Heart of Venom

by Jennifer Estep

  “Sophia has always been high-spirited,” Grimes said. “That’s one of the qualities that I admire most about her.”

  Grimes moved forward. He held out a hand, as though he was going to caress Sophia’s cheek, but she jerked back out of his reach and curled her lips at him in disgust. Grimes regarded her for a moment, then slapped her across the face, just like he had in the salon. He was much stronger than Hazel, and the brutal blow sent Sophia spinning to the ground again.

  “But you’re right, sister,” Grimes said in a calm, cold voice. “Sophia does need to be punished for her insolence, and I know exactly how to do it.”

  He gestured at the men still standing on the porch. They hurried into the clearing. Two of them grabbed Sophia’s arms and hauled her to her feet, while the third kept his gun trained on her.

  “Bring her,” Grimes said.

  He pivoted on his heel and strode off toward the east end of camp. The men forced Sophia to follow him, while Hazel brought up the rear.

  I looked at Warren. “Do you know where they’re taking her?”

  He nodded, his face dark, grim, and troubled. “I have a good idea. And if I’m right, then it’s the same wretched place that Fletcher and I rescued her from before.”

  Warren crawled away from the edge of the ridge, got to his feet, swung his satchel over his shoulder, clutched his rifle in front of him, and moved out.

  * * *

  The pine trees that clung to the crest screened us from any prying eyes below as Warren led Owen and me along the top of the ridge. With everyone focused on Sophia and her impending punishment, no one noticed us darting along the parallel path high above their heads.

  Gunshots rang out through the camp, three blasts of three, for nine shots total. They must have been some sort of signal, because more men appeared in the clearing below. They left whatever they’d been doing behind, stepped out of the various buildings, and fell into step behind Grimes, Hazel, Sophia, and her guards. Every new man who appeared made my heart sink a little more, because each of them would make it that much more difficult to save Sophia from whatever terrible thing Grimes had in mind for her.

  Warren, Owen, and I moved as fast as we could, but it was still slow going, running up and down the ridge, having to stop to skirt around or climb over the rocks and fallen trees that sporadically blocked the path.

  Finally, after ten minutes, we had left the rocks behind and plunged back down into the forest. Warren didn’t follow a set path but instead led us through one gap in the trees after another, still keeping an eye out for traps and circling around to the extreme eastern side of the camp.

  We hadn’t gone far when the stench of death hit me.

  One moment, all I could smell was my own sweat as the July sun baked me in my long clothes and silverstone vest. The next, the stench of rotting, putrefied flesh hit me like a punch in the nose, forcing its way down my mouth and throat and choking me from the inside out. Behind me, Owen let out a low, strangled cough, as disgusted by the horrid scent as I was. Warren stopped long enough to pull a blue bandanna out of his pocket, knot it around his neck, and use the cloth to cover his nose and face as best he could before moving forward again.

  Three minutes later, Warren stopped, crouched down low, and gestured for Owen and me to do the same. Together, we eased up to the edge of the tree line and peered through the screen of leaves, branches, and bushes.

  Another clearing lay before us, much smaller than the spot where the buildings were located and only a couple hundred feet from end to end and top to bottom. At the western end, a narrow trail curved into a sharp bend before disappearing into the trees and leading back to the main camp.

  Grimes was already here, along with Sophia, Hazel, and the rest of his men. Several worn, weathered tombstones dotted the landscape, like faded brown and gray daisies that had sprouted up out of the bed of dead leaves, twigs, and grasses. But Grimes ignored the markers and strode forward until he was standing on the edge of what looked like a trench about seven feet deep and fifteen feet square. If there had been any water in it, it would have been a bona fide moat. At first, I thought that perhaps it was another trap and that there were sharpened stakes lining the bottom.

  I was right, and I was wrong.

  Because it was a pit. Only there weren’t stakes at the bottom. There were bodies.

  16

  Owen, Warren, and I were on a slight rise, and our higher vantage point let me see down into the pit. There must have been close to twenty bodies, maybe more, all in various stages of decay. Hence the overwhelming stench.

  The bodies must have been tossed down into the trench and left to lie where they landed, because they were all sprawled on top of one another, tangled together in an awkward pile of arms and legs. I spotted a couple of bodies wearing brown suits, probably some of Grimes’s men who’d pissed him off and paid the price for it. But most of the victims seemed to be women, judging from the bits of light blue, pink, purple, and green fabric that I spied among the broken, bloody, rotting limbs.

  A cloud of flies churned over the pit, and for a moment, their hungry hums were the only sounds.

  Finally, Hazel stepped forward. “You know the drill. In you go,” she said with gleeful malice.

  Then she grabbed Sophia’s injured arm and shoved her down into the pit.

  Sophia landed awkwardly on her left side and let out a sharp gasp of pain. Slowly, she got to her feet. Even though she was standing on the foulest sorts of things imaginable, covered with the foulest sorts of things imaginable, flies buzzing in the air all around her, the men hooting and hollering at her, Sophia still squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, and glared at Hazel with murder in her eyes.

  It was one of the bravest things I’d ever witnessed.

  I’d seen a lot of horrors in my time. Seen them and done some of them myself. Blood, guts, screams, tears, terror, torture, murder. But I don’t know that I would have been able to do the same in Sophia’s place—to face my enemies with such grace, bravery, and poise. I don’t know anyone else who would have. In that moment, I admired, respected, and loved Sophia more than ever before, and once again, I vowed to do whatever it took to save her from this nightmare forever.

  One of Grimes’s men stepped forward and handed Hazel a shovel, which she threw down to Sophia. The shovel skittered across a couple of bodies, scattering the flies for a few seconds, before finally coming to a stop a few feet away from her.

  “You know the drill,” Hazel repeated. “Pick it up and start digging.”

  “Yes, Sophia,” Grimes said, gesturing out at the pit. “Please start digging. As you can see, we need some more room. I’ve been very . . . displeased with people lately.”

  I frowned. Sophia had done this before? Buried bodies in a pit? When? The first time Grimes had taken her? I looked at Warren, who gave me a grim nod, confirming my worst suspicions. My heart clenched. Poor Sophia. Of all the things that Grimes had done to her back then, of all the things that he could do to her now, I’d never thought it would be anything like this.

  Because this was what Sophia did for me. She got rid of all the bodies that I left behind as the Spider. I never asked where she took them or what she did with them, although I could guess. Dropping them in out-of-the-way spots like the Ashland Rock Quarry. Heaving them into the Aneirin River to float downstream. Burying them in graves in the woods.

  Was this . . . was this pit where Sophia had learned to dispose of bodies in the first place? It had to be. But if so, why would she willingly get rid of bodies for me now? Why had she gotten rid of them for Fletcher for all those years? Why continue to do something that had to remind her of all the horrors she’d suffered at Grimes’s hands?

  Guilt and shame joined the shock and disgust in my heart. All these years, I hadn’t given a second thought to Sophia cleaning up my messes or the toll it might take on her. But now that I’d seen this, witnessed this horrific vision of her past, I felt sick inside to think that I’d asked her to d
o the same thing over and over again through the years. No, I hadn’t even asked; I’d just assumed she would do it.

  In a way, that made me worse than Grimes, Hazel, and their men. Because I was supposed to care about Sophia, not subject her to something like this. I wasn’t supposed to benefit from her pain, but I had all the same.

  Sophia glanced at the shovel that Hazel had tossed down to her, then slowly, carefully, deliberately crossed her arms over her chest.

  “Pick it up, Sophia,” Grimes said in a soft but deadly voice. “You’ll only be punished more if you don’t.”

  Sophia glared at him, showing her defiance, but after a few more seconds, her shoulders slumped in defeat. She let out a tired sigh, leaned down, and picked up the shovel. She shuffled over to the opposite side of the pit, as far away from Grimes, Hazel, and their men as she could get, stuck the shovel into the earthen bank there, and started to dig, widening the trench.

  For several seconds, the only sounds were the steady scrape-scrape-scrape of Sophia’s shovel stabbing into the earth and the soft squish-squish-squish of the bodies, maggots, and more under her feet.

  But it apparently wasn’t enough that Sophia had already been shot and kicked and was now wading through death. Grimes and Hazel decided to torture her with their Fire magic too.

  The two siblings reached for their power, and flames sparked to life on their fingertips, dancing back and forth like molten-lava butterflies in the soft summer breeze. Their magic moved in perfect harmony, the flames undulating in time and even burning at the same intensity. Then, together, they threw their magic forward. Sophia’s hands tightened around the shovel, and she stopped digging, knowing what was coming next, but she didn’t hunker down or try to move out of the way. Instead, she stood there straight and tall as two balls of elemental Fire raced through the air and exploded into the bank, one on either side of her.

  The scorching heat from the twin blasts blew back into Sophia, knocking her down onto the bodies again. I could feel the intensity of the elemental Fire all the way over where we were in the woods, and I could imagine how excruciating it must have been for her to be so close to it.

  But once again, Sophia slowly picked herself up and staggered back onto her feet. The skin on her face, neck, hands, and arms had reddened from the blast, although I couldn’t tell if it was only temporary from the heat or if her skin had been that badly burned.

  But maybe the worst part was that the shifting cadavers beneath her feet actually ignited—at least, their clothes did. Oily smoke boiled up from the torn, bloody fabrics that were still clinging to the rotten limbs, adding to the horrible stench in the air.

  Sophia glared over her shoulder at her two tormenters. Hazel cackled and threw another ball of her Fire magic into the bank close to the dwarf, the flames exploding and washing over even more of the corpses. More wretched smoke bubbled up around her, until it hung over the pit like the foulest sort of fog. After another moment, Sophia turned around and went back to her digging, the flames of Hazel’s magic licking at her and the dead all around her.

  The men who’d come to watch hooted with delight through the whole horrible thing. A few even stuck their revolvers up into the air and fired off some shots. The sharp cracks rattled around the clearing, punctuating the men’s mocking laughter. Hazel played to the crowd, holding her long off-white skirt out to one side and elegantly bowing to the men before sending little bursts of Fire straight into Sophia’s back. Not enough to kill the dwarf but more than enough to hurt her. Grimes tipped his white fedora back from his forehead, as though he wanted an even better view. Then he simply stood there and watched the whole thing, his lips curved up into a small, sinister smile.

  The searing heat from the elemental Fire. The foul, rotten stench from the swollen, bloated bodies. The acrid aroma of burned flesh. The bugs humming through the air, hungry for whatever blood and bones they could find. Hazel preening. The men jeering. Grimes grinning.

  And Sophia in the middle of it all, dressed up like a pretty, if stained, porcelain doll, as though she should be having tea in some summer garden instead of digging a mass grave.

  It was one of the most disturbing things, one of the most sickening things, one of the cruelest forms of torture that I’d ever seen—and there wasn’t a damn thing that I could do about it.

  More than once, I started forward, determined to slash my way to Sophia, no matter how suicidal that would be. But every single time, Owen put his hand on my arm and kept me from giving in to my murderous rage. Even though I wanted nothing more than to leap out of the trees and cut down every single person I saw, I couldn’t. There were just too many men between her and me, not to mention Grimes and Hazel and their damn Fire power. They’d cut me down with their guns and magic before I could even get close to Sophia, much less rescue her.

  Besides, I had Owen and Warren to think about too. They’d come with me of their own accord, but I was still responsible for them. I might be okay risking my life but not theirs.

  So I crouched there in the woods, and I watched the torture of someone I loved.

  More than that, I memorized it—every gleeful yell, every crackle, pop, and sizzle of dead, smoking flesh, every foul smell that oozed through the air, every hiss of pain that escaped Sophia’s burned, blistered lips.

  Oh, yes, I watched, and I memorized every single dirty deed, every horrible thing, every bit of agony that Sophia was enduring. One by one, I embraced all of the sadistic terrors and the cold, black, unending rage that went along with them.

  “What do you want to do, Gin?” Owen asked.

  Hazel sent another blast of Fire magic into Sophia’s back, causing Grimes and the rest of the men to howl with laughter again. The force of it made the dwarf clutch the shovel and hunch over in pain, but after a few seconds, she straightened back up and started digging again.

  “The second that there’s an opening, we rescue Sophia and get her the hell out of here. And while we’re at it, we take these bastards out along the way,” I said, my voice dripping with all the venom in my heart. “Every last one of them. No survivors—and absolutely no mercy.”

  17

  Eventually, Hazel grew tired of her gruesome game and quit throwing her Fire magic at Sophia. The bodies continued to smolder, though, and I didn’t see how Sophia kept from retching at the gruesome graveyard stench—or breaking down entirely.

  “We’ve got some business to attend to back at camp. You five, stay here and watch her,” Grimes ordered some of his men. “She’s a clever thing. Don’t let her out of your sight, and don’t go near her, no matter what. She’s killed more than one man with a shovel.”

  Sophia spun the shovel around in her hands and gave the men on the bank a dark, toothy grin. More than one shuddered and looked away from her. Nobody wanted his skull bashed in, and they especially didn’t want to end up in the pit with all of the other bodies. But the men did as Grimes ordered, drawing their guns and lining up on the dirt bank opposite her, making sure to keep well away from the edge of the pit.

  Sophia studied them, considering her options, looking for any sign of weakness, just like I would have. But the men had the high ground and the guns, and she knew it. So Sophia shrugged and went back to her digging, stabbing the shovel into the black earth, then swinging the dirt away in sharp, vicious arcs. I wondered if she was imagining that the earth was Grimes and Hazel. I would have been.

  “Good,” Grimes said in a pleased voice. “You’ve decided to behave. You see? We’re making progress already. I’ll be back just as soon as I can, darling. Then we’ll have a nice dinner and talk about our future here together.”

  Sophia kept her back to Grimes so he couldn’t see the disgust on her face, and she kept right on digging, as if she hadn’t even heard him.

  But she wasn’t the only one who didn’t like his words. Jealousy pinched Hazel’s face, and she gave her brother an incredulous look. A few flames sparked on her fingertips, further hinting at her anger, but Hazel quic
kly curled her hand into a tight fist, smothering the Fire before anyone else noticed it. It seemed that Hazel didn’t like it that Grimes was planning to devote so much of his time and attention to Sophia. I imagined that Hazel enjoyed playing queen of the mountain, given that I hadn’t seen another woman in the entire camp.

  Ever the gentleman, Grimes held out his arm to his sister. Hazel took it and shot Sophia a triumphant look, but the dwarf ignored her. Together, the siblings left the pit and headed back toward the main part of the camp, along with the rest of their men. The five whom Grimes had ordered to stay behind leaned against some of the sturdier-looking tombstones.

  One minute slipped by, then another, then another. Still, I waited, wondering if this might be some sort of trick, if Grimes and especially Hazel might double back and hide in the woods so they could torture Sophia some more, should she try to escape again. But five minutes passed, and they didn’t reappear. Maybe they really did have some other business to take care of, after all. I wondered what was so important that Grimes would leave Sophia for it, especially when he’d just captured her again.

  “How do you want to do this?” Owen whispered.

  I stared at Grimes’s men, who were standing roughly parallel to our position in the trees, before studying the landscape around us. Because this wasn’t just about killing the men in front of me; it was also about making sure that we got Sophia away from Grimes forever.

  Finally, I turned to Warren. “What’s the fastest way back down the mountain to the car?”

  He pulled his blue bandanna down from around his nose so he could answer me. “The same way we came up.”

  “There are no other shortcuts? No way we could get there quicker?”