by Glen Frost
"There will be more blood to wipe off, soon enough," the old man said, waggling his eyebrows in what he thought was a raunchy, suggestive manner.
A doorway set into the far wall of the kitchen opened onto a dimly lit set of steps that led downward into a corridor with walls of bare rock. Although the front porch and overhang of Vasily's three-story McMansion was propped up on thick wooden stilts, he had had the equivalent of a basement excavated from the underlying rock beneath the back of the house at great expense. The resulting chamber measured in at slightly less than a thousand square feet, and he took great delight in telling those precious few confidantes that knew about the place that it had cost him roughly a hundred dollars American per square foot to construct and furnish.
In that chamber was where Vasily kept his pride and joy, something that he called by turns his bordello, harem, whorehouse, but perhaps most accurately, his dungeon.
He had never bothered to have the walls smoothed off, liking the ambience that bare rock gave the chamber. His one concession to comfort was to smooth out the floor and have it tiled. Vasily had briefly considered putting in carpeting, if for no other reason than to keep his own feet warm when he took off his shoes or slippers, but the tile was so much easier to deal with when it came time to hose it down and wash away the blood.
Bolts with eyelets had been hammered into the walls, many of which had iron chains attached to them. Several of those chains were used to manacle women up to the wall, attaching at their wrists, ankles, and in some cases their necks.
In-keeping with the dungeon theme, the chamber was lit with two bare light bulbs hanging from flexes. Lamp shades would have seemed almost sarcastic somehow, or so Vasily believed. He wanted his personal dungeon to feel like a dungeon, spartan and bare. Reaching out with muscle memory born of a thousand trips downstairs to this same place, he flicked on the light switch.
Two sturdy wooden tables were pushed against one of the walls, immediately to the right of the chamber's only entrance and exit. On them were a dizzying array of devices which existed for the sole purposes of imparting sexual pleasure...or inflicting pain. Vasily's cruel eyes wandered idly along the rows of implements. There were dildos (both manual and strap-on), vibrators, butt plugs, and nipple clamps; anal beads, bullwhips, ball-gags and a host of other sexual paraphernalia.
His hand was trembling with excitement as it reached for the closest bullwhip. All seven of the women chained to the walls refused to make eye contact with him, doing the closest thing possible to burying their heads in the sand and miserably hoping that his attention would not fall upon them.
"Tatiana."
There was no response.
"Tatiana."
A muffled sob, hidden behind long blonde hair. The girl shook her head, obviously terrified. The thought of it only made him harder.
"Leave her alone, monster! She is only seventeen!"
Vasily turned slowly toward his left. The woman was named Marina, he recalled after wracking his memory for a moment. The boys had brought her over from Ukraine with that batch, what...six weeks ago, give or take. He had immediately taken a fancy to her, beguiled by her hourglass figure, full lips, and deliciously angular eyebrows. Rather than put her on the streets for his pimps to handle, he had diverted her to his harem. There was always at least one in every batch. Sometimes more than one, if pickings were good. His dungeon could handle nine women, ten at a pinch, but seven was a much more comfortable number. Last week there had been eight, but for some reason they seemed to keep dying on him...
After six weeks of being manacled to the wall, being fed table scraps, of pissing and shitting in a plastic bucket, he was surprised that her spirit hadn't been crushed yet. Usually even the strongest ones took less than a month to break in. Vasily narrowed his eyes. Ah, this one was turning out to be a challenge. So much the better.
"VLAD!"
The big man must have been listening at the door, because it opened immediately in answer to his call. Heavy footsteps sounded on the wooden stairs. Cries of terror rose up from six of the women. They had seen Vlad in action before; some of them had even been the subject of his not-so-tender ministrations, and still bore the scars from the experience...both physical and psychological.
"You called, Mr. Guskov?" Vlad stood at the bottom of the steps, hands on hips, staring at each of the women in turn like a predator selecting its next victim.
"I did, I did. I have need of your services."
"Of course, Mr. Guskov. Always happy to be of service."
"Good, good." Placing the bullwhip back on the tabletop, Vasily clapped his hands together and rubbed them briskly. "It is the lovely young Tatiana's turn for a lesson this morning."
Vlad nodded evenly.
"However, it appears that Marina has other ideas. I believe that she requires her own lesson in obedience, Vlad. Would you care to administer it on my behalf?"
A cruel smile tugged at the corner of Vlad's mouth. "Only too happy to, sir."
Vlad stalked over to Marina, who tried her best to shrink away from him. The four foot length of chain that bound both of her wrists together didn't give her much room for maneuver. The big Russian grabbed her by the hair and pulled her head back, then slammed a fist into her face three times in succession. Blood, teeth, and saliva spilled down the front of Marina's naked body.
Satisfied that she was suitably cowed for the moment, Vlad went to Tatiana, who also tried to cower away from him. Fishing in the pocket of his pants, he pulled out a set of keys. Inserting one into the lock, the manacles came away from her wrists. He jerked her roughly across the room by the arm, accepting the bullwhip from Vasily along the way.
"Take this."
He pushed the whip's handle toward Tatiana. The girl shook her head, frightened halfway out of her mind by now.
"I. Said. TAKE. IT."
The seven prisoners knew that tone, had heard it before; they knew that it usually preceded one of Vlad's violent outbursts. Several of them had lost teeth during those. With tears streaming down her face, Tatiana hesitantly curled the fingers of one shaking hand around the whip's handle.
Vlad's thunderstruck expression was instantly transformed into a smile, one as patently insincere as everything else that Guskov's enforcer said and did.
"That's better. Don't cry." He traced the tip of one finger along Tatiana's left cheek, using it to dry up her tears. The girl trembled again at his touch. She didn't trust the smile or the false tenderness. A stinging slap proved her fears justified. Vlad hit her with his open palm, but the force behind the blow was great enough to knock her backward into the wall, forcing the air out of her lungs.
Vasily cackled, highly amused at seeing the disobedient little wretch get what she deserved. Well, they'd all get what they deserved and much, much more before he was done with them...
Swaggering over to the closest tabletop, Vlad picked up a ball hammer.
"The next time you disobey me, prettiness, or even hesitate, I will smash what little brains you possess right out of that pretty little skull of yours." He gave the tool an experimental swing, just to emphasize his point. "Do you understand?"
Tatiana nodded vigorously, her water-filled eyes fixated upon the metal hammerhead.
"Good. Come over here."
He led her toward Marina, who was leaning against the rock wall in the corner with her arms extended above her head, held securely by the shackles. Blood dripped steadily from her nose and mouth, mixed with a stream of saliva.
Tatiana shuffled nervously toward her, the tiles cold on the bare soles of her feet. Holding Marina's neck in a vice-like grip, Vlad pushed her head down as far as he could manage, which had the effect of raising her naked buttocks up into the air.
"Whip her."
Tatiana's trembling reached epic proportions. She felt nauseated, clapping one hand across her mouth. Her hands were shaking like a drunk that was going through withdrawal.
"Do not make
me have to tell you again."
Hesitantly, Tatiana drew the whip back.
"Well, go on!"
Crack! The bullwhip flicked out, lashing Marina across the bare buttocks. The soft flesh quivered with the impact, which instantly raised an angry, diagonal red stripe that ran from one cheek to the other, straddling the crack of her ass. She bit down hard on her bruised lower lip, swallowing the cry that had threatened to come bursting out. No way was she going to give that filthy pig Vlad the satisfaction of hearing her scream.
"Again."
The second lash struck Marina in the small of her back. It broke the skin, causing a line of blood to discolor the pattern of her tramp stamp — a giant black bat tattoo with wings outstretched, their tips reaching each of her kidneys.
"Again. Harder this time."
With no other choice, Tatiana obeyed, whipping her fellow prisoner across the back of the thighs. Marina cringed, going weak at the knees and almost falling; she managed to save herself at the last second, but the sudden shock of it had taken her breath away. The skin of her upper thighs, just beneath the buttocks, was tender and sensitive. Now it was bleeding, the edge of the bullwhip having torn it to ribbons.
"Do you have anything more to say, girl?" Vlad demanded, pulling Marina's head back. Her face was bruised, her mouth still bleeding, but the light of defiance was still in her eyes. "You do not lack for backbone, I will give you that."
"Whip the bitch!" Vasily roared. "Whip her until she cannot stand, Vladimir. Do it!"
Vlad threw the old man a look, annoyed at the use of his full name. His annoyance quickly turned to disgust when he saw that the old man had his dick in his hand and was masturbating, obviously enjoying every second of the girl's torment.
Just for a moment, Vlad was tempted to stop this. Three lashes was heavy going, especially when they drew blood. He suspected that the impudent woman had more than learned her lesson. But one did not cross Guskov lightly, even if one was his personal enforcer. People that did that had a tendency of disappearing without a trace.
The hills and woodland around Evergreen were a great place to dispose of bodies.
"You heard Mr. Guskov. Whip her again, girl. Keep going until I...until he instructs you to stop..."
CHAPTER TEN
Despite the fact that the sun was up, the ramshackle old house was still dark and full of shadows. It was also freezing cold, thanks to a lack of central heating or a fire going in the grate, but neither of those things bothered Anya in the slightest. She was a creature of the darkness now, and also a creature of the cold. Neither of those things held terrors for her any more.
Settling herself down onto the couch, she put her booted feet up on the battered coffee table. The grey morning light was beginning to seep through the crack between the heavy, tattered curtains that covered the front window. It was also creeping in around the edges, revealing 1970s-era patterns on the peeling wallpaper.
"I fucking love what you've done with the place. Dead asshole under the stairs. Dead asshole in the hallway. Dead asshole on the second floor. Damn, but you know how to decorate!"
Anya hadn't been in the States long enough, or ventured far enough toward the east coast, to be capable of identifying a Brooklyn accent yet, but she recognized Lydia's voice instantly. Despite having died in a horrific car crash (or so she claimed), the Goth girl was keeping up her habit of chain-smoking as though cigarettes were going out of style.
Sauntering in through the door into the front room without bothering to open it first, Lydia offered Anya a conspiratorial wink and leaned casually against the cracked fireplace. The dead girl wore a long black duster coat over a black button-down shirt and a black leather skirt, along with black knee-high leather boots that bore a striking similarity to Anya's own. Even her lipstick and mascara were black. Her one concession to any other color was her blonde hair, which was shaved on one side and combed over on the other to make half of a short bob.
"Lydia. It is good to see you," Anya said, without a trace of irony. She was pleasantly surprised to find that it was good to see her. Perhaps it was the fact that Anya was sitting buck naked apart from her boots, bathed in the blood of three junkies that had tried to rape her. Oh, and that she was newly risen from the dead. Her list of possible companions (at least, those that didn't include law enforcement or corrections officers) made for some pretty slim pickings indeed.
"Good to see you too, sugar tits." Lydia leered at Anya, running her eyes hungrily up and down her lithe body. Somehow, the gesture managed to make her feel flattered, rather than creeped out. With the three dead creeps, it had been a different story altogether. "Ah, fuck. Her comes Her Majesty."
"Plain old 'Emily' will suffice." Emily emerged directly through the fireplace itself, not bothering to use the door. The English girl had been another victim of Piotr and Marko, and after her murder, her body had been buried close to Anya's own shallow grave up in the canyons outside Boulder. Unlike Anya, however, Emily had chosen to remain in her spirit body, rather than returning to the Earth as an undead instrument of vengeance.
Where Lydia was dark in appearance, Emily embodied the polar opposite. Her shoulder-length chestnut hair was every bit as lustrous and gleaming as that of the women Anya had seen in shampoo commercials on TV. If she had to guess, Anya would have estimated Emily's age at somewhere in her early twenties. Her build was slim and willowy, although much of her figure was hidden within the ankle-length white robe that she wore. It was long-sleeved and very chaste in appearance, covering every inch of skin right up to the neckline. Her hands and feet were bare. The grimy floor didn't bother Emily at all, however. It was a fringe benefit of being dead.
"It is good to see you too, plain old Emily," Anya smiled, meaning every word of it. Whereas the Goth girl spouted anger, bitterness, and hatred whenever she spoke, Emily was the voice of reason and caution. When the two traded verbal barbs, Anya felt as if she had an angel sitting on one shoulder and a devil on the other.
Perhaps that isn't so very far from the truth, she reflected, watching the English girl take up position in the furthest corner away from Lydia that she could possibly manage. She appeared to be a little embarrassed, refusing to make eye contact with Anya.
"My nakedness disturbs you?" the Russian teased. Just for emphasis, Anya allowed her long legs to part a little wider and let one hand drift down to rest between her thighs. She was amused (and in no small part fascinated) to find that the dead could indeed still blush, under the right circumstances.
"You, erm...you've got red on you," Emily explained with a completely straight face.
Anya laughed. She couldn't help it. The corner of Emily's mouth quirked up into a wry smile. Even Lydia cracked up, coughing out smoke from the cigarette that she had just lit up.
How the hell had a girl as straight-laced as Emily ever seen THAT movie? She doesn't seem like a 'Shaun of the Dead' type...more 'Downton Abbey,' Anya thought to herself, still snorting and chuckling.
Once she started laughing, Anya suddenly realized that she couldn't stop. She was holding her belly, an old habit from back when she was still alive, as the dead felt no pain to speak of...or none of the physical kind, at least. She hadn't laughed once since climbing out of that frozen dirt grave and beginning her quest for vengeance. Now there were tears of laughter streaming down her face and guffaws exploding out of her mouth, all over something which wasn't actually all that funny to begin with, if the truth be told.
I guess I really just needed the release...
For the first time since entering the house, Anya looked down at her naked body and studied it critically. The marble-white skin, as smooth as smooth could be, was caked with dirt and spattered with the blood of her three would-be molesters. Their blood was the source of her power. She would have known this instinctively, even if her two dead companions hadn't mentioned it to her on the night of her resurrection. Ever since she had spilled the first drops of it in the upstairs bedroo
m, Anya had felt the ancient blood magic stirring within her body, rejuvenating the decaying flesh and sinews, making her body feel whole again, stronger and more supple than it had ever been during her lifetime.
Once the laughter had finally subsided, the three dead girls fell into a companionable silence. It stretched on for a good few minutes while Lydia finished her cigarette. Emily appeared to be deep in thought.
"So." Lydia was the one who finally broke the silence. "That was some crazy shit that went down last night, and I have to tell you, honey, the boss-man is not pleased with what you did. Not pleased at all."
"How ghastly for him," Emily fired back sweetly, the very picture of innocence.
"Fuck off," Lydia snarled.
Anya knew who she meant by 'the boss-man.' Whether you wanted to call him 'Satan,' 'The Devil,' or something else, it all meant basically the same thing. The darkest and most powerful entity in all of creation, the one that Anya had made a handshake deal with in order to become this...this thing that she had now become, in exchange for her soul. And she had managed to piss him off royally, by the sound of things.
"I can see why this would be the case," she allowed.
"Although I gotta admit, what you did is pretty ballsy." Lydia flicked the stub of her burned-out cigarette away. It tumbled end over end through the air, vanishing into thin air before hitting the couch. "Gotta hand it to you, sugar tits. I mean, double-crossing the Prince of Darkness Himself takes some real fucking guts."
"Thank you."
"It's just that knowing Him, He's liable to rip those guts out and feed them to you." After a pause she added gravely, "Well, either yours...or your daughter's."
"DO NOT THREATEN MY FUCKING DAUGHTER!" Anya was on her feet in a split second, bearing down on Lydia like an angry mama bear whose cubs were in jeopardy.
"Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!" Lydia held her hands up placatingly. "Easy! I ain't threatening shit, honey. Don't shoot the messenger, now."