked down a small hill. At the bottom the road split in two. A sign of letters she did not understand pointed towards the lights in the distance and that was the road she chose. A vehicle approached, its lights flashed past her briefly and then it disappeared in the distance. A lone human, perhaps male, sat in the vehicle as it passed her by. Maura only caught a glimpse as she shielded her eyes from the bright lights. He appeared large, perhaps bulky; a large hat, the brim of which sheltered his face and covered his head. Yet Maura felt him stare at her as he passed her by.

She thought again of humans and of her kind. Her father taught her well. "Like a moth to a flame, are lured to the beauty of the flame only to be devoured by the intensity of the light." Many humans are filled with darkness she was told; it's what makes them so desirable. If the terrian's desire is too strong and the passion is too consuming, the bloodlust becomes insatiable. "Like a fox in the hen house," her mother told her before she died, "the fox will destroy their prey without mercy, indiscriminately. They are so weak; so easy to control. Yet, at the same time, if the chickens of this parable band together, they present a formidable force against which the terrian can not withstand."

Maura realized why they were forbidden to cross the barrier and enter this world. There were other worlds in which her kind could hunt, but Earth was forever off limits. No wonder the D'liache wanted my father's secret so badly! Unfettered access to an unlimited source of blood! Unleashed here, the D'liache would wreak havoc in this world. Billions would be killed, billions more enslaved. Maura stood in shock at the audacity of the plan.

One on one, a terrian can easily defeat any human. Against a mob of humans, however, a terrian was helpless. But a mob of humans against a mob of ...holy blood! These thoughts raced through her mind as she followed the path, to what her mother called a street, towards the city center still keeping as much as she could to the shadows.

There was a clatter of metal nearby. In a blur, her blade was drawn and she crouched to prepare for an attack. But none came. A solitary shadow darted across the darkened hard path at the side of a nearby building. In the dappled light of a rising moon she could make out the fleeting image of an animal scurrying across the yard and up a nearby tree. Another animal, similar in form, chased after it. Maura took a big breath; she fought to swallow the lump in her throat.

"I'm so on edge I'm fighting my own shadows. Earth," she whispered softly, "a place I'm not supposed to be." She turned and continued down the street.

"The nobility of our kind," her father told her once, "is to cleanse, not destroy." His words were engrained in her. "Look for the dark ones Maura, the ones whose hearts have been twisted and perverted by the shadow of greed; they are the ones who prey upon their own kind. They are the ones who must be cleansed, the ones we must hunt."

Maura finally understood why she was safer here than anywhere on Terrus. She also understood that her chances of survival here were slim. She had no food beyond the rations she carried in her pack nor clothing beyond what she wore on her back. And the synth-blood...what would she do when that ran out as well?

She shook her head. "I can't go back," she murmured. There must be places where she could hide until she could figure out what she was going to do, she thought. It wasn't safe at home; it wasn't safe here. She needed time to think.

Days blended into weeks and then into months as Maura struggled to survive. There were other 'homeless' humans, she heard someone call them that, living amongst the squalor. She watched what they did to endure their life then mimicked their actions as she began to understand the nuances of life in a foreign world.

Through the coming months she wandered through the city sleeping in vacant buildings and abandoned warehouses. She was always on guard, trusting no one. Soup kitchens and homeless shelters became a way of living.

As a terrian, she needed blood, but only periodically and then only to replenish what she'd lost when blood was purged from her body. It wasn't a life she wanted but in spite of the wretched conditions, she was still safer here than back home, and she wanted to survive.

Soon, the weather turned colder and the trees were changing color, she found herself walking behind several girls. They were carrying books and chatting about what classes they planned to take as they walked into a building, a store perhaps. A sweet, pungent aroma filled the air inside, she had no idea what it was but it was tantalizing.

Tables and chairs were scattered about the room and people seemed engaged in conversations over cups of a dark liquid. Near the door where she entered, a large board was filled with posted advertisements. Only a few of them were decipherable. One asked if anyone was interested in helping at something called a college library, no experience was necessary.

She needed to find work if she was going to continue to survive here and a job that didn't require experience might be a good place to start. A college with classes meant a school, but what was a library?

She found the library, after asking directions from several girls and when she entered its doors she was amazed at its size, it was enormous. There were places that housed books in her home planet but nothing prepared her for the immensity of a college library. There were so many books. She wandered down each aisle, and eventually an elderly woman stood before her.

"You look lost, can I help you find something, dearie?"

"Yes, I look for job, I saw flyer," Maura said, her broken English was difficult to understand as she pointed in the direction of the coffee shop.

The woman nodded and led her to a counter.

A form was placed in front of her and a pen was set on the form. Mrs. Williams introduced herself as the head-librarian. She was an older female, who seemed pleasant. She stood behind the counter and smiled, "Just fill out what you can, dearie. You can finish it once you get your papers from your home consulate." Maura's accent must have sounded foreign to them, so they must have assumed she was from another country. She nodded and picked up the pen.

When Maura finished the woman picked up the form. "We deal with a lot of foreign students here all the time, so don't worry, we understand," she said walking to the end of the counter. "If you'll follow me, I'll introduce you to Mrs. Warren who can show you what you'll be doing for us. This way, dearie."

A plump woman stood shelving books as Maura and her guide walked up.

Mrs. Williams gestured towards Mrs. Warren. "This is Maura Duranoc, Margaret, she needs someone to show her to the workroom below."

"Of course," Mrs. Warren said with a smile. "Just follow me."

Maura was beginning to relax in this world. Even though she didn't understand the nuances of life, or half of the words they spoke to her, she was beginning to feel safer, aside from the fact that the sights and sounds were still a bit strange.

They walked down a set of stairs and Mrs. Warren directed her to the workroom. "The students are so very hard on the books so we need someone to constantly keep them in repair. You'll be a big help, I'm sure of it."