Doing It To Death

by Kaia Bennett

  The bastard’s gonna rip out my fangs?

  I drove the teeth in question through my tongue to give me a reason to roar rather than to whimper. He fiddled with a knob by my neck strap.

  Immediately, the flexible metal tightened enough to strangle me if I moved too much. He pinched my nose and oxygen eluded me. The world blurred and my mouth fell open. Metal gripped the base of my top left fang and squeezed. Something deep inside my gums seized with an ache I’d never felt before. Not once in my life had my fangs been yanked from my head. Behind the root, the sack holding my once dormant venom stirred and sizzled like acid. Agony raced along the nerve to pierce my brain as Cai tightened and pulled. Ripped, and braced my forehead with his hand.

  The snap and pop of the roots sighed along every nerve as Cai rolled his wrist to one side. The roots seemed to grab my cock for a moment before letting go with a sickening pop. Shock and pain wracked me. While I fought not to puke, he raised the bloody fang to my eye level. Pain turned my vision into scrambled lines of shrieking neon color.

  I fought to get free, aching to break his arrogant ass into little pieces, but only managed to slice my wrists with the metal cuffs pinning my arms to the rack. He opened the pliers and let the tooth fall to the floor. The small ting! of enamel on steel had the punch of a gong. With a sickening grin that told me how much he enjoyed this, Cai shoved the pliers into my mouth and gripped the top right fang. He wasn’t violent this time, showing me his first removal had been a blessing I hadn’t realized. Using the same slow nonchalance he’d use to pluck flowers from soft soil, he let me feel every millimeter of the root letting go from my gum.

  Then came the real pain, as my venom poured out of each small sac. Without a fang to function as straws, the fiery liquid seared the bloody holes in my head like acid, melting gum down to bone.

  Cai whispered in my ear, “You took your first time like a champ. Next time, I think I’ll go a bit slower, make the feeling last. We’ll have some fun while we wait for them to grow back.”

  I wanted to hold my head up. I needed to stare into his eyes with all the defiance I could muster. Against my will, my head tipped forward and the ribbons of blood painting my chest stitched together to form one solid sheet of black.

  25

  “I’m sorry, baby,” I whispered in the darkness.

  Evie’s smile caressed my cheek. Her tear painted my lips with salt.

  “I know,” she whispered. “It’s okay, Jesse. Let me in, baby. Let me all… the way… in….”

  She kissed me. Her tongue slid between my teeth, licked my tongue. She tasted like my blood, not her sweetness. Not long ago, I’d learned my taste through her mind. I tasted like open air, like the sex she couldn’t scrape from her mind, like human foods I’d never tasted. Plums, and sugar glaze, and pancakes with syrup. Things she loved.

  Now, I tasted like death, like fatty pulp where my fangs used to be. Her tongue snaked down my throat, the invading muscle choking me like cold liquid. I’d drowned her. Now, I knew the feeling of suffocation, my nostrils deprived of air and my lungs full to bursting.

  Let me in, baby. Let me in, let me in, let me in—

  I choked on her invasion, shoved deep into a sea of blood gone cold with death. I tried to swim to the surface and hit a covering that even my fists couldn’t move. I screamed, trying to push Evie’s arms away from me, arms that pulled me into the tempest. I’d gone weak and she’d grown strong, so I couldn’t fight long. She cradled me in her arms and kissed my temple.

  “Shhh,” she whispered in my ear. I thought I’d been dreaming, but now I felt more awake than ever. Only her presence soothed my warped mind. “Shhh. Everything will be alright, my sweet boy.”

  My mother kissed my brow now. She said, deep inside my mind, Let go.

  So I did. I drowned again, and realized that I’d done this before. I’d been locked in a vat of my own cold blood, drowned over and over. I returned to consciousness each time vomiting up the contents that had worked like sludge into my lungs. The darkness came from the metal lid, full of knuckle-shaped divots where my fist beat the inside.

  The irony of being killed by the liquid that feeds me flitted past my mind like a shiny object just out of focus. Had to give props to Cai for this trip down torture lane. He’d shown me a thing or two I hadn’t thought of.

  I laughed as I let go again, my mind cracking like ice. I heard the shattering sound of my own sanity. How many times had I died like prey, stuffed into a container? Death and life, spinning round and round a wheel I’d been strapped to. How many times would I wake up to drown?

  Let go, Jesse. Let go, baby.

  Why are you here? You hate me, remember? You want me dead.

  As I began to fade again, I saw Evie over me, leaning down to kiss my lips, her hand wrapped around my throat. I saw her fingers laced through mine in the dead of night in Austin, her tears mirroring mine.

  I heard her whisper in my as I cradled her to me, walking towards cold water.

  I could love you.

  She wouldn’t live long enough to love me if I let them find her. I thought, in my haze, that I wanted her to love me. Maybe I loved her more than the kill, loved her enough to be silent when all of this torment could end with an address.

  I let the flood come again.

  I let go and died.

  Light seared my eyes as I came to. White, blinding, rattle-my-senses light, like an ice pick of torment lodged in my throbbing head. Confusion did battle with the bile sizzling up my throat.

  How long did they keep me in that box? How long did they make me drown in my own blood—

  I heaved violently, bowed by nausea as I vomited near-black sludge and congealed chunks of blood. Masses of pulp floated in a large puddle of crimson juice, the rancid stench rendering the blood undrinkable even if it hadn’t been mine. I’d never thrown up before, and before V-Sep, I wasn’t sure a vampire could. We don’t digest the way humans do. Even bad-tasting blood, the blood of the diseased for instance, is usable as long as a living body provides the sample. I’d never been well and truly tortured enough to have to find out what my body could and couldn’t handle.

  Call me sheltered. I’m usually dishing out the punishment.

  “Good morning!” Cai’s warm welcome made me head ring. I expected him to be dressed in his usual suit, but my father’s favorite came ready to play. He sat naked, an ankle crossed over his knee while I heaved the last of my own blood up. I spit, gagged, heaved again. I shuddered as the sludge ran down the grates to the new vat below. Two handlers dumped my former prison down the drain, recycling liquid into a new vat for the vampire form of water torture.

  My brain hummed, the ache still present as my fangs struggled to rebuild and my venom to replenish. My ears popped again and again, and memories returned with the fuzzy quality of a silent film.

  Fake Evie had been fed on—raped. That’s what humans call it. That’s what Evie would call it—three more times before he’d retired her that first night. In between healing her to establish what he’d do to the real Evie, he flayed me from the navel down, paying special attention to my cock. I think I shocked him there. Delirium had set in, and for parts of that torment, I imagined Evie kneeling in front of me, black eyes shining as she bit and sucked my bleeding cock dry.

  I had no idea how long I’d been in the box. I had no idea if surrogate Evie was still alive and if the real Evie was still safe. Wondering about them came as a relief. I thought I’d go well and truly mad in the box.

  Not yet. Can’t let anything slip.

  I said nothing to Cai’s greeting. I didn’t have the energy to lift my pounding head off the floor once I collapsed. The coldness at least soothed my swollen cheeks. Even a cursory swipe of my tongue over the gaping holes were my fangs used to be sent a jolt of pure agony to my head. Beads of sweat slicked the floor under my forehead, then ice cold water splashed away blood and sweat. I gasped and sputtered, trembling to alertness.

  “Where’s the girl, Je
sse? We’ve been playing this game for a few days now, and I’m enjoying myself I have to admit. But your father is growing impatient and your queen is growing bored.”

  “Sounds like a personal problem. For you.”

  Despite the quip, panic roused my weary body into alertness. Days lost. Days. Plenty of time for Metis to search for Evie, to go to Asylum and question Sundara.

  Cai breathed deep.

  The guards lifted and replaced me on the rack. My body hung limp as a wrung out rag, all of my wounds from the previous day—days? How long have I been under?—still struggling to heal.

  Cai stood and stretched. My muscles whimpered in jealously after being crammed in the box, the rigor of death and the tension of surging to life coiled deep in my tissues.

  “I expected you to crack by now. I’ve seen my fair share of spoiled heirs. They never take a spanking well.”

  “I like to think I’m special,” I muttered. My eyelids fluttered closed. If I could only have a moment to sleep. If I could sleep and not dream.

  “You are special. I doubt the witch would’ve chosen you otherwise.”

  What are you blathering on about, man? She didn’t choose shit, especially not me.

  “That’s the crux isn’t it? Consent. Choice. All that fine print in the hustle to survive.” Cai touched the board of torture implements, caressing cold steel and pronged edges like a lover.

  “Is this part of the torment?” My mouth felt like an unoiled hinge, dry as a desert. I half expected a tumbleweed to fall off my tongue. “You ask insipid questions and chatter ‘til I hate the sound of words.”

  “Yes. But it’s not purely performance. I’m enjoying our talks.”

  My breath hitched at the slink of steel on steel. This part was a performance, too. I doubted a dull knife had ever left this room let alone entered, but he sharpened his butcher’s blade anyhow.

  “How much do you know about witches, Jesse? You seem incredibly dedicated to that adorable abomination, but do you know why?”

  “Just cut me already, man. I can’t.”

  “I gathered from the safehouse that you knew just enough to be arrogant instead of merely ignorant. So, let’s get some basic facts straight.”

  Breathe in, baby. Breathe out. Let go.

  Evie kissed my cheek, the illusion so vivid I could feel her soft lips skim my cheekbone.

  I breathed in. Breathed out. The tip of the knife bit into the inside of my right forearm, just above my shackled wrist.

  “History is written by the winners, and for several centuries, that’s been us. Somewhere in between the lines written on the page, is the truth. And do you know what that truth is?”

  I swallowed and held my breath as the blade sliced to my inner elbow. My bicep flexed, which only parted the skin more.

  Breathe, sweet boy. A mother I’d never known swiped sweat-slick hair from my forehead.

  Pain is weakness leaving the body, Jesse. And we Oldman aren’t weak.

  Metis stood over me as I lay panting on Alberta soil. He held the knife Cai had taken up, the one digging into my armpit as my torturer worked his way down my side.

  “We are weak, Jesse.” I hadn’t realized I’d spoken my father’s words aloud till Cai answered me. “We always have been in the face of a witch’s power. They’re sweet poison in the blood, but they’re also the antidote. We were always supposed to drink it.”

  The bastard curved the blade to trace the lower curve of my ribcage. I knew what came next. My mother kissed my forehead, kissed the watering corners of my eyes.

  “We used to bow to witches. We used to worship them and their blood like it was sacred. There was a time when that worship was a choice and witches gave themselves to us, body and soul. There was a time when we were truly free to run and feed and fall in love.”

  A week ago I’d have laughed in his face. Love? By choice and not by some curse? But, as he slid the knife in and scraped the inside of my ribcage, I could only think, Must’ve been nice.

  He waited until the white light of pain ceased to blind me, then spoke again.

  “Men like Metis aren’t interested in returning to that kind of sharing, or the powerlessness that took its place. Truth is, the witches took advantage, started blocking off parts of territory we once shared with them. They got a little personal with the curses when war broke out, too.”

  I stared at Cai in shock. I’d seen this story in the circle of the first rite. The truth coursing in my blood had revealed a world my father wanted to hide. A world where witches were predators and we were their prey. Their lovers. Their mates. How could Cai possibly know any of this? He wasn’t older than my father. Just a minor true born errand boy.

  “How do you even—”

  “Know this, when you and most of our kind don’t? Patience and curiosity. Even a man like your father can’t snuff out the truth forever.”

  A flash of pure hatred in the depths of Cai’s eyes drew me in. I suddenly felt as if I didn’t know this man at all, like the dutiful servitude he displayed had been a mask all along.

  Who are you?

  “Your father wasn’t wrong when he sided with the humans and helped them slaughter the lot. They were out of control. But, looking at you, I wonder if his desire to rewrite history in our image mattered. I wonder if this wasn’t inevitable. If it weren’t you, it’d have been another spoiled man-child on the rack, bleeding out for love of some turned fuck-meat with witch blood—”

  My roar reverberated. Mere inches from Cai’s face and I couldn’t reach him, I couldn’t make him pay, no matter how much I raged. A rib cracked beneath the unyielding knife Cai impaled me with, and still, the sound of my fury rang in my ears. Fangs he’d plucked from my mouth struggled out of my gums, no longer than a human’s eye tooth, and dripping blood.

  Cai studied me as I passed out of consciousness. A splash of blistering cold water startled me awake. Blood, sweat, and grime sluiced down my skin. I sputtered and blinked away the droplets.

  The neck strap bit under my jaw from stretching to reach him. Without the strap, my chin would’ve tumbled onto my chest with weariness. The knife no longer tickled my insides. I inhaled to test the stitch in my side, and my breath halted, refusing to enter my lungs. Brief jolts of pain accompanied each inhale as I healed like the dead. Cai’s voice reached my ear as if he whispered from another dimension.

  “She’s not your prey, I know. She’s your mate now. Another man might’ve given her up, but you never will. You’re not your father. I’ve known that since the moment I put you on this rack.”

  “Then why did you?” I looked up and blinked. The passage of time had warped because instead of Cai, my father stood in front of me.

  He crossed his arms over his chest, his face impassive. Bronze skin glowed against sky-blue fabric. I thought of wide open skies and golden feathers, as I stared into the cruel mirror of my future. This man would be me years from now, my long hair cropped short, threaded with silver, and never out of place. All the muscle of my bloodline sliding easily inside a thousand-dollar suit, my nails buffed and glossy, even if I spent all day wading in blood. All I had to do to stand on the other side of this rack was tell him where Evie hid.

  Cai had me pegged now. I wasn’t my father, just his arrogant witch-rolled son. I’d die on this rack. If Vaughn and Stark were smart, they’d take Evie far away from this city.

  “Why did you do it?” I repeated, though my question had nothing to do with Cai torturing me in vain. I wanted to know the secret my father would’ve carried to his grave. I closed my eyes and swallowed. The ghost of my mother’s cool hand on my feverish brow felt like heaven. Even if the woman was long dead or never real at all, I missed her in that moment.

  “Why did I do what?” Metis shook me out of my daydream. My brain yawned, stumbling in the dark. Who truly observed me, and who wavered like heat bending the air above a blazing fire? How could I tell reality from the dream?

  “I know why you killed your brother, my uncle. W
hy did you murder my mother?”

  My voice was off, thanks to a tongue swollen from thirst, but the words hung in the air. I passed out and woke to my father’s hand on my chin. This time, I had no doubt that I stared into my father’s eyes.

  “You have no mother but the queen who bore you. She was born in this territory and died a natural death not long after you were born, somewhere in Europe I believe.”

  “Liar,” I hissed, then smiled with chapped lips. The act split the dry flesh and I licked away the blood. “There was a queen, and then there was a Cree girl. A fire. You… you chased her into the woods. She loved you and… You….”

  Motherfucker! How am I supposed to have a conversation if I pass out after every fucking sentence?

  My eyes snapped open first, then I smelled the sticky sweet scent of food. Not my own filth, but real blood, fresh and alive and on my lips.

  Fake Evie pressed her wrist to my mouth. I suckled in a furious daze, the room spinning from just a sip. Then Cai grabbed the hinges of my jaw and pressed, forcing me to release the girl’s wrist. She winced and cradled her bleeding limb, naked, her curly hair hiding haunted eyes. Cai snapped and pointed to the corner where she scurried to cower away from danger. She tucked her knees into her chest, so like the real Evie, on the night that changed everything.

  Cai stood in sweat pants, his chest bare, like his feet. Streaks of dried blood painted him, but he still looked every bit in my father’s employ. He stood off to the side while Metis took a seat on the chair in front of me and crossed his legs. I laughed, thinking of Metis sitting in a pool of Cai’s come from days earlier, staining the ass of his charcoal trousers. Not for the first time, I wondered what day it was.

  Try as he might to hide it, my father’s face bore the weight of my accusation. A tightness formed around his lips and eyes, a shadow cast by his furrowed brow. He tried to smooth away the frown but the expression returned without his permission.

  “Who told you about… about this Cree girl? Who?”

  He asked with murder etching his voice. A deep dark secret he hadn’t planned to unearth stood between us, and someone would pay the price.