by Amy Cross
“It might trouble you to learn,” Ms. Eversham continued, “that this is exactly how I expected things to end up. Granted, it took a few more days than I planned, but I can live with that. The most important thing is that you're here, and that for the next few weeks at least, you're going to be enjoying my hospitality.”
“I can't...” Kate began, but the pain was too strong, sending waves of agony through her thoughts.
“You were drugged,” Ms. Eversham explained. “It was necessary, because otherwise you'd have put up more of a struggle. I had Constant bring you in here, and now we're ready to get on with the next stage. You see, from the moment he arrived on Thaxos, Quillian always wanted to get you off that island, so that you'd be away from Baron Le Compte's influence. It was clear that you wouldn't leave willingly, so we had to work out what might persuade you to change your mind. Fortunately, we quickly realized that if you felt you'd lost the little girl, you'd do anything to get her back. And now here you are, as expected. Welcome to the trap, Ms. Langley.”
“You can't...” Kate tried to say, but as she tried to get free, she found that she was firmly strapped into some kind of metal chair.
“I can't what? From where I'm standing, it seems that I can do more or less anything I like. You, on the other hand, are quite severely limited in your options.”
“Edgar...”
“Are you expecting him to come and rescue you?” She smiled. “There's no chance of that. From what I hear, Baron Le Compte is busy sulking on Thaxos, and he can't reach out to your mind over such a great distance.”
“Where's Anna?” Kate asked, still struggling to get out of the chair.
“She's where I want her to be,” Ms. Eversham replied, “as are your friends. You and Madeleine are the only ones who matter to me, though. I have very specific orders regarding your treatment. You'll be pleased to learn that I've been given express instructions to keep you alive, so killing you simply isn't an option.”
Trying to turn, Kate saw that she was strapped into a chair that reminded her of the devices in Edgar's basement on Thaxos. She tried again to get free, but as her vision cleared she saw various spikes and drills attached to the chair's different parts.
“Of course,” Ms. Eversham continued, stepping past her until she was behind the chair, at which point she put a hand on one of the metal wheels, “keeping you alive is one thing, but there are no rules about the condition you have to be in when you're finally sent back to Thaxos. Baron Le Compte loves torturing his victims, doesn't he? I wonder how he'd feel if he saw that such tactics had been used on someone about whom he cares so very much?”
“Please,” Kate whispered, “you have to stop and -”
Before she could finish, she felt the chair starting to shake as Ms. Eversham turned the wheel, and when she looked down she saw that a large, rusty metal spike was slowly moving toward the palm of her right hand.
“There's a rather striking degree of poetic justice in this approach,” Ms. Eversham explained with a smile. “I'm sure you'd appreciate that fact, if you weren't about to endure such excruciating pain.”
***
Sitting on her bed, Anna watched as the first sunlight of morning began to show around the edges of the curtain. Just as she was about to put her head down and try to sleep, however, she heard a blood-curdling scream ringing out from the orphanage's basement.
Part Forty-Four
I
Darkness.
Absolute, pitch-black darkness.
Silence.
And then suddenly, from a distant point, a vast ball of pain came screaming toward her subconscious mind and then finally burst through, shattering her every thought and bringing her gasping, retching back to the world. Falling forward, she began to cough and splutter, before chains around her neck and wrists pulled her back. Cold metal dug into her skin, stinging as it sliced through and brought blood to the surface.
Still barely able to breathe, Jennifer Kazakos leaned forward and spat onto the floor. Something tasted wrong in her mouth, something foul and bitter.
“Anna,” she gasped, feeling a burning sensation at the back of her throat.
“Oh,” a calm voice said nearby. “Are you awake?”
There were footsteps nearby, coming closer. Someone calm, someone who knew she was in complete control.
Slowly, Jennifer looked up. Even before she saw the woman's smiling face, she knew who it would be.
Ms. Eversham stared down at Jennifer with an expression of measured, detached curiosity. She kept a safe distance as she made her way around the edge of the room, and finally she stopped as she reached Alicia, who was standing a little further back.
“What do you think?” Ms. Eversham asked finally. “Does Ms. Kazakos strike you as a particularly fine specimen of the human race? Or is she, perhaps, nothing more than a part-time whore with blood on her hands and no place trying to bring up a child?”
“Go to hell!” Jennifer shouted.
“Please,” Alicia replied, with tears in her eyes, “I don't want to see this. You promised I'd get Emily back if I brought them to you.”
“I did, didn't I?” Pausing, Ms. Eversham turned to her. “I can see the desperation in your eyes, Ms. Bernotti. It would be cruel of me indeed to make you wait even one moment longer.” She turned to the open door on the far side of the room. “Constant!” she shouted. “Bring the child!”
“Bitch,” Jennifer hissed as she struggled to her feet, only to find that the chains around her neck and wrists were too short to let her stand. As her frustration boiled over, she yanked the chains hard, succeeding merely in cutting her skin a little more.
“I'm sorry,” Alicia told her. “It was for only way I could see my daughter again. You understand, don't you?”
“We had a chance to burn this place to the ground!” Jennifer shouted. “We had a chance to rescue everyone, not just your daughter! You should have trusted us!”
“All I care about is Emily,” Alicia continued. “I'm sorry, but that's the truth. Wouldn't you do the same thing? If Ms. Eversham offered to let you take Anna away right now, wouldn't you accept that offer, even if it meant leaving other people to die?”
“Be honest now,” Ms. Eversham purred, clearly enjoying their exchange. “You would take that deal, Ms. Kazakos, would you not?”
“I -” Jennifer paused for a moment. “Not like this,” she said finally. “I'd find another way.”
“Ladies,” Ms. Eversham said with a smile, “it pains me to see you bickering like this, so I think we should dispense with the matter at hand and focus on more important hings.” Hearing footsteps nearby, she turned to see Constant shepherding young Emily Bernotti into the room. “And here's -”
“Emily!” Alicia shouted, rushing forward and dropping to her knees in front of her daughter, before embracing her with a long, tight hug. “Oh Emily, I thought I'd never see you again!”
“A family reunion,” Ms. Eversham said, wiping tears from her eyes. “How cute. How beautiful. It never occurred to me that my dark little heart could be moved by such a sight.”
As her mother continued to hug her, Emily stood calmly, as if she was barely even aware of what was happening. Her eyes were fixed on Ms. Eversham, as if she was waiting for an order.
“I've got a nice pot lined up for you,” Constant hissed as he edged closer to Jennifer. Reaching out, he grabbed her leg and gave it a squeeze. “I've always wanted to -”
“Go to hell!” Jennifer shouted, pushing his hand away before lunging at him and almost managing to grab him by the throat. Straining at her chains, she tried in vain to reach him. “Touch me again and I'll make sure you regret it!”
“Huh,” Constant replied with a grin, “I like it when my ingredients fight back.”
“We're going home,” Alicia told Emily, still holding her tight. “Mummy came for you, do you see? Everyone told me I should forget you, they said you were gone, but I knew there was a chance, I just knew it deep down in my heart.�
� Pulling back a little, she looked into her daughter's eyes. “You're so...” She paused, and a faint flicker of concern crossed her face as she realized that Emily didn't seem quite right, as if some deep concern was waiting behind the girl's expression. “Emily, are you okay? You don't seem quite yourself.”
“You said you wanted Emily back,” Ms. Eversham told her. “You have her back. What's the problem?”
“Say something,” Alicia continued, putting a hand on the side of Emily's face. “Darling, speak to me. You do recognize me, don't you? It's me, it's your mother!” She waited for a reply. “Emily?”
“Emily,” Ms. Eversham said firmly, “do you recognize the woman in front of you?”
Slowly, while keeping her eyes fixed on Alicia, Emily nodded.
“And you remember that we discussed her once before, do you not?”
“I do,” Emily whispered.
“And what did we decide you should do?”
“Emily,” Alicia continued, licking her thumb before trying to wipe a faint reddish stain from her daughter's chin. “We're going to get out of here, okay? I'm going to take you home, back to Parios.”
Emily shook her head.
“Yes,” she added, taking her daughter's hand, “a thousand times yes! We're going back home, and we're going to live our old, happy, normal lives. You remember how things used to be, don't you? The orchard is just as you left it. All the orange trees are looking so beautiful this year, but they miss you. Do you want to come home with me and help pick fresh, juicy oranges? Your father will be so pleased when he sees that you've come back to us. Sometimes I thought I saw your ghost outside the back door, playing in the orchard.”
“I used to dream of that,” Emily whispered with a faint frown.
“Stay focused,” Ms. Eversham said firmly, eying the girl with concern. “Remember what we talked about.”
“Emily -” Alicia began to say.
Before she could finish, she realized that Emily was leaning toward her. After a moment, the little girl's mouth opened to reveal two small, sharp fangs.
“Emily,” Alicia continued, too shocked to move, “what are you doing? What have they done to you?”
“We've improved her,” Ms. Eversham said with a smile.
“Emily, no!”
“Run!” Jennifer shouted. “She's not -”
Suddenly Alicia screamed as Emily bit down hard on her neck. The little girl's fangs dug deep into her mother's flesh, and a moment later Emily put her hands on Alicia's shoulders, holding her in place as she began to drink her blood. Trembling with shock, Alicia turned away and gasped, before falling back with her daughter still clinging to her trembling body, still feeding on her neck.
“Such a beautiful sight,” Ms. Eversham said with a smile. “A few years ago, the child drank milk from her mother's bosom. Now she drinks blood from her neck.”
Letting out a faint gasp, Emily slipped her teeth from Alicia's flesh and paused for a moment, with a thick crimson stain on her chin. She looked deep into her mother's eyes, seeing pain and fear and sorrow.
“Don't stop now,” Ms. Eversham told her. “Take as much as you want. Trust your new instincts, and ignore the old, outdated fears of your human mind.”
Emily stared down at the two holes in her mother's neck, and finally a smile crossed her bloodied lips before she bit down again, this time closer to the jugular. She murmured with pleasure as she drank faster, ignoring her mother's hands pushing against her shoulders in a vain attempt to force her away. If anything, Emily felt more confident and more rapacious with every passing second, as if any lingering doubts were being washed away by the warm blood that flowed into her mouth and filled her body with a kind of strength she'd never felt before.
“Emily,” Alicia whispered stiffly, before letting out a gasp and finally falling still.
“She's not quite dead yet,” Ms. Eversham said with a smile, watching the scene with evident pleasure. “It'll take a while for her mind to dim, but she no longer has the strength to fight back.” Slowly, she turned to look down at Jennifer. “Not quite the reunion you were expecting to witness, I'm sure, but still a very touching moment. It's natural, is it not, for life force to flow from mother to child?”
“You're sick,” Jennifer replied, tugging at the chains around her wrists. “I knew there was something wrong with you, but you're truly disgusting. You're inhuman!”
“Inhuman?” Ms. Eversham smiled, before opening her mouth to reveal her blunt teeth. “No fangs, see? I'm very, very human, just like you. Well, not just like you, there are a few differences. I simply recognize the beauty of stronger creatures. You can't possibly imagine how pleased I was all those years ago, when the great Quillian chose me to be his new familiar. There's nothing in this whole world that I wouldn't do for him.” Hearing a faint squelching sound, she turned to see that Emily had begun to tear strips of flesh from her mother's neck. “The child is only doing what comes naturally to her. What was unnatural was the human mother's inability to see the full potential of Emily's transformation. Then again, perhaps Ms. Bernotti was a little biased.”
“Can I take her now?” Constant asked, leering at Jennifer's body. “You said I could have this one.”
“Do you still want to see your little Anna?” Ms. Eversham asked with a smile, turning back to Jennifer before glancing at Constant. “A deal's a deal, the Kazakos woman is yours. I'll be busy with Ms. Langley and the delightful Madeleine, so do whatever you want with this one.” She turned and headed to the door, stepping over Emily as the child continued to feed on Alicia's corpse. “And you can have what's left of the Bernotti woman too, I doubt Emily will be able to consume the entire corpse alone. There, never say that I'm not generous.”
“Oh, this is gonna be a feast,” Constant said with a grin, as thick saliva dripped from his lips. Reaching down, he grabbed Jennifer's waist and squeezed tight, feeling her fat and meat. “I'm gonna cook you nice and slow, to make sure all the juices get sealed in. Don't worry, though, I'm an expert chef. Self-taught, too. Not even the tiniest scrap of your body is gonna be wasted.”
II
“Do you seriously think these things are going to hold me for much longer?” Madeleine asked, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the yard with chains wrapped tightly around her body. “I mean, exactly how stupid are you guys?”
All around her in the moonlight, the children of the orphanage kept watch. Most were on their hands and knees, although some had chosen to stand. With their mouths open and their teeth bared, and their black eyes fixed firmly on Madeleine, they maintained the silent vigil to which they had been tasked after Madeleine had been dragged through the gate and secured to the yard's central post.
“You're young,” Madeleine continued, turning as she heard a faint cracking sound nearby. For a moment, pools of moonlight filled her hollow, exposed eyes. “I guess your history studies haven't covered the Le Compte family yet, have they? You probably think I'm weak, just because I let your master bring you in here. Well, I've got news for you. I wanted to get brought in here like this, and I wanted Ms. Eversham to leave me with you while she goes off to deal with her other business. You know why?”
She paused.
“Simple,” she added. “I figured ripping a bunch of cold-blooded kids apart would be a good warm-up before the main act. Plus, this way, Kate can't moan too much when I do it. She's always so annoyingly... moral.”
As she waited, all she heard was the sound of young bones creaking in the cold night air. Few of the girls had any need to breathe in and out anymore, although a few still did so out of habit, drawing oxygen into their dried, dead lungs and breathing out fine particles of desiccated skin. Those who had been dead for a long time, and who barely even remembered their mortal days, had been able to empty their minds completely, while the more recent converts still tended to endure flashes of memory. They'd all been taught, however, to keep their emotions in check. They knew that Ms. Eversham's wrath would come down upon them qui
ckly if they showed any sign of weakness, and they all remembered the fate of Meredith just twenty-four hours earlier.
“Let's try something,” Madeleine whispered, tilting her head a little in an attempt to get more moonlight into her eye-sockets. New growth had already begun to form at the very back of the sockets, as her optic nerves worked to develop new eyes. The process would be long and painful, Madeleine knew that without a doubt, but she also knew that it had been a few weeks now since she'd blinded herself, and she was certain she could see just the faintest shadows in the darkness that surrounded her. After a moment, however, those shadows faded, and she realized she was probably just fooling herself.
“Oh well,” she muttered finally. “I guess I'll just have to do this blind.”
Slowly, she began to pull on the metal chains around her wrists.
“I should warn you, though,” she added. “I am going to be a in a bad mood when I get free.”
Without letting more than a faint smile cross her lips, she continued to pull on the chains, and finally she felt the metal slowly starting to strain. It wasn't enough, it would never be enough, but that wasn't the point; the metal wasn't the part she was trying to break. Clenching her teeth, she continued to pull, until she realized the bones in her wrists were starting to bend. A moment later, she felt the first telltale snap of a minor bone at the base of her left thumb, followed by two more breaks in her lower ulna bones. The pain was starting to build now, so she forced a smile, determined to not give the watching children even a moment of satisfaction. Finally, as the pain intensified, she felt her thumbs breaking completely, along with several other bones in her hand, until she was able to slip free from the chains.