Page 10 of Cursed by Death

I felt bad immediately after sending it. It wasn’t exactly fair to him and I knew he would definitely worry about me.

It felt good to know someone would be there to worry.

My phone pinged with a text immediately after.

Detective: What the fuck?

Detective: Ruby, get out of there right this fucking second.

Yeah, I wasn’t going to be doing that. It was very good advice though, and I appreciated it.

I turned my phone to silent and tucked it back away into my pocket.

I walked through the parking lot up to the door to enter the theater. It was unlocked and I pushed my way inside.

Here went nothing.

Or, perhaps, my demise.

Unfortunately, I was here for either. I wasn’t leaving until I got some damn answers.

The inside was surprisingly clean for an abandoned place that no one actually used anymore for its original purpose. I half expected to see garbage littering the floor and graffiti covering the walls.

It was very disarming to find the place spick and span, clean. Looking at it you would think they were simply closed for business for the night.

I wondered if they hired a cleaning crew to come through here each week to keep it like this or if perhaps some kind of magic was responsible. I didn’t know if that was even possible because I didn’t actually know shit about magic.

Monsters I had somewhat studied. Magic, I had not.

The mall was entirely empty as I walked through it, looking for the hallway that led to the restrooms. Every piece of information I had found told me that I would find the entrance down that hallway. It could be false though because people who went down there weren’t exactly talking about it with the regularpeople once they came back up again. If they ever made it back to the surface, that is.

The hallway was narrow and the fluorescent lights overhead kept flickering off and on, making the hallway seem ominous with a hint of danger. The third door on the left saidBasementand I opened it up, stepping inside.

It was dim inside the room and the stairs leading down were the only thing oddly lit in the room.

I had a very brief moment where I contemplated turning around, leaving, and forgetting about this whole damn thing. Then I remembered what Thomas’s dead body had looked like and seeing Roan and Bane show up on my camera screen.

No, I certainly couldn’t be turning back now that I was here. I needed answers and I wasn’t going to leave until I got some.

I walked down the stairs and into the underground for the very first time. If I was lucky it would be my last time having to come here.

Hearing about it had been one thing. Experiencing it for myself was an entirely different thing altogether.

This was real and I was actually here.

Thomas would likely be so very disappointed in me. If he weren’t dead and partially responsible for my being here in the first place, that is.

The bottom of the stairs opened up into a very large open space. It was full of trailers and trucks and there were large barrels full of fire scattered everywhere. One spot in the corner had a bunch of tents grouped together.

I couldn’t imagine living down here in a place like this.

There were actual store fronts along the walls. Only they housed very different things than what I imagined the storefronts upstairs to be like.

Tattoos and piercings. Blood. Drugs. Whores of all ages, genders, and species. Booze. Strippers. They had a shop and space for it all down here.

I would need to make sure I didn’t eat or drink anything, even if I did pay for it.

The man who I thought was responsible for Thomas’s death had bright red eyes. I thought the shop that claimed to have fresh blood might be a good place to start looking for him but being entirely human might actually put me on the menu if I walked my ass in there. I did not want anyone to ever feed on me.

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