by Jenna Grey
Lily didn’t argue, but laid her hand over Connor’s and again that same feeling of power flooded through her. The chains crumbled under their touch, as did the wire at his ankles.
“My brother,” the man said again.
“We’ll find him. What’s your name?” Connor asked.
“Billy,” he said. “Find my brother, please. He’s got tattoos on both arms… flames. You can’t miss them.”
“Can you walk?” Lily asked.
“I’ll bloody well walk if it gets me out of this fucking place,” he said, in a strong a Cornish accent. Connor got him to his feet, and helped him walk a few steps; he tottered and almost fell, but eventually managed to stay on his feet. Lily was desperately afraid, for him, for them, because if Virginia found them, this man would not be able to run, he could barely stay conscious.
“Try to get the feeling back into your legs, you need to be stronger. I’ll find your brother and come back for you.” Connor said. “I promise we’ll come back, but I need to take Lily with me in case I need her help to free your brother. “What’s his name?”
“Chris.”
“Can you tell me something I can say to him that will make him trust us?”
“Yeah, tell him that he owes me a pint. He’ll understand.”
They left Billy propped against the door, barely able to keep his legs under him, Connor and Lily went to the next door along – the most obvious place for Billy’s brother to have been imprisoned, if he was still alive. As before, the lock gave under their joint power and they cautiously pushed open the door. A terrible stench spewed out of the door, making Lily gag. It was unmistakable – it was the smell of death.
Inside was absolute darkness – there were no windows.
“If Chris is in there, then I don’t hold up much hope for him,” Connor said, gagging. Lily felt her own bile rising, and retched, covering her face with her hand.
“We have to check,” she said.
Connor led the way into the room and threw a light ball in the air, casting a soft silver glow over the room. They moved forward, slowly, fearfully, but even before they got to the bed, they realised that the occupant had been dead quite some time. It was obvious that he’d been tortured to death. His eyes had been gouged out and his mouth was a gaping dark hole; it looked as if his tongue had been removed. His whole body was covered in terrible wounds. Lily didn’t even want to contemplate what the poor man had suffered before he died.
“That’s not Chris. No tattoos.”
“We need to keep looking,” Connor said, forcing her bodily from the room, and shutting the door.
“How could any human being do that to another?” Lily asked.
Connor gave a bitter smile.
“She’s not human, remember?”
Lily was feeling terribly sick, her legs shaking, her brain strangely befuddled. Perhaps it was simply shock from what she had just witnessed, or perhaps there was some enchantment about this place that dulled the senses and took away a person’s will to resist Virginia’s magic. Either way, she knew that she wasn’t at all herself.
They moved along to the next room and opened the door with trepidation. Lily let out her pent up breath when she saw that it was empty, but the set-up was the same as the other rooms, just mercifully free of any occupant, alive or dead.
“Try the room opposite Billy’s room,” Lily said. They could hear no sound of life inside, but as they opened the door a crack they could see that the room was lit by torches, set in sconce around the room, just as Billy’s was.
The figure on the bed half roused as he saw movement at the door.
“No, please, no more,” he whimpered as they got closer to the bed, trying to pull back.
“Is your name Chris?” Connor asked, bending over into the man’s field of vision.
The man looked up then, focusing, his face contorted with pain. He had been tortured just as badly as Billy had, his cheek opened up in a great bloody welt, the rest of his body a battle field of wounds and scars.
“Yeah. Who are you?” The words struggled from his lips, his throat working hard to force them out.
Connor reassured him with a smile.
“Friends. We’ve found Billy and he’s okay – he said to tell you that you owe him a pint.”
Chris broke into near hysterical laughter and then let out a cry of pain as the effort almost tore his body apart. Connor pushed him gently back onto the blood and urine soaked bed; there was all manner of bodily fluids crusting it; he probably been left there for days, without food, without water, lying in his own body waste. Lily felt such overwhelming pity for him in that moment, that it even blocked out the rage she felt for Virginia for a few scant seconds.
“Take it easy, Chris. We’re going to get you and Billy out of here. Can you walk?” Connor asked.
“I think so.”
Lily didn’t think so, but they helped him to his feet and out into the passage, supporting most of his weight. Connor cast a glance across at Lily, his concern more than obvious. So far they had been lucky, they’d managed to escape detection, but Lily didn’t expect their luck to last forever. They helped Chris along to his brother’s room and when the two men saw one another, their reaction was first utter shock at the state the other was in and then profound relief and happiness. Billy had found some clothes from somewhere and had somehow managed to dress. They fell into one another’s arms, clinging on, weeping their relief at seeing the other alive, if only barely.
“I found some clothes behind the curtain,” Billy said, “Piles of it, that must have come from all the other poor sods that bitch has murdered.”
Lily pulled back the curtain and what she saw there made the blood chill in her veins. Behind the curtain was an annexe, and it was almost full of discarded men’s clothing: shirts, trousers, jackets, underwear, shoes. There must have been the cast offs from a hundred or more men here. It reminded her of the heaps of clothing she had seen in old footage and photos of the death camps, like Auschwitz. How many men had this creature killed over the years? Some of the clothes looked dated, jackets that Lily recognised as being fashionable in the 70s, some even older. How long had Virginia been doing this? Billy helped his brother to dress, with trembling hands.
“We’re not out of trouble yet,” Connor said. “Stay here, there’s one more room to check and we can’t leave without making sure there are no other prisoners. We won’t be more than a few minutes. Just hang on in there.”
Lily and Connor made their way along to the very last door in the passage and opened the door into profound darkness. As the room blossomed into silver light, the sight that confronted them was worse than anything they had yet encountered, worse than their wildest imaginings. It was a trophy room. There were shelves upon shelves of body parts, mementoes of all of Virginia’s hundreds, if not thousands, of victims. They hung in mid air, suspended in globes of blue arcane energy, bubbles of magic, keeping the parts fresh and preserved for all eternity.
“That creature has to die,” Connor said, his voice violent.
“Connor, no, we have to get out of here while we can,” Lily protested.
“And leave her here to do this to others? No. We have to take a stand.”
He sounded so determined, so sure of himself, she knew that she could never change his mind, but she had to try.
“And what about the kids, what about the Black King? What if we are the only ones that can kill him? The prophecy says that it has to be us. If we get killed now, how can we do that?”
Connor looked thoughtful for a moment, his anger seeming to ebb momentarily as he considered what she’d said. He finally gave a soft, half smile and said:
“If the prophecy’s right, then we aren’t in any danger here, are we? We have to live through this to kill the Black King.”
She couldn’t argue with his logic as much as she wanted to.
“Smart arse,” Lily said, but she realised that he was right. “But what about Billy and Chris? If we f
ail, then they’re going to die. Let’s try and get them out of here first and come back for the bitch.”
Connor gave a reluctant nod.
“We need to pick up our things, we can’t go anywhere like this,” he said. They were both only half dressed, both shoeless and Connor shirtless.
They went back to their room, Lily thankful that she hadn’t unpacked her belongings. She was still astonished that no-one had discovered their escape attempt yet. She had expected someone to have set up the alarm, for someone to have noticed that they had broken the spells that Virginia had put on their door, but nothing. She wasn’t complaining, but she was almost more disquieted by the fact that no-one had discovered them than if they had.
They grabbed their things and finished dressing hurriedly, making their way back to Billy and Chris. The two men seemed to have recovered a little, strengthened by the prospect of escape and were waiting by the door for them.
“Stay close and we’ll try and get you out of here,” Connor said.
“Could we have that sentence again, without the ‘try’? Chris asked, managing an anaemic smile.
“Just stay close and keep quiet. And we’ll get you out of here, or die trying.”
“I can’t understand why no-one has noticed that we’re doing this? Do you think it’s a trick of some kind?” Lily asked.
“If it is there’s nothing we can do about it,” Conner said, moving along the corridor. “We have to move forward.”
Lily really had no idea of how they could find their way out of here, but she followed in Connor’s footsteps, praying that the Powers That Be would help them. She called on Hecate to guide them to the exit, because she couldn’t remember which way they had come in as hard as she tried. Hecate had helped her before, surely she would help her again.
“This way,” Connor said. And Lily realised that he was right. She could feel that some buzz, that tingle that told her that they were going the right way. Her heart was thumping so hard that she was sure that someone would hear it, the blood pounding in her temples, flashes of red popping in front of her eyes. Breathe, she had to breathe or she would hyperventilate.
Lily gave a startled shriek as the diminutive figure came hurtling along the corridor towards them, screeching like a banshee, teeth bared and stick fingers clawed into vicious talons. Sun Lin threw herself at Connor, going straight for his eyes, trying to gouge his eyes out. Connor reacted with impossible speed, grabbing Sun Lin by the throat and holding onto the thrashing form at arm’s length with inhuman strength, his fingers closed around her scrawny neck, squeezing hard. Her legs dangled in the air, flailing wildly and shrieking her rage. Lily rushed forwards and grabbed the Urisk’s legs, hanging on tightly, and between them they managed to wrestle her to the floor. Connor grabbed her arms with his other hand, pinning them, and letting go of Sun Lin’s throat, pulled back his fist and drove a punch straight to the Urisk’s bony face. The creature went limp, knocked cold by Connor’s blow; Lily could hear the bones crack as Connor’s fist hit home. Her nose was smashed, a bloody mess spread across her face, and most of her front teeth were gone. Lily didn’t feel the slightest shred of sympathy for her.
“Virginia will have heard that racket. Brace yourself for battle,” Lily said.
“You two stay behind us and if it looks too bad, then just make a run for it,” Connor said, over his shoulder, wiping the blood from his hand on the Urisk’s chiton.
There were some terrified noises of compliancy from behind.
And there in front of them was Virginia. She stormed towards them, her face a mask of rage, distorted into ugliness. Her eyes glowed red, her hair fanning around her as the power surged through her. This was the true Korrigan, the monster that kidnapped men and tortured them to death for her pleasure. She seemed to fill the passage, an overwhelming presence, vibrating with power. Her fists were bunched in a battle stance and Lily knew that this was going to be a battle to the death. Connor stood in front of Lily and the two men, protecting them.
“You treacherous ingrates,” she hissed at them, “After all I’ve done for you!”
Lily pushed her way back in front of Connor, letting her temper get the better of her common sense.
“Done for us? You think that anything you’ve done could make up for what you’ve been doing here for God knows how long?” Lily asked.
Virginia gave a vicious smile.
“I’m a Korrigan – it’s what I do.”
Lily forced out her own smile, pulling her shoulders back and letting Virginia see that she wasn’t going to be intimidated.
“Not any more it’s not.”
Virginia gave a very unpleasant laugh.
“I was going to send you back to Elphame – could have helped you get the children back and defeat the Black King. Will you throw it all away for two worthless humans?”
“They may be worthless to you,” Connor said, “But not to us.”
Virginia, seeing that they were never going to give in to her, threw a curse at Connor, terrible dark magic that crashed through the air towards him, making Lily shiver as she felt the energy pouring from it. Connor intercepted it with a bright green burst of arcane energy that deflected her curse, sending it smashing into the wall, which disintegrated in a pile of dust and rubble. Virginia was knocked backwards by the recoil, landing on her back, a disgruntled heap, cursing them and struggling to get up again. Unfortunately the injury was mainly to her dignity, and she managed to get to her feet almost instantly, smoothing, rumpled but disappointingly unharmed. Lily joined in the battle, throwing her own curse at their adversary, and she could see that Virginia was beginning to struggle now.
Connor grabbed Lily’s hand and clung onto it tightly and Lily suddenly felt a burst of power that almost knocked her from her feet. Combined, their power became tenfold, and as their magic combined Virginia began to noticeably weaken, sinking down to the ground, and this time, not getting up again.
“You fools. You’ll never get to Elphame now,” she said, her voice growing weaker with every word as Connor threw blast after blast at her. “You will never defeat the Black King. Let me live and I’ll still help you.” She recoiled as another blast hit her, giving a cry of sudden pain, clutching her chest.
“We are Tuatha Dé Danann,” Connor said, “and we don’t need your help.”
And with that, Connor threw a final curse at Virginia and she fell backwards in a silent swoon, that was almost surreally elegant. Lily made a move forwards to check that she was dead, but before she could reach her she felt the world swim around her, and for a moment she thought she was going to pass out. Blackness engulfed her, and she felt herself falling into that inky darkness.
When she regained her senses Lily found that she was standing in open woodland, wobbling, but still upright. Connor was beside her and Chris and Billy were slumped on the ground in front of them, apparently unconscious. Lily bent over them and saw that they were breathing evenly, and within moments they started to come round.
“What the hell happened?” Billy asked, trying to sit up. There was blood spotting through the open neck dress shirt he wore, where his wounds had opened up again. He gave a moan of pain, clutching his head, and tottering slightly.
“I don’t know for certain;” Connor said, kneeling down beside him, “but I think that Virginia is dead. I think that is the only reason we got out of that place ‒ as she died her domain died with her.”
Chris stared at them blank eyed; he was in deep shock, in a far worse state than his brother. They looked very much alike, both obviously chosen by Virginia for their remarkable handsomeness.
“I keep thinking that this is some kind of bad trip that I can’t wake up from,” Chris said. He was impossibly pale, almost grey, his eyes glassy, vacant. Lily wrapped a cloak of warmth around them, worried that the shock would be too much for them. It was a simple piece of magic, but she could see instantly that it was working and within a couple of minutes they had stopped shaking so badly.
“But you are awake and you’re safe. That bitch is dead and you’ll be fine in a few days.” Connor said. Lily reached into her bag, pulled out a couple of the bottles of water she’d packed, and two sugary chocolate bars. She had a feeling that it had been quite some time since they’d eaten anything.
“Eat these, you need the sugar, you’re both in shock.”
They took them gratefully and began to eat, struggling to get them down through their tortured throats. They snatched eagerly and wolfed them down, gulping down the whole bottle of water each.
“What the hell happened to us, who as that bitch?” Billy asked.
Connor and Lily sat down beside them on the grass to try and explain, although what the hell they could say to them was anyone’s guess.
“She was just a very nasty piece of work that isn’t going to be hurting anyone else,” Connor said. “And you need to get to a hospital.”
That was going to be easier said than done. They were still in Farthingale Woods miles from the nearest town or village and these two were in no fit state to walk the four or five miles to the nearest village.
“But you haven’t answered Billy’s question. What happened to us, we need to know, or we’re never going to get a minutes peace as long as we live,” Chris said, and Lily could see that he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
“Tell us how she picked you up first,” Lily said. “We need to understand what happened as well.”
Billy glanced at his brother as if he wasn’t sure how much he should tell them, but Chris just nodded his approval. Billy drew in a breath as if bracing himself and said:
“We were in a nightclub, just having a good night out... and she was there. She came onto us, – we were pretty pissed, and when she invited us back to her place, we didn’t say no. We got out into the car park and the next thing I knew I woke up chained to that bed.” He paled, memories flooding back to him. “The fucking things she did to us...” Lily closed her hand over his.
“I know, I can see, but it’s over now.”
Lily could see, she could see it all, and she knew that Connor could as well. They had been very drunk, but just two decent lads on a night out, looking for a bit of fun, perhaps hoping to get lucky with some Cornish lass. Instead they found this monster ‒ and Lily could see how they had been taken in by her. She was luscious, in a tight fitting dress that barely covered her, sauntering and beguiling as only the seductresses of Otherworld could be. They were lost from the moment she laid eyes on them. And what they had suffered defied imagination. Lily forced the images from her mind.