The Dark Ones

Chapter two: Seventy Seven Sins

Rue opened her eyes. The first thing she heard was the beeping of heart rate monitors and then the smell of spirit thickened in the air. Immediately, she knew she was still stuck in the hospital of horrors. She sat up on her hospital bed. The smell of coffee drew her gaze to a shadow and then she saw him.

Someone was sitting on a chair just across her bed, concealed in the cover of a darkness created by ward dividers.

Her heart raced so loud that she could hear it throbbing upon the walls of her chest. The figure did not move and neither did she. Minutes passed. Rue sprang from the bed with spring steel quickness, reaching for a used syringe in the garbage bin.

A boy jumped from the shadow.

"I swear to God, if you come any closer, I'm going to poke this syringe into your eye." Rue clenched her teeth to seem like she really meant it.

The boy raised his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay," he said and stepped backwards.

Rue studied him carefully. He was tall with broad shoulders and most importantly, he wasn't covered in black vapours nor has any creepy tentacles. He was just a normal boy, wearing a black biker's jacket with a hoodie concealing most of his head.

"Take it down," she ordered.

After the events of last night, she had to be sure.

"What?"

"You know what I mean," Rue pointed the syringe at his left eye.

He pulled down his hoodie slowly, revealing a dark spiky hair. For a moment, he looked like one of those bad boys weed peddlers in her school. His eyes were grey and seemed to stare deep into one's soul.

"Satisfied?" he dropped his hands.

Rue lowered her hand slowly, but still held tight to the syringe. "What do you want?"

He walked slowly to the window and stared straight into the golden spread of morning sunlight over the tall greens of Serpent's Creek.

"I'm here to help you?"

"I don't need any help," she said, "and even if I did, not one from a total stranger. You best come up with a better excuse or you will be leaving here with a syringe stuck in your eye"

He turned around quickly and faced her. "Feisty," a bold smile formed on his face, "I like you already."

"The County Sheriff is in the next room waiting for them to give the go ahead to interrogate you. What are going to tell them, Rue Baker? That a fiendish creature attacked you and killed four nurses last night? That you thought it was your shadow walking around and killing people again? No one's gonna believe that, in fact you would be given a one-way ticket to Crack Hill's loony bin."

Rue froze. Moments passed and she sat on the bed slowly. "How . . . how did you know about me?"

"That's not important," he came forward and held her shoulders, his grey eyes staring straight into hers, "and you were right. It wasn't yours that killed all those people last night, it was a Familiar summoned by Ajax, the leader of a rival Coven."

"What?"

"I'm going to tell you all about it, about us, about our kind, but we must leave now," he said.

"No," Rue pulled away from his grip, "tell me everything now if you want me to come with you."

Two knocks hammered on the door.