Thicker Than Blood (Marchwood Vampire Series #2) (26 page)

There were other people in the room, staring
at her. Some women and a young boy. They rose to greet her and
began yabbering away to the man in their language.

‘
A phone,’ Maddy said. ‘I
need a phone.’ She edged closer to the stove, holding her hands out
to the heat. But the older woman took hold of Maddy’s arm and
propelled away from the stove and into one of the armchairs. Then
the woman removed Maddy’s gloves, took her hands and rubbed at them
firmly. She spoke to the other girl, who then removed Maddy’s socks
and began kneading away at her feet. The woman said something sharp
to the boy who went away and returned moments later with an armful
of blankets. The women swaddled her feet and draped blankets over
the rest of her.

Maddy realised she was now shivering
uncontrollably, her teeth chattering together so she could hardly
speak.

‘
I … need a phone. Please.
It’s urgent.’

The man said something to the woman who
snapped back at him. Maddy guessed she was his wife.

Please don’t start having a domestic now,
Maddy thought. The man shouted at the woman, they glared at each
other and then he held out a mobile phone towards Madison. She took
her freezing hand out from under the blanket to take it from him
with a grateful smile. Finally, finally she could call Alex. Her
heart started racing. If he was in the area, he could be here in
minutes. But then, with an inward groan, she realised something …
she didn’t know Alex’s number. She didn’t know any of their
numbers. She had never needed to know them. They were programmed
into her phone. No! How could she contact him now? Think … think.
It began with 078, she knew that much. Oh God! This was
hopeless.

Ben! She could ring him at home and he could
give her the number, or he could call them for her. Yes. Alex might
even be at home himself. He might not even know she was in Turkey.
With fumbling icy fingers she called home and waited, her heart
hammering, unable to believe she would get to speak to them. At one
point she’d thought she might never see or speak to anyone she
loved ever again. There was a funny dial tone and then a foreign
woman started speaking down the phone. Maddy removed the phone from
her ear and stared at it in confusion. The man took it from her and
listened.

‘
This not good number,’ he
said. ‘Not working.’

‘
But that’s my home
number! I need to call home,’ she said, almost in tears now. ‘I
need to call them. Please help me.’

Chapter Thirty One

Cappadocia, 575 AD

*

It didn’t take long for the door to wheel
open again. This time, Aelia was ready , knowing the others
expected her to go instead of them. She didn’t mind. It made her
feel a little better about what lay ahead. She wasn’t cowering in
the corner in terror; she was taking control and fighting back,
even though her battle was a silent one. Perhaps that was why she
had this strength – because she alone knew the power of her tainted
blood. Maybe if the others knew the secret war she was waging on
the demons, it would give them hope too and with this hope would
come courage.

But Aelia’s bravery wavered as soon as she
saw who had come for her. For standing in the doorway was the man,
the demon, Mislav. She remembered the feeling of pure fear she’d
had when she’d looked up at him in the dining hall and had seen his
demonic face for the first time. Those teeth and the absence of
human expression had been like a dream turned into a nightmare. But
here, now, his face was soft again with that deceiving friendliness
she had almost trusted when she first arrived.

Mislav didn’t even glance at the others. He
smiled down at her and held out his hand. She stood and walked
across to him, not able to meet his eye, instead staring at a point
on his chest. His hand felt cold and hard, like living marble. They
walked out into the corridor. No words had yet been spoken. He
moved slowly this time, still holding her hand. He wore a deep blue
robe belted over a long dark tunic. The material was a kind Aelia
had never seen before and it rippled like a river as he moved. The
robe’s braiding shone like spun gold as it caught the lantern light
and she felt like an insignificant beggar girl by comparison.

They came to a narrow set of stairs which
they descended, her feet barely touching the narrow treads. At the
bottom, Aelia hesitated as a thin scream pierced the air. Mislav,
tugged on her hand and they continued on. More passageways, more
sealed-off chambers, more steps downwards, more screams, darkness,
torchlight. Her head span with the rhythm of their journey. How far
down had they come? Would she spend forever so far away from the
light of day? Would she die and be forgotten beneath the
ground?

Soon, Aelia sensed a thickening in the air;
a warmth and a mugginess which replaced the cool dusty atmosphere
that had preceded it. There was a strange heat in this corridor.
They were heading towards something. It was as though the air had a
fever. Moisture appeared on Aelia’s skin. Was this it? Was this the
infection making itself known in her body?

‘
Come,’ said
Mislav.

Aelia had stopped to wipe the droplets from
her brow and chin.

‘
It’s warm,’ she
said.

‘
Come,’ he
repeated.

She took his proffered hand again, aware her
own was hot and clammy against his cool skin. Why this should
bother her she didn’t know. Why should she care what a
blood-drinking demon should think of her sweating palms?

A moment later, the corridor opened out into
a large chamber and Aelia realised why the air was so thick and
warm. They stood on a slippery wet ledge and in front of them great
puffs of steam were billowing up from an underground lake. Shards
of rocks hung from the roof of the cavern, like dripping stone and
there was some kind of shining natural light covering the walls and
ceiling. It glowed and pulsed in blues and greens, like a living
thing. Two girls materialised at her side as if from nowhere.

‘
I’ll return later,’ said
Mislav, before turning on his heel and leaving the
cavern.

The girls tugged at her clothing and Aelia
realised they meant her to go into the lake. The surface was black
with just a few ripples where water from the roof dripped down. She
didn’t know if she should be pleased she had escaped Mislav for a
while, that she now had the chance to bathe and wash away the blood
and grime which felt as though it were now part of her body. Or
whether she should be terrified at what lay beneath the still, dark
water.

‘
Is it safe?’ she asked
the girls who were peeling away her garments.

They didn’t reply.

‘
Are you human?’ she
asked.

One of them nodded quickly and then looked
away.

‘
Can you talk?’

The girl put her finger to her lips with a
scared expression on her face.

‘
You’re not allowed to
talk to me?’

The girl nodded and the other girl gave her
a warning look.

Aelia sighed. She felt so set apart from
everyone all the time. First, she’d been banished from home, an
outcast living on the fringes of society and now, here, again she
was separate from all the other humans. What was wrong with her
that she never seemed to fit in? She supposed that feeling had been
with her for her whole life. Did everybody feel like this? Or was
it just her who was different? Even as a child she had never seemed
to quite sit comfortably within the crowd. If she ever did, it was
because she’d made an extra special effort to do things that hadn’t
felt natural to her merely to gain acceptance.

One of the girls handed her a thin shift to
wear, which she pulled on over her head. The other gave her a small
soft ball and gestured towards the lake. Aelia sat on the ledge and
carefully dipped her toe in. The heat of the water spread through
her foot and she submerged both legs up to her calves. She looked
at the small ball in her hand, lifted it to her nose and sniffed –
soap. Reaching forward, she rinsed the grime off each foot in turn,
massaging away the aches and then gingerly, she turned and lowered
herself into the warmth, still gripping onto the side.

The heat of the water was almost unbearable,
but after a moment she got used to it and enjoyed the womb-like
sensation. She’d heard about these types of natural warm springs
before. Her mother had visited an outdoor one as a child, but this
was the first time Aelia had ever laid eyes on such a place, let
alone experienced it for herself.

The wounds on her body burned and stung as
the water’s minerals cleansed them, but she hardly cared. In a
moment of bravery, Aelia let go of the ledge and struck out towards
the centre of the lake. She flipped over and lay on her back,
floating, letting her matted blonde hair fan out around her.
Closing her eyes, she tried to block out where she really was and
what she was doing here, but the awful images crowded into her
mind, so she flicked her eyelids open again and stared at the
cavern roof instead. Shards and ridges of glowing rock hung above
her like the seaweed-tangled hair of a water goddess, cascading
down the walls in irregular waves.

Aelia didn’t know how long she would be
permitted to remain in the lake and so began to wash herself, using
the material from her shift as a wash cloth. It was tricky, as the
lake was too deep to stand and she had to tread water whilst trying
to scrub at her skin and hair with the soap. In the end, she swam
back to the side and finished off her ablutions from the ledge. Now
warm and clean, she felt much better, almost like a new person,
instead of the filthy pathetic creature she had been twenty minutes
earlier.

The girls waited for her by the corridor
entrance. They led her back into the passageway where they walked
for several minutes. Aelia felt warm and sleepy from the hot lake.
Soon, a faint whooshing sound came towards her. It grew louder,
until it became a roar. She looked at the girls, but their eyes
were on the ground. Soon the noise was too loud to attempt
conversation.

After a while they reached another cavern,
smaller than the previous one, and at last Aelia saw the source of
the noise. There were no glowing green lights in here. Instead,
torches lit up the entrance and the walls. Straight ahead of her, a
thirty foot high waterfall gushed out of the rock wall and fell
into a small pool below. The cavern was filled with the sound of
this crashing water. It was as noisy in here as the lake cavern had
been quiet.

Again, one of the girls gestured to her to
enter the pool. She did so and gasped at the temperature of the
water. It felt like ice after the heat of the lake, but the pool
was fairly shallow and only reached up to her waist. Aelia made her
way across to the waterfall to let the rushing water batter her
skin and untangle her hair. She used the soap again and then just
stood under the torrent, her eyes closed. Presently, she felt a
hand on her arm and looked to see that one of the girls had come to
retrieve her from the waterfall. Together, they waded back to the
rock floor and left the cavern.

Now, she was taken into a small chamber –
another sumptuous room, this time decorated in deep blues and
silver threads. The walls were painted with a seascape of long
narrow boats on stormy waves and the ceiling twinkled with silver
stars and a crescent moon. Lamps lit the space, their flickers
bringing the paintings to life.

A square of cloth lay on a narrow bench next
to a pile of clothes. She presumed they were for her. Aelia removed
her wet shift and dried herself with the cloth. Now that she was in
a lighted room, she was able to properly examine the gash on her
arm where she had rubbed in the infected matter. The skin had
knitted together, but it was discoloured and dark with black and
red blotches. She gently prodded it with her forefinger and winced
at the pain. This was it then; the infection would move through her
body and her blood would infect the demons. Aelia was glad, but she
was also scared. Soon she was going to die a horrible death.

To take her mind off what lay ahead, she
examined the clothes set out for her. First she put on the white
tunic which had long fitted sleeves and fell past her ankles. Next,
she picked up a garment of light blue silk, like a billowing sky.
She pulled it over her head and belted it, noting how it was
trimmed with silver braid and encrusted with tiny sparkling jewels.
She was dressed like royalty, but was in no state to appreciate it.
She may as well be dressing herself in a funeral shroud.

Once robed, Aelia sank down onto a deep
floor cushion. The two girls remained outside. A carafe sat on a
low table and Aelia poured some of the liquid into a silver goblet.
Sniffing at it, she recognised the sweet scent of pomegranate
juice. She took a careful sip. Other foodstuffs littered the table
and she helped herself to some sticky dates and a small pastry. Why
was she here in this beautiful room? She remembered the last time
she had been offered the demons’ hospitality. Well, if she was
going to endure that again, she might as well enjoy the luxury
while it was on offer.

But no. What was she doing? How could she
just lounge here dressed in fine clothes, eating nice food while
her family suffered? She stood and went to the entrance where the
girls stood, one either side of the opening.

‘
Why am I here in this
room?’ she demanded. ‘Why was I given these clothes?’

They said nothing in reply. One looked at
her with an apologetic glance, the other looked away. Aelia grabbed
the friendlier one by the arm.

‘
I asked you what I’m
doing here. Tell me. Is that demon coming back? Do you know your
way around? Have you heard of Selmea? I’m looking for my
family.’