S2 Chapter 3 Dawn in the Underground. . . .part 2

Underground, nightfall.

Vince was the eldest of the Motley gang, born in scandal. Now he helped run the Underground. A girl's favorite about the tunnels.

Mik and Tom were the true warriors of the group, having come from nomadic families who specialized in warring and fighting as an art. The youngest member was Nik, younger brother to Mik. They hid out in the corner of the tunnels, around a particularly active hub of people, where red lights and bath houses were one in the same.

There was a knock and when it was opened the boys were met with their friend Joan and two other females in tow. Vince was at the door and he immediately took an interest in the blonde woman of high status. However Joan made it clear they had a mission in mind. Once inside she took them into confidence.

“Ok guys I need help. Dawn's missing and that Man has her. I need to find them.” She started, they would know who she meant.

“You mean that Spyder guy she's been hanging with?” Tom asked.

Nik took notice of the youngest of the group. A few years younger than he was maybe. The Princess Heir Apparent. Though while to his eyes she appeared younger than himself, she had been born more than twenty years ago. Longer than he had been.

Star bristled. “WHO!?”

Joan recoiled but held her ground and faced the Queen. “ She accepted a Spyder to stay here over a week ago and insisted no one tell you. They've disappeared ”

“That's what happened to her?” Her hands balled into fists, she stood nose to nose with the shorter woman.

The guys were waiting for a fight.

“Yes. These guys know this place, they can find her. Rosie can stay here with Nik.”

Star stared down at her. “Then lets go. I tire of waiting.”

Without any more formality, the guys agreed to Joan's idea. Nik and Rosie would stay in the hide out. If there was one gang who knew almost everything about the tunnels, it was the Motley boys. Vince took to the streets and asked the right questions. If anyone had seen Dawn, where did she go, tell Vince or risk your physical health. Star's heart was torn between Dawn and Rosie, she had no reason to trust this Joan woman, no reason to trust anyone. . .other than the fact that they were Dawn's people. She had trusted this woman, as far as Star could tell.

Star looked at Joan as they followed Vince through the tunnels. She remembered the Jetts family, so long ago. Their house crumpled around 1990 AC/DC, into ruin of every kind. What a fall it had been. It tickled the queen to see the last living member now helping rule the Underground. A different nobility.

It reminded her of the reason there was an Underground at all, she refused Dawn that which was rightfully hers. But as always she had her reasons.

Joan seemed to feel her thoughts. “You're staring at me your highness.”

“It is hard not to, considering how I knew your family.”

“My grandfather's family you mean.”

“You say that as if they are not your own.”

“They ceased to be when they sold me.”

“Fair enough. . .” Star whispered. She saw the woman's mouth twitch at the corner. “You wish to say something yourself.”

“Not for me but for Dawn.”

“She is your friend.”

She nodded. “And your daughter, heir to the throne.”

“Aye.”

Joan stopped and turned to Star, staring into her eyes with a fierce glare.

“I am a blunt woman your highness and will not spare you. Give her what she was born to have. You married into the family, she was born into it. It is hers by right. Holy Wood has had Queens before.”

“Of course it has. The Throne does not discriminate against the heir apparent.”

“As the last living heir to the last born king of Holy Wood, Dawn should have it.”

“New blood does not always mean a new rule. Though Queens would often have more peaceful rules than Kings.”

“Except yours.”

“Yes,” she turned to stare directly at Joan. While she could appreciate the honesty, she detested the insolence. “Blood was freedom's stain, one I would gladly spill again. As you pointed out I married into the family, my power was less than a Queen born into it. Yet it was I who reduced the BOC's power ten fold when they crossed me.” She turned her nose up at the younger female. “You should be grateful, without me you would not be immortal and probably still a slave.”

That shut up the smaller woman.

After a moment of silence Star spoke again. “Do not ever question me. I've torn down castles to save my daughter, I would do it again. What I do is all for her and the continuation of our bloodline.”

Vince grinned at their wispy fighting. It wasn't long before someone nodded towards a small food front. An informant. They entered the shop and a man came out to weasel his way into their party.

“And what will it be today? Heart of cow? Fried mice? A woman on the side?”

Vince shoved him aside. “How about the back stairs.”

“No wait! You can't!” The man protested.

Tommy shoved him again. A bowl of rice sat on the counter between them. He stuck his fingers in it, hungry, and scooped rice into his mouth. It was drenched in salt and half cooked. He spit it out and then followed his comrades down the back stairs. Vince led the way, behind him was Joan, Star, then Mik and Tommy. They descended deeper below the tunnels, to the sex chambers where whores and their lovers hid.

Star began to grow sweaty in her thick black clothing, envying the Motley boys in their thin, tight leather pants and near non existent shirts. She shook her head and they came to the bottom of the narrow stairway. They came out into a hot, steam filled room deep under ground. There were sounds of moaning sex workers drifting through the air. Perfect it may seem above, not all was as homey as it appeared. It did not surprise Star, these were where criminals hid. There was suddenly a ruckus and the few people who were lounging in the room they entered suddenly left. Four men stood in front of a door across the way. A large door.

They each approached, mirrored by the three Motley Boys and Joan.

“Go,” Joan said without looking at Star, she pulled a dagger out of her belt and tossed it to the Queen. “She will be beyond that door. Use the shadow, get into that room.”

Star did as instructed and as the four vs four battle commenced. The Boys and Joan were expert warriors, they survived by fighting, it was almost all they knew. She wanted to see the outcome, but she had to keep creeping. With the men fighting she made it to the doors and opened them as little as she could.

There was Dawn in a chair, being strapped down by a handsome man. Star disliked him immediately. He had a small bottle in his hand. Dawn herself seemed to be intoxicated. She was giggling and caught in the throws of a high, her mother knew.

He walked around her saying things. Star gently pushed the door and slipped inside, she held the dagger at a ready angle. The shadows worked to her advanatage and she crept into the room. There was no one else except her daughter and the Spy.

“We have worked hard to return here, years spent recoving.” He whispered. “Hard to get a spy into your midst. I am but the first wave, soon we will return to the rest of them. With you by my side, we will return to the Mountains of the East and there we will march on your own city.”

Dawn laughed and didn't seem to hear him.

He grinned. “My informant put you under my spell long before I came to your sights. I was simply waiting for you. In my stone palace, we will join together in matrimony, body and blood. You will bear my sons and maybe become more useful to me.”

He grabbed her chin and licked her cheek.

Star watched and in the dark her eyes glowed a bright, honey gold. She stepped out of the shadows and came up behind the Spyder.

“You will become the Spyder's revenge.”

“I think not.”

There was a cool voice behind him as a cold blade came over his neck.

“You've told me much and I fear letting you do more to my child. I must thank you for telling me so much will so little, yet now you must die.”

Before he could stutter excuses, she cut his throat. He crumpled to her feet and she watched him bleed out. It had been anticlimactic for her, she had wanted to take him back, interrogate him, abuse him, torture him. But she would not chance Dawn's life in his hands and when she had Him in Her hands, she knew that a fight might let him escape. Escape was not an option, so she allowed him to speak as much as he would say, exposing his plan and the somewhat location of his people.

She doubted he would have said much anyway, they never did. Besides she would make a message of him, instead of mercy only death came for those who tried what he had. Torture was too merciful, choking on his own blood was befitting. Yet as she stared at the man with dark dark eyes, she felt that she had murdered one more person who had seen the world she hailed from. . . truly. It felt strange, but in her mind she had no choice.

She had been betrayed by her “people” in the past, these Spyders were no different. She went to Dawn but the woman was unconscious. Star cut her bonds, moved the traitor's body, and waited for Joan to win her battles. As the victors rushed in, Vince, Mik, Tom and Joan, Star hovered next to her child. Tom came in and picked her up, Mik and Joan scouted the room to secure their location. Vince came to Star, she stared at him with a smudge of blood along her cheek.

She looked at him, he looked at her. She grabbed his barely-there shirt and yanked him in close for a hot sweaty kiss. He happily obliged her. She pulled away and grimaced, he tasted like whiskey, but she got over it and kissed him again.

                                                      *_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Dawn awoke in her rooms. The only one there was Joan. She was smiling with her arms crossed, a glorious dark silver cape draped across her shoulders. She grinned and leaned forward.

“Good morning. How you feel?”

“Like fucking shite.” The princess said. She blinked in her harshly half dark, half light room. “Why are we in Ao'o?”

“Because a witch cursed you at the behest of a Spyder.”

“Lyr. . . .”

“Yes.”

“Well if we're here and he isn't, I take it he's dead.” Her friend nodded. Dawn studied Joan. “My mother gave you something didn't she?”

She laughed. “Well, after you went missing, I found your mother and took her to the Underground. Rosie followed so we-”

“She what?!”

“She kind of came with us. But it was ok, she stayed with the Motley boys, with Nik.”

“Please tell me my mother didn't engage Rosie to any of them!”

Joan couldn't help but belt out laughter. “I swear she did not! Rosie was just fine with Nik. Your mother was the one who saved you actually. She cut Lyr's throat as he stood over you. We collected Rosie afterwards and brought you here.”

“Sounds like her. So what's with your finery?”

“That's my second favorite part, your mother knighted me and all the Boys.”

“Knighted the Motley Boys??”

“I actually enjoy being a knight of Ao'o.”

Dawn rolled her eyes at her mother's antics. “So do you want to live here then?”

“No!” She spat out. “My home is with the Underground, our world we created. Besides, being a knight of Ao'o means being a knight of yours.”

The Princess was pleased and nodded in response. “Thank you Joan. I have no words enough to say what I want to say.”

“Thank you is just fine.”

They smiled at each other and small talked their way through the day. Rosie was asleep in her chambers, perfectly unharmed. Star too had gone into her chambers to sleep after knighting the Undergroundlings. She emerged from her room at dusk and wandered the outside waist high maze in the gardens. She and Richi spoke of what had transpired in the night.

They were speaking of Rosie.

“I had to leave her with that ruffian boy, Nik. She said he was kind enough, didn't try much on her. But he stunk and was was unsightly and was all too happy to return home.” She laughed softly. She then coughed once, she could still taste Vince's breath on her lips.

“I'm still upset you did nothing to alert me,” Richi grumbled as they turned a corner.

Star grinned. “If I had you would have fought me about it and there was no time.”

“Very well,” he said, relenting to her antics. “I can see no arguing will make you say sorry.”

They had been walking for a short amount of time but the maze was not that hard. They turned a corner again, approaching the center of it. “No, I'm afraid not dearest cousin. It had to be done in secrecy. Tere is a more pressing matter than my safety.”

He rolled his eyes. “And what could be more pressing than that I wonder?”

“The fact that the Spyder's returned and nearly took my daughter out from her own Underground. That cannot happen.”

“You said they are holed up to the east?”

“Eastern Mountains, the one said. They must have found a network of caves, its the only known shelter out that way.”

“It's the only know thing at all that way. After that, its just empty land and nothingness.”

“There might be more. No one has successfully trekked across the mountains in this era of recorded history. Whatever lay beyond them before the era of Darkness was lost to the darkness itself.” She wandered along silently and reached out to hold her cousin's hand. He wasn't an overly emotional man but he did allow her to lace her fingers through his. It brought them both comfort.

“We might be able to send men out to travel those hills if we wanted to search for the renegades.” He suggested. “We're still waiting for the return of our last spy.”

He hadn't been paying attention to what lay in front of them, but she had. She stopped and he halted to look at her, he had been observing the constellations as they walked and chatted. She stopped in her tracks as they came around a corner, her voice stalled and died. It took Richi a moment to follow her gaze and when he did he went into full alert, his hand left hers. There in the center of the maze was a dead man, a spy. Richi immediately called for guards and as they came rushed he walked about the courtyard in defense. Star went to him and crouched beside the dead one.

His ears, tongue and eyes were scattered around his head. He hadn't been killed here, there was not enough blood. He had been dumped here. It was one of her's she knew. There was no other reason such a message would be on her grounds, flies already buzzed around his damaged head. She knew the message, follow, spy and die.