Raven Saga 01 - Raven

vanished. I don't know how he got away but he did. The second time that has happened to me, bloody men,” she said, “they always get away in the end,” she added more to herself than to me.
    So my father managed to escape from Vivian and he didn't take me with him. My heart had truly been wrenched from the depths of my soul. He had run away and left me with a witch. What kind of father would do that? I was at a complete and utter loss.
    “I have spent months looking for him. Months and months... and nothing. So now I have to find someone else to make me beautiful again. Until I can find myself another man, a special man, you will have to do. You are his daughter. You must carry the same blood as he. You will have to do... for now anyway,” she said with a smile.
    “But why my father in the first place? There are millions of men in this world, why did you have to choose my father?”
    “Oh Lillian... are you that dim? I need the blood, and sometimes the hair, of only very special people. They have special qualities in their blood. When mixed with certain other secret ingredients and drunk, by me, returns me to my youthful glow and extraordinary good looks. You have your father's genes, so you must have that quality, my dear,” she said as she approached the cage with a small dagger in her hand.
    “Charlie, grab her hands,” she said as she opened the door to the cage and pulled me half out. Charlie appeared behind me and managed to hold both my hands while she cut off a very small tuft of my hair. I breathed a temporary sigh of relief as she walked away and dropped it into a small pot. But then she turned and walked back towards me and pulled my leg so that it hung out of the cage door. She grabbed my hiking shoe and sock and tugged them from my foot. Pulling up my trousers, she very gently placed the blade against my skin and then pressed hard so that blood oozed out from just above my ankle. I winced, trying hard to stay calm.
    She placed a small bucket underneath my foot and waited for the blood to drip into it.
    Adrenaline pumped through my veins but I took long deep breaths to prevent myself from changing. I needed to know where Gabriel was before I could do anything.
    “Vivian, what have you done with Gabriel?” I asked. “Please tell me that he's okay. Have you hurt him?”
    “I have no need to harm the old man,” she said and I was surprised. The evil things she was capable of made me think that she hurt people on purpose, whether she needed to or not. But perhaps she only did so when she needed something. That was until she continued, “The same can't be said for Charlie though,” and she laughed heartily as if she'd cracked a joke.
    She released my leg and I pulled it back quickly. Charlie slammed the door shut and locked it.
    “Charlie, where is Gabriel?” I asked, hopefully.
    But he just sniggered and said nothing.
    “There's just one important ingredient that I'm missing. I'll be gone a while. Charlie, keep an eye on her – she might try to change into a bird, although the cage should prevent her from escaping,” said Vivian before she grabbed her cape, threw it on and exited the cavern.
    “Charlie... how did you get here? I know she must've cursed you. You're an Englishman that she made into a mountain goat. Isn't there a part of you, hidden somewhere in there, that hates her? A part of you that wants some kind of revenge for what she did to you?” I asked softly.
    But again, he ignored me and sat staring off into space.
    “Charlie please help me. If you can't, please just tell me where Gabriel is.”
    “Shut up, Lilly. Shut up!” he yelled as he bent to pick up a small stone from the floor and then flung it against me. It pinged off the side of the cage and bounced against the wall before landing on the floor by the cave's entrance.
    He wasn't going to tell me so I sat in silence and waited for Vivian to return. My leg began to throb, a dull ache where she had sliced into it. Fortunately the cut wasn't too deep and the bleeding had slowed. I feared that if I didn't escape she would bleed me to death. My father had obviously come close to that but he had managed to get away before death had come. How, I had no idea. He must have been so weak by that time and to get out of that room must have been near on impossible. I wondered if someone had helped him. But why? And how? And more importantly, who?
    I would find out what had happened to him and I would find out where he was. I