Page 55 of Nexus
“How do you know how to butcher the dogs like that?” I asked.
Ruen was staring into the fire as if mesmerized. “You could say I have experience at dissecting bodies,” he replied with a smirk.
“Were you a veterinarian before you were turned?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know how to dissect bodies?” He gave me an enigmatic look and didn’t respond. I was guessing he hadn’t been a doctor or a scientist. “What will we do if we run into more guards?” I asked to change the subject that he obviously didn’t want to talk about.
“We’ll kill them,” he said in a slightly dreamy tone. “We’ll drain their blood, break their bones and tear out their hearts.”
“That seems a bit excessive,” I pointed out with my unease growing at the fervor in his tone.
“We’ll strip their skin from their flesh with knives and lick the blood from their writhing bodies,” the vamp went on as if he hadn’t heard me. “We’ll cut off their lips and suck out their blood in a deadly kiss.”
“Ew. I’m not doing that.”
Completely lost in his morbid fantasy of rending and tearing, he was beyond hearing me by now. “I’ll hang them from hooks and remove one limb at a time, feasting on their blood and fear while keeping them alive for as long as possible.”
Noting that he’d dropped me from his fantasy of going on a killing spree, I exchanged a worried look with the bird. “Do you think he’ll turn on us?” I whispered.
The bird peered across the campfire at the bloodsucker, who was still in mid-monologue, then chirped in unease.
“Do you want me to put you up high in a tree?” I asked her. Birds usually roosted at night, but the trees in this area weren’t particularly tall. She shook her head and tucked it under her uninjured wing, then settled down to sleep. She trusted me to guard her and keep her safe.
There was no way I was going to close my eyes with Ruen still mumbling about all the ways he was going to maim and kill our enemies. I didn’t feel tired yet, so I waited for dawn to arrive to see what the day was going to bring.
Chapter Forty-One
THE FIRE EVENTUALLY died down until it was just smoldering embers and the sky began to lighten. Ruen didn’t seem to notice the dying of the night. He continued his monologue until the blackness gave way to a deep, dark brown. Suddenly, he broke off his detailed description of how he was going to remove our enemies’ eyelids and suck their juicy orbs from their lidless sockets. “I’m feeling very sleepy,” he told me, swaying a little and sounding slightly drugged. He keeled over just as the first rays of sunlight appeared at the top of the mountain.
I reached over to catch my assistant before he could land face first in the coals. “I guess vampires can’t stay awake during the day in the underworld,” I figured, placing the bird on the ground so I could move Ruen away from the fire.
A hunch told me to stay close to my fanged companion. I watched him closely as the sun rose higher. Smoke began wafting off his skin and the gross fluid that oozed from him sizzled. His chest wasn’t rising and falling and he looked about as dead as a corpse could get. His reaction to sunlight meant he was probably hibernating until nightfall.
Worried that he might burst into flames, I didn’t know what to do with him. He needed cover and there didn’t seem to be any buildings anywhere nearby. The bird had woken up when I’d moved her. She chirped at me to get my attention and pointed at the sack that held my belongings. With little choice, I reached for it and tipped out the contents.
“Sorry, Ruen,” I apologized, then stuffed my companion into the sack. I put my spare animal skin bras and loincloths on top of him to give him more cover. “Thanks for the suggestion to put him in the sack,” I said to my new flighted friend. She fluttered her eyelashes bashfully, then tucked her head beneath her wing again.
We’d had a long night and I’d expended a lot of energy running for so long. Tiredness caught up with me, so I lay down to snooze. Curling around the bird and the sack where Ruen was stashed, I fell into a deep sleep.
If I dreamed, I didn’t remember it. Waking up a few hours later, the sun indicated it was probably about ten o’clock, earth time. I wasn’t hungry yet, but I knew I’d need to eat again if I expended a lot of energy.
“At least I know I can eat the dogs,” I said philosophically as I gathered up Ruen’s sack full of belongings. His bag was a lot smaller than mine and all of his spare clothes had transformed into rags. “Are you staying here?” I asked the bird, who’d woken up when I did. She shook her head and lifted her good wing like a child reaching up with one hand, begging to be picked up.
I tucked her beneath my arm, then slung the sacks over my shoulder and returned to the path. Needing one hand free, just in case of an attack, I shifted the bird to my unencumbered shoulder. Her talons held on firmly and she seemed to be content. She deftly shifted her balance when I bent down to grab a tree branch to use it as a makeshift weapon.
The trail steadily led upwards, twisting and turning to veer around the steepest parts of the mountain. At last, I reached the summit. The sky had lightened to the old rust color I’d seen in the vision Fate had shown me. I stood on the top of the mountain and peered around at the strange realm. Settlements were dotted here and there. I could just make out a far larger group of buildings. They were so distant that they were mere dots on the horizon.
“I wonder if that’s where the overlord lives?” I murmured.
From here, I could see the smoke was coming from a ruined village in the foothills below. Wind ruffled the bird’s feathers and made the leaves on the trees around us rustle softly. It almost sounded like the trees were murmuring about us as I continued my trek.
I encountered a couple more of the mongrel dogs, but they kept their distance from us. Maybe they could smell their kin on me and knew I’d fed on their carcasses. They eyed the bird hungrily and slunk off into the foliage when I hefted the branch threateningly.
My descent down the mountain was much faster than my ascent had been. The path ran straight and was steep enough for me to slide uncontrollably during some parts. I was glad my butt was bigger than my boobs and belly. My weight was evenly distributed and it helped me to stay on my feet.
I was about halfway down the mountain when nature called. “Uh, oh,” I said, hunching over when my bowels cramped. The bird took one look at my face, then wisely jumped free a moment before I rushed over to a shrub. I barely had enough time to remove my gigantic undies, lift my skirt and squat before evacuating the food I’d eaten. A flood of urine accompanied the endless turd that emerged from my body.
