“What’s your point, Malachi?” Harland huffs.
This time, I let the informality slip.
“My point is, the girl Ursulette found and these men here? They’re all from the same community. Ursulette said the human she found was repairing a well, perhaps cleaning it. If we could find that well—”
“Then we find their source of water,” Davorin finishes for me.
“That there? That could be a well.” Caz points over my shoulder to a black speck on the map. “Or it could be some other kind of ominously deep hole in the ground.”
“Then that’s where we’ll go,” I say.
“It could be a trap,” Davorin warns, stroking his thick beard. “It could be guarded.”
Caz’s fangs flash and he gestures to the human men behind us. “Let’s find out then, shall we?”
We turn around to stare expectantly at our human prisoners, hoping that the answers will come pouring from their tongue. But we only find them doing what prisoners do best: fighting imprisonment.
The younger one has managed to procure himself a nail—presumably taken from one of the plentiful dilapidated buildings in this dungheep of a city—and is frantically scratching away at the ropes bound around the bald one’s wrists.
No wonder they’ve been so silent.
Harland marches forward with steam rising from his ears, but I stop him with a hand to the chest. I’m curious to see how long it takes for them to notice that our conversation has died, and all eyes are on them.
It doesn’t take long.
The bald one nudges his friend to stop sawing away at the ropes, and with frightened, guilty eyes, the young man drops the nail.
“I’m s-sorry. We didn’t m-mean to—"
“Doesn’t matter.” I stride forward, finger marked on the map. “What do you know of this well?”
The bald one squints, leans closer. “It looks like a well, alright. What do you want with us about it?”
“The girl we captured. She was taken from here. You know her?”
He scratches at where the rope chafes his neck and winces. “Can’t say that I do, and even if I could, I can’t say that I know what’s in it for me.”
Harland snarls like a wild boar. Soon my bracing hand won’t be enough to stop him from lunging for their throats.
I look to Davorin. “You were there when Ursulette brought the woman back. You saw what she looks like. Jog his memory.”
“I don’t know,” Davorin says, dragging an apprehensive hand through his smooth, dark hair. “Red hair? Freckles?”
“Someone who doesn’t go down without a fight,” I add, remembering the struggle Ursulette had described trying to secure the scrappy woman.
Caz seems delighted by this new, unexpected turn of events. Or maybe he’s just proud. He always prefers a fight.
I turn my glower on the humans.
The younger one cowers behind the bald one, who makes every attempt not to look frightened. Of course he is though. What human wouldn’t be? He is bound and standing before his apex predator.
It is admirable, however, that he hasn’t pissed himself, I’ll give him that. This close, I’d be able to smell it. But instead, all I scent is their blood.
My mouth waters for the taste of it, my hungry stare lingering on their raw throats.
Over the years, I’ve learned how to tell a delicious feed from a mediocre one—and these two will likely fall somewhere in the less-than-mediocre territory, tasting downright vile, although given the young man’s age and fair complexion, it’s possible he could surprise me.
The thought makes my eyes hone in with more precision on the veins snaking down his throbbing throat, just a taste away.
