Sabrina – Part 2

Sabrina was not sure how long she fled after her engagement with the little boy, she wasn’t convinced just what exactly she was fleeing from? The little boy or herself. All she knew was she had to get away.

As she was scurrying throughout the sewers she happened upon a puddle and paused a moment to peer into its dim reflection. What little light did exist down here was drowned out by the sewer’s vastness, but Sabrina saw a colour drained face look up at her. The eyes carried narrow slits like a cat and the white hair matched the pale face it sat upon.

This was her now, her face. Not much had changed except for the eyes but Sabrina felt she was looking at a stranger in that watery mirror. She noticed a few blotches of the blood of her lips, blotches as black as pitch under this lowlight. She grimaced and slashed at the puddle, cutting the puddle into pieces before it rippled back to its previous stillness.

“Sabrina?” came a low hush voice from behind, and Sabrina whirled around in gust of teeth and claws. The intruder in question raised her arms in shock and Sabrina recognised the figure.

“Thana?”

Thana approached slowly; her arms outstretched by her side in open surrender.

“It’s good to see you again,” Thana said, revealing a somewhat attractive smile. “You’re a lot faster than you look.”

Sabrina peered over Thana’s shoulder into the darkness, then over her own shoulder.

“I’m alone” Thana assured her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Why to find you of course. You’ve been gone for so long; we were getting concerned. So, I offered to come out and look for you.”

Thana leaned forward to gather her breath, then sat down on the cold stone floor. For a moment, Sabrina thought she saw that flash of red in her eyes again, a shimmer like marble caught in the torchlight.

“Where’s Theo?” she asked and felt her palms grow sweaty. If he knew what she had been doing down here in the sewer…what would he think?

“Theo’s dead.” Came the response, and the words hung on invisible strings between them.

“Wha—” were the words that fell from her mouth. “H-how…W-when?”

“A wizard named Arthur killed him, two days past,” Thana said sitting heavily against the wall. “The wizards dead now if it helps.”

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Sabrina staggered backwards to mimic Thana’s decision to sit against the sewer’s wall. Dead. Surely not. He was the one that helped her, brought her in. If not for him who knows where she would be. Dead probably, once the people of Leeside saw her for what she was.

Thana moved to comfort her, and Sabrina felt her presence on her, but it wasn’t warmth she felt, quite the opposite in fact. She looked up and blinked in disbelief when she saw Thana’s fiery red eyes looking upon her. She withdrew.

“It’s okay,” Thana assured her, but Sabrina was already on her feet and retreating. “I’m…different myself. I can help you.”

Sabrina looked into the cold, yet fiery eyes and wondered just what she was seeing.

“I’m a vampire,” Thana said, to answer the peculiar expression painted across her own face. “Theo helped me as well.”

Thana allowed herself to look off into the darkness.

“It’s just who he was,” She said, then looked back at Sabrina. “I can protect you like he once promised”

Sabrina drew close again, her feet dragging across the rough stone and fell in next to Thana. She gave her a reassuring smile and held an arm around her. Her touch was cold, and Sabrina smelled blood on her breath, strangely enough, she smelled Brock’s rat stew as well. She looked up at Thana, no longer afraid of the ruby eyes she bore.

“What happens now?” she asked.

“Well—” Thana replied pulling her close, “I’ve informed Skinner, leader of the guild about you,” Sabrina jerked up in startlement, but Thana held her tight. “And he grants you his protection as well. You are safe in the WC. You have a home here Sabrina.”

Sabrina felt her head rest in Thana’s cold embrace. She was so confused, so lost. If this Skinner could accept Thana for what she was, why was it so hard for her to believe he would not accept her. She was an Arachne yes but compared to a Vampire maybe that wasn’t as bad.

While the two of them sat there in silence, listening to the slow trickle of water that dripped all around them Thana said “So you were an orphan? Must have been hard growing up alone.”

It brought back memories of the Torrent Orphanage to her. The memories were detached from her now. Like an old life, she could never return to.

“I grew up alone too you know, well a very long time ago now,” Thana said surrendering her a smile. The two of them stared out at the darkness ahead of them. “When I was turned. I killed the man that did it to me.”

“How do you kill a vampire?” Sabrina asked in interest. Thana raised an eyebrow.

“With great difficulty.” She said.

“Afterwards,” she continued. “I took my vengeance out on the people that wronged me before. It was the sweetest thing.”

Sabrina considered, and the memories of old suddenly flashed before her like she was reliving them all over again. She remembered Isabella and the bathtub. The constant japes she was a victim too in their constant battle for dominance over each other. She remembered the other orphans, the men that tried to wrong her when she was caught alone with them. The boys that sometimes threw rocks at her in their adolescent cruelty when she was just a little girl, knowing all too well she could not: run to her father or mother for help.

It all came flooding back in a tide to wash over her. The wrongs she had brushed aside in her youth now reappeared like living ghosts. She remembered Tabatha and the slap that sent her falling.

‘One day, I’ll kill you bitch’ Her own voice called in her head, and she must have said the words aloud because Thana turned in answer.

“Well—let us go fulfil that promise shall we.” She said.

Sabrina stiffened suddenly at the prospect, then slowly relaxed to let the fantasy take her in its grip.

“You’ll help me?” Sabrina asked.

“Of course,” Thana replied. “You’re our family now Sabrina. That's what family do.”