‘You have no right…’ Something pressed against her right hip and her body was on fire. The pain stopped and she realised she was still screaming. Her body was convulsing still, yanking on the chains holding her arms up, and when it was finally over she was left hanging, her full weight on her shoulders.
‘Confess,’ Falk said.
Ceri said nothing in reply. There was no point. She knew what was coming and tried to brace herself for it, but there was nothing you could do to prepare yourself for that kind of pain. A second later she was screaming again.
~~~
There was darkness and silence, and there was pain burning in her arms and shoulders. Feeling like a just born deer, Ceri forced her legs under her and tried to stand. She was shaking and it seemed to take a lot of effort to stand, but she managed it, taking the weight off her screaming arms. She let out a sobbing cry as the cuffs, which had been cutting into her wrists, came loose. They felt sticky.
Then she heard the voice, soft, seductive, vibrant, and in her head. ‘I can take the pain away.’ Gadriel. She could not sense him. If he was there in the room with her he was immaterial, but his voice seemed close, like he was whispering in her ear.
‘If I confess?’
‘Submit yourself to me.’ That was not an answer to her question. ‘I can teach you as I have taught so many. As I taught the first of your kind. Submit to me.’
Ceri’s brain was not exactly firing on all cylinders. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘You will.’
Even if she could not feel him there before she knew he had gone, leaving her alone in the dark once more.
~~~
Ceri woke up as a pair of androgynous figures in white robes carried her across the cellar, putting her down on a wooden plank seat with a hole in it and a bucket underneath. She saw others with buckets and mops taking care of the reason why the latrine break was unnecessary; anything she had to relieve herself of had been lost when Falk had applied the electrodes. Now, with her brain beginning to work slightly better, she realised how bad the stench was.
‘This is kind of pointless,’ Ceri said, her voice sounding thick in her ears, ‘I’ve got nothing left to go with.’
The angels ignored her, instead lifting her unresisting arms over her head and attaching her cuffs to rings on the wall high enough to stretch her spine. Then her legs were wrenched apart, not that it took too much effort, and chained to the floor. Humiliation, wonderful.
The smell of disinfectant started to overcome the acrid odour of urine and faeces. Ammonia stung Ceri’s nostrils and she gagged, then coughed. The angels ignored her, vanishing away or gliding up the stairs carrying the cleaning equipment. She was alone again, but at least she was in the light and sitting down. She was even able to relax a little. It was not exactly a comfortable position, but far better than before.
Falk walking down the steps destroyed any slight improvement in mood Ceri had developed. He stopped in front of her and looked down, his expression thoughtful. ‘You see, I can be merciful. I can ease your pain.’ Yeah, she was getting that a lot. ‘You believe that a confession will bring about your death,’ Falk said. He was trying for soft and conciliatory, but he just did not have the voice for it. ‘I am not required to execute you… if you recant your mistaken beliefs. Give yourself up to Our Lord and you can be saved.’
‘Saved?’ Ceri asked. ‘Is that what you promised Suzie Shore? Is that what you said you were doing for Naira?’
‘Naira? Oh, the beast-girl.’ He was not making himself more popular. ‘I was given specific instructions about any fleeing criminals I discovered. Shore had faith and lost it. Her plea to be allowed to return to the fold was accepted.’
‘So I get saved and shipped back to Brazil?’
‘You will do God’s work in the new Promised Land.’
‘Yeah,’ Ceri said, ‘I’m sure I would. I think I’ll decline.’
Falk turned and started for the stairs again. ‘As you wish.’
The lights went out and the door slammed shut. This time she heard the lock being turned. It seemed pointless; she could barely move. A demonstration of the futility of her position? The tactics being used seemed obvious; a variation on good cop, bad cop. Torture her, then be nice to her. Now what?
‘I can influence him, Ceridwyn.’ Ceri flinched. It was the first time the angel had used her name. ‘Submit to me and I will see to it that your pain ends. Join with me. I can teach you. I can show you pleasure you have never known.’
‘Weren’t you paying attention? I’m accused of “consorting” with a succubus.’ She managed a weak laugh. ‘Believe me, we’ve got “consorting” down to a fine art.’
‘I could take you,’ he replied, ‘but I prefer to wait. You will accept me as your kind has always done. As the first woman did in her weakness. You are weak, Ceridwyn. You will submit.’
‘Get lost,’ Ceri told him, but he already had. Now she had an angel trying to get into her knickers? Not that she was wearing any. Why? And why the emphasis on submission? If, for some perverted reason, he wanted her, he could just take her. Unless he could not…
Father Król had said Gadriel had possibly been the angel who seduced Eve. If you believed, Eve was the first woman, so he was basically admitting he really had got Man kicked out of Eden. If you believed in it. But he had had to seduce her. He was “the opposer.” He had been given the task of tempting Eve, not raping her. And then there had been the Nephilim which came after, the products of angels seducing human women. Seduction, not rape. Gadriel needed her to submit to him.
Ceri smiled in the darkness. Gadriel, the great Angel of War, seducer of Eve, the original serpent, had a weakness. Not that it was getting her out of this mess.
~~~
A straw was pushed between her lips and she sucked liquid into her parched throat before wondering what it was. Thankfully it seemed to be water. Two or three hard pulls and the straw was pulled away again. She tried to lean forward after it, but she was still chained to the wall and came up short with a cry of pain which came out as more of a croak.
‘Easy,’ Falk’s voice said. ‘You’ll be sick if you drink too quickly.’
Ceri blinked, prying her eyes open to look at him. She was almost glad to hear his voice. It had been dark and silent in the cellar for… She had no way of knowing how long, but her aching stomach and dry mouth suggested it had been a long time. He moved the straw back and she sucked water down again, slower this time. Her eyes stayed on his, willing him to keep allowing her to drink.
Eventually he took the drink away and reached around to get a plate. There was bread on it, spread with what looked like honey. ‘Are you ready to admit your misdeeds?’ Falk asked.
‘If I say no, do I still get fed?’
He grunted a laugh; it was the first sign he had any positive emotions. Lifting a slice of bread, he folded it and allowed her to take a bite. White bread and honey, it was sort of biblical. He should have given her milk instead of water. ‘Your friends, your so-called police force, they won’t find you.’ Ceri chewed and swallowed, and he fed her more of the bread. ‘Gadriel’s power keeps us shielded from them. Your only hope is me.’ Another bite. ‘I give you food and water, without me you’ll die.’ Another bite went in and Ceri swallowed it.
‘You know, I’ve been tortured before,’ Ceri said. He raised an eyebrow and then fed her the last bit of bread. She swallowed it down. ‘I was repeatedly raped to get information out of me. Thing was, I didn’t have any information to give them.’ He fed her the next piece of bread, saying nothing. Ceri swallowed. ‘I told them then that if you’re torturing someone, they have to have something to lose.’ She got another bite of bread.
‘You’re telling me you have nothing to gain by confessing?’
Ceri swallowed and said, ‘I’m finding it hard to see what.’
He gave her the last bite of bread, and then some more water, without saying anything in reply. He stood up, and pulled a packet of cigarette
s and a lighter from his pocket. ‘Confessing our sins is the way to absolution. Through absolution we gain forgiveness.’ He pulled out one of the cigarettes and lit it. ‘It grants us entry into Heaven and allows us to participate in the life of the Church.’
‘There you are,’ Ceri said, ‘I don’t believe in Heaven, or Hell. Not the ones you do anyway.’
Falk nodded and took a drag on his cigarette, blowing out the smoke high into the air where it made vaporous curtains in the light from the single bulb. ‘Would you care for one?’ he asked her, sitting down on the stool in front of her.
‘No, thank you, I don’t smoke.’
‘No,’ Falk said, ‘neither do I.’ His hand dropped and the burning stub of tobacco landed on Ceri’s inner thigh.
~~~
It was dark again, but Ceri could not sleep. The burns on her thighs, stomach, and breasts stung. Her jaw ached where he had struck her when his frustration finally came to a head. That had been her only tiny triumph, and it had been a painful one.
Unable to sleep, but with food and water in her stomach, she thought. Falk had made a point of telling her that her friends and the police would not find her. That meant they were trying; well, of course they were. It meant that Gadriel had told Falk that they were trying, but… Falk had said he was her only hope. Gadriel had said he could help her. Falk did not know Gadriel was coming to her. No, that made sense. What would Falk think if he knew the angel wanted her that way? Falk probably did not know about Gadriel’s history with Eve either.
Gadriel needed her submission, but it seemed that Falk needed her confession. He had evidence that she could work magic. Gadriel, if no one else, could bear witness to that. So why was he going to so much effort to gain a confession? Why did they both seem to need her to give up? To give in to their demands?
Of course, that was it. Falk wanted her to give in. He wanted her to give herself up to his Church, and the forgiveness of his god, and to be something they could use in their war.
Gadriel was another matter. She got the strong feeling that it was something personal with him. Or some greater plan, but it felt personal. It felt like lust, surely a cardinal sin. Perhaps he had fallen, lost his faith.
She shook her head. Where did that get her? Falk would likely not kill her or ship her abroad until he had her confession. Except that if he kept leaving her alone for days and then used more and more extreme torture she was going to be dead in a couple of days anyway. If no one managed to penetrate Gadriel’s shields soon it would not matter who was looking for her. She needed a way to let them see her…
‘You will not last much longer.’ Gadriel’s voice was soft and comforting, even if his words were not. ‘I can ease your pain. I can keep you alive and help you through his trials.’
‘If I submit to you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Some people say you fell.’
‘I have always done my God’s work. I have always had faith in the Word.’
Faith. People had been telling her she needed to have faith a lot recently. ‘All right,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘All right,’ Ceri repeated. ‘I submit. I accept you.’
There was a sound like a sigh and she felt him. She had expected some sort of physical intrusion, but instead it felt as though he was merging with her body. It took all the will Ceri had not to fight back. She felt him inside her, wrapping around her mind and soul, twisting around the physical bridge at the base of her two medians and then…
Ceri gasped. It was as though a dozen hands were stroking her skin, soothing away the pain from the burns and replacing it with exquisite, tender touches. Her breasts, her neck received tender caresses and her nipples hardened under their touch, even though she was sure the sensations were not exactly real. She was suddenly, irrationally, aroused. He was manipulating her body and mind, making her feel things, making her want more, and she let herself go with it.
The touches became more intimate, sliding over her spread thighs and wiping away the lingering pain. She felt fingers on her labia, her clitoris, massaging, circling, stroking. She heard herself moaning. There were hands everywhere, caressing her body, squeezing her nipples. She was panting even before something seemed to fill her, the penetration deep and thick, thrusting into her, over and over. And she gave herself up to it, letting herself fall into the pleasure which went on and on.
As her orgasm finally broke she felt him within her and the ecstasy he was feeling at her release. Her body, her mind, were his. Even her soul was blanketed in the warmth of his desire, his love. She belonged to him entirely… She felt him falter slightly as he encountered one tiny spark within her which he did not own, and she felt him leave her, the emptiness like an ache until it filled again with a different warm glow.
Ceri smiled in the darkness.
~~~
They had moved her again. Her ankles were chained to a ring in the floor, her wrists were behind her back and pulled upwards, bending her over and threatening to dislocate her shoulders. It was known as the strappado, a medieval technique which had never entirely gone out of fashion. Lily had demonstrated it to her once in the dungeon at High Towers and Ceri was using the memory of that afternoon to help her through this. She was not sure she would ever be able to put Lily through it again, even in play, but it was a good memory and…
Falk tightened the chains and Ceri screamed, pushing up onto her toes to try to relieve the pressure on her shoulders.
‘Confess!’ Falk barked out.
‘Go,’ Ceri stammered out, ‘to Hell.’ Lily. Think of Lily. Beautiful Lily waiting at home…
The chains tightened again and the strain on her shoulders sent searing pain through her arms and into her chest. She screamed so hard she barely heard the explosion. There was noise and voices. Gunfire.
Falk’s voice yelling something like, ‘In the name of the Lord!’
Gadriel’s resonant voice raised in anger and yelling for an attack.
There was the sound of fire roaring and guns firing, and something like a high-pitched whine she had heard before but could not place.
‘Get her down!’
‘Get those chains off her!’
‘My God! What’s the bastard been doing to her!’
The pain seeped away from her arms as she was grabbed by strong arms and the chains released.
‘Where are the keys?’
‘Never mind, let me see.’ Ceri blinked. That last voice sounded familiar. Soft, yet resonant and authoritative. Alexandra?!
She was pulled upright. There were cops in tactical gear on the stairs, and she saw Kate and John, Barry behind them, at the top. The grey she-wolf standing over Falk’s body was Anita and beside her was the black form of Alec. As the cuffs fell from her wrists she knew that was Alexandra’s touch she could feel, but in truth she was only really focussed on the two faces in front of her. Lily and Michael were there, helping her stand and looking both worried and immensely relieved.
‘Get her to hospital,’ Barry said from the top of the stairs.
‘No,’ Ceri said. ‘No, I want to go home. I can treat myself if you get this collar off. I want to go home.’ She looked up at the detectives at the top of the stairs. ‘I need to go home now.’
The ankle cuffs were already gone. ‘We’ll take you there, dear,’ Alexandra said as she unlocked the collar. ‘You’re safe now.
Ceri smiled at Lily and Michael. ‘I always was.’
Part Six: Faith
Kennington, London, December 19th, 2011
‘How did you find me?’ Ceri asked. She was curled up on her chair in the lounge under a blanket and beside a roaring fire. Michael was sat at her feet, Lily at her right side, and Twill was perched on the other arm of the chair. Alexandra sat across from her, and Carter, Alec, and Cheryl were sat on chairs around them as though forming a barrier against the world outside. Ceri felt protected, very protected.
‘When you did not turn up in the park,’ Alexandra said, �
�Michael went out looking for you with a squad of guards.’
‘I found your bag,’ Michael said. ‘I knew something had happened, so I came here and called Lily at the Dragon while the others tried to catch a scent of you. Of course they got nothing.’
‘I called Kate,’ Lily said, ‘and they got their diviners onto it immediately, but they were finding nothing either.’
‘Which is where Alexandra and I came in,’ Carter said. Ceri blinked. It seemed as though more or less everyone had been involved. ‘We both came here and began searching for you, using Lily as our focus. As you did, we went to the summoning room… And that was when your ancestor showed up.’
‘Gwyn?’ Ceri said. ‘Brenhines?’
‘Yes,’ Lily said. ‘She appeared. Used that statue thing to make contact. She said she could help.’
‘She said that the angel was keeping you hidden,’ Alexandra said, ‘but she could teach us a way of keeping up a constant watch to catch even the slightest hint of contact and locate it. If we could understand what she was telling us.’
‘Which was where Cheryl came in,’ Alec said.
Ceri looked around at her boss. Of all the people in the room, she was the only one with no supernatural ability at all. ‘It wasn’t that hard,’ Cheryl said. ‘She had to explain a couple of the notation glyphs, but I figured it out and explained it to them.’
‘And then we worked it in shifts,’ Cater said, ‘until suddenly we got something. I don’t know what you did, or what happened, but for about thirty seconds there was a clear impression of your location.’
‘The Greycoats wanted to handle the assault themselves,’ Michael said, ‘but we were pretty determined to be there.’ Ceri smiled. Even Carter and Cheryl had been there, waiting outside when she had walked, unsteadily, from the house. ‘We would have been there faster if they hadn’t been holding you in some hovel near the coast.’
Thaumatology 06 - Hammer of Witches Page 20