by Kitty Wilder
Lucy had never felt so violated, had never felt so repulsed by someone before despite his beckoning features. She felt her queasy stomach turn but swallowed the vomit back down so as not to give him the satisfaction of her disgust and fear.
“He was just about to give up his running. I could feel it. So lost was he, so utterly alone. He would have sought me out and begged for my forgiveness and I would have restored him to his old greatness! He would’ve been a god again!” the albino hissed. “Now, he works against me. He curses my name. You have poisoned him against me – against his own kind. You have been a thorn in my side and it is time I plucked you out.” He moved to the end of the gurney and unfastened her left ankle.
A flash of hope shot through her and she tried to fight but was quickly crushed by the realization that his strength holding her leg down was far more powerful than any leather strap. “I didn’t poison him against anyone!” she shrieked fearfully, struggling in vain. “He hid so you wouldn’t kill him!”
The pale Roman paused momentarily to hear her out. “He thinks I demand his life?”
She nodded through the quakes of terror racking her body.
A cruel smile snaked across his plump lips. “Even better.” He turned to Doris who was standing to the side with unhidden glee. “We shall let him come to us then. Let us leave a trail of breadcrumbs to his delectable prize.”
Doris’ unbridled joy died in a grimace. “But, Master, you promised,” she whispered meekly. “You said she would die.”
“Silence,” he hissed angrily without turning to acknowledge her. “We shall speak later of your disobedience here.”
“Yes, Master,” she whispered dejectedly.
He unfastened Lucy’s other leg and crawled up onto the gurney and held her right leg down with the weight of his knee.
Panic began to hum through her as he pressed her legs open while towering over her, an ancient specter from another age, fearsome and unstoppable.
“P-Professor Pemberley!” she beseeched. “Doris! Help me!” She watched in horror as the woman stood idly by with an amused smile stretching her small mouth and then watched as he began to lower himself to her. She started talking to herself, this isn’t happening. This can’t be real. You’re not really here. You’re safely tucked away in John’s arms far away from here. Don’t look. It isn’t real.
She squinted her eyes closed and turned her head away in an attempt to be somewhere else, someone else, to be anything but herself here in this room under this beautiful and terrifying visage of this malevolent immortal violating her vulnerability. A sharp, stabbing pain in her leg forced her back into herself and she looked down her naked body to see him sinking his razor-sharp teeth into the artery tucked away in her inner thigh. He held her down roughly and sucked her lifeblood from her veins with a painful force. Gasps of shock slipped from her, then groans, then all out cries until she was pleading for him to stop. His teeth felt sharper than John’s, longer, and the force of his thirst felt like he was ripping her blood from her veins, tearing the wound wider with his fevered drinking as he feasted sloppily, letting her blood pool beneath her. Her protests soon withered away as the fatigue of blood loss overcame her and though she still felt the pain shooting through her whole body, she fell back limp in unwilling surrender.
“Master,” Doris’ mousy voice spoke over the sound of his slurping and moaning, but he did not acknowledge her. “Master? Master, I think you need to stop. Master, you said you wanted her alive. You’ll kill her before your plans can come to fruition!” She lunged forward and grabbed his shoulders to yank him off the gurney.
Her brazen action earned her a backhand that launched her backwards into the medical cabinets across the room.
The Roman’s eyes were all pupil, wide and dark like a shark, and his ghostly skin and the neck of his robe were stained crimson as he looked around the room wildly. He licked his lips and slowly composed himself, his eyes fading back to their pinkish hue.
Doris approached him meekly to offer a hand towel.
He snatched it from her thanklessly and wiped down his face and hands as he nodded for her to complete whatever phase of his new plan they were at and left the room without another word.
Lucy lay on the gurney, weak, her pulse slow in her ears, and seeing spots, positive she was floating.
“As if Lerexus would stoop to defiling his body by entering yours, foolish girl,” Doris scoffed. “John clings too tightly to his humanity and is all the weaker for it. The master is above human vices. The feeding was to leave a trail, not a prelude to rape.” She unfastened the leather straps around Lucy’s wrists, no longer worried about an attempt at escape from her, and took her time binding her back up with rope before slinging her over her supernaturally strengthened shoulders to haul down the many stairs of whatever abandoned medical building they had brought her to.
Chapter 18
A cold damp woke Lucy with violent shivers. Wearily, she rolled over and opened her eyes to a worn stone wall. Beneath her was a meager bed of hay on a matching stone floor with a cheap blanket thrown over it which she huddled under presently. She rolled to her other side and peered at her surroundings in disbelief.
Slowly, she sat up, pushing her way through the lightheadedness that threatened to throw her back down. She hissed as she felt a sharp pain in her thigh and looked down to find her skin bruised and bloodied. She clutched the blanket around her tighter and saw by the light of a single lit candle that though she was no longer bound, she was held captive in an actual dungeon with heavy iron bars to one side and a small barred window on the other that overlooked a steep cliff dropping into some unknown large body of water. On the floor beside her, she found a wooden tray with a cup of water and a protein bar.
Where the fuck did they take me now? she thought.
“You should eat,” came Doris’ piercing voice from beyond the bars.
Lucy let out an audible groan. The only thing worse than being stuck here, is having to listen to her giddy bullshit. Lucy glared towards the bars, unable to see the woman beyond the meager sphere of light the candle afforded.
“Eat. You need to rebuild your strength. For the time being,” Doris added after a weighty pause.
“What are you going to do to me?”
“It’s all part of the plan now,” she giggled cryptically. “Once you’re finished, I’ll take you to get cleaned up. The master wanted you brought to him as soon as you woke.”
Reluctantly, Lucy pulled the tray to her and ate the plain meal with a voracious speed, famished from all her trauma.
“Good, now come this way,” Doris instructed as she stepped into the light to unlock the heavy cell door.
No bindings? Maybe I can make a run for it. You don’t know where you are or how many others there might be. It’s too risky. It’s all I’ve got. Be cool. Wait for an opening, then run like hell. Thankful for a plan, Lucy acted compliant for now.
Warily, she followed her ex-professor down the tight stone hallways, clutching the ratty blanket from her cell tightly about her blood stained, naked body. With no windows or stray beams of moonlight, it was easy to feel the crushing weight of the world above them as they followed tunnels and a staircase deeper into whatever cliff the structure was built into. Doris led the way to a room beyond an arched wooden door with a heavy iron lock, using a skeleton key to open the way into a tight chamber possibly once intended for guards, but was now repurposed into a humble dwelling. A crackling fireplace brought light and warmth to the dank underground room and to her left tucked in the corner was a rickety cot, chair, and small table. In front of the hearth was a handwoven mat that had seen better days with a large brass bathtub atop it, steaming with hot water.
“In you go,” her captor instructed. “Even the wild beasts in the forest around us must find your odor offensive.”
She rolled her eyes, biting back a snarky reply, and tested the bath water with her hand before letting go of the towel and gingerly stepping in. “You
r master doesn’t have modern plumbing?”
“Of course not. It’s a very old castle.”
“An actual castle?” Lucy snorted in disbelief. Can this asshole be any more cliché?
“Welcome to Castle Sheol, Ms. Beckett, abode of the vampire lord Lerexus Valerius. She has seen better days, but this place has remained hidden and stood the tests of time for some centuries now, a favorite dwelling of my lord and master.”
“Isn’t this all just a little too on the nose?” she laughed irreverently.
Doris let out a hateful hiss, her face distorting into something animalistic and wicked as she barred her fangs at Lucy. “You will show the respect the master is due. I’m sure you heard about John’s treachery?”
Lucy recalled the tale he had told her of betraying the vampire who had taken him in, disclosing the cult’s location to Venatrix Despina, and the decimation that followed. “Yes, but Lerexus got away.”
“The master burned and fought his way through fire and certain death to survive, scraping and clawing his way out of the ashes of his empire to exact vengeance on those that brought doom on his house.”
“That seems a bit dramatic,” she stated dismissively as she rinsed the soap out of her hair and scrubbed away the red blood stains on her legs.
Doris was at the lip of the tub in a flash, the palm of her hand landing hard on Lucy’s cheek. “You don’t know anything, you sassy little fool.”
She looked away to hide the tear that slipped out of the corner of her eye and doubled her resolve to escape just as soon as an opportunity presented itself.
“Your darling John, who you think is so damn perfect and wonderful, is nothing but a snake in the grass. He was an ambitious fool. He wanted more power, more blood, but Lerexus saw he was not ready and refused. John betrayed his master and his coven. He is a liar, a deceiver.”
“And I suppose it was Lerexus who told you this?” she stated more than asked, trying to illustrate the bias of the story the woman was repeating.
Doris caught this subtlety. “And you think John would tell you the true depths of his depravity? You have no idea who it is you’ve been gallivanting around with at night. He is a monster in a tie, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He spins his tales of loneliness and woe to gain your pity, then demands the world from you. These sick activities you indulge him in are nothing more than petty manipulation. He enjoys controlling and hurting the weak, he always has.” She knelt down beside the tub and grasped the edge in her palms as she leaned in. “Think about it, Lucy, really look at the big picture here. You and I aren’t so different, are we? The quiet ones, reserved, meek, vulnerable. We are prey to him.”
She looked over at the ghost of the professor she once knew, the once awkward and self-conscious woman who had seemed to follow John around like a lost puppy, and she felt a shiver from the hint of truth in Pemberley’s words.
Doris’ features softened to pity. “You’ve been manipulated, child. You’ve been defiled and swallowed up by the big bad wolf. He’s taken away almost a year of your life for his vile games and put you in harm’s way in addition.” She paused, letting her words sink in, then added, “And what happened to that fiancé you once mentioned, hmm? Where is he in all this?”
Lucy felt a weight settling on her chest. “We... broke up.”
Doris let out a tsk and shook her head. “Over Wright, I bet, yes?”
She nodded slowly.
Manipulated, toyed with and ordered about like a mindless puppet. Pemberley’s words painted a very practical picture that was easy to accept, easy to accept by someone on the outside. Lucy knew better.
Doris watched the girl struggling with the new narrative painted over what she thought she knew and seemed content to let her stew in her doubt as she said no more, simply offering a towel and plain white dress for her to cover herself in.
Lucy dried and dressed herself and kept her opinions quiet for possibly the first time in her life. Doris saw their activities from an outsider’s perspective, as it became more obvious that she and Lucy were clearly not cut from the same cloth. Doris had dogged John ceaselessly for what she saw as a gift, seeking to use him for what he possessed, and when he had refused her, she had twisted him around her finger and blackmailed him. Though she played the part well, Lucy knew better than to accept such an absurd tale that centered around Doris being the victim in anything. She was a user.
Modestly, Lucy turned from the ever-watchful eye of her captor as she dropped the towel and slipped the lightweight dress over her head and let it cascade down to her knees in a waterfall of chiffon. It was a size or two too big on her and she found herself having to keep pushing the straps of the dress back up over her shoulders.
“Come,” Doris instructed curtly, at last tearing her eyes away from the girl.
Lucy blushed awkwardly as she realized it was jealousy that turned the woman’s mouth into a spiteful scowl.
At a leisurely pace, they made their way back up the winding hallways and staircases, accompanied only by the sounds of Lucy’s bare feet slapping on the flagstones and the oddly muted click of Doris’ heels, as if some strange magic quieted her movements. Their ascent finally brought them to the ground floor where their senses were suddenly assaulted by bright beams of moonlight spilling in the tall stained-glass windows they passed. Her escort sneered contemptibly at the overwhelming light, but Lucy found it comforting to see something familiar, even if it was only something as trivial as the moon.
She felt like she was in another world, another time, as she cautiously followed, her toes touching long stretches of carpet now as they passed massive paintings of people she didn’t know dressed in various outdated fashion. A few sparse candelabra sat on decorative tables, offering an eerie flickering light that cast shadows over the dusty antiques and imposing architecture surrounding her.
After a moment, lost in her own private thoughts, Lucy asked softly, “How did you know?”
“Know what?” Doris asked as she plucked a candle from a table and led her up yet another flight of stairs.
“About what he and I do?”
“Because he tried to do them with me. I’ll admit I was dazzled at first by him and indulged him for a little while, but I eventually came to my senses. He’s a sick beast, Lucy. You should have settled down with that nice mortal boy when you had the chance.”
“You called me ‘princess’ back at the... wherever-we-were.”
She halted and turned around to face her, lifting the fluttering flame of the candle she held so that Lucy could see her face. Her once washed out green eyes now glittered with preternatural vigor and confidence, but they narrowed condescendingly as they settled harshly on her. “How did you imagine the master and I managed to lay in wait for the opportune time to steal you? I saw the repulsive little game you played for him. I can imagine all the other depraved acts you’ve partaken in that led to that. Nobody starts there.”
She felt a nauseating twist in her stomach from the violation of privacy and the judgmental way the woman glared down at her. “Did... did he ever call you that?”
Doris let out a dry chuckle. “No, Ms. Beckett. I did not let that man debase me so far as to call me a nickname intended for a child. You’ve allowed him to strip away every bit of your dignity. Congratulations.” She pivoted on her heel at the door they had halted in front of and opened it with a quiet reverence.
Lucy scrunched her face sourly from the blatant insult as she reluctantly followed her into a dimly lit study. Before she could ask where they were, Doris had vanished, locking the door behind her. Once again, Lucy found herself trapped.
“Have a seat,” a silky voice came from the darkness behind the heavy desk dominating the room.
Cautiously, she approached the low-back leather chair in front of the desk and slowly sank into its worn cushions. She could make out the silhouette of a man standing in front of heavily draped bay windows that offered not a single beam of light into the room. The only glow came from
the solitary candle Doris had left behind on an end table by the door. Lucy squinted in an attempt to penetrate the darkness, but only made out the features of her Romanesque captor once he took his seat across from her and became barely visible in the meager light. For a long moment, they said nothing to one another. As the silence dragged on, Lucy squirmed uncomfortably as she recalled his icy hands on her body when he had inspected her. His piercing eyes seemed more violet in the dim light as he looked her over. He adjusted the crisp black robes he wore now and sat back in his chair.
“You are much prettier without all that black on your face,” he commented, breaking their stalemate.
She had heard similar comments repeatedly through her life and resisted the urge to roll her eyes but could not bite back her sass. “Are you allowed to compliment a ‘mere mortal’. Here I thought I disgusted you.”
His ghostly face did not move an inch, his unnatural age rendering him immune to provocation. “Tell me,” he continued without missing a beat, “where can I find more of your ilk? I could do with a mindlessly obedient bitch of my own. I grow weary of this ‘equality’ nonsense. A freethinking woman is a burden. Not you though, hm? You are unfettered by the weight of independent thought.”
Lucy’s posture went rigid and she felt her jaw tighten. “I assure you I am capable of thinking for myself.”
His lips twitched for a moment as if they might stretch into a grin but resettled. “That is not what I witnessed,” he danced his fingers along his desk, “skittering to and fro at your master’s behest.” He leaned in. “So very eager to please were you.”
“Did you just bring me here to insult me?” she snapped.
“On the contrary, girl, it was a compliment.”