The Line Madder, page 2
“Crystal?” I shake my head, and some of my black hair falls in my face. I brush it away so I can see Ser. “You killed her?”
“She’s not from Rubia to begin with, and we were sorting out a deal where we’d help each other out along the way if I gave her some Blood. I finally got the chance to give it to her today.”
“So I suppose we’ll meet her in our travels?”
“Once we get to Ruri.” She paces around a little. “Anyway, we need to go to a town nearby to get a crystal, because it could be crucial later on. I already know that the rubies in Rubia are valuable enough in some of the other worlds to finance our journey, and I used the last of my money for the bus so I can’t exchange it into other money wherever we go from here.”
“I thought you wouldn’t be nearly as broke as I am,” I grumble. “I still have a couple hundred of dollars left that I was saving for some kind of emergency, but we’ll still need the rubies.” I pause. “I sure hope you know where to find them, though, because I don’t have a damned clue.”
“Leave it to me, my friend,” Ser assures me. “I’ve got it all figured out.”
Chapter 02
Istare out the dirty window of the rented car. I’m relieved that there isn’t much traffic outside of the main city, but the lack of interesting scenery to be found in the desert begins to bore me. Huh, I never would have thought I’d be the type for interesting scenery. “Hey. When will we get there?”
“It’s only another half hour away,” Ser tells me. “I’m sure you’ve had to wait in longer car rides than this.”
“I haven’t. We’ve been going for four hours,” I say. “I’m surprised we’re not at a completely different world by now.”
“Oh, no. Rubia isn’t that small. It’s one of the larger worlds, and staying in that dull city all of your life isn’t going to give you any idea of what Rubia is like naturally.” Ser rolls down the window of the car and spits out of it. “I almost wish we had more time for a road trip.”
“What’s the rush, anyway?”
“You don’t need to know yet, Seth. How impatient are you?”
“You’re the one that wants everything done immediately,” I remind her. “If anyone’s impatient here, it’s you.”
“Fine enough, but you need to stop asking when we’ll be there.” Ser steps harder on the gas pedal of the car. “Shut up and enjoy the ride while you can.”
I don’t respond to her, and instead I decide to go to sleep, hoping that it’ll help to kill the time in the heated vehicle.
A half of an hour later, Ser drives the car through a broken down wooden fence, suddenly waking me. “We’re here.”
Half awake and half asleep, I sit up straight in the passenger seat. “What the heck did you do that for?”
“The car’s brakes broke so I figured that this was the best way to stop. Maybe it was a bad idea to rent the cheapest car I could find.”
“Possibly,” I mumble. I step out of the wrecked machine and look around. We’re near a small wooden house that is placed in front of a massive hole in the ground.
“See that hole?” Ser asks just as I notice it. “We’re going in there to get the crystal. Put this on.” She hands me a stiff red hooded scarf.
“What do I need this for?” I inquire.
“To hide your face. We can’t have anyone see us doing this.” She pulls on a tan hooded scarf and faces me. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re planning something illegal,” I tell her. I throw my hoodie in the car and put on my scarf. I’m almost grateful for the lighter hood, since the sun in this part of Rubia is boiling me alive. “What are we really doing here?”
“You know how I said that getting the ruby might be a bit difficult without committing any crimes? Well I was right. Getting the stone will be a crime, because we’re going to steal it. That’s why I need your help. I can’t get down into that hole very safely, but you look like you would be able to. What do you think?”
I consider what she’s saying. On a better inspection of the hole, I can see that there aren’t many good rocks to hold onto on the way down. Still, it’s not like I have anything better to do.
“Fine,” I say. “I’ll do it.”
“Thanks. One more thing,” she begins. Before she can finish her sentence, she has me on the ground with her stinger placed to my throat.
“What the…?”
“Sorry, Seth.”
Instantly, the inside of my body shifts into something that it shouldn’t be, but I can’t really tell what. I just know that I can feel things happening. I don’t like it, but it’s not as bad as getting the Blood initially was. My clothes seem a little too tight; maybe I’m becoming a small bit stronger? After seeing Ser’s earlier demonstration, I’m not entirely certain when the greater changes will come. Looking at Ser a little better, I notice that her characteristics are very much like those of a scorpion. I can’t be sure how I can see that, but the arachnid’s image is prominent in her. My arms are almost different somehow than they were before, as if they couldn’t decide whether to stay as they were or become the arms of an entirely different creature. “What the hell did you do to me?” I attempt to inquire, until Ser covers my mouth.
“You did this. I just had to threaten your life to start the first transformation. From here you should be able to do use the Blood to its full potential all on your own.” She stands up, allowing me to get off of the ground.
“You little…” I punch Ser in the neck. She curses, but once she recovers, she smiles. A familiar red liquid runs in a small amount from her mouth.
“That was exactly what I was going for,” she announces. “I’ll distract the person in the house with my injury while you go in the pit and take the stone.”
“You’re terrible,” I groan. Ser makes sure she hides her tail well enough, allowing it to fade away, and we each walk in separate directions to take our positions for stealing the object.
When I’m certain that Ser has had enough time to begin the distraction, I start to climb into the large hole. The first thing that becomes clear to me is the lack of stability to the rocks that compose the side of the hole. I place my hand on the edge as the sandy rocks crumble beneath it. Well, I don’t know how much time I have, so I had better get in there, I think to myself. I grasp the edge of the pit’s wall as well as I can and start climbing slowly down. The second thing that becomes clear to me is that the crystal is not just a regular ruby exactly, but a large red crystal that reflects the sun so brightly that it’s almost difficult to look at. In distance away from me, it’s about three times the length of me below, and it’s embedded in the side of the rock wall. It will be either really easy or really difficult to pull it out. I keep descending. I slip. I fall and can’t catch myself. I reach for the wall. Something allows me to stay on. What is it? Claws. I’m held by faint claws that I can’t see well. Once I properly regain my hold on the wall, I find that I am much more suited for the trip with my strange undead body. Perfect, I’ll be able to get it easily now. Or at least it seems.
“Seth! Get out of there!” Ser’s warning echoes around me. “I failed! Go!”
“I’m almost there,” I call back. “Where will you be if I don’t get this?” I reach out and grab the crystal. “I’ve got it, Ser!” I pull it out and hold it up to show her. Then a warm feeling spreads across my left shoulder.
I’ve been shot.
A blond man in a leather coat stands over the edge of the hole with a gun. “Wait? Did you say Seth? Like Seth Madder?” He drops the gun and leans in to look at me. “Sorry, Kiddo!” He shouts. “Do you need help getting up from there?”
“No, I don’t.” I remove myself from the hole and throw myself onto the stable ground, still holding tightly onto the red crystal. “Who the heck are you, anyway?”
“You don’t recognise me, Kiddo? It’s your Uncle Henry!”
“I don’t have any uncles. My parents didn’t have any siblings.” Hostility fills my heart at the reminder of my parents. “If you even are my uncle, why would you shoot me?”
“I didn’t know it was you, Seth. And I’m not technically your uncle, you’re right, but I am your great-uncle. I’m your grandmother, Mrs. Peyton’s, brother. By the way, I like the scarf. It reminds me of the one that my sister gave your mother.”
“But she’s like over seventy. You look more like you’d be closer to my parents’ age.” I feel like telling him to shut up because of the comment about my mom, but I don’t.
“I’m actually fifty-seven, and your mom would have been almost fifty now. So you’re right in a way. But your grandmother was sixteen when I was born, so there’s a pretty big difference.” Henry tosses me a white rag for my wound. “Come inside. Let’s get you cleaned up, okay?”
“Yeah. Fine.” I follow Henry into the small house, and Ser follows me.
“So why are you trying to steal from me, anyway?” Henry asks.
“We needed the stone because we’re broke and need some currency to finance our travels,” Ser states. “I didn’t know that we’d be stealing from a member of Seth’s family.”
“Well you’re in luck, because you aren’t stealing it if I tell you you can have it. I have tons of those rocks, anyway. It’s a shame, though, Seth. My sister was such a hero in her youth, and you’re out committing crimes.”
“Don’t think I don’t know about her,” I say. “You’re forgetting to mention the time that she and her husband spent in that prison.”
“They didn’t do anything, Kiddo. I know you know that too. But just because they’re good people that ended up in jail, doesn’t mean you can be too.”
“Who cares what I do anyway?” I grumble.
“I do, so we’ll sort out that wound I gave you, and then you can get back to your journey. Come back to me when you need any help, okay?” He takes the phone off of the wall and makes a call. “Sis, send me something to heal a bullet wound. Seth is here.”
Ser and I walk into the kitchen, allowing Henry to give my grandmother a progress report. I feel something inside of me building up. I hadn’t seen the Peytons since before I lost my parents, afraid that seeing their dark but greying hair and bright blue eyes would remind me of my mother.
“Are you okay?” Ser asks.
“What do you think?” I vacantly respond.
“I’m so sorry, Seth. I really am.”
“It’s not your fault. Besides, that was two years ago. I need to learn to face the reminders.” I examine the wound that my family member gave me. It isn’t deep, but it releases a lot of blood. “I just want to get out of here as soon as possible so we can go to Zerrin and leave this place behind.”
“Then why don’t we?” Ser takes the crystal from me and places it in a brown leather bag. “I’ll take care of your wound when we get to Zerrin, so you don’t need to stay here. Sound good?”
“Yeah,” I tell her. We exit the house from the back door and run as far away from the house as possible before our absence can be discovered. “So how are we going to get to Zerrin?”
“Keep running and you’ll find out.”
I run, she runs, and we think we’re doing well until we have to stop. Ser’s idea of running gets us only as far as the car, when we realize that it’s too hot out to keep going. “What do we do?” I ask. “We can’t use the car again.”
“Well there’s a part of a river that runs by here. We can take that down to the portal to Ruri, and then take Ruri’s portal to Zerrin. There are usually small boats near the edge of the river, so we’ll use one of those. Do you think you can walk to the river?”
“I hope so.”
“Good. When we get there we’ll see about your wound as well. It doesn’t look too bad, but I’m not sure how much you tend to bleed when you get a wound like this. Going to the river might take us about two hours if we’re going at a steady pace that will allow for you to be fine.”
“I can do that,” I say. “I don’t really care about the wound as long as I don’t die from it.”
“That’s not good, you know.” Ser lays her hand on my good shoulder.
“Yeah, I suppose.” I glance up at the sun. “Can we do most of our travel at night from now on? I’m getting tired of this sun.”
“I second that,” my companion notes. “No more desert travel.”
“I didn’t expect that outside of the nice city would be a damned oven.”
“Welcome to the real world, Madder.”
Hours of walking pass quickly, and by the time that we get to the river, my wound feels much better. Maybe it’s because I’ve felt a lot worse today due to Ser’s actions.
“Enjoying being undead yet?” Ser’s voice interrupts my thoughts.
“It doesn’t feel any better or any worse. If I can be still done in by a simple bullet, I haven’t progressed that much as a life form. Funny, I always thought that undead meant vampires and crap like that. Who knew it would be somewhat more normal than that?”
“I knew, remember?” Ser laughs.
I lean over and place my hand into the water. It’s refreshingly cold. “There are no boats here,” I observe. “How will we get to Ruri?”
“They should be here. They should be here!” Ser searches the edge of the river for boats. “Where are they?”
A boy about my age, maybe a little younger, speaks from behind us. “It’s no use. The boats are busy today. Where did you want to go?”
“Zerrin, hopefully.” Ser pulls out a list of worlds that she had in her bag. “Can you help us get there?”
“Of course, that’s where I’m from.” He extends a hand covered in a heavy brown glove. “Midas Ritchen. Pleasure to meet you both.”
“Ser and Seth,” my friend introduces. “Thank you for your help.”
“No problem, no problem. Come with me if you’d like. I’ve got my truck not too far away.”
“Perfect, thanks.” Ser trails behind Midas. I watch him to make sure he’s not planning anything sketchy like theft or kidnapping, and when I’m nearly certain that he has no immediate malicious intentions, I tag along with them. Still, it seems like there’s something a little off about this Midas guy, though I can’t quite place it. His white truck, when we reach it, provides some shelter from the heat and light, though, so I can’t quite complain yet. Maybe I’m just lacking trust because of the incident with my own great-uncle.
“Seth? You okay? You look kind of spaced out there.” Ser shakes me a little to make sure I’m still awake or healthy or whatever else. “I’m getting worried for you, you know, and I didn’t want to do that.”
“Um, I’m fine. Must be the heat getting to me.” I stay quiet for another few minutes after that. “Can you tell me what we’ll be doing in Zerrin?”
“Of course, but not right now. Our priority is getting to a hotel there and getting some food. Tonight I’ll let you know what’s going on. I’ve proved that you can be trusted.”
“Really? How?”
“I can’t tell you that.” She turns to Midas. “Would you like any payment for your help?”
“No money, but would I be able to stay with you for the night? My ex-girlfriend that I’ve been living with kicked me out, and my family’s on a trip so they won’t be able to let me into my house until tomorrow afternoon. I won’t cause any trouble; I’ll even pay for my share of the hotel costs. Is that okay?”
“Yeah, sure,” I tell him. “It’s the least we could do for you after helping us out like this.”
“Thank you so much,” Midas sighs in relief. “I’ll even order the food if you want me to. Are you all good with noodles and vegetables? I know a great place not too far from a decent motel that we can go to…”
I suppose that I’ll get another chance to go to sleep while Midas is talking on and on. I close my eyes, but then see something disturbing on the steering wheel beside the driver’s gloved hand. A small black figure about the size of one of Ser’s scorpions from before. Terror rises inside of me, for despite being less concerned about Ser’s plans, scorpions still don’t align with my idea of a good time. Ignore it. It’s probably Ser’s tricks again. She might be planning to turn Midas into one of us. But then again, aren’t Ser’s scorpions usually red? It’s too trivial to think about, I decide. Instead, I go to sleep once again, trying my best to make up for the two hours of rest that I had managed last night.
I must be dreaming, since there is no way that I could’ve logically arrived at a dark cool cave in such a short amount of time. Unless, of course, this was Midas’ idea of a motel, in which case, bravo on being able to live in worse of a home than I did. I glance around. Ser and Midas aren’t with me. I walk cautiously down the path that the cave leads me through. I can hear singing, beautiful singing at that, and it gets louder the more I walk. I’m heading towards a person. “Hey.” I try to get her attention. My voice echoes for a moment, and then fades away. “Why are you in this cave?”
The singing stops. I receive no answer. I increase my pace and try to get to the end of the cave, where I assume the singer will be. After not too long, I get there. The singer waits at the end for me.
She’s dressed in a heavy black dress that contrasts her blonde hair and skin paler than even mine. She lowers her beautiful head, then looks up again, piercing my grey eyes with her blue ones. Small dark things, and it’s so dark that I can’t tell what, fly out at me from all directions.
I don’t know what to do.
Damn. I wake up. I’m moving. Where am I? I look around and notice that Ser is carrying me into a building, following behind Midas. Something is going on. I struggle to break free. “Let me go,” I demand. “Where are you taking me?”
“Are you okay, Seth?” Ser asks. “We’re just arriving at the motel. You were asleep and pretty hard to wake up.”
“Oh.” I shake my head to get rid of any remaining tiredness. “Sorry.”
“How badly did you even need sleep anyway? Can I stop carrying you now? You’re kind of heavy.”
