Art of Death, page 18
part #1 of Curse Breakers Series
“Remember that this was your choice, little necromancer. Your kind really does dance with death, does it not?”
I hated that phrase. We didn’t dance with death. It wasn’t a constant companion, nor did I want to bump uglies. That last one still annoyed me to no end.
My Death Lines strained to find a way to latch onto the Master though he seemed oblivious to my attempts. Instead, he walked up to his underling.
Francis immediately reacted under my commands, his teeth snapping, fingers tensed into claws. He raked at the Master, his nails as sharp and dangerous as his teeth. The Master easily dodged, becoming a blur before he finally stopped, allowing Francis one hit. His fingernails clawed across the Master’s face, which healed as quickly as the blood welled up.
“I am sorry, my son.” The Master placed one hand on Francis’s forehead and the other at the base of his skull, then twisted sharply.
Pop. I flinched at the sound, knowing he’d snapped the other vampire’s neck. But the Master didn’t stop there.
“Bring me one of the necromancer’s blades.”
Someone kept whispering “No” over and over. It was a pitiful, terrible sound that I wished would stop. Only as my power started to seep back into my veins, overwhelming me, did I realize the sound came from me. The Master watched me closely as another vampire placed the pommel of my blade in his hand.
“This is of your own doing, Curse Breaker, and it will be done by your weapon.”
Then he brought my short blade down to Francis’s neck, and I refused to watch the rest though the sound would haunt my nightmares. The sickly, overwhelming scent of metal filled the room, vampires’ blood more concentrated than any other beings’.
Bile coated my throat and surged upward. I tried to swallow it down, but my stomach had soured too much. Tears wetted my cheeks. As rough and tough as I wanted to pretend I was, I had never watched a man die. A man I’d put to death, regardless of whether it was by my own hand.
“Open your eyes, Curse Breaker, and watch the ghost leave his body.” The Master’s voice brushed right against my ear.
I flinched but refused to open my eyes.
“Perhaps after a night on the rack, you will feel differently about the decisions you choose to make. Take her.”
Light footsteps sounded from behind me, and rough hands shoved me along. Since I refused to open my eyes, I was effectively blind and tripped, falling to the unforgiving ground and scraping my hands, leaving them as raw as I felt. The vampire who led me didn’t lift me. Instead, he gripped my already bruised wrist and dragged me across the floor. I got my feet underneath me and blindly followed. Only after I felt the brush of air against my cheeks did I find the courage to open my eyes.
All I could see was a severed head, feet away from its body. A second later, his ghost walked away into that place beyond; even necros didn’t know where it led.
A deep fear settled in my gut. The vampire ahead of me would have no love for me, not after what I’d done. I wondered briefly if I would be able to control the vampire and command him to free me.
My power swelled, but before I could form Death Lines, the vampire twisted on his heel. I didn’t see so much as feel the left hook that knocked me out.
****
My shoulders burned with an ache I couldn’t escape. Only when I started to stir did I realize that I couldn’t really feel my hands. I tried to curl them into fists, but a blinding pain shot through me. I peeked my eyes open only to come face-to-face with a two-by-four. A fog had settled over my mind, and I couldn’t seem to break through.
“Good, you’re awake.” The voice didn’t sound familiar, nor did it strike any sort of comfort in me.
Groaning, I tried to stand, but my knees had gone numb. Blinking, I tried to get my vision to clear, but the world around me remained blurry.
Fingers brushed the back of my neck, moving my hair out of the way. I shuddered, wanting to get away from the sensation of being touched and not knowing who was behind me. My discomfort changed to an icy fear when those fingers scraped my back as they curled on the edge of my sweater and shirt. I tried to peek over my shoulder, but my arms were tied too tightly above my head for me to look around them.
Brutally, my mysterious keeper ripped my clothing apart, exposing my back. He trailed his too-sharp nail down my spine, applying more and more pressure the closer he got to my bra. I flinched as he cut through fabric and skin. He had to be a vampire, which didn’t surprise me. Was it the same vampire who’d knocked me out cold?
The Master’s words came back to me. A night on the rack.
A shiver of fear licked up my exposed spine, but worse, my mind went immediately back to the moment my sword cut through Francis’s neck because I had forced him on his Master. Even now, my powers lay dormant, trapped inside of me. I tried to feel it out, see if I could bring a ghost to my side and get help.
Blinding pain sliced into my back and caught me so unaware that I screamed. My back arched forward, and my chest pressed against the rack ahead of me. Breathing heavily, I couldn’t get enough air in my lungs. I couldn’t seem to focus on any one thing. The pain, trying to escape it, trying to build my power—it all jumbled up together.
“Try to build your power to use again on me, necromancer, and I will destroy you,” my torturer said. I flinched as his footsteps drew closer. “Tighten and rotate her.”
Another set of footsteps sounded next to my head. They rotated me horizontal, and a new swell of fear rose inside me.
“The Master said we could do anything short of killing you to get you to comply. And since you caused the death of my Sire, you’re going to pray for death.”
Course fingers brushed over my back, the flesh stinging as they followed the line of the whip mark that had cut my skin open. I could only guess what the vampire would do with so much blood running freely.
“Oh, where to start on this body. It’s a fresh piece of clay, waiting for me to mold.”
“Your voice is torture enough. Why not keep up the talking? I’ll be praying for death in oh, five minutes,” I muttered, unable to help myself.
“I await the moment your spunk ceases.” The vampire moved around me again. I hated that I couldn’t see him, unable to brace myself for what was coming.
He brushed his fingers along the soles of my feet and I cringed. Unfortunately, I had always been extremely ticklish; even with fear coursing through my veins, my body twitched. That didn’t stop my torturer though. He wrapped his hands around my ankles. Confused with his actions, I attempted to twist in his hold, but sharp metal cut into my skin, making blood seep down.
What exactly does he plan to do?
I didn’t have to wonder for very long.
Crippling pain blinded me; if I’d been standing I would’ve collapsed. The vampire pressed his thumbs deep into my skin, never breaking it but hitting a sensitive nerve nonetheless. My scream rang in my ears, and I tried to breathe through it all, but I couldn’t grasp anything but the pain.
Seconds turned into hours, hours into days, until eventually I lost all concept of time. The vampire rotated between the pressure-point torture and using a crop against my feet. It didn’t help that they were already sensitive. Eventually, I managed to keep my screams down, but I couldn’t stop the tears even if I tried.
At some point, I lost all feeling in my arms. The blood that had trickled from my back slowed to a stop. I focused on the small things, anything to escape the pain. I thought about the next time I saw the Master, how I would focus all my power on him. How once I was free from here, I would get ice cream. It had been far too long, and it would cool my overheated throat. And after ice cream, I would find Abel.
Thinking about my twin sent a new fear through me. I had been on a witch hunt for the Quintano family, and they didn’t seem to have him. Which begged the question, who the hell took my brother?
“Rest for now, little necro. I’ll be coming for you when the sun goes down,” my tormentor said.
My face was pressed against the hard wooden pallet. Seeing around me had been impossible, so I had to rely on my ears. I waited and waited for his footsteps to fade away, but only silence remained.
Sleep had been as torturous as the rest of what the vampire had inflicted on me. Time disappeared. Day and night had blurred when the light went away. I wondered if days had passed or merely hours.
The vampire’s words echoed in my head, and not knowing whether he’d actually left clung to me. The position he’d left me in was far from comfortable to begin with. Of course, with torture, one rarely strived for comfort.
After struggling for what seemed like hours for some semblance of sleep, the crack of a whip woke me a nanosecond before it blazed across my back. Even screaming, at that point, wasted more energy than I had left as it had slowly seeped out of me while I’d tried to sleep. The suffering I’d put myself through by waiting for him to come back would haunt me for the rest of the session.
Necromancers healed as slowly as humans did; we didn’t have the speed healing of a vampire, Were, shifter, or many of the other Mystics out there. Every wound he inflicted on me would fester, burn, and scar long afterward.
That round was a blur of blood and cracks. I couldn’t scream due to my throat having dried up. I couldn’t cry because my body retained any source of water it could keep. After the vampire finished, all he did was walk away.
“Water,” I croaked.
Thankfully, mercy was quick to follow on the heels of my plea. The vampire who tortured me never came into my line of vision, but his voice was etched into my memory.
“Take her off the rack and return her to her cell with food and water. She’ll need her strength for our next session.” His laugh echoed down the hall. It’d been the only confirmation that he’d walked away.
The moment the silent vampire—I assumed it was a vampire, at least—released my wrists from their restraints, a new agony prickled at me. Blood rushed back through my veins, circulating to my fingers, wrists, and shoulders. The other Mystic in the room moved unexpectedly, straddling me. I twisted and turned, trying to buck the man off my back, but he didn’t budge, just grunted loudly before slapping my ribs with a flat hand. The air in my lungs rushed out, and I couldn’t catch a full breath.
The Mystic wrapped a blindfold around my eyes then rolled off me. As I tried to regain my breath, he untied my legs and ankles. Faint from blood loss and lack of food and water, I rolled over weakly. He still didn’t speak as he snagged my wrist and tugged me forward.
Reaching for strength in a place I didn’t know existed, I managed to stumble behind my captor in the direction he led. I tried to lift my free arm to take off the blindfold, but the moment I moved it, tears welled in my eyes. It felt like fire had started to burn away my joints.
My captor moved unexpectedly, and I slammed into a wall. I didn’t speak, didn’t acknowledge the pain. What did it matter? This strange creature that led me through the maze didn’t care about my comfort. The best I could hope for was a quick return to my cell. At least food and water awaited me.
I tried to count my steps, but my mind turned foggy too often for me to keep track. Instead, I just wished for the movement to end. When it did, he ripped the blindfold off and shoved me inside of the too-small cell I’d woken up in.
It felt wrong, but the place gave me a sense of security. I hadn’t been tortured there, in any capacity, and I had food and water. It had become my new definition of safety, my new haven.
And that scared the ever-loving shit out of me.
Chapter 24
“She’s always late for everything, besides every meal,” a voice sang gently near me. I drifted in and out, listening to that voice. “How do you solve a problem of a will-o’-the-wisp?”
“Pretty sure that isn’t how the song goes,” I answered, my throat scratchy and raw. I had eaten and drunk everything the speechless tormentor gave me as quickly as I could, and finding peace—even as fleeting as it may be, the cell gave me that—I had managed to get some rest. But even in my sleep, my dreams wreaked havoc on me.
“Oh I know, but it’s been theorized that it was based on a will-o’-the-wisp, and our kind has such a bad rep anyway.”
My head spun as I sat up. I wanted to press my back against the wall, but the cool air still brushed over my back and stung the healing wounds. My arms remained crossed over my chest as I tried to keep the scraps of my clothes close to my body. Closing my eyes, I rested my forehead against my knees. A burst of Indigo’s scent settled in my mind, and I clung to it as tightly as I clung to his sweater as exhaustion crept over me.
“They drug the food. I should’ve told you that before, but I figured you could probably use the food. And the sleep. Sorry.”
“Who are you?”
“Willow.” Her voice became very small upon her admission. I waited for anger to pump through my veins, for the hatred I thought I’d feel for her involvement in my capture, but it never came.
“You aren’t here by choice; are you, Willow?”
“Nope. But I’ve been here for so long, I think I’ve forgotten anything else. Still, I hated trapping such a free soul. I apologized before, but you were kind of out of it. Sorry again.”
I snorted. I’d been out of it because a witch had placed a spell on me, and Willow had been waiting for me to stumble into her waiting arms.
“How long have you been here?” I asked her.
“Here as in the cells? A couple days. They didn’t like that I tried to contact your friends.”
Hope was as dangerous as a wildfire, but her words were like kindling.
“What did you say?”
“Well, I didn’t want to attack you. Unfortunately, once a wisp is caught, we’re trapped. We have a long, complicated history. But anyway, as with all things that have to do with my kind, we have loopholes. Damn Master figured that out pretty quickly. I still like to play the game though.”
I heard the smile in her voice. I could imagine the look on her face, eyes shining brightly as she explained how she outmaneuvered the Master.
“What’s your punishment?”
“Couple weeks down here, a beating whenever Pollard gets bored. He’s the quiet one. Honestly, I’d rather have Pollard than Paris any day of the week. Francis was his Sire and his blood brother from their human life. Bet he hasn’t been going easy on you.”
Another laugh bubbled out of me. No, he definitely hadn’t been going easy on me.
I got to my feet and stumbled to the bars of my prison. Glancing in both directions, I looked for the wisp.
“Over here.” Twin blue flames erupted down the corridor before they sizzled out. “Sorry, I can’t hold their form very long down here. They keep me in the pitch black because they know I hate darkness.”
“How are you holding it together, then?” I asked, hating how my voice sounded. Gritty, broken, and lost.
“I have my flames. And I have you to talk to if you don’t mind.”
Were you lying to me? I thought, unable to ask the question. Gods, it burned me not to know. I desperately needed something to hold onto. I wanted to be strong enough to save myself, but I hadn’t realized how much of a sheltered life I had lived up to that point.
If the Master had asked me for anything to make the torture stop, I might’ve agreed. At the moment, I felt small, pitiful, and weak. I clung to the chance to speak to Willow. Someone to keep me grounded. She seemed so sincere, but at the same time, I was apprehensive of her desire to become friends. Her words from so long ago came back to me.
“Why do you want to help me?”
Willow scuffled around, her flames brightening before being extinguished a moment later.
“I know you won’t believe me—I wouldn’t believe me—but you don’t deserve this life. Most people the Master sends me after aren’t what they’re rumored to be, or some of them need a little control in their lives. You didn’t need to be controlled, but after your fight with Adam, the Master had already decided. Even if I hadn’t confirmed you were a Curse Breaker, he would’ve come for you.”
“Seems hardly fair to judge someone and sign away their life.”
“Better than condemning those who probably don’t deserve it.” Willow became quiet again after that.
I wondered how long “a long time” was exactly. I didn’t know much about will-o’-the-wisps, just that they were rare and often kept to themselves. There definitely hadn’t been any in my small town. How long did they live?
“I hope they come for you,” Willow said.
We both went back to silence after that. Sleep came for me one more time before the sound of rocks rubbing against metal woke me. Dread swirled in my gut as my cloudy mind registered what that meant.
In front of the entrance, Pollard stood with the witch from the herb shop, who stepped away when Pollard came inside. Something about the cold silence radiating from Pollard scared me more than him being a Chatty Cathy ever could.
The vampire walked at a normal speed toward me. I wanted to crawl away from him, but he snagged my arm, yanking me up. The drugs Willow told me were in the food still pumped through my blood, making me sluggish. Being dragged after Pollard without a blindfold suddenly felt scarier than when they’d used it. The witch cast her spell and the bars dropped as soon as I stepped out, the sound echoing around us.
Willow’s fire flamed briefly, and Pollard’s face creased into something of concern before he swiped it away. The encounter was strange. Did the quiet vampire have feelings for the little pixie? Pollard wasn’t ugly by any means, but I wouldn’t call him classically handsome either. The sharpness of his features took away that title.
His eyes were a startling blue, which could’ve been a clue. From what I knew of vampires, those born usually had red eyes while those turned usually kept their human eye color. Pollard’s dirty blond hair would probably be appealing, but he shaved it close to his skull. It looked like he did it himself, some spots almost bald, others a little too long.
My observation was cut short as Pollard pulled me down a different hallway. I could only assume I would be returning to the rack.
