The Darkness Beyond Ch. 02

Hannah Simmons woke with the worst of skull-splitting headaches she had ever had. She kept her eyes closed for a moment, willing down the searing pain behind her eyes. Then, she opened her eyes. And closed them again right away.

Fuck. She remembered now where the headache was coming from in the first place, that bastard, Cian, had struck her with her own weapon. She tried to move carefully and found that both her hands and legs were bound, and her whole body was securely tied to some big object that seemed to be made from stone, like a pillar. She was also still wearing her pajamas. She was hurting in several places, but her head was the part of her that felt like it would explode any moment.

"I know you're awake, so you can keep your eyes open," she heard Cian's voice. She blinked a few times and her eyes promptly began to water, but now she could see Cian sitting on the stairs to her left. He was wrapped up in his cloak and gave her a blank stare.

"That hurt," she told him, rather belatedly, and the corners of his mouth turned up slightly.

"I sure as hell hope so."

"Sadist," Hannah accused him and his smile widened.

"What is your point?"

She gulped and shut her mouth, staring at the concrete floor. He was starting to scare her a bit. Considering the events of the night, it was really a surprise to her that she wasn't much more frightened than she was. She was sitting here with a vampire, an associate of the man she had killed only hours earlier, and it seemed that he and his fellow vampires, who had yet to show up, were planning on killing her before too long. She was tied up pretty securely, she noticed when she tried to move her wrists. Cian apparently knew what he was doing.

Her glance moved back over to the man who had captured her, and she looked him over more than superficially for the first time.

She was shocked when the first thought on her mind turned out to be that he was good-looking, although definitely more than a bit intimidating. He wasn't taller than average but he seemed strong and lithe enough, with pale skin and short hair that was either a very light brown or a very dark blond. The light was dim and she couldn't make it out exactly. What she could make out, however, were his piercing green eyes.

The room didn't appear to have any windows, its grey walls ascending far higher than an ordinary room would have warranted. The only light source was a couple of lit torches, one right next to her captor, the other to her left. There was barely any furniture. The floor was even only in the middle of the room, where Hannah was sitting, and turned into several sets of uneven stone stairs rising toward the edges.

Hannah started when she heard steps come down one set of these stairs. A woman was approaching them, a tall, beautiful creature with long, fire red hair, translucent skin and a look on her face that should by rights have killed Hannah. The woman walked quickly right past Cian, who seemed too surprised to take action, and lunged herself at Hannah.

Hannah screamed as the stranger started to claw her face. Pain shot through her, originating at her right cheek, and she tried to avert her face as the woman called her a bitch and a whore over and over again, now choking her as well. The woman was in tears and seemed near hysteria, screaming in frustration as Hannah felt the newcomer's weight being lifted off her chest. She looked up to see Cian hold her in a death grip, dragging her over to the other side of the room where he slapped her twice across the face and ordered her to sit down. The woman spat at him, but Cian didn't seem to care about that. He said something to her, so quietly that Hannah wasn't able to make it out, and the woman seemed to calm down. She was still sobbing slightly, but she stayed put now and Cian made his way back over to the stairs, where he sat back down and caught sight of Hannah's face.

"That," he explained, "is Briar's lover. Meraja."

"Ah," Hannah said uncomfortably.

Cian grinned. "I don't think she likes you."

"It would appear so," Hannah answered dryly. She leaned her head slowly back against the stone, her eyes darting back and forth between Cian, Meraja and the entrance to this place. She had no idea what lay behind the dark rectangle that Meraja had walked in through, but she was willing to bet that it was not the outside world. At least, not right away. Even if she somehow managed to get out of the rope that bound her, an escape wouldn't be guaranteed by any means.

Another cloaked figure appeared in the doorway, but this one walked slowly and seemed to have no intentions of attacking Hannah as well, she noticed with relief. It was a slender young man, his silver blond hair gleaming as he stepped into the light cast by the torch. Cian only acknowledged this newest arrival with a short look to the side, but the newcomer didn't seem to be bothered by this. He strode down the steps and in a circle around Hannah, studying her.

"So this is the girl that killed Briar?" he said loudly. Cian looked up, a tired look on his face.

"Yes it is, master of the obvious," he stated and shook his head in obvious disgust before letting it sink back down. The boy didn't seem bothered by that reaction, but much rather encouraged, and he came closer to Hannah.

"Not so tough now, are you?" he asked, stepping over her legs and bringing his face close to hers. "Thought you could kill us, you little bitch!"

His hand flicked under his cloak, and the next thing she noticed, he was pressing a knife against the portion of her throat not covered in bandages. The sharp blade moved once, and Hannah could feel something wet running down her throat and chest. The boy ran one of his fingers down her skin to catch it, and she could see her own blood for a second, before he opened his mouth and suggestively started sucking on his finger. Hannah stared at him. If he was trying to make her uncomfortable, he had most definitely succeeded. Voices that were getting louder made her head turn automatically, and she winced as the blade cut deeper. A whole group of people had arrived, all of them clad in long, black cloaks, and some of them seemed to be arguing. One woman with dark, crazy eyes and short unkempt hair simply stared at Hannah, making her even more uncomfortable, if that was possible.

"Adrian, what the hell are you doing?" someone yelled, and the boy hastily withdrew his knife, much to Hannah's relief. He held it behind his back for a moment, but when a tall, dark man started to move in their direction, Hannah saw him drop it in one of his pockets before he retreated into a corner. The new arrivals settled themselves around the room, and a tall, slim woman who looked to be about seventy, the oldest of the bunch as far as Hannah could tell, approached Hannah with a reproachful look in her eyes.

"So that's the girl. Do you know yet if she has the essence?"

"She does." Cian closed in from behind, gun in one hand.

"Your proof?"

Instead of an answer, Cian raised the gun and shot Hannah in the leg.

There was a moment where she felt nothing, but then the pain was so sudden and blinding that she forgot everything but it, and a piercing scream escaped her, turning into shaky sobs after a few seconds. There seemed to be a peculiar numbness crawling through her entire leg. When Hannah forced her eyes open to look at it, she gasped. The wound, a neat hole right above her knee, had already begun to close, her blood appearing to boil shortly before vanishing and leaving unblemished skin.

"Good," the woman nodded and let one of her hands glide into a fold of her robe. When she withdrew it again, she held something delicate made of glass in her hand. It glittered in the torchlight, and it took Hannah a few seconds to recognize the pyramid shape. Instinctively, she knew that its purpose was to capture the essence she now carried within her... the reason why she would die...

This thought jolted her mind out of the pain-induced haze like a slap in the face. She twisted her wrists, hastily trying to free them from their binds. When the woman carried the pyramid carefully to a location behind Hannah's back, she realized that she would not have enough time. She heard a weird, grinding sound and felt nails scraping across her scalp before her hair was grasped and her head was pulled back roughly.

"Wait a minute."

It was Cian's voice, sounding very calm and collected as he approached. Hannah's hair was released as she heard the woman behind her sigh.

"What's the problem now?"

"Well I just figured," Cian started, kneeling before Hannah and stretching out one hand, "if she has to die anyway, I might as well get a few minutes of fun. Besides, she shot me twice when I went to find her. I still owe her one. It'll be a waste if you kill her now." His fingers grabbed her chin, despite Hannah jerking her head to the side to avoid the touch.

"You're kidding!"

The voice came from behind her as well, but Hannah didn't need to turn to remember who it belonged to. Meraja, the lover of the one she had killed.

Cian looked up and past Hannah, faint amusement visible on his face. "No."

"That bitch needs to rot in hell, and I want her there, now!"

"Ah, you've never understood the subtle joy of slow torture, Meraja."

Cian drew his fingers slowly along Hannah's jaw, unnerving her. Suddenly, she felt the cold, hard mound of the gun on her throat, and she flinched as Cian's hand tightened around the trigger. He didn't pull it though, and Hannah was suddenly strangely aware of each breath she drew.

"For crying out loud, hurry." The woman behind her didn't seem to care for Cian's games, but she didn't interfere. The mound of the gun moved lower, between Hannah's breasts and further, across her belly. She squirmed uncomfortably as a grin spread across Cian's face and her eyes widened as she realized the meaning of the look in his eyes, a split second before he pulled the trigger.

She couldn't even scream.

Hannah couldn't draw breath or even move as she waited for the pain to hit, her body shaking with shock. What should have been excruciating was only a small sensation at the edge of her awareness. Then the sensation changed.

She just sat there, mouth open in a silent scream as wave after wave of pain finally washed over her. Something shattered, and there was an actual scream, but she didn't notice. She was too preoccupied fighting the overwhelming nausea, straining against her bonds with her eyes tightly closed and her face screwed up in pain.

Finally, she was able to draw breath again. She felt her own body complete the healing, an odd sensation that seemed to draw from her strength and left her shaking and bathed in sweat. She coughed hard, each time flinching from the pain it brought her, and finally opened her eyes again, expecting Cian's sadistic face to be smiling down at her. Instead, she looked at chaos.

Something had appeared in the middle of the room, a hole that opened into a dark dimension, blurring and distorting the room at its edges. It seemed almost as if it had forcibly grabbed hold of a corner of reality and refused to let go, pulling a small part of the real world towards itself. Hannah was dizzy after staring at it for only a moment, and when she turned her head away from it, she noticed that it seemed to have an effect on everyone else in the room as well.

They were deadly afraid.

All of them were clinging to each other, staring at the distortion in terror, or alternatively pacing the circumference of the room, and after a moment, Hannah understood why. The hole was moving.

Towards her.

Hannah struggled, making one more completely futile attempt to escape her bonds. She had no idea what this distortion would do to her, or where it was coming from, but simply looking at it scared the living daylights out of her. There was nothing she could do but scream, until she felt someone move behind her.

"Oh, for fuck's sake!"

She felt the rope that tied her to the stone being cut, then Cian lifted her up and dragged her backwards, until they were in a corner of the room. He cut the rope around her ankles there as well, but left her hands tied behind her back, roughly grabbing her shoulders to help her to stand upright when she stumbled.

"What the hell... is that thing?"

"A portal, I assume," he answered, not taking his eyes off the dark distortion.

Something hit the wall next to them. Hannah turned just in time to see the woman with the crazy eyes hurl another stone at the portal, this time actually hitting the dark distortion. The stone was swallowed up and vanished, and the woman picked up the third stone, undeterred.

"Satne, stop it! You're going to hit one of us!" the slender, silver haired man yelled across the room. As an answer, the disheveled woman -- Satne -- threw the third stone right at him, and he ducked at the last moment. The two eldest vampires had taken their places at the only door of the room, ready to bolt at any moment, but also dead set on not allowing Hannah to escape.

"Why is it here?" Hannah asked while her heart seemed to continue its beating in her throat. The distortion, and the weakness she still felt from her body's use of her new healing ability, left her deeply disturbed and shaken. Cian's hands on her shoulders felt strangely reassuring, and at the mere thought of anything about that monstrous vampire being reassuring, Hannah felt nauseous.

"Damned if I know," Cian replied to her question. "I've never seen one before. Someone must have called it, but nobody here did." He started inching to the right as the portal drew ever closer, tugging Hannah along with him. Hannah didn't like that too much and tried to wrestle herself from Cian's grip, but he grabbed her shoulders so hard he bruised her.

"Don't be stupid. I'm not going to push you in, you know."

"How do you know nobody here called it?" Hannah asked in a desperate attempt to manipulate him. "Those two by the door seem an awful lot like they're not going to let anyone out of here. Never thought they might want to kill your sadistic ass?"

Cian only snorted. "Nice try Hannah. It takes a ritual to call a portal. You didn't see anyone here waving around incense, did you?" He pulled her further to the right, and when Hannah looked back at the portal, a new idea entered her mind. What if someone was trying to help her?

Obviously, the vampires had not called the portal, and they were scared. Maybe someone outside the room had, either to panic the vampires, or... to rescue her. Someone who didn't like the vampires for some reason. Maybe someone would come out through the portal at the right moment.

Or maybe she was supposed to go in.

Her eyes widened when she realized how logical that sounded. A portal popping up in the exact moment she was meant to die couldn't be coincidence, especially if Cian said that they were a rarity.

"Move."

The older woman by the doorway yelled that order, and the vampires, who had tentatively begun to move up the stairs and towards the door, sped up. The portal sped up as well, following Hannah's movement as Cian pulled her with him. She took a deep breath, not daring to look directly into the dimensional distortion, and steeled her mind against the horror that overtook her at the thought of even getting one step closer than necessary to it. As Hannah and Cian reached the bottom of the stairs, Hannah still facing the direction of the portal, she stumbled over the bottom step, and when she slipped from Cian's hands for only a split second, she bolted forward.

"Oh no you don't!" was all she could hear from Cian as the lithe vampire lunged after her and tried to grab hold of her arm. Hannah screamed and pulled away, throwing herself towards the portal as Cian tried to get a hold on her. He finally darted forward and wrapped his arms around her hips, lifting her, but they were too close now. Hannah felt a strange force beginning to pull on her body and knew she was being sucked in. The less she resisted, the more powerful that force became, and although Cian was still trying to pull both of them away with all the force he could muster, the portal overpowered him.

Hannah felt herself pulled into all directions at once, stretched and compressed at the same time as darkness overtook her. She made a small sound as her lungs were crushed and the air escaped her, and her arms flailed wildly in a half-panic as the gate took her wherever it was designed to take her. When the pressure finally became too much, she felt herself beginning to faint once again, despite her desperate attempts to stay conscious.

As she finally slipped away, she was aware of only one thing: Cian was still holding on to her.