by SL Figuhr
“By the Undying Lands! You’re not real! You can’t be real!” Zeck stuttered out. It’s tricks, it has to be. Just like Lord Nicky and the grove. It’s all just tricks.
Kendall’s momentary disbelief grew into a howl of rage. He thrust forward with his sword. It passed through the spot where she had been standing. He whirled around, enraged, to see Tully being consumed by a vast shadow. An abrupt, choked sound came from where he had stood. The marquis lunged forward into the darkness again with his sword, hoping to impale the bitch, not caring if he got his friend in the process.
A thud and a brief scream had him whipping back around. Zeck lay beneath the corpse of Tully, who appeared bleached of color.
“The bitch isn’t natural!” his friend yelled, frantically hauling himself out from underneath the body. “He dropped from the ceiling dead!”
“YOU DARE CALL ME A COWARD?!” Kendall screamed, “WHEN IT IS YOU WHO CHEAT!”
An evil laugh echoing in the hallway was his reply. Zeck jumped, thinking he felt a cold breath on the back of his neck. He swung the poker about, sweeping curios and other objects off the nearby tops of hall tables before stepping on a body and twisting his ankle. He fell to one knee, breathing heavily.
“Fuck this! Let His Majesty deal with her murdering ass!” Zeck panted out. He was standing when he felt his head yanked back and a white blur crossed his vision.
He felt teeth close around the side of his throat, tearing and ripping. His body dropped to the floor a moment later. Kendall swung around just in time to see the duchess lift her head and look at him, her mouth, chin, and throat coated in crimson. He tried to stab the bitch, who was clearly insane, but once again met air.
A moment later, his good hand went numb from a blow. He found himself being dragged back to his suite and tied to the bed once more. His left leg, which had previously been left free, was tied to the bedpost with the intestines of his dead friends. The flames in the fireplace flared brightly, fresh wood feeding them. All the candles and oil lamps in the room suddenly blazed alight. The marquis could hear the frantic gurgling sounds his slave made as the duchess walked toward him.
“The king will hear of this! You don’t dare kill me, not if you care for your position.” Kendall threatened, straining against his bonds. “You can’t kill everyone who knows you’re here.” The last filled with uncertainty.
She made no reply, only yanked his slave’s broken jaw open. His screams were cut off as she held up something long and pink. Her left hand rose, holding the poker Zeck had tried to use to defend himself. Illyria placed the object against his slave’s forehead, driving the poker through it, the man’s head, and into the bedpost behind.
Kendall’s mouth snapped shut upon viewing the sheer impossible feat she performed in the mirrors hanging around the room. A fresher scent of blood and excrement mingled with the old. His eyes grew wide as Her Grace leaped onto the bed at his feet. The marquis didn’t even feel the mattress sink under her weight as she walked up before crouching over his waist. Despite his situation, he still found the sight of her blood-coated body erotic.
“Tricks. I’m not afraid of your tricks. Nor was I of Nicky’s.” He spat.
She just smiled and using her blood-caked nails and hands, ripped every piece of clothing from him by shredding it. He tried to sneer. Why unclothe him if she didn’t mean to have sex with him?
Illyria gave a wicked laugh, as if she had heard his thoughts. Then she began to carve words into his chest with her razor-sharp nails, humming as she did so. At first he clenched his teeth, determined not to scream. By the third word, he was making a high-pitched keening noise.
Kendall felt sweat pouring off his body. It stung the fresh wounds. His unbroken limbs trembled from the effort of trying to yank free of the binding silk cords. His broken arm felt dead. He watched the duchess place his sword’s blade in the flames. She strolled back over to him, a tiny wicked smile playing about her mouth. The duchess leaned in close, stroked his sweat-matted hair off his face and forehead, leaning in to whisper in his ear. As the sword heated, she drove her fangs into his neck and fed. After the first few minutes, Kendall lost track of time. He felt a searing pain at his groin, smelled burnt flesh and hair. A small, wet sack was placed on the middle of his abdomen. The marquis felt her breath on his ear one last time, whispering, bringing his fears to life in his mind. He passed out from terror and exhaustion.
Illyria held her hands over the flames in Kendall’s fireplace, let them burn off the blood and flesh clinging to them. She used the rags of his clothes to clean her body of blood. The duchess walked into Anne’s room, adroitly avoiding the blood and bodies littering the hallway and both bedrooms.
“Hello, Anne. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you sooner. I’m here now.” She spoke kindly to the young woman who stared without really seeing, using her vampiric powers to find the thread of the marchioness’ consciousness and gently tease it to the surface.
Lady Anne’s body was a mass of new and old bruises, much like Mary Elana’s had been before Illyria had bought her from her parents. Her arms and legs appeared stick thin. Each rib and knob of bone on the marchioness’ spine stood out, skin taut.
“You appear uncomfortable. I’m going to move you.” So saying, the duchess gently turned Anne onto her back, composing her limbs by her side. She propped the woman’s head up with a pillow.
Anne blinked, tears leaking out her eyes, streaming down the sides of her face. She mouthed words soundlessly, but Illyria could read them from her mind.
I want to die. I can’t live like this anymore. He will never let me be free.
“He will have no choice but to do what he is commanded. I would not worry about your husband. I had a talk with him; no one defies my will.”
A small head shake was all the movement Anne made, mouth continuing to move, forming words she couldn’t speak aloud. Please. Let me die. I have no will to continue on. If you truly want to be my friend, grant me peace.
Illyria was gently brushing the young woman’s hair, smoothing the snarls out so it lay shining and golden about her. “Death . . . your death, is permanent. I am offering you the means to break free of him and remain so without ending your life.”
The duchess retrieved the pitcher of water and the basin which stood next to it behind the privacy screen; along with a cloth and a small bar of scented soap. She gently bathed Lady Anne, then dried her off.
Please. I have not your strength. You have been one of the few women to be kind to me and genuinely mean it.
Illyria stood, retrieving a ball gown, including undergarments and shoes, bringing them back to the bed. It was a confection of pink silk, white lace, gold detailing and puffy underskirts. She dressed Anne with care.
Please. Why would you be cruel and make me beg after all your kindnesses?
“As you wish,” Illyria replied, and finished preparing Anne by putting a thin layer of rice powder and blush on her face and cheeks, along with a dash of the young woman’s favorite scent at temples, ears, and wrists.
She sat beside the marchioness, leaning close to her ear, speaking both out loud and inside Anne’s mind. “Think of some happy event before your marriage. Hold on to that thought. There will be one last tiny prick of pain, which I can only apologize for. Are you ready?”
Illyria didn’t wait for a reply; she bit firmly but quickly into Anne’s jugular. A small shudder was the only movement besides the breathing the marchioness made. The duchess found the happy thought Anne held onto, using her powers to enhance the memory as she drained the young woman’s life. She left the marchioness’ mind alone except for the help to the happy thought. She had no need to take the young woman’s essence.
The vampire heard the thudding of Anne’s heart grow weak, and yet it made one last fluttering attempt to hold onto life. Let go, Anne. It is time. Go to your happy memory. You are alive in it. Nothing, and no one, can ever hurt you again.
Lady Anne’s heart beat once more, and a last gas
p of air, sounding as a happy sigh, left her lungs as Illyria stopped drinking and erased the marks on the woman’s neck with a small drop of her own blood. She placed the marchioness’ hands one on top of the other across her waist. The vampire retrieved two gold coins, breaking the locked coin box hidden in the marquis’ room, and placed them on Anne’s eyelids, helping to hold them shut.
“Fare thee well, Lady Anne.” She addressed the corpse.
Illyria strode purposefully yet soundlessly from the room. She firmly closed the double doors behind her.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Saizar gazed dazedly at the remains of the marquis’ dinner party. A woman’s shrill hysterics penetrating the closed door of the receiving room. Behind him, his men shifted and muttered among themselves.
“Uh, sir, are we um, uh, gonna do anything?” Frog tentatively spoke.
“I hardly know where to start,” the sheriff said more to himself than his men. “Guts, go get Earl Sydney and ask him to come and bring his secretary with him. When you have done that, bring Mathias here. We will need help. The rest of you, shit . . .” He trailed off on a curse.
The front door opened and closed after Guts who ran to do as bidden. Saizar rubbed a hand through his hair, head swiveling as he once more took note of the wreckage. “Cregan and Merrit, go around to the servants’ entrance. Gather all the slaves still alive and hold them in the kitchen. Toras, see to the woman; try and get her to stop screaming. Gordy, stand guard and don’t let anyone but the earl and his man and the captain of the palace guard inside. Frog, we must find out if his lordship is still alive.”
Carefully the two men started up the marble staircase, skirting dried blood, and bits of bodies.
“What or who, did this? It’s like some wild animal attacked.”
Once at the top, the pools of blood were wider, and not completely dry near the centers. There were also more bodies lying about, limbs contorted unnaturally, faces a frozen rictus of terror. The majority of victims were nude.
The sheriff recognized a few faces from his visits to Madam Breck’s. He didn’t relish the visit he would have to make in his official capacity. The bloody footprints on the outside stoop, sidewalk, and street, marked the flight of survivors.
Most of the doors remained partially or fully open the entire length of the hall. Saizar and Frog glanced in at the gruesome tableaux as they passed. Their goal was his lordship’s chamber. Once they knew his status, then they would delve farther into each room. Two sets of double doors, one cutting off the end of the hall, one set to the right, were the only closed pairs.
Gingerly, the sheriff turned a knob on the pair of doors at the end of the hall, and slowly opened it, watching where he stepped.
Malodorous scents assaulted his olfactory ends. From the near-complete darkness came unintelligible babbling and maniacal laughter. A faint outline of daylight on the right hand wall suggested windows hidden behind drapes.
“Sir,” Frog tapped his superior on the shoulder, and passed him a candelabra he had found on the floor. The candles had been half-used, but the wicks had not been soaked in gore and thus could still be used.
“Thanks,” Saizar answered, and carefully negotiated farther inside, toward the drapes.
He had to avoid shattered, bloody pieces of furniture. Frog followed close behind, and when they got to the covered windows, the apprentice lawman parted the drapes. Daylight flooded the room, the stark winter sun harshly illuminating the space.
The marquis lay supine in the middle of his great bed, forming an X. He was naked, arms and legs tied to the posts. His lordship’s right arm looked broken and mottled a deep black. Blood had run down his chest from lines carved into it. A strange, blood and hair-covered sack-like, thing, sat in the middle of his abdomen. The bedding beneath his groin was also black with blood, and the scent of charred flesh came from the area.
His slave was tied to a post at the end of the bed, mouth gaping open, a fireplace poker had been shoved into his skull with a piece of meat dangling from it.
“Is that . . . his tongue?” Frog ventured closer to study. After a moment he said, “Yup.”
Meanwhile, Saizar had approached the bed. “Your Lordship? What happened?”
“Golden flames! I display my shame! I am a worm! A sadist!” Jenabram screamed and thrashed before laughing maniacally.
The thing on his belly landed beside him. Frog had come to stand on the opposite side of the bed from his superior.
“Uh, sir. I do believe that is his . . . uh . . . um . . . nut sack,” he finished lamely. “And, uh . . . um . . . whoever did it cauterized the wound. So . . . you know, he wouldn’t bleed out.”
Saizar pinched the bridge of his nose; he was not a man given to drink, but dearly wished for one now.
“Frog, you are to remain silent on what you have seen. We all will have to. I dare not move his lordship without the advice of a physician. Let us check the other room, and then see if there are any servants left alive we can send to fetch the doctor.”
They exited the room as carefully as they had entered it and stood before the right-hand set of doors which were also closed. The sheriff mentally steeled himself to find more horrors.
Luck was not kind to him. The mutilated bodies of four men had been laid out in a row at the foot of the bed. Each of their chests had carvings on them, hard to read with all the blood. Their cheeks and mouths bulged from their genitals being stuffed in them.
Behind him, he heard Frog gag and retch, followed by a splash of vomitus landing.
Saizar ventured farther inside, trying to contain his own nausea. He placed his sleeve-covered arm across his nose and mouth. Sweat dotted his brow, and the room felt hotter than it had a moment ago. The outlines of a fifth body could be seen on the bed under a sheet.
It was incongruous, given the way the other bodies had been left lying about; as if they were trash. The sheriff took several shallow breaths, then with both hands, folded down the sheet so he could see who it covered.
Lady Anne was the victim. He lowered the sheet farther, past her toes, puzzled. She had been laid out already for burial. Her hair was neatly arranged underneath her and looked to have been brushed. Her face had been carefully enhanced with cosmetics, the new and old bruises on it faintly seen. Her lids had been closed, a gold coin laid upon each to keep them shut.
The marchioness’ hands had been clasped across her abdomen. She wore a pale pink, lace-edged ball gown that only accented the whiteness of her skin. Matching shoes had been placed upon her stockinged feet. There were no immediately obvious signs of what might have killed her.
“Who—who would do such a thing? It’s right creepy, I say. She-she looks as if she smiles,” Frog softly exclaimed from beside Saizar as he made a gesture of warding away evil.
“That is what makes it all the more gruesome. We will find she had no lovers who would dare go to these lengths inside the marquis’ home. Nor outside of it.”
“But the bodies on the floor . . .”
“I do not understand that part of the mystery. Let us hope any survivors will be able to shed some light on what happened last night. Come.” Saizar replaced the covering, just as carefully, he imagined, as it had been drawn up by whoever killed her.
* * *
Mathias stepped into the front hall of the marquis’ town home and blanched. The last time he had seen so much gore had been during the bandits’ raid. He let a few of his hand-picked men inside and gave his directions.
“No one is to speak a word of what we do today. Should I catch any man discussing these events in a public setting, or with those of us not directly involved, I will fire. The sheriff’s office shall be helping our endeavors today, so I also expect cooperation on all sides. Saizar has already sent for the royal advisor, so be sure you grant her entrance when she comes.”
He then rapped out instructions, and his men started on their appointed tasks. Mathias was about to head into the receiving room when the front door opened
again.
Earl Sydney stepped into the hall, stopping short at the sight. “What in the Dark Lands is going on?”
“My lord, we were alerted by one of Sheriff Saizar’s men. I have been told there are a number of problems to contend with.”
“Such as?”
The captain of the guard, while not afraid of battle, dreaded what was to come. Still, he tried his best.
“The marchioness is, unfortunately, one of the victims. The marquis has been injured, there are a number of nobles dead as well, and then there is the matter of Lady Caroline.”
“I’m sorry, what? Surely you are mistaken. My eldest resides at our country estate now,” Sydney barked out.
Mathias cleared his throat and coughed. “The receiving room, my lord, is where you might want to start.” He bowed respectfully. “I shall be upstairs.” So saying, he made his careful way up.
Sydney, for once, found himself nonplussed. His eldest couldn’t be here. She wouldn’t dare! Would she? It was too much, considering how he believed Illyria’s love for him had cooled. What time she spent at the mansion was occupied with royal business, with barely any left for him. He turned and strode down the hall, paused outside a guarded door a moment. The man bowed, a mix of pity and scorn in his eyes as he opened the portal.
The earl could only stand in the doorway in shock, then rage flushed his features. He firmly shut the door behind him. A lawman knelt beside a body, with his back before the drawn drapes of the room, as he murmured details to a nearby scribe. A second naked body, with a face which bore the remains of heavy make-up which the wearer had used in an attempt to make herself appear younger, lay sprawled in a pool of dried blood. The third body belonged, indeed, to his eldest daughter.
Sydney’s body sagged a moment, then he staggered a little before dropping to his knees with an audible thud.
“Uh, sir . . .” began the guard as he glanced over at the sound, only to be interrupted by a keening noise.
Sydney felt his gorge rise; he just wanted to leave and try to forget this new dimension to his personal nightmare. But he had been called upon in his official capacity, and he must not shirk, no matter how distasteful the revelations in his deceased daughter’s behavior. Only he couldn’t seem to make his body obey him.