A Shade of Vampire 27: A Web of Lies (14 page)

I
wasn’t quite
sure what to expect on Lucas’s return—assuming that he would return—but I certainly didn’t expect him to emerge from the tunnel carrying a newborn baby and a young human woman slung over one shoulder. He appeared quite out of breath as he hurried to lay them both down on a patch of soft grass.

“What in the world?” Sofia gasped as we hurried toward them. She immediately lowered to the baby and scooped it up in her arms, while the rest of us all hovered over Lucas and the woman.

“What happ—” I couldn’t even finish my question before Lucas’s gaze shot up toward Corrine and Ibrahim.

“You need to fix her,” he informed them. “I don’t know what happened to her exactly—I found her in a storage room within one of the dungeons—but she’s unconscious and malnourished.”

Corrine and Ibrahim knelt beside the young woman. The witch placed a palm over the human’s forehead and began to mutter an incantation beneath their breath.

Lucas remained kneeling a couple of feet away watching the witch work.

“What else did you find in there?” I asked my brother.

“Nothing,” he replied, tearing his eyes away from the woman for just a moment to glance up at me. “I found nothing and nobody at all except for this woman and her child. It seems that the ogres abandoned the palace…” He paused. “That said, I didn’t explore the whole place. There could be other pockets in this palace where humans are still living, maybe even some ogres. You should go back and finish the search.”

Lucas had apparently already decided that he was going to stay here with the woman and the witches to wait and watch until she was healed. A group of others opted to stay behind, too, including Ashley, Claudia and River.

I turned to the rest of the League. “We should do as my brother suggests,” I said, before addressing the dragons. “Will you come with us?”

Jeriad nodded. All the dragons went around the side of the castle to shift and change into a spare set of clothes they had brought with them before returning to us.

“I’m going to stay here too, Derek,” Sofia said, glancing down at the baby in her arms.

I nodded. Casting one last glance at the unconscious woman, I led the rest of our group into the dark tunnel entrance of the castle.

G
radually
, thanks to Ibrahim and Corrine’s expertise, the young woman began to show signs of coming to. Her frown smoothed and her eyelids flickered slightly. Then her pattern of breathing changed; previously slow and steady, it became more fast-paced and erratic until her eyes finally shot open, revealing not a sparkling blue color like her child’s, but a hazel brown. She looked quite different with her eyes open. Large and rimmed with thick lashes, they brought the rest of her features to life—her oval face framed by full, natural brows, her symmetrical cheekbones, a small, pert nose, and heart-shaped lips. She looked younger somehow.
Too young to have been through this kind of trauma
.

She appeared to be in a daze at first, her eyes unfocused. Then she sat bolt upright, panic lighting up her face. Her lips parted and when she spoke, it was in fluid French.

She gazed at the two people nearest her, Corrine and Ibrahim, and then to Sofia, who was standing with her child. She appeared to be quite oblivious to everybody else after spotting her baby—she struggled to rise to her feet, but she was too weak and immediately sank down.

Sofia lowered and handed the baby to her. The woman clutched it to her chest and, covering her neckline with the baby’s blankets, began to breastfeed the child.

“Vous êtes française!”
The familiar voice of Claudia spoke behind me. I knew just about enough French to figure out that Claudia was asking if the woman was French. The short blonde vampire jostled to the front of the group to get a better look at the woman.

“Oui!”
the woman exclaimed. Her shock at finding herself surrounded by a group of strangers gave way to a look of relief to see somebody who spoke her language. Claudia knelt beside her and held her hand before continuing to speak in French—I quickly lost track of what they were saying.

Claudia looked up at us and explained, “She is from Nantes, France. A single mother, she had been visiting family in Quebec when the ogres captured her. She was pregnant and gave birth just, like, a week ago—she says she can’t remember exactly.”

“How did she end up in that storage room?” I asked, and as I spoke, the woman’s eyes met mine for the first time. She looked like she was bursting with just as many questions as we were.

“Apparently, the ogres called for a hurried evacuation,” Claudia replied. “She didn’t understand why, but they began taking the humans from the cells and herding them out of the dungeons. She said that it was all very disorganized and confusing, but amidst the chaos she managed to slip into the storage room where she remained hiding.”

Claudia turned back to the woman and asked what her name was—one of the few complete basic French phrases I understood.

“Marion,” the woman replied, her eyes darting to each of us. She still appeared unnerved by us strangers. “Marion Dupont.”

Marion
.

“Does Marion speak any English at all?” I wondered.

Claudia was about to translate when Marion addressed me directly. “I u-understand little,” she stammered. “But speaking is… uh… not good.”

I nodded. “I see.”

Then she turned to Claudia again and asked her a question. Claudia’s eyes shifted to me and she jerked a finger in my direction.

“What?” I asked her.

“Marion asked who saved her,” Claudia replied with a small smile.

As my eyes returned to Marion, she was looking at me again. But this time, her expression was quite different. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes. She eyed me with such heartfelt gratitude that it almost knocked the breath out of me. She reached up a frail hand, I supposed for me to take. I returned the gesture, extending my right hand to her. She grasped it and immediately pulled me downward. Then as she came within reach of my shirt, without warning, she gripped it and pulled me closer. The next thing I knew, her full lips were pressing passionately against the sides of my face, first one then the other.

I wished that I could control the heat rising to my cheeks.

“Thank you,” Marion breathed. “You save me and my girl.”

I glanced down at the baby, finally pacified against her mother’s breast. So it was a girl. Somehow, she had looked a little too pretty to be a boy.

“Now,” Corrine interrupted before I could respond to Marion—not that there really was anything for me to respond with other than a lame
, “You’re welcome.”
“We ought to take Marion back to The Shade,” Corrine went on. “She’s not going to last much longer without some proper nourishment, and the baby could also use some medical attention.”

Marion was still gazing up at me through her large, pretty hazel eyes, even as Claudia began to speak to her in French. I guessed the vampire was now explaining to her what they planned to do next. Then Corrine lowered to Marion and reached an arm around her waist. She helped her stand.

“Claudia, why don’t you come back with us?” Corrine suggested. “It will be useful to have a translator.”

Claudia was more than happy to oblige. I supposed it was a treat for her to find somebody she could speak her mother tongue with.

Marion’s eye contact finally broke from me, as the three women along with the baby vanished from the spot.

The rest of us stood gazing at the patch of grass where they had disappeared for a few seconds. Then Sofia cleared her throat and faced me. She planted a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it. “That was good of you, Lucas,” she remarked.

I grimaced at my sister-in-law. “What?”

“Well, you know, saving her and all…”

I shrugged her off. “It’s what anyone with a heartbeat would’ve done.”

“I know,” Sofia replied. A smile curved her lips. “I suppose it’s just nice to be reminded every so often that you still have one.”

I rolled my eyes as amusement flashed in Sofia’s emerald-green irises. Amusement about what, I wasn’t sure… until Ashley nudged me in the shoulder and informed me with an even broader grin, “Lucas, you’re still blushing, you know.”

Mortified, I swiveled to turn my back on her. I was suddenly glad that Jeramiah had stayed back home on this particular mission.

“Shut it, Ashley,” I grunted.

W
e wound deeper
and deeper into the ogres’ royal palace. A palace seemed like an odd description for it, though. It struck me as more of a network of dungeons connected by long, dim tunnels.

We headed down a stairwell and, on arriving at the bottom, we discovered filthy halls where humans must’ve been kept. One of these was where Lucas had found the mother and child.

We searched all the cells in the prisons, as well as any adjoining rooms or storage cupboards. But we found no more humans.

We headed back up to the higher floors and began trying to move through the palace systematically. This was quite a feat, considering that it was so huge and none of us knew where the heck we were going. When Rose had been held captive in this place, she’d only witnessed a small section of the palace, and most of the chambers and corridors we passed were just as new to her as they were to the rest of us.

As we climbed higher up the palace levels, however, we finally heard something of interest. The sound of… snoring. It was emanating from one of the rooms at the end of the corridor we were standing in. We hurried forward. Jeriad and Ridan reached the door first. The two dragons kicked it down. We moved inside to discover a rather beautiful apartment. This must’ve belonged to one of the royals… But the ogre who lay in the master bedroom, splayed out in the center of a large queen-sized bed, certainly looked anything but royal.

It was a male ogre, lying flat on his back, his jaw hanging open as he snored like there was no tomorrow. Even the noise of the dragons bursting through the door hadn’t been enough to wake him up. Only when they gripped him and began to shake violently did he splutter and wake up.

His dazed eyes gazed at each of us in alarm before he let out a bellow and attempted to charge for the door. Aisha stalled him mid run, and his limbs froze.

I moved in front of him, and glared up at him. “Identify yourself,” I demanded.

Panic shone in his eyes. “Rander Bunkdell is my name,” he stuttered, unleashing a breeze of his rancid breath. Coughing, I took a step back. “Guard to the gates of the palace,” Rander added.

“What happened here?” I asked.

“Hunters came,” he replied. “We spotted them setting up nearby, in the mountains. The king ordered that we abandon the palace and flee to our emergency hideout.”

I exchanged glances with Xavier. “And where exactly is the hideout?” I asked the ogre.

“I cannot tell you that!” Rander exclaimed. “I would never betray my king.”

“If you are loyal to your king,” my son interjected before I could respond, “what are you doing sleeping here? How did you escape the hunters? Didn’t they come to storm this place?”

“They did,” the ogre informed us. “They did storm the palace, but the ogres stole away with our supply of humans during the dead of night, just in time to miss them.”

“Again,” Ben said, “what are you doing here, then?”

A touch of red showed in Rander’s muddy brown cheeks. “I had… um… fallen asleep in some bushes… outside in the courtyard, as we were making preparations to leave. An accident, I assure you.”

I rolled my eyes internally. “I see… Ogre, I am Derek Novak, of The Shade. These are my people and we are not here to harm your king. We are here for the hunters.”
And to free the poor humans you still have holed up in this realm while we’re at it.
“You must inform me where the hideout is, because that is most certainly where the hunters have headed. They are no longer in their base, in case you weren’t aware… I’m sure that they have means and technology to pick up on the tracks of your kind.”

The ogre still looked at us, untrusting.

“Do I need to ask my dragons to deal with you?” I asked him, glaring at him.

Rander eyed the dragons and gulped.

“Believe me, ogre. It is in your interest to trust our king,” Jeriad threatened.

As Jeriad took a step forward with his fellow fire-breathers, even in their humanoid forms, the ogre broke out in a sweat.

“All right!” he exclaimed, as they neared within a couple of feet from him. “I will lead you there.”

“How far away is it from here?” Jeriad asked.

“That depends on how you travel,” Rander replied hoarsely.

“If one traveled on the back of a dragon…” Jeriad said tersely.

Rander swallowed. “Then, uh, not long… I suppose.”

“Describe the hideout to me, Rander,” I commanded.

“It is a secret bunker,” he replied, “hidden deep beneath a lake, on the furthermost northern tip of The Trunchlands.”

The Trunchlands
.

I felt taken aback by the name. After all these years, I realized that I’d never known the official name of the ogres’ kingdom. We’d always simply referred to it among ourselves as the ogres’ realm, or kingdom, and I hadn’t really thought anything of it. The Trunchlands, however, was an odd, yet fitting name for this place.

“Right,” I said, clenching my jaw. “Can you confirm the identity of your king for me?” I asked the ogre.

“King Anselm Raskid,” Rander replied.

So the prince has come to rule by now…
I didn’t miss Rose shifting uncomfortably on her feet.

“You can release Rander now,” I told Aisha, who cast the ogre a stern glare. “He would be
very
stupid to try anything,” I added.

Rander grunted as Aisha gave him use of his limbs again. He huddled back from the dragons. Jeriad and Ridan, although shorter than the ogre in their humanoid forms, stepped forward and gripped his arms. He didn’t attempt to struggle as we escorted him back out of the palace and returned to the glade where we had left the others. The woman and her baby, along with Corrine and Claudia, were absent.

“We sent Marion—the woman—and her girl back to the island,” Sofia explained, moving to me. She paused as her eyes fell on the ogre. “What’s going on?”

“Rander here,” I said, introducing the ogre, “is going to show us where to find the hiding spot of the royal family… What’s the bet that the hunters will already be there?” I added grimly, glancing around at the rest of our group.

“A hundred gold coins,” Jeriad muttered.

Nobody betted to the contrary.